Through arbiters, Plymouth and London reach a financial settlement
While this dispute was in progress, however, the Pilgrims were so perplexed about its rights that they were persuaded to send 1,325 pounds of beaver directly to the other two partners, hoping to satisfy their claims that Sherley had paid them nothing. After selling it, Beauchamp chalked off £400 of their debt, but Andrews, through mismanagement, sold his at a loss and in 1642 still claimed between £500 and £600. He finally agreed to accept payment in cattle to Governor John Winthrop of Massachusetts Bay and designated the “godly poor men” and “poor ministers” of that colony as the beneficiaries of Plymouth’s debt. In addition, Andrews and Beauchamp received land in Scituate, one of several flourishing daughter towns now settled in Plymouth.[47]
Meanwhile the business with Sherley was wound up at last. Trade with him had already broken off because of distrust of his repeated delays in accounting to his London partners. For fear of legal reprisals from any of these, it was decided not to risk sending another agent to London but to have some “gentlemen and merchants in the Bay” hear the dispute. Even “though it should cost them all they had in the world,” the “Undertakers” promised to accept their award. This decision was prompted by two considerations. First, they feared that the price of cattle, by now a greater source of income than furs, might drop and change their circumstances. Also, the colony’s founders, surviving into old age, wished to clear up their affairs before death overtook them. Sherley himself believed that lawyers would be “the most gainers” from legal action, and therefore selected John Atwood and William Collier, recent merchant arrivals in Plymouth from London, to draw up a composition. Another participant in the settlement was Edmund Freeman, Beauchamp’s brother-in-law, and now the leading citizen of Sandwich. After laborious days of investigation of accounts, they estimated everything left in Plymouth of the old stock, housing, boats, the bark and goods for the Indian trade, and “all debts, as well those that were desperate, as others more hopeful,” at £1400.
By October 15, 1641, Atwood, Bradford, and Edward Winslow had come to terms ending the partnership. The agreement of 1627 was reacknowledged, but Plymouth, while admitting confusion in Josiah Winslow’s bookkeeping, again repudiated the debts of the White Angel and the Friendship. A full discharge from the obligations of the beaver trade, the charges of the two ships, and the £1800 purchase money agreed on in 1627 was promised by Atwood in behalf of the London associates. Bradford and his partners for their part guaranteed payment to them of £1400. £110 of this had already been paid to Winthrop for Andrews’ account, and eighty pounds of beaver to Atwood. The rest was to be discharged in appropriate commodities, at the rate of £200 per year.