[Weston Wrote Bradford, April 10, 1622, "I Perceive And Know As Well
As Another Ye Disposition Of Your Adventurers, Whom
Ye hope of gaine
hath drawne on to this they have done; and yet I fear ye hope will
not
Draw them much further." While Weston's character was utterly
bad, and he had then alienated his interest in both Pilgrims and
Adventurers, his judgment of men was evidently good.]
No complete list of the original "seventy" has ever been found, and we
are indebted for the names of forty-two, of the fifty who are now known,
to the final "Composition" made with the Pilgrim colonists, through the
latter's representatives, November 15/25, 1626, as given by Bradford,
and to private research for the rest. The list of original members of the
company of Merchant Adventurers, as ascertained to date, is as follows.
More extended mention of them appears in the notes appended to this list.
Robert Allden, Thomas Fletcher, Emanuel Altham, Thomas Goffe, Richard
Andrews, Peter Gudburn, Thomas Andrews, William Greene, Lawrence Anthony,
Timothy Hatherly, Edward Bass, Thomas Heath, John Beauchamp, William
Hobson, Thomas Brewer, Robert Holland, Henry Browning, Thomas Hudson,
William Collier, Robert Keayne, Thomas Coventry, Eliza Knight,
John Knight, John Revell, Miles Knowles, Newman Rookes, John Ling, Samuel
Sharpe, Christopher Martin(Treasurer pro tem.), James Shirley
(Treasurer), Thomas Millsop, William Thomas, Thomas Mott, John Thornell
William Mullens, Fria Newbald, Matthew Thornell William Pennington,
William Penrin. Joseph Tilden, Edward Pickering, Thomas Ward, John
Pierce, John White, John Pocock, John Wincob, Daniel Poynton, Thomas
Weston, William Quarles, Richard Wright.
Shirley, in a letter to Governor Bradford, mentions a Mr. Fogge and a Mr.
Coalson, in a way to indicate that they might have been, like himself,
Collier, Thomas, Hatherly, Beauchamp, and Andrews, also of the original
Merchant Adventurers, but no proof that they were such has yet been
discovered. It has been suggested that Sir Edwin Sandys was one of the
number, at the inception of the enterprise, but - though there is evidence
to indicate that he stood the friend of the Pilgrims in many ways,
possibly lending them money, etc. - there is no proof that he was ever
one of the Adventurers. It is more probable that certain promoters of
Higginson's and Winthrop's companies, some ten years later, were early
financial sponsers of the MAY-FLOWER Pilgrims. Some of them were
certainly so, and it is likely that others not known as such, in reality,
were. Bradford suggests, in a connection to indicate the possibility of
his having been an "Adventurer," the name of a "Mr. Denison," of whom
nothing more is known. George Morton of London, merchant, and friend of
the leaders from the inception, and later a colonist, is sometimes
mentioned as probably of the list, but no evidence of the fact as yet
appears. Sir George Farrer and his brother were among the first of the
Adventurers, but withdrew themselves and their subscriptions very early,
on account of some dissatisfaction.
It is impossible, in the space at command, to give more than briefest
mention of each of these individual Adventurers.
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