Captain Standish was sent out to deal with the intruders, and found that they consisted of a little band of fishermen sent out by an obscure Company known as the Dorchester, and included among them, not only Lyford and Oldham of troublous memory, but also the sufferer for righteousness’ sake, Roger Conant, who had long ago left Plymouth on account of his religious opinions, and was now a leader among the new colonists. Brought face to face with his fellow-countrymen, Standish seems to have hesitated how best to deal with them, and to have been persuaded by Conant to leave them unmolested. From this slight incident arose great results. No longer in dread of their lives, Conant and his companions presently removed from the dreary shores of Cape Ann to Naumkeag, now Salem, on the mainland, and there throve so well, that the Dorchester Company was moved to send forth others to their assistance. A patent was obtained from the original New England Company, granting to its rival a tract of country between the rivers Charles and Merrimac, and to this new home a sturdy reformer named John Endicott led forth a few Puritan pilgrims in 1628. In 1629――by which time the numbers of his colony had been doubled, though by what means is not explained――Endicott was joined by John Winthrop with no less than 800 emigrants, who, after resting a while at Salem, dispersed in small parties in various directions within the limits of the territory assigned to them, some among them settling at the Indian village of Mishawan, or the Great Spring, to which the name of Charlestown had been given by a few of Endicott’s settlers a year or two before. In the course of the ensuing year, 1630, when the Dorchester had developed into the more imposing Massachusetts Bay Company, the emigrants received many fresh additions to their numbers; and early in the summer a little party moved from Charlestown to Shawmut Point, where the modern city of Boston now stands. The capital of Massachusetts――which still retains in its quaint, irregular streets something of the impress of its rugged founders, the Puritans――was begun, says Bryant, in a frolic, the first settlers to land on its beach having been a boat-load of young people, who, after a playful struggle as to who should first disembark, yielded that honor to “Anne Pollard, a lively young girl, the first white woman who ever stepped on the spot” so memorable in the history of the United States. Illustration: HOUSE IN BOSTON WHERE THE TEA PLOT IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE ORIGINATED.