As we move beyond the period dominated by the company of merchant adventurers, how are we to characterize this group? What was their usual form of business, and had they other colonial interests besides Plymouth? Did they sympathize with the religious aims of the emigrants, or were they simply indifferent to them as long as profits beckoned? Captain John Smith’s statement that Plymouth was financed by “... about 70. some Merchants, some handy-crafts men, some adventuring great sums, some small, as their estates and affections served,” is revealing, but to discover answers to these questions requires close analysis of the names of the individual subscribers.
This is the complete list of merchants known to have invested in the Colony. It includes the signers of the composition of 1626 as Bradford recorded them in his Letterbook, and, in brackets, five other persons. Names have been rearranged alphabetically. Spellings follow Bradford.
Robert Allden
Emm. Alltham
Richard Andrews
Thomas Andrews
Lawrence Anthony
Edward Bass
John Beauchamp
Thomas Brewer
Henry Browning
William Collier
[Christopher Coulson]
Thomas Coventry
Thomas Fletcher
Thomas Goffe
[William Greene]
Peter Gudburn
Timothy Hatherley
Thomas Heath
William Hobson
Robert Holland
Thomas Hudson
Robert Kean
Eliza Knight
John Knight
Myles Knowles
John Ling
Thomas Millsop
Thomas Mott
Fria. Newbald
[John Peirce]
William Penington
William Penrin
[Edward Pickering]
John Pocock
Daniel Poynton
William Quarles
John Revell
Newman Rookes
Samuel Sharp
James Sherley
John Thorned
Matthew Thornhill
Joseph Tilden
Thomas Ward
[Thomas Weston]
John White
Richard Wright
If Smith’s figure of seventy is correct, the survival of a partial list of subscribers is a handicap, for about one third are completely unknown. Thomas Weston, John Peirce, Edward Pickering, Christopher Coulson, and William Greene should be added to the list. A little less than half have been identified as London merchants, but their major contribution to the Colony’s support entitles them to close inspection. John White was a Puritan lawyer in London, while Emmanuel Altham belonged to a family of landed gentry. Many names are so obscure that it has not proved practicable to seek them out. It may be inferred, however, that the nonmercantile adventurers included some with background in a craft, such as that of the printer, Thomas Brewer. At the time of the Mayflower’s expedition most of the sponsors were relatively young and attained maturity during the two or three decades after 1620, when some became prominent in the City and in the parliamentary opposition to Charles I.
Just as the threads in a tapestry vary in color, but the pattern of the weave repeats itself, so with the detailed circumstances of the careers of the adventurers. Most of those we know belonged to one of London’s livery companies and were citizens. They held company or City offices; some were listed in a particular ward as wealthy enough to be noted by Crown officials as men of substance. One rose to the important role of Lord Mayor. The merchants were engaged in foreign trade and kept a shop or place of business in the heart of London. The crowded, narrow streets and lanes adjoining the widest thoroughfare, Cheapside, or close to the river, near London Bridge, then “replenished on both sides with fair and beautiful buildings, inhabitants for the most part rich merchants,” were their surroundings. They met to settle debts and accounts in the arcades of the handsome building of the Royal Exchange in Cornhill or in one of the taverns. The shipowners among them said goodbye to their captains from the wharves lining the Thames, the famous waterway connecting London with the sea. Some traveled on business to the Netherlands. The members of companies could attend meetings and feasts in a well-appointed hall, such as the Goldsmiths’ in Foster Lane, or on occasion one of the great banquets the Lord Mayor gave at the Guildhall. They worshiped in the numerous parish churches, and doubtless others, besides Robert Keane, often heard lecturers or noted Puritan preachers, such as Hugh Peter. Sherley and Beauchamp, at least, had an additional residence across the river in Surrey; others held lands at some distance from the City. Like all merchants of their time, they were apt to have connections with the gentry; Thomas Andrews was himself knighted by Cromwell for service to the parliamentary cause.
Thomas Andrews, in fact, was one of the most notable merchants attached to the Puritan and parliamentary cause in the English Civil Wars. Although not a member of an older family of wealth, he succeeded in acquiring riches and a leading role in politics and finance under the Commonwealth and Protectorate. In 1638 he became master of the Leathersellers, his company. A share in collecting customs revenue for the Crown provided him with what was usually a profitable investment. Subsequently, he served the City as alderman and arrived at the pinnacle of office as Lord Mayor in 1649. At the beginning of the conflict with the King, this ambitious merchant served on the City’s all-important Militia Committee, which, besides controlling London forces, was “largely responsible for organizing money for the parliamentary army.” One of the committees he served as treasurer, collected about £1,000,000. He helped manage money raised for putting down the Irish Rebellion and by selling lands confiscated from the King and Royalists. Andrews himself contributed huge sums to the parliamentary forces. Both Edward Winslow, a Plymouth colonist, and James Sherley were his fellow members on other commissions, one to judge treasons against the Commonwealth and the other to dismiss ministers and schoolmasters thought to be “insufficient,” i.e., not conforming to Puritan standards. In the later political struggle between the Independents and Presbyterians, Andrews belonged to the Independent party. It is difficult to explain in a short space how these groups differed about church government and politics. Roughly speaking, an English Independent developed ideas of religious toleration, self-government for each congregation, and opposition to a state church, which were rejected by Presbyterians. New Englanders, on the other hand, enforced the congregational form of church government. It is probable that a London merchant who had arrived at the position of Independency by the 1640s would have sympathized earlier with the religious views of the settlers of New England.
Andrews’ business interests were widely scattered in trade, colonization, land speculation, and finance. He joined the effort of the Massachusetts Bay Company to found a Puritan refuge in New England; he agreed to lend it £25 and later became one of a group of “Undertakers” who took over its debts in 1634. In the 1640s he had a crucial role in financing new trades pioneered by the East India Company. As a director of that Company for many years, he was required to own at least £1000 of stock. At one time he invested in a rival syndicate which traded on the Malabar Coast of India; another of its schemes was to plant a colony on the West Coast of Africa. Eventually, Andrews came to co-operate with the Company and rose to be its governor.[22] These varied mercantile enterprises, and they could be extended into land dealings, suggest that the young Thomas Andrews was induced to support the Plymouth venture by calculations of profit as well as initial approval of its religious aims.
On the whole, however, the religious bonds of the London backers of Plymouth Colony have received too little attention and their mercenary objectives have been contrasted too sharply with the purity of motive of the Pilgrims. In the Massachusetts Bay Company, on the other hand, it is acknowledged that the investors shared “Puritan” religious and political ends inspiring them to encourage colonial ventures. This company included among its members nine Londoners who previously had been adventurers in the founding of Plymouth. These were Richard Andrews, Thomas Andrews, just described, Christopher Coulson, Thomas Goffe, Robert Keane, John Pocock, John Revell, Samuel Sharpe, and John White.[23] Let us glance at the background of each and consider its relation to his participation in both plantation schemes.
Richard Andrews persisted in a business career rather than sharing the prominence of his brother in government affairs. He remained interested in Plymouth even after 1626, becoming a partner with the “Undertakers.” Thus, he certainly was not one of the adventurers whom Treasurer Sherley described as offended by the Colony’s form of religious worship. His enthusiasm for New England extended to Massachusetts Bay. He, too, lent it money and entered the syndicate of those who furnished supplies after 1634. He was a member of the Haberdashers’ Company, a renowned sponsor of Puritan preachers. His business was conducted at the sign of the Mermaid near the Cross in Cheapside; this was a well-known tavern in Bread Street with an entrance from Cheapside. Late in the 1620s he owned shares in the ships Rebecca (200 tons), the Jane (200 tons), and the Roebuck (80 tons), all of which received letters of marque to capture pirates. Another of his ships prepared to undertake a voyage to Massachusetts early in 1645. Most of his trading probably was with the Netherlands, where in 1632 his factor ran afoul of Sir Paul Pindar, a wealthy merchant who shared in collecting customs revenue and was privileged to hold a patent for alum. Andrews and the factor were charged with bringing in some alum contrary to Pindar’s patent. In the 1640s Andrews spent several years in Rotterdam, where there was a trading center of the Merchant Adventurers; he may have been a member of that organization selling English cloth abroad. Andrews’ search for profit doubtless helped direct him to invest in New England, but his gifts to the poor and to the ministers of Massachusetts substantiate John Winthrop’s claim that the donor was a “godly man,” consistently dedicated to Puritan causes. He even sent a gift to the Indians to be distributed by John Eliot and Thomas Mayhew. This included “8 little books against swearing,” “3 books against drunkenness,” and “2 dozen of small books called the rule of the New Creature,” all summoning up Puritan themes.[24]
Christopher Coulson was named in Peirce’s suit as an assistant of the New Plymouth Company, but he had withdrawn before the composition. While deciding not to participate in Isaac Allerton’s investment in the Maine fur trade, he did become an assistant of the Bay Company. Coulson was a dyer of cloth. As one of the well-to-do citizens of Dowgate Ward, he served on the City’s Common Council and, with Thomas Andrews, on the Militia Committee.[25]