been a company of gentle, dreamy and euphemistical saints, with a
particular aptitude for martyrdom and an inordinate development of
affability."

They argued incessantly, at home and abroad, and "this exacting
and tenacious propensity of theirs, was not a little criticized by
some who had business connections with them." Very probably
Governor Belcher had been worsted in some wordy battle, always
decorously conducted, but always persistent, but these minor
infelicities did not affect the main purposes of life, and the
settlement grew in spite of them; perhaps even, because of them,
free speech being, as yet, the privilege of all, though as the
answering became in time a little too free, means were taken to
insure more discretion.

In the meantime Cambridge grew, and suddenly arose a complaint,
which to the modern mind is preposterous. "Want of room" was the
cry of every citizen and possibly with justice, as the town had
been set within fixed limits and had nearly doubled in size
through the addition in August, 1632, of the congregation of the
Rev. Thomas Hooker at Chelmsford in the county of Essex, England,
who had fallen under Laud's displeasure, and escaped with
difficulty, being pursued by the officers of the High Commission
from one county to another, and barely eluding them when he took
ship for New England.

One would have thought the wilderness at their doors afforded
sense of room enough, and that numbers would have been a welcome
change, but the complaint was serious enough to warrant their
sending out men to Ipswich with a view of settling there. Then for