From Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Winthrop, John (1588-1649). John Winthrop being the leader of the Puritan movement's migration to New England, The Great Migration.
John Winthrop had not joined any of the colonial companies as an adventurer, and the earliest intimation of his leaving the old world for the new is conveyed in a letter of 15 May 1629, in which he says: ‘My deare wife, I am verylye persuaded God will bring some heavye affliction upon this lande, and that speedylye … if the Lord seeth it will be good for us, he will provide a shelter and a hiding-place for us and others, as a Zoar for Lott.’ The dissolution of parliament in 1629 was the moving cause of his discontent, and his decision to cast in his lot with the emigrants was no doubt stimulated by the death of his mother and the loss of his post. He saw everything now through darkened glasses. The land seemed to him to be grown ‘weary of her inhabitants.’ The growth of luxury and extravagance, the increased expenses of education, and the difficulty of providing for children in the liberal arts and professions are all reflected upon in his correspondence at this time. ‘Evil times,’ he concluded, ‘are coming, when the church must fly to the wilderness.’ In June or July 1629 he was carefully preparing a statement of the ‘Reasons to be considered for justifyeing the undertakers of the intended Plantation in New England, and for incouraginge such whose hartes God shall move to joyne with them in it.’ In July he appears to have paid a visit to Isaac Johnson at Sempringham, and the matter was discussed in all its bearings between them. His ‘Reasons’ would seem to have been shown to Sir John Eliot and other prominent leaders of puritan feeling.
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