passed  them.  The  virtues  of  the  lady  Arbella  Johnson  could
not  break  through  the  gloom;  she  had  been  ill  before  her
arrival,  and  grief  hurried  her  to  the  grave.  Her  husband,  a
wise  and  holy  man,  in  life  "  the  greatest  f urtherer  of  the  plan-
tation," and  by  his  bequests  a  large  benefactor  of  the  infant
state,  sank  under  disease  and  afflictions ;  but  "  he  died  will-
ingly and  in  sweet  peace,"  making  a  '*most  godly  end."
Winthrop  lost  a  son,  who  left  a  widow  and  children  in  Eng-
land. A  hundred  or  more,  some  of  them  of  the  board  of
assistants,  men  who  had  been  trusted  as  the  inseparable  com-
panions of  the  common  misery  or  the  common  success,  dis-
heartened by  the  scenes  of  woe,  and  dreading  famine  and
death,  deserted  Massachusetts,  and  sailed  for  England,  while
Winthrop  remained,  "  parent-like,  to  distribute  his  goods  to
brethren  and  neighbors."  Before  December,  two  hundred,  at
the  least,  had  died.  Yet,  as  the  brightest  lightnings  are  kin-
dled in  the  darkest  clouds,  the  general  distress  did  but  aug-
ment the  piety  and  confirm  the  fortitude  of  the  colonists.
