In the fleet of Sir Thomas Gates, May, 1609, were noted Puritans, one of whom, Stephen Hopkins, "who had much knowledge in the Scriptures and could reason well therein," was clerk to that "painful preacher," but not strict conformist, Master Richard Buck.

The intimate and sometimes official relations of the Virginia Company not only with leading representatives of the Puritan party, but with the Pilgrims of Leyden, whom they would gladly have received into their own colony, are matter of history and of record.

It admits of proof that there was a steady purpose in the Company, so far as it was not thwarted by the king and the bishops of the court party, to hold their unruly and ill-assorted colony under Puritan influences both of church and government.[45:1] The fact throws light on the remoter as well as the nearer history of Virginia.

Especially it throws light on the memorable administration of Sir Thomas Dale, which followed hard upon the departure of Lord de la Warr and his body-guard in red cloaks.
The Company had picked their man with care--"a man of good conscience and knowledge in divinity," and a soldier and disciplinarian proved in the wars of the Low Countries--a very prototype of the great Cromwell.
He understood what manner of task he had undertaken, and executed it without flinching.

As a matter of course--it was the way in that colony--there was a conspiracy against his authority.