1645 — Plymouth’s Debts “Hopeful and Desperate” at Last Are Discharged
To execute this agreement across the distance of the broad Atlantic took some time. Recognizing the justness of the “Undertakers’” final account but calling the venture “uncomfortable and unprofitable to all,” James Sherley signed the release in June 1642. In the bargaining, the Reverend Hugh Peter, Thomas Weld, and William Hibbins, in England as agents of Massachusetts, put forth Atwood’s terms. At the same time they succeeded in persuading the London partners to surrender for charitable purposes in New England the £1200 debt. Three quarters, or £900, was set apart for Massachusetts, while Plymouth was to receive only £300.
A letter of Richard Andrews about this time fortunately permits us to break away from the divergent points of view set forth in Bradford’s narrative and Sherley’s letters. In many ways Andrews was the most straightforward of the London partners and the most generous. While forgiving the interest due on his own account, he charged that Sherley and Beauchamp had “wronged [the business] many £100 both in principal and interest” and knowingly presented unfair accounts. This remark suggests one solution to the problem as to why the seemingly excessive charges on the Pilgrims mounted year after year in spite of their returns. Hinting that Sherley had manipulated some private losses so as to place them on the general account, Andrews perhaps did not recognize the rapidity with which the debts accumulated because of the high rates of interest on them. The fact is that colonial ventures were considered such poor financial risks that their debts tended to multiply faster than they could be paid off. This explanation of their financial plight is probably closer to the truth than that the Londoners deliberately perpetrated a “manifest fraud” upon the plantation. It was Andrews also who echoed the complaint common to all the London merchants engaged in colonial enterprise. He wrote in 1645 that the conduct of the “Undertakers” did not become “fair dealing men who make not so much profession to walk according to the rule of the gospel as they.... I hope that seven years time is long enough to keep my money before they return the principal....”
John Beauchamp, unlike the more generous Andrews, continued to insist on collecting his debt even though it could never be proved. To settle this claim, Bradford and his partners in 1645 turned over to his attorney houses and lands in Plymouth, Rehoboth, and Marshfield worth £291.48
It is to Plymouth’s credit that all these obligations were met in the 1640s, because the colony was no longer as prosperous as in the preceding decade. Its wealth had come to consist increasingly of cattle, so that the price collapse which took place when the influx of new settlers into the Bay ceased, came suddenly and with severe effect. Cattle came to be worth perhaps 25% of its former value. Even the wealthier colony of Massachusetts discovered that it could no longer secure credit in England. The Pilgrims nevertheless continued to develop their modest resources in animal stock and land. A new land arrangement reflected the ending of the old debts. Governor Bradford, who had held title to the patent since 1630, along with the “old comers” or “purchasers,” turned over the grant to the whole body of freemen of Plymouth, retaining for himself only three reserved tracts as his reward for carrying the responsibility for repayment.
As to Plymouth’s fur trade, the complaint John Winthrop had once voiced that the colony had “engrossed all the chief places of trade” in New England was no longer true. The “Old Colony” had been edged out of the Connecticut River and Narragansett trade, some of its Maine posts had been attacked by the French, and rival settlers and competitors had made the rest less profitable. At Aptucxet commerce with the Dutch kept on for a time, and on the Kennebec there remained an echo of the busy activity of the 1630s. A small group farmed the Indian trade there so that at his death in 1657 Bradford’s stock of trading goods and debts due from it was worth £256. Within a few years, however, all trading goods were brought home and the Kennebec tract sold.49
Thus ended the history of Plymouth Colony as a business venture. Even after careful study of all the details we know, it is hard to interpret and correctly assess whether the London capitalists or the colony can really be blamed for the contradictory financial muddle. In their somewhat uneasy alliance, the Londoners with spare funds and the group of obscure artisans and small farmers, mostly dissenters from the established church, no doubt emphasized different goals. Most of the merchants, while Puritan in religious sympathies, nevertheless anticipated profits. This appeared to them fitting, since they risked great loss in so untried a speculation. Then, after Plymouth was settled and valuable returns established, the Londoners held an advantage to the end, for they were always in a creditor position as they continued to supply essential goods at high prices and rates of interest. The colonists’ payment was slow, interrupted by many misfortunes and contingencies, but eventually it was made. Although the investors in the original company lost most of their money, the businessmen who stayed with the enterprise, such as Sherley, seem to have increased their capital.
The Pilgrims, too, achieved success, for they had built the essentials of a free and self-sustaining community. If they were never wealthy in their new environment, the leaders of Plymouth, developing business experience and judgment, by 1645 enjoyed modest prosperity. They had paid off the expenses of shipping over their fellow exiles from Leyden and bought the livestock and equipment needed as the foundation for settlement. Ignorance, desertion by their first backers, cruel losses at sea, their agent’s misdeeds, all had been overcome. They were now rid of the burdens inherent in the London merchants’ sponsorship of the colony. Their debts, both “hopeful and desperate,” lay behind.
Notes
1 William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Samuel E. Morison (New York, 1952), 16–17, 24, 27, 33, 49. Quotations will ordinarily be from this modernized version of Governor Bradford’s history. Quotations from other sources have been modernized. Henry Martyn Dexter, The England and Holland of the Pilgrims (Boston, 1905), App. 601–641, for list of occupations; Roland G. Usher, The Pilgrims and Their History (New York, 1918), 35–40, on the economic and religious motives for removal.
2 John Smith, Description of New England (1616), is in Smith, Works, ed. Edward Arber (Westminster, 1895), II; for Brewster’s copy, see “Plymouth Colony, Wills and Inventories,” 1641–1649 (typescript, Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth, Mass.), 49; Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 28–29; Smith’s comment on the Pilgrims, Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, ed. W. C. Ford, 2 vols. (Boston, 1912), I, 192n. Edward Winslow, Hypocrisie Unmasked (1646), told the story about consulting God’s will, cited ibid., 66n.
3 Bradford, History, ed. Ford, I, 70n., 77n. Winslow reported the King’s conversation long after Plymouth’s settlement in Hypocrisie Unmasked, cited in Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 30n. It sounds a bit overdrawn. William Brewster, a former tenant of the Sandys family, may have introduced his associates to Sir Edwin Sandys.
4 Charles M. Andrews, The Colonial Period of American History (New Haven, 1934), I, 254–255, describes the system of private plantations. Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 35, 37, identifying the offer of support by Thomas Weston; the 1619 patent in Susan M. Kingsbury, ed., The Records of the Virginia Company (Washington, 1906), I, 221, 228; Edward Arber, ed., Story of the Pilgrim Fathers (London, 1897), ch. XXV, on Brewster; Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 356–357, for Cushman’s report on Blackwell.
5 On the Dutch offer, Bradford, History, ed. Ford, I, 99n. See Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., LIV, 166, 168, 177, and Astrid Friis, Alderman Cockayne’s Project and the Cloth Trade (Copenhagen and London, 1927), 370, for Weston as an ironmonger and “interloper.” The lawsuit against Weston filed in the Court of Exchequer by Pickering’s executors, John Fowler, James Sherley, and Richard Andrews, appears to confirm a streak of dishonesty in Weston. The original depositions and award include interesting details about some of the Plymouth partners and their associates, Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., LIV (1922), 165–178 (summaries); P.R.O., E. 134, 22 James I, Mich. 22; Mich. 59; Hilary 22/8. The award, E. 178/5451, was kindly transcribed for me by Prof. Norma Adams. “Governor Bradford’s Letter Book,” I Mass. Hist. Soc. Colls., III (1794), 27, on Weston’s debts to partners.
6 John Smith, A Description of New England (1616), is a plea for fishing and plantation; also Smith’s letter to Sir Francis Bacon, 1618, transcript in Bancroft Mss., New England (New York Public Library), I, 19–23.
7 Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 49–50, 43, 42, 44, 50, 55.
8 £1200 Cushman reported raised by June 1620 still left them £300 or £400. Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 45–46, 55, 56; 104n., quoting John Smith, Generall Historie... (1626); 49, 50, 57, on sale of supplies; 60, on landfall. Nathaniel Morton, New England’s Memoriall (1669), (Boston, 1903), 30, on Carver.
9 Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 75n.; Bradford, History, ed. Ford, I, 234n., 246f. for the text and a photograph of the original indenture now on exhibit in Pilgrim Hall; Frances Rose-Troup, Massachusetts Bay Company and its Predecessors (New York, 1930), 3–4, explains the difference between an indenture and a patent.
10 Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 93, Weston’s letter; Henry Martyn Dexter, ed., Mourt’s Relation or Journal of the Plantation at Plymouth (Boston, 1865).
11 Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 95; Cushman’s discourse, printed as A Sermon Preached at Plimoth in New England... (London, 1622), is reprinted in part in Alexander Young, Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers (2d ed., Boston, 1844), 255–268.
[12] See note 5 above; Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 100–103, 104, 105, 107, 119; Treasury warrant, Ms. Calendar of Cranfield Papers, 8680, Hist. Mss. Commission, P.R.O., London. Charles Francis Adams, Three Episodes in Massachusetts History (Boston, 1892) I, 45–104, is still the most readable account of Weston’s colony at Wessagusset, although inaccurate in a few details.
13 Dexter, Mourt’s Relation, xxxv-xxxviii; Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 124–125; New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., LXVII, 147–153; P.R.O., C2/P44/43, Peirce’s suit. Andrews, Col. Per. Amer. Hist., I, 281–282 and 282n., takes Bradford to task for “pretty deliberate misrepresentation” of the Peirce matter. The search in English records for information on Peirce proved unusually difficult, because of the commonness of his name. For example, two John Peirces were admitted to the Clothworkers’ Company, one in 1597, the other in 1612 (letter to author from Mr. J. E. Coombes, Clerk, Clothworkers’ Company, Aug. 9, 1961). Mr. Coombes’ report of scanty records for the period precluded further search. A Mr. John Peirce sold John Winthrop provisions, Winthrop Papers (Boston, 1931–47), III, 3, 4, 5.
14 The leaders of the adventurers named by Peirce in his Chancery suit were James Sherley, John Pocock, Christopher Coulson, William Collier, John Thornell, and George [Robert] Keane, New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., LXVII, 149. Usher, The Pilgrims and Their History, 147–148, and John A. Goodwin, The Pilgrim Republic (Boston, 1888), 252–254, sum up the misadventures of the Little James. The original evidence is in Bradford, History, ed. Ford, I, 341–346, 350–351, 403–405, 433–435. Additional details are in the Admiralty suit of two crew members, Stephens and Fell, Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., LXI, 148–151; H. C. A., Instance and Prize Court, Libel Files, Bundle 82, no. 124 (Library of Congress transcript). An effort to locate this document in the Public Record Office under this reference was unsuccessful.
15 For the transcript of Altham’s letters to his brother, Sir Edward Altham, Sept. 1623, Mar. 1623/24, June 10, 1625, I am indebted to Dr. Sydney V. James’s “Three Visitors to Early Plymouth,” a typescript in the possession of Plimoth Plantation. The original letters belonged to Dr. Otto Fisher of Detroit, Michigan, who gave permission for use of quotations. James, “Three Visitors,” 36, 42, 46, 50. Altham invested some of his friends’ money in the common stock and suggested that if he came back on a fishing voyage, he could use £400 or £500 of their ventures, ibid., 62, 66.
16 William Bradford and Isaac Allerton to the adventurers, Sept. 1623, Amer. Hist. Rev., VIII, 297; John W. Thornton, The Landing at Cape Anne (Boston, 1854); Goodwin, Pilgrim Republic, 255; Bradford, History, ed. Ford, I, 377–379, 407–410, for the patent.
17 Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 120–121, 132, 144–145, 187; Edward Winslow, Good Newes from New England (1624) in Young, Chronicles of the Pilgrims, 346–347; Bradford, History, ed. Ford, I, 300n.
18 For further light on these factions, see James, “Three Visitors,” 104ff., letter of June 10, 1625.
19 Ibid., 70, 72; Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 170; Bradford, “Letter Book,” 28, 34, 29, 32.
20 The most complete list of investors in Plymouth is that of the signers of the composition of 1626, ibid., 48. To these should be added Christopher Coulson, William Greene, John Peirce, Edward Pickering, and Thomas Weston. The Plymouth leaders accepted in 1627 the terms the merchants had signed in November 1626. Thus it is correct to refer to 1627 as the date of the final business settlement with the original company.
21 W. R. Scott, The Constitution and Finance of English... Joint-Stock Companies (London, 1910), II, 310–311, calculated the share capital as £5600. Sherley spent the best part of £5000 in two years as treasurer. This probably did not include the period when Weston was in charge, Bradford, “Letter Book,” 49. On debts of £1400, see ibid., 32.
22 Smith is quoted in Bradford, History, ed. Ford, I, 104n. Andrews observed that even though the names of a number of the adventurers were known, “of only a few can any further information be obtained,” Col. Per. Amer. Hist., I, 287n. The research on which the following paragraphs are based is probably the most sustained effort so far to find out more. The late Col. Charles E. Banks was interested chiefly in tracing the emigrants to Plymouth; see Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., LXI, 55–63, “William Bradford and the Pilgrim Quarter in London.”
For Sir Thomas Andrews, see Valerie Pearl, London and the Outbreak of the Puritan Revolution (Oxford, 1961), 309–311, 208, 240, 242. This work is invaluable for its mass of biographical detail about London merchants, interpretation of London’s role, and bibliography. J. C. Whitebrook, “Sir Thomas Andrewes, Lord Mayor and Regicide, and his Relatives,” Trans. Congregational Hist. Soc., XIII (1938–39), 151–165, informs us that Damaris Andrews, daughter of Thomas, married the son of Matthew Cradock, first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company. The Richard Andrews connected with Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay, appears to be the brother of Thomas, ibid., 159. For Thomas’s official career, see C. H. Firth and R. S. Rait, eds., Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642–60 (London, 1911), 2 vols., passim, esp. I, 1150, 1255; II, 365, 595, 647, 917; A. B. Beaven, The Aldermen of London (London, 1908), II, 66. As an active member of the directorate of the East India Company, he was expert on shipping and the sale of Company wares; see E. B. Sainsbury, ed., Cal. Court Mins. E. I. Co., 1635–1676 (Oxford, 1907–35), III, xi, xvi, xxii-xxiii, 218, 222, 128, 224, 267; V, xxxii, 333. Among summaries of Independency in the Civil Wars, see J. R. Tanner, English Constitutional Conflicts of the 17th Century (Cambridge, repr. 1947), 128; Pearl, London and the Outbreak, 6, who reminds us of the distinction between religious Independents and “political independents.” The complex situation in England is not easy to summarize.
23 This list has formerly been given as six, Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 185n., and slightly different in Bradford, History, ed. Ford, II, 7n. I add Richard Andrews and Christopher Coulson and retain both Robert Keane and John White.
24 For Richard Andrews’ address, Winthrop Papers, II, 306; Thomas Lechford, “Notebook,” Trans. Amer. Antiq. Soc., VII, 142; P.R.O., Exchequer, Depositions, E. 134, 22 James I, Mich. 59, on reverse of testimony by Francis Stubbs; Henry A. Harben, A Dictionary of London (London, 1918), 407. He may have resided in the ward of Cripplegate Within, where Richard Andrews, haberdasher, was one of the inhabitants most able to contribute to a Crown request for money, W. J. Harvey, ed., List of Principal Inhabitants of London, 1640 (London, 1886), 14. For links to Massachusetts Bay, Winthrop Papers, II, 306; Recs. Mass. Bay, I, 128; role as shipowner, Cal. S. P. Domestic, 1628–29, 440, and 1629–31, 469; Netherlands trade, P.R.O., E. 134, 12 Charles I, Easter, 39, and Michaelmas, 23; Winthrop Papers, V, 4. Gifts to Massachusetts in Winthrop’s Journal, ed. James K. Hosmer (New York, 1908), I, 128, and II, 70, 222; and discussion in R. P. Stearns, “The Weld-Peter Mission to England,” Pubs. Col. Soc. Mass., XXXII, 199, and The Strenuous Puritan: Hugh Peter (Urbana, 1954), 162, erroneously calling Richard Andrews an alderman. A.O.I., 1642–60, I, 970, 1088, 1240, for his public service; P.R.O., S.P. 16/515/146; William Kellaway, The New England Company, 1649–1776 (London, 1961), 66, for donations to a Puritan lectureship and to Indians; idem, “Collection for the Indians of New England, 1649–1660,” Bull. John Rylands Library, XXXIX (1957), 458.
25 Rose-Troup, Mass. Bay Company and its Predecessors, 138; Recs. Mass. Bay, I, 37c, 40; P.R.O., Close Rolls, C. 54/2635/ no. 8; Harvey, Inhabitants of London, 14; Pearl, London and the Outbreak, 169.
26 Winthrop’s Journal, ed. Hosmer, I, 15n., 30, 53; Winthrop Papers, II, 309, 317, 339, and III, 4, 5. Ownership of Welcome, S.P. 16/16/182. London addresses of Goffe in T. C. Dale, ed., Inhabitants of London, 1638 (London, 1931), 112; “Return of Divided Houses... London, 1637” (typescript, Guildhall Library), 115.
27 E. N. Hartley, Ironworks on the Saugus (Norman, Okla., 1957), 69–70; Stearns, The Strenuous Puritan, 162, 166, 175, 180–181, 189; Bradford, History, ed. Ford, II, 5n., and facsimile opp. 5. Hartley and Stearns disagree as to amount Pocock lent to Massachusetts Bay, but Recs. Mass. Bay, II, 82, 262, and subsequent actions, appear to uphold the latter. Gift to St. Antholin’s, S.P. 16/515/146; public service, A.O.I. 1642–60, I, 143, 233, 371, and II, 1000.
28 Recs. Mass. Bay, I, 60, 361, 386, 394, 395, 402, 367. Sharpe’s later career has not been traced, but he is not especially prominent after arrival in Massachusetts.
29 Ibid., 60, 48, 53, 128. The ship’s name probably was the Eagle, 400 tons. Winthrop Papers, II, 215n., and III, 3; Winthrop’s Journal, ed. Hosmer, I, 44.
30 Bernard Bailyn, “The Apologia of Robert Keayne,” Wm. and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., VII, 568–587. His will, Report of the Record Commissioners of Boston, X (Boston, 1886), 1–54; sermons attended in London, Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 2d ser., L, 204–207. See Recs. Mass. Bay, I, 128; Cal. S. P. Dom., 1627–28, 458; New England Hist. Gen. Reg., LXVII, 247; Bradford, “Letter Book,” 47; Aspinwall Notarial Records 1644–51, 92; Winthrop Papers, V, 351; Oliver A. Roberts, History of the Military Company of the Massachusetts now called the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts 1637–1888 (Boston, 1895), I, 12, 20.
31 Mary Freer Keeler, The Long Parliament, 1640–41 (Philadelphia, 1954), 390; Frances Rose-Troup, John White: the Patriarch of Dorchester... (New York, 1930), 56, 460, 163n., 73n.; Winthrop Papers, II, 82n., 97; Andrews, Col. Per. Amer. Hist., I, 345, citing Bradford, History, ed. Ford, I, 406. The correct reference is ibid., 416. Isabel M. Calder, “A Seventeenth Century Attempt to Purify the Anglican Church,” Amer. Hist. Rev., LIII, 761, 774n.; Pearl, London and the Outbreak, 194–195. It is possible that the John White named as an owner of ships at Plymouth, Devon, is the lawyer, although it might also be John White of Dorchester, Cal. S. P. Dom., 1628–29, 301, 306, 440, 441; ibid., 1629–31, 154, 156.
32 To identify John Beauchamp is particularly difficult. Ford has him as the son of Thomas Beauchamp of Cosgrave, Nottinghamshire. Using the same reference cited by him (Visitation of London, 1633–35, 59), I read it as Cosgrave, Northamptonshire. His marriage to Alice Freeman, whose brother, Edmund Freeman, acted as Beauchamp’s attorney in Plymouth in 1641, seems to establish him as the right Beauchamp. See Bradford, History, ed. Ford, II, 296n. Beaven makes John Beauchamp, Salter, Alderman for Billingsgate Ward in 1651, and gives as his will a reference to a John Beauchamp of the parish of St. Giles Cripplegate Without (Beaven, Aldermen of London, II, 75; P.C.C. Hene [1668]), who left as heirs no wife or children, whereas the John Beauchamp connected with Plymouth had several sons and daughters. This will must be that of another man. In 1649 and after, a John Beauchamp of Surrey appeared in the same committees as James Sherley and Edward Winslow, such as those for collecting the army assessment or to sell goods from the estate of Charles I, A.O.I., 1642–60, II, 44, 160, 310, 479, 676. See also Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 100, 198, 199, 386n.; Friis, Alderman Cockayne’s Project, 110n.; P.R.O., Chancery, C. 3/431/12; Cal. S. P. Dom., 1628–29, 285; Harvey, Inhabitants of London, 1640, 18; T. C. Dale, transcriber, “Citizens of London, 1641–43,” (London, 1936; typescript, Guildhall Library).
33 Bradford, “Letter Book,” 34; Goldsmiths’ Company, London, Apprentice Book, I, 1578–1645, 151; Wardens’ Accounts and Court Minutes, vol. P, pt. 1 (1611–17), 76, 198; pt. 2 (1617–24), 189 and passim, 76, 77, 79; vol. Q, pt. 1 (1624–29), 79; vol. R, pt. 2 (1631–34), 193, 195, 199, 200, 223, 224, 225; vol. T (1637–39), 185, 186, 189; vol. V (1639–42), 58, 62; vol. unlettered [W] (1642–45), 228, 237. Presumably because he was living in Clapham, James Sherley is not listed among those who paid poll money to the Commissioners. A duty of the prime warden, with his second and third wardens, was to have custody of the plate belonging to the City of London, ibid., 238. In 1652 Sherley was appointed with other wardens to prepare an answer to a petition by the freemen of the Company to a committee of Parliament concerning their rights in choosing the wardens, Sir Walter S. Prideaux, Memorials of the Goldsmiths’ Company... (London, 1896), II, 24.
Of the several James Sherleys who are contemporaries, I have concluded that the James Sherley, third son of Robert Sherley, originally of Wistonston, was the one involved with the Plymouth venture. The other James Sherleys in this family are (1) the eldest son of John Sherley of London, and (2) the elder son of James Sherley, son of Robert. See Visitation of London, 1633–35, II, 235–236. It is difficult to determine whether the James Sherley, merchant, who owned houses in London in 1637 is the same, “Returns of Divided Houses in the City of London, 1637,” 208. The one who appeared with Robert Sherley to turn over property to Robert’s daughter, Sara, in 1632 is our man, P.R.O., C. 54/2950; see also Registers of St. Vedast, Foster Lane (Harl. Soc., 1902) 35, for birth of Sara in 1611.
“Foynes” or foins were originally fur of the weasel family, or more generally, furs.
34 On Sherley’s addresses, Marsden, Amer. Hist. Rev., VIII, 301; Plooij, Pilgrim Fathers from a Dutch Point of View, 100. Plooij says that London Bridge was his business address and Crooked Lane his “town house.” I have been unable to verify it. Sir Ambrose Heal, The London Goldsmiths, 1200–1800 (Cambridge, 1935), 242; Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 287; Acts of Administration, 1657 (Somerset House, London), fol. 242. Sherley’s public appointments, A.O.I., I, 730, and II, 14, 310, 479, 676, 1082, 975; also William A. Shaw, History of the English Church during the Civil Wars and under the Commonwealth (London, 1900), II, 434.
P.R.O., E. 134, 22 James I, Mich. 22; P.C.C. 86 Swann (1623); Bradford, “Letter Book,” 68. The ships owned in part by Sherley were the John and Mary and the Hector of London, 220 tons and 250 tons respectively. Sherley refers to sending a letter in the Mary and John, very likely the same ship. A vessel of that name brought goods to Boston in 1633 and 1633/34, P.R.O., S.P. 16/17/83 and 16/17/117; Winthrop Papers, III, 130, 149; Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 391; Recs. Mass. Bay, II, 262. The Lyon sent to Boston in 1632 belonged to Sherley and the other London partners in the “Undertakers”; it was lost on its way to Virginia bearing 800 pounds of beaver as returns, Bradford, op. cit., 254–255.
35 Pearl, London and the Outbreak, 126n., 147, 148n., 255n., 265; Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 104, 106; Cal. S. P., Dom., 1625–26, 430; Journal of Sir Simonds d’Ewes, ed. Wallace Notestein (New Haven, 1923), 77.
36 In his explanation of the division of the assets and value of a single share, Professor Andrews appears to have applied the terms of the 1627 division to the 1640 list of “purchasers,” Col. Per. Amer. Hist., I, 285–286. Goodwin, Pilgrim Republic, 292–295, is substantially correct in listing the 156 individuals who shared in the 1627 division of land. The total assets in land prior to division cannot be ascertained. See Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 375, 376, Robinson’s comments; 194, 196, organization of “Undertakers”; 382, 214, cost of bringing over company from Leyden; Bradford, “Letter Book,” 58, 65, Sherley on other partners.
37 Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 94; idem, History, ed. Ford, I, 268n. gives £400 as total value of the cargo seized; this included some clapboards. The literary result of Morton’s ignominious departure, The New English Canaan (1637), satirizes the “saints” at Plymouth, ibid., II, 75–77. Nathaniel C. Hale, Pelts and Palisades (Richmond, Va., 1959) included a lively narrative of Plymouth’s fur trade, showing little interest in its business end and letting by a few inaccuracies. Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 119, 163, 176, 178; Bradford, “Letter Book,” 36, on amounts collected; ibid., 112, 183, on boats.
38 See Percival Hall Lombard, The Aptucxet Trading Post (Bourne, Mass.: Bourne Historical Soc., 1943) for description of that post. A reconstruction has been erected on the site. On the visit of de Rasieres, Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 202, 203 and App. VI; Bradford, “Letter Book,” 51–55; J. F. Jameson, ed., Narratives of New Netherland, 1609–1664 (New York, 1909), 110, 112.
39 Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 200, 215–216, 242, 262, 384–385; Goodwin, Pilgrim Republic, 337–340; see text of patent and map in Henry S. Burrage, The Beginnings of Colonial Maine (Portland, 1914), 186–187; money spent for patent, 3 Mass. Hist. Soc. Colls., I, 199.
40 “Isaac Allerton,” New Eng. Hist. Gen. Reg., XLIV, 290–296; Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 202, 198; 3 Mass. Hist. Soc. Colls., I, 200; see also Bradford, History, ed. Ford, II, opp. 79; Winthrop Papers, II, 262, 205, 317, 329, 334–335, and III, 2, 4, 102; Bradford, “Letter Book,” 69.
41 Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 216–217; Bradford, “Letter Book,” 71. Morison reads this “peddle,” op. cit., 385.
42 Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 219–220, 386–387, 22, 228; Winthrop’s Journal, ed. Hosmer, I, 65, 66. Morison’s note on page 226, by its placement, is confusing in identifying Mr. Peirce’s ship as the White Angel. He correctly states further in the note that Peirce was master of the Lyon, which arrived in Massachusetts in February 1631, Winthrop’s Journal, I, 57.
43 Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 229, 230, 237, 232, 238–244; Thomas Lechford, Notebook, Archaeologia Americana, VII (Cambridge, 1885), 189–190, Allerton’s 1639 testimony on the White Angel and Friendship.
44 Allerton appears often in Winthrop’s Journal, and in Winthrop Papers, II, III; in Plymouth’s tax list and as an official, Records of Plymouth Colony, eds. N. B. Shurtleff, et al. (Boston, 1855–61), 1, 9, 21, 52. Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 241n., 244, 245, 250–251, 392. “Plymouth Colony, Wills and Inventories” (typescript), 1620–39, 4, 5; 1641–49, 44, for debts to Allerton. Allerton gave permission for his brother-in-law’s debts to be settled first with his other creditors, Recs. Plymouth Col., I, 20. Winthrop Papers, III, 437, July 1, 1637, Winslow’s remarks. For an estimate less harsh than Bradford’s see Andrews, Col. Per. Amer. Hist., I, 288–289, 289n.
45 Bradford said the beaver yielded 14s. to 20s. a pound. On one occasion, however, the arrival of “the plimouth merchants great parcel... brought down the price,” Winthrop Papers, III, 150. See also Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 238, 243, 390, 250, Winslow’s refusal to accept the debts of White Angel, and Sherley’s reaction; 288–289, quantities of furs, 1631 to 1636; 392, 250, Sherley’s remarks on Allerton; 255n., Peirce’s ship; 287, plague and low prices; Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., XLV, 619–620, Sherley’s doubts as to who sent the furs.
46 This contradicts Sherley’s letter to Bradford, Sept. 14, 1636, Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 287, 288. The bill of complaint in Chancery and Sherley’s answer are in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., XLV, 611–623. Minor errors of form in transcription called to my attention by Mrs. A. W. Millard, may be corrected by consulting photostats of the original, P.R.O., C. 2, A/44/43, deposited at Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth, Mass.
47 Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 298, 301, 309, settlement with Andrews and Beauchamp; Andrews’ arrangements, Winthrop Papers, IV, 129–131, 257, 437; V, 2–4; Andrews, Col. Per. Amer. Hist., I, 370, 370n.; Bradford, History, ed. Ford, II, 289n. Morison seems in error in saying the cattle were to go to the “poor of Plymouth.” See Recs. Mass. Bay, II, 39, 89.
48 Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 298, 302, 308–313, 399–402, 415–417; Bradford, History, ed. Ford, II, 332n., 294n., 158n., 336n., on Atwood, Collier, and Freeman; Winthrop Papers, V, 3, Andrews’ comment. Atwood, owner of a servant and house in Plymouth, was a business correspondent of Sherley, Recs. Plymouth Col., I, 12, 47, 48; “Plymouth Colony, Wills and Inventories,” 1641–49, 39. Settlement with Beauchamp, Recs. Plymouth Col., XII, 128, 129, 130.
49 Recs. Mass. Bay, II, 39; Bradford, History, ed. Ford, II, 333n., paid for Andrews are £490 or £534 9s. See Aspinwall Notarial Records, 1644–51 (Boston, 1903), 21, Allerton’s acquittance. On former prosperity and drop in cattle prices, Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 252–253, 310; W. B. Weeden, Economic and Social History of New England (Boston, 1891), I, 165–166; Winthrop’s Journal, II, 17, 23, 25. Recs. Plymouth Col., XII, 90, 127–132, agreements with Edmund Freeman, Beauchamp’s attorney. Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Morison, 428ff., Bradford’s surrender of patent. Winthrop Papers, III, 167, on Plymouth’s pre-eminence in fur trade; G. F. Willison, Saints and Strangers (New York, 1945) and Hale, Pelts and Palisades, describe the expansion and decline of the fur trade. See “Plymouth Colony, Wills and Inventories,” 1650–59, 105, 110, Bradford’s Kennebec stock; Recs. Plymouth Col., I, III, VII, later fur trade and Kennebec.