The Weymouth men go to Monhegan.
The Weymouth men, thus extricated from peril, were afraid to remain there any longer, though Captain Standish told them that he should not hesitate to stay with one half their number. Still they persisted in leaving. Captain Standish then generously offered to take them with him to Plymouth, where they should share in the now almost exhausted stores of the Pilgrims. But they decided, since they had a small vessel in which they could embark, to go to Monhegan, an island near the mouth of the Kennebec River, where many English ships came annually to fish. The captain helped them on board the vessel, provided for them a supply of corn, and remained until their sail was disappearing in the distant horizon of the sea. He then returned to Plymouth, and all were rejoiced that the country was delivered from such a set of vagabonds.
Regrets of the English.
The Pilgrims regretted the hasty and violent measures adopted by Captain Standish, and yet they could not, under the circumstances, severely condemn him. The Rev. Mr. Robinson, father of the Plymouth Church, wrote from Holland:
Letter from Rev. Mr. Robinson.
"Due allowance must be made for the warm temper of Captain Standish. I hope that the Lord has sent him among you for good, if you will but use him as you ought. I fear, however, that there is wanting that tenderness for the life of man, made after God's own image, which we ought to cherish. It would have been happy if some had been converted before any had been killed."
Chapter IV
The Pequot War
1630-1637Prosperity of the colonies.
The energetic, yet just and conciliatory measures adopted by the Pilgrims at Plymouth, in their intercourse with the Indians, were productive of the happiest results. For several years there was a period of peace and prosperity. The colony had now become firmly established, and every year emigrants, arriving from the mother country, extended along the coasts and into the interior the comforts and the refinements of civilization.