In 1632, an event of no little interest occurred. Governor Winthrop went to Plymouth to exchange fraternal greetings with Governor Bradford, and mutual inquiries of “What cheer?” were passed. Winthrop has related the incident. Let us open his record: “The governor of Massachusetts Bay, with Mr. Wilson, pastor of Boston, and some others, went aboard the ‘Lion’ on the 25th of October, and thence Captain Pierce carried then to Wessagusset, where is now a prosperous settlement of a graver sort than the old ones. The next morning the governor and his company went on foot to Plymouth, and came thither within the evening. The governor of Plymouth, Mr. William Bradford, a very discreet and grave man, with Elder Brewster and some others, came forth and met them without the town, and conducted them to the governor’s house, where they were very kindly entertained, and feasted every day at several houses.
“On the Lord’s Day there was a sacrament, of which they partook; and in the afternoon Mr. Roger Williams, according to the Plymouth custom, propounded a question, to which the pastor, Mr. Ralph Smith, spoke briefly; then Mr. Williams prophesied;[771] and after, the governor of Plymouth spoke to the question; after him, the elder; then some two or three more of the congregation. Then the elder desired the governor of Massachusetts Bay and Mr. Wilson to speak to it, which they did. When this was done, Mr. Fuller, their surgeon, put the congregation in mind of their duty of contribution; whereupon the governors and all the rest went down to the deacon’s seat, and put into the box, and then returned.
“On Wednesday, the 31st of October, at about five o’clock in the morning, the governor and his company came out of Plymouth; whose governor, pastor, elder, and others, accompanied them nearly half a mile in the dark. Lieutenant Holmes, one of their chiefest men, with two companions and Governor Bradford’s mare, came along with them to a great swamp, about ten miles. When they came to the great river,[772] they were carried over one by one by Luddam, their guide, as they had been when they came, the stream being very strong, and up to the crotch; so the governor called that passage ‘Luddam’s Ford.’ Thence they came to a place called ‘Hue’s Cross.’ The governor being displeased at the name, because such things might hereafter give the papists occasion to say that their religion was first planted in these parts, changed the name, and called it ‘Hue’s Folly.’ So they came that evening to Wessagussett, where they were bountifully entertained, as before; and the next day all came safe to Boston.”[773]
This was the first interchange of gubernatorial civilities ever known in America. It was certainly unique. One governor lent the other his mare to ride home upon, gave him a guide on whose shoulders he could be ferried across a rapid stream, and entertained his guest by beseeching him to “prophesy” on the Sabbath, and by gently reminding him that the contribution-box was empty.
Such was the homely, hearty, frank hospitality of the Pilgrim fathers over two hundred years ago. Such were the manners and customs of New England when Brewster “prophesied” and when Winthrop and Bradford governed. Looking back across two centuries, we smile; but perhaps, with all its super-refinement, modern hospitality is no whit in advance of that which contented Winthrop, and of which it may be said,
“There was no winter in’t; an autumn ’twas,
That grew the more by reaping.”
In this same year of Winthrop’s visit to Plymouth, the Pilgrims had their first boundary quarrel with the French. The extent of Acadia to the west was long a subject of dispute.[774] The lands which bordered on the rival boundaries became a “debatable” ground. Bradford and his coadjutors had erected a trading station on the Penobscot. This was now assaulted, and “despoiled of five hundred pounds worth of beaver-skins, besides a store of coats, rugs, blankets, biscuits;” and insult was added to injury; for the cavalier Frenchmen bade the tenants of the plundered post tell the English that “some gentlemen of the Isle of Rhé had been there to leave their compliments.”[775]
This taunt was not instantly responded to. Indeed, it was put out at interest, and remained unsettled until the next century, when these “religious English” gave the intruders indefinite leave of absence from Canada, and settled the boundary question by annexing the whole territory.
As an offset to their loss on the eastern rivers, the Plymouth Pilgrims began to push their enterprise towards the west. “Rumor, with its thousand tongues,” had frequently hymned the praises of the Eldorado of Connecticut. The phlegmatic Dutchman, so cold on other themes, kindled on this, and actually took his pipe out of his mouth, that he might speak more freely. The taciturn Indian melted into profuse and graphic eloquence when he painted the beauty and fertility of these western bottom-lands.[776]