There Is Not Entire Agreement Between Authorities, In
Regard To The Size, Weight, And Calibre Of These Different Classes Of
Early Ordnance, Or The Weight Of Metal Thrown By Them, But The Above Are
Approximate Data, Gathered From Careful Comparison Of The Figures Given
By Several.
There is no doubt that with this heavy ordnance and
ammunition they stowed among their ballast and dunnage (as
Was the case
in Higginson's ships), their "spare chains and anchors, chalk, bricks,
sea-coal (for blacksmithing), iron, steel, lead, copper, red-lead, salt,"
etc.; all of which they also necessarily had, and from their bulk,
character, and weight, would stow as low in the ship as might be.
That a considerable "stock of trading goods" was included in the
MAY-FLOWER'S lading is mentioned by at least one writer, and that this
was a fact is confirmed by the records of the colonists' dealings with
the Indians, and the enumeration of not a few of the goods which could
have had, for the most part, no other use or value. They consisted
largely of knives, bracelets (bead and metal), rings, scissors,
copper-chains, beads, "blue and red trading cloth," cheap (glass) jewels
("for the ears," etc.), small mirrors, clothing (e. g. "red-cotton
horseman's coats - laced," jerkins, blankets, etc.), shoes, "strong
waters," pipes, tobacco, tools and hard ware (hatchets, nails, hoes,
fish-hooks, etc.), rugs, twine, nets, etc., etc. A fragment of one of
the heavy hoes of the ancient pattern - "found on the site of the
Pilgrim trading house at Manomet" - is owned by the Pilgrim Society, and
speaks volumes of the labor performed by the Pilgrims, before they had
ploughs and draught-cattle, in the raising of their wonderful crops of
corn.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 254 of 340
Words from 71138 to 71427
of 94513
