Note Note 4, page 173 — BOOK II. THE PURITAN MIGRATION. (continued 2)

Authors of the Plymouth Government. That group of liberal English statesmen who were charged with keeping "a school of sedition" in the courts of the Virginian Company founded the two centers of liberal institutions in America. The Earl of Southampton, the Ferrars, Sir John Danvers, and above all and more than all, Sir Edwin Sandys, were the fathers of representative government in New England by the charter of February 2, 1620, as they had been of representative government in Virginia by the charter of November 13, 1618. When the Pilgrims found themselves, upon landing, too far north to use their "large patent" from the Virginia Company, they organized a government on the lines laid down in the general order of the company. The government established by them in their famous Compact was precisely the provisional government which the Virginia Company in the preceding February had given them liberty to found "till a form of government be here settled for them." Note 4. Under this compact they proceeded to confirm the election of the governor, already chosen under the authority derived from the charter, now invalid.