The general object of the commission was "to unite and reconcile persons of very different judgments and practice in all things," particularly concerning "the peace and prosperity of the people and their joint submission and obedience to us and our government." More specifically, the commissioners were to effect the overthrow of the Dutch, investigate conditions among the Indians, capture the regicides, secure obedience to the navigation acts, look into the question of boundaries, and determine the title to the Narragansett country, henceforth to be called the King's Province. The commissioners were to make it clear that they were not come to interfere with the prevailing religious systems, but to demand liberty of conscience for all, though Clarendon could not repress the hope that ultimately the New Englanders might return to the Anglican fold. The secret instructions were even more remarkable as evidence of a complete misunderstanding of conditions in New England. Clarendon wished to secure for the Crown the power to nominate or at least to approve the governor of Massachusetts, to control the militia, and to examine and correct the laws--powers, it may be noted, which were exercised in every royal colony as a matter of course. He suggested that the commissioners interest themselves in the elections so far as "to gett men of the best reputation and most peaceably inclined" chosen to the assembly, but he cautioned them to "proceed very warily" in some of these things. He had a hope that Massachusetts might be so wrought upon as to choose Nicolls for her governor and Carr for her major-general, but in this, as in the pious hope of a return of the Puritans to the Church of England, he reckoned without a knowledge of the grimness of the Massachusetts temper.
The commissioners reached Boston, _en route_ for New Amsterdam, late in July, 1664, asked for troops, and demanded the repeal of the franchise law. The magistrates took the precaution to conceal the charter; they were also heartily glad when the commissioners departed on their errand of conquest and hoped they would not return. The general court, having modified the franchise law sufficiently to meet the letter of the King's command, wrote His Majesty that they wished he would recall his emissaries; and when the magistrates discovered that this impertinent demand not only failed of its object but drew down upon the colony a royal rebuke, with characteristic shrewdness they shifted their ground and prepared to meet the commissioners in fair contest, wearing out their patience and thwarting their plans by every available device. In the meantime, the four men were completing the conquest and pacification of New Netherland, and rearranging the boundary difficulties with Connecticut. Then Maverick and Cartwright passed on to Boston, where they were joined in February by Carr, Nicolls remaining in New York. The three men, making Boston their headquarters, visited Plymouth, Newport, and Hartford, where they were received, according to their account, "with great expressions of loyalty"--a statement which, if true, shows how successfully the colonists suppressed their deeper feelings. Having taken the King's Province under the royal protection, and postponed for later consideration the question of the boundary line between Rhode Island and Connecticut, with new complaints against Massachusetts ringing in their ears, they returned to Boston to meet the defiant magistrates. There Nicolls joined them in May.