anguage, to undertake the enterprise, it
is no wonder that the proposition was favorably received. All felt it
to be a service of danger; it was highly desirable that it should be
attempted; no one was so well fitted for it as the Knight; and were
the effort at reconciliation to terminate fatally, the loss of no one
would be less regretted by several of the Assistants. For there were
among them some who were no friends of the Knight, and would gladly
have had him out of the colony; either not liking his intimacy with
the natives, or suspicious of the circumstance, that, although he had
offered to unite himself with the congregation, he had, somehow or
other, never done so, either in consequence of doubts entertained
respecting the soundness of his faith, or some unknown cause. This
feeling was heightened by a jealousy of the favor enjoyed by the
Knight with Winthrop--a favor which, some declared, warped the better
judgment of the Governor. In proof of this, they pointed to the
remission (at the intercession of Sir Christopher) of a part of the
punishment of one Ratcliffe, who had incurred the vengeance of the
law, and also of the indulgence shown to Philip Joy. At the head of
these malcontents was the Assistant Spikeman--one who, by his evil
propensities and incapacity to appreciate the noble sentiments of
Winthrop, stood to him in a certain relation of hostility. For there
is no law more prevailing than that evil hates good, compelled thereto
by the very constitution of its nature. Indeed, it is evil by reason
of that hatred; when that ceases, evil ceases also.

By no one was the proposal to entrust the business to Sir Christopher,
if he would accept it--for the cautious Winthrop did not allude to the
understanding betwixt himself and the Knight--received with more favor
than by Spikeman. He was eloquent in praise of the qualifications of
the proposed envoy, and derided the danger, expressing a conviction
that it would be easy for him, if he chose, to restore peaceable
relations. The qualification in the speech of the Assistant was
noticed by Winthrop, and he intimated astonishment at the suspicion,
and wonder at the willingness of one who felt it, to entrust the
commission in such hands. But the artful Spikeman easily extricated
himself from so slight a difficulty, alleging, as the cause of the
doubt, the want of that Christian bond on the part of the Knight,
without which no one could be entitled to the entire confid