R. C. Winthrop, _J. Winthrop_, vol. II, p. 430. I have modernized the spelling. Footnote 340: Hutchinson, _History_, Appendix, vol. I, p. 437. While the latter were thus attempting to found and maintain an aristocracy or oligarchy to guard a church polity which was unconsciously but implicitly democratic,[341] their position was rendered precarious at the very outset, and increasingly so as time went on, by the necessary presence in the colony of that large unenfranchised class which was not in sympathy with them. As we have seen, even under strong social and political temptation, three quarters of the population, though probably largely Puritan in sentiment and belief, persistently refused to ally themselves with the New England type of Puritan church. Their presence in the colony was undoubtedly due to economic motives, more especially, perhaps, the desire to own their lands in fee. It must also have been due to economic considerations on the part of the Puritan rulers. The planting of a Bible-Commonwealth might have been possible without these non-church members, but the creation of a prosperous and populous state was not, as was evidenced by statistics throughout its life. Even of the first thousand who came with Winthrop, it is probable that many were without strong religious motives; that few realized the plans of the leaders; and it is practically certain that the great bulk of them had never seen the charter. Footnote 341: _Cf._ H. L, Osgood, “Political Ideas of the Puritans”; _Political Science Quarterly_, vol. VI, p. 21.