The jail time and the scourging had not deterred the determined missionaries, and on 3 June Holder and Copeland returned to Boston. Governor Endicott advised them that they would each have an ear cut off, a punishment that had been used by England's Star Chamber against some Puritans in 1634. The two prisoners were joined in the House of Correction by another Quaker, John Rous from the Barbados. On 17 July 1658 all three men were taken to a private cell where the amputations took place. The authorities would not allow it to be done publicly, certain of a negative public reaction. Mary Dyer biographer Ruth Plimpton wrote that the men "were so stalwart while their ears were removed, that the persecutors began to feel that this was insufficient punishment."