Ere long he professed to desire to unite with the Pilgrim church. He was accordingly received, and “made a large confession of his faith, and an acknowledgment of his former disorderly walking and entanglement with many corruptions, which had been a burden to his conscience; so that he blessed God for this opportunity of liberty to enjoy the ordinances of God in purity among His people.”[493] For a time all things went comfortably and smoothly; but in this calm, Lyford contracted an intimacy with one John Oldham, who had come out in the “Anne” on his own account, and had been a factious bawler from the outset.[494] From so congenial an association, evil could not but be begotten. The bully and the hypocrite soon nursed it and set it afoot. Both Oldham and Lyford grew very perverse—though just before Oldham also had been received as a member of the Plymouth church, “whether from hypocrisy or out of some sudden pang of conviction God only knows”—and “showed a spirit of great malignancy, drawing as many into faction as they could influence. The most idle and profane they nourished, and backed in all their lawlessness, so they would but cleave to them and revile the Pilgrim church. Private meetings and back-stair whisperings were incessant among them, they feeding themselves and others with what they should bring to pass in England by the faction of their friends among the Adventurers, which brought both themselves and their dupes into a fools’ paradise. Outwardly they set a fair face on things, yet they could not carry things so closely but much both of their sayings and doings was discovered.”[495] Finally, when the vessel in which Winslow had returned was laden, and ready to hoist anchor and spread sail for home, it was observed that Lyford and his coadjutors “were long in writing and sent many letters, and communicated to each other such things as made them laugh in their sleeves, thinking they had done their errand efficiently.”[496] Scenting mischief, Bradford watched them closely; and when the ship left the harbor, he followed her in the shallop, and demanded Lyford’s letter-bag. The captain, who was friendly to the colonial government, and cognizant of the plot afoot, both in Britain and at Plymouth, to overreach the Pilgrims, at once acceded. Above twenty letters, many of them long, and pregnant with slanders, false accusations, and malicious innuendoes, tending not only to the prejudice, but the ruin and utter subversion of the settlement, were found. Most of these Bradford let pass, contenting himself with abstracts. But of the most material true copies were taken, and then forwarded, the originals being detained, lest their writer should deny his work, in which case he would now be compelled to eat his own penmanship.[497]