1620—Pilgrims and merchants form a joint stock company
The discussions in England and Leyden over the articles of agreement were protracted. Robert Cushman, as intermediary, thought he closed a hard bargain with the “grasping” merchants. The terms of July 1, 1620, were not unlike those of other colonial enterprises tried in Virginia and Bermuda. The entire capital, including lands, was to be a joint stock fund, divided into shares. Every person over the age of sixteen going to the new colony was rated at £10, and £10 was accounted a single share. Any emigrant outfitting himself with £10 worth of provisions was considered worth £20 or a double share. For example, William Mullins, a well-to-do investor-planter, who died in the first year, left in his will his stock of £40 worth of boots and shoes, expecting it to increase to nine shares at the end of seven years. The adventurers who contributed only money and stayed at home, and the planters, were to continue the joint stock for seven years during which time all profits from “trade, traffic, trucking, working, fishing, or any other means” must remain in the common stock. Then they would divide equally the capital and profits, viz., lands, houses, and goods. The common stock would furnish food, apparel, and provisions.
A good deal of controversy arose when it was learned that the adventurers insisted on harsher terms than those in the original agreement. The assets of the common stock, it was claimed, had not included the houses and home lots of the settlers, nor were they to work seven days a week, two days having been reserved for employment for their own families. The future planters had some right here, for they were the full partners and not the servants of the company. Robert Cushman, who seems to have concealed the stiffer terms, nevertheless vigorously defended them. When criticized by Pastor Robinson, who considered him “... (though a good man and of special abilities in his kind) yet most unfit to deal with other men by reason of his ... too great indifferency for any conditions ...,” Cushman retorted to Carver: “... what it is you would have of me I know not; for your crying out, ‘Negligence, negligence,’ I marvel why so negligent a man was used in the business.” If the disheartening new conditions insisted on made many “ready to faint and go back,” he could only say that the adventurers, other than Weston, would have withdrawn their help if he had not altered the original ones. With much irritation he objected to the “querimonies and complaints against me, of lording it over my brethren and making conditions fitter for thieves and bondslaves than honest men....” Bradford suggests that Carver never forwarded this heated letter to Leyden, but its indignant tone suggests the vexations which fretted the Pilgrims in their undertaking.[6]
The emigrants objected to the new articles and upon arrival in Southampton from Holland rejected Cushman’s pleas. This refusal, even though backed by their friends at Leyden and held to until Cushman secured their adherence to the terms in 1621, unfortunately embittered relations with the adventurers. Weston, coming down to Southampton to see them off, “was much offended and told them they must then look to stand on their own legs.” Bradford saw in this episode the origin of the “discontent” which later developed between the planters and their chief financial backer.