English Visitors

It was while our people were out fishing that they were met by a great surprise, which was nothing less than a shallop steering as if to come into the harbor, and in her were many men.

At first our fishermen feared the visitors might be Frenchmen who had come bent on some evil intent; but nevertheless our people approached boldly, and soon learned that the shallop came from a ship nearby, which Master Weston had sent out fishing from a place on the coast called Damarins Cove.

This Master Weston, so I learned later, was one of those merchants who had aided in fitting out our company in England; but after our departure had decided to send a colony on his own account, and the people afterward settled at Wessagussett.

The reason why the shallop, of which I have just spoken, came toward our village of Plymouth, was that Master Weston's ship had brought over seven men who wished to join us, and, what was yet better, they had with them letters from our friends at home.

It was unfortunate that they had no food other than enough to serve until they should have come to our settlement, and thus it was that there were more mouths yet for us to feed from our scanty store.

A few weeks later we heard that a company of men from England had begun to build a village within five and twenty miles of our Plymouth town. There is little need for me to say that we rejoiced to learn of neighbors in this wilderness of a country; but were more than surprised because the ship which brought them over the seas had not come into our harbor.