These outside discussions, in which their pastor took such interest, left undisturbed the steady growth of the Pilgrim church, in the government of which Brewster, as ruling elder, was associated with Robinson, after the removal to Leyden. In these years “many came unto them from divers parts of England, so as they grew a great congregation,” numbering at times nearly three hundred communicants. Among these new-comers were some who ranked thenceforth among their principal men: John Carver, an early deacon of the church, and leader of the first migrating colony; Robert Cushman, Carver’s adjutant in effecting that migration; Miles Standish, the soldier of the company; and Edward Winslow, a young man probably of higher social position than the rest, who shared with Bradford, after Carver’s death, the main burden of sustaining the infant colony. But though some recruits were attracted by Robinson’s gifts and by a prospect of freedom from prelatical oppression, yet the condition of the Leyden people was in general one of struggling poverty, with little hope of amendment. It were vain to expect that their language or their peculiarities of religious order could gain a secure foothold on Dutch soil, or that a Government on friendly terms with England could show active good-will to a nest of outcasts which England was anxious to break up. The increase of numbers had come in spite of the hardships attending the struggle for a livelihood in a foreign city; but as the conditions of the struggle were better understood, the numbers fell off. Time was also bringing a new danger with the approaching expiration of the twelve years’ truce (April, 1609-April, 1621) between Spain and the Netherlands.