states, that "Thomas Jones, Captain of the MAY-FLOWER, was without doubt
the old servant of Lord Warwick in the East Indies." Having done Sir
Robert Rich's (the Earl of Warwick's) "dirty work" for years, and having
on all occasions been saved from harm by his noble patron (even when
piracy and similar practices had involved him in the meshes of the law),
it would be but a trifling matter, at the request of such powerful
friends as the Earl and Sir Ferdinando Gorges, to steal the Pilgrim
Colony from the London Virginia Company, and hand it over bodily to the
"Council for New England,"--the successor of the Second (Plymouth)
Virginia Company,--in which their interests were vested, Warwick having,
significantly, transferred his membership from the London Company to the
new "Council for New England," as it was commonly called. Neill states,
and there is abundant proof, that "the Earl of Warwick and Gorges were in
sympathy," and were active coadjutors, while it is self-evident that both
would be anxious to accomplish the permanent settlement of the "Northern
Plantations" held by their Company. That they would hesitate to utilize
so excellent an opportunity to secure so very desirable a colony, by any
means available, our knowledge of the men and their records makes it
impossible to believe,--while nothing could apparently have been easier
of accomplishment. It will readily be understood that if the
conspirators were these men,--upon whose grace the Pilgrims must depend
for permission to remain upon the territory to which they had been
inveigled, or even for permission to depart from it, without spoliation,
--men whose influence with the King (no friend to the Pilgrims) was
sufficient to make both of them, in the very month of the Pilgrims'
landing, "governors" of "The Council for New England," under whose
authority the Planters must remain,--the latter were not likely to voice
their suspicions of the trick played upon them, if they discovered it,
or openly to resent it, when known. Dr. Dexter, in commenting on the
remark of Bradford, "We made Master Jones our leader, for we thought it
best herein to gratifie his kindness & forwardness," sensibly says,
"This proves nothing either way, in regard to the charge which Secretary
Morton makes of treachery against Jones, in landing the company so far
north, because, if that were true, it was not known to any of the company
for years afterward, and of course could not now [at that t