Counting our Blessings

That evening, in the great cabin of the Ark, our gentlemen gathered to sum up the advantages which had so quickly and so readily been gained, and thus it was that I, who was allowed to be present, since nothing of a secret nature would be discussed, learned how much more fortunate were we than those other Englishmen who had settled in Virginia, or round about Massachusetts Bay.

We had found homes, rude to be sure, but yet such as would shelter us from the weather, already built, and in which we might live with fair degree of comfort until the first crops had been planted and harvested.

Instead of being forced to hew down trees in order to clear away a place for our town, we had found it already prepared for us, with large fields of corn planted and growing.

Then again, instead of arriving almost on the verge of starvation, as had those other colonists, we were provided with a large supply of food brought from England, purchased at St. Christopher, or taken on board at Point Comfort, and, in addition to having as much seed as would be needed for planting, there was enough in the Ark  and Dove  to provide us with all the necessaries of life during a full year.

That the land which had been given for the building up of our Province of Maryland was in so fair a portion of the New World was not among the least of our blessings. Instead of being on a rocky seacoast, as were the settlers of Plymouth, we were on the shore of a beautiful inland sea, with water fowl of every kind at hand, and fish to be had for the catching.

Verily God had been good to us when we came into the New World, and so deeply was this fact impressed upon us all, that when Father White, in the midst of the deliberations, proposed that thanks be humbly given for all the blessings showered upon us far beyond our deserts and our hopes, every man fell on his knees without delay.