But to return to the state and condition of the planters at Plimouth, all this while no supply heard of, so they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could; so as they might not languish in misery as formerly they had done, and at the present they did, and it was thought the best way, and accordingly given way unto, that every one should plant corn for his own particular, and in that regard provide for themselves, and, in other respects, continue the general course and way as before; and so they ranged all their youth under some family, and set upon such a course, which had good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much corn was planted.

This course being settled, by that time all their corn was planted, all their victuals was spent, and they were only to rest on God’s providence; many times at night not knowing where to have any thing to sustain nature the next day, and so (as one well observed) had need to pray that God would give them their daily bread, above all people in the world; yet they bear those wants with great patience and alacrity of spirit, and that for so long a time as the most part of two years. Which brings to mind what Peter Martyr writes in his magnifying of the Spaniards (in his first Decade, p. 208). “They (said he) led a miserable life for five days together, with parched grain of maize only, and that not to satiety;” and then concludes, that “such pains, such labours,” he thought “none living, who is not a Spaniard, could have endured.”

But alas! those men when they had maize (that is Indian corn) they thought it as good as a feast, and wanted, not only for five days together, but sometimes for two or three months together, and neither had bread or any kind of corn.

Indeed, in another place in his second Decade, p. 94, he mentions how others of them were worse put to it, where they were fain to eat dogs, toads, and dead men, and so almost all of them died. From these extremities the Lord in his goodness preserved both their lives and healths; let his holy name have the praise. Yet let me here make use of his conclusion, which in some sort may be applied to this people, that “with their miseries they opened a way to those new lands; and after storms, with what ease, other men came to inhabit in them, in respect to the calamities these men suffered; so as they seemed to go to a bride feast, where all things are provided for them.”

They having one boat left, and she none of the best, with a net which they bought, improved them for the taking of bass, which proved a good help to them, and when those failed they were fain all hands to go dig shell-fish out of the sands for their living; in the winter season groundnuts and fowl were the principal of their refreshing, until God sent more settled and suitable supplies, by his blessing upon their industry.¹⁷

At length they received some letters from the adventurers, which gave them intelligence of a ship set out to come hither unto Plimouth, named the Paragon. This ship was bought by Mr. John Pierce, and set out on his own charge, upon hopes of great matters; the passengers and goods, the company sent in her, he took in for freight, for which they agreed with him to be delivered here; this was he in whose name their first patent was taken, for this place where Plimouth is, by reason of acquaintance, and some alliance that some of their friends had with him, but his name was only used in trust, but when he saw they were here hopefully seated, and by the success. God gave them, had obtained favour of the council of New England, he goes and sues to the said council, for another patent of much larger extent, in their names, which was easily obtained, but he meant to keep it to himself, and to allow them what they pleased to hold of him as tenants, and sue to his courts as chief lord. But the Lord marvellously crossed him in his proceedings; for when the ship above named set out from the Thames, she sprang a leak by that time she got to the Downs, and also by reason of a chop that accidently befell one of her cables, it broke in a stress of wind while she there rode, and was in danger to have been driven on the sands, and thereupon was constrained to return back to London, and there arrived in fourteen days after, and was haled up into the dock, and an hundred pounds more bestowed on her mend her leaks and bruises, which she received in the aforesaid storm; and when she was again fitted for the voyage, he pestered his ship, and takes in more passengers, and those some of them not very good, to help to bear his losses, and sets out the second time; and when he was half-way, or thereabouts, to New England, was forced back again by an extreme tempest, wherein the goodness and mercy of God appeared in their preservation, being