It would not be so ill if all the housewives would make a generous quantity, but there are some among us who are not so industrious as others, and dislike the labor of making soap. They fail to provide sufficient for themselves, but depend upon borrowing; thus spending the stores of those who have looked ahead for the needs of the future.
Well, as I have said, the winter passed, and we were come to the second summer after making this settlement of Plymouth.
Once more was famine staring us in the face, therefore every man, woman and child, save those chosen to go fishing, was sent into the fields for the planting.
ENGLISH VISITORS
It was while our people were out fishing that they were met by a great surprise, which was nothing less than a shallop steering as if to come into the harbor, and in her were many men.
At first our fishermen feared the visitors might be Frenchmen who had come bent on some evil intent; but nevertheless our people approached boldly, and soon learned that the shallop came from a ship nearby, which Master Weston had sent out fishing from a place on the coast called Damarins Cove.
This Master Weston, so I learned later, was one of those merchants who had aided in fitting out our company in England; but after our departure had decided to send a colony on his own account, and the people afterward settled at Wessagussett.
