Martin "came from Billerica, in Essex, from which county came several others, as also from London and other places, to go with them." Alden was of Southampton. Amsterdam probably made some contribution to the company.3 Many of you," wrote Robinson to them while at Southampton, "are strangers, as to the persons, so to the infirmities, one of another, and so stand in need of more watchfulness this way." 66 Little is recorded of the incidents of the voyage. The first part was favorably made. As the wanderers approached the American continent, they encountered storms which their overburdened vessel was scarcely able to sustain. Their destination was to a point near Hudson River, yet within the territory of the London Company, by which their patent had been granted. This description corresponds to no other country than the seacoast of the State of New Jersey. At early dawn of the sixty-fourth day of their voyage, they came in sight of the white sand-banks of Cape Cod. In pursuance of their original purpose, they veered to the south, but, by the middle of the day, they found themselves "among perilous shoals and breakers," which caused them to retrace their course. An opinion afterwards prevailed, on questionable grounds, that they had been purposely led astray by the master of the vessel, induced by a bribe from the Dutch, who were averse to having them near Nov. 9. 1 "There was one chosen in England to be joined" with Carver and Cushman. "His name was Mr. Martin. He came from Billerica," &c. (Bradford, 56.) 2 "John Alden was hired for a cooper, at Southampton, where the ship victualled, and, being a hopeful young man, was much desired, but left to his own liking to go or stay when he came here; but he stayed and married here." (Bradford, 449.) Tradition reports that he was the successful rival of Captain Standish with Priscilla Mullins, having been rashly sent by the Captain to that lady on the errand of Viola in "Twelfth Night." 3 Cushman, in Bradford, 53, 57. 4 Ibid., 66. 5 "To find some place about the Hudson's River for their habitations." (Ibid., 77.) 6 The "perilous shoals" were perhaps those of the island of Monomoy, near Chatham; perhaps Nantucket Shoals. 1 the mouth of the Hudson, which Dutch vessels had begun to visit for trade. 1 "Their putting into this place was partly by reason of a storm, by which they were forced in, but more especially by the fraudulency and contrivance of Mr. Jones, the master of the ship, for their intention, as before noted, and his engagement, was to Hudson's River. But some of the Dutch, having notice of their intentions, and having thoughts about the same time of erecting a plantation there likewise, they fraudulently hired the said Jones by delay while they were in England, and now under pretence of the danger of the shoals, &c., to disappoint them in their going thither. Of this plot betwixt the Dutch and Mr. Jones, I have had late and certain intelligence." So, in 1669, wrote the honest but not over-cautious Nathaniel Morton (Memorial, p. 34), who has often been quoted since. But there is no contemporary statement to this effect, and, had the story been early received, it would seem that Morton, who was Bradford's nephew, would not have needed to have "late" intelligence of it. On the other hand, it seems singular that, when the coast had been so long known, the captain, who, if he had not before been upon it, was accompanied by persons who had been (Clark, his mate, and Coppin, if no others), should have unintentionally gone so far out of his way. And it may be, as has been surmised, that Morton had his "late" intelligence from Thomas Willett, who was in the way of good information. Four years before Morton published his book, New Amsterdam was taken by the English, and Willett was made its first Mayor, its name being then changed to New York. In the expedition, he had a command in the force raised by Plymouth, where he had been many years a magistrate, and whither he returned about the time of Morton's publication. He is first spoken of by Bradford (260) as "an honest young man, that came from Leyden," where also he might have heard the story. But, as it stands, it certainly does not rest upon sufficient evidence to entitle it to full credit. The Mayflower at Cape Cod. 1620. Nov. 11. CHAPTER V. THE narrow peninsula, sixty miles long, which terminates in Cape Cod, projects eastwardly from the mainland of Massachusetts, in shape resembling the human arm bent rectangularly at the elbow and again at the wrist. In the basin enclosed landward by the extreme point of this projection, in the roadstead of what is now Provincetown, the Mayflower dropped her anchor at noon on a Saturday near the close of autumn. The exigencies of a position so singular demanded an organization adequate to the preservation of order and of the common safety, and the following instrument was prepared and signed:1 1 "This day, before we came to harbor, observing some not well affected to unity and concord, but gave some appearance of faction, it was thought good there should be an association and agreement, that we should combine together in one body, and to submit to such government and governors as we should by common consent agree to make and choose, and set our hands to this that follows, word for word." (Mourt's Relation, 3.) - "Some of the strangers among them had let fall from them in the ship, that, when they came ashore, they would use their own liberty, for none had power to command them, the patent they had being for Virginia, and not for New England, which belonged to another government, with which the Virginia Company had nothing to do." (Bradford, History, 89.) Morton (Memorial, Davis's edit., 38) appends to the instrument forty-one names. He doubtless took the compact from Bradford's History or Mourt's Relation, neither of which contains names of subscribers. Bradford's list (447–450) of male passengers in the Mayflower has seven names of males, apparently adults, additional to those of the signers in Morton. They are Roger Wilder, Elias Story, Solomon Prower, John Langemore, Robert Carter, William Holbeck, and Edward Thomson. If to these be added "two seamen hired to stay a year here in the country, William Trevore and one Ely," who, "when their time was out, both returned” (Ibid., 450), we have, including the women and children mentioned by Bradford, a hundred and two for the total number of the company. The same number came to land as had left England. One (William Button) died, and one (Oceanus Hopkins) was born, on the passage. Mourt's "Relation or Journal," quoted "In the name of God, amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sov- Compact for ereign lord, King James, by the grace of God, of government. Great Britain, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, &c., having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names, at Cape Cod, the 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our sovereign lord, King James, of England, France, and Ireland the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini 1620." Such was the beginning of the Colony of Plymouth. To the end of its separate history, it continued to be an humble community in numbers and in wealth. When four years had passed, the village consisted of only thirtytwo cabins, inhabited by a hundred and eighty persons. The government of the company was prescribed by the majority of voices, and administered by one of its mem above, contains a detailed account of proceedings from the time of the landing to the close of September in the following year. It was sent from Plymouth in December, 1621, and published in London in 1622. It takes its name from a preface signed "G. Mourt," a name otherwise unknown. On strong grounds of probability, Dr. Young (Pil grims, 113) understands Mourt to have been George Morton (brother-in-law of Governor Bradford), who had been one of the Leyden congregation (Bradford, 48), and who emigrated to Plymouth in July, 1623. With equally plausible arguments, he attributes the authorship of the work to Bradford and Winslow. bers, with another for his Assistant. It was not so much a commonwealth as a factory, of which the head bore the title of Governor. Six years later, it numbered three hundred persons; five years after this, it had added two, hundred more; and, at the end of its life of seventy years, its population, scattered through several towns, had probably not come to exceed eight thousand. It is on account of the virtue displayed in its institution and management, and of the great consequences to which it ultimately led, that the Colony of Plymouth claims the attention of mankind. In any other view, its records would be unattractive. The building of log hovels, the turning of sand-heaps into corn-fields, dealings with stupid Indians and with overreaching partners in trade, anxious struggles to get a living, and, at most, the sufferings of men, women, and children, wasting under cold, sickness, and famine, feebly supply, as the staple of a history, the place of those splendid exhibitions of power, and those critical conflicts of intrigue and war, which fill the annals of great empires. But no higher stake is played for in the largest sphere, than the life of a body politic; nor can the most heroic man be moved by any nobler impulse than the sense of patriotic and religious obligation; nor is the merit of that constancy, which makes no account of sacrifice and suffering, to be estimated by the size of the theatre on which it is displayed. And the homely story of the planters of Plymouth will not fail to have interest for those readers who are able to discriminate what is most excellent in human nature from its adjuncts, or for such as delight to trace the method of Providence in educing results of the largest benefit to mankind from the simple element of devotion to right and duty in lowly men.1 At the time of the adoption of the compact for a gov 1 "Small things in the beginning of natural or politic bodies are as remarkable as greater in bodies full grown." (Dudley's Letter to the Countess of Lincoln, in 1630.) |