A year later a more important, or at any rate a more profitable, voyage was made. Some English merchants who had maintained a trading-post on Monhegan Island sent word down the beach that they were going to abandon it and would sell the remainder of their goods at a bargain. Although in the years that had passed the Pilgrims had, at times, come so near to starvation that men had been seen to stagger in the street because they were faint with hunger, they had persisted. They had caught and sold fish. They had produced forest products and corn for sale. They had traded with the Indians for furs. They had traded with the fishermen who came over from England, and they had made a profit on every deal--they had not lived in Holland for nothing. When a bargain in trade goods on Monhegan Island was offered, they had capital to make a purchase, and going there with a shallop they secured stuff worth £400. Then, on finding at the mouth of the Kennebec some other goods that had been taken from a French ship wrecked on that coast, they bought an additional £100 worth, which was all their boat would hold, as one may suppose. For as soon as they reached Plymouth Bay they cut their shallop in two and lengthened her, so that when another opportunity was offered to buy goods at a bargain she would have a larger capacity. Recall, now, a number of events occurring in America before, and at about the time of, the first voyages of the Pilgrim shallops. Henry Hudson had sailed in the _Half Moon_ up the river that bears his name (September, 1609), and the Dutch, after building a few fur-buying posts in that country, had begun a permanent settlement on the lower end of Manhattan Island (1623). Adrien Block, a Dutch explorer, had built a "yacht" on Manhattan Island (during the winter of 1614-1615), that was used later in the coasting trade. At New Amsterdam the Dutch built many small boats for gathering furs on the Hudson, and they repaired ships coming to the port when there was need. But as late as October 10, 1658, J. Aldrichs wrote a letter from that town saying, in connection with a "galliot" that was needed for local use (N. Y. C. docs. II, 51):-- "We are not yet in condition to build such a craft here." At a still earlier date the French had made a permanent settlement in Canada. In the long story of the French in America it is of interest to note first that the Bretons and Basques had been among the pioneers on the Newfoundland fishing banks. It is not difficult to believe that the Basques were there before Cabot's time.