In the mean time, the intelligence of what was taking place was communicated to Edward Winslow, the agent of the colony in England.  He brought the matter to the attention of Parliament, and July 19, 1649, an ordinance was passed incorporating “the society for the promoting and propagating of the gospel of Jesus Christ in New England.”  This society selected the federal commissioners as the managers of the fund which flowed into them from persons charitably inclined, and in seven years the sums which were remitted to New England amounted to more than L1700.  The commissioners laid out the money in paying Eliot and Mayhew and other teachers, in printing catechisms in the Indian language, and providing the Indian converts with implements of labor.  By 1674 the number of these “praying Indians,” as they were called, was estimated at four thousand.[7]

The commissioners also rendered many services in the domestic affairs of the colonies.  In order to secure the claim which she had advanced in 1637 to the Pequot River as her southern boundary, Massachusetts in 1644 authorized John Winthrop, Jr., to plant a colony on Pequot Bay at a spot called Nameaug, now New London.[8] The Connecticut government protested against the authority of Massachusetts, and in 1647 the commissioners decided that “the jurisdiction of the plantation doth and ought to belong to Connecticut."[9] This decision, however, only settled the ownership of a particular place, and the exact southern and northern boundaries of Connecticut remained for several years a matter of contention.

In another matter of internal interest the influence of the confederacy was manifested.  Among other considerations for the cession of the Saybrook fort, Fenwick was promised the proceeds for the term of ten years of a duty on all corn, biscuit, beaver, and cattle exported from the Connecticut River.[10] March 4, 1645, the general court of Connecticut passed an act to carry out their promise; but as the law affected the trade of Springfield on the upper waters of the Connecticut River as much as that of the Connecticut towns, Springfield protested, and appealed to the protection of Massachusetts.  Thereupon the general court of that colony lodged a vigorous complaint with the federal commissioners, and the cause was patiently heard by them at two separate meetings.  Massachusetts had, doubtless, the right on her side, but the Connecticut contention rested on what was international usage at the time.

The result of the deliberation of the commissioners was a decision in July, 1647, in favor of Connecticut.  This was far from satisfying Massachusetts, and she reopened the question in September, 1648.  To enforce her arguments, she offered certain amendments to the confederation, which, if adopted, would have shorn the commissioners of pretty nearly all their authority.  But the commissioners stood firm, and declared that “they found not sufficient cause to reverse what was done last year."[11]