PLANTING AND FISHING. 97 



at bay. Then ensued a war of words, bloodshed being only 

 arrested by the prudence and moderation of Roger Conant, 

 the governor of the Dorchester Colony, and Capt. William 

 Pierce, " a goodly man and most expert mariner of the Pil- 

 grims' ship," who induced the Pilgrims to retire, and build a 

 new stage elsewhere. With the close of this year's fishing, 

 the Plymouth people abandoned Cape Ann as a fishing-sta- 

 tion, although both their vessels, " well laden, went joyfully 

 home together, the master of the larger ship towing ye lesser 

 ship at his sterne, all ye way overbound." 



" Discouraged by their losses and the ill success of their 

 plantation, the Dorchester company abandoned their design 

 of planting a permanent plantation or colony at Cape Ann. 

 At the end of their third year, measures were taken for sell- 

 ing their ships and breaking up their settlement, having lost 

 almost all the capital they had invested in the enterprise." 



" In planting colonies," says Mr. White, " the first stocks 

 employed that way are consumed, although they serve as a 

 foundation to the work." It was thus with the planting of 

 the colony at Cape Ann : the stock was consumed ; but the 

 foundation-work was laid on which now rests a leading State 

 of one of the greatest of nations, Roger Conant, with some 

 of the best men of this colony, remained until the following 

 year, when they moved to Naumkeag, now Salem. The 

 crooked and irregular path taken by the " kine " along by 

 the seashore, when driven to Naumkeag, tradition says, after- 

 wards became the travelled road between Salem and Glouces- 

 ter, now occupied by so many summer residences. 



Conant remained at Naumkeag, locating in that portion 

 now Beverly, where his plantation had less rocks, no doubt 

 with more congenial, though no better, soil than he had found 

 at Cape Ann. Here he died at the age of eighty-six, after a 

 long, useful, and honorable life, being one whose "lack of 

 titles will never take from his name the high and honorable 

 place it should hold in the annals of our Commonwealth as 

 one who had always preferred the public good before private 

 interests ; and this in his closing years he praised God that 

 he had done." 



Through the encouragements and promises of Mr. White, 

 who has been called "the father of the Massachusetts 

 Colony," Conant and others had remained at Naumkeag, and 



