Infinite were the vexations, multitudinous were the trials, which resulted. Now a general meeting was called, and this question was anxiously discussed. Finally it was decided, though only for reasons of the sternest necessity, to deviate somewhat from the form of the contract. As the communal idea has, in our day, won wide favor with theorists and ideal dreamers, we subjoin and commend the weighty words of Bradford, who had experienced the evils of that vicious system, to the Fourierite philosophers: “At length, after much debate, the governor, with the advice of the chiefest among the Pilgrims, gave way that each man should set corn for his individual benefit, and in that respect trust to himself; though, remembering the contract, all other things were to go on in the communal way till time freed them. So to every family a parcel of land was assigned, but only for present use, no division for inheritance being made, and all boys and youth were ranged under some family. This had good success, for it made all hands very industrious; so that much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the governor could have brought to bear. He was saved a deal of trouble, and the division gave great content. Even the women went into the field, taking with them their little ones, who before would allege weakness and inability, and whom to have compelled would have been thought grievously tyrannical. “The experience which was had in this common interest and condition, tried sundry years, and that among godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato and of other ancients, applauded by some of later times; that the abolition of individual property, and the introduction of a community of wealth, would make men happy and flourishing. This community, so far as it went at Plymouth, was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and to retard labor. The young men, that were most able and fit for service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength in working for the families of others, without other recompense than a bare subsistence. The strong man and the man of parts had no greater share than he that was weak, and not able to do a quarter the other could. This was thought injustice. The aged and graver sort—ranked and equalized with the meaner and younger men in the division of labor and provisions—esteemed it some indignity and disrespect unto their gray heads. And for men’s wives to be bidden to do service for others, as dressing meat and washing clothes, they deemed it a kind of slavery which many husbands could not well brook. So if this arrangement did not cut off those relations which God hath set amongst men, yet it did at least much diminish and take off the mutual respect that should be preserved amongst them, and destroyed individuality. And things would have been worse, had the Pilgrims been more of a different condition. Let none object that this is