of apparel, the usage of the best modern society vindicates, in characteristic particulars, the Roundhead judg ment and taste of the century before the last. The English gentleman now, as the Puritan gentleman then, dresses plainly in "sad" colors, and puts his lace and embroidery on his servants.

the profusion of long hair. Mrs. Hutchinson says (Memoirs, 181), that her husband, "having naturally a very fine thick-set head of hair, kept it clean and

handsome, so that it was a great ornament to him"; and in his portrait, it rolls in curls down his shoulders and over his mail.

CHAPTER VIII.

Position of

the Church.

1621.

YEARS had passed since the severity of the government had overcome the Separatists, forcing them either to disband their congregations, or flee from the kingdom. From the time when Bishop Williams Puritans in was made Keeper of the Great Seal, four years before the death of King James, the High-Commission Court again became active, and the condition of Puritans in the Church was day by day more uneasy. While some among them looked for relief to a happy issue of the struggle which had been going on in Parlia ment, and resigned themselves to await and aid the slow progress of a political and religious reformation in the kingdom, numbers, less confident or less patient, pondered on exile as their best resource, and turned their view to a new home on the Western continent. There was yet a third class, who, through feeble resolution or a lingering hope of better things, deferred the sacrifices which they scarcely flattered themselves that they should ultimately escape, and, if they were clergymen, retained their preferments by a reluctant obedience to the canons.1 The coquetry of Buckingham with the Puritans, inspiring false hopes, was not without effect to excuse indecision, and hinder a combined and energetic action.

1 "We have feared a judgment a long time. But yet we are safe. Therefore it were better to stay till it come. And either we may fly then, or, if we be overtaken in it, we may well be content to suffer with such a Church as ours is." Such was one of the "Objections" replied to in a paper, which was

circulated in England in 1629, and was probably from the pen of Winthrop. It is printed in Dr. Young's "Chronicles of Massachusetts," 271. It contains pregnant hints as to the object of the emigration proposed in it. Of course, to publish the plan in plain language, and in its full extent, would have been to defeat it.

The Reverend Mr. White.

Among the eminent persons who had reconciled themselves to the course of compromise and postponement was Mr. John White, an important name, which at this point takes its place in New-England history. White, who, since the second year of King James's reign, had been rector of Trinity Church in Dorchester, was a man widely known and greatly esteemed, alike for his professional character and his public spirit.' The subject of New-England colonization, much canvassed everywhere among the Puritans, who were numerous in the part of the kingdom where he lived, was commended to his notice in a special form. Dorchester, near the British Channel, the principal town of the shire, furnished numbers of those who now made voyages to New England for fishing and trade; and they were often several months upon the coast without opportunity for religious worship or instruction. Mr. White interested himself with the ship-owners to establish a settlement where the mariners might have a home when not at sea, where supplies might be provided for them by farming and hunting, and where they might be brought under religious influThe result of the conferences was the formation. of an unincorporated joint-stock association, under the name of the "Dorchester Adventurers," which collected a capital of three thousand pounds.

ences.

The Dorchester company turned its attention to the spot on Cape Ann where now stands the town of GloucesThe Dorchester. It has been mentioned that the Council for ter company. New England, perpetually embarrassed by the oppugnation of the Virginia Company and the reasonable jealousy of Parliament, had recourse to a variety of expedients to realize the benefits vainly expected by its projectors. In carrying out one scheme, that of a division of

1 "Mr. John White, a famous Puritan divine, usually called the Patriarch of Dorchester. He was a man of

great gravity, presence, and influence in his party for several years.” (Echard, History of England, 653.)

1022.

1624.

Jan. 1.

the common property among the associates, the country about Cape Ann was assigned to Lord Sheffield, better known as a patriot leader under his later title of Earl of Mulgrave. Of him it was purchased for the people of New Plymouth by Edward Winslow, when in England on the business of that colony; and they in turn conveyed to White and his associates such a site as was wanted for their purposes of fishing and planting.2

1623.

Cape Ann.

The Dorchester company had probably anticipated this arrangement by despatching a party of fourteen persons to pass the winter. They carried out live stock, and erected a house, with stages to dry fish, and vats Plantation at for the manufacture of salt. Thomas Gardner was overseer of the plantation, and John Tilley had the fishery in charge. Everything went wrong. Mishaps befell the vessels. The price of fish went down. The colonists, "being ill chosen and ill commanded, fell into many disorders, and did the company little service." An attempt was made to retrieve affairs by putting the colony under a different direction. The Dorchester partners heard of "some religious and wellaffected persons that were lately removed out of New Plymouth, out of dislike of their principles of rigid separation, of which number Mr. Roger Conant was one, a religious, sober, and prudent gentleman."3 He was then at Nantasket, with Lyford and Oldham. The partners

1 See page 222.

2 "There hath been a-fishing this year upon the coast about fifty English ships. And by Cape Ann there is a plantation a-beginning by the Dorchester men, which they hold of those of New Plymouth, who also by them have set up a fishing-work. Some talk there is of some other pretended plantations, all whose proceedings the eternal God protect and preserve." (Smith, Generall Historie, 247, edit. 1624.)

1625.

3 Hubbard, History of New England, Chap. XVIII.—It is not known when Conant came over, or to what part of New England. Nothing appears in any of the Plymouth documents to confirm Hubbard's statement that Conant was one of the party of Lyford and Oldham at Plymouth. But there is no improbability in the statement of his having been there, and Hubbard was likely to be well informed upon that point. 4 See above, p. 221.

engaged Conant "to be their governor" at Cape Ann, with "the charge of all their affairs, as well fishing as planting." With Lyford they agreed that he should “be the minister of the place," while Oldham, "invited to trade for them with the Indians," preferred to remain where he was, and conduct such business on his own account. The change was not followed by the profits that had been hoped, and the next year "the adventurers were so far discouraged, that they abandoned the further prosecution of this design, and took order for the dissolving of the company on land, and sold away their shipping and other provisions." Another seemed added to the list of frustrated adventures in New England.

1626.

But Mr. White did not despair of its renewal. All along, it is likely, he had regarded it with an interest different from what had yet been avowed. At his instance, when "most part of the land-men returned,” “a few of the most honest and industrious resolved to stay behind, and to take charge of the cattle sent over the year before. And not liking their seat at Cape Ann, Naumkeag. chosen especially for the supposed commodity of fishing, they transported themselves to Nahumkeike, about four or five leagues distant to the southwest from Cape Ann."2

Removal to

1626.

White wrote to Conant, exhorting him "not so to desert the business, faithfully promising that, if himself, with three others, whom he knew to be honest and prudent men, viz. John Woodbury, John Balch, and Peter Palfrey, employed by the adventurers, would stay at Naumkeag, and give timely notice thereof, he would provide a patent for them, and likewise send them whatever

1 Hubbard, Chap. XVIII.-Planter's Plea, Chap. VII., VIII. The Planter's Plea, published anonymously in London, in 1630, was reprinted, in 1888, by Mr. Force, of Washington, in the second volume of his "Tracts and other Pa

pers," &c. Its authorship is, on satisfactory grounds, attributed to Mr. White. It urges, for encouragement to colonization, the example of the Plymouth colony (Chap. VII.).

2 Ibid., Chap. IX.