to have been transferred to the Plymouth planters.

This all-important and historic body--the company of Merchant
Adventurers--is entitled to more than passing notice. Associated to
"finance" the projected transplantation of the Leyden congregation of
"Independents" to the "northern parts of Virginia," under such patronage
and protection of the English government and its chartered Companies as
they might be able to secure, they were no doubt primarily brought
together by the efforts of one of their number, Thomas Weston, Esq., the
London merchant previously named, though for some obscure reason Master
John Pierce (also one of them) was their "recognized" representative in
dealing with the (London) Virginia Company and the Council for the
Affairs of New England, in regard to their Patents.

Bradford states that Weston "was well acquainted with some of them the
Leyden leaders and a furtherer of them in their former proceedings,"
and this fact is more than once referred to as ground for their gratitude
and generosity toward him, though where, or in what way, his friendship
had been exercised, cannot be learned,--perhaps in the difficulties
attending their escape from "the north country" to Holland. It was
doubtless largely on this account, that his confident assurances of all
needed aid in their plans for America were so relied upon; that he was so
long and so fully trusted; and that his abominable treachery and later
abuse were so patiently borne.

We are indebted to the celebrated navigator, Captain John Smith, of
Virginia fame, always the friend of the New England colonists, for most
of what we know of the organization and purposes of this Company. His
ample statement, worthy of repetition here, recites, that
"the Adventurers which raised the stock to begin and supply this