The arguments for the plantation of New England which take up the next thirty-five pages of this volume fall chronologically into two groups. The earlier group comprises three drafts of a single document, in different stages of its development; the later uses much of the material of this document, but presents also other arguments and employs a greater variety of forms. 107Whatever new matter appears in the second group is so closely connected with Winthrop by external and internal evidence that no serious question concerning its authorship has been raised. The origin of the document of which the various forms make up the first group has, however, at different times been claimed also for the Reverend John White of Dorchester and for the Reverend Francis Higginson of Salem, so that it is in order to consider the evidence given by a comparison of the three drafts, which we may call B, C, and D. B, preserved among the Colonial Papers in the Public Record Office, has been printed in 1 Proceedings , VIII. 428–430 (1865). It is endorsed, not as there stated “in the same handwriting as the paper,” but in a quite different hand, probably that of a government clerk: “White of Dorchester his instructions for the plantation of new England.” C is a holograph of John Winthrop, handed down among the family papers and now first printed. D was printed by Hutchinson in his Collection of Original Papers (1769) from a manuscript, now lost, coming from the papers of Francis Higginson. Sample differences follow.

These show clearly D's place as latest in sequence, coming not from B but from C with some amplifications. Higginson's authorship, then, is ruled out, and it appears probable that his copy was sent to him by Winthrop. The differences also show that C is to a certain extent intermediate between B and D.

The next step is to compare B and C, to determine as closely as possible their exact relationship. The differences given above, and the general wording of the texts, show that Winthrop in C was following and developing a draft similar in general character to B. Was this draft B itself, or an equivalent document which might be called B', or was it an archetype A, now lost; and if the latter, what was the relation of this archetype to B and C? Fortunately the scribal errors in B are of such a character that a comparison of them with the corresponding passages of C reveals the relationship of the drafts A, B, and C.

Not only do the errors in B, such as “therfore” for “thoughe” and “number” for “ministers,” point to an archetype A, which, or its equivalent, was before Winthrop as he wrote the revised draft C, but examination of the manuscript shows that the errors are such as a scribe would be most likely to make if he were following Winthrop's own handwriting, where it certainly requires time, patience, and some knowledge of the sense to give a more accurate rendering than that of the examples. We have, then, Winthrop making his draft C, still preserved, from an earlier draft, A, probably also in his 109own hand, and revising with the freedom that an author uses in dealing with his own work.

The textual evidence seems conclusive, and the sequence of events was apparently as follows. Winthrop drew up the paper and sent a copy of the first draft to White. Such documents, we know, were widely circulated in manuscript (see infra, page 156); very likely other copies were sent out at the same time. Winthrop then wrote out the revised draft which we still have in his hand, and, soon after, made a draft with still further revisions, a copy of which went across the Atlantic to Higginson. White's copy was seized by government agents in 1635, when he was brought before the Court of High Commission (Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1635–1636, 79, etc.). It is not in White's hand, or copied from his manuscript, and the endorsement, in another hand than the scribe's, is what would naturally be entered on it by an official who knew only that it came from White's study.

We forbear to dwell upon the question of style, of which much might be said. These considerations for New England, the later ones which deal with Winthrop's particular circumstances and the others exactly the same, are all written in the terse, nervous, forensic style characteristic of Winthrop, point on point hammered home, far indeed removed from the ministerial rotundity of diction, the leisurely Elizabethan fulness, which we meet in White's Planters Plea and in his correspondence. One might read many pages in the Planters Plea without finding a sentence that could be possibly ascribed to the author of the “Considerations.” This is true even when, as in several cases in the Planters Plea, White employs arguments similar in substance to those already used by Winthrop. The lawyer's brief becomes a sermon.

The papers of the second or later group comprise five tracts, which we possess, singly or in combination, in as many documents, only one of which preserves them all. We have also a letter of Robert Ryece, the Suffolk antiquary, in reply to three tracts sent him by Winthrop, and a part of a letter by Winthrop to some person unknown, answering various objections. Two of the five tracts embody the substance of the material used in drafts A-D. The relationship between the documents may best be illustrated by a table, in which we have put the tracts in the order which they occupy in Sir John Eliot's copy, the only document which contains them all. We have endeavored to arrange the documents in chronological order as nearly as possible. W. 1. 59 = “General Conclusions and Particular Considerations: Early Draft”; W. 1. 58 = the same, “Later Draft”; W. 1. 56 = “Objections Answered: First Draft”; W. 1. 54 = “Reasons to be Considered, and Ob­110jections with Answers.” The first number in each case shows the position of the tract in the document, while the numbers in parenthesis show the number of sections in the given edition of the tract. The two objections at the end of W. 1. 59, somewhat loosely attached to “Particular Considerations,” are not included in the table.

We assign the drawing up of the first draft of the arguments of the first group to a date not far from August 12, 1629. It is true that C, the only draft where a date is mentioned, is endorsed “May 1629”; but the endorsement is in a late hand and of no authority. We doubt if John Winthrop had any serious thought of removal to New England as a near contingency until the dissolution of Parliament by Charles I on March 10, 1629, with the attendant prospect of tyranny in politics and religion. In a letter of May 15 to his wife (see page 91) he seems to have the possibility of emigration in mind. Near the end of the month he was at Groton and discussed the matter with Margaret Winthrop (“that course which I propounded to thee,” supra, p. 94); on his return to London he was “still more confirmed,” and so likewise were the Downings. Not far from June 18 he gave up his attorneyship in the Court of Wards and his chamber in the Temple (p. 99), and from about the same time we find him engaged in an extensive correspondence with those interested in emigration to New England. Plans for a meeting of Puritan leaders in Lincolnshire were made some time before July 8 (p. 102). July 28 Winthrop and Downing were “ridinge into Lincolnshire by Ely” (p. 103). August 8 they “are bothe in Linkornshire and haue bine this fortnight” (p. 104). Returning to Suffolk, Winthrop summons a gathering at Bury for August 12 of those interested in the emigration (p. 105). Draft A was prepared for this meeting or immediately after it. John Winthrop, Jr., had received at London before August 21 “the Conclusions which you sent downe” from Groton. This establishes a terminus ante quern, while the terminus post quern is defined by the fact that Downing, who is spoken of as being with Winthrop as late as August 8, appears not to have seen the 111“Conclusions” until they were shown him by John Winthrop, Jr., on or just before Saturday, August 21 (p. 151). Ryece's letter of August 12 (p. 105) shows that they were not sent to him with the invitation to attend the meeting at Bury. The Agreement at Cambridge was signed on August 26, and the vote of the Massachusetts Company “to haue the pattent and the gouernment of the plantacion to bee transferred to New England” was passed on August 29. It is likely that all four of the drafts A, B, C, D, precede this date, perhaps also a part of the documents of the second group.

To conclude. We consider that the arguments for the plantation of New England were taking shape in Winthrop's mind, from his own thought and reading and through discussion with other Puritan leaders, during the spring and early summer of 1629. In the earliest form in which we can trace these arguments he wrote them down either for the meeting at Bury on August 12, or immediately after that meeting. It is probable that the whole of the earlier series and a part of the later were prepared before August 29, the rest of the second series between August 29 and Winthrop's election as Governor on October 20. The circulation in manuscript began as soon as the first draft was drawn up and continued for several months (p. 145149, note 1). The ascription of the authorship to White and Higginson was based on nothing more than the finding of copies (drafts B and D) among their papers.1