continuing some fourteen days, and mixed with such seasonable weather, as it was hard to say, whether our withered corn or drooping affections were most quickened or revived, such was the bounty and goodness of our God." Soon after, in grateful acknowledgment of the blessing, a day of public thanksgiving was observed. This, by a judicious historian, (Thomas Robbins, D. D.) is believed to be the origin of the annual thanksgiving of New England. Towards the close of the summer, two ships arrived at Plymouth, bringing sixty emigrants, some of them the wives and children of such as were already in the colony. Those who came in the first three ships--the Mayflower, the Fortune, and the Ann--are distinctively called the old comers, or the _forefathers_. In 1624, Plymouth contained thirty-two dwellings and about one hundred and eighty inhabitants. Bradford was rëelected governor, and four assistants to him were also chosen. To each person and his family an acre of land was given in perpetuity. The first neat cattle in New England were brought over this year by Edward Winslow. The colonists had at that time no small trouble with several of the new comers, particularly with one John Lyford, a minister, and another by the name of Oldham, who were disposed to act in opposition to the laws and order of the colony. The persons above mentioned, however, soon perished, Oldham having first become apparently a penitent. The congregation of the Puritans at Leyden was broken up on the death of their pastor, Mr. Robinson, in 1627. They desired to remove to New England, but only a part of them were enabled to come. The others settled in Amsterdam. Mr. Robinson had hoped to emigrate, but the expense of the undertaking could not well be met, and his death now preventing, only his wife and children came with the portion of the congregation that crossed the water. His place in the colony was supplied by Mr. William Brewster, a ruling elder in the church, and a man every way qualified as a spiritual guide of the people.