Bancroft and Palfrey have thought it unworthy of their eloquent pages.

But imputation of motives and character is not argument, is most resorted to for want of argument, much less is it a refutation of statements now universally known to be true.

The venerable author of this "Planters' Plea" denied in indignant terms that Endicot and his friends had become "Separatists" or "enemies of the Church" (he had doubtless been so assured); the very thing in which Endicot gloried--setting up a "Separatist" worship, forbidding the worship of "the Church," and banishing its members who resolved to continue the use of its Prayer Book, in public or in private.
This, however, is not all.

Not only did the Company, in their letters to Endicot, Higginson, and Skelton, disdain to forbid anything like abolishing the Church of England and setting up a new Church, and the use of language offensive to their Sovereign and the Established Church; not only were there the most positive denials on both sides of the Atlantic that anything of the kind had been done by Endicot; but on the appointment of Winthrop to supersede Endicot as Governor, and on his departure with a fleet of eleven ships and three hundred "Adventurers" and "Planters," as they were called, a formal and affectionate address to their "Fathers and Brethren of the Church of England" was published by Winthrop from his ship _Arabella_, disclaiming any acts of some among them (evidently alluding to what Endicot had been alleged to have done) hostile to the Church of England, declaring their obligation and attachment to it, their prayers for it, and entreating the prayers of its members for the success of their undertaking.

This address is said to have been written by the Rev.John White, the "Patriarch of Dorchester," and prime mover of the whole Plantation enterprise.