The charges of insubordination against the colony included denying the crown's authority to legislate in New England, asserting that Massachusetts Bay was governing in the Province of New Hampshire and Maine, and denying freedom of conscience. However, chief among the colonists' transgression of coining money (the pine tree shilling) and their violations of the Navigation Acts, passed by Parliament to regulate trade within the English colonial empire. These regulations determined whom the colonies could trade with and how trade could be conducted, and New England merchants were flaunting them by trading directly with European powers. This infuriated many English merchants, commercial societies, and Royal committees who petitioned the King for action, claiming that the New England colonists were hurting their trade. The Lords of Trade's complaints were so serious that the King sent Edward Randolph to Boston in an attempt to rein in and regulate the colony. When he arrived in Boston, he found a colonial government which refused to give in to the royal demands.