him to do his
best to have him thrown into prison.

It was not the first time that this plain, mechanical, devout Englishman,
now past middle age, had visited the Netherlands. More than twenty-five
years before he had accompanied William Davison on his famous embassy to
the States, as private secretary.

When the keys of Flushing, one of the cautionary towns, were committed to
the Ambassador, he confided them to the care of Brewster, who slept with
them under his pillow. The gold chain which Davison received as a present
from the provincial government on leaving the country was likewise placed
in his keeping, with orders to wear it around his neck until they should
appear before the Queen. To a youth of ease and affluence, familiar with
ambassadors and statesmen and not unknown at courts, had succeeded a
mature age of obscurity, deep study, and poverty. No human creature would
have heard of him had his career ended with his official life. Two
centuries and a half have passed away and the name of the outlawed
Puritan of Scrooby and Leyden is still familiar to millions of the
English race.

All these Englishmen were not poor. Many of them occupied houses of fair
value, and were admitted to the freedom of the city. The pastor with
three of his congregation lived in a comfortable mansion, which they had
purchased for the considerable sum of 8000 florins, and on the garden of
which they subsequently erected twenty-one lesser tenements for the use
of the poorer brethren.

Mr. Robinson was himself chosen a member of the famous university and
admitted to its privileges. During his long residence in Leyden, besides
the daily care of his congregation, spiritual and temporal, he wrote many
learned works.

Thus the little community, which grew gradually larger by emigration from
England, passed many years of tranquillity. Their footsteps were not
dogged by constables and pursuivants, they were not dragged daily before
the magistrates, they were not thrown into the town jails, they were not
hunted from place to place with bows and bills and mounted musketeers.
They gave offence to none, and were respected by all. "Such was their
singleheartedness and sincere affection one towards another," says their
historian and magistrate, "that they came as near the primitive pattern
of the first churches as any other church of these later times has done,
according to their rank and quality."

Here certainly were English Puritans more co