Winthrop and his assistants held their first formal session at Charlestown, August 23, 1630, and took vigorous measures to demonstrate their authority.  Morton challenged attention on account not only of his religious views and his friendship for Gorges, but of his defiant attitude to the colony, and an order was issued that “Morton, of Mount Wolliston, should presently be sent for by process.”  Two weeks later his trial was had, and he was ordered “to be set into the bilboes,” and afterwards sent prisoner to England.  To defray the charges of his transportation, his goods were seized, and “for the many wrongs he had done the Indians” his house was burned to the ground,[3] a sentence which, according to Morton, caused the Indians to say that “God would not love them that burned this good man’s house."[4]

Death was still playing havoc with the immigrants at Charlestown.  Several hundred men, women, and children were crowded together in a narrow space, and had no better protection than tents, wigwams, booths, and log-cabins.  By December two hundred of the late arrivals had perished, and among the dead were Francis Higginson, who had taken a leading part in establishing the church at Salem, the first in Massachusetts.[5] The severity of the diseases was ascribed to the lack of good water at Charlestown, and, accordingly, the settlers there broke up into small parties and sought out different places of settlement.

On the other side of the Charles River was a peninsula occupied by William Blackstone, one of the companions of Robert Gorges at Wessagusset in 1626.  It was blessed with a sweet and pleasant spring, and was one of the places now selected as a settlement.  September 7, 1630, the court of assistants gave this place the name of Boston; and at the same court Dorchester and Watertown began their career under legislative sanction.[6] Before winter the towns scattered through Massachusetts were eight in number—­Salem, Charlestown, Dorchester, Boston, Watertown, Roxbury, Mystic, and Lynn.[7]

October 19, 1630, a general court, the first in New England, was held in Boston.  The membership consisted of the governor, deputy, eight assistants, and one or two others, for these were all at that time in Massachusetts possessing the franchise of the company.[8] The former officers were re-elected, and a resolution was adopted that “the freemen should have the power to choose assistants when they are to be chosen, and the assistants to choose from among themselves the governor and his deputy.”  The rule implied a strong reluctance to leave out of the board any person once elected magistrate.

From the last week in December to the middle of February, 1631, the suffering in the colony was very great, especially among the poorer classes, and many died.  Were it not for the abundance of clams, mussels, and fish gathered from the bay there might have been a “starving time,” like that of Jamestown in 1609.  Winthrop appointed a fast to be kept February 22, 1631; but February 5 the Lyon arrived with supplies, and a public thanksgiving was substituted for a public fasting.[9]