Note 100 — Chapter 6 OF THE FIRST ALLOTMENT OF LANDS, AND THE DISTRESSED STATE OF THE COLONY.

“At length we receive letters from the adventurers in England of December 22 and April 9 last, wherein they say, ‘It rejoiceth us much to hear those good reports that divers have brought home of you;’ and give an account, that last fall, a ship, the Paragon, sailed from London with passengers, for New Plymouth; being fitted out by Mr. John Pierce, in whose name our first patent was taken, his name being only used in trust; but when he saw we were here hopefully seated, and by the success God gave us, had obtained favor with the Council for New England, he gets another patent of a larger extent, meaning to keep it to himself, allow us only what he pleased, hold us as his tenants and sue to his courts as chief lord. But meeting with tempestuous storms in the Downs, the ship is so bruised and leaky that in fourteen days she returned to London, was forced to be put into the dock, £100 laid out to mend her, and lay six or seven weeks to December 22, before she sailed a second time; but being half way over, met with extreme tempestuous weather about the middle of February which held fourteen days, beat off the round house with all her upper works, obliged them to cut her mast and return to Portsmouth, having 109 souls aboard, with Mr. Pierce himself. Upon which great and repeated loss and disappointment, he is prevailed upon for £500 to resign his patent to the Company, which cost him but £50; and the goods with charge of passengers in this ship cost the Company £640, for which they were forced to hire another ship, namely, the Anne, of 140 tons, to transport them, namely 60 passengers with 60 tons of goods, hoping to sail by the end of April.” Bradford, in Prince, pp. 217, 218.