Notwithstanding all these warnings, and the very unprepossessing appearance of the new emigrants, the Plymouthers had shown more kindness and hospitality than they had prudence and caution:  and had received their countrymen into their own settlement on their arrival in America.  They had even permitted on half of their number to reside at New Plymouth during the whole summer, while the strongest and healthiest had proceeded to Massachusetts to fix on a spot for their settlement, and prepare habitations.  They had decided on a place called Wessagussett,[*] a little to the south of Boston; and thither they were afterwards followed by their companions from New Plymouth.  The long residence of these men among the pious and high-minded Pilgrims had not, however, made any salutary impression on their minds:  and all the kindness and hospitality they had received were most ungratefully forgotten.

[Footnote:  New Weymouth]

In various ways the new colony vexed and annoyed the men of Plymouth; but in no way more seriously than by their conduct towards the natives, which was so different to the just and upright dealings of the Pilgrims, that the Indians began to lose their confidence in the white men, and to suspect deceit and imposition where hitherto they had only found truth and justice.  Weston’s colony was, indeed, scarcely settled at Wessagussett, before complaints were sent by the Indians to their friends at Plymouth, of the repeated depredations that were committed by the new settlers, who were continually carrying off their stores of corn, and other property:  and these accusations were by no means surprising to Bradford and his council, as they had already detected them in many acts of theft during their stay at New Plymouth.

The harvest of this year was poor and scanty; and the great accession to their numbers, caused by the visit of Weston’s settlers, had entirely consumed the stores of the Plymouthers, and reduced them again to actual want.  Joyfully, therefore, they hailed the arrival of two ships from the mother country, laden with knives, beads, and various other articles, that would be acceptable to the Indians in the way of barter, and enable the settlers to purchase from them the necessary supply of provisions, for which they had hitherto been compelled to pay very dear in skins and furs.  Meanwhile, the colony of Wessagussett was
        in a still worse condition.  They had quickly consumed all the food with
which the generous Plymouthers had supplied them, and had then stolen everything on which they could lay their hands.  They had also sold almost all their clothes and bedding, and even their weapons; and were brought to such extreme necessity that they did not refuse to do the meanest services for the Indians who dwelt near their settlement, in return for such means of subsistence as the red men were able to furnish them with.  For this condescension—­so unlike the dignified yet kind deportment of the Plymouthers—­the