Though no more of the sect were put to death, their persecution was by no means ended. The new law had provided that every Quaker should be apprehended, stripped from the waist up, tied to a cart's tail, and whipped through every town to the boundary of the colony. This was to be repeated if they returned, and on the fourth offense they were to be branded, and, on the fifth, banished on pain of death.[702] This law was modified by limiting the whippings to three towns only, in 1662, although an answer to the address of Massachusetts to the King had been received some months earlier, withdrawing much of the royal protection formerly offered to the Quakers.[703] The change was evidently due, therefore, to public sentiment in the colony. Of the barbarous treatment accorded the victims under the act, it is unnecessary to speak in detail. To mention one of the worst cases, we may note that three women were stripped to the waist, tied to the cart's tail, and, in the end of December, forced to tramp through deep snow, receiving ten lashes on their bare backs in eleven successive towns.[704] The end, however, was not far off. In 1665, Endicott died, and the Royal Commissioners also commanded the Massachusetts General Court not to molest Quakers in their secular business.[705] Footnote 702: _Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. ii, pp. 2 _ff._ Footnote 703: _Ibid._, pp. 59, 164 _ff_; _Cal. State Pap., Col., 1661-1668_, p. 94. Footnote 704: The modern reader may find cases and references in Jones, _Quakers_, pp. 101 _ff._ Footnote 705: _Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. ii, p. 212. Although a considerable body of opinion had, undoubtedly, been throughout in favor of the course taken by the ministers and magistrates,[706] all the evidence points to a large and increasing body against it. The facts that the deputies were opposed to it, that the Court, usually somewhat arrogant in the assertion of its authority, had to stoop to public explanations and propaganda, that even the magistrates finally revolted, and that in the last case, the death-penalty could not be enforced even when passed, all indicate clearly enough the refusal of the people to follow their ministers in their frantic efforts to maintain orthodoxy at any cost. Footnote 706: _Cf._, _e.g._, the petition of the inhabitants of Dover in 1662 against the increase of Quakers. _Massachusetts Records_, vol. IV, pt. ii, p. 69.