"In 1607 [this should read 1608], disheartened by the death
of Popham, they all embarked in a ship from
Exeter and in the new
pynnace, the 'VIRGINIA,' built in the colony, and sett sail for England,
and this was the end of that northern colony upon the river Sachadehoc
[Kennebec]."
No one knew better than the shrewd Gorges the value of such a colony as
that of the Leyden brethren would be, to plant, populate, and develop his
Company's great demesne. None were more facile than himself and the
buccaneering Earl of Warwick, to plan and execute the bold, but - as it
proved - easy coup, by which the Pilgrim colony was to be stolen bodily;
for the benefit of the "Second Virginia Company" and its successor,
"the Council for New England," from the "First (or London) Company,"
under whose patent (to John Pierce) and patronage they sailed. They
apparently did not take their patent with them, - it would have been
worthless if they had, - and they were destined to have no small trouble
with Pierce, before they were established in their rights under the new
patent granted him (in the interest of the Adventurers and themselves),
by the "Council for New England." Master John Wincob's early and silent
withdrawal from his apparently active connection with the Pilgrim
movement, and the evident cancellation of the first patent issued to him
in its interest, by the (London) Virginia Company, have never been
satisfactorily explained. Wincob (or Wincop), we are told, "was a
religious Gentleman, then belonging to the household of the Countess of
Lincoln, who intended to go with them [the Pilgrims] but God so disposed
as he never went, nor they ever made use of this Patent, which had cost
them so much labor and charge." Wincob, it appears by the minutes of the
(London) Virginia Company of Wednesday, May 26/June 5, 1619, was
commended to the Company, for the patent he sought, by the fourth Earl of
Lincoln, and it was doubtless through his influence that it was granted
and sealed, June 9/19, 1619.
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