100 



ling nor halsers far our shallops. And, indeed, had we not been m a 

 place where divers sort of shell-fish are, that may be taken with the 

 hand, we must have perished, unless God had raised some iinknowB 

 or extraordinary means lor our preservation." These are interesting 

 facts, and afford us accurate knowledge of what was passing on the 

 fishing gi'ounds of Maine, as well as allow us to chronicle an instance 

 of praiseworthy humanity on the part of the fishermen, and explain 

 the causes of the distress for food which prevailed at Plymouth. 



While thus destitute, the Charity and the Swan, two other of Wes- 

 ton's ships, entered the harbor, with some fifty or sixty men, who, re- 

 lates Winslow, "were received into our town with whatsoever courtesy 

 our mean condition Avould affiird." 



The calamities of the Pilgrims were not at an end. In 1623, with- 

 out relief from abroad, they were reduced to a single boat; "and that," 

 writes the quaint Hubbard, "none of the best." Yet "iV was the jiTin- 

 cipal supjwrt of their lives,'''' for "it helped them to improve the''het 

 wherewith they took a multitude of bass, which was their livelihood 

 all that year." "Few countries," he continues, "have this advantage. 

 Sometimes fifteen hundred of them have been stopped in a creek, and 

 taken in a tide. But when these failed, they used to repair to the 

 clam banks, difreins: on the shores of the sea for these fish." Neal's 

 account is similar. It is certain that they possessed but one boat, and 

 one net. Such were their resources to prevent absolute starvation; 

 and as they spread a part of the fish they caught upon their corn lands 

 as manure, they were compelled to watch these fields at night, during 

 seed time, to preserve them from the depredations of wolves. 



The only people near them were Weston's fishermen at Weymouth. 

 But in the course of the year, the colony there was abandoned. Some 

 perished of hunger ; one exhausted his httle strength in crawling to a 

 clam bank, and died upon it. Of the survivors, a part subsisted by 

 stealing from the Indians, and others endeavored to reach Monhegan, 

 thence to embark for England. Weston, hearing of these disasters, 

 and anxious to ascertain the condition of his affiiirs, came over in one 

 of his own fishing vessels, disguised as a blacksmith. He w^as ship- 

 wrecked, stripped by the Indians, and barely escaped with his liie. 

 Strange are the vicissitudes of human condition: he, the English mer- 

 chant, who, in the day of his prosperity, had been the adviser and 

 patron of the weary and stricken Pilgrims, now presented himself be- 

 iore them at Ph-mouth, in garments borrowed to cover his nakednesSj 

 a broken and ruined man! 



The period of extreme need soon passed away. In 1624 they sent 

 a ship to England laden with fish, cured with salt of their own manu- 

 facture, and the year following despatched two others with fish and 

 furs ; but one, when near the English coast, was captured by the Turks. 

 In 1626 they opened a trade with the fishing vessels at Monhegan, and 

 commenced voyages to different parts of Maine to procure fish and 

 furs ; and two years later, we find them selling both corn and the pro- 

 ducts of the sea to the Dutch on Hudson's river. Meantime, the 

 irregular and licentious course of the English fishermen upon the coast 

 had been stated in terms of earnest complaint by Governor Bradford, 

 in a letter to the council that claimed the country and its fishing 



