The originals of Pory’s letters are gone, as far as anyone knows. What exists is a copy, probably made by Richard Norwood, surveyor of the “Summer Isles” (Bermudas). The manuscript is unsigned, undated and consists of extracts from two letters by John Pory and a description of Bermuda by Norwood. It is in the John Carter Brown Library, Providence, Rhode Island. The whole text, edited, annotated, and introduced by Champlin Burrage, was printed under the title, _John Pory’s Lost Description of Plymouth in the Earliest Days of the Pilgrim Fathers_ (1918). This edition, plus photostats of the manuscript, were used in the preparation of the text printed here. John Pory to the Earl of Southampton[1] January 13, 1622/1623, and later. By whom this New Plymouth (situated, according to Captain Jones[2] his computation, in 41 degrees and 48 minutes) is now presently inhabited, your Lordship and the honorable Company do know better than myself. For whom how favourably God’s providence in thought and in deed, quite besides any plot or design of theirs, hath wrought, especially in the beginning of their enterprise, is worthy to be observed. For when, as your Lordship knows, their voyage was intended for Virginia, being by letters from Sir Edwin Sandys and Mr. Deputy Ferrar recommended to Sir Yeardley[3] (then Governor) that he should give them the best advice he could for trading in Hudson’s River, whether it were by contrariety of wind or by the backwardness of their master or pilot[4] to make (as they thought it) too long a journey, they fell short both of the one and the other, arriving first at that stately harbour called Cape Cod,[5] called by Indians “Pamet”; from whence in shallop the pilot, a more forward undertaker than performer, promised to bring them to be seated in a pleasant and fertile place called Anquam,[6] situate within Cape Ann,[7] about forty leagues from Plymouth. After some dangerous and almost incurable errors and mistakings, he stumbled by accident upon the harbour of Plymouth; where, after the planters had failed of their intention, and the pilot of his, it pleased Almighty God (who had better provided for them than their own hearts could imagine) to plant them on the seat of an old town which divers [years] before had been abandoned of the Indians. So they both quietly and justly sate down without either dispossessing any of the natives, or being resisted by them, and without shedding so much as one drop of blood. Which felicity of theirs is confirmed unto them even by the voices of the savages themselves, who generally do acknowledge not only the seat, but the whole seigniory[8] thereto belonging, to be, and do themselves disclaim all title from it; so that the right of those planters to it is altogether unquestionable—a favor which, since the first discovery of America, God hath not vouchsafed, so far as ever I could learn, upon any Christian nation within that continent.