[Illustration: NEW ENGLAND ABOUT 1625] _Three Visitors to Early Plymouth_ LETTERS ABOUT THE PILGRIM SETTLEMENT IN NEW ENGLAND DURING ITS FIRST SEVEN YEARS BY JOHN PORY, EMMANUEL ALTHAM AND ISAACK DE RASIERES Edited by Sydney V. James, Jr. with an Introduction by Samuel Eliot Morison [Illustration: _Plimoth Plantation_] © Plimoth Plantation, Inc., 1963 Contents INTRODUCTION vii EDITOR’S PREFACE xi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii JOHN PORY (1572-1635) 3 John Pory to the Earl of Southampton, January 13, 1622/1623, and later 5 John Pory to the Governor of Virginia (Sir Francis Wyatt), Autumn, 1622 14 EMMANUEL ALTHAM (1600-1635/1636) 21 Emmanuel Altham to Sir Edward Altham, September, 1623 23 Emmanuel Altham to Sir Edward Altham, March, 1623/1624 36 Emmanuel Altham to James Sherley, May, 1624 42 Emmanuel Altham to Sir Edward Altham, June 10, 1625 53 ISAACK DE RASIERES (1595-1669 or later) 63 Isaack de Rasieres to Samuel Blommaert, c. 1628 65 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 81 INDEX 83 Introduction We all know what the Pilgrim Fathers wrote about themselves and their settlements on the (not so) “stern and rockbound coast”; but how many people know that they were visited thrice, between 1622 and 1627, by outsiders who left on record candid accounts of what they saw? That is the reason for this book. These three accounts—one by a gentleman from Virginia, one by an Englishman straight from England, and the other by a Dutchman from New Amsterdam—are brought together between two covers, so that we can see how the Pilgrims and New Plymouth appeared to visitors who shared neither their particular beliefs nor their intention to live in New England.