tsbunt oF"the yearely proceedings of tliis country in fisfaing and plantr 

 ing," from 1614 to 1630. - 



What conclusions may We fairly draw from these facts ? In the 

 second part of this report we have seen that at the very tinje the Pilr 

 grims embatked, a company chartered by James claimed the sole 

 Ownership of the American seas, and that a great excitement existed 

 in England in consequence of this monopoly; and we have here seen 

 that accounts of Gosnold's voyage had been printed eighteen, afad of 

 Waymouth's fifteen years. Is it possible to escape the conviction that 

 our fathers knew and acted upoa a knowledge of all these things? 

 That they were in possession of Smith's map, and some of his books, 

 we have his own express declaration ; while in his last work, published 

 eleven years after their settlement at Plymouth, he speaks of their 

 "thinking to finde^^ matters "better than he had advised them;" and he 

 evidently plumes himself upon the idea that he had been an efficient 

 insti'ument in directing their emigration to the land he had praised so 

 much, and had striven so hard to people. In the phajpter headed 

 "New England's yearly trials — The planting new Plimouth — 'Sup- 

 firisaJs prevented — Their .wonderful industiy and fishing,", he dis- 

 courses aboUt the English ships that had made " exceeding' good voy- 

 ages" on the coast; and adds, seemingly, as the results produced by 

 their success, that "at last, upon these inducements, some well-disposed 

 Brounists,* as they are tearmed, with some gentlemen and merchants 

 of Layden and Amsterdam, to save charges, would try their oune con- 

 clusions, though with great losse and much miserie, till time had taught 

 them to see their oune error; for such humorists will never bele,eve 

 well, till they bee beaten with their oune rod." In the next chapters 

 he refers to their prosperous condition, (1624,) and says: "Since they 

 have made a salt.worke, wj;ierewith they preserve all the fish they 

 take, and have fraughted this yeare a ship of an hundred and four score 

 tun, living so well, they desire nothing but more company ; and what- 

 ever they take, returne commodoties to the value." The declarations 

 of this distinguished pioneer of civilization in this hemiisphere are en- 

 titled to respect, and m almost any other case would be considered as 

 conclusive. 



But there is other evidence. Weston, an English merchant engaged 

 in the fisheries, who soon after the settlement of Plymouth atteriipted 

 to found a rival colony at Weymouth, and who came in person to New 

 England to correct the irregularities of his fishermen, had much influ- 

 ence iu directing the affairs of the Pilgrims, and in selecting the place 

 to which they should remove from Holland. He made them an ad- 

 vance in money, engaged to provide vessels for their voyage, and ad- 

 vised them to come to that part of America with which he kept up an 

 intercourse, "as for other reasons, so chiefly for the hope of present profit 

 to be made by fishing" And, besides, we know that they entered^ into 

 a sort of copartnership indenture with merchants, who, like Weston, 

 made them advances, and agreed to allow these merchants a share oi 

 the fixiits of their industry. This indenture provides in terms for the 

 prosecution of the fisheries and the employment of fishermen ; and the 



* Od« of the names of the Puiitans. 



