Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"As the fleet set off, on Easter Monday 1630, Winthrop was in a mood of exaltation, seeing himself and his companions taking part in what seemed a Biblical episode—a new flight from Egypt into the Promised Land. . . . He did not wish to separate himself from the Anglican church. He thought it redeemable. But, because of its weakness, the redemptive act could take place only in New England. Therefore the New England colony was to be a pilot church and state, which would create an ideal spiritual and secular community, whose example should in turn convert and save the Old World too. He set out these ideas to his fellow-travelers in a shipboard sermon, in which he emphasized the global importance of their mission in a striking phrase: ‘We must consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us.’ . . . The Winthrop-led reinforcement was the turning-point in the history of New England. He took over 1,000 colonists in his fleet, and settled them in half a dozen little towns ringing Boston harbor." [A History of the American People, p. 32-3]