TJie West India Company and the Walloons. 61 



It is not to be wondered at therefore, that the Puritan felt less at 

 home than any of the other religious refugees that found an asylum 

 in Holland, and that his thoughts early turned to America as the 

 place where his religious views could be fully carried out without in- 

 terference or objection; since there he would be the maker and the 

 executor of the laws. And the circumstances that determined his 

 final choice as well as the choice of the "Walloons are well worthy of 



The Puritan, shortly after the settlement at Jamestown had been 

 fairly established, had carefully considered the practicability of mak- 

 ing his home in some portion of the territory granted by King James 

 I to the two Virginia Companies, the London and Plymouth. But 

 there were difficulties in the way; if they settled in the English colony 

 at Jamestown they feared they would be subjected to the same perse- 

 cutions that had been their lot in England; and if they settled 

 too far away from the English colony, they would not be able to re- 

 ceive the aid and protection they needed from the colony. After much 

 weighing of the question, they finally decided boldly to ask the Lon- 

 don Company for permission to settle in some uninhabited portion of 

 their territory, preferring the wild beast and wilder Indian of the 

 wilderness to the bigotry, as they considered it, of the settlement. To 

 obtain this necessary consent of the Virginia Company, John Carver 

 and Thomas Cushman were sent to London; and for fear that their 

 application would bring to mind their peculiar history, and so arouse 

 opposition, a declaration was prepared, signed by the pastor and elder, 

 wherein they gave their full assent to all the doctrines of the Church 

 of England, and their acknowledgment of the king's supremacy and 

 the obedience due to him; their recognition of the lawful relation of 

 church and state, and their disavowal of any authority inherent in any 

 assembly of ecclesiastical officers, except as the same was conferred by 

 the civil magistrate. 



The Virginia Company were well disposed toward the Puritan com- 

 missioners; and they on their return made so favorable a report of 

 their mission, that Carver and another were sent over to negotiate 

 still further with the king and the company. But the business lagged 

 and could not be brought to a successful termination; and their in- 

 dependent views led to a suspicion in the minds of the court, that they 

 intended to make a free popular State, and the king was unwilling to 

 countenance the scheme; so that the delegates on their return were 

 forced to advise that the patent be taken on the evident assurance of 

 the king, " that he would connive at them and not molest them pro- 

 9 



