The Pilgrims “saw, and found by experience, the hardness of the place and country to be such that few in comparison would come to them, and fewer would bide it out and continue with them; for many that joined them, and many more who desired to be with them, could not endure the great labor and hard fare, with other inconveniences which they underwent and were content to bear. But though they loved the persons of the exiles, approved their cause, and honored their sufferings, yet they left them weeping, as Orpah did her mother-in-law Naomi, and as those Romans did Cato in Utica, who desired to be excused and borne with, though they could not all be Catos.[75] For many, though they desired to enjoy the ordinances of God as the Pilgrims did, yet, alas, chose bondage, with danger of conscience, rather than to endure these hardships. Yea, some preferred the prisons of England to this liberty in Holland, with these afflictions. The Pilgrims thought that if a better and easier place of residence could be had, it would draw many to them, and take away these discouragements. Yea, their pastor would often say that many of those who both wrote and preached against them there would, if they were in a place where they might have liberty and live comfortably, practise as they did.”[76] Then again, “they saw that, though the exiles generally bore all these difficulties very cheerfully and with resolute courage, being in the best and strength of their years, yet old age began to steal upon them—and their great and continued labors, with other crosses and sorrows, hastened it before the time—so it was not only probably thought, but apparently seen, that within a few years more they would be in danger to scatter by necessities pressing them, or sink under their burdens, or both. Therefore, according to the divine proverb, that ‘a wise man seeth the plague when it cometh, and hideth himself,’[77] so they, like skilful and tried soldiers, were fearful to be entrapped and surrounded by their enemies, so as they should neither be able to fight or fly; so they thought it better to dislodge betimes to some place of better advantage and less danger, if any such could be found.”[78]