Chapter 8, Leniency Rebuked Summary and Analysis

Winthrop's government is simple, keeping annual contact with the people through election. There are no parties or special interests, or complicated laws. The success of the colony depends largely on Winthrop, Dudley, and Endecott. Winthrop is a good leader, but not a brilliant thinker, taking positions intuitively and then defending it in a lawyerly way with an "I told you so" attitude.

Dudley and Endecott ahve a worse problem: they do not know when to be lenient and when to be strict. Endecott has a temper and a tendency to take his views to absurd conclusions. Dudley is too cold and too simple. Both men enforce the legal code of the people too strictly and Winthrop has to fight against it. Dudley thinks Winthrop is not severe enough. The author then discusses a story where they butt...