The Council felt the weakness of their position.  They held their place neither by deputation from the sovereign, nor by election of the people.  They hesitated to set up the Colonial Charter again, for it had been formally condemned in the King’s courts, and there was a large party about them who bore it no good-will; nor was it to be expected that their President, the timid Bradstreet, whatever were his own wishes, could be brought to consent to so bold a measure.  Naturally and not improperly desirous to escape from such a responsibility, they decided to summon a Convention of delegates from the towns.

On the appointed day, sixty-six delegates came together.  They brought from their homes, or speedily reached, the conclusion that of right the old Charter was still in force; and they addressed a communication to that effect to the Magistrates who had been chosen just before the Charter government was superseded, desiring them to resume their functions, and to constitute, with the delegates just now sent from the towns, the General Court of the Colony, according to ancient law and practice.  Their request was denied.  Either the wisdom or the timidity of the Magistrates held them back from so bold a venture.  The delegates then desired the Council to continue to act as a Committee of Public Safety till another Convention might assemble, of delegates bringing express instructions from their towns.

Fifty-four towns were represented in the new Convention.  All but fourteen of them had instructed their delegates to insist on the resumption of the Charter.  In the Council, the majority was opposed to that scheme.  After a debate of two days, the popular policy prevailed, and the Governor and Magistrates chosen at the last election under the Charter consented to assume the trusts then committed to them, and, in concert with the delegates recently elected, to form a General Court, and administer the Colony for the present according to the ancient forms.  They desired that the other gentlemen lately associated with them in the Council should continue to hold that relation.  But this the delegates would not allow; and accordingly those gentlemen, among whom were Wait Winthrop, the newly appointed commander-in-chief, and Stoughton, whom the people could not yet forgive for his recent subserviency, relinquished their part in the conduct of affairs.  They did so with prudence and magnanimity, engaging to exert themselves to allay the dissatisfaction of their friends, and only avowing their expectation that the state-prisoners would be well treated, and that there should be no encouragement to popular manifestations of hostility to England.