leman of energy and dignity, John Endicott,
pledged his personal service as leader of a new colony. In September,
1628, he landed with a pioneering party at Naumkeag, and having happily
composed some differences that arose with the earlier comers, they named
the place _Salem_, which is, by interpretation, "Peace." Already, with
the newcomers and the old, the well-provided settlement numbered more
than fifty persons, busy in preparation for further arrivals. Meanwhile
vigorous work was doing in England. The organization to sustain the
colony represented adequate capital and the highest quality of character
and influence. A royal charter, drawn with sagacious care to secure
every privilege the Puritan Company desired, was secured from the
fatuity of the reigning Stuart, erecting in the wilderness such a free
commonwealth as his poor little soul abhorred; and preparation was made
for sending out, in the spring of 1629, a noble fleet of six vessels,
carrying three hundred men and a hundred women and children, with
ample equipment of provisions, tools and arms, and live stock. The
Company had taken care that there should be "plentiful provision
of godly ministers." Three approved clergymen of the Church of
England--Higginson, Skelton, and Bright--had been chosen by the Company
to attend the expedition, besides whom one Ralph Smith, a Separatist
minister, had been permitted to take passage before the Company
"understood of his difference in judgment in some things" from the other
ministers. He was permitted to continue his journey, yet not without a
caution to the governor that unless he were found "conformable to the
government" he was not to be suffered to remain within the limits of its
jurisdiction. An incident of this departure rests on the sole authority
of Cotton Mather, and is best told in his own words:

"When they came to the Land's End, Mr. Higginson, calling up
his children and other passengers unto the stern of the ship
to take their last sight of England, said, 'We will not say,
as the Separatists were wont to say at their leaving of
England, Farewell, Babylon! farewell, Rome! but we will say,
Farewell, dear England! farewell, the church of God in
England, and all the Christian friends there! We do not go to
New England as Separatists from the Church of England, though
we cannot but separate from the corruptions in it; but we go
to practice the positive part of c