The remaining sixteen years of his life
were spent quietly in England in writing books, publishing maps, and
otherwise stimulating the public interest in the colonization of the New
World. But as for the rocky coast of New England, which he had explored
and named, he declared that he was not so simple as to suppose that any
other motive than riches would "ever erect there a commonwealth or draw
company from their ease and humours at home, to stay in New England."
[Sidenote: John Smith]
In this opinion, however, the bold explorer was mistaken. Of all
migrations of peoples the settlement of New England is preeminently
the one in which the almighty dollar played the smallest part, however
important it may since have become as a motive power. It was left for
religious enthusiasm to achieve what commercial enterprise had failed
to accomplish. By the summer of 1617 the Pilgrim society at Leyden had
decided to send a detachment of its most vigorous members to lay
the foundations of a Puritan state in America. There had been much
discussion as to the fittest site for such a colony. Many were in favour
of Guiana, which Sir Walter Raleigh had described in such glowing
colours; but it was thought that the tropical climate would be
ill-suited to northern men of industrious and thrifty habit, and the
situation, moreover, was dangerously exposed to the Spaniards.
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