Thus commenced a new and tedious financial wrangle between Plymouth and London. The former felt that the necessary control of their own business and obligations ceased when the English members could “run into such great things, and charge of shipping and new projects in their own heads, not only without but against all order and advice....” Confronted by their objections, Allerton undertook to convince them that they need not have the _White Angel_ on the general account, if they did not wish to. Years later, in 1639, he testified that he had bought her at Bristol in 1631 only for the inner group comprising himself, Sherley, Andrews, and Beauchamp, and even Hatherley, whereas the _Friendship_ was hired for all the partners of Plymouth. London contradicted this, saying that the ship would not have been purchased at all, if it hadn’t been for the interests of Plymouth. The disagreement over the _White Angel_ and the _Friendship_ plagued the partnership for some time to come, but the leaders on both sides of the Atlantic now concurred in the dismissal of Allerton as agent. Hatherley’s tour of inspection of the “down east” trading posts before his return to London demonstrated to him that “Allerton played his own game and ran a course not only to the great wrong and detriment of the Plantation who employed and trusted him, but abused them ... in possessing them [in England] with prejudice against the Plantation ... that they would never be able to repay their moneys....” Winslow, one of the most enterprising traders among the “Undertakers,” had journeyed to London earlier in 1631 and succeeded the discredited agent. Should Allerton flatly be called a cheat? Unable to “be brief in so tedious and intricate a business,” Bradford himself struggled not to impute to Allerton thoroughly dishonest motives. The Governor even admitted that the agent’s commission to act in Plymouth’s behalf had given him a certain freedom of action. That Allerton had been led aside from the main desires of the Plantation by “his own gains and private ends,” we conclude from his managing to invest £400 under Sherley’s name in the brewhouse belonging to one of the former London adventurers, William Collier. Bradford became convinced that the agent had inspired both the schemes of Ashley’s rival trade and the purchase of the _White Angel_, persuading his London friends that the Kennebec trade alone was insufficient to pay them.