some other attendants; and desired that they would send a boat for him, for he could not travill so farr over land. So they sent a boat to Manonscussett,1 and brought him to the plantation, with the cheefe of his company. And after some few days entertainmente, he returned to his barke, and some of them wente with him, and bought sundry of his goods; after which begining thus made, they sente often times to the same place, and had entercourse togeather for diverce years; and amongst other comodities, they vended [158] much tobaco 2 for linen cloath, stuffs, etc., which was a good benefite to the people, till the Virginians found out their plantation.3 But that which turned most to their profite, in time, was an entrance and with more difficulty obtained hereafter, and perhaps not without blows; so there may be assured peace and good correspondence on all parts, and ourselves more free and able to contract with your Honours." Bradford Letter Book, 55.

1 Now called Scussett in Sandwich.

2 The tobacco interests of Virginia presented difficult problems to the English authorities as the trade was then conducted. To encourage the planting and consumption of Virginia tobacco the importation of foreign, chiefly Spanish, tobacco into England was prohibited (1625), as was the cultivation of the plant in England or Ireland (1627). For more easily supervising the trade, American tobacco could be entered only at London, but this offered no hindrance to a trade from Virginia to other parts of the American coasts. As early as 1627 the tendency for Virginia planters to raise little else than tobacco called out rebukes and regulations from England, but the well meant advice remained unheeded while there was more profit to be got from tobacco than from other agricultural products.

3 The trade between Virginia and the settlement at New Plymouth is said to have been opened by Henry Fleet, who had been captured by the Indians on the Potomac in 1623, and had lived among them for nearly four years. Finding his experience useful in selecting goods for trading with the Indians, some merchants of London sought to use his knowledge of the habits and language of the natives, and sent him out, in 1627, in command of the Paramour, a vessel of one hundred tons. Neill, Virginia Carolorum, 52. Considering the frequent passage of ships from Cape Cod to Virginia from the first year of the Plymouth plantation, it is very unlikely that trade possibilities had been entirely overlooked. The suggestion is not without interest as pointing to a regular trade in tobacco from about the year 1628. In that year the Virginia legislature sought to induce the King to enter into an engagement to purchase yearly half a million pounds of tobacco, and to permit the balance to be shipped to New England or the West Indies, on payment of the usual duties. The total yearly product in tobacco of the colony was as yet less than half a million pounds.

into the trade of Wampampeake; for they now bought aboute 5oli. worth of it of them;1 and they tould them how vendable it was at their forte Orania;2 and did perswade them they would find it so at Kenebeck; and so it came to pass in time, though at first it stuck, and it was .2. years before they could put of this small quantity, till the inland people knew of it; and afterwards they could scarce ever gett enough for them, for many years togeather. And so this, with their other provissions, cutt of they [their] trade quite from the fisher-men, and in great part from other of the stragling planters. And strange it was to see the great allteration it made in a few years amonge the Indeans them selves; for all the Indeans of these parts, and the Massachussets, had none or very litle of it, but the sachems and some spetiall persons that wore a litle of it for ornamente. Only it was made and kepte amonge the Nariganssets, and Pequents, which grew rich and potent by it, and these people were poore and begerly, and had no use of it. Neither did the English of this plantation, or any other in the land, till now that they had knowledg of it from the Dutch, so much as know what it was, much less that it was a commoditie of that worth and valew. But after it grue thus

1 Rasiere's account of this transaction was as follows: he prevented the New Plymouth people from making their yearly journey after wampum by selling them fifty fathoms, "because the seeking after sewan by them is prejudicial to us, inasmuch as they would, by so doing, discover the trade in furs; which if they were to find out, it would be a great trouble for us to maintain, for they already dare to threaten that if we will not leave off dealing with that people, [i.e. the Narragansett and Wampanoag Indians], they will be obliged to use other means; if they do that now, while they are yet ignorant how the case stands, what will they do when they do get a notion of it?" New York Hist. Soc. Coll., 2 Ser., 11. 350. The Narragansetts were the most numerous, rich, and industrious of the Indians in the neighborhood of New Plymouth. They manufactured and traded wampumpeage, stone pipes, and pots, which they exchanged for English goods and, in turn, trucked with the more remote tribes at a handsome profit. Wood described them as unwarlike, and as called by the Pequot's womenlike-men." New Englands Prospect, *53.

66

2 Fort Orange, now Albany. Brodhead, History of New York, 152 n, 583.

Peag.

BRADFORD. The word is written in the margin against these lines and without specific reference.

to be a comoditie in these parts, these Indeans fell into it allso, and to learne how to make it; for the Narigansets doe geather the shells of which they make it from their shores. And it hath now continued a current comoditie aboute this. 20. years, and it may prove a drugg in time.1 In the mean time it makes the Indeans of these parts rich and power full and also prowd therby; and fills them with peeces, powder, and shote, which no laws can restraine, by reason of the bassnes of sundry unworthy persons, both English, Dutch, and French, which may turne to the ruine of many. Hithertoo the Indeans of these parts had no peeces nor other armes but their bowes and arrowes, nor of many years after; nether durst they scarce handle a gune, so much were they affraid of them; and the very sight of one (though out of kilter) was a terrour unto them. But those Indeans to the east parts, which had commerce with the French, got

1 The Dutch readily recognized the importance attached by the Indians to wampumpeage, and employed it in trade, and in payment for injuries, just as the natives used it as an ornament to their persons, a medium of trade, ransom, tribute or a means of distinguishing rich from poor. Its use was not general, and even a knowledge of it appears to have been confined to a few tribes, and those situated near the sea. The ancient Iroquois remains show no traces of its use, and the belts among the Onondagas were of quite recent origin. It has been stated that before the coming of the European the use of the shell bead or wampum as money was not known to the Indians. Carr, in 2 Am. Antiquarian Soc., x1. 261. The great source of wampum was among the Narragansetts, Pequots, and natives of Long Island. Williams, Key into the Language of America, distinguishes between the white, wompam, and the black, suckánhock, the latter being dark-colored or purple. The black had twice the value of the white in exchange. The whites sought to counterfeit this currency, but with their best skill they could not deceive the Indians, and the process was too costly. Morton, New English Canaan (Prince Society), 157. The Venus mercenaria and the Pyrula carica or P. canaliculata are believed to be the material from which wampumpeage was made.

Writing about 1645 Roger Williams says: "This one fathom of this their stringed money, now worth of the English but five shillings (sometimes more) some few yeeres since was worth nine, and sometimes ten shillings per Fathome: the fall is occasioned by the fall of Beaver in England: the Natives are very impatient, when for English commodities they pay so much more of their money, and not understanding the cause of it; and many say the English cheat and deceive them, though I have laboured to make them understand the reason of it." A Key into the Language of America, 174.

peces of them, and they in the end made a commone trade of it; and in time our English fisher-men, led with the like covetoussnes, followed their example, for their owne gaine; but upon complainte against them, it pleased the kings majestie to prohibite the same by a stricte proclaimation, commanding that no sorte of armes, or munition, should by any of his subjects be traded with them.1

Aboute some 3 or 4 years before this time, ther came over one Captaine Wolastone,2 (a man of pretie parts,) and with him.3. or 4.

1 That the Indians should become familiar with the use of firearms was only a question of time. The fur trade soon proved that the Indian was more profitable as a hunter than the European. Arrangements were made by which the traders would feed and clothe the Indian, instruct him in the use of a gun, and supply him with the weapon, that he might devote his time and attention to hunting. Such a policy soon passed beyond the control of the trader or planter, and the natives would resort to any means to obtain gun and powder. The trade existed early in the days of the Pilgrims, for the King's proclamation of November 6, 1622, spoke of the abuse of bartering to the savages swords, pikes, musquets, fowling pieces, match, powder, shot, and other warlike weapons, and teaching them the use thereof. See vol. 1. p. 313. It was only a question of time when traders and fishermen would sell directly to the Indian, and English, Dutch and French interlopers would be a source of supply. The planters soon realized the dangers attending such a trade, and the increased skill of the native in the use of firearms. Writing in June, 1627, Bradford said: "Besides the spoiling of the trade this last year, our boat and men had like to have been cut off by the Indians, after the fishermen were gone, for the wrongs which they did them, in stealing their skins and other abuses offered them, both the last year and this; and besides they still continue to truck pieces, powder, and shot with them, which will be the overthrow of all, if it be not looked into." To Ferdinando Gorges, Letter Book. Bradford had Morton in his mind when framing this complaint. It appears that Morton's operations extended to the Kennebec region, and he boasted of his success in anticipating the Plymouth people, who "feared in time, (if they hindred not mine Host [Morton]), hee would hinder the benefit of their Beaver trade, as hee had done, (by meanes of this helpe,) in Kynyback river finely, ere they were awares; who, comming too late, were much dismaide to finde that mine Host his boate had gleaned away all before they came." New English Canaan (Prince Society), 295.

2 Morton says he came over in 1625. New Englands Memoriall, *68. Of this Captain Wollaston nothing is known, though his name survives in Wollaston, near Quincy. Brown (Genesis of the United States, 11. 1053) conjectures that the Captain Wallaston who went with Ralegh to Guiana, in 1617, was the same who came to Massachusetts, though he has no proof of the identity. If it be the same his reputation is stained by

more of some eminencie, who brought with them a great many servants, with provissions and other impl[e]ments for to begine a plantation; and pitched them selves in a place within the Massachusets, which they called, after their captains name, Mount-Wollaston.1 Amongst whom was one Mr. Morton, who, it should seeme, had some small adventure (of his owne or other mens) amongst them;

his abandonment of Ralegh at Granada, along with Whitney, a captain in whom Ralegh placed great confidence. The two runaways, with a third, named Collins, are next heard of at Newfoundland, when they captured two men of war, one of France and the other of Flanders. They then sailed for Malaga with a cargo of fish. Gardiner, Prince Charles and the Spanish Marriage, 1. 132 n. Captain John Smith met in 1615 a Captain Wolliston as the lieutenant of "one captain Barra, an English pirate, in a small ship, with some twelve pieces of ordnance, about thirty men and near all starved." Description of New England, 73. The passage from trade or fishing to piracy was easy in that day, and Ralegh's crews were of such material as to make it by no means improbable that the Wolliston on a pirate ship was the same as Wallaston, a captain under Ralegh. Adams points out in New English Canaan, I n, the name is a rare one and yet is borne by islands in both the Arctic and the Antarctic oceans, but the family to which it belonged seems to have originated in an inland English county. Lower, Patronymica Britannica. William Wollaston the moral philosopher came of an old Staffordshire family of the name. There was a Wollaston Manor in Maryland before 1654. Archives of Maryland, x. 360.

No evidence exists that Wollaston, or any of his partners, held a patent from any authority in England for making a settlement in New England. Palfrey supposes such a patent was issued, and Morton gave as a reason for his last return to Massachusetts, that he wished to look over the land which had been patented to him many years before. Clarendon Papers, New York Hist. Coll., 1869, 40. Wollaston and his company would therefore be called interlopers, or irregular traders.

1 As some persons still occupied the Weston lands at Wessagusset, Wollaston and his party went about two miles to the north, and established themselves at Passonagessit, on the other side of the Monotoquit, and within the limits of the present city of Quincy. The place is still known as Mount Wollaston. Adams, in New English Canaan (Prince Society), 9.

2 What is known of Thomas Morton is given in the introduction to Adams' edition of the New English Canaan, and in his Three Episodes, 162. He claimed to have come to New England in June, 1622, "with 30 servants, and provisions of all sorts fit for a plantation." This would make him one of the Weston colony, coming in the Charity, but on this point no further evidence can be found. New English Canaan (Prince Society), 123, 179.