Canne retained his position for seventeen years, preaching and writing, and working as a printer.
In 1650 he was at Kingston-upon-Hull, and acted as chaplain to the governor, Colonel Robert Overton, whose book, Man's Mortalitie, he had printed at Amsterdam in 1643.
Shawe himself had a low opinion of Canne, at this time credited with the possession of great influence with the council of state.
He now appears to have adopted some of the principles of the fifth-monarchy men, a dangerous association, and in 1657 he published at London The Time of the End.
These persons with others were denounced to the government as meeting in London at Mr. Daforme's house in Bartholomew Lane, near the Royal Exchange, and professing themselves ready for insurrection.
On 2 April 1658, when he was in the pulpit of the meeting-place in Swan Alley, Coleman Street, the marshal of the city entered and arrested him and seven of the brethren who had protested against their rough treatment of the old man.
Canne was brought before the lord mayor, and acknowledged that he was not satisfied with the government, and would like an opportunity to tell the Protector so, but declined to enter upon the question with the magistrate.
Canne was resident in August 1659 at his house in London and the date of his final retreat from England is not known.
[2] In 1639 Canne published at Amsterdam A Stay against Straying; wherein, in opposition to Mr. John Robinson, is proved the unlawfulness of hearing the Ministers of the Church of England.
These two treatises were answered in 1642 by John Ball, who styles Canne 'the leader of the English Brownists in Amsterdam.'
This year appeared also Syon's Prerogative Royal; or a Treatise tending to prove that every particular congregation ... is an independent body.
There is no internal evidence of the authorship, and the terms of a reference to Overton on page 70 argue against its being written by Canne, but it is attributed to him in a pamphlet, 'The Same Hand again,' 1649.
In 1658 he published ' The Time of Finding,' in which he describes himself as 'an old man,' and expecting 'every day to lay down this earthly tabernacle,' and complains of the persecutions he had endured, and to which he attributed the death of his wife and daughter.
A tract upon tithes, entitled 'A Query to William Prynne,' was printed at the end of an ' Indictment against Tythes,' by John Osborn, London, 1659.