the Governor. He behaved again in such a factious and abusive manner, that his own associates were ashamed to be seen in his company, and it became necessary to confine him, till some punishment could be prepared for him. He was made to run the gauntlet through a double file of armed men, and each man was ordered to give him a blow as he passed, with the butt end of his musket, saying at the same time, 'go and mend your manners;' he was then conducted to his boat, which lay at the water's side for his departure.

Oldham afterwards applied himself to trade at Nantasket, with commendable industry and good success. He undertook a voyage to Virginia, and, while in imminent danger of shipwreck, his mind was deeply impressed with a sense of his evil course of life, and he made many confessions and promises of amendment, if God should spare his life, and these vows he verified by a more correct course, insomuch, that the people of Plymouth permitted him to come into the place, whenever it might be convenient. Some time after, while on a trading voyage at Block Island, having some contention with the Indians, he fell a sacrifice to their barbarity. As to Lyford, Mr. Winslow, while in England, made such disclosures of his conduct when in Ireland, as could not fail to confound his best friends and adherents; and among the adventurers he was finally condemned, as unfit for the ministry. After suffering many disappointments and troubles, he went to Nantasket, then to Salem, and afterwards to Virginia, where he sickened and died. The affair of Lyford and Oldham is narrated by Secretary Morton, in language of great severity if not prejudice, and some suggestions of caution in its perusal are found in other authors.

Captain Smith's statistical account of Plymouth, at this period is thus condensed in Prince's Chronology. At New Plymouth, there are now about 180 persons, some cattle and goats, but many swine and poultry; thirty-two dwelling houses; the town is impaled about half a mile in compass. On a high mount in the town they have a fort well built of wood, lime and stone, and a fair watch-house; the place it seems is healthful, for in the three last years, notwithstanding their great want of most necessaries, hath not one died of the first planters: and this year they have freighted a ship of 180 tons. The general stock already employed by the adventurers to Plymouth, is about seven hundred pounds.'

In the same ship which brought Mr. Lyford to Plymouth, came a carpenter and a salt maker, both sent by the adventurers. The carpenter,' says governor Bradford, is an honest

and very industrious man, quickly builds us two very good and strong shallops, with a great and strong lighter, and had hewn timber for two ketches; but this was spoilt; for in the heat of the season of the year, he falls into a fever and dies, to our grief, loss and sorrow.' The salt maker he describes as one ignorant, foolish, and self-willed, and who produced nothing. On the 5th of August, Mr. Thomas Prince, who was afterwards governor, was married to Miss Patience Brewster, being the ninth marriage which had been solemnized in the colony.

1625.-Great dissensions having prevailed among the merchant adventurers in London, and being under considerable pecuniary embarrassments, the company this year, 1625, dissolved, and the major part of its members relinquished all interest in the affairs of the company, and left the colonists to provide for themselves. The colonists were, this year, so successful in their crops of Indian corn, that they were overstocked, and, wishing to convert part of it to some profit in trade, and having no other vessels than two shallops, they laid a deck on one of them, and sent her, laden with corn, to Kennebeck. Although the shallop was provided with a deck amid-ship to keep the corn dry, yet the men were exposed to the weather without shelter. Having no seamen for the service, Mr. Winslow and some of the 'old standards,' performed this voyage, in a tempestuous season, on the approach of winter. They disposed of the corn to advantage, and returned with seven hundred pounds of beaver, besides other furs, and at the same time opened a profitable trade for future occasions.

The merchant adventurers at London sent two ships on a trading voyage to New-England; on their return they were laden with dry fish and furs; the smaller ship was towed by the larger till they reached the English channel, when, being cast off, she was captured by a Turkish man of war and carried into Sallee, where the master and his men were made slaves. In the larger ship, Capt. Miles Standish went over as agent in behalf of the plantation, in reference to some affairs depending between them and the adventurers. He providentially escaped the fate of those in the other vessel.

1626. In April of this year, Capt. Miles Standish returned from England. He was the bearer of tidings which occasioned universal grief and sorrow. It was the death of the Rev. John Robinson, the beloved pastor of the Leyden and Plymouth church. Mr. Robinson died at Leyden, March 1st, 1625, in the fiftieth year of his age. A greater loss could not have been sustained in their circumstances. A particular detail of the character of this great and good man will be found under the head of Ecclesiastical History, in this volume. After

his death his son, Isaac, with his mother, came over to America, and settled at Barnstable. Mr. Prince observes, he was a "venerable man whom I have often seen." He lived to the age of ninety and left male posterity in the county of Barnstable. The Rev. John Robinson who was many years after minister of Duxbury, was born in Dorchester from another family, and graduated at Harvard college in 1695. Another instance of death very afflictive to the colonists, was announced by captain Standish. It was Mr. Robert Cushman, one of their most valued friends. Mr. Cushman had resided in England since his return from Plymouth in 1621. He was a man of estimable character, and rendered essential service to the colonists. When at Plymouth in 1621, although a layman, he preached a sermon 'on the sin and danger of self-love.' This was the first sermon ever preached in New England: according to tradition, the spot where it was delivered was the common house of the plantation, on the southerly side of Leyden street. It was printed in London in 1622, and afterwards reprinted in Boston, in 1724. Another edition was published at Plymouth in 1785, with an appendix, giving some account of the author. In 1822, this celebrated sermon was again published at Stockbridge, with the appendix.

In governor Bradford's letter-book, a fragment of which is preserved, is a letter from four of the adventurers written eighteenth December, 1624, said by Governor Bradford to be in Mr. Cushman's hand-writing. It gives much insight into their affairs, especially relative to their connexion with the adventurers, and evidences the good sense and excellent spirit of the writer. He wrote about the same time to Governor Bradford. In the same letter-book, is a copy of Governor Bradford's reply, dated June 9th, 1625, probably sent by Capt. Standish. In his letters to Governor Bradford, Mr. Cushman expresses a hope of coming to them in one of the next ships. His son Thomas, at that time a youth, whom he brought with him in the Fortune, in 1621, was then in the family of governor Bradford. I must entreat you,' says he in his last letter, have a care of my son as your own, and I shall rest bound unto you.' The request, we can have no doubt, was sacredly regarded. This son became a useful member of the society in which he was nurtured from childhood. He was chosen ruling elder of the church in 1649, after the death of Elder Brewster. He married Mary, a daughter of Mr. Allerton, and died 1691, aged eighty-four. A tombstone was erected to his memory in 1715, by the church and congregation at Plymouth. He left several children. One of them, Isaac, was the first minister of Plympton. His widow survived till 1699. She is the person

to

mentioned by Hutchinson, vol. ii. p. 408, as the only one of the first comers surviving in 1698. Descendants from this respectable stock are numerous, especially in Plympton, Duxbury and Middleborough.'-Memorial. In the will of Elder Thomas Cushman, dated October 22d, 1690, he mentions his sons Thomas, Isaac, Elkanah and Eleazer. Also his wife Mary, and his daughters Sarah Hook, and Lydia Harlow.His sons Thomas, Isaac and Elkanah, settled in Plympton and died there, and probably Eleazer also.

1627. For greater convenience of trade, the Plymouth colonists this summer built a small pinnace at Manomet, a place twenty miles to the south of Plymouth, (Buzzard's Bay,) to which place they transported their goods. Having taken them up a creek within four or five miles, they carried them over land to the vessel, and thus avoided the dangerous navigation around Cape Cod, and made their voyage to the southward in far less time, and with much less hazard. For the safety of their vessel and goods, they also built a house, and kept some servants there, who planted corn, raised hogs, and were always ready to go out with the bark, and this became an establishment of some importance. In the time of the late war with Great Britain, the editor of the Memorial says, he had an opportunity to witness at Sandwich a revival of this mode of conveyance, to which the inhabitants of Cape Cod found it convenient to resort for the purpose of avoiding the risk of capture by the enemy's cruisers on the coast.

At this period the colonists received numerous letters from their affectionate friends and brethren at Leyden. They were sorrowing under the irreparable loss of their beloved pastor, and pining with little hope for a re-union with their christian brethren at Plymouth. They were poor and dejected, and the society was hastening to a dissolution. The event of a reunion was equally desirable on the part of their friends at Plymouth. Governor Bradford and his associates were determined to make every possible effort to effect the object; no pecuniary sacrifices were deemed too great. Mr. Allerton had been sent several times, as agent to London, to negotiate a settlement of all pecuniary concerns with the company of adventurers, and to solicit assistance in behalf of the Leyden church. He returned in the spring of this year, after a successful execution of his commission, and was so fortunate as to purchase all the interest of the company of adventurers for the planters at Plymouth. This year it was deemed expedient to distribute portions of land to each person, allotting to each twenty acres of arable land, five acres in breadth by the water side and four acres in length, in addition to the acre of homestead and garden plot,

formerly allotted. There was also a division of the cattle and goats. In the edition of the Memorial, by Judge Davis, page 389, will be found a particular allotment of cows and goats to individual families, and by that list the state of several families may be determined. The division of cows and goats took place soon after the connexion of the Plymouth settlers with the company of merchant adventurers in England was dissolved.— In 1624, Mr. James Shirley, merchant of London, and one of the adventurers, a warm friend to the pilgrims, gave a heifer to the plantation to begin a stock for the poor. In 1638, the townsmen of New Plymouth met at the governor's, all the inhabitants from Jones's river to Eel river, respecting the disposition of the stock of cows given by Mr. Shirley. The amount of the stock was very considerable, and a respectable committee was appointed to dispose of the same. In one of his letters, this benevolent gentleman says, 'If you put off any bull calves, or when they grow to bigger stature, I pray let that money's worth purchase hose and shoes for the poor of Plymouth, or such necessaries as they may want; and this I pray make known to all.' 'All this gentleman's letters,' observes the editor of the Memorial, ‘exhibit the most estimable disposition. When Plymouth shall distinguish its streets and public places with the name of ancient worthies, that of Shirley should not be forgotten.’

In March of this year, messengers arrived at Plymouth from the governor of the Dutch plantation at Hudson's river, with letters dated at Manhattas, Fort Amsterdam, March 9th, 1627, and written in Dutch and French. In these letters, the Dutch congratulated the English on their prosperous and commendable enterprise, tendered their good will and friendly services, and offered to open and maintain with them a commercial intercourse. The governor and council of Plymouth sent an obliging answer to the Dutch, expressing a thankful sense of the kindness which they had received in their native country, and a grateful acceptance of the offered friendship. The letters were signed by Isaac De Razier, Secretary.

In September, of the same year, the Plymouth planters received a visit from De Razier. Having arrived at the Plymouth trading-house at Manomet, according to his request, governor Bradford sent a boat for him, and he arrived at Plymouth, in the Dutch style, with a noise of trumpeters. He was a chief merchant, and second to the governor.

The people of Plymouth entertained him and his company several days, and some of them accompanied him on his return to Manomet, and purchased of him some commodities, especially