failed to take the fortress city. After three months and a final failed assault on 27 October 1627, he ended the siege and left for England from Loix with a demoralized, disease ridden force of 2,000 men, the survivors of his original army of 7,000 men. A Lion's Whelp to Massachusetts In 1629 a Lion's Whelp sailed with four other ships from Gravesend on 25 April 1629 for the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Arrived and greeted by Governor John Endecott on 30 June 1629. All ships were armed merchantmen. Eight cannon were listed for this Lion's Whelp which is the number carried by the Duke of Buckingham's Lion's Whelps and most armed pinnaces as well. Is this ship Buckingham's second Lion's Whelp, diverted for a cross Atlantic run with settlers and provisions to the Massachusetts Bay Colony? A careful scrutiny of the record is not supportive of this conclusion. This Lion's Whelp is tentatively identified as the 120-ton ship that brought William Dodge, along with the Sprague family and others to Salem, Massachusetts in 1629. The Lyon's Whelp left Gravesend 24/25 April 1629 and arrived in Salem mid-July 1629, under Master John Gibbs (or Gibbon). It was one of six ships in a small fleet; the others including Talbot, George Bonaventure, Lyon, and a ship called Mayflower (though not the Mayflower of the Pilgrims). This Lion's Whelp and her sister ships the Talbot and the George carried goods and new settlers to Naumkaeg, the Indian name for the territory settled by England's Massachusetts Bay Company at Salem. Appendix: 10 Lion's Whelps Final costings for each Lion's Whelp are believed to have been in excess of the contracted rate, thereby raising the possibility that shipwrights deliberately built ships larger than agreed upon in order to inflate the final invoice. The worse example of this was Peter Pett and the sixth Whelp. The Duke wanted each Whelp to weigh 120 tonnes, and cost £139.5. After the Duke was assassinated in 1632, his fleet of ten Lion Whelps was taken into the Royal Navy and the estate reimbursed £4,500 according to Captain Penington who had supervised their construction. Had the fleet been sold to England, as the Earl of Nottingham had done with his Lion's Whelp in 1602, very likely much more money would have accrued to the Buckingham estate. Buckingham's first Lion's Whelp was built by William Castell of Southwark St Saviour in