The last of this early group of colonies was New Hampshire, which, in turn, like its weaker brethren, became amalgamated with the colony of Massachusetts. Early in the reign of Charles I., Captain John Mason, with Sir Ferdinando Gorges and others, formed for colonial purposes the Laconia Company. When Gorges was granted rights in Maine in 1635, Captain John Mason also received a grant of territory to the south, where a settlement was formed, and though by no means a true political community, was called New Hampshire. Mason died soon after the naming of his colony and received no benefits from his grant, which had embraced two earlier settlements: the first founded by David Thompson near the Piscataqua; the second fifteen miles up the Cocheco, founded by Bristol and Shrewsbury merchants, who had transferred their rights to Lord Saye and Sele and Lord Brooke. It was in this latter stretch of territory that purely independent settlements were made, such as Dover, Exeter, and Hampton. The latter town, realising its weakness as an independent community, soon chose to be regarded as within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. The authorities of Massachusetts undoubtedly suffered from "earth hunger," and the transfer of Hampton was merely the first of a series of aggressions, for between 1642 and 1643 the other towns of New Hampshire were swallowed within the greedy maw of the stronger colony. No remonstrance came from England, for the people of the home country had enough difficulties to contend with; while the Mason family appear to have made no serious attempts to recover their rights. After the Restoration, however, following the example of Ferdinando Gorges, the heirs of Mason petitioned the Privy Council to restore to them the rights and privileges contained in the grant of 1635. The law officers of the Crown took the matter into serious consideration, and although their verdict was against the Mason family, they declared at the same time that the colony of New Hampshire was outside the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, which had annexed it and wrongfully renamed it Norfolk. This was one more blow for the New England Confederation and for Massachusetts in particular. The King and his ministers were only too pleased to have had such an opportunity, for the Royal Commissioners had but recently accused Massachusetts of disloyalty. They had, in fact, declared that unless the King punished the authorities, the well-affected inhabitants would never dare to own themselves loyal subjects. To better effect the total subjugation of the colony, one of the Commissioners, Sir Robert Carr, proposed that he should be made governor of New Hampshire, a proposal which shows only too clearly the selfish aims of the Crown officials. The actual state of New Hampshire did not seem to trouble the Commissioners, and whilst the bickering between the home country and Massachusetts continued, the unfortunate inhabitants of New Hampshire were suffering all the horrors of the