Church was day by day more uneasy. While some among them looked
for relief to a happy issue of the struggle which had been going on in
Parliament, and resigned themselves to await and aid the slow progress
of a political and religious reformation in the kingdom, numbers, less
confident or less patient, pondered on exile as their best resource, and
turned their view to a new home on the Western continent. There was yet
a third class, who, through feeble resolution or a lingering hope of
better things, deferred the sacrifices which they scarcely flattered
themselves they should ultimately escape, and, if they were clergymen,
retained their preferments by a reluctant obedience to the canons. The
coquetry of Buckingham with the Puritans, inspiring false hopes, was not
without effect to excuse indecision and hinder a combined and energetic
action.

Among the eminent persons who had reconciled themselves to the course of
compromise and postponement was Mr. John White, an important name, which
at this point takes its place in New England history. White, who since
the second year of King James' reign had been rector of Trinity Church
in Dorchester, was a man widely known and greatly esteemed, alike for
his professional character and his public spirit. The subject of New
England colonization, much canvassed everywhere among the Puritans, who
were numerous in the part of the kingdom where he lived, was commended
to his notice in a special form. Dorchester, near the British Channel,
the principal town of the shire, furnished numbers of those who now made
voyages to New England for fishing and trade; and they were often
several months upon the coast without opportunity for religious worship
and instruction. Mr. White interested himself with the ship-owners to
establish a settlement where the mariners might have a home when not at
sea, where supplies might be provided for them by farming and hunting,
and where they might be brought under religious influences. The result
of the conferences was the formation of an unincorporated joint-stock
association, under the name of the "Dorchester Adventurers," which
collected a capital of three thousand pounds.

The Dorchester company turned its attention to the spot on Cape Ann
where now stands the town of Gloucester. The Council for New England,
perpetually embarrassed by the oppugnation of the Virginia Company and
the reasonable jealousy of Parliament, had recourse to a variety of
expedien