His house was the resort of all the zealous clergy of the party; and his hospitality, as well as his liberalities to the silenced and deprived ministers, proved as chargeable as his former debaucheries.

Though he had acquired a tolerable fortune by a maternal uncle, he found his affairs so injured by his expenses, that he was obliged to take a farm at St.Ives, and apply himself for some years to agriculture as a profession.

But this expedient served rather to involve him in further debts and difficulties.

The long prayers which he said to his family in the morning, and again in the afternoon, consumed his own time and that of his ploughmen; and he reserved no leisure for the care of his temporal affairs.

His active mind, superior to the low occupations to which he was condemned, preyed upon itself; and he indulged his imagination in visions, illuminations, revelations; the great nourishment of that hypochondriacal temper to which he was ever subject.
Urged by his wants and his piety, he had made a party with Hambden, his near kinsman, who was pressed only by the latter motive, to transport himself into New England, now become the retreat of the more zealous among the Puritanical party; and it was an order of council which obliged them to disembark and remain in England.