In the mean time, Captain Standish was sent out, with the shallop, and a few men, to explore the coast and purchase all the corn he could of the Indians. Valiant as he was in fight, he was, in ordinary life, a mild and gentle man, and eminently just in all his dealings. Much as the Indians dreaded his avenging arm, they seemed to be fully conscious that he would do them no wrong. Early in August he returned from this trading-voyage, with his shallop well loaded down with corn, which proved invaluable to the Pilgrims until their own harvest should come in.
He brought back with him Mr. David Thompson, a Scotchman, who, with a small party of emigrants, had commenced a plantation at the mouth of the Piscataqua, where Portsmouth now stands. For these many tokens of the divine goodness, Governor Bradford appointed another day of thanksgiving. It may be instructive here to insert Governor Bradford’s testimony respecting the effect of a community of goods, which experiment was so fairly tried, and under such favorable circumstances, at Plymouth:
“The experience which was had in this common course and condition,” he writes, “tried sundry years, and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato and other ancients, and applauded by some of later times,—that the taking away of property, and bringing a community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this community, so far as it was such, was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and to retard much employment which would have been to their benefit and comfort. For the young men, who were the most able and fit for labor and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children, without any recompense.
“The strong, or man of parts, had no more in the division of victuals and clothes, than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could. This was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labors, victuals, clothes, etc., with the meaner and younger sort, thought it some indignity and disrespect unto them. As for men’s wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it. Let none object, this is men’s corruption, and nothing against the course itself. I answer, seeing all men have this corruption in them, God, in his wisdom, saw another course fitter for them.”[37]
Early in August two ships arrived, the Anne and the Little James. The latter was a small vessel of about forty-four tons, which was built for the company and was to remain at Plymouth. The two vessels brought sixty passengers. Some of them were very worthy people and constituted a valuable addition to the colony. Others were such sad miscreants that the Pilgrims instructed by the disasters which the Weymouth colonists had caused, refused to receive them into their colony. The thriftless creatures, unable to establish a settlement of their own, were compelled to return to England.
The corn harvest was not yet ripe, and the newcomers were greatly surprised at the destitution in which they found the colonists. “The best dish,” writes Bradford, “they could present them with, was a lobster or a piece of fish, without bread or anything else but a cup of fair spring water.” The new-comers were afraid that the hungry colonists would eat up all the provisions they had brought with them. On the other hand the colonists were fearful that the new-comers would devour their harvest of corn, which was scarcely sufficient for so large an addition to their numbers. They therefore decided that each of the parties should rely upon its own resources.
On the 10th of September the Anne returned to England, laden with clapboards and furs. Mr. Winslow also sailed in her, on business for the colony. The harvest was now in, and there was comparative plenty. Many had raised more corn than their own families would consume, and thus they had a supply to sell to others. About the middle of this month Captain Robert Georges arrived in Massachusetts Bay with a number of families, to commence a new plantation there. His grant of land was very indefinite. It embraced all the land lying on the northeast side of Massachusetts Bay, together with all the shores and coasts, for ten English miles, in a straight line towards the northeast, and thirty miles into the main land. He selected for his settlement, the spot at Weymouth which had been abandoned by the Weston Colony. Governor Georges visited Governor Bradford, where he met with a very kind reception.
Some of the seamen, carousing in one of the houses, built a great fire on a cold and windy night, which was communicated to the thatch, and four houses were burnt down. The store-house was greatly endangered. Its loss would have been irreparable. The Little James went on a cruise to the coast of Maine, and there, in a violent storm, was wrecked. Mid-winter now frowned around the Pilgrims as they entered upon a new year, the year 1624.
Mr. Winslow returned from England, bringing with him two heifers and a bull, an invaluable acquisition to the colonists, being the first cattle that were brought over. As they had no money, corn had become the circulating medium. With the opening spring all hands set to work to raise as much corn as possible. This led to a petition to the Governor to have a portion of land assigned, in perpetuity, to each individual. When assigned yearly, by lot, that field which one man, by skill and industry, had brought into a good state of cultivation, was often taken from him, and he received, perhaps, instead, a field neglected and overrun with weeds. The request was manifestly so reasonable, that one acre was given to every man, as near the village as might be, to be held seven years. It was deemed necessary, for safety against the Indians, to keep as close together as possible.
With some internal disorders, the affairs of the colony went on prosperously during the year, nothing occurring to call the energies of Captain Standish into requisition. The colony numbered one hundred and eighty souls. They had some cattle and goats, quite a number of swine, and numerous poultry. Thirty-two dwelling houses were now occupied. The palisades which surrounded the village were half a mile in extent. A well-built fort stood upon Burial Hill.