Brooke [see Greville, Robert], John Pym, and other puritan notables, a company for the colonisation of Providence Island in the Caribbean Sea (Calendar of State Papers, Col. 1574–1660, pp. xxv, 123). In association again with Lord Brooke and ten others he obtained from Lord Warwick and the New England Company a patent for a large tract of land on the Connecticut River (19 March 1631–2). They appointed John Winthrop the younger to act as governor, established a fort at the mouth of the river, to which they gave the name of Sayebrook, and sent over a shipload of colonists (Doyle, English in America; the Puritan Colonies, i. 205, 211; Winthrop, Hist. of New England, ed. 1853, i. 115). In 1633 Saye and Brooke also purchased from some Bristol merchants a plantation at Cocheco or Dover, in what is now New Hampshire (Doyle, i. 277). They both contemplated settling in New England, but demanded as a preliminary the establishment of an hereditary aristocracy, consisting of themselves ‘and such other gentlemen of approved sincerity and worth as they, before their personal remove, shall take into their number.’ From the ranks of this body alone the governors were hereafter to be chosen. These propositions and the answer of the Massachusetts government are printed in Hutchinson's ‘History of Massachusetts’ (ed. 1795, i. 430). Displeased by this reception of his offer, and discouraged by the difficulties of American colonisation, Saye concentrated his energies on the settlement of Providence Island. To obtain colonists he and his partners were obliged, says Winthrop, ‘to condescend to articles somewhat more suitable to our form of government, although they had formerly declared themselves against it and for a mere aristocracy’ (i. § 333). In his eagerness to attract emigrants to Providence Island Saye spread disparaging reports about New England, which brought upon him the reproofs of Winthrop. In his defence Saye not only complained that the climate of New England was cold and the soil barren, but attacked the whole organisation of the colony, both as to church and state. ‘No wise man would be so foolish as to live where every man is a master and masters must not correct their servants, where wise men propose and fools deliberate.’ Their liberty was not ‘the desirable liberty such as wise men would wish to enjoy and live under’ (Massachusetts Historical Collection, i. 297). With these views it is not surprising that Saye abandoned his enterprises in New England and surrendered his rights there. In 1641 the New Hampshire settlements were made over to Massachusetts, and three years later Seabrook (as Sayebrook is usually termed in American documents) was sold to Connecticut (Doyle, Puritan Colonies, i. 285, 381). On account of this connection with colonisation Saye was one of the commissioners for the government of the plantations appointed on 2 Nov. 1643 (Husband, Ordinances, 1646, p. 378).
In the gradually increasing opposition to the government of Charles I Saye took a leading part. ‘He was,’ says Clarendon, ‘the oracle of those who were called puritans in the worst sense, and steered all their counsels and designs’ (Rebellion, iii. 26). At his house at Broughton, adds Wood, the malcontents used to meet, ‘and what embryos were conceived in the country were shaped in Grays-Inn-Lane near London, where the undertakers for the Isle of Providence did meet’ (Wood, Athenæ, ed. Bliss, iii. 547). Saye headed the resistance to ship-money in Oxfordshire and in Gloucestershire (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1636–7, pp. 122, 194, 210). In Lincolnshire his goods were distrained, he sued the constable for an illegal distress, and when the constable pleaded the king's writ, demurred that the writ was not a sufficient warrant (ib. 1637, pp. 155, 252). The government retaliated by proceeding against him in the Star-chamber for depopulation and conversion of houses and lands (ib. p. 248). How these suits ended does not appear. According to Clarendon, Saye refused to acquiesce in the judgment against Hampden, and was so solicitous to have his own case argued that he was very grievous to the judges (Rebellion, iii. 26). The Scotch war afforded another opportunity for resistance. Saye reluctantly followed the king to the army, and refused, in company with Lord Brooke, to take the military oath demanded by the king from the English peers. Both were committed to custody, but as no pretext could be found for punishing them, they were simply sent home (Lismore Papers, ii. iv. 19; Clarendon State Papers, ii. 45; Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. p. 23). In the Short parliament Saye was one of the minority of twenty-five peers who sided with the commons in demanding redress of grievances before supply (Gardiner, History of England, ix. 109). After the dissolution his study was searched in the hope of finding treasonable documents (ib. p. 129). But Saye was much too wary to expose himself to the penalties of high treason, and refused to sign the proposed invitation to the Scots to invade England, though his signature was among those appended by Lord Savile to the forged letter to Johnstone of Warriston (ib. p. 179). The court, however, firmly believed
