This company was, however, composed of a different material from that of Weston’s. It was made up of families, as well as of individuals, and contained in it some elements of strength.[31] The party disembarked just as the autumn tints began to glow through the forest, and busied themselves with the erection of their storehouses. Captain Gorges meanwhile notified the Plymouth people of his arrival, and Governor Bradford prepared to answer the summons in person. Before he could do so, however, Gorges started on a voyage to the fishing stations in Maine; but, encountering some rough weather on his way, he put about and ran into Plymouth in search of a pilot. He remained there some fourteen days, and then, instead of resuming his voyage, he returned to Wessagusset by land. Upon reaching his seat of government he, for the first, and, so far as appears, for the last time, made any use of his great civil and military powers by causing Weston, who had turned up in Plymouth Bay, on board the Swan, to be arrested and sent with this vessel around to Weymouth. His own ship, meanwhile, remained at Plymouth, where, on the 5th of November, her company occasioned a great disaster to the unfortunate colonists. The weather was cold, and a number of seamen were celebrating Guy Fawkes’ day before a large fire in one of the houses, when the thatch ignited, and, for a brief time, it was a question whether the general storehouse, and with it the Plymouth colony, were not to be destroyed. Fortunately only three or four houses were burned, but it is curious to reflect how much more heavily the loss of those few log huts bore on the Plymouth of those days than did the great conflagration of two centuries and a half later on the Boston of ours. At any rate it seemed to sicken Captain Robert Gorges and his party, for, shortly after it, he retired to England, thoroughly disgusted with the work of founding empires in the New World.[32] With him returned the larger part of his company, but not the whole of it; nor, indeed, does Weymouth seem ever again to have been abandoned as a settlement. While some of the party went to Virginia, others remained at Wessagusset, and Mr. Morell took up his temporary abode at Plymouth. This gentleman appears, indeed, to have been not only a man of education and refinement, but also to have been possessed of discretion and good sense. For a wonder he, an ecclesiastic, remained at Plymouth nearly a year with a letter in his pocket conferring on him great powers, and yet he neither sought to exercise any authority, nor did he intrigue or stir up any trouble. On the contrary, he quietly minded his own business, and beguiled his leisure hours in the composition of a very good Latin poem descriptive of the country.[33] He made of it, too, a very bad metrical translation. The piece is curious, but now scarcely repays perusal.[34] With the country he was charmed, but not so with the natives who inhabited it.