Three Visitors to Early Plymouth / Letters about the Pilgrim settlement in New England during its first seven years

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.