Of Plymouth Plantation

In Book 1, Chapter 3, Bradford describes the Puritans' flight from England to Holland, detailing the initial shock they received upon arriving in Amsterdam. Describing this transition, Bradford employs figurative language—including personification and smile—as a means of emphasizing the plight faced by his people:

For though they saw fair and beautiful cities, flowing with abundance of all sorts of wealth and riches, it was not long before they saw the grim and grisly face of poverty coming upon them like an armed man, with whom they must buckle and encounter, and from whom they could not fly; but they were armed with faith and patience against him and all his encounters; and though they were sometimes foiled, yet, by God’s assistance, they prevailed and got the victory.

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In Book 1, Chapter 4, Bradford recounts the beginnings of the Leyden congregation's decision to colonize New England. The congregation is prompted to make this decision by external stressors, which Bradford describes figuratively through the use of personification:

After they had lived here for some eleven or twelve years, [...] several of them having died, and many others being now old, the grave mistress, Experience, having taught them much, their prudent governors began to apprehend present dangers and to scan the future and think of timely remedy.

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In a letter to Mr. Weston, included in Book 2, Chapter 2, Bradford replies to accusations of misconduct on behalf of his fellow colonists, against whom Weston holds a grudge for failing to repay him for his initial investment in the Plymouth colonists' voyage. Responding to the claim that the colonists spent too much time "discoursing, arguing, and consulting," Bradford uses personification to condemn those who gave Weston such a report:

But those who told you we spent so much time in discoursing and consulting, etc., their hearts can tell their tongues they lie. They care not, so that they salve their own sores, how they wound others. Indeed it is our calamity that we are, beyond expectation, yoked with some ill-disposed people, who, while they do no good themselves, corrupt and abuse others.

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