lnay,
another lieutenant, dispossessed the English at Penobscot.

The Plymouth people, greatly incensed, sent two armed ships to punish
the French, but the expedition proved a failure. Then they appealed to
Massachusetts for help, but the great men of that colony, hoping, as
Bradford intimates, to arrange a trade with the French on their own
account, declined to be at any expense in the matter,[22] and so the
Penobscot remained in unfriendly hands for many years.

This appeal to Massachusetts showed that another power had stepped to
the front in New England. After John Winthrop set up his government in
1630 on Massachusetts Bay the history of the Plymouth colony ceased to
be of first importance, and therefore the remaining events in her
annals need not take much space. In 1633 the people of Plymouth
established a fort on Connecticut River above the Dutch post, so as to
intercept the Indian trade, and in 1639 they renewed the ancient
league with Massasoit.[23] In 1640 they had a dispute with
Massachusetts over the boundary-line, which was arranged by a
compromise, and in 1641 William Bradford deeded to the freemen of the
corporation of New Plymouth the patent of 1630, granted by the Council
for New England to him as trustee for the colony.[24] Finally, in
1643, Plymouth became a member of the New England confederation.

A survey of these twenty-three years (1620-1643) shows that during the
first eleven years the increase in population was very slow. In 1624
there were one hundred and eighty settlers and in 1630 but three
hundred. The emigration to Massachusetts, beginning in 1629, brought
about a great change. It overflowed into Plymouth, and in twelve years
more the population had increased to three thousand.[25] The new
settlers were a miscellaneous set, composed for the most part of
"unruly servants" and dissipated young men, whose ill conduct caused
the old rulers like Bradford to question "whether after twenty years'
time the greater part be not grown worser."[26] Nevertheless, the
people increased their "outward estate," and as they scattered in
search of fertile land, Plymouth, "in which they lived compactly till
now, was left very thin and in a short time almost desolate." In 1632
a separate church and town of the name of Duxbury was formed north of
Plymouth; and eleven years later the towns of the Plymouth colony were
ten in number: Plymouth, Duxbury, Scituate, Taunton, Sandwich,
Yarmouth, Barnstable, Marshfi