The "Lords and Gentlemen" who planned this undertaking included Lord Saye and Sele, Lord Brooke, John Pym, and other well-known men in the Puritan party. They were opposed to the Government in England both in politics and religion, and at one time, when matters went strongly against their party, some of them expected to come to America. It is said that Oliver Cromwell, afterward Lord Protector of England, and John Hampden, his cousin, were among this number. It is at least true that Lieutenant Gardiner was ordered to construct "within the fort" houses suitable for "men of quality" and to erect "some convenient buildings for the receipt of gentlemen." The place was named Saybrook for Lord Saye and Sele and for Lord Brooke. It was not a colony of merchants like the New Haven Colony, nor of farmers like the Connecticut Colony; it was a military post, and it was planned as a refuge in the New World for influential men in public life in England who might be forced to leave their own country. John Winthrop, Jr., who was to be the governor of the settlement, had sent a ship in November with carpenters and other workmen to take possession of the place and to begin building, but when Lieutenant Gardiner arrived at the mouth of the Connecticut in March, he found that not much had been done--only a few trees cut down and a few huts put up. He set to work at once and built a fort "of a kind of timber called 'a read oack,'" and across the neck of land behind the fort he built a "palisade of whole trees set in the ground." The fort was on a point of land running out into the river just above its mouth. There were salt marshes around it, and on three sides it was protected by water. Dutch sailors had first discovered this place and called it "Kievet's Hook" from the cry of the birds (pee-wees) whom they heard there. The Dutch themselves intended to establish a trading-post here, but they were driven away by the arrival of the English. The "Lords and Gentlemen" in England had promised to send Lieutenant Gardiner "three hundred able men" that spring, to help him; "two hundred to attend fortification, fifty to till the ground, and fifty to build houses," but they did not come and he was greatly disappointed. George Fenwick, acting as agent of the company, however, arrived to see how matters were progressing at Saybrook. Fenwick was the only one of the Puritan "gentlemen" who ever came to New England; for conditions were rapidly changing in English politics, and their party was soon engaged in a struggle with the Government that kept all its prominent leaders at home. But although Lion Gardiner was left without enough workmen and with few supplies, he made the most of his resources, and his little fort, built under such difficulties, soon became an important place because of the protection it gave to the planters against the Indians. [Illustration: THE SITE OF SAYBROOK FORT]