In September, 1628, he landed with a pioneering party at Naumkeag, and having happily composed some differences that arose with the earlier comers, they named the place _Salem_, which is, by interpretation, "Peace." Already, with the newcomers and the old, the well-provided settlement numbered more than fifty persons, busy in preparation for further arrivals.

Meanwhile vigorous work was doing in England.

The organization to sustain the colony represented adequate capital and the highest quality of character and influence.

A royal charter, drawn with sagacious care to secure every privilege the Puritan Company desired, was secured from the fatuity of the reigning Stuart, erecting in the wilderness such a free commonwealth as his poor little soul abhorred; and preparation was made for sending out, in the spring of 1629, a noble fleet of six vessels, carrying three hundred men and a hundred women and children, with ample equipment of provisions, tools and arms, and live stock.

The Company had taken care that there should be "plentiful provision of godly ministers." Three approved clergymen of the Church of England--Higginson, Skelton, and Bright--had been chosen by the Company to attend the expedition, besides whom one Ralph Smith, a Separatist minister, had been permitted to take passage before the Company "understood of his difference in judgment in some things" from the other ministers.