Men whose position was thus firmly established resented the unauthorized intrusion of malcontents. Being reformers themselves, they naturally did not want to be reformed. Alone among New England colonists, the Pilgrims of Plymouth, who were Separatists or Independents, mistrusted the blending of civil and religious functions, and this mistrust had deepened during the sojourn of their leaders in Holland. Moreover, unlike their Boston neighbours, the Pilgrims were plain, simple people; “not acquainted,” wrote Governor Bradford, “with trades nor traffique, but used to a countrie life, and the innocente trade of husbandry.” They even tried the experiment of farming their land on a communal system, and, as a result, came perilously close to starvation. Only when each man cultivated his own lot, that is, when individualism supplanted socialism, did they wring from the reluctant soil food enough to keep them alive. To the courage and intelligence of the Pilgrim and Puritan leaders, Governor Bradford and Governor Winthrop, the settlers owed their safety and survival. The instinct of self-government was strong in these men, their measures were practical measures, their wisdom the wisdom of the world. If Bradford had not made friends with the great sachem, Massasoit, and clinched the friendship by sending Edward Winslow to doctor him with “a confection of many comfortable conserves” when he was ill, the Plymouth colonists would have lost the trade with the Indians which tided them over the first crucial years. If Winthrop had not by force of argument and persuasion obtained the lifting of duties from goods sent to England, and induced the British creditors to grant favourable terms, the Boston colony would have been bankrupt. The keen desire of both Plymouth and Boston to pay their debts is pleasant to record, and contrasts curiously with the reluctance of wealthy States to accept the Constitution in 1789, lest it should involve a similar course of integrity. It is hardly worth while to censure communities which were establishing, or seeking to establish, “a strong religious state” because they were intolerant. Tolerance is not, and never has been, compatible with strong religious states. The Puritans of New England did not endeavour to force their convictions upon unwilling Christendom. They asked only to be left in peaceful possession of a singularly unprolific corner of the earth, which they were civilizing after a formula of their own. Settlers to whom this formula was antipathetic were asked to go elsewhere. If they did not go, they were sent, and sometimes whipped into the bargain--which was harsh, but not unreasonable.