before been
conferred on the companies of south and north Virginia, and especially
that of excluding all other persons whatever from trading within their
boundaries and fishing in the neighbouring seas. This improvident
grant, which excited the indignation of the people of England, then
deeply interested in the fur trade and fisheries, soon engaged the
attention, and received the censure of parliament. The patentees were
compelled to relinquish their odious monopoly; and, being thus
deprived of the funds on which they had relied to furnish the expense
of supporting new settlements, they abandoned the design of attempting
them. New England might have remained long unoccupied by Europeans,
had not the same causes, which occasioned the emigration of the
Brownists, still continued to operate. The persecution to which the
puritans were exposed, increased their zeal and their numbers. In
despair of obtaining at home a relaxation of those rigorous penal
statutes under which they had long smarted, they looked elsewhere for
that toleration which was denied them in their native land.
Understanding that their brethren in New Plymouth were permitted to
worship their creator according to the dictates of conscience, their
attention was directed towards the same coast; and several small
emigrations were made, at different times, to Massachusetts bay; so
termed from the name of the Sachem who was sovereign of the country.

{1627}

[Sidenote: Sir Henry Rosewell and others.]

Mr. White, a non-conforming minister at Dorchester, formed an
association of several gentlemen, who had imbibed puritanical
opinions, for the purpose of conducting a colony to the bay of
Massachusetts, and rendering it an asylum for the persecuted of his
own persuasion. In prosecution of these views, a treaty was concluded
with the council of Plymouth for the purchase of part of New England;
and that corporation, in March 1627, sold to Sir Henry Rosewell and
others, all that part of New England lying three miles to the south of
Charles river, and three miles north of Merrimack river, and extending
from the Atlantic to the South sea. A small number of planters and
servants were, soon afterwards, dispatched under Endicot, who, in
September, laid the foundation of Salem, the first permanent town in
Massachusetts.[53]

[Footnote 53: Robertson. Chalmer. Hutchison.]

{1628}

The purchasers perceived their inability to accomplish the settlement
of the extensi