An exceptionally mild winter had opened, yet it was with difficulty that they could provide adequate shelter for themselves, much less secure comfortable quarters. The stock of food they had brought with them soon failed, and what was left was not wholesome; in consequence of hunger and exposure, sickness ensued, and about one half of the company died. Among those who succumbed was Governor Carver; in his place was chosen William Bradford, who held the office for twelve years, was the historian of the colony, and until his death (1657) the leading man among his people. Those who survived this terrible ordeal were so few and feeble that under ordinary conditions the Indians could readily have massacred them. But owing to a pestilence which, a few years before, had wasted the New England coast tribes, it was many years before the aborigines were strong enough seriously to annoy the Plymouth colonists. Sidenote: Persistence amid adversity. Had the Pilgrims been ordinary colonists, they would no doubt have abandoned their settlement and returned in the vessel that brought them. But they were of sterner stuff than the men who succumbed to less hardship at Roanoke and on the Kennebec, and their religious conviction nerved them to a grim task which they believed to be God-given. It was not for faint-hearts to found a new Canaan. In November, 1621, fifty more of the Leyden congregation came out. By this time the people of Plymouth had, amid many sore trials, erected log-houses enough for their use, built a rude fort on the hill overlooking the settlement, made a clearing of twenty-six acres, and had laid by enough provisions and fuel for the winter. But the addition to the number of mouths materially decreased the _per capita_ allotment of rations. Sidenote: Patent from the Plymouth Company. The Pilgrims having settled upon land for which they had no grant, it had become necessary for the London adventurers, who backed the enterprise, to secure a patent from the reorganized Plymouth Company. That company was working under a charter from the king as the feudal lord, giving it privileges of settlement, trade, and government; rights to colonize and trade, it was authorized to parcel out to others, in the form of patents, and a document of this character was issued to the adventurers in May, 1621. 50. Development of Plymouth (1621-1691). Sidenote: The industrial system. The industrial system inaugurated at Plymouth was, like that adopted for Jamestown, pure communism. The governor and assistants organized the settlers into a working band, all produce going into a common stock, from which the wants of the people were first supplied: the surplus to be the profit of the corporation. As in the case of Jamestown, the London partners were not pleased with the results of the speculation, and in harshly expressing their dissatisfaction soon fell into a wordy dispute with the colonists.