3. The persons transported, and the adventurers, shall continue their joint stock and partnership together for seven years (unless some unexpected impediment cause the whole company to agree otherwise), during which time all profits and benefits go by trade, traffic, trucking, working, fishing, or any other means, by any persons or person, shall remain in the common stock until the division.
4. That on their arrival there, they shall chose out such number of fit persons as may man their ships and boats at sea; employing the rest in their several faculties upon the land, such as building houses, tilling and planting the ground, and making such commodities as shall be most useful for the colony.
5. That at the end of the seven years, the capital and profits, viz., the houses, lands, goods and chattels, shall be equally divided among the adventurers and planters; which done, every man shall be free of any debt to any other of them, arising from this adventure.
6. Whosoever shall come to the colony hereafter, or shall contribute to the stock, shall at the end of the seven years be allowed proportionately to the time of his doing so.
7. He who shall take his wife and children, or servants, shall be allowed for every person now aged sixteen years and upwards, a single share in the division; or if he provide them with necessaries, a double share; or if they be between ten and sixteen, two of them to be reckoned as one person, both in transportation and division.
8. That such children as now go, and are under the age of ten years, have no other share in the division, but fifty acres of unmanured land.
9. That such persons as die before the seven years be expired, their executors to have their part or share at the division, proportionately to the time of their life in the colony.
10. That all such persons as are of this colony, are to have their food, drink, clothing, and all provisions, out of the common stock and goods of the said colony.
The principal difference between this and the former agreement, consisted of these two points: that the houses and improved lands, especially gardens and home-lots, should remain undivided, and should belong wholly to the planters at the seven years’ end; secondly, that they should have two days a week for their own private employment, for the greater comfort of themselves and their families. But as letters are considered the best part of history by some wise men, I will show their grievances on the score by their own letters.
Mr. John Robinson at Leyden to Mr. John Carver in England: