John Winthrop First Governor of the Masschusetts Colony

THE LITTLE SPEECH. 5
upon me, and infirmities therewithal, which makes me
apprehend that the time of my departure out of this
world is not far off." The fifteen years that have
passed over him since he set foot in New England
have told upon him. During all that time he has
borne without respite the ever-harassing burden of the
common enterprise there as no other man has borne
it ; and a life-consuming burden it has been. Private
troubles have befallen him, — saddest bereavements, < ,
loss of estate ; he is a poor man as well as an old.
Yt't his one thought from first to last has been the wel-
fare of the colony, content with whatever might happen
to himself if only it prospered. This all who are
sitting or standing there before him, as he rises to
address them, know; and perhaps some of them,
the passion of their late anger being abated, are
thinking of it with compunction ; or, if not so soon,
they will when once he begins.
In the company of magistrates grouped behind
him, not all of whom have been on his side, we mark
other men whose presence contributes impressiveness
to the hour. There is impetuous Thomas Dudley,
the governor, sprung from the same stock with the
hapless young husband of Lady Jane Grey and with
Queen Elizabeth's Earl of Leicester, but of how different
a strain. There is stern-visaged, stern-hearted
John Endicott, the colony's sergeant-major-general,—
he who formerly at Salem in public with his sword
ripped the idolatrous cross from the ensign
of St.
George. There is the deputy-governor's eldest son,
John Winthrop, Jr., wise beyond his years, presently