“DEAREST SIR,—­Hearing of ye remarkable stroake of Gods hand uppon ye shippe & shippes companie of Bristoll, as also of some Atheisticall passages & hellish profanations of ye Sabbaths & deridings of ye people & wayes of God, I thought good to desire a word or two of you of ye trueth of what you have heard.  Such an extraordinary judgement would be searched into, what Gods meaninge is in it, both in respect of those whom it concernes more especiallie in England, as also in regard of ourselves.  God will be honred in all dealings.  We have heard of severall ungodlie carriadges in that ship, as, first, in their way overbound they wld. constantlie jeere at ye holy brethren of New England, & some of ye marineer’s would in a scoffe ask when they should come to ye holie Land? 2.  After they lay in the harbor Mr. Norice sent to ye shippe one of our brethren uppon busines, & hee heard them say, This is one of ye holie brethren, mockinglie & disdainefullie. 3.  That when some have been with them aboard to buy necessaries, ye shippe men would usuallie say to some of them that they could not want any thinge, they were full of ye Spiritt. 4.  That ye last Lords Day, or ye Lords Day before, there were many drinkings aboard with singings & musick in tymes of publique exercise. 5.  That ye last fast ye master or captaine of the shippe, with most of ye companie, would not goe to ye meetinge, but read ye booke of common prayer so often over that some of ye company said hee had worne that threed-bare, with many such passages.  Now if these or ye like be true, as I am persuaded some of them are, I think ye trueth heereof would be made knowen, by some faithfull hand in Bristoll or else where, for it is a very remarkable & unusuall stroake,” etc., etc.

Governor Winthrop, who was a man of much milder spirit than Endecott, faithfully records this judgment, under its date in his Journal, with additional particulars.  The explosion took place “about dinner time, no man knows how, & blew up all, viz. the captain, & nine or ten of his men, & some four or five strangers.  There was a special providence that there were no more, for many principal men were going aboard at that time, & some were in a boat near the ship, & others were diverted by a sudden shower of rain, & others by other occasions.”  The good Governor makes this startling record the occasion for mentioning “other examples of like kind.”  Yet the especial providential significance which both he and Endecott could assign to such a calamity would need a readjustment in its interpretation, if compelled to take in two other conditions under which the mysterious ways of that Providence are manifested, namely:  first, that many ships on board which there have been no such profane doings have met with similar disaster; and second, that many ships on board which there has been more heinous sinning have escaped the judgment.