The colony and its London partners dispute over their accounts
The stresses between the “Undertakers” and the London partners were not relieved simply by Allerton’s dismissal. A decade of acrimonious exchange of letters followed from 1631 to 1641. It was not easy for the Londoners to balance off Allerton’s debts, along with new expenses, against the receipt of furs shipped from Plymouth. They were determined to hold out until a settlement profitable to them was reached. Throughout this quarrel Bradford’s History has to be our guide for the most part, for only one fragment of reckoning between Sherley and Allerton has been found. Undoubtedly, when the great governor wrote his narrative he was trying to rehabilitate the Pilgrims’ financial reputation and counter the rumors in London and Boston mercantile circles that they were in default. In his chapters on finance he is repetitious, sometimes confusing, and yet omits certain business details. His judgment was charitable, however, and by recording Sherley’s letters he preserved at least some of London’s side of the controversy.
The first dispute arose from Edward Winslow’s unwillingness to accept the White Angel’s losses on the “Undertakers’” account. Sherley was displeased and warned that this “unreasonable refusal” might “hasten that fire which is a kindling too fast already....” Plymouth nonetheless declined to take on all the debts which appeared in Sherley’s accounting of 1631. It was found that in arriving at a total of £4770, in addition to £1000 unpaid of the purchase money, he had charged twice and even three times for certain items. £600 of this amount even Allerton could not identify.
The London partners’ dissatisfaction with the records kept in Plymouth led Sherley to insist on the appointment of Josiah Winslow, younger brother of Edward, as their accountant. The Pilgrims remarked crustily “that if they were well dealt with and had their goods well sent over, they could keep their accounts ... themselves.” Certainly, the new accountant, with his hopeless inaccuracy and carelessness, did little to mend matters. In fact, he “did wholly fail them, and could never give them any account; but trusting to his memory and loose papers, let things run into such confusion that neither he, nor any with him, could bring things to rights.” Ultimately, they lost several hundreds of pounds in this way for goods trusted out without any record clear enough to call in the payments. Also, goods arrived from England without prices or invoices.
Meanwhile, several circumstances fed Plymouth’s dissatisfaction with James Sherley, including his continuing to do business with Allerton. After selling the latter the controversial ship, Sherley nevertheless could write with unctious fervor, “Oh the grief and trouble that man, Mr. Allerton, hath brought upon you and us! I cannot forget it, and to think on it draws many a sigh from my heart and tears from my eyes.” Yet he rescued Allerton from trouble with his ship, sent Plymouth’s supply on board it in 1632, and allowed him easy terms. It was hard to reconcile Sherley’s depressing complaints about his own heavy debts with this extension of credit to Allerton and participation in other ventures, such as sending Captain William Peirce to Massachusetts Bay. Unfortunately, Peirce’s ship met disaster on her way home in 1632, so the beaver that Plymouth had entrusted to her, along with some of their accounts, was “swallowd up in the sea.”
By 1636 Bradford reckoned that Plymouth had sent to England about 12,530 pounds of beaver estimated to be worth more than £10,000, with 1,156 otter skins to pay the freight charges. Because of Winslow’s shaky accounts, they could only estimate the receipts of English goods. They thought these cost about £2000, and even if the debt of £4770 was increased, they could not understand why the fur receipts would not have more than paid it off. One explanation probably is that Sherley was unable to sell all of the beaver at the high prices they had counted on. During the plague year of 1636 he complained that prices dropped to 8s. a pound. Also, Sherley was unable to determine just how many skins belonged to the “Undertakers’” account, and how many Winslow had bought from settlers who had no part in the “Undertakers’” scheme.[45]