After Wollaston died on a trip to Virginia, Thomas Morton led a rebellion, taking over the colony with the promise to share the profits equally.

[1] Ferdinando Gorges had long been a promoter of English colonization of the Americas, and sought to use the success of the Plymouth Colony for his own ambitions on New England.

Gorges sent a group of adventurers and indentured servants, led by Richard Wollaston and Humphrey Rastall on the ship Unity, which set sail from London on March 23, 1624.

[1] Morton renamed the settlement Ma-Re Mount, from the Latin word mare and a supposed translation of the Indian name Passonagessit meaning "hill by the sea."

[8][9] The maypole was made of pine and stood 80-feet high, covered in garlands and ribbons with a buck's antlers nailed to the top.

[13] Morton claimed that the Separatist Pilgrims were opposed his use of the Book of Common Prayer and were jealous of Merrymount's success in the fur trade, an important source of revenue for Plymouth.

None were harmed except "one that was so drunk that he ran his own nose upon the point of a sword that one held before him, as he entered the house; but he lost but a little of his hot blood.

[6] Just three months after Morton's arrest, another group of settlers had arrived from England and established the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which included Merrymount within its limit.

[8] Morton returned to America in the fall of 1629 and found himself in trouble again after refusing to sign a proviso at a meeting of the general court.

[8] Finally expelled from America, Morton prepared a lawsuit against Massachusetts Bay, hoping to get the colonies' charters revoked and their governments replaced by one headed by his employer, Ferdinando Gorges.