Works 1608-1631 / Capt. John Smith ; edited by Edward Arber.

John Smith

Date:: 1884

Credit: Works 1608-1631 / Capt. John Smith ; edited by Edward Arber. Source: Wellcome Collection.

1076/1144 page 926

$£1629-30] l^oBroivnist jzor Sepa- ratht .admitted. Urhat they .are that di’ginne this JUantation. was the next wee both [2] expected, till it pleased God now at last to stirre up some good mindes, that I hope will produce glory to God, honour to his Majesty, and profit to his Kingdomes: although all our Plantations have beene so foyled and abused, their best good willers have beene for the most part discouraged, and their good intents disgraced, as the generall History of them will at large truly relate [to] : you. Pardon me if I offend in loving that I have cherished v truly, by the losse of my prime fortunes, meanes, and j youth : If it over-glad me to see Industry her selfe ad- | venture now to make use of my aged ende[a]vours, not by j such (I hope) as rumour doth report, a many of discon- I tented Brownists, Anabaptists, Papists, Puritans, Separa- tists, and such factious Humorists: for no such they will suffer among them, if knowne, as many of the chiefe of them {John Winthrop c§-c.] have assured mee; and the much conferences I have had with many of them, doth confidently perswade me to write thus much in their behalfe. I meane not the Brownists of Leyden and Amsterdam at New-Plirnoih, who although by accident, ignorance, and wilfulnesse, [they] have endured, with awonderfull patience, many losses and extremities; yet they subsist and prosper so well, not any of them will abandon the Country, but to the utmost of their powers increase their numbers. But of those which are gone within thiseighteenemonethsr.4/>m 1620—Oct. 1630] for Cape Anne, and the Bay of the Massa^ chusets. Those which are their chiefe Vndertakers are Gen- tlemen of good estate, some of 500, some a thousand pound land a yeere, all which theysaythey willsellfortheadvancing [oflthisharmlesse and pious worke; men of good credit and well-beloved in their Country [district], not such as Aye debt, or any scandall at home; and are good Cathohiy Protestants according to the reformed Church of if not, it is well they are gone. The rest of them men 0 good meanes, or Arts, Occupations, and Qualities, muc more fit for such a businesse, and better furnished of a necessaries if they arrive well, than was ever any 1 lantation went out oi England. • I will not say but some of them may be more precise :needs, nor that they all be so good as they should be; [dj$

Works 1608-1631 / Capt. John Smith ; edited by Edward Arber.

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