Such disagreements between Allerton and Sherley on the one hand, and Bradford, Winslow, and others at Plymouth, multiplied as the result of a new Maine venture, devised in 1629, which rivaled the Kennebec. Sherley and three other Londoners sent Edward Ashley, a keen trader but “a profane young man” by Pilgrim standards, to found a rival post at Pentagoet, near the Penobscot River. Allerton had refused to commit the Plymouth partners to the scheme without their consent, but on the basis of later correspondence Bradford decided that he had been an instigator of the plan. Since they had to send Ashley supplies, the Pilgrims had little choice anyway but to come in, if they wished to have some control of this potential competitor. Ashley soon was better supplied with trading goods than Plymouth, which, indeed, had to buy from Allerton himself, in return for part of their beaver taken at reduced prices. Without their knowledge, their versatile agent next borrowed money on their account at Bristol, at 50% interest, ostensibly so that goods might be shipped early with the fishing fleet headed for New England waters in the spring of the year. Meanwhile, Winslow had conceived a plan to send a fishing ship laden with trading goods from the West Country in England directly to Maine, where a cargo of salt purchased the season before would await the ship’s arrival. In fact, the vessel thus hired, the _Friendship_, was badly delayed by “foul weather” so that Allerton reached Maine, traveling on the _White Angel_, only just before Timothy Hatherley, one of the London associates, finally reached Boston in the _Friendship_. The latter revealed that most of the goods he carried were not for Plymouth at all, but for Massachusetts. Plymouth’s mounting annoyance and mistrust of Allerton reached its pinnacle with the disturbing revelation that the English partners had bought outright the _White Angel_, not merely hired her, as was customary. The “Undertakers” suddenly were confronted by fresh, crushing debts, for each English partner had contributed two or three times as large an investment as before. Meanwhile, with a subtle note of mistrust of Plymouth’s dealings with them, the latter had designated Hatherley as a confidential agent to be informed of “the state and account of all the business.”[42]