During that eleven years a constant current of emigration flowed from England to Massachusetts Bay, to the extent of 13,000, including no less than seventy clergymen of the Church of England, and many men of rank, and wealth to the amount of some L300,000.

All these emigrants, or "adventurers," as they were called, left England with a stinging sense of royal and episcopal despotism, and with a corresponding hatred of royalty and episcopacy, but with no conception of the principles of religious toleration or liberty beyond themselves.
During the eight years' interval between the settlement of the Pilgrims at New Plymouth to that of the Puritans at Salem and Boston, trade had largely increased between England and Massachusetts Bay,[22] and the climate, fisheries, furs, timber, and other resources of northern New England became well known, and objects of much interest in England.
King James had divided all that part of North America, 34 deg.

and 45 deg.

of North latitude, into two grand divisions, bestowing the southern part upon a London Company, and the northern part upon a Company formed in Plymouth and Bristol.

The Northern Company resolved to strengthen their interests by obtaining a fresh grant from the King.