row into other men's
faces. As for men of more indifferent and better minds, they would be
seriously advised to beware of entertaining or admitting, much more
countenancing and crediting, such uncharitable persons as discover
themselves by their carriage, and that in this particular to be men ill
affected towards the work itself, if not to religion, at which it aims,
and consequently unlikely to report any truths of such as undertake
it."[54]

This language is very severe, not to say scurrilous; but it is the style
of all Puritan historians and writers in regard to those who complained
of the Puritan Government of Massachusetts. Not even Messrs. Bancroft
and Palfrey have thought it unworthy of their eloquent pages. But
imputation of motives and character is not argument, is most resorted to
for want of argument, much less is it a refutation of statements now
universally known to be true. The venerable author of this "Planters'
Plea" denied in indignant terms that Endicot and his friends had become
"Separatists" or "enemies of the Church" (he had doubtless been so
assured); the very thing in which Endicot gloried--setting up a
"Separatist" worship, forbidding the worship of "the Church," and
banishing its members who resolved to continue the use of its Prayer
Book, in public or in private.

This, however, is not all. Not only did the Company, in their letters to
Endicot, Higginson, and Skelton, disdain to forbid anything like
abolishing the Church of England and setting up a new Church, and the
use of language offensive to their Sovereign and the Established Church;
not only were there the most positive denials on both sides of the
Atlantic that anything of the kind had been done by Endicot; but on the
appointment of Winthrop to supersede Endicot as Governor, and on his
departure with a fleet of eleven ships and three hundred "Adventurers"
and "Planters," as they were called, a formal and affectionate address
to their "Fathers and Brethren of the Church of England" was published
by Winthrop from his ship _Arabella_, disclaiming any acts of some among
them (evidently alluding to what Endicot had been alleged to have done)
hostile to the Church of England, declaring their obligation and
attachment to it, their prayers for it, and entreating the prayers of
its members for the success of their undertaking. This address is said
to have been written by the Rev. John White, the "Patriarch of
Dorchester," and prime mover of th