and won him, by some means, to an active partnership, which was doubtless congenial to both.  The “fine Italian hand” of Sir Ferdinando hence appears at every stage, and in every phase, of the Leyden movement, from the mission of Weston to Holland, to the landing at Cape Cod, and every movement clearly indicates the crafty cunning, the skilful and brilliant manipulation, and the dogged determination of the man.

That Weston was a most pliant and efficient tool in the hands of Gorges, “from start to finish” of this undertaking, is certainly apparent.  Whether he was, from the outset, made fully aware of the sinister designs of the chief conspirator, and a party to them, admits of some doubt, though the conviction strengthens with study, that he was, from the beginning, ‘particeps criminis’.  If he was ever single-minded for the welfare of the Leyden brethren and the Adventurers, it must have been for a very brief time at the inception of the enterprise; and circumstances seem to forbid crediting him with honesty of purpose, even then.  The weight of evidence indicates that he both knew, and was fully enlisted in, the entire plot of Gorges from the outset.  In all its early stages he was its most efficient promoter, and seems to have given ample proof of his compliant zeal in its execution.  His visit to the Leyden brethren in Holland was, apparently, wholly instigated by Gorges, as the latter complacently claims and collateral evidence proves.  In his endeavor to induce the leaders to “break off with the Dutch,” their pending negotiations for settlement at “Hudson’s River,” he evidently made capital of, and traded upon, his former kindness to some of them when they were in straits,—­a most contemptible thing in itself, yet characteristic of the man.  He led the Pilgrims to “break off” their dealings with the Dutch by the largest and most positive promises of greater advantages through him, few of which he ever voluntarily kept (as we see by John Robinson’s sharp arraignment of him), his whole object being apparently to get the Leyden party into his control and that of his friends,—­the most subtle and able of whom was Gorges.  Bradford recites that Weston not only urged the Leyden leaders “not to meddle with ye Dutch,” but also,—­“not too much to depend on ye Virginia [London] Company,” but to rely on himself and his friends.  This strongly suggests active cooperation with Gorges, on Weston’s part, at the outset, with the intent (if he could win them by any means, from allegiance to the First (London) Virginia Company), to lead the Leyden party, if possible, into Gorges’s hands and under the control and patronage of the Second (or Plymouth) Virginia Company.  Whatever the date may have been, at which (as Bradford states) the Leyden people “heard, both by Mr. Weston and others, yt sundrie Honble:  Lords had obtained a large grante from ye king for ye more northerly parts of that countrie, derived out of ye Virginia patents, and wholly secluded from theire Governmente, and to