In September 1623, the English ship Anne departed Plymouth on its return voyage to England. The vessel had arrived on July 10 with new settlers—many of them relatives of colonists already at Plymouth—and with supplies for the young settlement. Its arrival, together with that of the Little James later that summer, added people and material support at a consequential moment in Plymouth’s early history.
Before leaving, the Anne took on a return cargo of clapboards and beaver furs. These goods represented Plymouth’s effort to turn the resources of New England into exports that could help meet its obligations to the Merchant Adventurers, the London investors who had financed the colony.
The voyage did not by itself resolve Plymouth’s financial problems, but it illustrates the colony’s growing dependence on Atlantic commerce. The exchange of English people and supplies for New England commodities became central to Plymouth’s survival and to the larger expansion of English settlement in the region.
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