tion. His tract is entitled A Discovery of the Errors of the English Anabaptists: and there is further the strong presumption that he is the Francis Jessop, a prominent member of Robinson's church at Leyden, whose name stands first in a joint letter from the Leyden people to their brethren at New Plymouth announcing the death of Robinson. This was in 1625. The other names are Thomas Nash, Thomas Blossom, Roger White, and Richard Maisterson. Three vessels at different periods had conveyed members of the Leyden congregation and their families to New Plymouth. These persons as well as their pastor Robinson had not taken that step. They were ever intending to go, but were hindered. They stood on tip-toe," but there is no reason to believe that Jessop, who was then sixty years of age, ever took that step, but rather that he returned to England and died here. We have direct and positive evidence on which to show two other persons who were members of the Separatist Church before it left England. RICHARD JACKSON and Jackson and Rochester both of Scrooby, Separatists. These were, ROBERT ROCHESTER. They were both inhabitants of Scrooby, and both included with Brewster in the penalties imposed by the Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical in 1608. I have not seen any other notice of them. The proceedings of the Separatists were opposition to the law as it then stood, and can only be justified on the ground that in affairs so sacred and important as those in pointed The proceed- ings which the took, contrary to law. of religion, there is a law which is above all human institutions, to which every man is bound to be obedient, when its requirements are made manifest to his own understanding. A principle full of danger, for who is equal to discern for himself that pure and perfect way! Yet the wrong, if wrong there was, was not so great as that done by the legislature, which, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth passed the act, "for the punishment of persons obstinately refusing to come to church." Conformity to what is the national will in affairs such as these, is indeed desirable; but this was purchasing conformity at far too dear a rate; and so the nation in a wiser age was brought to think, and the toleration under which Separatists now live, became part of the law of the land. Of course while such a law existed, conduct like that of Brewster and his friends could not long be permitted; and could not long be connived at, for doubtless amongst that generous body of Animadverted upon. men, who administered the law in the provinces, there were many who, though they took no part in such proceedings, and did not approve of them, were unwilling to oppress under such a statute some of their neighbours whose only fault may have been, that they had an overstrained or ill-informed conscientiousness, while they discharged well their other duties under a deep sense of their responsibility. Bradford speaks in general terms of the people being harassed, as well as of the ministers, who stirred them up, being silenced; but he gives us no particular instances, not even showing us what happened to Brewster himself. Nor have I been able to discover more than one particular instance of the law being brought to bear on any of these Basset-Lawe nonconformists, besides the Proceeding of silencing of some of the Ministers. Toby sioners for Ec- Matthew, Archbishop of York, in the return which he made to the Exchequer, the Commis clesiastical causes. on the 13th of November, 1608, of the fines which had been imposed within his diocese in the preceding year, for the purpose of the fines being levied, inserted the following: Richard Jackson, William Brewster, and Robert Rochester, of Scrooby, in the county of Nottingham, Brownists or Separatists, for a fine or amercement of £20. a piece set and imposed upon every of them by Robert Abbot and Robert Snowden, Doctors of Divinity, and Matthew Dodsworth,59 Bachelor of Law, Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical within the province of York, for not appearing before them upon lawful summons at the Collegiate Church of Southwell, the 22d day of April, anno Domini 1608—£60.” Before this return was made to the Exchequer, the Basset-Lawe Separatists had formed the resolution to seek in another country that protection and toleration which were denied to them at home; and they saw at no great distance another country where was a public toleration of all forms of Protestantism. Holland; and the track had been trod for them by several persons of like sentiments with themselves; first, people from This was The Scrooby Church decides upon emigra tion. 59 These Commissioners were persons of note at the time. Dr. Robert Abbot became Bishop of Salisbury; Dr. Robert Snowden, a Nottinghamshire man and a Prebendary in the church of Southwell, was afterwards Bishop of Carlisle; Dodsworth was the father of Roger Dodsworth, the great charter antiquary, and principal collector of the materials for the Monasticon. London and the neighbourhood, and next their own neighbours and friends, the members of Smith's Gainsborough Church. We have no means of judging of the precise number of persons who formed this determination, but there were probably several hundreds of them, their leaders being Robinson, Clifton, Brewster, and I will add Bradford, youth though he was. In a country so thinly peopled, and where striking events were of but rare occurrence, the sudden removal of such a number of persons would be a remarkable occurrence, and would necessarily draw upon them much of public attention. Bradford speaks of the excitement which was occasioned by it, and the surprise which was expressed at the sight of so many persons of all ranks and conditions parting with their possessions, and going in a body to another country of whose very language they were ignorant. Some carried with them portions of their household goods, and some, it is said, looms which they had used at home. Yet there was nothing of ostentation in their proceedings. On the contrary, the expatrisecretly, but ation was sought to be silently effected. Mean to go hindered at Boston. They were to go in two parties, one from |