Very likely the inexpensive contemporary pamphlets which extolled the benefits of different parts of America helped the leaders at Leyden to fix upon a site. They probably read, for example, the descriptive brochures which the Virginia Company of London had issued in connection with drives to raise money. Robert Harcourt’s _A Relation of a Voyage to Guiana_ (1614) may have seriously tempted them to put to the test the fruitful promise of tropical South America, but they were put off by its unhealthy climate. Captain John Smith’s tract on New England (1616), which Elder Brewster had in his library at the time of his death, was consulted. Later, the Captain attributed the hardships suffered at Plymouth to the settlers’ parsimony in using his “books and Maps ... better cheap” than employing him in person as a guide and counsellor. In the long discussions which preceded any action, it was objected that settling too near the colony at Jamestown ran the risk of Anglican religious persecution; on the other hand, it might be dangerous to be far from help in case the Spaniards, the persistent enemies of English expansion, attacked their infant colony. In the end, “the Lord was solemnly sought in the Congregation by fasting and prayer to direct us ...,” and it was decided to plant inside the bounds of Virginia.[2] John Carver and Robert Cushman, trusted members of the group, were the agents selected to approach the political authorities and the Virginia Company in London. They had to negotiate first the delicate matter of how much religious toleration they would be allowed if they went to Virginia. They sought help from influential friends in the inner circle of the Company. Sir Edwin Sandys and Sir John Wolstenholme intervened with the King and Privy Council to secure approval of a statement of religious beliefs forwarded from Leyden to London. Sandys, a leading colonial promoter, was treasurer of the Company after 1619. As a wealthy merchant, whose financial interests included the colony in Virginia, Wolstenholme was often consulted by the government on commercial matters. Even the good offices of these important men were not enough to win the approval of the royal or ecclesiastical authorities. Not that the King himself, James I, was entirely unfriendly to their plans. In a conversation with his Secretary of State he is reported to have asked how the colony intended to support itself. At the reply, “By fishing,” he was said to have exclaimed; “So God have my soul, ’tis an honest trade, ’twas the apostles’ own calling.”[3]