A few weeks after the final abandonment of Wessagusset by Weston’s colonists, a fishing-smack dropped anchor off Plymouth. A boat was lowered, and in a trice an Englishman, in the guise of a blacksmith, was landed. He seemed anxious to learn the condition and prospects of Weston’s settlement, and was evidently ignorant of its untoward fate. On being informed of the conspiracy, massacre, and abandonment of the project, he seemed to be profoundly agitated. This stranger was Weston himself, once a prosperous London merchant, now alone in the wilderness, a ruined man. “A strange alteration there was in him to those who had known him in his former flourishing condition,” moralizes the old Plymouth governor; “so uncertain are the mutable things of this unstable world. And yet men set their hearts upon them, though they daily see the vanity thereof.”[434]
Weston was anxious to know the worst. He also hoped that something might yet be saved. He sailed in a shallop for the seat of his downfallen venture. But misfortune dogged him. He was shipwrecked, and cast ashore with nothing but the clothes upon his person. Soon after, being discovered by the Indians, he was stripped even of these, and left to find his way nude to the coast of Maine. This he did; and borrowing a suit of clothes from the fishermen, he returned to Plymouth in a pitiable plight, and begged the loan of some beaver-skins as a stock in trade to commence life anew.[435]
The Pilgrims were themselves in a sad strait, “but they pitied his case, and remembered former courtesies. They told him he saw their want, and that they knew not when they should have a supply; also how the case stood betwixt the Merchant-adventurers and themselves, which he well knew. They said they had not much beaver, and if they should let him have it, it might create a mutiny, since the colony had no other means of procuring food and clothes, both which they sadly needed. Yet they told him they would help him, considering his necessity, but must do it secretly; so they let him have one hundred beaver-skins. Thus they helped him when all the world failed him, and he was enabled to go again to the ships, buy provisions, and equip himself. But he requited his benefactors ill, for he proved afterwards a bitter enemy on all occasions, and repaid his debt in nothing but reproaches and evil words. Yea, he divulged it to some that were none of their best friends, while he yet had the beaver in his boat, and boasted that he could now set them all by the ears, because they had done more than they could answer in letting him have the skins. But his malice could not prevail.”[436]
Strangled by this episode, Weston was now dead to the Pilgrims, and he disappears from the after-history of Plymouth.[437]
Through all these months, hunger continued to gnaw the vitals of the Pilgrim colony. To secure a plentiful future, they decided to plant a large grain-crop this spring. But the labor of the settlers was hampered by an abnormal social arrangement. Plymouth fretted under an agreement which robbed work of its spur and its crown. Up to the month of April, 1623, a community of interest was strictly maintained. This did not arise from any peculiar fantastic notions among the colonists, but was required by a clause—reluctantly assented to—of their engagement with the Merchant-adventurers in England.[438] The contract tied the Pilgrims to the communal plan for a specified season.[439] Land was not to be owned by individuals; it was common; each man cultivated what he pleased, and threw the product of his labor into the general store. From the stock thus gained overseers supplied the settlers in equal quantities.[440]
Infinite were the vexations, multitudinous were the trials, which resulted. Now a general meeting was called, and this question was anxiously discussed. Finally it was decided, though only for reasons of the sternest necessity, to deviate somewhat from the form of the contract.
As the communal idea has, in our day, won wide favor with theorists and ideal dreamers, we subjoin and commend the weighty words of Bradford, who had experienced the evils of that vicious system, to the Fourierite philosophers:
“At length, after much debate, the governor, with the advice of the chiefest among the Pilgrims, gave way that each man should set corn for his individual benefit, and in that respect trust to himself; though, remembering the contract, all other things were to go on in the communal way till time freed them. So to every family a parcel of land was assigned, but only for present use, no division for inheritance being made, and all boys and youth were ranged under some family. This had good success, for it made all hands very industrious; so that much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the governor could have brought to bear. He was saved a deal of trouble, and the division gave great content. Even the women went into the field, taking with them their little ones, who before would allege weakness and inability, and whom to have compelled would have been thought grievously tyrannical.
“The experience which was had in this common interest and condition, tried sundry years, and that among godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato and of other ancients, applauded by some of later times; that the abolition of individual property, and the introduction of a community of wealth, would make men happy and flourishing. This community, so far as it went at Plymouth, was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and to retard labor. The young men, that were most able and fit for service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength in working for the families of others, without other recompense than a bare subsistence. The strong man and the man of parts had no greater share than he that was weak, and not able to do a quarter the other could. This was thought injustice. The aged and graver sort—ranked and equalized with the meaner and younger men in the division of labor and provisions—esteemed it some indignity and disrespect unto their gray heads. And for men’s wives to be bidden to do service for others, as dressing meat and washing clothes, they deemed it a kind of slavery which many husbands could not well brook. So if this arrangement did not cut off those relations which God hath set amongst men, yet it did at least much diminish and take off the mutual respect that should be preserved amongst them, and destroyed individuality. And things would have been worse, had the Pilgrims been more of a different condition. Let none object that this is man’s corruption, and nothing to the philosophy per se. Yes; but since all men have this corruption in them, God in his wisdom saw another course fitter for them.”[441]
When the Pilgrims had finished planting, they knew that many weary weeks must elapse ere they could reap what they had sown. Meantime “all their victuals were spent, and they rested on God’s providence alone, many times not knowing at night where to get a bit of any thing the next day; so that, as has been well said, they, above all people in the world, had occasion to pray God to give them their daily bread.”[442]
As the colonists had “but one boat left, and she not over-well fitted, they were divided into gangs of six or seven each, and so went out with a net they had bought, to take bass and such like fish by course, each company knowing its turn. No sooner was the boat discharged of what she had brought than the next gang took her. Nor did they return till they had caught something, though it were five or six days before; for they knew there was nothing at home, and to return empty-handed would be a great discouragement to the rest. Yea, they strove which should do best. If the boat was gone over-long or got little, then all went to the shore to seek shell-fish, which at low water they dug from the sand. They also got now and then a deer, one or two of the fittest being appointed to range the woods; and the meat thus gotten was fairly divided. All these wants were borne with great patience and alacrity of spirit.”[443] God was thanked for what he gave, and for the rest all hoped.
The unusually large corn-crop just planted led the Pilgrims to believe that the approaching harvest would definitively stop the hungry mouth of their necessities; but, alas, this expectation seemed about to be blasted. A severe drought met them in the opening months of the summer. From the middle of May to the middle of July there was no rain. All nature seemed to pant with thirst. The streams dwindled, and ceased to laugh. The summer foliage seemed in the “sear and yellow leaf” of autumn. The flowers held out their parched and shrivelled tongues. The sprouting corn began to wither in the blade. Famine seemed inevitable. In this emergency, the devout Pilgrims resorted to the “mercy-seat,” and besought Him who had so often appeared to succor them to aid them now. A special day of fasting and prayer was appointed; and we may still
It has been well said, that answers to prayer do not generally come with observation. They are often sent in a way which is hid from most persons, and frequently even from those who receive them. There are, however, instances in which these answers are so striking as to be visible to all. Some instances of this kind may be found in the early history of New England.[444]
On this occasion the day, which was kept with marked earnestness and solemnity, opened with a cloudless sky, while the sun poured its clear, scorching rays full upon the shrinking plains; but lo, says Winslow in his recital, ere the close of the services, “the sky was overcast, the clouds gathered on all sides, and on the next morning distilled such soft, sweet, and moderate showers of rain, continuing some fourteen days, and mixed with such seasonable weather, as it was hard to say whether our withered corn or our drooping affections were most quickened and revived, such was the bounty and goodness of our God.”[445]
Habbamak, who was in Plymouth at this time, exclaimed as the rain began to fall, “Now I see that the Englishman’s God is a good God, for he has heard you, and sent you rain, and that without storms and tempests, which we usually have with our rain, and which beat down our corn; but yours stands whole and erect still; surely your God is a good God.”[446]
But while these timely and gentle showers saved their crop and secured the future, the pinching want of the passing days was not stayed. Indeed, so bitter grew the famine, that on one occasion the colony was reduced to a single pint of corn; which, when divided among the Pilgrims, gave each five kernels.[447]
During the height of this suffering, a package of home-letters was received. From these the settlers gleaned some news which was of interest to them. It seems that Mr. John Pierce, in whose name their patent had been taken,[448] had grown covetous, and attempted to play both the Pilgrims and the Merchant-adventurers false. When he saw “how hopefully the Plymouth colony was seated,” the trustee grew desirous of becoming lord-proprietary, and holding them as his tenants, “to sue in his courts as lord.”[449] So he surreptitiously sued out a new patent, of much larger extent, in his own name, and then fitted out an expedition headed by himself, to go and take possession of his usurped domain.[450] But “God marvellously crossed him.” “Having sailed no farther than the Downs,” says Cotton Mather, “his ship sprang a leak; and besides this disaster, which alone was enough to have stopped the voyage, one strand of the cable was accidentally cut, by which means it broke in a stress of wind, and all were in extreme danger of being wrecked upon the sands. Having with much cost recruited this loss, and increased the number of emigrants, Pierce again put to sea; but in mid-ocean one of the saddest and longest storms known since the days of the apostle Paul drove the ship home to England once more, the vessel well-nigh torn to pieces, and the emigrants, though all saved, weary and affrighted. Pierce, by all his tumbling backward and forward, was by this time grown so sick of his patent that he vomited it up. He assigned it over to the home company;[451] but they afterwards obtained another, under the umbrage whereof they could more effectually carry on the affairs of their colony.”[452]
The letter from the Merchant-adventurers, which recited these facts, closed with a cheering promise: “We have agreed with two merchants for a ship of a hundred and forty tons, called the ‘Anne,’ which is to be ready the last of this month of April, to bring sixty passengers and sixty tons of goods to you.”[453]
While the Pilgrims, enlivened by this news, were living on hope and five kernels of corn, they received a visitor. Captain Francis West, admiral of New England, who sailed under a commission to prevent all trading and fishing on the coast-line without a license from the Home Council, called at Plymouth. Of him the necessitous Pilgrims purchased a few edibles at high prices.[454] The old sailor’s mission failed; the fishermen were too strong and independent to be repressed. Ere long, on their petition, Parliament decreed that fishing should be free.[455]
Two weeks after the departure of West, the promised reinforcements arrived; the “Anne” landed her recruits, and a goodly store of provisions besides.[456]
So low was the colonial larder, that “the best dish they could present their friends with was a lobster or a piece of fish, without bread, or any thing else but a cup of fair spring water.”[457]
The “Anne” was shortly followed by the “Little James,” a vessel of forty-four tons burden, “built to stay in the country.”[458]
“Among the pioneers just arrived,” says Cotton Mather, “were divers worthy and useful men, who were come to seek the welfare of this little Israel; though at their coming they were as differently affected as the rebuilders of the temple at Jerusalem; some were grieved when they saw how bad the condition of their friends was, and others were glad that it was no worse.”[459]
Among the arrivals at this time “were, Cuthbertson, a member of the Leyden church, the wives of Fuller and Coake, and two daughters of Brewster. There were at least twelve ladies. One of these became the wife of Bradford; Standish married another. Alice Southworth, Bradford’s second wife, is said to have been his first love. Both being widowed, a correspondence took place, in the sequel of which she came out from England, and married her some-time lover at Plymouth.”[460]
“Some of your old friends go to you with these lines,” wrote Cushman; “they come dropping to you, and by degrees I hope ere long you shall enjoy them all.”[461]
Now also this commercial partnership beheld a vision of the immortal renown to which its humble agents were destined. “Let it not be grievous to you,” wrote the prescient scribe of the Home Company, “that you have been instruments to break the ice for others who came after you with less difficulty; the honor shall be yours to the world’s end. We bear you always in our hearts, and our cordial affection is toward you all, as are the hearts of hundreds more who never saw your faces, but who pray for your safety as for their own, that the same God who hath so marvellously preserved you from seas, foes, famine, will still preserve you from all future dangers, and make you honorable among men and glorious in bliss at the last day.”[462]