LETTERS ABOUT THE PILGRIM SETTLEMENT IN NEW ENGLAND DURING ITS FIRST SEVEN YEARS BY JOHN PORY, EMMANUEL ALTHAM AND ISAACK DE RASIERES Edited by Sydney V. James, Jr. with an Introduction by Samuel Eliot Morison Plimoth Plantation © Plimoth Plantation, Inc., 1963...

We all know what the Pilgrim Fathers wrote about themselves and their settlements on the (not so) “stern and rockbound coast”; but how many people know that they were visited thrice, between 1622 and 1627, by outsiders who left on record candid accounts of what they saw? That is the reason for this book. These three accounts—one by a gentleman from Virginia, one by an Englishman straight from England, and the other by a Dutchman from New Amsterdam—are brought together between two covers, so that

Letters which have survived over three hundred years, escaping the ravages of fire, water, vermin, and people who wanted to wrap fish, have a claim to our respect. All the more so if they shed light on a subject of as widespread interest as early Plymouth. As editor of the letters presented here, therefore, I had better explain what has happened to them in my hands and make it known that my intentions were honorable. In order to win as many readers for these letters as possible, I have put them

The chief debt of gratitude which the editor and Plimoth Plantation, Inc., must acknowledge is to the owners of the letters printed here. The late Dr. Otto Fisher, of Detroit, made the book possible by permitting the publication of the three letters from Emmanuel Altham to Sir Edward Altham. The Massachusetts Historical Society has kindly consented to the reprinting of the other Altham letter. The John Carter Brown Library, of Providence, has given permission to print the extracts from Pory’s le

John Pory had led a full life before he visited Plymouth and New England in 1622, on his way home from a three-year term as Secretary to the Governor and Council of Virginia. Born into the family of a Norfolk gentleman, a graduate of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, he had been an apprentice to the great historian of English seafaring, Richard Hakluyt. After producing a successful book on Africa in 1600, he left the scholarly life, served eminent men as private correspondent on news from L

January 13, 1622/1623, and later. By whom this New Plymouth (situated, according to Captain Jones [2] his computation, in 41 degrees and 48 minutes) is now presently inhabited, your Lordship and the honorable Company do know better than myself. For whom how favourably God’s providence in thought and in deed, quite besides any plot or design of theirs, hath wrought, especially in the beginning of their enterprise, is worthy to be observed. For when, as your Lordship knows, their voyage was intend

Autumn, 1622. Whereas heretofore a vulgar error, namely that fish is not to be had here [41] at all times of the year, had generally possessed the minds of all men, experience hath now taught us the contrary: that in some two months of the cod, which never bites but in the daytime, comes altogether as good a fish called a hake, to be caught in the night. The places of fishing upon this coast are as universal as the times, for it is experimented now by one John Gibbs, [42] who this summer hath pa

Emmanuel Altham was born a gentleman, though his family had its connections with commerce and the legal profession rather than the titled aristocracy. His two older brothers successively held the family’s country seat at Mark Hall, Latton, about twenty miles north of London. As a younger son, Altham inherited little of his parents’ wealth and so, over objections by his relatives, sought excitement and his fortune in the expanding world of English overseas trade. Altham began as an investor in th

September, 1623 Most loving and kind brother, My promise doth put me in remembrance, with the first opportunity of a messenger, [63] to write unto you. And if I were not by promise, yet that special nearness that is between us obliges me to the same, for as I have always to this time found your constant affections towards me, so have I, and shall continually, acknowledge the same. And now, loving brother, since I have undertaken a voyage not altogether pleasing to some of my friends—and because

March, 1623/1624. Loving and kind brother, My love being remembered to you and the rest of my loving friends, these few words being caused by the fitness of a messenger, they are to let you understand that I am in good health and so have been a long time, as I hope also of you. I have been upon a voyage to the southward of New England, where we have discovered many brave places where never any Christians were before. And this part of the country—I mean to the southward of New England—is far bett

May, 1624. Most worthy friends, Your loving letters I have both received much about one time (being about the middle of April, 1624), wherein I conceive both your great love and care over me, which for my part shall never be rewarded with ingratitude. It pleased God that your ship called the Charity arrived at Plymouth in New England about five weeks after her departure from the English coast, but the certain day I know not, because I was at that time sixty leagues from thence at Pemaquid a-fish

June 10, 1625. Loving brother, In regard of that near bond wherewith I am tied to you, I cannot but seek all opportunities to inform you how it fareth with me—and at this time the more, in regard I am so far separated from you in the remotest parts of the west. And at this time I desire to be the more large, knowing your expectations will be frustrated by me, by not coming into England, the cause of which hath happened accidentally. For considering with myself of the many troubles and crosses an

Born in Holland, Isaack de Rasieres was sent to America by the Dutch West India Company in 1626 to be chief trading agent ( Opper Koopman ) for the Company and Secretary to the new Director-General of New Netherland, Peter Minuit. While duties in government and commerce impeded each other so much that he wanted to drop his Secretaryship, De Rasieres dealt with the Plymouth Colony in his dual capacity. After an encouraging exchange of letters, he went to visit Governor Bradford in October, 1627,

c. 1628. Mr. Blommaert: As I feel myself much bound to your service, and in return know not how otherwise to recompense you than by this slight memoir, (wherein I have in part comprised as much as was in my power concerning the situation of New Netherland and its neighbors, and should in many things have been able to treat of or write the same more in detail, and better than I have now done, but that my things and notes, which would have been of service to me herein, have been taken away from me

The standard sources of information on early Plymouth are quickly named: William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation (1952, or other edition); the items in Alexander Young (ed.), Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers (1844), most of which were printed for “Everyman’s Library” under the same title, 1910; and G. F. Willison, The Pilgrim Reader (1953). Other books which proved useful in the preparation of this one have been cited in footnotes. In addition to these, several ought to receive notice. On John