needs known with precision enough, or in season, to have them adequately
met; and the governing company was unable to get a close knowledge of its
business, or to explain and enforce its requirements. Furthermore, there
was liable to be continual vexatious interference on the part of the king
and his officers, detrimental to the welfare of colonists and company
alike.

The men who constituted the Massachusetts Company were not concerned
respecting the pecuniary profits of the venture, inasmuch as they looked
only for the treasures which moth nor rust can corrupt; their "plantation"
was to the glory of God, not to the imbursement of man. Nor were they
anxious to impose their will upon the emigrants, or solicitous lest the
latter should act unseemly; for the men who were there were of the same
character and aim as those who were in England, and there could be no
differences between them beyond such as might legitimately arise as to the
most expedient way of reaching a given end. But the Company could easily
apprehend that the king and his ministers might meddle with their projects
and bring them to naught; and since those affairs, unlike mercantile ones,
were not of a nature to admit of compromise, they earnestly desired to
prevent this contingency.

Debating the matter among themselves, the leaders of the organization
conceived the idea of establishing the headquarters of the Company in the
midst of the emigrants in America: of becoming, in other words, emigrants
themselves, and working side by side with their brethren for the common
good. This plan offered manifest attractions; it would remove them from
unwelcome propinquity to the Court, would be of great assistance to the
work to do which the Company was formed, would give them the satisfaction
of feeling that they were giving their hands as well as their hearts to
the service of God, and, not least, would give notice to all the Puritans