[Bradford himself—­whose authority in the matter will not be doubted—­says (Historie, Mass. ed. p. 112):  “As this calamitie, the general sickness, fell among ye passengers that were to be left here to plant, and were basted ashore and made to drinke water, that the sea-men might have ye more bear [beer] and one in his sickness desiring but a small can of beare it was answered that if he were their own father he should have none.”  Bradford also shows (op. cit. p. 153) the rapacity of Jones, when in command of the discovery, in his extortionate demands upon the Plymouth planters, notwithstanding their necessities.]

threats, boorishness, and extortion, to say nothing of his exceedingly bad record as a pirate, both in East and West Indian waters, compel a far different estimate of him as a man, from that of Arber, however excellent he was as a mariner.  Professor Arber dissents from Goodwin’s conclusion that Captain Jones of the discovery was the former Master of the may-Flower, but the reasons of his dissent are by no means convincing.  He argues that Jones would not have accepted the command of a vessel so much smaller than his last, the discovery being only one third the size of the may-Flower.  Master-mariners, particularly when just returned from long and unsuccessful voyages, especially if in bad repute,—­as was Jones, —­are obliged to take such employment as offers, and are often glad to get a ship much smaller than their last, rather than remain idle.  Moreover, in Jones’s case, if, as appears, he was inclined to buccaneering, the smaller ship would serve his purpose—­as it seems it did satisfactorily.  Nor is the fact that Bradford speaks of him—­although previously so well acquainted—­as “one Captain Jones,” to be taken as evidence, as Arber thinks, that the Master of the discovery was some other of the name.  Bradford was writing history, and his thought just then was the especial Providence of God in the timely relief afforded their necessities by the arrival of the ships with food, without regard to the individuals who brought it, or the fact that one was an acquaintance of former years.  On the other hand, Winslow—­in his “Good Newes from New England” —­records the arrival of the two ships in August, 1622, and says, “the one as I take [recollect] it, was called the discovery, Captain Jones having command thereof,” which on the same line of argument as Arber’s might be read, “our old acquaintance Captain Jones, you know”!  If the expression of Bradford makes against its being Captain Jones, formerly of the may-Flower, Winslow’s certainly makes quite as much for it, while the fact which Winslow recites, viz. that the discovery, under Jones, was sailing as consort to the Sparrow, a ship of Thomas Weston,—­who employed him for the may-Flower, was linked with him in the Gorges conspiracy, and had become nearly as degenerate