Meanwhile, several circumstances fed Plymouth’s dissatisfaction with James Sherley, including his continuing to do business with Allerton. After selling the latter the controversial ship, Sherley nevertheless could write with unctious fervor, “Oh the grief and trouble that man, Mr. Allerton, hath brought upon you and us! I cannot forget it, and to think on it draws many a sigh from my heart and tears from my eyes.” Yet he rescued Allerton from trouble with his ship, sent Plymouth’s supply on board it in 1632, and allowed him easy terms. It was hard to reconcile Sherley’s depressing complaints about his own heavy debts with this extension of credit to Allerton and participation in other ventures, such as sending Captain William Peirce to Massachusetts Bay. Unfortunately, Peirce’s ship met disaster on her way home in 1632, so the beaver that Plymouth had entrusted to her, along with some of their accounts, was “swallowd up in the sea.” By 1636 Bradford reckoned that Plymouth had sent to England about 12,530 pounds of beaver estimated to be worth more than £10,000, with 1,156 otter skins to pay the freight charges. Because of Winslow’s shaky accounts, they could only estimate the receipts of English goods. They thought these cost about £2000, and even if the debt of £4770 was increased, they could not understand why the fur receipts would not have more than paid it off. One explanation probably is that Sherley was unable to sell all of the beaver at the high prices they had counted on. During the plague year of 1636 he complained that prices dropped to 8s. a pound. Also, Sherley was unable to determine just how many skins belonged to the “Undertakers’” account, and how many Winslow had bought from settlers who had no part in the “Undertakers’” scheme.[45] The London partners quarrel among themselves To the problem of extricating the Plymouth venture from its financial straits a new one was now added. A quarrel had broken out among the English partners themselves, James Sherley, John Beauchamp, and Richard Andrews. These men had shared in the debts incurred after 1626 to keep Plymouth supplied. The Pilgrims had expected all three to profit from the large quantities of furs shipped after 1631. Instead, in 1640 Beauchamp and Andrews revealed a rift with Sherley of several years standing. They complained in court that they had not received a fair share of the returns on their investment and tried to force a full accounting of Sherley’s transactions with Plymouth. This suit, with its contradictory sets of figures, exposed the nature of their association.