Randolph landed at Boston on June 10, and remained in the colony until the end of July, about six weeks altogether. He visited Plymouth, New Hampshire, and Maine, interviewed men in authority and all sorts of other people, and he came to the conclusion that the majority of the inhabitants were discontented with the Boston régime. The magistrates ignored his presence as much as they dared, refusing to recognize him as anything but an enemy representing the Mason and Gorges claims, and insisting that though the King might enlarge their privileges he could not abridge them. Randolph, thoroughly nettled, returned to England prepared to do his worst. He sent several reports to the King and constantly appeared before the Privy Council and the Lords of Trade, each time doing all the damage that he could. He had undoubtedly got much of his information from prejudiced sources or from hearsay, and he was as eager to retail it as had been the Massachusetts authorities to blast the moral character of the King's commissioners. He denounced the "old faction" as cunning, deceptive, overbearing, and disloyal; he called the clergy proud, ignorant, imperious, and inclined to sedition; and he denounced those in authority as "inconsiderable mechanicks, packed by the prevailing party of the factious ministry, with a fellow-feeling both in the command and the profits." His picture of the colony, containing much that was near the truth, was at the same time distorted, out of proportion, and in parts almost a caricature. His most effective reports were those which laid stress upon the failure of the colony to obey the navigation acts and the royal commands, and upon its use of the word "Commonwealth," as if the corporation were already an independent state. These reports were accepted by the English authorities as correct statements of fact, for they seemed to be confirmed by the evidence of London merchants and by at least one West Indian governor, who knew the colony and had no personal interests at stake.
In October, 1676, Massachusetts sent over two of its leading men, William Stoughton, a magistrate, and Peter Bulkeley, speaker of the House of Representatives, to ward off, if possible, the attack on the colony, but with characteristic short-sightedness gave them no authority to discuss officially anything but the Mason and Gorges claims. For more than two years these men, representative rather of the moderate party than of the "old faction" in the colony, remained in England, frequently appearing before the Lords of Trade, where they were subjected to a searching examination at the hands of a not very sympathetic body of men. The meetings in the Council Chamber in Whitehall, where the committee sat, were occasions full of interest and excitement. At one of them, on April 8, 1677, Stoughton, Bulkeley, Randolph, Mason, and Sir Edmund Andros, Governor of New York for the Duke, were all present, and the agents must have found the situation awkward and embarrassing. The committee expressed its resentment at the colony's habit of disobedience and evasion, and showed no inclination to adopt a moderate policy, advocating, on the contrary, investigation "from the whole root." The position of a Massachusetts agent in England during these trying years was most undesirable, and so many difficulties and discouragements did Stoughton and Bulkeley encounter that several times they asked for permission to return home and once, at least, had to go to the country for their health. But whatever were the troubles of an agent in England, they were trifling as compared with those which confronted him at home when he failed, as he almost invariably did fail, to obtain all that the colony expected. Cotton Mather tells us that Norton died in 1663 of melancholy and chagrin, and that for forty years there was not one agent but met "with some very froward entertainment among his countrymen." No wonder it was always difficult to find men who were willing to go.