=38. Government of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay.=—The new “Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England” was ostensibly to engage in trade, but in reality its founders intended to form a religious commonwealth. This could be easily done, since somehow or other no proviso that the Company should have its headquarters in England was inserted in the charter. Thus it was possible to transport the Company bodily to New England, and this a number of prominent Puritans, at a meeting held at Cambridge in 1629, agreed to do. There was to be no violent separation from the Established Church except such as was caused by distance; but uncongenial practices would be avoided, and the heavy hand of Archbishop Laud, then the strenuous Primate of England, would hardly reach across the sea. Thus many men of wealth and education, whose conservatism would naturally have prevented their taking rash steps in their opposition to the Crown, were led to join in the Massachusetts enterprise. In April, 1630, eleven vessels sailed for America, and by the end of the year about a thousand persons had emigrated to the new colony and founded such towns as Boston, Charlestown, and Watertown. They chose as governor a wealthy and highly educated Suffolk gentleman, John Winthrop,[29] and under his able administration the colony began a career of great prosperity and importance. * * * * * REFERENCES.—GENERAL WORKS: To the list already given may be added: Bryant and Gay, _Popular History of the United States_; H. C. Lodge, _Short History of the English Colonies in America_; Richard Frothingham, _Rise of the Republic of the United States_. SPECIAL WORKS: J. Fiske, _Beginnings of New England_; J. Fiske, _Old Virginia and Her Neighbors_; J. G. Palfrey, _History of New England_; W. B. Weeden, _Economic History of New England_; P. A. Bruce. _Economic History of Virginia_; A. Brown, _Genesis of the United States_; J. E. Cooke, _Virginia_ (“American Commonwealths”); R. C. Winthrop, _Life and Letters of John Winthrop_; E. Eggleston, _Transit of Civilization_.