Footnotes have been supplied mainly to give information useful for an understanding of the letters, not exhaustive comparisons with other documents. Some notes give original spellings which others may not wish to modernize as I have done it in the text. Bibliographical information in the footnotes is supplemented by the bibliographical note at the end of the book. The dates used in the letters are reproduced exactly. This means that they are of the Julian Calendar or Old Style, used by Englishmen until September 1752. In the biographical sketches of the letter writers, also, the old dating system has been followed. Not only was the day of the month different from the modern calendar (during the 1600’s Old Style dates ran ten days behind New Style, so that December 11, O.S., was December 21, N.S.) but the beginning of the year was reckoned from March 25, although all of March was called the first month of the year. This confused even the users of the Julian Calendar, who frequently tried to prevent mistakes by giving both the outgoing and the incoming year numbers to dates in March before the 25th—for example, March 9, 1629/1630. Hoping to minimize confusion for the modern reader, I have adopted a rarer version of this practice, giving two year numbers to all dates from January 1 to March 24. Acknowledgements The chief debt of gratitude which the editor and Plimoth Plantation, Inc., must acknowledge is to the owners of the letters printed here. The late Dr. Otto Fisher, of Detroit, made the book possible by permitting the publication of the three letters from Emmanuel Altham to Sir Edward Altham. The Massachusetts Historical Society has kindly consented to the reprinting of the other Altham letter. The John Carter Brown Library, of Providence, has given permission to print the extracts from Pory’s letters. Permission to reprint those parts of the translation of the letter by Isaack de Rasieres covered by copyright has been granted by Barnes & Noble, Inc. As editor I have received assistance of various kinds which deserve a public word of thanks—from Professor Rosalie Colie of Wesleyan University, Professor John H. Parks of Kent State University, the New York Historical Society, the Cleveland Public Library, and from my wife. Sydney V. James Eugene, Oregon JOHN PORY John Pory (1572-1635)