It could not have been with joy wholly unalloyed with misgivings that this feeble folk learned of a powerful movement for planting a Puritan colony close in the neighborhood. The movement had begun in the heart of the national church, and represented everything that was best in that institution. The Rev. John White, rector of Dorchester, followed across the sea with pastoral solicitude the young men of his parish, who, in the business of the fisheries, were wont to make long stay on the New England coast, far from home and church. His thought was to establish a settlement that should be a sort of depot of supplies for the fishing fleets, and a temporary home attended with the comforts and safeguards of Christian influence. The project was a costly failure; but it was like the corn of wheat falling into the ground to die, and bringing forth much fruit. A gentleman of energy and dignity, John Endicott, pledged his personal service as leader of a new colony. In September, 1628, he landed with a pioneering party at Naumkeag, and having happily composed some differences that arose with the earlier comers, they named the place _Salem_, which is, by interpretation, "Peace." Already, with the newcomers and the old, the well-provided settlement numbered more than fifty persons, busy in preparation for further arrivals. Meanwhile vigorous work was doing in England. The organization to sustain the colony represented adequate capital and the highest quality of character and influence. A royal charter, drawn with sagacious care to secure every privilege the Puritan Company desired, was secured from the fatuity of the reigning Stuart, erecting in the wilderness such a free commonwealth as his poor little soul abhorred; and preparation was made for sending out, in the spring of 1629, a noble fleet of six vessels, carrying three hundred men and a hundred women and children, with ample equipment of provisions, tools and arms, and live stock. The Company had taken care that there should be "plentiful provision of godly ministers." Three approved clergymen of the Church of England--Higginson, Skelton, and Bright--had been chosen by the Company to attend the expedition, besides whom one Ralph Smith, a Separatist minister, had been permitted to take passage before the Company "understood of his difference in judgment in some things" from the other ministers. He was permitted to continue his journey, yet not without a caution to the governor that unless he were found "conformable to the government" he was not to be suffered to remain within the limits of its jurisdiction. An incident of this departure rests on the sole authority of Cotton Mather, and is best told in his own words: