Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 313; Acts of the United Colonies, vol. II, p. 65 (_Plymouth Records_, X). These Acts, vols. I and II, form vols. IX and X of the _Plymouth Records_, and are hereafter cited as _Acts United Colonies_. J. R. Brodhead, _History State of New York_, vol. I, p. 204, gives the month as June; but the Records say January. Various Dutch documents, all of a later period, state that a settlement was contemplated, and possession taken, in 1623. _Cf._ _Documentary History State of New York_, vol. III, p. 50; _N. Y. Colonial Docts._, vols. I, pp. 286, 360, and II, p. 133. There is, however, no contemporary documentary evidence of it; and it is certain, at least, that there was no settlement actually made until that designed to forestall the English in 1633. Footnote 459: Bradford, Plymouth, pp. 313 f. The Dutch side of the case is given in _Acts United Colonies_, _ubi supra_. Meanwhile, on the same day on which Winthrop recorded in his Journal the results of the Massachusetts expedition to Connecticut, he also entered the arrival of the ship Griffin, eight weeks from England, with John Cotton, Thomas Hooker, Samuel Stone, and John Haynes among her passengers. Cotton, as we have seen, remained in Boston, but the others immediately went on to Newtown, where a body of Hooker's English congregation had preceded him by a year.[460] Of this transplanted body, Hooker and Stone now became pastor and teacher. It is not likely that Hooker, with the political views he possessed, could have found the Massachusetts atmosphere congenial; and a year later, he and his congregation applied to the General Court for permission to remove to Connecticut. The reasons they gave were the lack of land for expansion at Newtown, the fear that otherwise Connecticut might fall into the hands of other English or the Dutch, and, lastly, “the strong bent of their spirits to remove thither.” The Court, however, refused the petition, alleging many reasons, which, in the main, came to the fear that such a defection would weaken the colony, and tend to draw away future emigrants from it.[461] In the debates on the subject, a majority of the deputies were in favor of allowing Hooker and his party to leave if they wished, while a majority of the magistrates opposed it. This raised the question whether the magistrates could veto a vote of the more numerous body of deputies, which was the more popular and democratic of the two. As the result of a sermon preached by Cotton the contest, which had promised to become bitter, was postponed, and the Newtown settlers were granted additional land in their present neighborhood.[462] The incident is interesting, not only as marking the beginning of the political struggle between the two elements in the legislature, which we shall have occasion to follow later, but also as an early example of that fear which the East has always had of the growth of its western frontier and its desire to check it.