"I am so overpressed with business, as I have no time for these or
other mine own private occasions. I only write now that thou
mayest know, that yet I live and am mindful of thee in all my
affairs. The larger discourse of all things thou shalt receive
from my brother Downing, which I must send by some of the last
ships. We have met with many sad and discomfortable things as thou
shalt hear after; and the Lord's hand hath been heavy upon myself
in some very near to me. My son Henry! My son Henry! Ah, poor
child! Yet it grieves me much more for my dear daughter. The Lord
strengthen and comfort her heart to bear this cross patiently. I
know thou wilt not be wanting to her in this distress."

Not one of the little colony was wanting in tender offices in
these early days when a common suffering made them "very pitiful
one to another," and as the absolutely essential business was
disposed of they hastened to organize the church where free
worship should make amends for all the long sorrow of its search.

A portion of the people from the Arbella had remained in Salem,
but on Friday, July 3Oth, 1630, Winthrop, Dudley, Johnson and
Wilson entered into a church covenant, which was signed two days
after by Increase Nowell and four others--Sharpe, Bradstreet,
Gager and Colborne.

It is most probable that Anne Bradstreet had been temporarily
separated from her husband, as Johnson in his "Wonder-working
Providence," writes, that after the arrival at Salem, "the lady
Arrabella and some other godly women aboad at Salem, but their
husbands continued at Charles Town, both for the settling the
Civill Government and gathering another Church of Christ." The