For as much as the king's most excellent majesty hath been graciously pleased, by the grant of his letters patents, at first to give life to the plantations of New England and hath daily likewise by his favors and royal protection cherished their growing hopes, whereby many of his majesty's faithful subjects have been imboldened to venture persons, states, and endeavors to the enlargement of his dominions in that western continent; wherefore I thought fit (for the further encouragement of those that hereafter, either by purse or person, shall help forward the plantation) to set forth these few observations out of my personal and experimental knowledge.