The history of the town of Dorchester, Massachusetts, By a committee of the Dorchester antiquarian and historical society ...

HISTORY OF DORCHESTER. 15
shores already familiar to them, when the edicts of
the star chamber and the despotism of the hierarchy
first suggested the idea of emigration. Mr. White
was -the rector of Trinity parish, Dorchester, in Dorsetshire; and though he had not renounced the episcopal form of worship at the time of the pilgrimage
to Plymouth, in 1620, he sympathized strongly with
that movement, and actually assisted the undertaking
by pecuniary aid, his name being the first on the
list of adventurers in that expedition. His residence
at Dorchester also brought him into daily contact
with the persons engaged in the New England fisheries, and in 1623 he joined an association of adventurers in his neighborhood, who raised ~3000
sterling, for the purpose of making a settlement on
the shores of New England. His motives were probablydifferent from those of his associates,who doubtless had purposes of business in view; but, in the
language of Bancroft, " Mr. White breathed into the
enterprise a higher principle than the desire of gain."
He had for some years cherished the thought of
forming a community in New England, where all
who felt themselves aggrieved by religious or political persecution might find an asylum. This association sent several vessels into the Bay in 1624, and
landed some 30 or 40 men at Cape Ann, the place
selected for the settlement. This plantation was
continued about two years, when misconduct among
the people and great pecuniary loss to the undertakers, discouraged them, and Mr. Roger Conant,
superintendent of the enterprise, with a few of the
remaining settlers, removed to Salem, with the rem