Mayflower

associates.
    Even though Weston had betrayed them, Bradford felt compelled to offer his men the requested hospitality. They proved to be young ruffians who made the already unstable mix of Leideners and Strangers even more combustible. The settlement had been on half rations before the addition of all these men; now it was on the edge of starvation. With the arrival of spring, fish became plentiful, but the Pilgrims were farmers not fishermen, and though the surrounding waters seethed with cod, bluefish, and striped bass, they were unable to catch enough to feed themselves. In desperation, they sought shellfish in the mudflats of Plymouth Harbor and planted their corn. But as the young plants began to grow, Weston’s men, who pretended to assist them in the fields, took to gobbling up the immature cornstalks and ruined the crop.
    As if this wasn’t bad enough, Bradford learned that the Fortune, the ship they had loaded with clapboards in the fall, had been seized by the French just before she arrived in England. They had lost everything. The voyage that was to have turned a significant profit had put them even deeper in the hole. “I pray you be not discouraged,” Robert Cushman wrote, “but gather up yourself, to go through these difficulties cheerfully and with courage in that place wherein God hath set you, until the day of refreshing come.”
    Then they received a different sort of letter. To the northeast, off the coast of modern Maine, the codfishing season was in full swing. Between three hundred and four hundred vessels were gathered off that rocky, fogbound coast, and a master of one of the ships had taken it upon himself to write the Pilgrims concerning some disturbing developments at Jamestown. That spring, the Indians had massacred 347 English colonists—more than four times the total population of Plymouth. “Happy is he,” the codfisherman wrote, “whom other men’s harms doth make to beware.”
    As it so happened, the Pilgrims’ relations with the Indians were at a new low. Thanks to Squanto’s machinations and Bradford’s reluctance to punish his interpreter, they could no longer count on the support of their former allies the Pokanokets. Recognizing that the English were newly vulnerable, the Massachusetts and Narragansetts were said to be planning an assault on Plymouth.
    Bradford decided that the wall was not enough. If they should become the victims of a Jamestown-like attack, they needed a heavily reinforced structure that was large enough to accommodate all of them. They needed a fort. Perched atop the hill overlooking the town, it might very well provide the means of their deliverance. Even though food supplies were still low, the inhabitants launched into the work with a will. It was hoped that the mere presence of this imposing, well-defended structure would be enough to discourage future Indian attacks.
    But as the work progressed, many of the settlers began to lose their enthusiasm for the project. Given the nebulousness of the Indian threat, it was difficult to justify the expenditure of so much time and effort—especially given their lack of food. The question of how much of a society’s resources should be dedicated to security persists to this day. What amazed Edward Winslow during the summer and fall of 1622 was how “reasonable men [will be led] to reason against their own safety.”
    If they were to have any hope of completing the fort, they needed more provisions. Even though they lived on the edge of one of the world’s great fishing grounds, the Pilgrims were without the skills and the equipment required to take advantage of it. They could, however, look to the fishermen assembled to the east as a possible provisioning source. Winslow headed out in the shallop on an emergency mission to Maine, where he succeeded in securing some desperately needed food.
    With the approach of winter, the fort was nearing completion, and Weston’s men had settled at Wessagussett, about twenty-two miles to the north in modern Weymouth. Taking their cue from the Pilgrims, the men at Wessagussett immediately began building a fort of their own. Due to the depredations of Weston’s crew, the Pilgrims’ corn crop had been disastrously insufficient. Wessagussett was in even more desperate need of food. That fall, it was decided, the two settlements would band together in search of provisions and take