Wind and rain, rising often till the one was a gale and the other
torrents, gave them small rest in that first week. The fish they
had secured at Yarmouth returned to their own element, Winthrop
mourning them as he wrote: "The storm was so great as it split our
foresail and tore it in pieces, and a knot of the sea washed our
tub overboard, wherein our fish was a-watering." The children had
become good sailers, and only those were sick, who, like "the
women kept under hatches." The suffering from cold was constant,
and for a fortnight extreme, the Journal reading: "I wish,
therefore, that all such as shall pass this way in the spring have
care to provide warm clothing; for nothing breeds more trouble and
danger of sickness, in this season, than cold."

From day to day the little fleet exchanged signals, and now and
then, when calm enough the masters of the various ships dined in
the round-house of the Arbella, and exchanged news, as that, "all
their people were in health, but one of their cows was dead." Two
ships in the distance on the 24th of April, disturbed them for a
time, but they proved to be friends, who saluted and "conferred
together so long, till his Vice Admiral was becalmed by our sails,
and we were foul one of another, but there being little wind and
the sea calm, we kept them asunder with oars, etc., till they
heaved out their boat, and so towed their ship away. They told us
for certain, that the king of France had set out six of his own
ships to recover the fort from them."

Here was matter for talk among the travellers, whose interest in
all that touched their future heightened day by day, and the item,
with its troublous implications may have been the foundation of