of social consideration as well as of the intelligence and
resolute patriotism, moulded the public opinion and action of England in
the first half of the seventeenth century. While the larger part stayed
at home to found, as it proved, the short-lived English republic, and to
introduce elements into the English Constitution which had to wait
another half-century for their secure reception, another part devoted
themselves at once to the erection of free institutions in this distant
wilderness.

In an important sense the associates of the Massachusetts Company were
builders of the British, as well as of the New England, commonwealth.
Some ten or twelve of them, including Cradock, the Governor, served in
the Long Parliament. Of the four commoners of that Parliament
distinguished by Lord Clarendon as first in influence, Vane had been
governor of the company, and Hampden, Pym, and Fiennes--all patentees of
Connecticut--if not members, were constantly consulted upon its affairs.
The latter statement is also true of the Earl of Warwick, the
Parliament's admiral, and of those excellent persons, Lord Say and Sele
and Lord Brooke, both of whom at one time proposed to emigrate. The
company's meetings placed Winthrop and his colleagues in relations with
numerous persons destined to act busy parts in the stirring times that
were approaching--with Brereton and Hewson, afterward two of the
Parliamentary major-generals; with Philip Nye, who helped Sir Henry Vane
to "cozen" the Scottish Presbyterian Commissioners in the phraseology of
the Solemn League and Covenant; with Samuel Vassall, whose name shares
with those of Hampden and Lord Say and Sele the renown of the refusal to
pay ship-money, and of courting the suit which might ruin them or
emancipate England; with John Venn, who, at the head of six thousand
citizens, beset the House of Lords during the trial of Lord Strafford,
and whom, with three other Londoners, King Charles, after the battle of
Edgehill, excluded from his offer of pardon; with Owen Rowe, the
"firebrand of the city"; with Thomas Andrews, the lord mayor, who
proclaimed the abolition of royalty.

Sir John Young, named second in the original grant from the Council for
New England, as well as in the charter from King Charles, sat in
Cromwell's second and third Parliaments. Others of the company, as Vane
and Adams, incurred the Protector's displeasure by too uncomplying
principles. Six or seven were members of the high c