ed at Sluys in 1587, was knighted by Essex before Rouen,
in October, 1591, and in 1593 was made governor of the port of
Plymouth in England, which office he still held. Despite the
ill-fortune attending past efforts, he continued to send out vessels
under color of fishing and trade, which ranged the coast of New
England and brought news of a calamity to the natives unexpectedly
favorable to future colonization. In 1616-1617 the country from
Penobscot River to Narragansett Bay was almost left "void of
inhabitants" by a pestilence which swept away entire villages of
Indians. This information, together with the better knowledge due to
Gorges of the value of the fisheries, caused a revival of interest
regarding New England among the members of the Plymouth Company.[3]

Under the name of "the Council for New England," they obtained from
the king in 1620 a new charter,[4] granting to them all the territory
in North America extending "in breadth from forty degrees of northerly
latitude, from the equinoctial line, to forty-eight degrees of the
said northerly latitude, and in length by all the breadth aforesaid
throughout the main-land from sea to sea." In the new grant the number
of grantees was limited to forty, and all other persons enjoying
rights in the company's lands stood in the position of their tenants.
Thus, like the Plymouth Company, the new company proved defective in
co-operative power, and the first actual settlement of New England was
due to an influence little fancied by any of its members.

Religious opinions during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were
great political forces. The Christian church of Europe, before the
days of Luther, held the view that the pope of Rome was the only
infallible interpreter of the Holy Scriptures, and against this
doctrine Luther led a revolt denominated Protestantism, which insisted
upon the right of private judgment. Nevertheless, when the reformed
churches came to adopt articles and canons of their own they generally
discarded this fundamental difference, and, affirming infallibility in
themselves, enlisted the civil power in support of their doctrines.

Hence, in 1559, Queen Elizabeth caused her Parliament to pass two
famous statutes, the Act of Supremacy, which required all clergymen
and office-holders to renounce the spiritual as well as temporal
jurisdiction of all foreign princes and prelates; and the Act of
Uniformity, which forbade any minister from using any o