{MN} An Evil Mischance.
These Noble Adventures for all thole losses patiently do bear them; but they hope the King and State will understand it is worth keeping, tho' it afford nothing but Tobacco, and that now worth little or nothing, Custom and Fraught pay'd, yet it is worth keeping, and not supplanting; tho' great Men feel not those losses, yet Gardiners, Carpenters and Smiths, do pay for it.
From the Relation of Robert Chestevan and others.
CHAP. XXIII.
The Proceedings and present Estate of New England, since 1624.
to this present 1629.
When I went first to the North part of Virginia, where the Westerly Colony had been planted, it had dissolved it self within a Year, and there was not one Christian in all the Land. I was set forth at the sole Charge of four Merchants of London; the Country being then reputed by your Westerlings, a most Rocky Barren, Desolate Desart; {MN-1} but the good Return brought from thence, with the Maps and Relations I made of the Country, which I made so manifest, some of them did believe me, and they were well embraced both by the Londoners and the Westerlings, for whom I had promised to undertake it, I thinking to have joined them all together, but that might well have been a work of Hercules. Betwixt them long there was much contention; the Londoners indeed went bravely forward; but in three or four Years, I and my Friends consumed many hundred Pounds amongst the Plimothians, who only fed me with delays, promises and excuses, but no Performance of any thing to any purpose. In the interim, many particular Ships went thither, and finding my Relations true, and that I had not taken that I brought home from the French Men, as had been reported; yet further, for my Pains to discredit me, and my calling it New-England, they obscured, and shadowed it, with the Title of Canada, till at my humble suit, it pleased our most Royal King Charles, whom God long keep, bless and preserve, then Prince of Wales, to confirm it with my Map and Book, by the Title of New England; the gain thence returning, did make the same thereof so increase, that thirty, forty, or fifty sail went Yearly only to Trade and Fish; but nothing would be done for a Plantation, till about some Hundred of your Brownists of England, Amsterdam and Leyden, went to New Plimouth, whose humorous Ignorances, caused them for more than a Year to endure a wonderful deal of misery, with an infinite patience; saying my Books and Maps were much better cheap to teach them than my self; {MN-2} many other have used the like good Husbandry, that have payed soundly in trying their self-will'd conclusions; but those in time doing well, divers others have in small handfuls undertaken to go there, to be several Lords and Kings of themselves, but most vanished to nothing; notwithstanding the Fishing Ships, made such good returns, at last it was ingrossed by twenty Patentees, that divided my Map into twenty parts, and cast Lots for their shares; but Money not coming in as they expected, procured a Proclamation, none should go thither without their Licences to Fish; but for every thirty Tuns of Shipping, to pay them five Pounds; besides, upon great Penalties, neither to Trade with the Natives, cut down Wood for their Stages, without giving satisfaction, though all the Country is nothing but Wood, and none to make use of it, with many such other pretences, for to make this Country plant it self, by its own Wealth: Hereupon most Men grew so discontented, that few or none would go; so that the Patentees, who never a one of them had been there, seeing those Projects Would not prevail, have since not hindred any to go that would, that within these few last years, more have gone thither than ever.
{MN-1} Considerations about the loss of time.