s Fuller says that he had absolute command of two things not
easily controlled--"his own passions and the purses of his
parishioners." White wrote Conant and his associates to stick by the
work, and promised to obtain for them a patent and fully provide them
with means to carry on the fur trade. The matter was discussed in
Lincolnshire and London, and soon a powerful association came into
being and lent its help.

Other men, some of whom are historic personages, began to take a
leading part, and there was at first no common religious purpose among
the new associates. The contemporary literature is curiously free from
any special appeal to Puritanic principles, and the arguments put
forward are much the same as those urged for the settlement of
Virginia. The work of planting a new colony was taken up
enthusiastically, and a patent, dated March 19, 1628, was obtained
from the Council for New England, conceding to six grantees, Sir Henry
Rosewell, Sir John Young, Thomas Southcot, John Humphrey, John
Endicott, and Simon Whitcombe, "all that Parte of New England in
America aforesaid, which lyes and extendes betweene a greate River
there comonlie called Monomack alias Merriemack, and a certen other
River there, called Charles River, being in the Bottome of a certayne
Bay there, comonlie called Massachusetts alias Mattachusetts, ... and
... lyeing within the Space of three English Myles on the South Parte
of the said Charles River, ... and also ... within the space of three
English Myles to the Northward of the said River called Monomack, ...
throughout the Mayne Landes there, from the Atlantick and Westerne Sea
and Ocean on the East Parte, to the South Sea on the West Parte."

The patent also gave to the company "all Jurisdiccons, Rights,
Royalties, Liberties, Freedoms, Ymmunities, Priviledges, Franchises,
Preheminences, and Commodities, whatsoever, which they, the said
Council established at Plymouth, ... then had, ... within the saide
Landes and Premisses."[3] On account of the reckless manner in which
the Council for New England granted away its territory, the patent
conflicted with several others of an earlier date. In March, 1622,
they had granted to John Mason a patent for all the land between
Naumkeag and the Merrimac River. Then, in December, 1622, a part of
this territory having a front of ten miles "upon the northeast side of
Boston Bay," and extending thirty miles into the interior, was granted
to Captain Robert