the same ship, with his father, and was accidentally drowned at Salem, July 2, 1630.  In the first letter which the good Governor wrote to his wife after his landing here, dated “Charlestown, July 16, 1630,” are these sentences:—­“We have met with many sad & discomfortable things, as thou shalt hear after; & ye Lord’s hand hath been heavy upon myself in some very near to me.  My son Henry! my son Henry! ah, poor child!” While the father was writing from London to this son, then supposed to be at Barbadoes, he had other matters of anxiety.  His endeared brother-in-law, Fones, died, April 15, 1629, and four days afterwards Winthrop was called to part, at Groton, with his venerated mother, who died under the roof where she had lived so happily and graciously with his own family in his successive sorrows and delights.

The loss or resignation of his office, with the giving up of his law-chamber in London, and his evident premonitions of the sore troubles in affairs of Church and State which were soon to convulse his native land, doubtless guided him to a decision, some of the stages and incidents of which have left no record for us.  Enough, however, of the process may still be traced among papers which have recently come to light, to open to us its inner workings, and to explain its development.  A ride with his brother Downing into Lincolnshire, July 28, 1629, finds an entry in Winthrop’s “Experiences,” that it may mark his gratitude to the Providence which preserved his life, when, as he writes, “my horse fell under me in a bogge in the fennes, so as I was allmost to ye waiste in water.”  Beyond all doubt this ride was taken by the sympathizing travellers on a prearranged visit to Isaac Johnson, another of the New-England worthies, at Sempringham, on business connected with the Massachusetts enterprise.  But the first recovered and extant document which proves that Winthrop was committing himself to the great work is a letter of his son John’s, dated London, August 21, 1629, in reply to one from his father, which, it is evident from the tenor of the answer, had directly proposed the embarking of the interest of the whole family in the enterprise.  A certain mysterious paper of “Conclusions,” referred to by the son, had been inclosed in the father’s letter, which appears to be irrecoverable.  There has been much discussion, with rival and contested claims and pleas, as to the authorship of that most valuable and critical document containing the propositions for the enterprise, with reasons and grounds, objections and answers.  Our author urges, with force of arguments and the evidence of authentic papers, entirely to our satisfaction, that John Winthrop was essentially and substantially the digester and exponent of those pregnant considerations.  The correspondence which follows proves how conscientiously the enterprise was weighed, and the reasons and objections debated.  Godly ministers were consulted for their advice and cooeperation.  No opposition or withholding of