A CHECKERED RECORD.
“Naught shall prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.”
WORDSWORTH.
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
“hear the Pilgrims’ peaceful prayer
Swelling along the silent air,
Amid the forest wild.”
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]