and other stuffs, besides hose, and shoes, and such like commodities as the planters stood in need of. So they both did good, and received good one from another; and a cuple of barks caried them away at the later end of sommer. And sundrie of them have acknowledged their thankfullnes since from Virginia. That they might the better take all convenient opportunitie to follow their trade, both to maintaine them selves, and to disingage them of those great sumes which they stood charged with, and bound for, they resoloved to build a smale pinass at Manamet,1 a place. 20. mile from the plantation, standing on the sea to the south ward of them, unto which, by an other creeke on this side, they could cary their goods, within 4 or 5 miles, and then transport them over land to their vessell; and so avoyd the compasing of CapCodd, and those deangerous shoulds, and so make any vioage to the southward in much shorter time, and with farr less danger. Also for the saftie of their vessell and goods, they builte a house theire, and kept some servants, who also planted corne, and reared some swine, and were allwayes ready to goe out with the barke form perpetuana, and as a factitious trade name, applied to a durable fabric of wool manufactured in England from the xvith century. The industry appears to have been introduced into England by the Flemish refugees (Burn, Foreign Protestant Refugees, 5), and Dekker, writing in 1606 (Seven Sinnes), speaks of the "sober Perpetuanasuited Puritane." 1 Manomet, lying on a fresh river of the same name, was known to the French and Dutch as well as to the Plymouth settlers. The Cape at that part gave only about six miles of land between Cape Cod Bay and Manomet or Buzzard's Bay, and the heads of Manomet River and a creek running into Scussett harbor were only a short distance apart. The river was navigable by boats of eight or ten tons as high as the village, and it was here that the Dutch, trading with the Wampanoags on Buzzard's Bay, came into contact with the Plymouth Colony. The sachem at the time of Bradford's visit in 1622 was Cawnacome, one of those who acknowledged themselves to be subjects of King James in the agreement signed September 13, 1621.' He died in 1623, after the killing of Peksuot. Vol. 1. p. 296. Manomet stream was visited by Bradford in 1622 in search of corn. The Indian name is said to have been Pimesepoese, meaning "provision rivulet." 2 Mass. Hist. Collections, IV. 291. when ther was occasion.1 All which tooke good effecte, and turned to their profite. They now sent (with the returne of the ships) Mr. Allerton againe into England, giveing him full power, under their hands and seals, to conclude the former bargaine with the adventurers; and sent ther bonds for the paimente of the money. Allso they sent what beaver they could spare to pay some of their ingagementes, and to defray his charges; for those deepe interests still kepte them low. Also he had order to procure a patente for a fitt trading place in the river of Kenebeck; for being emulated both by the planters at Pascataway and other places to the eastward of them, and allso by the fishing ships, which used to draw much profite from the Indeans 1 "Coming out of the river Nassau [Narragansett Bay], you sail east-and-by-north about fourteen miles, along the coast, a half a mile from the shore, and you then come to 'Frenchman's Point' [2 New York Hist. Soc. Coll., 1. 364], at a small river where those of Patucxet have a house made of hewn oak planks, called Aptucxet [Manomet], where they keep two men, winter and summer, in order to maintain the trade and possession. Where also they have built a shallop in order to go and look after the trade in sewan, in Sloup's Bay [the western entrance to Narragansett Bay] and thereabouts, because they are afraid to pass Cape Mallabaer, and in order to avoid the length of the way; which I have prevented for this year [1627] by selling them fifty fathoms of sewan. . . . From Aptucxet the English can come in six hours, through the woods, passing several little rivulets of fresh water, to New Plymouth, the principal place in the county Patucxet, so called in their Patent from his Majesty in England." Rasiere, 2 New York Hist. Soc. Coll., II. 350. Sloup's Bay is noted on the Dutch map in this volume. Sewan was wampampeage. The site of the trading house at Manomet was established by Dr. John Batchelder by means of a grant made, in 1655, to James Skiffe, a freeman of Sandwich. Plymouth Col. Rec., 111. 84. His account is printed in Russell, Pilgrim Memorials (3d ed.), 148. He believed Nassau River to be the present Weweantic, and Frenchman's Point to be Agawam Point. ... • If any judgment may be drawn from Sherley's letter of November 17, 1628 (p. 32, infra), Allerton sailed soon after May 26, and on the Marmaduke, John Gibbs, master. If Deane's conjecture on the date of Sherley's letter (p. 36, infra) be correct, Allerton sailed after June 14, as he carried a letter of Bradford written on that date. So far as is known no application for a patent was then before the Council for New England for any part of the New England territory under its jurisdiction. Between 1622 when the Gorges-Norton patent issued, and 1627, when New Plymouth obtained its Kennebec patent, an indifference to western adventures prevailed. of those parts, they threatened to procure a grante, and shutte them out from thence; espetially after they saw them so well furnished with commodities, as to carie the trade from them. They thought it but needfull to prevente shuch a thing, at least that they might not be excluded from free trade ther, wher them selves had first begune and discovered the same, a[n]d brought it to so good effecte. This year allso they had letters, and messengers from the Dutchplantation, sent unto them from the Gov[erno]r ther, writen both in Dutch and French.2 The Dutch had traded in these southerne 1 See vol. I. p. 439. The first advances to a correspondence came from the Dutch. In his Letter Book Bradford notes: "This year we had letters sent us from the Dutch plantation, of whom we had heard much by the natives, but never could hear from them nor meet with them before themselves thus writ to us, and after sought us out; their letters were writ in a very fair hand, the one in French, and the other in Dutch, but were one verbatim, so far as the tongue would bear." Here apparently followed in the Letter Book a transcript of this letter of March 9, 1627 (N. S.), in Low Dutch, and after the transcript Bradford added: "I will not trouble myself to translate this letter, seeing the effect of it will be understood by the answer which now follows in English, though writ to them in Dutch." As Bradford was familiar with Dutch the translation |