Now also this commercial partnership beheld a vision of the immortal renown to which its humble agents were destined. “Let it not be grievous to you,” wrote the prescient scribe of the Home Company, “that you have been instruments to break the ice for others who came after you with less difficulty; the honor shall be yours to the world’s end. We bear you always in our hearts, and our cordial affection is toward you all, as are the hearts of hundreds more who never saw your faces, but who pray for your safety as for their own, that the same God who hath so marvellously preserved you from seas, foes, famine, will still preserve you from all future dangers, and make you honorable among men and glorious in bliss at the last day.”[462]
CHAPTER XVII.
WOLVES IN THE SHEEPFOLD.
“I, under fair pretence of friendly ends,
With well-placed words of glozing courtesy,
Baited with reason not unplausible,
Wind me into the easy-hearted man,
And hug him into snares.”
Milton’s Comus.
The Plymouth colonists were men of active enterprise. They were miserly of time, and hoarded their hours. They were also anxious to please the Merchant-adventurers. So now, as quickly as might be, the “Anne” was laden with clapboards, beaver-skins, and divers furs; letters whose every line was a loving pulsation, were indited to the lingering absentees at Leyden and to home circles in England; and on the 10th of September, 1623, the vessel sailed, carrying with her Edward Winslow, who was sent over to report progress, and to procure such necessities as were demanded by the imperious wants of the expanding colony.[463]