made for communication with the natives, for the purposes of that trade, etc., which the Planters hoped to establish.  Trading along the northern coast of Virginia (as the whole coast strip was then called), principally for furs, had been carried on pretty actively, since 1584, by such navigators as Raleigh’s captains, Gosnold, Pring, Champlain, Smith, Dermer, Hunt, and the French and Dutch, and much of the “trade lingo” of the native tribes had doubtless been “picked up” by their different “ship’s-merchants.”  It appears by Bradford’ that Dermer, when coasting the shores of New England, in Sir Ferdinando Gorges’s employ, brought the Indian Tisquantum with him, from England, as his interpreter, and doubtless from him Dermer and other ship’s officers “picked up” more or less Indian phrases, as Tisquantum (Squanto) evidently did of English.  Winslow, in his “Good Newes from New England,” written in 1622, says of the Indian tongue, as spoken by the tribes about them at Plymouth, “it is very copious, large, and difficult.  As yet we cannot attain to any great measure thereof, but can understand them, and explain ourselves to their understanding, by the help of those that daily converse with us.”  This being the case, after two years of constant communication, and noting how trivial knowledge of English speech Samoset and Tisquantum had, it is easy to understand that, if Williamson had any knowledge of the native tongue, Standish would be most anxious to have the benefit of it, in this prime and all-important effort at securing a permanent alliance with the ruling sachem of the region.  Bradford, in “Mourt’s Relation,” speaking of the speech of Governor Carver to Massasoit, says:  “He [Massasoit] liked well of the speech and heard it attentively, though the interpreters did not well express it.”  Probably all three, Tisquantum, Samoset, and Williamson, had a voice in it.

That “Master Williamson” was a veritable person at New Plymouth, in February and March, 1620/21, is now beyond dispute; that he must have been of the ship’s company of the may-Flower is logically certain; that he was one of her officers, and a man of character, is proven by his title of “Master” and his choice by Standish and Mullens for exceptional and honorable service; that the position of “ship’s-merchant” alone answers to the conditions precedent, is evident; and that such an officer was commonly carried by ships of the may-Flower class on such voyages as hers is indicated by the necessity, and proven by the facts known as to other ships on similar New England voyages, both earlier and later.  The fact that he was called simply “Master Williamson,” in both cases where he is mentioned, with out other designation or identification, is highly significant, and clearly indicates that he was some one so familiarly known to all concerned that no occasion for any further designation apparently occurred to the minds of Mullens, Carver, or Bradford, when referring to him.