Owing to the competition in the fishing waters, the Pilgrims esteemed it wiser now to forego that pursuit and to turn their whole attention to “trading and planting.” “To every person,” says Bradford, “was given an acre of land, and only an acre to them and theirs, as near the town as might be, and they had no more till the contract with the London partners was bought up. The reason was, that all might be kept close together both for better safety and defence, and the better improvement of the common employments. This condition of theirs did make me think of what I once read in Pliny[539] of the Romans and their beginnings in Romulus’ time, when every man contented himself with two acres of land and had no more assigned him; how it was thought a great reward to receive a pint of corn at the hands of the Roman people; how, long after, the greatest present given to a captain who had gotten them a victory over their enemies, was as much ground as he could till in one day; he being counted not a good but a dangerous man, who could not content himself with seven acres of land; as also how they did pound their corn in mortars, as these colonists did many years before they could get a mill.”[540] In turning from fishing to agriculture the settlers were decided gainers, and “ere the close of the year 1626 they had nearly extricated themselves from debt, including the obligation lately incurred for them by Standish, and had besides stored ‘some clothing for the people and some commodities beforehand.’”[541] The winter of 1626-7 was given to trading, and purchases were made of merchandise from some Englishmen stationed at Monhegan, and from a French ship wrecked off their coast. For several months they had the society of the passengers and crew of a vessel bound to Virginia, but which, losing her reckoning, and falling short of provisions, had moored under Cape Cod and sent to them for succor.[542] Just before winter closed in the Pilgrims had despatched one of their number, Mr. Allerton, to England with authority to continue the negotiations for a transfer of title opened by Standish with the Merchant-adventurers.[543] Allerton found the plague—which had somewhat retarded the movements of Standish, and carried off some of the most efficient supporters of the colony[544]—quite abated. He also learned that James I., the pedantic bigot who had threatened to “harry” the Puritans out of England, was dead, and that he had been succeeded by his son Charles I., the fated prince who afterwards fell under Cromwell’s axe on the Whitehall scaffold.