119 



accordingly, on a common stock, sent over several persons, who began 

 a plantation at Cape Ann,* and held this place of the Plymouth 

 settlers, for whom they set up here a fishing stage." 



We have thus the positive declarations that the success of the English 

 merchants in fishing about the island of Monhegan, in Maine, and of 

 the Pilgrims at Plymouth, were the original and moving causes of 

 attempting to settle a second colony in New England. As the good 

 minister Robinson was the principal founder of the first, so the pastor 

 White was like instrumental in promoting the last. The general ac- 

 curacy of Hubbard and Holmes will not be disputed. The latter, in 

 this particular case, must have been well informed. Ipswich, of which 

 town he was the minister, was a noted and favorite station for the 

 English fishing ships that came to the coast previous to the colonization 

 of Massachusetts ; and, aside from the facilities of acquiring informa- 

 tion from that source, he was personally acquainted with Roger Conant, 

 the great actor in the events of which we are now to speak.t 



In the fishery at Cape Ann, the minister White seems to have had a 

 personal interest. In 1625, Conant, at his instance, was appointed to 

 succeed Tylly and Gardener in the management of the company's con- 

 cerns there. Conant was already in New England. He arrived at 

 Plymouth in 1623; but unhappy there, and averse to the rigid views 

 of the Pilgrims, though himself a religious man, had removed thence to 

 Nantasket. He undertook the fishery, which, proving unprofitable, 

 was abandoned. " He disliked the place as much as the merchants 

 dishked the business ;" iind, pleased with Naumkeak, (Salem,) re- 

 moved there. Deserted by his employers, and helpless mid hordes of 

 savages, he was advised, implored, and warned to quit the country. 

 Discomfiture and ruin had attended the efforts of some of the best men 

 in England to colonize Newfoundland ; death and other sad cahimities 

 had put an end to the colony attempted in Maine ; the plantation at 

 Weymouth had produced a harvest of sorrow and poverty to its pro- 

 jector ; the colony at Plymouth survived, but a single boat and net had 

 alone saved it from utter extmction ; and now, the destiny of Massa- 

 chusetts was suspended upon the decision of an ejected manager of a 

 fishery. Conant knew and said that he staid at his post at the hazard 



* Called Gloucester iu 1642. 



t The Rev. William Hubbard was born in England in 1621, and eame to America with his 

 father iu 1635. He was graduated at Harvard University, in the first class, iu 1642. He was 

 settled at Ipswich, Massachusetts, and died there in 1704, aged 83 years. His History of New 

 England remained in manuscript until 1815, when it was published by the Massachusetts His- 

 torical Hociety, as a part of their Collections. 



" The most original and valuable part of Hubbard's history," remarks Dr. Young, in the 

 Chronicles of Massachusetts, is the chapter "in which he gives us a statement of facts in rela- 

 tion to the first settlements at Cape Ann and Salem, which can be found nowhere else." These 

 facts the learned Doctor inclines to believe Hubbard obtained from Conant himself "Living 

 at Ipswich, he must have been acquainted with this prominent old planter, who resided but a 

 few miles from him, at Beverly, and who sui-vived till 1679. Some of the tacts which he re- 

 lates he could hardly have obtained from any other source." * * "We may 

 therefore consider that * * * we have Roger Conant's own narrative, as taken down by 

 Hubbard m the conversations which he held with him when collecting the materials for his 

 history." 



Conant is everywhere spoken of in terms of respect, and was an excellent man. " The 

 superior condition of the persons who came over with the charter cast a shade upon him, and 

 he lived in obscuiity." 



