"The warm desire of Sir Ferdinando
Gorges to see a permanent colony founded within the domain of the
Plymouth
[Or Second] Virginia Company was to be realized in a manner of
which he had never dreamed [sic!] and by a people with whom he had but
little sympathized, although we know that he favored their settlement
within the territorial limits of the Plymouth [Second] Company." He had
indeed "favored their settlement," by all the craft of which he was
master, and greeted their expected and duly arranged advent with all the
jubilant open-handedness with which the hunter treats the wild horse he
has entrapped, and hopes to domesticate and turn to account. Everything
favored the conspirators. The deflection north-ward from the normal
course of the ship as she approached the coast, bound for the latitude of
the Hudson, required only to be so trifling that the best sailor of the
Pilgrim leaders would not be likely to note or criticise it, and it was
by no means uncommon to make Cape Cod as the first landfall on Virginia
voyages. The lateness of the arrival on the coast, and the difficulties
ever attendant on doubling Cape Cod, properly turned to account, would
increase the anxiety for almost any landing-place, and render it easy to
retain the sea-worn colonists when once on shore. The grand advantage,
however, over and above all else, was the entire ease and certainty with
which the cooperation of the one man essential to the success of the
undertaking could be secured, without need of the privity of any other,
viz.
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