Most London Puritans whose interests embraced first Plymouth and then Massachusetts Bay were merchants, but one was a prominent lawyer of the Middle Temple. This was “Counsellor” John White, so called to distinguish him from the minister, John White of Dorchester, another leader in New England colonization. The lawyer John White became an investor in the latter’s enterprise, the Dorchester Company. Many activities mark him as a sympathizer with nonconformity, but his record with the New Plymouth venture suggests that he was one of the adventurers opposed to Separatism. While these were debating hotly the treatment Bradford had meted out to Lyford, partly for his use of the Book of Common Prayer, the faction favoring Lyford chose John White to be moderator in their interest. On terminating his interest in Plymouth in 1626, he perhaps was the lawyer John Peirce chose to arbitrate in his behalf in the course of his lawsuit against the adventurers. By becoming one of the Lay Feoffees, a group of trustees raising money to support the preachers they favored in the churches, White lent his name to one of the most dangerous of the Puritan efforts to oppose the policy of strict conformity insisted on by English authorities. He attended meetings of the early Massachusetts Bay Company and perhaps at one time contemplated emigration to New England, as suggested by one of John Winthrop’s correspondents. Remaining in London, he became a strong influence instead in settling such difficult problems as whether the prospective emigrants or the London merchants were to control the joint stock. A friend of Winthrop wrote in 1640 of this consistent friend of Massachusetts: “... there is so little money stirring to be exc[h]anged for the Plantation and so many hands to catch for it, that there is no hopes of obtaining any ... nor of Mr. White the Lawyer ... it being disposed some other way....” John White’s greatest service to Puritanism and the parliamentary cause came when he was chosen to serve for Southwark in the Long Parliament. There he presided over two committees, one to replace “scandalous” ministers with Puritan preachers, and the other to care for ministers who had been “plundered” by the preceding government. A little of the affectionate regard in which he was held may be observed in that when he died in 1645, the House of Commons accompanied his body to Middle Temple Church for burial.[31] So much for the investors in both the New England colonies. What we know of the other New Plymouth adventurers does not contradict the sketch set forth of men of moderate prosperity or wealth, Puritan in religious outlook, and usually of some prominence in the City’s affairs in the period of the Civil Wars. It remains to discuss more fully the two merchants who, along with Richard Andrews, did most to maintain the credit of the Plymouth “Undertakers” after 1627. These were John Beauchamp and James Sherley.