from the London Company of Virginia, could not warrant their abode in that place,” which “they found so prosperous and pleasing [sic] they hastened away their ship, with orders to their Solicitor to deal with me to be a means they might have a grant from the Council of New England Affairs, to settle in the place, which was accordingly performed to their particular satisfaction and good content of them all.”  One can readily imagine the crafty smile with which Sir Ferdinando thus guilelessly recorded the complete success of his plot.  It is of interest to note how like a needle to the pole the grand conspirator’s mind flies to the fact which most appeals to him —­that they find “that the authority they had . . . could not warrant their abode in that place.”  It is of like interest to observe that in that place which he called “pleasant and prosperous” one half their own and of the ship’s company had died before they hastened the ship away, and they had endured trial, hardships, and sorrows untellable,—­although from pluck and principle they would not abandon it.  He tells us “they hastened away their ship,” and implies that it was for the chief purpose of obtaining through him a grant of the land they occupied.  While we know that the ship did not return till the following April,—­and then at her Captain’s rather than the Pilgrims’ pleasure,—­it is evident that Gorges could think of events only as incident to his designs and from his point of view.  His plot had succeeded.  He had the “Holland families” upon his soil, and his willing imagination converted their sober and deliberate action into the eager haste with which he had planned that they should fly to him for the patent, which his cunning had—­as he purposed—­rendered necessary.  Of course their request “was performed,” and so readily and delightedly that, recognizing John Pierce as their mouthpiece and the plantation as “Mr. Pierces Plantation,” Sir Ferdinando and his associates—­the “Council for New England,” including his joint-conspirator, the Earl of Warwick—­gave Pierce unhesitatingly whatever he asked.  The Hon. William T. Davis, who alone among Pilgrim historians (except Dr. Neill, whom he follows) seems to have suspected the hand of Gorges in the treachery of Captain Jones, here demonstrated, has suggested that:  “Whether Gorges might not have influenced Pierce, in whose name the patent of the Pilgrims had been issued—­and whether both together might not have seduced Capt.  Jones, are further considerations to be weighed, in solving the problem of a deviation from the intended voyage of the Mayflower.”  Although not aware of these suggestions, either of Mr. Davis or of Dr. Neill, till his own labors had satisfied him of Gorges’s guilt, and his conclusions were formed, the author cheerfully recognizes the priority to his own demonstration, of the suggestions of both these gentlemen.  No thing appears of record, however, to indicate that John Pierce was in any way