Note 124 — MORTON OF MERRY-MOUNT.

William Jeffreys was one of the Robert Gorges Company. He had contributed to the cost of arresting Morton in 1628 and sending him to England. Morton, in writing to him, could not but have been aware of this; but not improbably, during the time of his return to Mount Wollaston in 1630, he had seen more of Jeffreys, and found that he too, like the rest of the “old planters,” looked on the Massachusetts Company with jealousy and apprehension. At that time, indeed, Jeffreys was in active correspondence with Gorges, and outspoken in his complaints. (IV. Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. vi. p. 3.) Hence the familiarity of the address. It is apparent from the letter, however, that Morton, when he wrote it, was so sure of his position and so elated with a sense of his own importance that he could not contain himself. He could not resist the desire to let his old acquaintances in America know what an important personage he had become, and he probably hoped they would show the letter to Winthrop and every one else. It was a childish outbreak of delight and vanity.