George Bancroft, History of the Colonization of the United States, Vol. 1, 17th edition.

‘ [2] the house-floor, there would be means enough found

Chap. VIII.} 1618.

to recall or reverse it. We must rest herein on God's providence.’

The dissensions in the Virginia company occasioned further delay. At last, in 1619, its members,

1619.

in their open court, writes one of the Pilgrims, ‘demanded our ends of going; which being related, they said the thing was of God, and granted a large patent.’ Being taken in the name of one who failed to accompany the expedition, the patent was never of any service. And besides, the Pilgrims, after investing all their own means, had not sufficient capital to execute their schemes.

In this extremity, Robinson looked for aid to the Dutch. He and his people and their friends, to the number of four hundred families, professed themselves well inclined to emigrate to the country on the Hudson, and to plant there a new commonwealth under the command of the Stadtholder and the States General. The West India Company was willing to transport them without charge, and to furnish them with cattle, if that people would ‘go under them;’ the directors petitioned the States General to promise protection to the enterprise against all violence from other potentates. But such a promise was contrary to the policy of the Dutch government, and was refused. The members of the Church of Leyden were not shaken in their purpose of removing to America; and ceasing ‘to meddle with the Dutch, or to depend too much on the Virginia Company,’ they prepared for their departure through their own resources and the aid of private friends. The confidence in wealth to be derived from fisheries had made American