The Essential
Fact, Stated On This Best Of Authority, Is, That "Mr. Weston And The
Chiefe Of Them [Their Sponsors,
I.e. Weston and Lord Warwick, both in
league with Gorges] begane to incline to Gorges's new Council for New
England." Such an attitude (evidently taken insidiously) meant, on
Weston's part, of necessity, no less than treachery to his associates of
the Adventurers; to the (London) Virginia Company, and to the Leyden
company and their allied English colonists, in the interest of Sir
Ferdinando Gorges and his schemes and of the new "Council" that Gorges
was organizing. Weston's refusal to advance "a penny" to clear the
departing Pilgrims from their port charges at Southampton; his almost
immediate severance of connection with both the colonists and the
Adventurers; and his early association with Gorges, - in open and
disgraceful violation of all the formers' rights in New England, - to say
nothing of his exhibition of a malevolence rarely exercised except toward
those one has deeply wronged, all point to a complete and positive
surrender of himself and his energies to the plot of Gorges, as a full
participant, from its inception. In his review of the Anniversary Address
of Hon. Charles Francis Adams (of July 4, 1892, at Quincy), Daniel W.
Baker, Esq., of Boston, says: "The Pilgrim Fathers were influenced in
their decision to come to New England by Weston, who, if not the agent of
Gorges in this particular matter, was such in other matters and held
intimate relations with him."
The known facts favor the belief that Gorges's cogitations on colonial
matters - especially as stimulated by his plottings in relation to the
Leyden people - led to his project of the grant - and charter for the new
"Council for New England," designed and constituted to supplant, or
override, all others.
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