himself useful in many
ways.[2]

In the beginning of April, 1621, the _Mayflower_ went back to England,
and the colonists planted corn in the fields once tilled by Indians
whom the pestilence had destroyed. While engaged in this work the
governor, John Carver, died, and his place was supplied by William
Bradford, with Isaac Allerton as assistant or councilman. During the
summer the settlers were very busy. They fitted up their cabins,
amassed a good supply of beaver, and harvested a fair crop of corn. In
the fall a ship arrived, bringing thirty-five new settlers poorly
provided. It also brought a patent, dated June 1, 1621, from the
Council for New England, made out to John Pierce, by whom the original
patent from the London Company had been obtained. The patent did not
define the territorial limits, but allowed one hundred acres for every
emigrant and fifteen hundred acres for public buildings, in the same
proportion of one hundred acres to every workman.[3]

The ship tarried only fourteen days, and returned with a large cargo
of clapboard and beaver skins of the value of L500, which was,
however, captured on the way to England by a French cruiser. After the
departure the governor distributed the new-comers among the different
families, and because of the necessity of sharing with them, put
everybody on half allowance. The prospect for the winter was not
hopeful, for to the danger from starvation was added danger from the
Indians.

West of the Pokanokets were the Narragansetts, a tribe of two thousand
warriors, whose chief, Canonicus, sent to Plymouth in January, 1622, a
bundle of arrows tied with a snake's skin, signifying a challenge of
war. Bradford knew that it was fatal to hesitate or show fear, and he
promptly stuffed the snake's skin with bullets and returned it to the
sender with some threatening words. This answer alarmed Canonicus, who
thought that the snake's skin must be conjured, and he did not pursue
the matter further. But the colonists took warning, and the whole
settlement was enclosed with a paling, and strict military watch was
maintained. Thus the winter passed and the spring came, but without
the hoped-for assistance from the merchant partners in England.[4]

On the contrary, the arrival in May, 1622, "without a bite of bread,"
of sixty-seven other persons, sent out on his own account under a
grant from the Council for New England, by Thomas Weston, one of the
partners, plunged them into dire