d and sufficient
title to these parts." There can be no question that the overtures of
Sandys, Weston, and others to make interest for them with one of these
English Companies, agreed as well with both the preferences and
convictions of the Leyden Pilgrims, as they did with the hopes and
designs of Sir Ferdinando Gorges. In the light of these facts, there
appears to have been neither legal nor moral bar to the evident intention
of the Pilgrims to settle in the vicinity of "Hudson's River," if they so
elected. In their light, also, despite the positive allegations of the
truthful but not always reliable Morton, his charges of intrigue between
the Dutch and Master Jones of the MAY-FLOWER, to prevent the settlement
of his ship's company at "Hudson's River," may well be doubted. Writing
in "New England's Memorial" in 1669, Morton says: "But some of the Dutch,
having notice of their intentions, and having thoughts about the same
time of erecting a plantation there likewise, they fraudulently hired the
said Jones, by delays while they were in England, and now under pretence
of the shoals the dangers of the Monomoy Shoals off Cape Cod to
disappoint them in going thither." He adds: "Of this plot between the
Dutch and Mr. Jones, I have had late and certain intelligence." If this
intelligence was more reliable than his assertion concerning the
responsibility of Jones for the "delays while they were in England," it
may well be discredited, as not the faintest evidence appears to make him
responsible for those delays, and they are amply accounted for without
him. Without questioning the veracity of Morton (while suggesting his
many known errors, and that the lapse of time made it easy to
misinterpret even apparently certain facts), it must be remembered that
he is the original sponsor for the charge of Dutch intrigue with Jones,
and was its sole support for many years. All other writers who have
accepted and indorsed his views are of later date, and but follow him,
while Bradford and Winslow, who were victims of this Dutch conspiracy
against them, if it ever existed, were entirely silent in their writings
upon the matter, which we may be sure they would not have been, had they
suspected the Dutch as prime movers in the treachery. That there was a
conspiracy to accomplish the landing of the MAY-FLOWER planters at a
point north of "the Hudson" (in fact, north of the bounds defined by the
(first) Pierce patent, upon which they