The letter from the Merchant-adventurers, which recited these facts, closed with a cheering promise: “We have agreed with two merchants for a ship of a hundred and forty tons, called the ‘Anne,’ which is to be ready the last of this month of April, to bring sixty passengers and sixty tons of goods to you.”[453] While the Pilgrims, enlivened by this news, were living on hope and five kernels of corn, they received a visitor. Captain Francis West, admiral of New England, who sailed under a commission to prevent all trading and fishing on the coast-line without a license from the Home Council, called at Plymouth. Of him the necessitous Pilgrims purchased a few edibles at high prices.[454] The old sailor’s mission failed; the fishermen were too strong and independent to be repressed. Ere long, on their petition, Parliament decreed that fishing should be free.[455] Two weeks after the departure of West, the promised reinforcements arrived; the “Anne” landed her recruits, and a goodly store of provisions besides.[456] So low was the colonial larder, that “the best dish they could present their friends with was a lobster or a piece of fish, without bread, or any thing else but a cup of fair spring water.”[457] The “Anne” was shortly followed by the “Little James,” a vessel of forty-four tons burden, “built to stay in the country.”[458] “Among the pioneers just arrived,” says Cotton Mather, “were divers worthy and useful men, who were come to seek the welfare of this little Israel; though at their coming they were as differently affected as the rebuilders of the temple at Jerusalem; some were grieved when they saw how bad the condition of their friends was, and others were glad that it was no worse.”[459] Among the arrivals at this time “were, Cuthbertson, a member of the Leyden church, the wives of Fuller and Coake, and two daughters of Brewster. There were at least twelve ladies. One of these became the wife of Bradford; Standish married another. Alice Southworth, Bradford’s second wife, is said to have been his first love. Both being widowed, a correspondence took place, in the sequel of which she came out from England, and married her some-time lover at Plymouth.”[460] “Some of your old friends go to you with these lines,” wrote Cushman; “they come dropping to you, and by degrees I hope ere long you shall enjoy them all.”[461]