HOW THE PLANTERS FROM VIRGINIA SAVED THE PLYMOUTH COLONY; Wm. and Mary College Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 1 Transcribed by Kathy Merrill for the USGenWeb Archives Special Collections Project ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net *********************************************************************** Pages 52-54 HOW THE PLANTERS FROM VIRGINIA SAVED THE PLYMOUTH COLONY The Pilgrim Puritans from Holland sailed under a charter obtained from the Virginia Company, intending to make their settlement somewhere near the Delaware Bay. Under this charter, John Carver was elected Governor, and when, by miscalculation, they landed in Massachusetts, the compact signed in the cabin of the Mayflower simply repeated the substance of the general orders of the Virginia Company. (See Eggleston's Beginners of a Nation, page 173.) The liberal-minded Sir Edwin Sandys, who was such a friend of the Virginia colonists, was also a patron of the Pilgrims as well. Nevertheless, New England writers have not been content with giving the Pilgrims the honor due to them. Hutchinson, in his History of Massachusetts, asserts that the Virginia Colony had virtually failed, and that the Pilgrim settlement was the means of reviving it (Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, Vol. I., p. 11). This has been often repeated on no other authority than that of Hutchinson, who wrote nearly a century and a half after the event. Now this is a remarkable case of reversing the cause and effect. Bradford's contemporary Narrative shows very clearly that the Page 53. Pilgrims, if they had removed at all, would have gone to Guiana, or settled in New York, under the auspices of the Dutch, had not the Virginia plantation attracted them both from the fact of its successful establishment, and the security under English influence which it afforded. Mr. Eggleston says that "the list of patents for plantations in Virginia as given by Purchas, in which appears that of Master Wincop, under which the Pilgrims proposed to plant, is a sufficient proof that Virginia was not languishing". At this time Virginia had passed under the administration of the "Patriot Party", and hundreds of settlers were setting out for the colony annually. In 1629, when the Plymouth Colony had only three hundred settlers in it, Virginia had three thousand. The fact is, until the great Puritan emigration began in 1628, few thought of the handful of Pilgrims settled on the bleak shores of Cape Cod Bay, except as located somewhere in Virginia, for the whole coast of North America was popularly spoken of as Virginia even at that time. In the spring of 1622, Virginia was shocked by an Indian massacre, but there were then surviving over nine hundred settlers. The Plymouth Colony had not over one hundred and fifty settlers, and these were in a starving condition, from which they were rescued by the ship of Captain John Huddleston, a member of the Virginia Colony. The letter of the noble Captain*, which was carried ashore, and his conduct in sharing his scanty store with the Pilgrims, is worthy of all praise, and yet I do not remember ever seeing this beautiful incident, which connects the two colonies, referred to in any of the modern histories of the Plymouth Colony. As given by Bradford, the story is as follows: Amidst these streigths, and ye desertion of those from whom they had hoped for supply, and when famine begane now to pinch them sore, they not knowing what to doe, the Lord (who never fails his) presents them with an occasion, beyond all expectation. This boat which came from ye eastward brought them a letter from a stranger, of whose name ______________________________________ *Capt. John Huddleston commanded the ship Bona Nova, of 200 tons, and performed many voyages to Virginia in the interest of the Virginia Company. He patented lands in Virginia in the "territory of Tappahannock over against James Cittie", and at Blunt Point, near Newport News. In 1624, he was reported as dead. Page 54. they had never heard before, being a captaine of a shop come ther a fishing. This leter was as followeth. Being thus inscribed. To all his good friends at Plimoth, these, &c. Friends, cuntrimen, & neighbors: I salute you, and wish you all health and hapiness in ye Lord. I make bould with these few lines to trouble you, because unless I were unhumane, I can doe no less. Bad news doth spread it selfe too farr; yet I will so farr inform you that my selfe, with many good friends in ye south-collonie of Virginia have received shuch a blow that 400 persons large will not make good our losses. Therefore I doe entreat you (allthough not knowing you) that ye old rule which I learned when I went to school may be sufficiente. That is, Hapie is he whom other men's harmes doth make to beware. And now againe and againe, wishing all those yt willingly would serve ye Lord, all health and happiness, in this world, and everlasting peace in ye world to come. And so I rest, Yours, JOHN HUDDLESTON. By this boat ye Govr returned a thankfull answer, as was meete, and sente a boate of their owne with them, which was piloted by them, in which Mr Winslow was sente to procure what provissions he could of ye ships, who was kindly received by ye foresaid gentill-man, who not only spared what he could, but writ to others to doe ye like. By which means he gott some good quantitie and returned in saftie, by which ye plantation had a double benefite, first, a present refreshing by ye food brought, and secondly, they knew ye way to thos parts for the venifite hereafter. But what was gott, & this small boat brought, being divided among so many, came but to a little, yet by God's blessing it upheld them till harvest. It arose but to a quarter of a pund of bread a day to each person; and ye Govr caused it to be dayly given them, otherwise, had it been in their owne custody, they would have eate it up & then starved. But thus, with what els they could get, they made pretie shift till corne was ripe.