With the provident promptness which is so omnipresent a trait in their character, the Pilgrims at once “took an exact account of all their provisions in store, and proportioning these to the number of persons, found that, owing to the arrival of so many unexpected and necessitous guests, they would not hold out above six months, or till the spring, on half-allowance; and they could not well give less this winter-time, till fish came in again. But all were presently put on half-allowance, which began to be hard, but it was borne patiently.”[301] Indeed, the Pilgrims bore this hardship with something better than mere patience. “I take notice of it as a great favor of God,” wrote one of the sufferers, “that he has not only preserved my life, but given me _contentedness_ in our straits; insomuch that I do not remember ever to have wished in my heart that I had never come into this country, or that I might be again in my father’s house.”[302] It was said of Brewster, that “with the most submissive patience he bore the novel and trying hardships to which his old age was subjected, lived abstemiously, and after having been in his youth the companion of ministers of state, the representative of his sovereign, familiar with the magnificence of courts, and the possessor of a fortune sufficient not only for the comforts, but the elegances of life, this humble, devoted Puritan labored steadily with his own hands in the ‘histie stibble-fields’ of the unkempt wilderness for daily subsistence; while on the Sabbath, as elder of the church, and in the absence of an ordained minister, he broke the bread of life for the Pilgrim flock. Now, destitute of meat, of fish, and of bread, over his simple meal of clams he would return thanks to the Lord that he could suck of the abundance of the sea and of treasures hid in the sand.”[303] An eminent historian bids us beware of the error of supposing that the community planted at Plymouth was of a strictly homogeneous character. “The devoted men who, at Leyden, had debated the question of emigration, did not constitute the whole company even of the ‘Mayflower.’ They had been joined in England by several strangers who, like themselves, had come under engagement to the Merchant-adventurers of London. That partnership had business objects, and was by no means solely swayed by religious sympathy with the Leyden Pilgrims.”[304] Of the twenty men of the “Mayflower’s” company who survived the first winter, several are unfavorably known, as Billington, the foul-mouthed contemner of Standish’s authority, and Dotey and Lister, the lackey duelists of Hopkins’ quiet household.[305]