rchants. Many of
their friends joined them. Other towns were settled near by, and
Plymouth became the capital of the colony of New Plymouth. But the
colony was never very prosperous, and in the end was added to
Massachusetts.

[Sidenote: Founders of Massachusetts.]

[Sidenote: _Explorers_ 341-361; _Source-book_ 45-48, 74-76.]

[Sidenote: Settlement of Massachusetts, 1630. _Higginson_, 60-64;
_Eggleston_, 39-41.]

48. The Founding of Massachusetts, 1629-30.--Unlike the poor and
humble Pilgrims were the founders of Massachusetts. They were men of
wealth and social position, as for instance, John Winthrop and Sir
Richard Saltonstall. They left comfortable homes in England to found a
Puritan state in America. They got a great tract of land extending from
the Merrimac to the Charles, and westward across the continent. Hundreds
of colonists came over in the years 1629-30. They settled Boston, Salem,
and neighboring towns. In the next ten years thousands more joined them.
From the beginning Massachusetts was strong and prosperous. Among so
many people there were some who did not get on happily with the rulers
of the colony.

[Sidenote: Roger Williams expelled from Massachusetts. _Higginson_,
68-70.]

[Sidenote: He founds Providence, 1636. _Source-book_, 52-54.]

49. Roger Williams and Religious Liberty.--Among the newcomers was
Roger Williams, a Puritan minister. He disagreed with the Massachusetts
leaders on several points. For instance, he thought that the
Massachusetts people had no right to their lands, and he insisted that
the rulers had no power in religious matters--as enforcing the laws as
to Sunday. He insisted on these points so strongly that the
Massachusetts government expelled him from the colony. In the spring of
1636; with four companions he founded the town of Providence. There he
decided that every one should be free to worship God as he or she
saw fit.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Hutchinson and her friends.]

[Sidenote: They settle Rhode Island, 1637.]

50. The Rhode Island Towns.--Soon another band of exiles came from
Massachusetts. These were Mrs. Hutchinson and her followers. Mrs.
Hutchinson was a brilliant Puritan woman who had come to Boston from
England to enjoy the ministry of John Cotton, one of the Boston
ministers. She soon began to find fault with the other ministers of the
colony. Naturally, they did not like this. Their friends were more
numerous than were Mrs. Hutchinson's friends, and the la