The Plymouth colonists were still much embarrassed in consequence of their relations with their partners in England, to whom they were still considerably indebted. The agent of the company there wrote that he could not make up his accounts, unless some one from the colony should come over to England to aid him; and he urged that Mr. Winslow should be sent. But Mr. Winslow was afraid to go. Neither was he willing that any of his partners should go. The angry tone of letters from England led him to apprehend serious danger. “For he was persuaded,” writes Governor Bradford, “that if any of them went they would be arrested, and an action of such a sum laid upon them as they should not procure bail, but must lie in prison; and then they would bring them to what they list.” Still it was very important that some one should go. Captain Standish was applied to. He seems to have had as little fear of an English prison as of the tomahawks and arrows of the Indians. Without any hesitancy he was ready to embark in the perilous enterprise. But upon mature deliberation his more cautious friends decided it not to be prudent to expose him to such peril. But the spirit of justice, which inspired them in all their transactions, is again conspicuous. They offered to submit the matter to any gentlemen and merchants of the Massachusetts colony, whom the company in England themselves might choose. Before these commissioners both sides should have a hearing. “We will be bound,” they added, “to stand by their decision, and make good their award, though it should cost us all we have in the world.” The company in England declined this magnanimous offer. In the year 1645 Elder Brewster died, at the advanced age of eighty-four years. He was in Duxbury the next neighbor and the ever warm friend of Miles Standish. Among the remarkable men who composed the Plymouth colony, he was one of the most remarkable. By birth, education and wealth he occupied a high position in English society. In his earlier days he was the companion of ministers of state. He was familiar with the magnificence of courts, having represented his sovereign in foreign embassage. His ample fortune had accustomed him to the refinements and elegances of life. He might doubtless have spent his days in ease, honor and opulence. But, true to his religious convictions, all these he cast aside to share the lot of the humble and persecuted Puritans. He deemed conformity to the mode of worship adopted by the Parliament as sinful. And “he chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.” In the records of the first church in Plymouth we find a very noble tribute to his memory, probably written by Secretary Morton. Speaking of his embassage, in his early manhood, to the Low Countries, with Mr. Davison, Mr. Morton writes,