6. Whosoever cometh to the colony hereafter, or putteth any into the stock, shall at the end of the seven years be allowed proportionally to the time of his so doing.
7. He that shall carry his wife and children or servants, shall be allowed for every person now aged 16 years and upward, a single share in the division; or if he provide them necessaries, a double share, or if they be between 10 years old and 16 then two of them to be reckoned for a person, both in transportation and division.
8. That such children as now go and are under the age of 10 years, have no other share in the division, but 50 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, proportionally to the time of their life in the colony.
10. That all such persons as are of this colony are to have their meat, drink, apparel and all provisions out of the common stock and goods of the said colony.”
False Accusations
It has been declared by some commentators that this agreement savored of communism. This interpretation is however unfair. As a matter of record it was not entirely satisfactory to the colonists but was imposed upon them by the Merchant Adventurers who, looking to the final liquidation of their advancements, preferred to hold the community as a whole to meet the obligation. Several letters written by Robert Cushman to his associates in Leyden tend to substantiate this view and emphasize that he had made the best possible terms under the circumstances.
Embarkation, showing buildings and actual wharf from which the Pilgrims departed
Pertinent to the foregoing it is interesting to quote from Young’s Chronicles, page 84, as follows:—“There is no foundation for this charge. The Plymouth people were not ‘misguided by their religious theories,’ nor influenced by an ‘imitation of the primitive Christians,’ in forming their joint stock company. They entered into this hard and disadvantageous engagement with the Merchant Adventurers not voluntarily, but of necessity, in order to obtain shipping for transporting themselves to America; and they put their own little property into a common fund in order to purchase provisions for the voyage. It was a partnership that was instituted, not a community of goods, as that phrase is commonly understood.”