Title: Three Visitors to Early Plymouth
Editor: Sydney V. James
Author: Emmanuel Altham
John Pory
Isaack de Rasieres
Author of introduction, etc.: Samuel Eliot Morison
Release date: August 25, 2021 [eBook #66135]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024
Language: English
Original publication: United States: Plimoth Plantation, Inc, 1963
Credits: Steve Mattern, Stephen Hutcheson, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
NEW ENGLAND ABOUT 1625
LETTERS ABOUT THE PILGRIM SETTLEMENT IN NEW ENGLAND DURING ITS FIRST SEVEN YEARS
BY JOHN PORY, EMMANUEL ALTHAM AND ISAACK DE RASIERES
Edited by Sydney V. James, Jr.
with an Introduction by Samuel Eliot Morison
Plimoth Plantation
© Plimoth Plantation, Inc., 1963
We all know what the Pilgrim Fathers wrote about themselves and their settlements on the (not so) “stern and rockbound coast”; but how many people know that they were visited thrice, between 1622 and 1627, by outsiders who left on record candid accounts of what they saw? That is the reason for this book. These three accounts—one by a gentleman from Virginia, one by an Englishman straight from England, and the other by a Dutchman from New Amsterdam—are brought together between two covers, so that we can see how the Pilgrims and New Plymouth appeared to visitors who shared neither their particular beliefs nor their intention to live in New England.
John Pory’s, the Virginian account, was discovered early in this century and published in a small limited edition, long since out of print. De Rasieres’ Dutch account is best known; it was discovered in mid-nineteenth century, was promptly translated, and has several times been printed. Three of the Altham letters have never before been printed. The manuscripts were purchased by the late Dr. Otto Fisher, who kindly permitted us to publish this editio princeps. The fourth Altham letter, printed some years ago, has been included, as it rounds out the story.
Pory’s account is valuable for the vivid description of the bounties of nature at Plymouth and along the coast of Maine. We are sorry he did not have time to investigate the Indians’ tall tale of mammoth Massachusetts oysters. He confirms Edward Winslow’s story about Governor Bradford’s exchange of diplomatic messages (snakeskin and bullets) with Canonicus, somewhat suggesting what now goes on between Washington and Moscow. Bradford refers pleasantly to Pory’s visit in his Of Plymouth Plantation chapter xiii, and notes that he borrowed the Governor’s copy of Henry Ainsworth’s Annotations upon the Fourth Book of Moses for shipboard reading on his passage to England.
The Altham letters provide the first new information about the Plymouth Colony to appear in fifty years. Captain Emmanuel Altham of the pinnace Little James, which arrived at Plymouth in 1623, gives us a fresh description of the settlement, its meager resources in livestock, and its abundant store of fish and timber. An important item for Pilgrim lore is the description of Bradford’s marriage feast, which the Governor was too modest to include in his History. Altham gives a vivid characterization of Massasoit, the guest of honor, and notes the delicacy of that chieftain in bringing only one of his five wives to the party. And he corroborates Winslow’s story of Miles Standish’s expedition against Wessagusset.
Altham, as one of the English Adventurers who financed Plymouth Colony, adds appreciably to our knowledge of how that business was done. He thoroughly disapproves of the faction among the Adventurers that was responsible for inflicting the Rev. John Lyford on Plymouth. Altham’s present to his brother of a “great king’s pipe” that “doth stink exceedingly of Indian tobacco” makes a humorous postscript to this very interesting series of letters.
De Rasieres’ letters, although well known, have never before been printed in so full and accurate a translation. They open with a description of Manhattan Island only three years after the settlement of New Amsterdam, and of the shores of Long Island Sound. They describe Algonkian Indian customs such as the making of wampum, the growing of Indian corn, with recipes for corn bread and porridge, and methods of dealing with unfaithful wives and roving husbands. Once arrived at New Plymouth, De Rasieres describes the settlement with great care—the clapboarded houses, the square fort on Burial Hill, and the Sabbath church parade to beat of drum, which has become classic. Nor does he neglect the government of the colony or the customs of the neighboring Indians.
Detractors of the Pilgrim Colony will find no ammunition in these three contemporary descriptions. The Virginian, the Englishman, and the Dutchman found much to admire in the Colony and nothing to disparage. They have given us fresh reason to respect the faith and fortitude of that little band in its struggle to maintain a toe hold on the edge of the American wilderness.
Samuel Eliot Morison
February 1963
Letters which have survived over three hundred years, escaping the ravages of fire, water, vermin, and people who wanted to wrap fish, have a claim to our respect. All the more so if they shed light on a subject of as widespread interest as early Plymouth. As editor of the letters presented here, therefore, I had better explain what has happened to them in my hands and make it known that my intentions were honorable. In order to win as many readers for these letters as possible, I have put them into modern style in certain respects. To those written originally in English, the letters by Emmanuel Altham and John Pory, I have given modern spelling without changing the words, and punctuation to make them into sentences and paragraphs in twentieth-century fashion as much as possible. I have followed the general approach described by Samuel Eliot Morison in the preface to his edition of William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation (New York, 1952), pp. vii-ix. I have also followed his example in many details, such as spellings. However, anything Pory or Altham wrote which is acceptable to modern usage has been left alone, regardless of consistency within this book. I have standardized proper names ruthlessly, except for some which have no modern or official form, as is the case with most old Dutch place names. Since Isaack De Rasieres’ Dutch has been translated directly into modern English, it has not needed the same treatment.
Footnotes have been supplied mainly to give information useful for an understanding of the letters, not exhaustive comparisons with other documents. Some notes give original spellings which others may not wish to modernize as I have done it in the text. Bibliographical information in the footnotes is supplemented by the bibliographical note at the end of the book.
The dates used in the letters are reproduced exactly. This means that they are of the Julian Calendar or Old Style, used by Englishmen until September 1752. In the biographical sketches of the letter writers, also, the old dating system has been followed. Not only was the day of the month different from the modern calendar (during the 1600’s Old Style dates ran ten days behind New Style, so that December 11, O.S., was December 21, N.S.) but the beginning of the year was reckoned from March 25, although all of March was called the first month of the year. This confused even the users of the Julian Calendar, who frequently tried to prevent mistakes by giving both the outgoing and the incoming year numbers to dates in March before the 25th—for example, March 9, 1629/1630. Hoping to minimize confusion for the modern reader, I have adopted a rarer version of this practice, giving two year numbers to all dates from January 1 to March 24.
The chief debt of gratitude which the editor and Plimoth Plantation, Inc., must acknowledge is to the owners of the letters printed here. The late Dr. Otto Fisher, of Detroit, made the book possible by permitting the publication of the three letters from Emmanuel Altham to Sir Edward Altham. The Massachusetts Historical Society has kindly consented to the reprinting of the other Altham letter. The John Carter Brown Library, of Providence, has given permission to print the extracts from Pory’s letters. Permission to reprint those parts of the translation of the letter by Isaack de Rasieres covered by copyright has been granted by Barnes & Noble, Inc.
As editor I have received assistance of various kinds which deserve a public word of thanks—from Professor Rosalie Colie of Wesleyan University, Professor John H. Parks of Kent State University, the New York Historical Society, the Cleveland Public Library, and from my wife.
Sydney V. James
Eugene, Oregon
John Pory had led a full life before he visited Plymouth and New England in 1622, on his way home from a three-year term as Secretary to the Governor and Council of Virginia. Born into the family of a Norfolk gentleman, a graduate of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, he had been an apprentice to the great historian of English seafaring, Richard Hakluyt. After producing a successful book on Africa in 1600, he left the scholarly life, served eminent men as private correspondent on news from London, sat in Parliament from 1605 to 1611, acted as aide to various diplomats, went on missions for King James I and his Privy Council, and traveled in Ireland, France, Italy, Greece, and Turkey. By 1619, when he received his Virginia appointment, he had many friends, a restless foot, large girth, and fondness for wine.
The New World was a strange one for Pory, but always optimistic, he turned his back on conviviality and news of the capital to accept water and good books with enthusiasm. He also made a name for himself as an explorer on a small scale and earned lasting fame as the very able speaker of the first colonial assembly, called in 1619.
Even before leaving England for America, Pory embroiled himself in the party strife which led to the downfall of the Virginia Company in 1624. Appointed by the “ins,” at the request of his cousin, Gov. Yeardley, Pory ultimately sided with the group led by the Earl of Warwick, the “outs” from 1619 to 1624. He earned an appointment to the panel of Commissioners to inspect affairs in Virginia for the Privy Council in 1624, and on his return, received a place on the board chosen to establish royal government in the colony. He spent several years at his old occupation of London correspondent before he made his home in Lincolnshire, where he died in 1635.
John Pory stopped at New England on his way back to England partly on Company business. Ships had often gone north from Virginia to fish, before the king granted monopoly rights over fishing to the Council for New England, created in 1620. The Virginia Company thought its interests damaged, continued to sell licenses to fish in the disputed area, and futilely protested the monopoly in the Privy Council. Pory was to get the Company firsthand information about the fishing business in New England, see what the Council for New England was actually doing, and assess the prospects of the Plymouth settlement. The extracts from his letters which follow were probably written as reports.
The originals of Pory’s letters are gone, as far as anyone knows. What exists is a copy, probably made by Richard Norwood, surveyor of the “Summer Isles” (Bermudas). The manuscript is unsigned, undated and consists of extracts from two letters by John Pory and a description of Bermuda by Norwood. It is in the John Carter Brown Library, Providence, Rhode Island. The whole text, edited, annotated, and introduced by Champlin Burrage, was printed under the title, John Pory’s Lost Description of Plymouth in the Earliest Days of the Pilgrim Fathers (1918). This edition, plus photostats of the manuscript, were used in the preparation of the text printed here.
January 13, 1622/1623, and later.
By whom this New Plymouth (situated, according to Captain Jones[2] his computation, in 41 degrees and 48 minutes) is now presently inhabited, your Lordship and the honorable Company do know better than myself. For whom how favourably God’s providence in thought and in deed, quite besides any plot or design of theirs, hath wrought, especially in the beginning of their enterprise, is worthy to be observed. For when, as your Lordship knows, their voyage was intended for Virginia, being by letters from Sir Edwin Sandys and Mr. Deputy Ferrar recommended to Sir Yeardley[3] (then Governor) that he should give them the best advice he could for trading in Hudson’s River, whether it were by contrariety of wind or by the backwardness of their master or pilot[4] to make (as they thought it) too long a journey, they fell short both of the one and the other, arriving first at that stately harbour called Cape Cod,[5] called by Indians “Pamet”; from whence in shallop the pilot, a more forward undertaker than performer, promised to bring them to be seated in a pleasant and fertile place called Anquam,[6] situate within Cape Ann,[7] about forty leagues from Plymouth. After some dangerous and almost incurable errors and mistakings, he stumbled by accident upon the harbour of Plymouth; where, after the planters had failed of their intention, and the pilot of his, it pleased Almighty God (who had better provided for them than their own hearts could imagine) to plant them on the seat of an old town which divers [years] before had been abandoned of the Indians. So they both quietly and justly sate down without either dispossessing any of the natives, or being resisted by them, and without shedding so much as one drop of blood. Which felicity of theirs is confirmed unto them even by the voices of the savages themselves, who generally do acknowledge not only the seat, but the whole seigniory[8] thereto belonging, to be, and do themselves disclaim all title from it; so that the right of those planters to it is altogether unquestionable—a favor which, since the first discovery of America, God hath not vouchsafed, so far as ever I could learn, upon any Christian nation within that continent. Yet can it not be denied but that these of the Summer Islands[9] are blessed with the same privilege according to the saying of St. Paul, “If the firstfruits be holy, the lump is also holy.”[10]
But to leave this privilege to them whom it concerns, and to describe to your Lordship the excellency of the place. First, the harbour is not only pleasant for air and prospect, but most sure for shipping, both small and great, being land-locked on all sides. The town is seated on the ascent of a hill, which besides the pleasure of variable objects entertaining the unsatisfied eye, such is the wholesomeness of the place (as the Governor[11] told me) that for the space of one whole year of the two wherein they had been there, died not one man, woman or child.
This healthfulness is accompanied with much plenty both of fish and fowl every day in the year, as I know no place in the world that can match it. In March the eels come forth out of places where they lie bedded all winter, into the fresh streams, and there into the sea, and in their passages are taken in pots. In September they run out of the sea into the fresh streams, to bed themselves in the ground all winter, and are taken again in pots as they return homewards. In winter the inhabitants dig them up, being bedded in gravel not above two or three foot deep, and all the rest of the year they may take them in pots in the salt water of the bay. They are passing sweet, fat and wholesome, having no taste at all of the mud, and are as great as ever I saw any.
In April and May come up another kind of fish which they call herring or old wives[12] in infinite schools, into a small river[13] running under the town, and so into a great pond or lake of a mile broad, where they cast their spawn, the water of the said river being in many places not above half a foot deep. Yea, when a heap of stones is reared up against them a foot high above the water, they leap and tumble over, and will not be beaten back with cudgels. Which confirmeth not only that of Horace, “Naturam expellas furca licet,” etc.,[14] but that also which was thought a fable of Friar Beatus Odoricus, namely, that in some parts where he had travelled, the fish in the springtime did cast themselves out of the sea upon the dry land.[15] The inhabitants during the said two months take them up every day in hogsheads. And with those they eat not they manure the ground, burying two or three in each hill of corn—and may, when they are able, if they see cause, lade whole ships with them. At their going up they are very fat and savory, but at their coming down, after they have cast their spawns, they are shot, and therefore lean and unwholesome. Into another river some two miles to the northeast of Plymouth,[16] all the month of May the great smelts pass up to spawn, likewise in troops innumerable, which with a scoop or a bowl, or a piece of bark, a man may cast up upon the bank.
About mid-May come into the harbour the main school of bass and bluefish, which they take with seines[17]—some fishes of a foot and a half, some of two foot, and some of three foot long—and with hooks, those of four and five foot long. They enter also at flowing water[18] up into the small creeks, at the mouths whereof the inhabitants, spreading their nets, have caught 500 and 700 at a time. These continue good May, June, July and August. Now as concerning the bluefish, in delicacy it excelleth all kind of fish that ever I tasted; I except not the salmon of the Thames in his prime season, nor any other fish. We called it by a compound name of black, white, blue, sweet, fat—the skin and scale, blue; the flesh next under the scale for an inch deep, black and as sweet as the marrow of an ox; the residue of the flesh underneath, purely white, fat, and of a taste requiring no addition of sauce. By which alluring qualities it may seem dangerously tending to a surfeit, but we found by experience that having satisfied (and in a manner glutted) ourselves therewith, it proved wholesome unto us and most easy of digestion.
In the same bay, lobsters are in season during the four months—so large, so full of meat, and so plentiful in number as no man will believe that hath not seen. For a knife of three halfpence, I bought ten lobsters that would well have dined forty labouring men. And the least boy in the ship, with an hour’s labour, was able to feed the whole company with them for two days; which, if those of the ship that come home do not affirm upon their oaths, let me forever lose my credit!
Without the bay, in the ocean sea, they have all the year long in a manner goodly fishing of cod and hake, as in other parts of Canada. Within two miles southward from their plantation do begin goodly ponds and lakes of fresh water, continuing well nigh twenty miles into the land, some with islands in them, the water being as clear as crystal, yielding great variety of fish.
Mussels and clams[19] they have all the year long; which, being the meanest of God’s blessings here, and such as these people fat their hogs with at a low water, if ours upon any extremity did enjoy in the South Colony,[20] they would never complain of famine or want, although they wanted bread. (Not but that, by God’s blessing, the South Colony using their industry may in few years attain to that plenty, pleasure and strength as that they shall not need much to envy or fear the proudest nations in Europe.) Oysters there are none, but at Massachusetts, some 20 miles to the north of this place, there are such huge ones, by savages’ report, as I am loth to report. For ordinary ones, of which there be many, they make to be as broad as a bushel, but one among the rest they compared to the great cabin of the Discovery, and being sober and well-advised persons, grew very angry when they were laughed at or not believed! I would have had Captain Jones to have tried out the truth of this report. And what was the reason? If, said I, the oysters be so great and have any pearls in them, then must the pearls be answerable in greatness to the oysters, and proving round and orient also, would far exceed all other jewels in the world! Yea, what strange and precious things might be found in so rare a creature! But Captain Jones his employing his pinnace in discovery, his graving of the ship, his haste away about other occasions and business, would not permit him to do that which often since he wished he could have done.
From the beginning of September till the end of March, their bay in a manner is covered with all sorts of water fowl, in such sort of swarms and multitudes as is rather admirable than credible. The reasons of their continual plenty for those seven months in the year may be their continual tranquility of the place, being guarded on all sides from the fury of the storms; as also the abundance of food they find at low water, the bottom of the bay then appearing as a green meadow; and lastly, the number of freshets running into the bay, where after their powdered salads, their brackish shellfish and other cates,[21] they may refresh and quench their thirst. And therefore, this bay is such a pond for fowl as in any man’s knowledge of our nation that hath seen it, all America hath not the like.
(Thus far I proceeded and dated my letter at Angra,[22] Jan. 13, 1622[/1623].)
Touching their fruit, I will not speak of their meaner sort, as of rasps,[23] cherries, gooseberries, strawberries, delicate plums and others. But they have commonly through the country five several sorts of grapes, some whereof I tasted, being fairer and larger than any I ever saw in the South Colony, but of a muscatel taste,[24] which being transplanted, would prosper better in the south. But wine vines may compare with Martha’s Vineyard, which I dare say will fall to the south of 40 degrees,[25] and will be an earthly paradise to him that can be master of it. Sassafras wanteth not all over this main. In this land, as in other parts of this main, they have plenty of deer and of turkeys as large and as fat as in any other place.
So much of the wholesomeness and plenty of the country. Now as concerning the quality of the people, how happy were it for our people in the Southern Colony, if they were as free from wickedness and vice as these are in this place! And their industry as well appeareth by their building, as by a substantial palisado about their [town] of 2700 foot in compass, stronger than I have seen any in Virginia, and lastly by a blockhouse which they have erected in the highest place of the town to mount their ordnance upon, from whence they may command all the harbour.
As touching their correspondence with the Indians, they are friends with all their neighbours—as namely with those of Cohasset[26] and Massachusetts to the north, with the great king of Pocanocket[27] to the southwest, with those of Pamet, Nauset, Capawack[28] and others to the east and south. And notwithstanding that those of the isle Capawack are mortal enemies to all other English, ever since Hunt most wickedly stole away their people to sell them for slaves,[29] yet are they in good terms with them of Plymouth, because as they never did wrong to any Indians, so will they put up no injury at their hands. And though they gave them kind entertainment, yet stand they day and night precisely upon their guard. True it is that Narragansett,[30] situate to the west of Pocanocket, being set on either by the French or Flemings,[31] sent them a snake’s skin full of arrows in token of hostility and defiance. In answer whereof, having filled the same with shot and powder, they sent it back again with this message: that whensoever[32] he should be welcome, and should find them ready to entertain him. The shot and powder he liked not, nor would meddle with it, but caused it to be cast into the river.
One thing which made them to be much respected was the revenge which they attempted in the night upon Corbitant,[33] the chief man about the great king, because they were (though falsely) informed that he had slain Tisquanto, Sir Ferdinando Gorges his Indian,[34] who lived as their servant under their protection, interpreting the injury done to him as done to themselves. Besides, when Tisquanto was earnestly required to be sent home by the great king, they choose rather to hazard a falling out with him than to break their faith and promise with Tisquanto, who had been sure to have gone to the pot if they had delivered him up. Which faith and courage of theirs hath made other distracted Indians to retire themselves into their protection, of whose labour and service they have made good use, but especially of Tisquanto’s.
And since I have taken occasion to speak both of amity and enmity, give me leave to note unto your Lordship the general enemy of all, both Christians and Indians in Canada, that inhabit toward the ocean, being (as they of New Plymouth relate) an Indian nation of man-eaters called Mohawks,[35] who go armed against arrows with jacks[36] made of cordage, and they themselves use clubs only.
Of the language of the natives about Plymouth and Cape Cod I have collected a small dictionary, wherein I find many words agreeing with those of the South Colony and of the eastern shore of the bay.[37] I have one great design; namely, to find out what sea that is, which the Frenchmen put down in their cards[38] to west in 40 degrees over against the bottom of the said bay, whether or no an inlet of the South Sea.[39] It must be done, by the grace of God, through the guidance of the Susquehannas,[40] a most barbarous nation and supposed to be man-eaters. Yet upon this condition I will adventure myself with them by land: if I may have a convenient bark [in which] to keep for my security three or four hostages.
Autumn, 1622.
Whereas heretofore a vulgar error, namely that fish is not to be had here[41] at all times of the year, had generally possessed the minds of all men, experience hath now taught us the contrary: that in some two months of the cod, which never bites but in the daytime, comes altogether as good a fish called a hake, to be caught in the night. The places of fishing upon this coast are as universal as the times, for it is experimented now by one John Gibbs,[42] who this summer hath passed five or six times between this place and New Plymouth, that a man cannot cast out a hook at any ledge at sea in that distance, but he shall draw up goodly fish at pleasure—upon whose relation divers mean to fish the next year more toward the southwest. And Cape Cod itself hath not that name for naught: for it is thought that one shallop’s fishing only would suffice the whole plantation of New Plymouth all the year long. To the east and north of this place is found as great plenty as to the south and west. Now whether there be any cod or no to the south of the place (as the Company[43] desire to be informed), although Mr. Vengham,[44] a man of experience in those parts, do seem to doubt. Yet a Flemish[45] pilot, who is to conduct Captain Argall his pinnace into Hudson’s River,[46] putteth down in his plot a place some fifteen leagues to the west of Elizabeth’s Island, which he calleth Cod Island.[47]
And by the way, that you may know how strongly the Flemings make title from 40 to 44 degrees, they call Hudson his river, “Prince Maurice his river”; Cape Cod, the “States Hooke”; Sagadahoc or thereabouts, “Prince Henricks river”; and the great bay wherein Port Royal (taken by Captain Argall from the French) was seated, “Grave Williams Bay.”[48] And in the same place they confine Virginia within the Cape Henry and Charles, as if it had no further extension both north and south. Also, to the south of Hudson’s River, they name the country “Aquahanacke.”[49]
Besides that plantation of New Plymouth in 41 degrees and one half, and that other in Massachusetts[50] in 42 or thereabouts, there is a third in Canada at Damerill’s Cove[51] in 43 and 45 minutes, at the cost of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, consisting of some thirteen persons, who are to provide fish all the year with a couple of shallops for the most timely loading of a ship, and to keep that island to be farmed out in Sir Ferninando’s name to such as shall there fish. And lest the French or the savages should root them out in winter, they have fortified themselves with a strong palisado of spruce trees of some ten foot high, having besides their small shot one piece of ordnance and some ten good dogs.
Howsoever they speed, they undertake an hazardous attempt, considering the savages have been this year, as those to the north use to be by the French, furnished (in exchange of skins) by some unworthy people of our nation with pieces, shot, powder, swords, blades and most deadly arrow heads; and with shallops from the French, which they can manage as well as any Christian, as also their pieces, it being an ordinary thing with them to hit a bird flying. And how little they are to be trusted here as well as in Virginia, may appear by the killing lately of the master of a ship of Plymouth[52] with eighteen of his company among the islands toward the northeast, which was the cause that the same ship lost her fishing voyage and went empty home.
Now, as concerning the soil, it is all along, as far as I could perceive, rocky, rough and uneven; and, that as I hear, from a little on this side [of] Cape Cod as far as to Newfoundland, being all along the sea coast a labyrinth of innumerable islands or broken lands rent in sunder by intricate channels, rivers and arms of the sea. Upon these rocky grounds do grow naturally fir, spruce, birch and other trees, and in some open places abundance of rasps, gooseberries, hurts[53] and such fruit; in other places, high[54] rank grass for the grazing of cattle, to make hay withal; as likewise, great plenty of pease like our English pease, growing naturally without any tilth. Upon these rocky places, there is passing good soil, yet culturable with hoe and spade rather than with the plow. Yet they say that up the river Prinaquie[55] there is a place of even champian[56] country without any rocks, abounding with variety of excellent timber, and like at Anquam[57] nearer unto Cape Ann,[58] a level of more beauty and largeness.
Within an infinity of rocks may be intombed abundance of rich minerals, among which silver and copper are supposed to be the chief. Out of these rocks do gush out delicate streams of water which, together with the temper of the air, maketh this place marvelous wholesome in summer—which is the cause I have not known one man sick all the time I was there, save only that villain which accused you falsely concerning Swabber, and died (aboard the Bona Nova) as he had lived, frantic.[59] Yet is the air too cold here for the summer, but with an easterly wind subject to fogs and mists.
The people[60] seem to be of one race with those in Virginia, both in respect of their qualities and language. They are great lovers of their children and people, and very revengeful of wrongs offered. They make their canoes, their arrows, their bows, their tobacco pipes and other their implements far more neat and artificially than in those parts. They dress, also, and paint leather; and make trousers, buskins, shoes with far greater curiosity. Corn they set none in their parts toward the north, and that is the cause why Indian corn, pease and such like is the best truck[61] for their skins—and then in winter especially, when hunger doth most pinch them, which is the season when the French do use to trade with them. They have the same names of numbers with them in the south. Accamus (in the southern language, a dog) they call here Aramouse. For Malta (no), they pronounce Madda; for Matcheray (nought), Mathat; for Mitchin (to eat), Mitterim; for Kijos (the sun), Hijos; and many other like or self-same words spoken by the rebels[62] of the South Colony. Neither is their manner of singing and dancing much different. Their babes here also they bind to a board and set them up against a wall, as they do here in the south. Likewise, their head they anoint with oil mixed with vermillion; and are of the same hair, eyes and skin that those are of.
Emmanuel Altham was born a gentleman, though his family had its connections with commerce and the legal profession rather than the titled aristocracy. His two older brothers successively held the family’s country seat at Mark Hall, Latton, about twenty miles north of London. As a younger son, Altham inherited little of his parents’ wealth and so, over objections by his relatives, sought excitement and his fortune in the expanding world of English overseas trade. Altham began as an investor in the Company of Adventurers for New Plymouth, served for a time as agent of the Company, and became an admirer of the colonists and New England with such ardor that he could more easily envision the colony’s future success than see the hardships which the planters were enduring when he first arrived. He went to the New World with a sense of honor, moreover, rather than the qualities of a hard-driving trader. Perhaps he was not a typical Adventurer: his devotion to the cause of colonization and taste for the heroic side of commerce rather than the ledger went beyond the ordinary, and helped keep English backing for the Pilgrim plantation alive when profit did not.
Altham crossed the Atlantic to Plymouth the first time in the summer of 1623. He went as “Captain” of the Little James (James Bridge, master), the pinnace of about 44 tons which the Company was sending to the plantation for use in fishing and fur-trading expeditions. In 1623, the expert in charge of sailing a ship was her “master,” and if there was a captain, he had command over the military and mercantile affairs of the voyage. Since his ship carried authorization to operate as a privateer, Altham had the decision about taking prizes as well as the transaction of business. After a year in New England waters, described in the first three of Altham’s letters printed here, he recrossed the ocean with the ship. She was seized for the satisfaction of debts to two of the Company’s members, Thomas Fletcher and Thomas Goffe, who sent her (but not under Altham) on a second voyage in 1625.
Altham’s fourth letter from New England describes the occasion of his second expedition, on his own. Evidently his hopes for a future with the colony faded, for he returned to England some time before July 1626 and soon afterwards began to look for employment as a soldier with the East India Company.
Through the influence of his brother, Sir Edward, he was sent to the Company’s fort at Surat and spent over two years in exploits around the Indian Ocean. The East India Company’s business was a mixture of trade and raid—competing with the Portuguese for control of port cities in India and the trade to which they gave access. The climax of these years, for Altham, was an expedition to Madagascar and Mozambique to intercept the fleet of caracks from Portugal.
After a visit to England in 1630, Altham returned to India a more important man: Factor and Captain of the fort at Armagon (now abandoned, at a place about sixty miles north of Madras), the Company’s main post on the east side of India. He served the firm well, rebuilt the fortifications, and finally began to accumulate wealth. He expected to return to England permanently and live in style—had even begun to order paintings and fancy bedding, but died at Armagon in January, 1635/1636.
The originals of the letters of Emmanuel Altham to Sir Edward Altham belonged to Dr. Otto Fisher, of Detroit, who before his death generously consented to their first publication here. The letter of Altham to James Sherley has been published in Massachusetts Historical Society, Proceedings, XLIV, 182-189, from a transcript of the original in the English Public Records Office (Admiralty Court Misc., bundle 1142), with editorial comment and notes by J. F. Jameson.