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rule settlers "according to such lawes as shall be hereafter established by public authoritie of the state assembled in Parliament in New England" (cf. § 51). Gorges brought to Massachusetts Bay an excellent company, containing several

"gentlemen," two clergymen, and selected farmers and mechanics; but after one winter the colony broke up.

The New England Council had commissioned Gorges "General Governor" of all settlements in their vast territory. This caused the feeble Pilgrim colony at Plymouth to fear his coming and to exult at his going. The gentle Bradford, governor and historian of Plymouth, wrote with unusually grim humor that Gorges departed, "haveing scarce saluted the Cuntrie of his Government, not finding the state of things hear to answer his qualitie."

59. The forces at work so far in settling New England (except for the Pilgrims at Plymouth) were mainly commercial

But success in New England was to come from a new force just ready to take up the work of colonization.

This force was Puritanism. The "established" church in England was the Episcopalian. Within that church the dominant party had strong "High-church" leanings. This High-church party was ardently supported by the royal "head of the church," Elizabeth, James, Charles, in turn; but it was engaged in constant struggle with a large, aggressive Puritan element.

Puritanism was much more than a religious sect. It was an ardent aspiration for reform in many lines. In politics, it stood for an advance in popular rights; in conduct, for stricter and higher morality; in theology, for the stern doctrines of Calvinism, which appealed powerfully to the strongest souls of that age; in church matters, for an extension of the "reformation" that had cut off the English Church from Rome.

60. Two groups of English Puritans stood in sharp opposition to one another, the influential "Low-church" element within the church, and the despised Separatists outside of it. The Lowchurchmen had no wish to separate church and state. They wished one national church, - a Low-church church, to which everybody within England should conform. They desired also to make the church a more far-reaching moral power. To that end they aimed to introduce more preaching into the service and to simplify ceremonies,—to do away with the surplice, with the ring in the marriage service, with the sign of the cross in baptism, and perhaps with the prayerbook. Most of them did not care to change radically the government of the English church, but some among them spoke with scant respect of bishops.

The Independents, or "Puritans of the Separation," believed that there should be no national church, but that religious societies should be wholly separate from the state. They wished each local religious organization a little democratic society independent in government even of other churches.

Boughton.

CHAPTER VIII

THE PLYMOUTH PILGRIMS

Next to the fugitives whom Moses led out of Egypt, the little shipload of outcasts who landed at Plymouth. are destined to influence the future of mankind. -JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

If Columbus discovered a new continent, the Pilgrims discovered the New World.- GOLDWIN SMITH.

61. The Pilgrims in Holland. To all other sects the Separatists seemed the most dangerous of radicals,

mere anarchists in religion. They had been persecuted savagely by Queen Elizabeth, and some of their societies had fled to Holland. In 1608, early in the reign of James, one of their few remaining churches a little congregation from the village of Scrooby -managed to escape to that same land, "wher they heard was freedome of Religion for all men ":

". . . a countrie wher they must learn a new language and get their livings they knew not how . . . not acquainted with trads or traffique, by which that countrie doth subsist, but . . . used to a plaine countrie life and the inocente trade of husbandrey."1

1 William Bradford, in his History of Plymouth Plantation. The quoted passages in the following paragraphs upon Plymouth are from this source when no other authority is mentioned.

They first settled in Amsterdam, but had no sooner begun to feel safe in some measure, through toil and industry, from "the grime and grisly face of povertie coming upon them like an armed man," than it seemed needful to move again, this time to Leyden; and

"being now hear pitchet, they fell to such trads and imployments as they best could, valewing peace and their spirituall comforte above all other riches... injoyinge much sweete and delighteful! societie . . . in the wayes of God" . . . but subject to such "greate labor and hard fare" that many that desired to be with them. . . and to injoye the libertie of the gospell . . . chose the prisons in England rather than this libertie in Holland."

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62. After some twelve years in Holland, the Pilgrims decided to remove once more, to the wilds of North America. Bradford gives three motives for this: (1) an easier livelihood, especially for their children; (2) the removal of their children from what they considered the loose morals of easy-going Dutch society; and (3) the preservation of their religious principles.

"Old age beganne to steale on many of them (and their greate and continuall labours . . . hastened it before the time). And many of their children that were of the best dispositions and gracious inclinations, haveing learnde to bear the yoake in their youth, and willing to bear parte of their parents burdens, were often times so oppressed with heavie labours that... their bodies. . . became decreped in their early youth, the vigour of nature being consumed in the very budd, as it were.

But that which was . . . of all sorrows most heavie to be borne, many of their children, by these occasions and the greate licentiousnes in that countrie, and the manifold temptations of the place, were drawn away... into extravagante and dangerous courses, tending to dissolutenes and the danger of their souls."

Winslow (another Pilgrim historian) puts emphasis on a fourth reason, a patriotic desire to establish themselves under the English flag, one of their chief griefs in Holland being that their children intermarried with the Dutch and were drawn away from their English tongue and manners.

Of these four motives, the religious one was beyond doubt the weightiest. In Holland, there was no growth for their

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Society. It would die out, as the older members passed off the scene; and with it would die their principles. But, if they es tablished themselves in a New World, —

"a greate hope and inward zeall they had of laying some good foundation for the propagating and advancing the gospell of the kingdome of Christ in those remote parts of the world; yea, though they should be but even as stepping-stones unto others for the performing of so greate a work."

63. From the London Company the Pilgrims secured a grant of land and a charter; and, by entering into partnership with another group of London merchants, they secured the necessary money.1

For many months, says Bradford, this opening business was "delayed by many rubbs; for the Virginia Counsell was so disturbed with factions as no bussines could goe forward" (cf. § 34 and Source Book, No. 49). But when Sandys and the Puritan faction got control in that Company, the matter was quickly arranged, the more quickly, perhaps, because Brewster, one of the Pilgrim leaders, had been a trusted steward of a manor belonging to the Sandys family.

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The seventy "merchant adventurers" who furnished funds subscribed stock in £10 shares. Captain John Smith says that by 1623 they had advanced more than $200,000 in modern values.2 Each emigrant was counted as holding one share for "adventuring" himself. That is, the emigrant and the capital that brought him to America went into equal partnership. Each emigrant who furnished money or supplies was given more shares upon the same terms as the merchants. For seven years

all wealth produced was to go into a common stock, but from that stock the colonists were to have "meate, drink, apparell, and

1 Influential friends of the enterprise urged King James to aid by granting to the proposed colony the privilege of its own form of worship. A formal promise of this kind was not secured; but James allowed it to be understood that "he would connive at them . . provided they carried themselves peaceably."

2 This is probably an overstatement. The articles of partnership may be found in the Source Book, No. 44.