{MN-2} The effect of negardliness.
{MN} Now this Year 1629, a great company of People of good Rank, Zeal, Means, and Quality, have made a great Stock, and with six good Ships in the Months of April and May, they set Sail from Thames, for the Bay of the Massachusets, otherwise called Charles's River; viz. the George Bonaventure, of twenty pieces of Ordnance, the Talbot nineteen, the Lions-whelp eight, the May-flower fourteen, the Four Sisters fourteen, the Pilgrim four, with three hundred and fifty Men, Women, and Children; also an hundred and fifteen head of Cattel, as Horse, Mares, and neat Beast; one and forty Goats, some Conies, with all Provision for Houshold and Apparel; six pieces of great Ordnance for a Fort, with Muskets, Pikes, Corselets, Drums, Colours, with all Provision necessary for a Plantation, for the good of Man; other Particulars I understand of no more, than is writ in the general History of those Countries.
{MN} A new Plantation 1629.
But you are to understand, that the noble Lord chief Justice Popham, Judge Doderege; the Right Honourable Earls of Pembroke, Southampton, Salisbury, and the rest, as I take it, they did all think, as I and them went with me, did; That had those two Countries been planted, as it was intended, that no other Nation should complant betwixt us. If ever the King of Spain and we should fall foul, those Countries being so capable of all Materials for shipping, by this might have been Owners of a good Fleet of Ships, and to have relieved a whole Navy from England upon occasion; yea, and to have furnished England with the most Easterly Commodities; and now since, seeing how conveniently the Summer Isles fell to our shares, so near the West-Indies, we might with much more facility than the Dutch Men have invaded the West-Indies, that doth now put in practice, what so long hath been advised on, by many an honest English States-man.
{MN} Those Countries, Captain Smith oft times used to call his Children that never had Mother; and well he might, for few Fathers ever payed dearer for so little content; and for those that would truly understand, how many strange Accidents hath befallen them and him; how oft up, how oft down, sometimes near despair, and ere long flourishing, cannot but conceive Gods infinite Mercies and Favours towards them. Had his Designs been to have perswaded Men to a Mine of Gold, though few doth conceive either the charge or pains in refining it, nor the power nor care to defend it; or some new Invention to pass to the South Sea, or some strange Plot to invade some strange Monastery, or some portable Country, or some chargeable Fleet to take some rich Carocks in the East-Indies; of Letters of Mart to rob some poor Merchants; What multitudes of both People and Money would contend to be first imployed? But in those noble endeavours (now) how few of quality, unless it be to beg some Monopoly; and those seldom seek the common good, but the Commons Goods, as you may read at large in his general History, pag. 217, 218, 219, his general Observations and Reasons for this Plantation; for yet those Countries are not so forward, but they may become as miserable as ever, if better courses be not taken than is; as this Smith will plainly demonstrate to his Majesty, or any other noble Person of Ability, liable generously to undertake it; how within a Short time to make Virginia able to resist any Enemy, that as yet lieth open to all, and yield the King more Custom within these few years, in certain staple Commodities, than ever it did in Tobacco; which now not being worth bringing home, the Custom will be as uncertain to the King, as dangerous to the Plantation.
{MN} Notes of inconveniency.