The English visitors remained in the encampment of Massasoit until about eleven o’clock. Governor Carver sent by them to the chief a kettleful of peas, which the Indians seemed to regard as truly a princely gift. The next day, Friday, it was again pleasant. Squantum, who with Samoset, still remained with the Pilgrims, went to a neighboring creek, since appropriately called Eel River, and at night came home with as many eels as he could carry. “They were fat and sweet. He trod them out with his feet, and so caught them with his hands, without any other instrument.” In a comparatively recent history of Plymouth, it is stated that a hundred and fifty barrels of eels are annually taken from that creek. The Pilgrims on that day held a general meeting, to conclude some military arrangements, to enact certain needful laws, and to choose a Governor for the year. The choice fell, with apparently great unanimity, upon the then incumbent, Mr. John Carver. In Young’s Chronicle of the Pilgrims we find a note containing the following statement: “It will be recollected that Carver had been chosen Governor on the 11th of November, the same day on which the Compact was signed. It was now the 23d of March, and the new year commencing on the 25th, according to the calendar then in use, Carver was re-elected for the ensuing year.” Pleasant summer days now came, and glided rapidly away, with nothing occurring of essential importance. Friendly relations were established with the Indians, and the affairs of the colony seemed as prosperous as, under the circumstances, could be expected. On the 5th of April the Mayflower weighed anchor and set sail on her return voyage to England. She had but one-half of the crew with which she had sailed from Old Plymouth. The rest had fallen victims to the winter’s sickness. It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the hardships to which the Pilgrims were exposed, not one was disposed to abandon the enterprise and return in the ship. When the Mayflower left, there remained in the colony but fifty-five persons. Of these, nineteen only were men. The remaining thirty-six were women, children and servants. Scarcely had the ship disappeared over the distant horizon, ere Governor Carver, “oppressed by his great care and pains for the common good,” on one hot April noon returned from the field, complaining of a severe pain in his head, probably caused by a sunstroke. He soon became delirious, and, in a few days, died. It was a severe loss to the colony, and they mourned over him with great lamentation and heaviness. He was buried with all the imposing ceremonies of sorrow which the feeble colony could arrange. His wife, overwhelmed with grief in view of her terrible loss, in a few weeks followed her husband to the grave. Soon after, Mr. William Bradford, who was then in a state of great debility from his recent sickness, was chosen his successor.