Bradford did all in his power to relieve the shortage of food supply. Little could be procured from abroad, and in the case of a visiting ship, the captain's price was cruelly prohibitive. A generous captain of different character, in a fishing fleet to the north, persuaded his fellows to spare from their own allowance enough to load the Pilgrim boat. But the most of the required amount of corn was obtained by bartering various utensils and beads with the Indians, though their natural improvidence usually left them without much of a surplus in crops. In trading expeditions by land and water, Standish and Bradford were both active. And each of them at times was alone, of white men, among the natives. Bradford once left a boat and walked fifty miles back to Plymouth from the south, for the friendly neighboring tribes were not long in discovering his inherent gentleness and fairness. But firm discipline was necessary in times of dire need. A few unreliable persons had become mixed in the original company, and colonists new or old were punished by flogging, for the theft of corn, some of which was occasionally abstracted even before it was ripe. Bradford's appreciative quotation of Seneca's fine affirmation, that a man is free who has control of his stomach, in this near famine would seem to apply where self-denial meant malnutrition, to prevent starvation. Weakness and numerical smallness hindered the cultivation of the soil, and the climax was a severe drouth from the last of May, 1623, till about the middle of July, when the stalks nearly perished in the excessive heat. A day of prayer was appointed, in which the Pilgrims engaged earnestly for eight or nine hours, until a general cloudiness overspread the sky. This was followed that night by a gentle shower, which was renewed again and again, with intervals of sunshine, throughout a fortnight. The planting was saved, to the astonishment of the Indians and the deep gratitude of the Christian community. Famine fled for ever. And as the spared crop matured, a Day of Thanksgiving was ordered by the Governor and concurring Council, a season which has been observed annually ever since, and finally throughout the nation. Bradford did not show favor to the industrial policy of holding all things in common, which was at first attempted and which, because of its early apostolic connection, was supposed to be under divine sanction. If he tolerated the idea at first, he gives no sign of approval; and when it was abandoned he observed: "The experience that was had in this comone course and condition, tried sundrie years, and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanitie of that conceite of Plato & other ancients, applauded by some of later times; that y^e taking away of propertie, and bringing in comunitie into a comone wealth, would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser then God."