The Pilgrims were in a quandary. They stood on the verge of starvation. The recent comers had brought out no stock of provisions, but were dumped destitute upon the charity of those whom they had come to supplant. “As for the harsh censures and suspicions intimated in these letters,” remarks Bradford, “they desired to judge as charitably and wisely of them as they could, weighing them in the balance of love and reason; and though the epistles of warning came from godly and loving friends, yet they conceived that many things might arise from over-deep jealousy and fear, together with unmeet provocation; though they well saw that Weston pursued his own ends, and was embittered in spirit. All these things they pondered and well considered, yet concluded to give his men friendly entertainment; partly in regard to that gentleman’s past kindness, and partly in compassion to the people who were now come into the wilderness—as themselves were—and were by their ships to be presently put ashore; for they were to carry other passengers into Virginia;[372] and they were altogether unacquainted, and knew not what to do. So, as they had received Weston’s former company of seven men, and victualed them as their own, now they also received these, being about sixty lusty men, and gave housing for themselves and their goods; and many, being sick, had the best the place could afford them.”[373] Of course, so great and unexpected an accession of numbers added vastly to the embarrassment of the Pilgrims, and “amidst these straits, and the desertion of those from whom they had expected a supply, when famine began to pinch them sore they knew not what course to take.” But God stood behind the cloud, “keeping watch above his own.” One day a boat came into Plymouth, and brought word of a massacre in Virginia,[374] and gave a warning to the New England colonists. The kind sender of this message was captain of a fishing-smack then fishing off the Maine coast.[375]