Papers of the Winthrop Family, Volume 2
1630-11-29
The blessinge of the Allmighty be vpon thee and thine for euer.
There is a shipp arrived at Plimmouth,2 some 30: miles from vs, which came from London the 10th of August, and was twelve weekes at sea in such tempests, as she spent all her mastes yet of 60: passingers she lost but one: all the rest (through the Lordes great mercy) are safe and in health: Edy3 of Boxted, who came in her, tould me a fortnight since that he had many lettres in the shippe for me, but I heer not yet of them: which makes me now (hauinge opportunity to send to Plimmouth) to write these fewe lines to thee, least the shippe should be gone before I haue receiued my 320lettres, and can returne answeare to them. thou shalt vnderstand by this, how it is with vs since I wrote last (for this
Thou must excuse my not writing to my sonne Jo
W. 7 A. 49; Savage (1825), I. 378–379; (1853), I. 455–456;
L. and L.
, II. 53–55; Twichell, Puritan Love-Letters
, 173–176.
The Handmaid, on October 29. See Journal, supra, page 269.
John Eddy by 1633, had removed to Watertown, where he died October 12, 1684, at the age of ninety years. Savage, Genealogical Dictionary, II. 98–99.
In the margin is added: “and one of L. Kedby his sonnes.”
Thomas Dudley, in his “Letter to the Countess of Lincoln,” discusses the causes of the sickness and mortality among the colonists on their first arrival: “the natural causes seem to be” (he says), “the want of warm lodging, and good dyet, to which English men are habituated at home; and in the sudden increase of heat, which they endure that are landed here in summer; the salt meats at sea having prepared their bodies thereto; for those only these two last years dyed of fevers, who landed in June and July; as those of Plymouth, who landed in winter, dyed of the scurvy; as did our poorer sort, whose housing and beding, kept them not sufficiently warm, nor their dyet sufficiently in heart.” 1
Collections
, VIII. 43–44.