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 natives despised them, and
treated them with contempt, and even violence. Thus early was the
British name brought into disrepute with the Indians, when men bearing
that name came among them for mere purposes of speculation and profit,
and ware not governed by the Christian principles of humanity and
justice that distinguished the earliest settlers in New England from
all th