In regard of that near bond wherewith I am tied to you, I cannot but seek all opportunities to inform you how it fareth with me—and at this time the more, in regard I am so far separated from you in the remotest parts of the west. And at this time I desire to be the more large, knowing your expectations will be frustrated by me, by not coming into England, the cause of which hath happened accidentally. For considering with myself of the many troubles and crosses and losses, with much hindrance of my time, which happened unto me at my last being there, upon serious consideration with myself, I durst not put myself so soon upon the same so rawly again. For first, thinking with myself how ill I was dealt withal by Mr. Pemberton and his associates, for whose good I was up early and late, and whose ship I furnished with all manner of provisions, ready to take her voyage to sea;[119] yet, because there was a jar between him and the Adventurers I formerly served (whom I found always loving unto me and in whose service I being, I employed my body and mind for their good), he thought I had concealed some things from him, whereby he took himself prejudiced. Whereas, I, meaning well, stood as neuter; which, if I had sticked to one side, I had done better—but if to him, not with a good conscience. For as heretofore I have related, he sought the overthrow of a whole colony of people, which since hath appeared more apparent. For at the arrival of Mr. Pemberton’s ship and ours in this country, we both lighted upon one harbor,[120] where the New Plymouth Colony kept a stage for their fishing. Which stage they of Pemberton’s ship, by order from him, seized upon by a wile; but in the interim were glad to compound, or else it had cost them the loss of their lives and ship. For the plantation sent twenty men in arms to regain it by land, and our ship[121] lay by theirs to fight with them if any onset were given. But they, loving to sleep in a whole skin, laid down their arms and abandoned the plantation’s right; otherwise it had cost them some blood, if not their lives. Since which time, their agents here[122] do trouble this poor people, and have set factions among them, which I fear, in time, will be their overthrow, if God prevent it not in time. After which falling off with the one side in London, the other promised me more if I would serve them than I had demanded of the other; but they, as foolishly as the other side knavishly,[123] admitted so many of the Company for adventuring—and upon such terms which are too large to write, disheartened me from them likewise. For they would have had me to adventure £50 with them in ready money, whereas others adventuring the like sum had a receipt for ten or twenty pounds more being upon old accounts. So in conclusion, I had cause to refuse both, or else to adventure my money I knew not how. After all which, it being left to my choice till the last, I made choice of this course: to expend