194 CHAP. X. Mar. QUADEQUINA. All which the king seemed to like well, and it was applauded of his followers. All the while he sat by 1621. the governor, he trembled for fear. In his person he 22. is a very lusty man, in his best years, an able body, grave of countenance, and spare of speech; in his attire little or nothing differing from the rest of his followers, only in a great chain of white bone beads about his neck; and at it, behind his neck, hangs a little bag of tobacco, which he drank,1 and gave us to drink. face was painted with a sad red, like murrey, and oiled both head and face, that he looked greasily. All his followers likewise were in their faces, in part or in whole, painted, some black, some red, some yellow, and some white, some with crosses, and other antic works; 2 some had skins on them, and some naked; all strong, tall men in appearance. His So after all was done, the governor conducted him to the brook, and there they embraced each other, and he departed; we diligently keeping our hostages. We expected our messenger's coming; but anon word was brought us that Quadequina was coming, and our messenger was stayed till his return; who presently came, and a troop with him. So likewise we entertained him, and conveyed him to the place prepared. He was very fearful of our pieces, and made signs of dislike, that they should be carried away; whereupon sasoit lived, but was afterwards, in It was accordingly ratified and confirmed by the government. See Morton's Memorial, p. 210, See note on page 188. 2 This description corresponds to the appearance of Black Hawk and Keokuck, and the braves of the Sacs and Foxes, on their visit to Boston in 1837. ISAAC ALLERTON. 195 X. commandment was given they should be laid away. CHAP. He was a very proper, tall young man, of a very modest and seemly countenance, and he did kindly 1621. like of our entertainment. So we conveyed him likewise, as we did the king; but divers of their people stayed still. When he was returned, then they dismissed our messenger. Two of his people would have stayed all night; but we would not suffer it. One thing I forgot; the king had in his bosom, hanging in a string, a great long knife. He marvelled much at our trumpet, and some of his men would sound it as well as they could. Samoset and Squanto, they stayed all night with us; and the king and all his men lay all night in the woods, not above half an English mile from us, and all their wives and women with them. They said that within eight or nine days they would come and set corn on the other side of the brook, and dwell there all summer; which is hard by us. That night we kept good watch; but there was no appearance of danger. 23. The next morning, divers of their people came over Mar. to us, hoping to get some victuals, as we imagined. Some of them told us the king would have some of us come see him. Captain Standish and Isaac Alderton1 1 Generally spelt Allerton. He was the fifth signer of the Compact on board the Mayflower. Hutchinson, in his History of Massachusetts, ii. 461, says, Isaac Allerton or Alderton, the first assistant, was employed several times to negotiate matters in England relative to their trade, and at length left them and settled there. His male posterity settled in Maryland. If they be extinct, Point Alderton, at the entrance of Boston harbour, which took his name, will probably preserve it many ages." Judge Davis adds, in his edition of Morton's New England's Memorial, p. 394, 196 Mar. THE FIRST LAWS ENACTED. CHAP. Went venturously, who were welcomed of him after X. their manner. He gave them three or four ground-nuts 1621. and some tobacco. We cannot yet conceive but that 23. he is willing to have peace with us; for they have seen our people sometimes alone two or three in the woods at work and fowling, whenas they offered them no harm, as they might easily have done; and especially because he hath a potent adversary, the Narowhigansets, that are at war with him, against whom he thinks we may be some strength to him; for our pieces are terrible unto them. This morning they stayed till ten or eleven of the clock; and our governor bid them send the king's kettle, and filled it full of pease, which pleased them well; and so they went their way. Friday was a very fair day. Samoset and Squanto still remained with us. Squanto went at noon to fish for eels. At night he came home with as many as he could well lift in one hand; which our people were glad of; they were fat and sweet. He trod them out1 with his feet, and so caught them with his hands, without any other instrument. This day we proceeded on with our common business, from which we had been so often hindered by the salvages' coming; and concluded both of military orders and of some laws and orders as we thought 2 this fact. His conjecture, however, Of the mud; probably at Eel river, so called from the abundance of eels which are taken there. About 150 barrels are annually caught. See Thacher's Plymouth, p. 322. * In 1636 a code of laws was made, with a preamble containing an account of the settlement of the Colony. This code was revised in 1658, and again in 1671, and printed with this title, "The Book of CARVER RE-ELECTED GOVERNOR. 197 X. behooveful for our present estate and condition; and CHAP. did likewise choose1 our governor for this year, which was Master John Carver, a man well approved 1621. amongst us.2 24. [March 24. Dies Elizabeth, the wife of Mr. Ed- Mar. ward Winslow. N. B. This month thirteen of our number die. And in three months past, dies half our company; the greatest part in the depth of winter, the General Laws of the Inhabitants of the Jurisdiction of New Plymouth." In 1685, a new digest of them was published. In 1836 these several codes were collected and digested into one volume by William Brigham, Esq. Counsellor at Law, agreeably to a Resolve of the Legislature of Massachusetts. It serves to illustrate the condition of the Colony at different periods, the manners, wants, and sentiments of our forefathers, the difficulties with which they struggled, and the remedies provided for their relief. See Mass. Hist. Coll. xxii. 265, 270. Gov. Hutchinson, with unaccountable carelessness, has asserted, ii. 463, that "they never established any distinct code or body of laws;" grounding his assertion on a passage in Hubbard's Hist. of N. England, which implies no such thing. The quotation, imperfectly given by Hutchinson, is correctly as follows: "The laws they intended to be governed by were the laws of England, the which they were willing to be subject unto, though in a foreign land; and have since that time continued in that mind for the general, adding only some particular municipal laws of their own, suitable to their constitution, in such cases where the common laws and statutes of England could not well reach, or afford them help in emergent difficulties of the place; possibly on the same ground that Pacuvius sometimes advised his neighbours of Capua not to cashier their old magistrates till they could agree upon better to place in their room. So did these choose to abide by the laws of England, till they could be provided of better." Belknap's Am. Biog. ii. 242; Mass. Hist. Coll. xv. 62. 1" Or rather confirm." Bradford in Prince, p. 188. It will be recollected that Carver had been chosen governor on the 11th of November, the same day on which the Compact was signed. It was now the 23d of March, and the new year beginning on the 25th, according to the calendar then in use, Carver was reëlected for the ensuing year. The question has sometimes been asked, Why was not Brewster chosen ? The answer is given by Hutchinson, ii. 460. their ruling elder, which seems to have been the bar to his being their governor, civil and ecclesiastical office in the same person being then deemed incompatible." "He was 2 Here the daily journal breaks off, and an interval of three months occurs before the account of the expedition to Pokanoket, during which nothing is recorded. To fill up this chasm in some measure, I insert the following particulars, which Prince extracts from Gov. Bradford's History, and from his Register, in which he records some of the first deaths, marriages, and punishments at Plymouth. 198 Mar. MORTALITY AMONG THE COLONISTS. CHAP. Wanting houses and other comforts, being infected X. with the scurvy and other diseases, which their long 1621. voyage and unaccommodate condition brought upon them; so as there die sometimes two or three a day. Of a hundred persons scarce fifty remain; the living scarce able to bury the dead; the well not sufficient to tend the sick, there being, in their time of greatest distress, but six or seven, who spare no pains to help them. Two of the seven were Mr. Brewster, their reverend elder, and Mr. Standish, their captain. The like disease fell also among the sailors, so as almost half their company also die before they sail.' But the 'The exact bill of mortality, as collected by Prince, is as follows. 21 4 16 names in the division of the lands in 1623, were Joseph Rogers, probably a son of Thomas, Mary Chilton, probably a daughter of James, Henry Samson, and Humility Cooper. See Baylies' Plymouth, i. 70; Belknap's Am. Biog. ii. 207; Morton's Memorial, p. 376. Wood, in his New England's Prospect, ch. 2, says, "whereas many died at the beginning of the plantations, it was not because the country was unhealthful, but because their bodies were corrupted with sea-diet, which was naught, the beef and pork being tainted, their butter and cheese corrupted, their fish rotten, and the voyage 3 long by reason of cross winds, so that winter approaching before they could get warm houses, and the searching sharpness of that purer climate creeping in at the crannies 44 of their crazed bodies, caused death and sickness." Dudley, too, in his letter to the Countess of Lincoln, in Mass. Hist. Coll. viii. 43, remarks, "touching the sickness and mortality which every first year hath seized upon us and those of Plymouth, (of which mortality it may be said of us almost as of the Egyptians, that there is not a house where there is not one dead, and in some houses many,) the natural Before the arrival of the Fortune in Nov. six more died, including Carver and his wife, making the whole number of deaths 50, and leaving the total number of the survivors 50. Of those not named among the survivors, being young men, women, children, and servants, there were 31; amongst whom, as appears from the list of |