“As the financial prospects of the colony faded, the more anxious were the unsympathizing London partners to relieve it and themselves from the stigma of religious schism. The taunt that their colonists were Brownists depressed the value of their stock. It was for their interest to introduce settlers of a different religious character, and to take the local power, if possible, out of the hands of those who represented the obnoxious tenets. To this end it was their policy to encourage such internal disaffection as already existed, and to strengthen it by the infusion of new elements of discord. A part even of the ‘Mayflower’ emigrants, without religious sympathy with their superiors, and jealous of the needful exercise of authority, were fit subjects for an influence adverse to the existing organization. The miscellaneous importation in the ‘Fortune’ followed; and the whole tenor of the discourse of Cushman, who came out and returned in her, shows that there were ‘idle drones’ and ‘unreasonable men’ mixed with the nobler associates of the infant settlement. The ‘Anne’ and her partner, the last vessels despatched by the Adventurers, brought new fuel for dissension in those of that company who came ‘on their particular’ account. Nor does it seem hazardous to infer, alike from the circumstances of the case and from developments which speedily followed, that some of these persons, in concert with the ‘strong faction among the Adventurers,’ came over on the errand of subverting the existing government and order.”[488] The clergyman now sent over, and mentioned in the home-letters, was John Lyford. He was the seed of many and sad disturbances. “When he first came ashore,” says Bradford, “he saluted the colonists with such reverence and humility as is seldom seen, and indeed made them ashamed, he so bowed and cringed unto them; he would have kissed their hands, if they had suffered it. Yet all the while, if we may judge by his after-carriage, he was but like him mentioned by the psalmist,[489] that croucheth and boweth that heaps of poor may fall by his might. Or like that dissembling Ishmael[490] who, when he had slain Gedeliah, went out weeping, and met them that were coming to offer incense in the house of the Lord, saying, ‘Come to Gedeliah,’ when he meant to slay them.”[491] The Pilgrims received Lyford cordially, giving him the warmest of welcomes and the heartiest. A larger allowance out of the general store was allotted him than any other had; and as the governor was wont, “in all weighty affairs, to consult with Elder Brewster as well as with his special assistants, so now, from courtesy, he called Lyford also to advise in all important crises.”[492]