Moreover,
The Chief Conspirators Were Such, That, Even If The Plot Was Ultimately
Suspected By The Pilgrims, A Wise Policy - Indeed, Self-Preservation
- Would Have Dictated Their Silence.
That the Dutch were without
sufficient motive or interest has been declared.
That the States General
could have had no wish to reject so exceptionally excellent a body of
colonists as subjects, and as tenants to hold and develop their disputed
territory - if in position to receive them and guarantee them protection
- is clear. The sole objection that could be urged against them was their
English birth, and with English regiments garrisoning the Dutch home
cities, and foreigners of every nation in the States General's employ, by
land and by sea, such an objection could have had no weight. Indeed, the
Leyden party proposed, if they effected satisfactory arrangements with
the States General (as stated by the Directors of the New Netherland
Company), "to plant there [at "Hudson's River"] a new commonwealth, all
under the order and command of your Princely Excellency and their High
Mightinesses the States General:" The Leyden Pilgrims were men who kept
their agreements.
The Dutch trading-companies, who were the only parties in the Low
Countries who could possibly have had any motive for such a conspiracy,
were at this time themselves without charters, and the overtures of the
principal company, made to the government in behalf of themselves and the
Leyden brethren, had recently, as we have seen, been twice rejected.
They had apparently, therefore, little to hope for in the near future;
certainly not enough to warrant expenditure and the risk of disgraceful
exposure, in negotiations with a stranger - an obscure ship-master - to
change his course and land his passengers in violation of the terms of
his charter-party; - negotiations, moreover, in which neither of the
parties could well have had any guaranty of the other's good faith.
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