[Footnote 25:  Palfrey, New England, I., 223, II., 6; Hazard, State Papers, I., 300.]

[Footnote 26:  Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 459.]

[Footnote 27:  Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 444.]

[Footnote 28:  Ibid., 122.]

[Footnote 29:  Ibid., 187.]

[Footnote 30:  Palfrey, New England, II., 8.]

[Footnote 31:  Ibid.  In August, 1643, the number of males of military age was 627.]

[Footnote 32:  Brigham, Plymouth Charter and Laws, 43, 244.]

[Footnote 33:  Palfrey, New England, II., 7; Howard, Local Constitutional History, 50-99.]

[Footnote 34:  Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 314, 418, 419.]

CHAPTER XI

GENESIS OF MASSACHUSETTS

(1628-1630)

The abandonment, in 1626, of their colony at Cape Ann by the Dorchester adventurers, did not cause connection to be entirely severed either in America or in England.  In America, Conant and three of the more industrious settlers remained, but as the fishery was abandoned, they withdrew with the cattle from the exposed promontory at Cape Ann to Naumkeag, afterwards Salem.[1] In England a few of the adventurers, loath to give up entirely, sent over more cattle, and the enterprise, suddenly attracting other support, rose to a greater promise than had ever been anticipated.[2]

Among those in England who did not lose hope was the Rev. John White, of Dorchester, a merchant as well as a preacher, and his large figure stands on the threshold of the great commonwealth of Massachusetts.  Thomas Fuller says that he had absolute command of two things not easily controlled—­“his own passions and the purses of his parishioners.”  White wrote Conant and his associates to stick by the work, and promised to obtain for them a patent and fully provide them with means to carry on the fur trade.  The matter was discussed in Lincolnshire and London, and soon a powerful association came into being and lent its help.

Other men, some of whom are historic personages, began to take a leading part, and there was at first no common religious purpose among the new associates.  The contemporary literature is curiously free from any special appeal to Puritanic principles, and the arguments put forward are much the same as those urged for the settlement of Virginia.  The work of planting a new colony was taken up enthusiastically, and a patent, dated March 19, 1628, was obtained from the Council for New England, conceding to six grantees, Sir Henry Rosewell, Sir John Young, Thomas Southcot, John Humphrey, John Endicott, and Simon Whitcombe, “all that Parte of New England in America aforesaid, which lyes and extendes betweene a greate River there comonlie called Monomack alias Merriemack, and a certen other River there, called Charles River, being in the Bottome of a certayne Bay there, comonlie called Massachusetts alias Mattachusetts, ... and ... lyeing within the Space of three English Myles on the South Parte of the said Charles River, ... and also ... within the space of three English Myles to the Northward of the said River called Monomack, ... throughout the Mayne Landes there, from the Atlantick and Westerne Sea and Ocean on the East Parte, to the South Sea on the West Parte.”