The pioneer party at Salem who came with Endicott, "arriving there in an uncultivated desert, many of them, for want of wholesome diet and convenient lodgings, were seized with the scurvy and other distempers, which shortened many of their days, and prevented many of the rest from performing any great matter of labor that year for advancing the work of the plantation." Whereupon the governor, hearing that at Plymouth lived a physician "that had some skill that way," wrote thither for help, and at once the beloved physician and deacon of the Plymouth church, Dr.Samuel Fuller, hastened to their relief.

On what themes the discourse revolved between the Puritan governor just from England and the Separatist deacon already for so many years an exile, and whither it tended, is manifested in a letter written soon after by Governor Endicott, of Salem, to Governor Bradford, of Plymouth, under date May 11 (= 21), 1629.

The letter marks an epoch in the history of American Christianity: "_To the worshipful and my right worthy friend, William Bradford, Esq., Governor of New Plymouth, these:_ "RIGHT WORTHY SIR: It is a thing not usual that servants to one Master and of the same household should be strangers.

I assure you I desire it not; nay, to speak more plainly, I cannot be so to you.

God's people are marked with one and the same mark, and sealed with one and the same seal, and have, for the main, one and the same heart, guided by one and the same Spirit of truth; and where this is there can be no discord--nay, here must needs be sweet harmony.