[1]Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, Treasurer (chief executive)
of the Virginia Company of London, 1620-24.
[2]Thomas Jones, Captain of the _Discovery_, the ship in the service of
the Virginia Company on which Pory was traveling. (Not to be
confused with Christopher Jones, master of the _Mayflower_ in 1620.)
[3]Sandys was Treasurer of the Virginia Company, 1619-20, a notable
Puritan and opponent of royal absolutism, influential in granting a
patent to the Pilgrims and their backers permitting them to
establish a “particular plantation” in Virginia, which then extended
as far north as 41°, thus including the mouth of the Hudson River.
John Ferrar was Deputy to the Treasurer in 1620. Sir George
Yeardley, knighted and sent out as Governor to Virginia in 1619, was
the candidate of Sandys’s party.
[4]Christopher Jones or John Clarke, a pilot experienced in the northern
route to Virginia (on which a ship sighted land at or near Cape Cod
and proceeded down the coast to Chesapeake Bay).
[5]Provincetown, Mass.
[6]Gloucester or Annisquam, Mass.
[7]“Anna” in the manuscript.
[8]Englishmen tended to translate Indian customs into feudal law.
Plymouth and the territory around it had been the home of a tribal
group of which Squanto was the only survivor. Neighboring Indians
traditionally had no rights there. The Pilgrims interpreted the
claims of Massasoit, the Wampanoag chief, as feudal overlordship
over southeastern Massachusetts, so the vacant parts of it which
they took up logically had to be a feudal domain of some kind.
[9]Bermudas.
[10]Romans 11:16.
[11]William Bradford.
[12]Alewives.
[13]Town Brook.
[14]The whole passage reads: “Naturam expelles furca licet, tamen usque
recurret, et mala perrumpet furtim fastidia victrix.” “You may drive
out Nature with a pitchfork, yet she will ever hurry back, and, ere
you know it, will burst through your foolish contempt in triumph.”
Horace, “Epistles, Book I, Epistle x,” _Satires, Epistles and Ars
Poetica_ with English translation by H. Rushton Fairclough (Loeb
Classical Library, 1932), 316, 317.
[15]Odoric of Pordenone (c. 1286-1331, formally beatified in the
eighteenth century) was a Franciscan friar and missionary who
traveled widely in the Far East. The story of his travels became
popular in the fourteenth century, but fell from favor as it gained
a reputation for embroidery. The phenomenon to which Pory refers
occurred at a place described as “Moumoran” in the printed version
with which Pory was probably familiar, that in Hakluyt, _Principal
Navigations_ (1599), II, 57.
[16]A stream running from the Smelt Pond to Plymouth Bay, entering it at
the mouth of the Jones River, about two miles northwest of Plymouth.
[17]“Skeines” in the manuscript.
[18]High tide in tidal streams.
[19]“Muskles and slammes” in the manuscript.
[20]Virginia.
[21]Delicacies.
[22]Chief town on Terceira, one of the Azore Islands, where Pory was
detained a prisoner on his way to England.
[23]Raspberries.
[24]The “musky” flavor common to the muscat grape varieties. “Muskadell”
in the manuscript.
[25]Pory was wrong; it is north of 41°.
[26]“Conahassit,” an old form, in the manuscript.
[27]Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoag or Pocanocket Indians, who lived
in the territory around present-day Bristol, R. I., which was then
called Pocanocket.
[28]Pamet is present-day Truro, Nauset is the area from Eastham to the
Denises, both on Cape Cod. Capawack is the island, Martha’s
Vineyard.
[29]Capt. Thomas Hunt took two dozen Indians captive in 1614, some at
Plymouth, some on Cape Cod, and sold several as slaves at Málaga.
While Hunt’s deeds were not excusable, they were merely the worst of
several such incidents. Capt. John Smith pointed out that Hunt could
not be responsible for the special hostility of the Capawack Indians
toward the English. Rather, their ill will may be traced to the
kidnaping of Epenow and Coneconam by Capt. Harlow, in 1614 or
earlier; the series of degrading experiences which Epenow underwent
at the hands of English captors; his influence on his countrymen
after his return to Capawack; and the somewhat mysterious friction
between him and Capt. Dermer in 1620, in which the latter was
mortally wounded. The Capawack Indians probably feared reprisal for
this and related incidents. Capt. John Smith, _Generall Historie of
Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles_ (1632), 204-205; Samuel
Purchas, _Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes_ (1625), IV,
1778, 1828, 1841, 1849; James P. Baxter, _Sir Ferdinando Gorges and
His Province of Maine_ (Prince Society, 1890), I, 104n-106n; W. F.
Gookin, _Capawack alias Martha’s Vineyard_ (1947), 8-17.
[30]Canonicus, the Narragansett sachem.
[31]Netherlanders who traded around the mouth of the Hudson River before
the actual founding of New Amsterdam in 1626.
[32]Whenever the king might come.
[33]“Combotant” in the manuscript.
[34]Squanto, the Pilgrims’ friend and sole survivor of the Patuxet
natives, had been one of the Indians gathered by Sir Ferdinando to
get information about New England. Gorges sent him back to America
in 1618 or 1619 as guide to Capt. Dermer.
[35]“Monhaccke” in the manuscript. In the early seventeenth century,
Iroquois Indians ranged as far east as New Hampshire.
[36]Hip-length coats of some protective strength.
[37]Eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay, where Pory had held land.
[38]Charts.
[39]Pacific Ocean. The French knew about the Great Lakes.
[40]Indians, quite powerful in Pory’s day, living in the lower part of
the river valley of the same name.
[41]The letter was written at the fishing grounds off northern New
England, probably Monhegan.
[42]In 1628 John Gibbs was master of the _Marmaduke_ in the service of
the New Plymouth Adventurers.
[43]Virginia Company of London.
[44]William Vengham. He was living and selling cured fish at Monhegan
(probably by arrangement with the island’s owners) in 1624, and
perhaps when Pory was in the region.
[45]“Tlemmish” in the manuscript.
[46]In 1622, the Council for New England made Sir Samuel Argall its
“Admiral” with the duty of excluding unlicensed operators from the
Council’s territory, North America from 40° to 48°. American
Antiquarian Society, _Proceedings_, Apr. 1867, 66-83.
[47]Possibly an illusion, possibly Block Island. It appears as
_Cabeleaus Eyleut_ (?) on the “Carte Figurative” (1616), reproduced
in T. A. Janvier, _The Dutch Founding of New York_ (1903), between
pages 20 and 21.
[48]Pory was mixed up. Boston Bay was _Graaf Hendrycks Bay_; Casco Bay
(or sometimes the water between Cape Ann and Portsmouth, N. H.),
_Graaf Willem_’s; Port Royal is now Annapolis Basin, Nova Scotia.
The Dutch names in the text have been left in the half-translated
state in which Pory wrote them. In modern Dutch, “States Hooke”
would be _Staten Hoek_.
[49]_Aquamachukes_ on the “Figurative Map” (1616), _Aquauachuques_ on
map by Vander Donck (1656), reproduced in J. Winsor (ed.),
_Narrative and Critical History of America_ (1884), IV, 433, 438.
[50]Weston’s rowdy crew at Wessagussett.
[51]Damariscove Island, off Boothbay, Me.
[52]Plymouth, England.
[53]Huckleberries.
[54]“Hugh” in the manuscript.
[55]This river is not identifiable. It may be an error in copying
“Pentagoet,” the French name for the Penobscot.
[56]Flat, open.
[57]Gloucester or Annisquam.
[58]“Anna” in the manuscript.
[59]The _Bona Nova_ was a ship often employed in the Virginia trade.
Nothing further is known about Swabber and the dead man.
[60]Indians.
[61]Goods for barter.
[62]Indians who performed the massacre of 1622 in Virginia.
[63]Edward Winslow, who left Plymouth for England on the _Anne_, Sept.
10, 1623.
[64]The other ship was the _Anne_, of 140 tons, William Peirce, master.
The Company of Adventurers for New Plymouth (sometimes called by
variants of this name) was the organization of merchants who helped
finance the Plymouth settlement. They “adventured” their money; the
Pilgrims were “planters,” although in modern estimation they were
more adventurous.
[65]The only passenger known to have a name similar to Jennings was John
Jenny, who lived to be an important man in the Plymouth Colony. This
woman may have been one in his series of wives.
[66]Indian name for Plymouth.
[67]Double his money.
[68]Monhegan and Damerill’s Cove (Damariscove) are islands off the coast
of Maine, each with a well-protected small harbor. Pemaquid is the
peninsula east of Boothbay, Me.; Sagadahoc is the extension of the
Kennebec River below its junction with the Androscoggin. Anquam is
Gloucester or Annisquam on Cape Ann, Mass. The Isles of Shoals are
off New Hampshire.
[69]A fishing stage, built over rock ledges near some convenient harbor,
was a scaffold or “wharf built of spruce trees, boards, and beach
stones where the fish could be cleaned,” salted and cured in the
sun. The fishermen raced from Europe to get the best places, so a
ship already in New England waters could hope to beat them all. S.
E. Morison, _The Story of the “Old Colony” of New Plymouth_ (1956),
122. The new year began on March 25 in the Old Style dating system.
[70]“Alcerme” in the manuscript. Both Altham and Capt. John Smith
believed that alkermes berries existed in North America. Perhaps
they thought cranberries were the same things. Actually, alkermes
berries are insects (species _coccus ilicis_) which live in the bark
of the kerm oak, a tree found around the Mediterranean Sea. The
pregnant females have a bright red color, and juice squeezed from
them was used as a dye and a cordial, especially in times when they
were still thought to be a vegetable.
[71]A master salter went over on the _Anne_, but he proved a better
talker than practitioner of his business. The Pilgrims gave him a
lot of help, but he made no salt. In spite of the logic of the idea,
saltmaking never became important in the Plymouth Colony.
[72]Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.
[73]“Bowle alminact” in the manuscript. The term had many variants, but
referred to an astringent earth found in Armenia, used as a styptic.
[74]Capt. Thomas Dermer made two voyages of exploration along the
Atlantic coast between Monhegan and Virginia in 1619 and 1620,
employed by Sir Ferdinando Gorges and others interested in
developing New England. He learned much and tried to establish peace
with the Indians, but in his dealings with those near Narragansett
Bay (where he liberated some French mariners) and Martha’s Vineyard,
he may have stirred up fear of the English. He was mortally wounded
in a fight with Epenow, an Indian who had once been a captive of Sir
Ferdinando and shown off as a curiosity in England. W. F. Gookin,
_Capawack alias Martha’s Vineyard_, 14-17.
[75]This is not impossible with Indian corn, but exceedingly unlikely.
[76]Hobomok was a Wampanoag, from west of Plymouth; Squanto, the last of
the Indians formerly living around Patuxet, had died in 1622.
[77]William Bradford married his second wife, Alice, daughter of
Alexander Carpenter, widow of Edward Southworth, Aug. 14, 1623.
[78]Saw. “Say” is an obsolete equivalent.
[79]Thomas Weston, the London merchant who originally promoted the
Company of Adventurers for New Plymouth in 1620. He wanted profit
from the business and, when his patience wore thin with a complete
settlement, sent out the private all-male colony which Altham here
refers to. Without family considerations, the men were expected to
stick to money-making activities like trade with the Indians and
grow food for themselves in their spare time. The colony was planted
at Wessagusset in present Weymouth, Mass., after sixty or so “lusty
men” had lived at the charge of the Pilgrims during the summer of
1622. Weston was devoted to America as well as profit and shady
deals, though, and went to Virginia and Maryland as a planter for
several years before dying in England, deep in debt. C. M. Andrews,
_Colonial Period of American History_ (1934), 1, 261-265, 330-331.
[80]Capt. Standish and his company went to the Wessagusset settlement to
warn the men of the conspiracy. After days of cautious waiting and
veiled exchange of threats with some of the leading Massachusetts
Indians, Standish got four of them into a room with about an equal
number of his men and assassinated three, including Pecksuot and
Wituwamat, whose head he took to Plymouth. In other ambuscades, with
some aid by Weston’s men, the Pilgrim expeditionary force killed
several others. The Wessagusset settlers, who had been reduced to
great want and dependence on the Indians, abandoned their place,
most going to the Maine coast to work for the fishermen and get
passage back to England. The story is told most fully in Edward
Winslow, “Winslow’s Relation,” in Young (ed.), _Chronicles of the
Pilgrim Fathers_ (“Everyman’s Library,” 1936), 313-332, or some
other edition of Winslow’s _Good News from New England_.
[81]Flag.
[82]Adventurers and Planters were both members of the Company under the
terms of the agreement made in 1620. Settlers were accounted as
having put in the value of a £10 share.
[83]Ralph Hawtry, husband of Altham’s sister Mary.
[84]Samuel Purchas, _Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes_
(London, 1625), 4 vol. The books had been announced as early as
1621.
[85]The Leventhorpes were neighbors and close friends of the Althams.
Sir Edward Altham married one of Sir John’s daughters. Sir John
Fowle had married another daughter. “My brother Thomas” was the son
and heir of Sir John Leventhorpe. Mary Leventhorpe was another
daughter.
[86]Margaret Wolley at least had him in her will, proved in 1635, eight
months before Altham’s death.
[87]Mr. Denn was rector in Latton, a man of Puritanical leanings. Stracy
was a tenant of the Althams; Mr. Bland, a minister and family
friend; Watson, a London gunsmith; Wells, a tenant of the Althams.
[88]James Sherley, goldsmith and treasurer of the Company of
Adventurers.
[89]On this voyage, Altham went as far as the Narragansett Indians; that
is, at least to western Rhode Island of today.
[90]Before experience showed the falsity of the idea, promoters of
colonies in America thought of the settlements as glorified trading
posts. This plan did work in Asia and logically ought to have in
America if, as men like Altham or other Adventurers thought, profit
was to be gained by trade and farming be only a spare-time adjunct.
[91]Not all went back. Nor was the damage so great; three or four houses
burned down. The common store house and its contents were saved by
means of good organization and wet cloths, although the fire started
in an adjoining shed. Bradford said the blaze was started by some
sailors from a ship in the service of the Council for New England.
The men, who wanted a cheerful atmosphere for a carousal, built a
big fire which may have gone out of control. Evidence also turned up
to show that the storehouse was deliberately lit. Bradford, _Of
Plymouth Plantation_, 136-137.
Furthermore, the town was more than restored quite soon. Captain
John Smith printed a description of Plymouth in 1624 which, in
addition to information about the government and economy of the
settlement, reported that “At New Plymouth is about 180 persons,
some cattle and goats, but many swine and poultry; thirty-two
dwelling houses, whereof seven were burnt the last winter, and the
value of five hundred pounds in other goods. The town is impaled
about half a mile in compass. In the town upon a high mount they
have a fort well built with wood, loam and stone, where is planted
their ordnance; also a fair watchtower, partly framed, for the
sentinel.” This passage, in original spelling, may be found in
“Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles,”
edition of 1624, reprinted in Edward Arber and A. G. Bradley (eds.),
_Travels and Works of Captain John Smith_ (1910), II, 782.
[92]Plymouth. The ship was anchored outside Plymouth harbor when the
storm blew up and almost drove her on the flats called Brown’s
Islands.
[93]Englishmen of the seventeenth century thought life barely possible
without beer.
[94]Altham’s nephews, sons of Sir Edward.
[95]See notes 21, 23, 25 to preceding letter.
[96]Old family servants. See preceding letter.
[97]On the _Charity_.
[98]The troublemaker probably was one of the men drowned in the wreck of
the _Little James_ (see below). The sailors of the pinnace, however,
had been discontented since early in the voyage. They believed they
had signed on for privateering, to get their pay in shares of prize
ships. After a near mutiny at Plymouth, Gov. Bradford helped arrange
regular wages for them, and kept them on the ship for the
exploration of southern New England, but they still insisted that
they would not go on a fishing voyage. “A Letter of William Bradford
and Isaac Allerton, 1623,” _American Historical Review_, VIII
(1902-03), 296.
[99]William Peirce was to be shipmaster of the _Charity_ on her return
voyage. Edward Winslow had returned from England on that ship.
[100]In 1624 all goods in the general storehouse at Plymouth belonged to
the Company.
[101]Probably they took supplies from the trading post near the mouth of
the Piscataqua River (near modern Portsmouth, N. H.) kept by David
Thompson. In his will, Altham left 40s. to a mistress Thomson in New
England, presumably the man’s widow, as repayment of a debt she did
not know of.
[102]At Damariscove Island, off Maine. The harbor usually gave ships
good protection in rough weather.
[103]“A sentence written lengthways in the margin, and not completed.”
J. F. Jameson, in Massachusetts Historical Society, _Proceedings_,
XLIV, 184n.
[104]’Ere.
[105]From Plymouth.
[106]Probably master of a fishing vessel from Barnstaple, Devonshire,
England. “Bastable,” however, is to be found on Cape Ann on Capt.
John Smith’s map of New England (1614 and later versions), and there
were more or less permanent residents on Cape Ann by 1624.
[107]Bradford, who wrote over twenty years after the event, remembered
the salvage episode as though Altham had not been involved: “...
some of the fishing masters said it was a pity so fine a vessel
should be lost and sent them [i.e., the Plymouth settlers] word that
if they would be at the cost, they would both direct them how to
weigh her and let them have their carpenters to mend her. They
thanked them and sent men about it, and beaver to defray the charge,
without which all had been in vain. So they got coopers to trim I
know not how many tun of cask, and being made tight and fastened to
her at low water, they buoyed her up; and then with many hands
hauled her on shore in a convenient place where she might be wrought
upon. And then hired sundry carpenters to work upon her, and other
to saw plank, and at last fitted her and got her home.” Bradford,
_Of Plymouth Plantation_, 163.
[108]One of the passengers on the _Mayflower_, “Richard Gardiner became
a seaman and died in England or at sea.” Bradford, _Of Plymouth
Plantation_, 447.
[109]La Rochelle. This meant that the ship was owned and manned by
French Protestants. La Rochelle was a Huguenot stronghold under the
Edict of Nantes and became the center of resistance to royal
attempts to revise the privileges of Protestants. English public
opinion backed the Huguenots and tended to regard the people of La
Rochelle as partners in an international religious struggle. When it
came to national rights over trade, however, French Protestants were
to be treated as foreigners, though with more consideration than
Catholics.
[110]Codfish “caught close to shore, landed within a couple of days, and
lightly salted and cured largely in the sun.” Morison, _Story of the
“Old Colony” of New Plymouth_, 122.
[111]Letter of marque.
[112]To seek profit in fishing.
[113]Dawson, surgeon on the _Little James_, used language such that
Altham “and others durst not go to sea with [him]; ... such that we
were constrained to dismiss him,” and replace him with a man from
the _Anne_. “A Letter of William Bradford and Isaac Allerton, 1623,”
_Am. Hist. Rev._, VIII, 300.
[114]Peirce and the _Charity_ had gone to the fishing areas about the
time of the wreck.
[115]Oil extracted from fat-fleshed fish by heat or pressure. Fish other
than cod had little market in Europe. In later centuries, the term,
“train-oil,” was given to whale oil.
[116]Of Gibraltar.
[117]Besides Robert Cushman, several of these men were probably
Adventurers for New Plymouth—Thomas Brewer, William Collier, John
Thornell, John Pocock.
[118]English opinion, including Gov. Bradford’s at this time, agreed
that profit from New England would come by fishing. Many made money
in this way, but the New Plymouth Company lost heavily by it.
[119]Mr. Pemberton, apparently a New Plymouth Adventurer and merchant,
sent his ship under the sponsorship of the Dorchester Adventurers,
the company founded under the inspiration of Rev. John White of
Dorchester, which became the ancestor of the Massachusetts Bay
Company. Pemberton probably was a close relative of another
Adventurer, John Pemberton, a minister and enemy of the Leyden
congregation Separatist element among the Plymouth settlers. John
Pemberton received letters from John Lyford against the religious
practices and government at Plymouth, and was a leader in the
factional strife in the Company of Adventurers which led to its big
split in 1625 after a debate over Lyford.
[120]At Gloucester on Cape Ann, Mass.
[121]_Hopewell_, William Peirce, master.
[122]Lyford and Oldham, whose letters of complaint Bradford seized in
1624, continued their machinations against the Pilgrim church and
government. Lyford had repented spectacularly after his first
exposure, but went back to work, still believing he had more friends
in the colony than dared speak up. He called down a list of
complaints from the Pemberton party among the Adventurers, but only
as they withdrew from the Company. Lyford and Oldham were exiled by
the colonial government, Lyford leaving after a second exposure and
Oldham after a period of near insanity, on the day when Altham
arrived the second time.
[123]The fools merely wanted to draw more capital to the sinking
enterprise; the knaves had ulterior motives, probably inspired by
Lyford’s suggestion that every man sent to the settlement at
Plymouth be given rights as an Adventurer (by juggling the accounts)
in order to outvote the Bradford regime.
[124]Argall, formerly associated with the Virginia Company, had become a
leading member of the Council for New England. Other Council members
took grants of land for themselves; Argall may have planned to, but
he died on an English expedition to attack Cadiz in 1626.
[125]Because of the debts contracted in their name by their agents and
the London merchants, the Plymouth settlers had to remain in the
Company as reorganized by a minority of the Adventurers headed by
James Sherley. Between July and October, 1626, Isaac Allerton, as
the colony’s agent, arranged a deal to buy the interests of the
remaining Adventurers (including Altham) on an installment plan.
Bradford, _Of Plymouth Plantation_, 182-186; Bradford, “Letter
Book,” Mass. Hist. Soc., _Collections_, 1st ser., III, 48.
[126]Wary, circumspect.
[127]Hawtry’s son-in-law, a lawyer.
[128]Plymouth, England.
[129]Blommaert was a merchant in Amsterdam and a director of the West
India Company, 1622-29, 1636-42.
[130]The official name of the Hudson River for several years (named
after Maurice, Prince of Orange). “Mauritse” in the original.
[131]Sandy Hook. [J. F. J.]
[132]Sandy Hook Bay. [J. F. J.]
[133]The Narrows, between Staten Island and Brooklyn.
[134]Long Island.
[135]Montauk Point.
[136]Wampum.
[137]The Siwanoys lived north of Long Island Sound, from the Bronx to
Norwalk, Conn.; the Shinnecocks inhabited the east end of Long
Island. “Souwenos,” in the original, is a name applied promiscuously
by early Dutch cartographers.
[138]No doubt in the missing portion; the Pequots are apparently meant.
[J. F. J.] The Pequots lived to the west of Narragansett Bay, in the
eastern part of Connecticut.
[139]Probably the Kill van Kull and the Passaic or Hackensack River was
thought to connect with the Wallkill River and Rondout Creek.
[140]Delaware River.
[141]In Holland. [J. F. J.]
[142]A morgen is about two acres. [J. F. J.]
[143]East River. The West India Company’s six farms lay east of the
present Bowery, and extended from a fresh-water swamp occupying the
site of the present Roosevelt and James Streets northward to
Eighteenth or Twentieth Street. [J. F. J.]
[144]Governor’s Island.
[145]I.e., both Fort Amsterdam and the little island itself. Blommaert’s
Vly was a low, damp depression running northeast and southwest about
on the line of the present Broad Street. [J. F. J.]
[146]This name applies more properly to one of the Indian dialects
spoken in the vicinity of Manhattan. J. G. Wilson (ed.), _The
Memorial History of the City of New York_ (1892), I, 49.
[147]The fish. [J. F. J.]
[148]Blackstone River, Upper Narragansett Bay, and Sakonnet River.
[149]The short cut across the base of Cape Cod, now taken by ships
through the Cape Cod Canal, was used by the Plymouth settlers and
the Indians, who went up Scusset creek on the north side and down
the Manomet River on the southwest. The site of the trading post
built on the Manomet, near Buzzard’s Bay, has been excavated and the
house restored. It is in the town of Bourne and can be reached as
follows: “after crossing the Bourne Bridge over the Canal [heading
toward Cape Cod], turn sharp right; next, bear left at a fork and
follow Shore Road to signs indicating the Post; turn right under the
railroad bridge and follow a dirt road through woods to the Post.”
Morison, _Story of the “Old Colony” of New Plymouth_, 131n.
[150]Narragansett Bay.
[151]Cape Cod, especially Monomoy Point.
[152]In New Netherland and western New England, especially the
Connecticut valley.
[153]De Rasieres, however, protested to Gov. Bradford that he had not
walked “so far this three or four years, wherefore I fear my feet
will fail me; so I am constrained to entreat you to afford me the
easiest means” to get from the Aptucxet trading post to Plymouth. So
the Governor sent a boat to pick him up at Scusset. Bradford,
“Letter Book,” Mass. Hist. Soc., _Collections_, 1st ser., III, 54.
[154]On an east-and-west line from the outer tip of Cape Cod.
[155]Plymouth Beach. [J. F. J.]
[156]The Gurnet and Saquish Head.
[157]He reverses the actual bearings; and the street first mentioned was
longer, 1,150 feet. [J. F. J.]
[158]A double share. [J. F. J.]
[159]In 1626, Isaac Allerton on behalf of the Plymouth settlers, agreed
to buy the interests of the remaining London Adventurers for £1800,
which De Rasieres translated into guilders by a simple formula. In
July 1627, though De Rasieres may not have been well informed of the
event, a group of leading men in the Colony, led by Bradford, became
“Undertakers” for six years to pay this debt (and about £600 in
other debts owed by the Colony) by means of a monopoly on the
external trade of the settlement, including all dealings with the
Indians. According to the agreement, each colonist who was a Freeman
of the Company (i.e., had agreed to the purchase in 1626 and
acquired rights to a share in the division of lands) made an annual
payment to the Undertakers of three bushels of corn or six pounds of
tobacco as they might specify. Bradford, _Of Plymouth Plantation_,
184-188, 194-196.