“But all in vain. He could get nothing of him but ill words. So he considered that now was the season for trade to come down, and that if he should suffer him to take it from them, all their former charge would be lost, and they had better throw all up. So consulting with his men, who were willing thereto, he resolved to put him from his anchors, and let him drift down the river with the stream; but commanded the men that none should shoot a shot upon any occasion, except he commanded them. “He spoke to him again, but all in vain. Then he sent a couple in a canoe to cut his cable, the which one of them performs. But Hocking takes up a piece, which he had laid ready, and, as the bark sheared by the canoe, he shot him, close under her side, in the head, so that he fell down dead instantly.[44] One of his fellows, who loved him well, could not hold, but with a musket shot Hocking, who fell down dead, and never spake word. This was the truth of the thing.” Mr. John Alden, probably the husband of Priscilla, was one of the men in the bark with the Pilgrims. They returned to the trading post, much afflicted by the untoward adventure. Not long after this Mr. Alden, visiting Boston, was arrested for the deed, upon the complaint of a kinsman of Hocking, and held to bail. The Massachusetts government had no right of jurisdiction in the affair. But Governor Winthrop was quite embarrassed to know what was best to be done in a case thus far without any precedent. He wrote very courteously to Governor Winslow, then Chief Magistrate of Plymouth, informing him of what had been done, and enquiring if the Plymouth people would take action in a case which seemed rather to belong to their jurisdiction. “This we did,” writes Governor Winthrop, “that notice might be taken that we did disavow the said action, which was much condemned of all men, and which, it was feared, would give occasion to the king to send a general governor over. And besides, it had brought us all, and the gospel, under a common reproach, of cutting one another’s throats for beaver.” Governor Bradford was also greatly troubled, being apprehensive respecting the influence it might exert upon the home government. He speaks of the occurrence as “one of the saddest things that befel them since they came.” There was embarrassment all around. It was hardly consistent with the dignity of Plymouth to surrender the case to the Massachusetts court. Mr. Alden, who had been arrested, was no actor in the business. He simply happened to be in the boat, having gone to the Kennebec with supplies.