r that the Dutch had also a claim
under a grant from their States-General of Holland.[39] In December,
1633, Van Twiller heard of Holmes's trading-post and despatched an
armed force of seventy men to expel the intruders. They appeared
before the fort with colors flying, but finding that Holmes had
received reinforcements, and that it would be impossible to dislodge
him without bloodshed, they returned home without molesting him.[40]

The Plymouth settlers were destined to be dispossessed, not by the
Dutch, but by their own countrymen. The people of Massachusetts were
now fully aroused, and the news that came to Boston in the summer of
1634 that the small-pox had practically destroyed the Indians on the
river increased "the hankering" after the coveted territory.[41] The
people of Watertown, Dorchester, and Newtown (Cambridge) had long been
restless under the Massachusetts authority, and were anxious for a
change. Dorchester was the residence of Captain Israel Stoughton, and
Watertown the residence of Richard Brown and John Oldham, all three of
whom had been under the ban of the orthodox Puritan church. At
Watertown also had sprung up the first decided opposition to the
aristocratic claim of the court of assistants to lay taxes on the
people. As for Newtown (now Cambridge), its inhabitants could not
forget that, though selected in the first instance as the capital of
the colony, it had afterwards been discarded for the town of Boston.

In all three towns there was a pressure for arable lands and more or
less jealousy among the ministers. Some dissatisfaction also with the
requirement in Massachusetts of church-membership for the suffrage may
have been among the motives for seeking a new home. At the head of the
movement was the Rev. Thomas Hooker, a graduate of Emmanuel College,
Cambridge, who had lived in Holland, and while there had imbibed a
greater share of liberality than was to be found among most of the
clergy of Massachusetts. Cotton declared that democracy was "no fit
government either for church or commonwealth," and the majority of the
ministers agreed with him. Winthrop defended his view in a letter to
Hooker on the ground that "the best part is always the least, and of
that best part the wiser part is always the lesser." But Hooker
replied that "in matters which concern the common good a general
council, chosen by all, to transact business which concerns all, I
conceive most suitable to rule and most safe f