Page:Readings in European History Vol 2.djvu/263

 Struggle fo r Constitu tio?ial Government 225 During the latter part of James' reign and under Charles I, emigration to Holland and New England was promoted by the conditions in England. 1 John Winthrop, a gentleman of Suffolk who was to become governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, gives the following " Reasons to be considered for justifying the undertakers of the intended plantation in New England," (1629). 1. It will be a service to the Church of great consequence to carry the gospel into those parts of the world, to help on the coming of the fullness of the Gentiles, and to raise a bulwark against the kingdom of Antichrist which the Jesuits labor to rear up in those parts. 2. All other churches of Europe are brought to desola- tion, and our sins, for which the Lord begins already to frown upon us and to cut us short, do threaten evil times to be coming upon us ; and who knows but that God hath pro- vided this place to be a refuge for many whom he means to save out of the general calamity, and seeing the Church hath no place left to fly into but the wilderness, what better work can there be than to go and provide tabernacles and food for her against she comes thither ? 3. This land grows weary of her inhabitants, so as man, who is the most precious of all creatures, is here more vile and base than the earth we tread upon, and of less price among us than an horse or a sheep ; masters are forced by authority to entertain servants, parents to maintain their own children ; all towns complain of the burden of their poor, though we have taken up many unnecessary — yea, unlawful — trades to maintain them, and we use the author- ity of the law to hinder the increase of our people, as by urging the statute against cottages and inmates, and thus it is come to pass that children, servants, and neighbors, 1 See the remarkable account by William Bradford of the voyage of the Mayflower in 1620, given in Colby, Sources of English History, pp. 184 sqq. 306. Con- ditions in England in 1629 which encouraged emigration to America.