Lot 3: [WHITE, John (fl. 1585-1593), founder of the Dorchester Adventurers]. The Planters Plea. Or

[WHITE, John (fl. 1585-1593), founder of the Dorchester Adventurers]. The Planters Plea. Or the Grounds of Plantations Examined, And usuall Objections answered. Together with a manifestation of the causes mooving such as have lately undertaken a Plantation in New-England. London: William Jones, 1630.

4 o (169 x 125 mm). (Closely trimmed, cropping title at head, some page numbers and shoulder notes, lower corner of I2 torn away touching a few letters.) Modern brown half morocco.

FIRST EDITION. "Of the author of this work, who projected the colony of Massachusetts, and was known as the 'Patriarch of Dorchester' (England), Edward Everett says: 'Like Robinson in reference to Plymouth, John White never set foot on the soil of Massachusetts, but he was the most efficient promoter of the undertaking, which resulted in the settlement not merely of our ancient town, but of the colony" (Church). In 1623, White obtained a patent from the New England Council for a new settlement at Cape Ann. While this did not succeed, Roger Conant led the remaining inhabitants of the settlement back to Massachusetts in 1626, founding the Bay Colony at Salem. The Massachusetts Bay Company obtained its own Charter in 1628, giving it independence from the New England Company. By 1630, the year White's book was published, migration peaked, with 14 ships and a thousand settlers arriving.

Alexander Young reprinted White's book in his Chronicles of the First Planters of the Colonies of Massachusetts Bay (1846), stating that it is "an original contemporaneous history of the highest value, as it contains facts relating to the earliest attempts at settlement in Massachusetts Bay, which can be found nowhere else, and these facts furnished by persons who were themselves engaged as adventurers in these attempts" (quoted in Church).

White approaches the colonization of the new world as a providential warrant, so that men man may "replenish the earth, and to subdue it" (p. 1). England is the proper nation "able and fit to send out Colonies" due to its "overflowing multitudes," many of whom are unemployed and therefore idle (p. 17ff), and White notes that the abundance of natural resources in New England make it the most fit location for a colony. SCARCE: this is the only copy to appear in American Book Prices Current for at least thirty years. Alden & Landis 630/216; Church 418; JCP II, p. 235; Kress S.241; Sabin 103396; STC 25399; Vail 80.