Until the great immigration into Massachusetts Bay, in 1630, Plymouth continued to be the largest single settlement in New England; but, from 1622 onward, there were scattered beginnings at other points along the coast, many of which proved permanent. Gorges endeavored to put new life into colonization, and in that year published his “Briefe Narration” of the efforts he had made heretofore.[[236]] In less than two months after the granting of Pierce's patent for the benefit of the Pilgrims, another grant was made to Captain John Mason of all the lands lying between the Naumkeag and Merrimac rivers, and extending from their heads to the seacoast, thus including the shore from Salem to Newburyport.[[237]] In August, a third grant was passed, to Mason and Gorges jointly, of the coast from the Merrimac eastward to the Kennebec, extending sixty miles inland, and including all islands within fifteen miles of the shore, to be called the Province of Maine.[[238]] Other grants were also made in the same year,[[239]] and a small settlement may have been begun at Nantasket.[[240]]
Of more immediate interest to the people of Plymouth than paper principalities or small fishing stations, of which there were probably many along the coast, used annually at certain seasons, was the attempt made by their own financial backer, Thomas Weston, to establish a private and rival trading colony almost at their very door. Profits not having come in as rapidly as he had anticipated, he had sold out his holdings in the enterprise to his associates, and now intended to plant and trade for his own account, getting all he could from the Pilgrims. Although he attempted to misrepresent the new relation which he now bore toward them, it was not long before they learned the truth from their friends at home. Toward the end of May, a small shallop arrived with seven of his men, whom he had detached from a fishing vessel of his at Damaris Cove, near Monhegan, and sent to Plymouth to be cared for. Soon followed word of his having broken with the company, and of his having procured a separate patent for himself. By the vessel which brought this news arrived also sixty more of his colonists, who were set ashore at Plymouth, by the Charity, which then proceeded to Virginia. Well and sick, the whole sixty-seven remained a burden upon the Pilgrims, until, the Charity having returned, they sailed in her to Wessagusset, now Weymouth, where they seated themselves. An unruly crew, with no leadership, and utterly unfitted for colonizing, they were soon short of provisions. A joint voyage to the southward, made by some of them and of the Pilgrims, resulted in securing but little corn, the expedition having had to be abandoned on account of the death of Squanto, who, as usual, was serving as guide.
As the winter passed, the Wessagusset men slowly starved. Their attitude toward the natives was the height of folly, and the somewhat hostile Massachusetts Indians, perceiving their plight, formed a plot to exterminate both settlements at once. This was revealed to the Pilgrims by Massasoit, who, at this most opportune moment, had been cured by them of what his followers had thought a deadly sickness. The crisis was a serious one, and the Pilgrims acted promptly. Feigning a trading voyage, Standish and eight men went to Wessagusset, inveigled the ringleaders into one of the houses, and there slew them. Pecksuot, who had personally insulted Standish, was killed with his own knife, which the captain snatched from around his neck; and, in all, six savages were slain on the expedition. Three of Weston's men, who, in spite of warnings, had gone to stay with the Indians, were murdered by them in retaliation. Most of the remainder, refusing the Pilgrims' offer to care for them at Plymouth, sailed for Monhegan, in the hope of finding passage to England.[[241]] Weston himself, arriving soon after, found his colony deserted, and himself ruined. On reaching Plymouth, after having been robbed and stripped by the Indians, he unblushingly borrowed capital from the compassionate Pilgrims in order to set himself up as a trader.
Another of the capitalists also gave the Pilgrims trouble by trying the same plan of planting a colony of his own. On the 30th of April, 1622, Pierce, in whose name their patent stood, obtained another, which, on the same day, he exchanged for a deed-pole, by which he became the owner of the lands on which Plymouth was settled. Having thus cut the ground from under the Pilgrims' feet, he proceeded to send out a hundred and nine colonists for his own account. The ship was forced to turn back, however; and finally, the Pilgrims, on making complaint to the Council for New England, had their original rights confirmed, upon payment to Pierce of £500.[[242]]
These troubles, which occupied their minds in the early summer of 1623, were soon followed by the arrival of Captain West, who had been commissioned Admiral of New England, and sent to collect license fees from the fishermen along the coast. These proved to be “stuborne fellows,” however, and the only result of West's brief attempt at authority was to bring up anew in Parliament the fight for free fishing and the opposition to the monopoly created by the New England Council. Robert Gorges also came over as Governor of New England, accompanied by the Rev. William Morell, who was to superintend ecclesiastical affairs in the interest of the Church of England; but, although Gorges spent the winter at Weston's abandoned site, nothing more came of this high-sounding scheme to govern the wilderness.
Among the passengers in the Anne, which arrived at Plymouth in the same summer of 1623, were some few who were not to belong to the general body, or be subject to the rules of joint trading, but came on “their perticuler,” as Bradford describes it. An agreement was soon made with them, debarring them from the Indian trade until the period of joint trading should end, and otherwise defining their status in the community. Such an anomalous group within the body politic naturally tended to trouble, nor were leaders lacking who endeavored to fan the sparks into a blaze. Among the “perticulers” was a rough-and-ready trader named John Oldham, a man of considerable practical ability, but heady, self-willed, and of an ungovernable temper. In the following spring appeared also a canting hypocritical clergyman, John Lyford by name, who seems to have been a sort of lascivious Uriah Heep. Pretending great humility, he was honorably received by the Pilgrims, as they thought befitting a clergyman, and was given a seat in the Governor's Council. Soon, however, he and Oldham joined forces, and gathered together the various malcontents of the colony, without any very clear idea, apparently, beyond that of fishing in troubled waters, in the hope of making some profitable catch. The waters were troubled enough at this juncture, for the factions among the Adventurers at home were then at their height. To the party there adverse to the Pilgrim interest, Oldham and Lyford dispatched letters, containing matter distinctly inimical to the established order. These were read and copied by Bradford, in the cabin of the ship which was to bear them, unknown to the senders. The latter, indeed, had some suspicions, and “were somewhat blanke at it, but after some weeks, when they heard nothing, they were as brisk as ever,” like boys relieved from the fear of having been caught in mischief. In fact, they became so brisk that Oldham, when called upon to do his turn of guard duty by Standish, refused and raised a tumult.
The grotesque effect of their next stroke was naturally lost upon people who, with all their excellent qualities, were, unhappily for themselves, very obviously lacking in the saving grace of humor. The curiously assorted couple decided to set up a church of their own. The thought of Oldham, “a mad Jack in his mood,” and the sniveling clergyman, whose innumerable light loves had brought so many heavy sorrows, reforming the Pilgrims' church is one of the bits which lighten the somewhat sombre recital of those frontier days. A General Court was convened, and the two were brought to trial. Both of them were sentenced to banishment, Oldham to go at once, and Lyford to have six months' grace, although the former seems to have been rather the more respectable, as he was much the more masculine, of the two. Oldham went, but, having nursed his wrath, he suddenly returned in March, for the sole purpose, apparently, of exploding it upon the yet unreformed Pilgrims, who, however, merely “committed him till he was tamer.” Lyford, meanwhile, had utilized his reprieve to write home again, criticizing the government of the colony, and making some just complaints, on the part of the large minority, of the required conformity of worship. The sentence of banishment was then enforced, and both rebels betook themselves temporarily to Nantasket.[[243]]
In the same summer in which the Pilgrims had acquired Lyford and Oldham, an addition of about sixty other persons had also been made to the colony, some of them “very usefull” to the settlers, and some of them “so bad, as they were faine to be at charge to send them home againe the next year.”[[244]] Other settlements, too, continued to be planted along the coast. Robert Gorges, who had received a grant of some three hundred square miles on the northeast side of Massachusetts Bay, but who had settled his men at Wessagusset, left some of them there when he returned to England, and the permanent occupation of that section was begun.[[245]] In 1623, David Thompson established himself at the mouth of the Piscataqua; while Edward and William Hilton may soon after have settled some miles up the river, thus founding the modern towns of Portsmouth and Dover. Christopher Levett, who was one of Robert Gorges's Council, made a short-lived plantation at York, and a permanent colony was effected on Monhegan.[[246]] For the greater convenience of their fishing operations, which were never successful, the Pilgrims had secured a grant of land at Cape Ann, and erected a fishing stage there, although the grant, which was derived from Lord Sheffield, was of questionable validity.[[247]] A fishing company was formed of Dorchester men in England, who made a little settlement on the Cape, holding it of the Plymouth people.[[248]] Although the undertaking was unprofitable, and always a source of trouble to the Pilgrims, it is of interest owing to the connection with it of some of those who were later influential in England in organizing the Massachusetts colony.
About 1625, individuals also seem to have established themselves at Shawmut, at Noddle's Island, and on the Mystic River; and, a year later, Thompson removed from the Piscataqua, and settled on the island which has since borne his name in Boston Harbor.[[249]] Farther eastward, John Brown, by 1625, had founded a settlement at New Harbor, on the eastern shore of Pemaquid; and in the next five years, eighty-four families had located there, on St. Georges River, and at Sheepscot.[[250]] A station had also been established at Old Orchard Bay, while the importance of Monhegan as a centre for Indian trading is proved by large transactions there as early as 1626.[[251]]
Thus, the inhabitants of Plymouth, after the middle of the first decade of their settlement, were evidently outnumbered by the other permanent settlers, who were likewise founding New England. Some of these we know to have been of the established Church, as were Gorges and Mason, the proprietors of a large section of the territory; while of the majority, we know only that they were traders and planters, who were quite evidently in New England to make their fortunes, and for no other reason.