The leadership reacted badly to Lorenzo Dow, and Bourne's association with him. Dow was a republican and a millenarian. He made wild anti-establishment speeches and did not distinguish between religion and politics. In a tract of 1812, he preached that ""May not the 'Seventh Trumpet' now be sounding, and the 'seven last plagues' be pouring out?"" Dow accused the British government of being tyrannical and repugnant to God's laws of nature. As a separate church, conscious of their own public image and fearing repression, they felt they had to disassociate themselves from him. The Wesleyan leadership's measures to evade repression led to the imposition of greater internal discipline. Members who were seen as a liability were expelled. Views that were anti-establishment were condemned.