lace where not any of us had been before; and coming into the harbor,
he that was our pilot, did bear up northward, which if he had
continued, we had been cast away. Yet still the Lord kept us and we
bare up for an island before us, and recovering of that island, being
compassed about with many rocks, and dark night growing upon us, it
pleased the Divine Providence that we fell upon a place of sandy
ground, where our shallop did ride safe and secure all that night; and
coming upon a strange island, kept our watch all night in the rain
upon that island. And in the morning we marched about it, and found no
inhabitants at all; and here we made our rendezvous all that day,
being Saturday, 10th of December. On the Sabbath day we rested; and on
Monday we sounded the harbor, and found it a very good harbor for our
shipping. We marched also into the land, and found divers cornfields,
and little running brooks, a place very good for situation. So we
returned to our ship again with good news to the rest of our people,
which did much comfort their hearts....

Some of us, having a good mind, for safety, to plant in the greater
isle, we crossed the bay, which is there five or six miles over, and
found the isle about a mile and half or two miles about, all wooded,
and no fresh water but two or three pits, that we doubted of fresh
water in summer, and so full of wood as we could hardly clear so much
as to serve us for corn. Besides, we judged it cold for our corn, and
some part very rocky; yet divers thought of it as a place defensible,
and of great security. That night we returned again a shipboard, with
resolution the next morning to settle on some of those places.

So in the morning, after we had called on God for direction, we came
to this resolution, to go presently ashore again, and to take a better
view of two places which we thought most fitting for us; for we could
not now take time for further search or consideration, our victuals
being much spent, especially our beer, and it being now the 19th of
December. After our landing and viewing of the places, so well as we
could, we came to a conclusion, by most voices, to set on the main
land, on the first place, on a high ground, where there is a great
deal of land cleared, and hath been planted with corn three or four
years ago; and there is a very sweet brook runs under the hill side,
and many delicate springs of as good water as can be drunk, and where
we may harbor our shallo