er; and he was aided by Isaac Allerton, a colonist of means
and ability who was chosen as Governor's Assistant. At the chief
magistrate's request, five assistants were given him in 1624, and the
number was increased to seven in 1633 when his successor Edward Winslow
was elected, "Mr. Bradford having been governor about ten years, and
now by importunity got off," as Governor Winthrop of the Massachusetts
Bay Colony wrote in his manuscript history of New England. The
importunity was Bradford's, not the little Colony's; for he urged
rotation of office, saying of the appointment, "If it is any honor or
benefit, it is fit others should be made partakers of it; if it is a
burden (as doubtless it is), it is but equal others should help to bear
it, and this is the end of Annual Elections."

Consequently Thomas Prince, a later settler, was voted to this position
in 1634 and '38, and Mr. Winslow again in '36 and '44, three times in
all. After that, for thirteen consecutive springs, Mr. Bradford was
placed in the gubernatorial chair, and but for his decease then, he
would probably have continued long therein. As it was, he held the
office thirty full years. And in every instance when his request for a
successor was heard, the ballot made him chief of assistants, or Deputy
Governor. What clearer evidence could be furnished us, as to the
sentiment of the people, both in their small original company and as
numbers increased?

His administration exhibited a happy blending of his constitutional
mildness and moderation, combined with a firmness that could not be
shaken, a patience that would not wear out, and an optimistic hope that
was based upon his Christian faith. Offenders against the law and the
community's peace felt his determination, but no one was more ready to
pardon the humbled and restore to them the full privileges of
citizenship. In matters of diplomacy and difficult correspondence,
including delicate foreign relations, he was tactful yet insistent upon
principle, defending with a keen sense of justice the honor of the
colonial state. Conventional courtesies did not deceive him, where
opposition lay concealed; yet he modestly disowned sincere and merited
praise when he considered it unwarranted. Scrupulous not to exceed his
prerogatives, he was ready to surrender what some in his place would
have thought their proper rights. In a word, he did not hold his office
anxiously. To him it was not a prize, a dear object for amb