But While Wincob Was A Member Of The
Household Of The Dowager Countess Of Lincoln, Mother Of The Fourth Earl
Of Lincoln; John, the eldest son of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, had married
the Earl's daughter (sister ?), and hence Gorges stood
In a much nearer
relation to the Earl than did his mother's friend and dependant (as
Wincob evidently was), as well as on a much more equal social footing.
By the minutes of the (London) Virginia Company of Wednesday, February 2/
12, 1619/20, it appears that a patent was "allowed and sealed to John
Pierce and his associates, heirs and assigns," for practically the same
territory for which the patent to Wincob had been given but eight months
before. No explanation was offered, and none appears of record, but the
logical conclusion is, that the first patent had been cancelled, that
Master Wincob's personal interest in the Pilgrim exodus had ceased, and
that the Lincoln patronage had been withdrawn. It is a rational
conjecture that Sir Ferdinando Gorges, through the relationship he
sustained to the Earl, procured the withdrawal of Wincob and his patent,
knowing that the success of his (Gorges's) plot would render the Wincob
patent worthless, and that the theft of the colony, in his own interest,
would be likely to breed "unpleasantness" between himself and Wincob's
sponsors and friends among the Adventurers, many of whom were friends of
the Earl of Lincoln.
The Earl of Warwick, the man of highest social and political rank in the
First (or London) Virginia Company, was, at about the same time, induced
by Gorges to abandon his (the London) Company and unite with himself in
securing from the Crown the charter of the "Council of Affairs for New
England." The only inducements he could offer for the change must
apparently have resided in the promised large results of plottings
disclosed by him (Gorges), but he needed the influential and unscrupulous
Earl for the promotion of his schemes, and won him, by some means, to an
active partnership, which was doubtless congenial to both. The "fine
Italian hand" of Sir Ferdinando hence appears at every stage, and in
every phase, of the Leyden movement, from the mission of Weston to
Holland, to the landing at Cape Cod, and every movement clearly indicates
the crafty cunning, the skilful and brilliant manipulation, and the
dogged determination of the man.
That Weston was a most pliant and efficient tool in the hands of Gorges,
"from start to finish" of this undertaking, is certainly apparent.
Whether he was, from the outset, made fully aware of the sinister designs
of the chief conspirator, and a party to them, admits of some doubt,
though the conviction strengthens with study, that he was, from the
beginning, 'particeps criminis'. If he was ever single-minded for the
welfare of the Leyden brethren and the Adventurers, it must have been for
a very brief time at the inception of the enterprise; and circumstances
seem to forbid crediting him with honesty of purpose, even then.
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