Shortly after, when he heard of the ruin and destitution of his colony, Mr. Weston came over with some of the fishermen, under another name, and disguised as a blacksmith. He got a boat, and with a man or two came to see how things were there. But on the way ashore he was caught in a storm, and his shallop was sunk in the bay, between Merrimac river and Piscataqua, and he barely escaped with his life. Afterwards he fell into the hands of the Indians, who robbed him of all that he had saved from the wreck, and stripped him of all his clothes to his shirt. At last he got to Piscataqua and borrowed a suit of clothes, and so came to New Plymouth. A strange alteration there was in him, to such as had seen him in his former flourishing condition; so uncertain are the mutable things of this unstable world! And yet men set their hearts upon them, though they daily see their vanity. After many arguments and much discourse,—former troubles boiling in his mind and wrankling there, as was discerned,—he asked to borrow some beaver from them, and told them he had hopes that a ship with good supplies was on its way to him, and that then they should have anything they stood in need of. They gave little credit to his report of supplies, but pitied his condition and remembered former courtesies. They pointed out to him their own wants, and said they did not know when they might get any supplies. He well knew, also, how the case stood between them and the adventurers in England. They had not much beaver, and if they should let him have it, it would be enough to cause a mutiny among the people since there were no other means of procuring them the food and clothes which they so much wanted. Nevertheless, they told him they would help him, considering his necessity; but that it must be done secretly for the above reasons. So they let him have 100 beaver skins, which weighed 170 lbs. odd. Thus they helped him when all the world failed him; and with this he went again to the ships, and supplied his small ship and some of his men, and bought provisions and fitted himself out; and it was this supply alone which enabled him to pursue his course thereafter. But he requited them ill, proving himself a bitter enemy upon every opportunity, and never repaying them to this day,—except in reproaches and calumnies.