121 



previously obtained by other companies that designed to adventure for 

 fish and furs elsewhere in America. The original plan of Winthrop, 

 Saltonstall, and their associates, while it embraced a settlement of 

 their domain, still provided that the controlling power should remain 

 in England. Mathcw Cradock, a rich London merchant, in accord- 

 ance with this arrangement, was appointed by the patentees their first 

 governor, in the sense that the head of the Bank of England is 

 denominated "the governor" of that institution. Cradock,* subse- 

 quently, not only relinquished his office voluntarily, but proposed the 

 measure of transferring the government to the actual settlers. 



The wise, magnanimous, and patient Winthrop was his successor, 

 and the first governor of the company who came to America. He 

 arrived in 1680, with a considerable body of colonists. Disembarking 

 at Salem, he soon removed to Charlestown, and thence crossed the river 

 to Boston, w^here he fixed his permanent home. These, as I under- 

 stand the subject, are the principal facts that relate to the origin of 

 Massachusetts. 



In passing from the topic, a single word more of Roger Conant. 

 His history has not been written ; it exists only in fragments. He 

 was a good man. He possessed the true test of merit, for he never 

 clamored, or even asked, for reward. In his old age, he did indeed 

 petition, that as "Budleigh," in England, was his birth-place, so 

 "Budleigh,"t in America, might be his burial-place; but this poor 

 boon was denied to the Christian hero, who stood by and saved the 

 colony in the hour of extremity. If men would be remembered by 

 those who come after them, they must win battles, or acquire position 

 in the State. Roger Conant was but an humble superintendent of a 

 fishery, and of a plantation undertaken among the bare rocks of Glou- 

 cester, and is forgotten. 



William Brewster, of the Pilgrim band of Plymouth, was an accom- 

 plished scholar, and a man of distinguished talents; in Europe he was 

 enraoed in diplomacv, and was an intimate friend of the minister of 

 Queen Elizabeth, who signed the death-warrant of the beautiful iMary 

 Stuart, Queen of Scotland; but in America he was simply "a ruling 

 elder in the church;" and he, too, has passed from the memory of aU, 

 save the students of history. 



We are now to trace the progress of the fisheries of Massachusetts, 

 and record a serious quarrel at the outset. The circumstances, briefly 

 related, were these : The Pilgrims at Plymouth, and the merchants in 

 England who were interested with them, seem to have built a fishing- 

 stage and provided other accommodations at Cape Ann, in 1624, | 



* Governor Cradock was a member of Parliament for London in 1640. " A descendant, 

 George Cradock, was an iahabitant of Boston in the middle of the last century." — Chron. Mass. 



t This was in 1671, after the second division of Salem, and after the mcoi-poration of Bev- 

 erly, which name was adopted without consulting Conant and Ms friends. He gave two reasons 

 in his petition for a change of the name; one, that the people were constantly nick-named 

 ^beggarly;" and the other, that those who remained with him in the crisis mentioned in the 

 text, as well as himself, were born in " Budleigh." He built the first house in Salem, and his 

 60U Roger was the first white child bom there. He died in Beverly, 1679, at the age of 89. 



t The colony of Plymouth obtained a patent of Cape Ann about the year 1623, and sent 

 vessels there to fish. A " stage," for the accommodation of their fishermen, was built at the 

 Cape in 1624. 



