independent religious polity boiled over into indignation. Other controversial issues, such as whether to send Pastor Robinson to join his flock in Plymouth, coming together with all the financial losses, now brought about such a gaping chasm in the company that it “broke in pieces.”[18] One group of the adventurers, led by Treasurer Sherley, remained sympathetic to the Pilgrims and wrote that they did not care whether the colony yielded worldly riches, provided it was rich in grace and walking with God. Sherley, especially, defended it against the charges of waste and inefficiency brought by its attackers. Perhaps he made allowances based on the same information as reported by Emmanuel Altham that “the burden lieth on the shoulder of some few who are both honest, wise and careful. And if it were not for them few, the plantation would fall, and come to nothing--yea, long before this time....” Altham blamed the company for sending over so many helpless people and for the fact that the planters had not enough “good trucking stuff to please the Indians.” When the dissolution took place, Sherley reported as the chief reason “the many crosses and losses and abuses by sea ... which have caused us ... so much charge, and debts ... as our estates ... were not able to go on without impoverishing ourselves, and much hindering if not spoiling our trades and callings....” Even the faction deserting on the pretense of Brownism in the colony, suffered from the same want of money which was “such a grievous sickness now-a-days ... that it makes men rave and cry out....”[19] He referred, of course, to the depressed economic conditions carried over into the reign of Charles I. The Pilgrims agree to purchase the merchants’ interests in the company