This union was highly desirable, from considerations foreign and domestic. The supreme home government was in a condition of uncertainty suggestive of either radical change or revolution itself; and so it would be less able to attend to its provinces in case of need. And need might be at any time, with rival neighboring colonies under other national flags, and with the growing realization of the savages that if they wished for their former independence they must fight for it, soon or never. These facts were plainly perceived in the English settlements, with their loose and informal interconnection of only national and religious sympathy. The Massachusetts Bay Colony, beginning at Salem, had been powerfully augmented at Charlestown and Boston in the summer of 1630, by the arrival of its Governor John Winthrop and others who were soon followed by the New England fleet of no less than ten more vessels carrying about fifteen hundred colonists. The great natural facilities of Boston harbor and its environments encouraged a steady and numerous immigration, so that in 1643, the year of confederation, it is estimated that five times as many were found there as in the Old Colony. Connecticut comprised now about the same number as the latter, three thousand, and New Haven half a thousand less. Numerically, therefore, the English in New England were not yet strong. Yet they were constantly growing in this and every respect, having now nearly fifteen thousand acres of grain and a thousand acres in gardens and orchards, with two thousand cattle and three thousand sheep. The limited body of legislators in this confederation, was composed, however, of truly representative men. And Bradford had much previous experience in law. The first few and simple statutes of Plymouth were revised and enlarged in 1636, when eight delegates, representing also Duxbury and Scituate, co-operated with the Governor and his seven assistants. The seal of authority which he was accustomed to use was a double eagle. He was Chief Justice, Speaker of the General Court, which granted him a double vote, and Auditor of the Treasury, all these functions being, however, on a scale so limited as to forbid what in larger setting would seem an excess of prerogatives. The record of the 1621 meersteads are in his hand, as was the lost register of early deaths, marriages and punishments.