On March 14 North began to lay before the commons the measures by which the government hoped to bring the Americans to submission. By the first of these penal laws, as they are called, Boston was to be punished by the transference of the seat of government to Salem, and by the closing of its harbour, which entailed the suspension of its trade, until the town had made good the loss inflicted on the East India Company, and the king was satisfied that the laws would be observed. North spoke with remarkable moderation. Both he and Dartmouth disliked violent measures, and their tone with regard to America was so different from that of their colleagues, that it indicated a division in the cabinet.[90] The bill met with little opposition in the commons, though Dowdeswell and Burke spoke against it. In the lords, Rockingham and Shelburne opposed it, Chatham was absent through ill-health, and Mansfield strongly advocated it, declaring that Boston had committed "the last overt act of treason," and that it was a lucky event, for if the bill passed we should have crossed the Rubicon, the Americans would see that we would temporise no longer, and if it passed unanimously, Boston would submit without bloodshed. The bill passed both houses without a division. The next bill, "for regulating the government of Massachusetts Bay," overthrew the charter of the colony; it increased the power of the governor, vested the nomination of the council in the crown, altered the system by which juries were chosen, and prohibited town meetings, the principal engine of democratic rule, from being held without the consent of the governor. The abrogation of chartered rights excited strong, though ineffectual, opposition; the bill was passed in the commons by 239 to 64, and in the lords by 92 to 20, eleven peers signing a protest against it.