for “hiring away the Company’s men, Lord Warwick got him off” on the claim that he had employed him “to go to Virginia with cattle.”  From the “Transactions” of the Second Virginia Company, of which—­as we have seen—­Sir Ferdinando Gorges was the leading spirit, it appears that on “February 2, 1619/20, a commission was allowed Captain Thomas Jones of the Falcon, a ship of 150 tons” [he having been lately released from arrest by the Earl of Warwick’s intercession], and that “before the close of the month, he sailed with cattle for Virginia,” as previously noted.  Dr. Neill, than whom there can be no better authority, was himself satisfied, and unequivocally states, that “Thomas Jones, Captain of the may-Flower, was without doubt the old servant of Lord Warwick in the East Indies.”  Having done Sir Robert Rich’s (the Earl of Warwick’s) “dirty work” for years, and having on all occasions been saved from harm by his noble patron (even when piracy and similar practices had involved him in the meshes of the law), it would be but a trifling matter, at the request of such powerful friends as the Earl and Sir Ferdinando Gorges, to steal the Pilgrim Colony from the London Virginia Company, and hand it over bodily to the “Council for New England,”—­the successor of the Second (Plymouth) Virginia Company,—­in which their interests were vested, Warwick having, significantly, transferred his membership from the London Company to the new “Council for New England,” as it was commonly called.  Neill states, and there is abundant proof, that “the Earl of Warwick and Gorges were in sympathy,” and were active coadjutors, while it is self-evident that both would be anxious to accomplish the permanent settlement of the “Northern Plantations” held by their Company.  That they would hesitate to utilize so excellent an opportunity to secure so very desirable a colony, by any means available, our knowledge of the men and their records makes it impossible to believe,—­while nothing could apparently have been easier of accomplishment.  It will readily be understood that if the conspirators were these men,—­upon whose grace the Pilgrims must depend for permission to remain upon the territory to which they had been inveigled, or even for permission to depart from it, without spoliation, —­men whose influence with the King (no friend to the Pilgrims) was sufficient to make both of them, in the very month of the Pilgrims’ landing, “governors” of “The Council for New England,” under whose authority the Planters must remain,—­the latter were not likely to voice their suspicions of the trick played upon them, if they discovered it, or openly to resent it, when known.  Dr. Dexter, in commenting on the remark of Bradford, “We made Master Jones our leader, for we thought it best herein to gratifie his kindness & forwardness,” sensibly says, “This proves nothing either way, in regard to the charge which Secretary Morton makes of treachery against Jones, in landing the company