The harvest of this year was poor and scanty; and the great accession to their numbers, caused by the visit of Weston's settlers, had entirely consumed the stores of the Plymouthers, and reduced them again to actual want. Joyfully, therefore, they hailed the arrival of two ships from the mother country, laden with knives, beads, and various other articles, that would be acceptable to the Indians in the way of barter, and enable the settlers to purchase from them the necessary supply of provisions, for which they had hitherto been compelled to pay very dear in skins and furs. Meanwhile, the colony of Wessagussett was in a still worse condition. They had quickly consumed all the food with which the generous Plymouthers had supplied them, and had then stolen everything on which they could lay their hands. They had also sold almost all their clothes and bedding, and even their weapons; and were brought to such extreme necessity that they did not refuse to do the meanest services for the Indians who dwelt near their settlement, in return for such means of subsistence as the red men were able to furnish them with. For this condescension--so unlike the dignified yet kind deportment of the Plymouthers--the natives despised them, and treated them with contempt, and even violence. Thus early was the British name brought into disrepute with the Indians, when men bearing that name came among them for mere purposes of speculation and profit, and ware not governed by the Christian principles of humanity and justice that distinguished the earliest settlers in New England from all those who followed them. Nor did the evil consequences of their ill conduct rest with themselves. They fell also on the peaceably-disposed colony of Plymouth, and were the means of involving them in hostilities with the natives, which had hitherto been warded off by the kind and judicious management of the Governor and his assistants. The general state of peace which had, up to this period, been maintained with the Indians, was greatly to be attributed to the bold and decisive measures that were always adopted by Miles Standish, the military chief of the little community, and the leader of every warlike expedition. He well knew how to impress the natives with a due respect, for he never tolerated the slightest injury or insult, and yet he never permitted his men to be guilty of any act of injustice or oppression towards the red men.