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

1st. It wilbe a service to the church of great consequens by carringe the gospell into those parts to raise a bulworke against the kingdom of antichrist which the Jesuits labour to rere in all parts of the world:

2d. All other churches of Europe beinge brought to desolation it cannot be but that the like iudgement is comminge vpon vs and who knoweth but that god hath prepared this place for a refuge for many whome he meaneth to saue in the general distruction:

3d. The land groneth vnder her inhabitants soe that man the best of creatures is held more base then the earth they tread on:

4th. We are growen to that hight of intemperancy as noe mans estate 112will suffice him to keepe sayle with his equall and he that doeth not must Hue in contempt. Hence trades are carried soe deceiptfully and vnrightusly as yt is almost inpossible for a good vpright man to maynteyne his charge and to Hue comfortably in his profession:

5th. The fountaynes of learninge and religion are soe corrupted as besides the vnsupportable charge many chyldren of best witts and fayrest hopes are perverted corrupted and vtterly overthrowne by the multitude of evill examples and the licentious government of those seminaryes:

6th. The earth is the lords garden and he hath given yt to the sonns of men to be tylled and improved why then should we stand strivinge here for places of habitation many men spending as much labour and cost to recover and keepe somtymes an acre or tow of land which would procure many acres of as good or better in an other place and in the meane tyme they suffer whole countryes vsefull and convenient for the vse of man to lye wast without inhabitant:

7th. What can be a better or more honorable worke then to helpe rayse and support a particuler church whyle yt is in the budd and infancy to ioyne our forces with such a company of faithfull people as by a tymly assistance may growe stronge and prosper and for want of yt may be put to great hazard yf not ruinated:

8th. Yf such as are knowen to be godly and Hue in welth heare shall forsake all this to ioyne themselues with this church and to runne their hazard yt wilbe an example of great vse boeth for the removinge of the scandall of worldly and sinister respectes to giue more lyfe to the faith of godly people in their prayers for the plantation and alsoe to encourage others to ioyne the more willingly in yt:

obiection Yt wilbe a greate wronge to our owne country and church to take away the godly people and we shall lay yt the more open to the iudgements feared: | solution | yt wilbe nothinge in respect of those that shalbe lefte and many that Hue in noe vse heare more then for their owne private famylyes maye be imployed to a more commen good in an other place: 3° by such as are of noe vse heare to be soe imployed as the church shall receaue noe losse: 4°. the church since christs tyme is to be considered as vniversall without respect of countryes: soe as he that doeth good in any place doeth serve the church in all places 5°. yt is the revealed will of god that the gospell should be preached in all places and nations and therfore we knowe not whether the Indians will receaue yt yet yt is a good worke to observe gods will in offeringe yt for god shall haue glory yf they refuse:

ob: We haue feared a iudgement a longe tyme but yet we are saffe: 113yt were better to stay till yt come and either we may fly then or yf we be overtaken we may content our selues to suffer with such a church as this: | sol: | It is likly that this consideration made the church beyounde the seas viz: the Palatinate and Rochell to sit still and not labour for shelter whyle they might: but the wofull spectackle of their ruine may teach vs wysdome to avoyd the plauge whyle yt is forsenne and not to tary as they did till yt overtake vs: yf they were now in their former liberty we may be sure they would take other course for their safty Although most of them had myscarried in their escape yet that had not bine halfe soe miserable to themselues and scandalous to religion as their desperate backslydinge and abiuringe the truth which many of their auncient professors amongst them and their whole posteryty that remayne are plunged into:

ob: We haue here a plentyfull land of all thinges with peace: | sol: yet we must leaue all this abundance yf yt be taken from vs: 2. when we be in our graues yt wilbe all one to haue liued in plenty or poverty or whether we had died in a bed of downe or one a locke of strawe only this is the advantage of a meane condition that yt is at more freedome to dye the lesse comfort any haue in the things of this world the more liberty and desire he may haue to lay vpp treasure in heaven:

ob: But we may perrish in the way or when we come there hunger or the sword there: how vncomfortable would yt be to see our wyfes chyldren and frends come to such mysery by our occasion: | sol: such obiections savour to much of the flesh who can free hymselfe or his frends from the like calamyties heare: yf this course be warrantable we must trust gods providence for those thinges either he will keepe those evills from vs: or will dispose them for our good and in able vs to beare them:

ob: but what warrant haue we to take the land which is and hath bine soe longe tyme possessed by other sonnes of Adam: | sol: | that which is commen to all is proper to none these savage people ramble over much land without title or property. 2°. ther is more then enough for them and vs: 3° god hath consumed these nations in a myraculouse plauge wherby a great parte of their country is left voyd without inhabitants: we shal com in with good leaue of these nations:

ob: But we should yet send younge ones and such as can be best spared and not of our best number and magistrates sol: yt is a great worke and therfore requyres skylfull artifficers to lay the foundation of a new buyldinge then to vphold and maynteyne yt alreddy buylt: yf great thinges be attempted by weake meanes instruments the effects wilbe aunswearable:

ob: We see that plantations that haue bine formerly made succeed ill: sol: the fruit of any probable designe is not to be decerned by the immediate successe yt may appeare in tyme that they were to good vse. 2° ther were great and fundamentall errors in the other which are likly to be avoyded in this for first their mayne end which was proposed was carnal and not religiouse they aymed cheefly at profitt and not the propagation of religion: secondly they vsed vnfitt instruments viz: a multitude of rude and misgoverned persons the very scumme of the land: 3. they did not establysh a right forme of government: