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The Story of 
 
 THE Pilgrims 
 
 MORTON DEXTER 
 
 BOSTON AND CHICAGO 
 ffionpeaattonal SunBag^Scfjnal atiB fublisJifng Sncietg 
 
CoPYRiGffr, 1894, 
 By Morton Dexter 
 
TO 
 
 HENRY MARTY N DEXTER 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 During the latter part of the year 1892 a 
 number of companies, composed largely of 
 young people, were formed in connection with 
 Congregational churches in different parts of 
 the United States for the study of the principles 
 of Congregationalism and the history of the 
 early Congregationalists. They took the name 
 of Scrooby Clubs. The chapters of this book 
 were written principally in order to aid such 
 students and were printed week by week in 
 The Congregationalist during the first six 
 months of 1893 under the title Scrooby Club 
 Sketches. They have been revised carefully 
 and considerably expanded for republication 
 as a book, and the twenty-fourth chapter is 
 now added to the original series. They con- 
 tain some facts believed to have been insuffi- 
 ciently, if at all, made known hitherto, although 
 most of their material is famihar, particularly to 
 special students of the subject. I dare not 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 hope to have avoided errors entirely, but I have 
 made conscientious endeavor to be accurate. 
 This book has been written from the point of 
 view of a loyal Congregationalist, but with a 
 sincere wish to avoid unfairness or discourtesy 
 towards others. Dates have been stated accord- 
 ing to the New Style. For permission to use 
 the pictures of Plymouth in 1622 and the Old 
 Fort, I am indebted to the courtesy of A. S. 
 Burbank, Esq., of Plymouth, Mass., dealer in 
 books and in photographs specially connected 
 with Pilgrim history, who owns their copyrights. 
 MORTON- DEXTER. 
 Boston, May 26, 1894. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter 1. 
 The England which the Pilgrims Left II 
 
 Chapter II. 
 Puritanism and Congregationalism 24 
 
 Chapter III. 
 Robert Browne 36 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 Congregational Publications and Martyrs . . . . 50- 
 
 Chapter V. 
 Scrooby and Austerfield 61 
 
 Chapter VI. 
 William Brewster and William Bradford .... 72 
 
 Chapter VII. 
 John Robinson 83 
 
 Chapter VIII. 
 Other Scrooby Pilgrims and the Decision to Emigrate 97 
 
 Chapter IX. 
 
 The Emigration to Holland 107 
 
 vii 
 
viii Contents. 
 
 Chapter X. 
 In Amsterdam Il8 
 
 Chapter XI. 
 In Leyden 130 
 
 Chapter XII. 
 The Development of Congregationalism . . . .142 
 
 Chapter XIII. 
 The Departure from Holland . . . . . . . .151 
 
 Chapter XIV. 
 The Voyage to America 163 
 
 Chapter XV. 
 Other Pilgrim Leaders and their Compact . . . .175 
 
 Chapter XVI. 
 First Explorations 189 
 
 Chapter XVII. 
 The Beginning of the Colony 200 
 
 Chapter XVIII. 
 The Further History of the First Year 212 
 
 Chapter XIX. 
 More Haps and Mishaps 222 
 
 Chapter XX. 
 Trembling in the Balance 234 
 
Contents. ix 
 
 Chafier XXI. 
 
 The Dawn of Better Days 245 
 
 Chapter XXII. 
 The Commercial History of the Colony .... 257 . 
 
 CHAFfER XXIII. 
 Succeeding Years 270 
 
 Chaffer XXIV. 
 Early Life in the Colony 282 " 
 
 Chapter XXV. 
 Distinctions between the Plymouth and Bay Colonies 301 
 
 Chapter XXVI. 
 Subsequent Development of Congregationalism . .315 
 
 Chaffer XXVII. 
 Conclusion 326 
 
THE STORY OF THE PILGRIMS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE ENGLAND WHICH THE PILGRIMS LEFT. 
 
 " I ""HE purpose of this book is to state 
 -'- briefly and clearly the principal 
 facts in the history of the Pilgrims. 
 They were men and women of so much 
 force of character and such noble and 
 holy aims, they underwent such terrible 
 trials in so heroic a manner, and they 
 accomplished a work of such vital and 
 enduring importance to mankind that the 
 details of their history deserve to be 
 known far more widely than at present. 
 Much has been written about them, but 
 there have been few attempts to tell their 
 whole story in a simple and popularly 
 intelligible manner, and comparatively 
 
12 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 recent researches have thrown additional 
 light upon some facts in regard to them. 
 
 It is desirable to explain at the outset 
 how there came to be any Pilgrims. 
 People do not exile themselves from home 
 and native land and expose themselves 
 voluntarily to oppression, poverty, and the 
 risk of death without the strongest 
 reasons. The statement often made that 
 the Pilgrims fled from England to Holland, 
 and finally came to America in order to 
 obtain freedom to worship God is true, 
 but it affords no sufficient explanation of 
 the manner and extent of the prohibition 
 of this freedom at home in their time. 
 A short study of the religious condition 
 of England during the centuries immedi- 
 ately preceding their departure therefore 
 is first in order. 
 
 At the middle of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury the Roman Catholic Church, which 
 possessed supreme spiritual control in 
 England, had become shamefully corrupt 
 and had lost public confidence in a very 
 
The Pilgrims' England. 13 
 
 large degree, although still firmly retain- 
 ing its power. The people were in a 
 mood to listen to any one who should set 
 forth a purer religion, and John Wycliff, 
 the famous preacher, reformer, and trans- 
 lator of the Bible into English, brought 
 about a great popular change towards 
 what afterwards became known as Prot- 
 estantism. His followers were called 
 Lollards, and during the remainder of the 
 century and the reign of King Henry V 
 (1413-22) they grew rapidly in both 
 number and influence.^ But the power 
 of the Roman Catholic Church still was 
 too great to be overthrown completely. 
 A reaction in its favor took place and the 
 Lollards were so far suppressed that their 
 beliefs could not be held safely except in 
 secret. 
 
 The decisive break between England 
 and the Papacy occurred in the time of 
 King Henry VHI (1509-47). At about 
 the year 1529 he desired a divorce from 
 Queen Catherine. The Pope refused to 
 
i4 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 grant it. England still was distinctly 
 Roman Catholic, but Henry was deter- 
 mined and fearless, and at last he openly 
 assumed headship over the English Church 
 and formally severed its connection with 
 the Papacy. This was the origin of the 
 present Anglican Church, or Church of 
 England.^ But it did not render that 
 church Protestant, and in later reigns it 
 was temporarily reunited, at least nomi- 
 nally, with the Church of Rome. Yet 
 Protestantism was able to take some 
 advantage of the secession and began to 
 revive, and most of the Protestants 
 became known thenceforth as Puritans, 
 because of their wish to purify and reform 
 the State Church. 
 
 From this time on for a hundred years 
 the history of religion in England is a 
 record of almost constant oppression on 
 the part of the Roman Catholic author- 
 ities and of bitter sufferings on the part 
 of those who sympathized with Protest- 
 antism. Chancellor More, Bishop Fisher, 
 
The Pilgrims' England- 1 5 
 
 and many others prosecuted all such 
 persons actively. We can understand 
 that penalties for neglect of the church 
 fast days and for absence from confession 
 and the sacrament may have been natural 
 in those times, although we know that 
 they often were excessive. But what is 
 to be thought of punishing people for 
 reading religious books, especially Tyn- 
 dale's translation of the Bible, for teaching 
 children the Lord's Prayer in English, and 
 for condemning the notorious vices of 
 many of the state clergymen ! It was for 
 precisely these and similar offenses that 
 the English Roman Catholics persecuted 
 their Puritan fellow citizens, and they 
 carried their cruelties so far that they 
 even burned not a few of their victims at 
 the stake.^ 
 
 Edward VI (1547-53) — "good King 
 Edward" — was of a nobler spirit. He 
 sympathized more with his Protestant 
 subjects and the work of reform which 
 they desired seemed well begun. But his 
 
1 6 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 reign was so short that little was accom- 
 plished, and his successor, " Bloody Mary " 
 (1553-58) again recognized the Pope as 
 the head of the Church on earth and was 
 in full sympathy with the most bigoted 
 and cruel Roman Catholics. The worst 
 practices of Popery were revived and 
 encouraged.* All married clergymen were 
 ordered to put away their wives or leave 
 their parishes.* Nearly three thousand of 
 them, including a number of eminent men, 
 — for under Edward some Puritan minis- 
 ters had been appointed to bishoprics or 
 other high offices, — were deposed,* and 
 more than eight hundred fled out of 
 England for their lives.^ The pulpits of 
 all Puritans were ordered to be closed, 
 and two hundred and seventy-seven,^ 
 including some women and even some 
 children, is the lowest estimate of the 
 number of those put to death for their 
 faith during the five years of her reign. 
 Most of these victims were burned at the 
 stake. 
 
The Pilgrims England. 17 
 
 When Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603) 
 succeeded Mary, the Protestants at first 
 took courage. Her history and her sup- 
 posed character seemed to assure them 
 fair dealing at the least. But their hopes 
 soon were dashed. In some respects her 
 long reign was one of the most glorious 
 in the history of England or of the world, 
 but the treatment which her Protestant 
 subjects received is a shameful stain upon 
 its record. Historians still are undecided 
 whether she personally were a Roman 
 Catholic or not.^ Apparently she was 
 influenced more by political considerations 
 than by any ecclesiastical or religious 
 convictions.^** She was nominally a Prot- 
 estant and certainly was one so far as 
 refusing formal allegiance to the Pope is 
 concerned. Yet she often allowed her 
 Protestant subjects to be treated worse 
 than any others, although they took the 
 oath of supremacy which the Romanists 
 refused to take.^^ Many laws were equally 
 severe in letter against both Romanists 
 
1 8 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 and Puritans, but she claimed the right to 
 dictate as to their enforcement and more 
 often, indeed almost uniformly, was bit- 
 terly harsh towards the Puritans. She 
 did not hesitate to put a stop to legisla- 
 tion intended for their relief,^^ and the 
 infamous Star Chamber and Court of 
 High Commission were allowed to pursue 
 their cruel work steadily. 
 
 It is worth while to notice some of 
 the particular grievances of the Puritans. 
 For one thing, absolute uniformity in 
 religious observances was insisted upon.^^ 
 Not the slightest liberty was permitted 
 under any circumstances. For example, 
 no portion of Scripture except that pre- 
 scribed could be read at public worship, 
 whether that happened to be appropriate 
 to the occasion or not." Furthermore, 
 this uniformity was not confined to matters 
 of ritual but included even the costume of 
 the clergy.^^ The Puritans did not object 
 to a dress distinctive of the clerical pro- 
 fession, but the garb which their ministers, 
 
The Pilgrims England. 19 
 
 like others, were obliged by law to wear 
 was associated so closely with Popery in 
 their minds that they abhorred it. A fine 
 of twenty pounds a month was proclaimed 
 for absence from the parish church.^^ 
 Even persons who attended church reg- 
 ularly on Sundays, if they also met in 
 private at home for religious conversa- 
 tion and Scripture reading upon holidays, 
 when many evil practices were common, 
 were punishable for that.^^ Clergymen 
 themselves actually were forbidden to 
 join in observing days of personal fasting 
 and prayer for the queen and the Church.^* 
 Spies were appointed in every parish in 
 which there were suspected persons, so 
 that offenders might be denounced.^'* All 
 Puritan publications were forbidden and 
 sometimes, when discovered, were publicly 
 burned, and if the printers were detected, 
 their presses were destroyed.^ Worst of 
 all, not only were a multitude of clergy- 
 men in sympathy with Protestantism 
 deposed, but men ignorant and even 
 
20 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 known to be depraved were appointed to 
 fill their places. About 1571 the House 
 of Commons itself declared in a formal 
 address to the queen that "for lack of 
 true discipline in the Church great numbers 
 are admitted ministers that are infamous 
 in their lives," ^^ and in a petition to 
 Parliament for relief in 1586 the Puritan 
 ministers asserted that " the bishops have 
 made priests of the basest of the people, 
 not only for their occupations and trades 
 whence they have taken them, as shoe- 
 makers, barbers, tailors, water-bearers, 
 shepherds, and horse-keepers, but also for 
 their want of goodiearning and honesty." ^ 
 Among the clergy in office there was such 
 a dearth of even intellectual fitness that 
 for some time there was no one in so large 
 a town as Northampton who could preach 
 a sermon, nor was there one in the whole 
 county of Cornwall ; ^ and a similar, 
 although not so extreme, lack existed in 
 London" itself.^ Certainly the Church 
 was in a bad way. Yet even this is not 
 
The Pilgrims^ England. 21 
 
 the whole story. In spite of the un- 
 hallowed license in instituting new cler- 
 gymen, not enough of them, such as they 
 were, were appointed to minister to the 
 people. Scores of parishes remained 
 vacant.^ Now and then there actually 
 was no minister available to bury the 
 dead.26 
 
 Naturally such a condition of affairs 
 could have but one result. Large num- 
 bers of the people became practically 
 heathen. Yet the authorities both civil 
 and ecclesiastical applied almost their 
 whole strength to the work of eradicat- 
 ing Puritanism and took little or no notice 
 of the prevailing corruption of society.^' 
 Of course the Puritans appealed for relief 
 repeatedly to the ecclesiastical powers, to 
 Parliament and to the queen, but seldom 
 with any success. Those who were dis- 
 posed to relieve them were too few and 
 had too little power. Such was their 
 condition under Queen Elizabeth. As 
 for the reign of King James I (1603-25), 
 
22 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 it only needs to be said that he continued 
 in general the same policy of oppression. 
 He declared that the Puritans were 
 "insufferable in any well-governed com- 
 monwealth" and that he would "make 
 them conform " or " harry them out of 
 the land or else worse." ^ 
 
 This historical outline indicates how 
 intolerable the condition of the English 
 Puritans was during the larger portion of 
 the two centuries before the Pilgrims 
 abandoned their native land. Christians 
 who conscientiously disagreed with the 
 doctrines or practices of the State Church 
 were compelled to acquiesce in a generally 
 prevalent condition of grave moral evil 
 and also to submit to religious intolerance 
 and civil persecution of the most unjust 
 and often the most cruel sort, or else fly 
 the country. It requires no vivid fancy 
 to conceive of their sufferings in detail, 
 and the most active imagination hardly 
 can overdraw the picture. It is not to be 
 asserted that none of the Puritans them- 
 
The Pilgrims' England. 23 
 
 selves were indiscreet, needlessly regard- 
 less of law, or otherwise open to just 
 criticism. Some of them were at this 
 period; and later, when Puritanism had 
 won control of England for a time, it 
 exhibited too much of the same intoler- 
 ance from which it formerly had suffered. 
 But, for the most part, this was not until 
 long after the Pilgrims had emigrated. 
 
 Up to the time of their departure the 
 Puritans, to speak with restraint, were as 
 intelligent, orderly, devout, patriotic, and 
 useful citizens as could be found in the 
 whole land. It was the divine purpose 
 that, when the time for the transplanting 
 of Protestantism to the New World should 
 come, representatives of the best ability 
 and purest Christianity in England should 
 be prepared to undertake the task. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 PURITANISM AND CONGREGATIONALISM. 
 
 'T~'HE Pilgrims were Puritans, but they 
 -*- were more than merely Puritans. 
 They were also Congregationalists. 
 Modem Christians who bear this name 
 are their direct ecclesiastical descendants 
 and the glory of their heroism is our 
 legitimate inheritance. It is important, 
 therefore, to examine the process by 
 which Congregationalism grew out of 
 Puritanism. 
 
 The outcome of the tyranny with which 
 the Puritans were treated was what might 
 have been expected. "The blood of the 
 martyrs is the seed of the Church." His- 
 tory abounds in illustrations of this truth, 
 and scarcely any other is more striking 
 than that afforded by the Pilgrims. 
 Oppression always confirms many of its 
 
Puritanism and Congregationalism. 25 
 
 objects in their beliefs and provokes them 
 to a more or less open resistance. Partly 
 for this general reason and partly because 
 similar religious persecutions on the con- 
 tinent, as well as the demands of English 
 trade, had led many Protestant French, 
 Germans, and Dutch to settle in England, 
 especially in the eastern counties,^ Puri- 
 tan opinions spread steadily in certain 
 portions of the kingdom during the latter 
 half of the sixteenth century. It seems 
 to be the fact that these foreign immi- 
 grants, many of whom had been not only 
 permitted but even invited to establish 
 themselves in England because of their 
 skill in manufacturing, were treated much 
 less rigorously than the native Protestants 
 and, in some instances at least, were 
 allowed to maintain their own churches,^ 
 and their example and influence cannot 
 have failed to promote the growth of 
 Puritanism among the English themselves. 
 Thus there came to be three distinct 
 religious parties in the realm. One was 
 
26 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 the Anglican, or Established Church, 
 composed of the conforming Protestants. 
 This often was more Romish than Prot- 
 estant in practice, although no longer 
 acknowledging the Pope as its head. A 
 second was composed of the actual 
 Roman Catholics. They were always 
 active, and, although persecuted sharply 
 now and then when any of their frequent 
 and treasonable plots had come to light, 
 they ordinarily were permitted a well- 
 understood although legally prohibited 
 existence. The third party was composed 
 of the Puritans, or non -conforming Prot- 
 estants, many of whom also were called 
 Separatists. 
 
 The first regular Puritan congregations 
 on record seem to have met in and 
 around London about 1553.* Certainly 
 one numbering two hundred then was 
 formed in that city, meeting wherever it 
 could avoid discovery. But, apparently in 
 1557, it was detected at Islington, and 
 its minister, Mr, Rough, and a deacon, 
 
Puritanism and Congregationalism. 27 
 
 Mr. Simpson, were burned at the stake.* 
 About 1 566, however, it reassembled in 
 London and adopted the Genevan service 
 book.^ This was its formal separation 
 from the Church of England and the 
 beginning of organized Presbyterianism in 
 that country. Congregations gradually 
 were formed afterwards in Suffolk, Essex, 
 Warwickshire, Northamptonshire, and 
 elsewhere. The writings of Calvin began 
 to be introduced into the country and to 
 be studied by many of the ministers, 
 and Puritanism soon grew apace, although 
 never free, except temporarily in certain 
 localities, from the active hostility of the 
 public authorities, both ecclesiastical and 
 civil. The persecution which already has 
 been described was maintained constantly 
 and energetically. 
 
 At this point the more important sub- 
 jects of difference between the adherents 
 of the Established Church and the Puri- 
 tans should be mentioned.^ The former, 
 although repudiating for themselves the 
 
28 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 authority of the Pope, held that the Papal 
 Church is a true church of God. The 
 latter disputed this. The former insisted 
 upon the spiritual as well as the legal 
 supremacy of the crown and its magis- 
 trates. The later conceded the legal but 
 denied the spiritual supremacy. The for- 
 mer asserted the authority of bishops 
 over the presbyters, or ordinary clergy. 
 The latter declared that bishops ought 
 to be regarded merely as presidents of 
 boards of presbyters and as having no 
 right of ruling except with the free con- 
 currence of the presbyters. The former 
 claimed that certain titles, offices, and 
 usages of their Church, — such as the 
 titles and offices of archdeacons, deans, 
 and others, and the usages of making the 
 sign of the cross in baptism, singing 
 prayers, etc., — which had been consti- 
 tuted or adopted during the centuries sub- 
 sequent to the age of the apostles, are 
 equally genuine or authoritative with 
 those instituted by the apostles them- 
 
Puritanism and Congregationalism. 29 
 
 selves. The latter insisted upon the 
 primitive apostolic titles and forms, as 
 they understood them, as the only true 
 ones. 
 
 The Puritans also were opposed to set 
 and formal prayers, unless some liberty of 
 extemporaneous petition were allowed, 
 and to the reading of the apocryphal 
 books of the Bible in public worship, 
 especially as portions of the accepted 
 canon of the Scriptures were omitted. 
 They were unwilling to observe saints' 
 days and certain Church festival occasions, 
 and believed the practice of fasting on 
 Friday and in Lent to have no Biblical 
 warrant. They also contended that ac- 
 cess to the sacrament was much too freely 
 allowed in the Established Church, and 
 that discipline should be maintained and 
 care taken to prohibit persons of un- 
 worthy life from the communion. More- 
 over, as has been said already, although 
 not objecting to a distinctively clerical 
 dress in itself, they repudiated all cos- 
 
30 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 tumes resembling those worn by Roman 
 Catholic priests. On these, as on some 
 minor matters, the differences between 
 them and the Established Church were 
 radical. It is worthy of remark in pass- 
 ing that these differences related almost 
 wholly to questions of practice rather 
 than of doctrine. But the attitude of the 
 Puritans toward them was based upon 
 principle and was uncompromising. 
 
 The Puritanism which has thus been 
 described was essentially Presbyterianism. 
 It was an aristocratic system, not then 
 fully developed, as at present, into its 
 grades of presbyteries, synods, and assem- 
 blies, yet containing them all in essence 
 and in prospect. Moreover, these Presby- 
 terian Puritans merely wished to reform 
 the Established Church, not to leave it.^ 
 There was to be another outcome of the 
 Puritan movement, a more democratic 
 and independent Christian body, the 
 Congregationalists. 
 
 The recorded beginnings of Congrega- 
 

 F,\\ I n MoNUMI NT 
 
Puritanism and Congregationalism. 3 1 
 
 tionalism occurred during the last quar- 
 ter of the sixteenth century. The earli- 
 est Congregationalists, of whom Robert 
 Browne was the pioneer, were earnest 
 Puritans. They dissented stoutly from 
 the Established Church. They agreed 
 with the Presbyterian Puritans upon every 
 one of the points of difference which have 
 been mentioned. But they went beyond 
 the Presbyterians themselves. They in- 
 sisted upon the independence of each 
 local church, and upon the divinely given 
 right and duty of each church to govern 
 itself democratically while maintaining a 
 common and equal fellowship with every 
 other church. They derived their posi- 
 tions from the teaching of the Scriptures 
 and from the example of the apostolic 
 churches. 
 
 These principles were first advocated 
 by Robert Browne about 1580. Probably 
 the earliest Congregational church was 
 that to which he ministered in Norwich, 
 apparently in that year.^ But the first 
 
32 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 which established itself permanently 
 seems to have been that formed in Lon- 
 don in 1592,^ although the same thing 
 had been attempted there as early as 
 1587. By degrees other Congregational 
 churches sprang up and the spread of 
 their principles evidently was more rapid 
 than would naturally be expected. In 
 1580 Sir Walter Raleigh said that he 
 was afraid that there were " near twenty 
 thousand Brownists" — which is the 
 name by which Congregationalists were 
 known at first for a while — " in Eng- 
 land." '" Undoubtedly this estimate must 
 have been excessive because that year 
 was the one in the course of which their 
 characteristic views fiifst began to be 
 proclaimed. It is most improbable that 
 they spread so rapidly. But the historian 
 Neal states that these Brownists "in- 
 creased and made a considerable figure 
 towards the latter end " of Queen Eliza- 
 beth's reign," and May also declares that 
 "before the death of Elizabeth" — which 
 
Puritanism and Congregationalism. 33 
 
 occurred only thirteen years after their 
 body began to exist — "they had spread 
 themselves widely through the country."'^ 
 There is no satisfactory evidence that any 
 large number of churches were formed 
 by them as early as this, but the popular 
 mind must have been in an accessible and 
 receptive condition for such teachings as 
 theirs, and probably there came to be a 
 considerable number of those who indi- 
 vidually accepted the opinions of the 
 Brownists.'^ In 1602 there was a Con- 
 gregational church in Gainsborough, the 
 fortunes of which will be alluded to again. 
 As the subject of this chapter is con- 
 sidered it is well to bear in mind that, 
 speaking strictly, there was a distinction 
 between Puritanism and mere Separatism, 
 or Nonconformity. Not all Puritans were 
 Separatists, because some Puritans wished 
 to remain in the State Church and reform 
 it. Nor were all Separatists Puritans. 
 The Roman Catholics were Separatists as 
 truly as any of the Puritans, because they 
 
34 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 also refused to conform to the Established 
 Church. Nevertheless the Separatists 
 often are spoken of synonymously with 
 the Puritans. The latter were more hos- 
 tile to the Roman Catholic than they were 
 to the Established Church, and their Non- 
 conformity was so unlike that of the 
 Roman Catholics that the two bodies 
 rarely, if ever, are included together 
 under the title which really covers them 
 both. 
 
 No such distinction existed at first 
 between Puritanism and Presbyterianism, 
 but they did not long remain identical. 
 Out of Presbyterian Puritanism grew the 
 simpler and — as millions of Christians 
 still believe" — purer and more apostolic 
 Congregationalism. Doubtless there were 
 then, as there are now, true Christians 
 in every branch of the Church on earth, 
 even the most corrupt. But the history 
 of those who at this time revived what 
 they believed to be the original Congrega- 
 tionalism will be found, as the study of it 
 
Puritanism and Congregationalism. 35 
 
 is pursued, to be a record of intelligent, 
 patient, energetic, and fruitful loyalty to 
 Christ which, it is safe to say, never has 
 been surpassed, and which ever since their 
 time has been of great and honorable 
 service to mankind. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 ROBERT BROWNE. 
 
 'T~*HE history of any great social or 
 -*- religious movement is largely that 
 of its individual leaders. It is necessary, 
 therefore, to examine their careers closely, 
 and such study always has a peculiar inter- 
 est. It has been said already that Robert 
 Browne was the pioneer of Congregation- 
 alism, and this chapter shall be devoted to 
 him.' He has been ardently admired and 
 commended by some writers and vigor- 
 ously condemned and even abused by 
 others. The truth about him seems to lie 
 between the two extremes. His career 
 certainly was striking and picturesque, in 
 some respects most honorable and in 
 others undeniably discreditable. So many 
 facts now have become known about him 
 that it is quite possible at last to form a 
 
 36 
 
Robert Browne. 37 
 
 comparatively impartial estimate of what 
 be was and what he did. 
 
 He was born at Tolethorpe, in Rutland- 
 shire, about 1550. He was of gentle 
 blood, and his family was influential. 
 Little is known concerning his childhood, 
 but in 1570 he entered Corpus Christi, or 
 Benet, College at Cambridge, and appar- 
 ently he took his degree in due course 
 as Bachelor of Arts. Yet there is some 
 confusion about this part of his life be- 
 cause he also is said to have been chaplain 
 in the family of the Duke of Norfolk in 
 1 57 1, which appears to be a fact, yet 
 which ordinarily would not be true of an 
 undergraduate student. Even as early as 
 this he must have come under Puritan 
 influences, for he was charged with utter- 
 ing seditious religious doctrines. For the 
 next few years he probably taught school 
 in Southwark, a part of London, speaking 
 occasionally on Sundays to Puritan con- 
 gregations gathered in a gravel pit in 
 Islington, near at hand, and thereby he 
 
38 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 incurred the hostility of the ecclesiastical 
 authorities. Evidently he was looking 
 forward to becoming a preacher and was 
 learning to exercise his gifts. 
 
 But the plague broke out and of course 
 interfered with both schools and public 
 worship and he returned home, probably 
 in 1578. Next, and soon, he reappeared 
 in Cambridge and became a theological 
 student with Rev. Richard Greenham, of 
 Dry Drayton close by, and, beginning to 
 preach, he proved very acceptable to his 
 hearers. He must have shown conspicu- 
 ous ability, for in spite of the distrust of 
 some of the ecclesiastics, who probably 
 were acquainted with his history and more 
 than suspected him of inclining towards 
 Puritanism, he was invited to a pulpit in 
 Cambridge itself, an unusual honor for so 
 young a man. This invitation, however, 
 he declined. Evidently his Puritan con- 
 victions were gaining strength, for he now 
 began to preach boldly against the author- 
 ity of the bishops, and soon, during a 
 
Robert Browne. 39 
 
 serious illness which befell him, the bishop 
 and council of the diocese prohibited him 
 formally from further preaching, which of 
 course cut off his opportunities. Thus 
 far his career had been that of a devout, 
 well-educated, eloquent, and perhaps bril- 
 liant, but also impetuous and probably 
 sometimes rash young man. 
 
 Upon his recovery he learned that in 
 Norfolk there were people who sympa- 
 thized more or less fully with his Puritan 
 beliefs, and therefore that region appeared 
 to promise more liberty of thought and 
 a better opportunity for congenial labor 
 than others. So he removed to Norwich 
 and went to live with Robert Harrison, a 
 friend who held views much like his own. 
 Probably the reason why an exceptional 
 religious freedom seemed possible there 
 is that Norwich contained many of the 
 foreign immigrants inclined toward Prot- 
 estantism who have been mentioned al- 
 ready.^ But Browne was not content to 
 accept his religious views ready-made. 
 
40 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 He was an independent and fearless stu- 
 dent and he soon passed beyond the limits 
 of the Presbyterianism with which up to 
 that time Puritanism had been identical. 
 He thought out afresh and restated, with 
 the Scriptures for his guide, the original, 
 apostolical Congregational system. Here 
 too, in 1580 or 1581, apparently the for- 
 mer year, he organized and became pastor 
 of the first purely and formally estab- 
 lished Congregational church on record 
 in England. 
 
 The authorities, however, had no idea 
 of allowing such a system to be promul- 
 gated even in Norwich. His boldness 
 soon gained for him their active hostility, 
 and after several remonstrances, to which 
 he paid no heed and from the severer con- 
 sequences of which he was saved only by 
 the mediation of his relative, Lord Treas- 
 urer Burghley, he and most of his follow- 
 ers emigrated in a body to Middleburg, in 
 Zeland. Those who remained in Norwich 
 sustained the church there for twenty-five 
 
Robert Browne. 41 
 
 years longer, if not more ; but its subse- 
 quent history is obscure. Probably it 
 died, and certainly it does not seem to 
 have been the direct ancestor of any 
 church now existing in that place. 
 Browne and his company stayed in Mid- 
 dleburg two years, in the course of which 
 he had three treatises printed, which were 
 circulated in England and which were 
 deemed so revolutionary, at least in an 
 ecclesiastical sense, that the queen issued 
 a special proclamation against them, and 
 two men, John Copping and Elias Thacker, 
 of whom we shall hear again, were hanged 
 for distributing them. 
 
 Such a man as Browne was, however, 
 often is hard to live with, and the inevi- 
 table conditions of exile doubtless embar- 
 rassed the little church of the emigrants. 
 At any rate, internal troubles soon began 
 to annoy it and Browne resigned its pas- 
 torate on three occasions, withdrawing his 
 resignation each time by general request, 
 which indicates that whatever blame 
 
42 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 existed did not lie specially with him. 
 But at last, about the end of the year 
 1583, he sailed for Scotland with four or 
 five families of his adherents. Here he 
 passed some six months traveling, writing, 
 preaching, and disputing. His life from 
 youth on for a number of years, perhaps 
 necessarily because of the unpopularity of 
 his convictions, was largely one of contro- 
 versy. The Edinburgh Presbytery, under 
 the recognized authority of which he 
 must have come in some manner, tried 
 him for heresy, but he escaped conviction, 
 and he soon went back to London, appar- 
 ently feeble in body and discouraged in 
 spirit. 
 
 He seems to have been imprisoned for 
 a time but to have been released through 
 Lord' Treasurer Burghley's renewed inter- 
 cession and to have been put in charge of 
 his father at Stamford. It is declared, but 
 not established, that his father disowned 
 him, and it appears to be true that his 
 courage and zeal revived for a while so far 
 
Robert Browne. 43 
 
 that he resumed his obnoxious preaching, 
 this time at Northampton. But the end 
 of his career as a Separatist soon came. 
 It is remarkable that apparently, in spite 
 of his pronounced Separatist and Congre- 
 gationalist opinions, he never had formally 
 severed his early connection with the 
 Established Church. Probably he never 
 had taken the trouble to do this, assuming 
 that he practically had seceded from it in 
 pursuing his chosen course so persist- 
 ently, and had left the Established Church 
 to expel him if it had cared to do so, as it 
 had not. At any rate it is clear that both 
 it and he now recognized the fact that he 
 never had separated himself or had been 
 separated from it formally, or there would 
 have been little or no significance in what 
 at this juncture plainly was a vital matter 
 to him — the fact that he now was excom- 
 municated for contempt by the bishop of 
 Peterborough, in whose diocese he found 
 himself. 
 
 This was the finishing blow to his Non- 
 
44 "The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 conformity. Worn out, despairing of the 
 spread of his opinions, and doubtless im- 
 portuned persistently by his relatives and 
 many of his friends, and perhaps even 
 honestly persuaded that he had been mis- 
 taken hitherto, he yielded, was readmitted 
 to the Established Church, and was made 
 master of St. Olave's grammar school in 
 Southwark. In 1591 he became rector of 
 the small parish of Achurch-cum-Thorpe 
 in the diocese of Peterborough, and 
 there he spent the remainder of his life, 
 more than forty years. 
 
 Accounts are vague and various about 
 his character and usefulness during this 
 portion of his career, but it is certain that 
 he never attained further distinction and 
 he appears to have attracted no more 
 special notice. He had spent his energies 
 during his earlier years in what must have 
 come to seem to him a fruitless and hope- 
 less battle for the truth, and he went back 
 into the Established Church, however sin- 
 cerely, a broken man, too heavily burdened 
 
Robert Browne. 4$ 
 
 with the consciousness of defeat ever to 
 accomplish much more of importance. It 
 is reported that he died at last in North- 
 ampton jail, where he had been put for 
 striking a constable who had been rude to 
 him in his old age. 
 
 It is only natural that both Church 
 of England and Puritan writers should 
 have expressed themselves with severity 
 about him. Of course the former have 
 condemned him for adopting Separatist 
 views at all and the latter for his final 
 repudiation of them. But it is probable 
 that he has been censured unduly. He 
 must have possessed a nervous tempera- 
 ment and a weak physical constitution, 
 and certainly he experienced extreme and 
 enfeebling sufferings. He once declared 
 that he had been imprisoned in thirty-two 
 different dungeons, in some of which he 
 could not see his own hand at noonday. 
 He undeniably was eccentric, and the 
 theory that during the latter half of 
 his life he was' at least partially insane 
 
46 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 has reasonable and considerable support. 
 There is good evidence also that up to 
 middle age he was not only exemplary in 
 life but also was a clear-headed and able 
 thinker and a man who won and retained 
 the confidence and esteem of many good 
 men. The history of his life is sad but 
 not necessarily as discreditable as some- 
 times has been claimed. 
 
 At any rate the value of his services as 
 the rediscoverer of Congregationalist prin- 
 ciples cannot be denied successfully. He 
 wrote "eight books, of which three now are 
 accessible. They are called, respectively, 
 A True and Short Declaration, etc. ; A 
 Treatise of Reformation Without Tarrying 
 for Any, etc., which contains three distinct 
 treatises, of which the third, entitled A 
 Book which sheweth the life and manners 
 of all true Christians, etc., often is quoted ; 
 and An Answer to Master Cartwright, 
 His Letter for Joining with the English 
 Churches, etc. From these the principles 
 which he taught are easily 'gleaned. They 
 are in substance as follows : — 
 
Robert Browne. 47 
 
 1. It is the first duty of each Christian to attain 
 the highest possible purity of faith and life. 
 
 2. The corruption of the Church of England 
 and its subjection to an unscriptural hierarchy 
 should lead every true Christian at once to try to 
 reform it. 
 
 3. There is no hope of this reform through the 
 civil power. 
 
 4. Nor through Presbyterianism. 
 
 5. Therefore true believers should abandon the 
 State church and form separate companies. 
 
 6. Any such company, if rightly associated, is 
 a true church of Christ and is independent of all 
 control except His. 
 
 7. The organization of such a church is by the 
 voluntary and public adoption of a covenant with 
 God and one another, this covenant being sealed 
 by the sacrament of baptism. 
 
 8. Church government consists in the supreme 
 lordship of Christ, each individual Christian being 
 a regent of Christ equally with every other. 
 
 9. The ordinary officers of such a church, ac- 
 cording to the Scriptures, are a pastor, or preacher ; 
 a teacher, or instructor; one or more elders, or 
 advisers ; one or more relievers, to supervise chari- 
 ties ; and one or more widows, to care for the sick 
 or distressed. 
 
 10. The sacrament of the Lord's Supper is the 
 
4S The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 seal of the mutual union of the members of such 
 a church and of their union with Christ. 
 
 11. Mutual spiritual oversight and care are duties. 
 
 12. The fellowship of such churches is to be 
 maintained, yet in harmony with the independence 
 of each separate church. 
 
 This system is not only essential but 
 also almost exact Congregationalism as it 
 is practiced at present. But its office of 
 teacher now usually is combined with that 
 of pastor, and its elders have become 
 deacons and also attend to much of the 
 work of the relievers and widows, although 
 in most modern churches there are devout 
 women who unofficially perform this sort 
 of service, and in some churches definitely 
 appointed deaconesses take charge of it. 
 
 It is clear, therefore, that, in spite of 
 whatever may have been subject for regret 
 and even condemnation in Browne's career, 
 there was much which was praiseworthy 
 and of permanent value to the world. If 
 he merited considerable blame, he also 
 deserved sincere pity and some admira- 
 
Robert Browne. 49 
 
 tion. At any rate he is entitled fairly to 
 the credit of having been the pioneer Con- 
 gregationalist of his own and the succeed- 
 ing generations. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CONGREGATIONAL PUBLICATIONS AND 
 MARTYRS. 
 
 IT has been stated already that during 
 the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries 
 scores and even hundreds of Puritans 
 were put to death for their faith. Many 
 more also were martyred quite as truly by 
 being caused to languish in the loathsome 
 prisons of that day until they died there. 
 The names of a number of such victims 
 are recorded. Those of others long have 
 been forgotten upon earth. But, although 
 unquestionably it was a relief to many, for 
 whom no hope of release remained, to 
 be taken from the horrors of prison life 
 to execution, one and all were martyrs in 
 the truest sense. Congregationalism, as 
 such, was represented among them, and 
 the names of at least six men, who were 
 killed before the year 1600, are known. 
 
Publications and Martyrs. 5 1 
 
 Before mentioning them, however, it is 
 desirable to notice briefly certain publica- 
 tions which had great influence in extend- 
 ing and intensifying that revolt against the 
 Established Church which was punished 
 so severely. Their claim upon our atten- 
 tion lies in the fact that they probably 
 were written in large part, if not alto- 
 gether, by Congregationalists. A number 
 of preliminary publications had prepared 
 the way for them. Thomas Cartwright,^ 
 for example, wrote several treatises be- 
 tween 1572 and 1593 urging Presbyterian 
 views and was imprisoned once for so 
 doing. He held to the theory of a State 
 church with a Presbyterian organization. 
 He was not a Congregationalist and, more 
 than any one else, is credited with having 
 given English Puritanism in its Presby- 
 terian character a definite form. A num- 
 ber of other publications antagonizing the 
 Established Church, some written at home 
 and others on the Continent, also were cir- 
 culated in England at about this period,^ 
 
52 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 often anonymously because of the risk of 
 acknowledged authorship. 
 
 They and the many replies to them all 
 helped to arouse the popular mind, and it 
 is difficult for modern readers to appreci- 
 ate the strength of the public feeling in 
 regard to the subject which in different 
 forms and manners they discussed. The 
 daily dissemination of news of all sorts, 
 to which we are accustomed through the 
 telegraph and the press, was then un- 
 known. People had comparatively few 
 subjects about which to talk, and there- 
 fore those which they did have were apt 
 to be discussed with the more earnest- 
 ness. Moreover, their religious and eccle- 
 siastical differences probably existed more 
 or less sharply almost everywhere through- 
 out the kingdom, and the universal con- 
 sciousness of the vital importance of 
 spiritual matters, from which even care- 
 less minds cannot wholly escape, must 
 have added intensity to the situation. 
 
 Such being the condition of affairs, 
 
Publications and Martyrs. 5 3 
 
 there appeared late in the year 1588 the 
 first of the treatises specially under our 
 notice, the famous Martin Mar-Prelate 
 tracts. It was entitled Oh Read ouer 
 D. lohn Bridges, etc., and, at least nomi- 
 nally, was a reply to a work by Dr. 
 Bridges, the Dean of Sarum, in defense 
 of the Church of England. In the course 
 of about seven months six other such 
 tracts came out.^ The author never has 
 been identified positively. John Penry 
 seems to have published them and he 
 generally has been believed their author. 
 But recently it has been argued, and with 
 much force, that probably they were from 
 the pen of Henry Barrowe.* They are 
 terse, colloquial, fiery, and satirical. But 
 for the justice of their charges they 
 might be called abusive. They are boldly 
 personal and defiantly severe. They were 
 caught up eagerly and read widely. They 
 caused the people to laugh and the eccle- 
 siastics to stand aghast, and they made 
 a profound and lasting impression. They 
 
54 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 provoked several replies in the same vein, 
 roused the authorities to a fury of indig- 
 nation, and occasioned fresh persecutions 
 quite as harsh as any before. One result 
 was the martyrdom of several of the six 
 Congregationalists now to be mentioned. 
 Of three of the six very little is known. 
 One was John Copping,' already alluded 
 to, of Bury St. Edmunds, who perhaps 
 was a minister, but more probably was 
 a layman. He was imprisoned from 1576 
 to 1583 for disregarding certain ecclesi- 
 astical laws. He was tried repeatedly 
 but refused to recant and managed some- 
 how, even while in jail, to circulate 
 actively the writings of Robert Browne 
 and Robert Harrison. Finally he was 
 hanged for these offenses at Bury on June 
 5, 1583. Another, Elias Thacker,* was 
 Copping's fellow prisoner for most of the 
 time, held the same beliefs and shared 
 his labors as a disseminator of Congrega- 
 tionalist principles, was condemned at the 
 same time and was hanged the day before 
 
Publications and Martyrs. 5 5 
 
 Copping at the same place.' The third, 
 William Dennis,* is known to posterity in 
 respect to his character only through the 
 single statement afterward made by Gov- 
 ernor Bradford, of the Plymouth Colony, 
 that " he was a godly man and faithful 
 in his place." ^ He, too, was executed 
 publicly as a Separatist. Brief although 
 these records are, they are now like crowns 
 of glory upon the heads of the men to 
 whom they relate. 
 
 Of the other three fortunately we know 
 more. Greenwood, Barrowe, and Penry 
 are historic and honored names in the 
 long and noble story of English Noncon- 
 formity. John Greenwood"" was a Cam- 
 bridge graduate in 1580-81, who became a 
 clergyman of the State Church, but later 
 was domestic chaplain to Lord Robert 
 Rich, of Rochford, Essex, an eminent 
 Puritan. He abandoned the Established 
 Church and was arrested in London, in 
 1586, for holding a religious service in a 
 private house. He was confined in the 
 
$6 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 Clink Prison, and here he wrote two trea- 
 tises which he managed to have printed. 
 In 1592, he was released on bail for a 
 time and helped in September to organ- 
 ize the first Congregational church in 
 London, taking the office of teacher, 
 Francis Johnson being pastor ; but early 
 in December, the news having reached 
 the authorities, he was reconfined. Dur- 
 ing most of his imprisonment he had as a 
 fellow prisoner Henry Barrowe," already 
 mentioned as perhaps the real Martin 
 Mar-Prelate. 
 
 Barrowe was a native of Shipdam, Nor- 
 folk, a graduate of Cambridge, a lawyer 
 at Gray's Inn, a courtier, and for a time, 
 according to Lord Bacon, a man of disso- 
 lute life. Converted by hearing a single 
 sermon, he became interested in theology 
 and church government and identified 
 himself with the Congregationalists in the 
 effort to secure reform. He was arrested 
 November 19, 1586, without a warrant, 
 while visiting Greenwood in the Clink 
 
Publications and Martyrs. 57 
 
 Prison, and was kept in jail there during 
 most, if not all, of the remainder of his 
 life. He managed to write and secure 
 the publication of at least six books of his 
 own as well as four others written in con- 
 junction with Greenwood. It is a marvel, 
 yet a fact, that, in spite of the vigilance 
 of the authorities, these two men, while in 
 prison, contrived to compose twelve able 
 volumes and to get them smuggled, doubt- 
 less piecemeal, out of jail and then sur- 
 reptitiously printed. How they managed 
 to do this we can only imagine. It must 
 have been by the aid of friendly visitors 
 who succeeded in baffling the scrutiny of 
 the watchful jailers. The zeal and deter- 
 mination of the reformers could not have 
 been demonstrated more conclusively. 
 Barrowe appears to have possessed the 
 more original and controlling mind and to 
 have chiefly shaped their common utter- 
 ances. He advocated a distinct and pe- 
 culiar theory of Congregationalism, now 
 known as Barrowism, in which there was 
 
S8 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 a considerable and an unnatural mixture 
 of Presbyterianism. Barrowe, with Green- 
 wood, was tried several times, made able 
 arguments which proved very troublesome 
 to the authorities, and finally, after a 
 reprieve or two, both of the friends were 
 alleged to be guilty of having declared the 
 queen to be unbaptized, the state so cor- 
 rupt that no Christians could live in it 
 peaceably, and all the people infidels. 
 Such extravagant charges carry their own 
 refutations on their faces. Nevertheless, 
 the two men were hanged on April 6, 1593. 
 The sixth of these martyrs was John 
 Penry,^ a Welshman. He was a Roman 
 Catholic in youth and graduated at Cam- 
 bridge in 1583-84, where he had become 
 a Puritan. He then went to Oxford and 
 gained the degree of Master of Arts. 
 Later he took holy orders and earned a 
 good repute as a scholar and preacher. 
 In 1587 he wrote and printed a vigorous 
 appeal for better preaching in Wales. He 
 soon became active in publishing secretly 
 
Publications and Martyrs. 59 
 
 the writings of the various Puritan au- 
 thors, notably the Martin Mar-Prelate 
 tracts, and had to fly for safety in 1589 to 
 Scotland, but in 1 592 he was back in Lon- 
 don and was one of the newly formed 
 Congregational church. He was arrested 
 March 22, 1593, and imprisoned. The 
 contemptible meanness of the authorities 
 is shown by the fact that he was tried for 
 only having begun privately to compose 
 a petition to the queen, which never was 
 sent, or even completed, but which was 
 discovered to contain an appeal for liberty 
 of worship. He was convicted and on 
 May 29 he was put to death, doubtless like 
 the others, by being hanged. 
 
 It is not probable that even the ecclesi- 
 astical authorities perceived clearly, if at 
 all, the distinction between these men and 
 the other Puritans who had been slain for 
 the faith. To the rulers the then hardly 
 more than suggested differences between 
 Presbyterian and Congregational Puritan- 
 ism must have been too insignificant for 
 
6o The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 notice. Probably their condemnation ap- 
 peared, even to their companions and to 
 the martyrs themselves, to be due, and 
 was due, to the general fact rather than 
 to the particular method of their dissent 
 from the State Church. Nevertheless 
 they were genuine Congregationalist mar- 
 tyrs, of whom all modern members of that 
 branch of Christ's Church, who are their 
 spiritual descendants and who bear their 
 likeness more or less closely, never should 
 cease to be tenderly proud. How it would 
 have comforted them if they could have 
 foreseen that the utterly improbable would 
 become actual, that the truths for which 
 they died would find wide and loyal accept- 
 ance among men, and that, three cen- 
 turies later, the anniversaries of the mar- 
 tyrdom of some of them would be cele- 
 brated with reverent affection and honor 
 by English Congregationalists in the very 
 London and on the same spot where they 
 yielded up their lives ! ^ 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 SCROOBY AND AUS.TERFIELD. 
 
 A ^ 7E now are prepared to consider the 
 * ' Pilgrims themselves, and it will 
 be pleasant to form some idea at this point 
 of the region which was the English home 
 of many among them. It has been said 
 already that in 1602 there was a Congre- 
 gational church in Gainsborough-upon- 
 Trent, in Lincolnshire. John Smyth was 
 its pastor. In 1606/ doubtless because of 
 persecution, its majority headed by Mr. 
 Smyth emigrated to Amsterdam. Some 
 and probably most of the remainder lived 
 in or near to Scrooby, in Nottinghamshire, 
 a few miles to the westward, the village 
 now famous as the place where the Pil- 
 grim movement first took definite form. 
 The modern Scrooby, identical in site 
 with the ancient, lies on the Great North- 
 
 61 
 
62 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 em Railroad about a hundred and fifty 
 miles nearly north of London, fifty miles 
 west from the North Sea near Grimsby, 
 and ninety miles east from Liverpool. It 
 is perhaps eight or ten miles south of 
 Ddncaster. The old turnpike road from 
 London to York and Scotland passes 
 through it. Probably its population is 
 not over one hundred and fifty persons at 
 present and it hardly can have been much 
 larger three centuries ago. 
 
 Looking west from the platform of the 
 railway station, one sees, not more than 
 a thousand feet distant, a cluster of low 
 cottages, chiefly of brick, with tiled or 
 thatched roofs, and shaded by overhanging 
 elms. Hedges border most of the narrow 
 lanes and in the midst of the cottages 
 lies the ancient graveyard in which stands 
 the parish church, St. Wilfred's. This 
 has been restored and also enlarged by 
 adding an aisle upon the south side since 
 the time of the Pilgrims, but its graceful 
 spire remains the same as then. In the 
 
Scrooby and Austerfield. 63 
 
 eastern distance low hills form the horizon, 
 and woods limit the view more narrowly 
 towards the west. The neighborhood, 
 although not level, hardly undulates 
 enough to be called hilly, and consists of 
 cultivated fields or green meadows, sepa- 
 rated by hedges and dotted with elms, 
 which shade the grazing cattle. It is a 
 quiet farming region, not picturesque but 
 possessing in a high degree that charm 
 of peacefulness so characteristic of much 
 English scenery. 
 
 Walking up the lane from the railway 
 to the village, one sees at once upon his 
 right hand an irregular meadow contain- 
 ing perhaps six acres and separated from 
 the lane by a fence and a ditch. Beyond 
 the meadow is a farmhouse, long and nar- 
 row, extending north and south, having 
 two stories and an attic, with walls partly 
 of brick and partly of rubble or rough 
 plaster of some kind, and with low out- 
 buildings on the east side and a garden, 
 barnyards, and bams and sheds on the west. 
 
64 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 The whole estate doubtless is much smaller 
 than it was formerly, but in 1867 it still 
 included about seventy acres. One of its 
 most conspicuous features at present is a 
 short row of Lombardy poplars along the 
 wall on the brink of the Ryton, the little 
 river which forms the northern border of 
 the garden. This house stands in part 
 upon the site of the ancient manor-house. 
 To reach it one must pass around through 
 the edge of the village and across the 
 meadow. At first glance it exhibits no 
 appearance of noteworthy antiquity, but 
 examination discovers in its western wall, 
 near the southern end on the outside, a 
 wide, high arch, sunken in the surface of 
 the building, and a deep and peculiar niche, 
 neither of which has any modern use or 
 meaning. The wall of this part of the 
 house is very thick, like those customarily 
 built in great houses in England three or 
 four hundred years ago, and the shape and 
 arrangement of some rooms in this portion 
 of the structure testify to their great age. 
 
Scrooby and Austerfield. 65 
 
 There is much probability that this part 
 of the building was included in the origi- 
 nal manor-house. 
 
 The estate belonged to the archbish- 
 opric of York and was used for occasional 
 retirement and as a resting-place in jour- 
 neying to or from London. It was pleas- 
 ant and also comparatively secluded, 
 although easily accessible. Margaret, 
 Queen of Scotland, daughter of Henry 
 VII, slept there on her way to Scotland. 
 Henry VIII lodged there at least once. 
 Hunter, the eminent English antiquary, 
 says on June 12, 1543,^ and James I liked 
 it so much that he tried, but in vain, to 
 buy it.^ The original house must have 
 been built before the year 1500, for at that 
 date Archbishop Savage spent a large 
 sum upon it.* Hunter adds that the same 
 archbishop " often made this his place of 
 residence for the purpose of hunting in 
 Hatfield chase."* The historian Leland 
 says that in 1541 it was 
 a great manor-place standinge withyn a mote and 
 
66 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 [be] longing to the Archbishop of York: builded 
 jn [in] to [two] courtes, whereof the first is very 
 ample, and all builded of tymbre, saving the front 
 of the haule, that is of bricke, to the wych ascendi- 
 tur per gradus lapidis [ascent is made by stone 
 steps]. The ynner courte building, as far as I 
 marked, was of tymbre building, and was not in 
 compace past the 4 [quarter] parte of the utter 
 [outer] courte." 
 
 In 1557 Archbishop Heath leased the 
 estate for twenty-one years at £^10 153. 
 per year to his steward, James Bryne. In 
 1575 Archbishop Grindal leased it on the 
 same terms to William Marshall. Later, 
 in December, 1582, Archbishop Sandys 
 leased it to his oldest son, Sir Samuel, for 
 ;^'6s 6s. 8d., and he leased it, probably, to 
 William Brewster's father and, certainly, 
 to William Brewster himself after the 
 senior Brewster's death.' We know that 
 William Brewster, the Pilgrim, lived there 
 from April i, 1594, to September 30, 
 1607.^ 
 
 In addition to the protecting moat the 
 house had ornamental and useful fish- 
 
Scrooby and Austerfield. 6y 
 
 ponds and gardens, and unquestionably it 
 was for the times a stately and imposing 
 edifice. After having been leased to suc- 
 cessive tenants for a generation or two 
 it was mostly taken down, and probably 
 before the middle of the seventeenth 
 century, for Thoroton in 1673 spoke of it 
 as having been standing " within mem- 
 ory." Probably a farmhouse was built 
 upon a part of its site at once. At pres- 
 ent the location of the courts and the 
 plan of the building and its grounds 
 remain conjectural. In 1871, by per- 
 mission of the lord of the manor, the 
 late Lord Houghton, Dr. Henry M. 
 Dexter, assisted by the writer, made many 
 measurements and some excavations in 
 the hope of determining these particulars. 
 The meadow is full of remnants of 
 masonry beneath the turf, and a few 
 ridges and hollows indicate a possible 
 outline. But no trustworthy conclusions 
 can be formed unless after a more sys- 
 tematic and extended examination. Such 
 
68 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 details probably were recorded formerly 
 and in full in the official documents of the 
 archbishopric of York, but the most dili- 
 gent search has failed to find them and it 
 is evident that they have been lost or 
 destroyed. 
 
 In the stone wall which extends from 
 the rear of the house back to the river 
 Ryton close by are broken pieces of 
 chiseled stone which suggest the former 
 stateliness of the building, and in two of 
 the present cow-sheds the roofs are up- 
 held by carved beams, the dimensions of 
 which indicate that they once performed 
 a similar service in the manor-house hall 
 or chapel. Until recently — it is now 
 reported to have disappeared — there 
 remained in the garden a very old stump 
 of a mulberry tree, said to have been 
 planted by Cardinal Wolsey while dwell- 
 ing at the manor for several weeks on his 
 way to York after his fall from power.^ 
 The ditch along the south edge of the 
 meadow also marks the line of that part 
 
Scrooby and Austerfield. 69 
 
 of the original moat. These are the only 
 visible traces of the early appearance of 
 the place which remain. Its intimate 
 connection with the history of the Pil- 
 grims had been overlooked during the 
 intervening centuries until in the summer 
 of 1851 it was sought out by Dr. Dexter 
 and at about the same time by Mr. George 
 Sumner. Their published accounts of 
 their observations directed attention to it 
 afresh, and ever since it has been visited 
 frequently, especially by Americans. At 
 the close of the first International Con- 
 gregational Council, held in London in 
 July, 1 891, that assembly made an expedi- 
 tion thither in a body and held an appro- 
 priate memorial service in the grounds.^" 
 North of Scrooby about a mile lies the 
 small market town, Bawtry, but, beyond 
 the fact that probably some thus far un- 
 identified Pilgrims lived there, it has no 
 special claim upon our notice. Another 
 mUe, almost due north, brings one to 
 Austerfield, a little hamlet smaller than 
 
70 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 Scrooby and equally quiet. It contains a 
 cottage in which, according to a tradition 
 generally believed to possess some prob- 
 ability, William Bradford, the governor of 
 the Plymouth Colony, was born, and it is a 
 matter of record that he was baptized by 
 Rev. Henry Fletcher on March 19, 1589, 
 in its quaint little church, St. Helen's. 
 Here he doubtless worshiped during his 
 boyhood. This church, too, has been 
 modernized somewhat within, but its low, 
 rough buttressed walls of stone, its tiny 
 belfry, its narrow windows with their 
 diamond-shaped panes, its oak chancel 
 rail, the Norman arch of its porch with 
 its "zigzag and beak" ornamentation and 
 its rude carving of a dragon, and the rough 
 stone benches on either side of the porch, 
 must be essentially as they have been 
 from the first. 
 
 These are but few and disconnected 
 links to bind the present to the past. 
 Yet, when it is remembered that — ex- 
 cept by the building of the railroad — the 
 
Scrooby and Austerfield. 71 
 
 region has undergone almost no change, 
 that the fields and meadows lie substan- 
 tially as they always have lain, that the 
 courses of the highroad and most of the 
 crossroads are essentially unaltered, that 
 the tranquil waters of the Idle and the 
 Ryton flowed formerly just where they 
 flow to-day, and that the same shadowy 
 hills bounded the horizon to the east and 
 similar stretches of woodland to the west, 
 it is easy to appreciate quite well how 
 these scenes must have appeared to the 
 familiar eyes of Brewster, Bradford, Rob- 
 inson, and the others who helped to form 
 the Pilgrim church. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 WILLIAM BREWSTER AND 
 WILLIAM BRADFORD. 
 
 TT is a common belief that most of the 
 ^ Pilgrims who settled at Plymouth 
 were from Scrooby or its vicinity origi- 
 nally. But some of the original emigrants 
 from Scrooby never reached America, and 
 the Plymouth colony included many who 
 joined the Pilgrims in Holland, from dif- 
 ferent parts of England, as well as others 
 who united with them first in England on 
 their way hither. It is remarkable and to 
 be regretted that so little is known of the 
 Pilgrims personally, especially of the mem- 
 bers of the Scrooby church. But fortu- 
 nately something is recorded about several 
 concerning whom information is most 
 desirable. 
 
 One of these is William Brewster.i 
 
 12 
 
Brewster and Bradford. 73 
 
 Both for his personal qualities and as one 
 of the foremost leaders of their undertak- 
 ing, he always must remain a conspicuous 
 figure in their history. Probably he was 
 born in Scrooby about 1 566. At any rate, 
 his father, William, and his mother, Pru- 
 dence, lived there, in the manor-house, in 
 1571, when he apparently was not more 
 than four or five years old. He was matric- 
 ulated at Peterhouse, Cambridge Univer- 
 sity, December 13, 1580, but it is unlikely 
 that he took the full course. Bradford, 
 the Pilgrim historian, says that he " spent 
 some small time " there. Afterwards he 
 found his way to London and to the royal 
 court and entered the service of William 
 Davison, Queen Elizabeth's secretary of 
 state, and this fact is evidence of the good 
 social position of his family.^ Bradford 
 relates that Davison 
 
 found him so discreete and faithfull as he trusted 
 him above all other that were aboute him, and only 
 employed him in all matters of greatest trust and 
 secrecie. He esteemed him rather as a sonne than 
 
74 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 a servante, and for his wisdom and godlines (in pri- 
 vate) he would converse with him more like a friend 
 & familiar than a maister." 
 
 At about this period England undertook 
 to aid Holland in her conflict with Spain, 
 and when Davison was sent as ambassador 
 to the Low Countries in the Earl of Leices- 
 ter's time there, among other purposes to 
 receive charge of Flushing and Brill, 
 which were given over temporarily to the 
 English in 1585 as security for the per- 
 formance by the Dutch of their new treaty 
 obligations to Queen Elizabeth, the keys 
 of Flushing, apparently the more impor- 
 tant, were committed to Brewster, and he 
 slept with them. under his pillow at least 
 one night. Later, when Davison, after 
 returning to England, was deposed, being 
 made a scapegoat for the queen in connec- 
 tion with the execution of Mary, Queen of 
 Scots, Brewster withdrew from the court 
 and soon went back to Scrooby. Here he 
 held the position of agent of the Arch- 
 bishop of York, the owner of the manor, 
 
Brewster and Bradford. 75 
 
 and he also was government postmaster. 
 This does not mean, however, that he kept 
 a modern post office. Private letters were 
 not carried by government until about 
 thirty years later.^ His duty was merely 
 to forward official dispatches and occa- 
 sional travelers. His office was one of 
 honor and influence, appropriate for a 
 gentleman by birth, and his salary was 
 £,of:> to £,\QO a year, about the same sum 
 then paid to a principal secretary of state,* 
 a much larger sum, because of the greater 
 value of money then, than it now seems. 
 Davison was inclined to Puritanism, and 
 association with him doubtless had helped 
 to develop Separatist convictions in Brews- 
 ter, and, after returning to Scrooby, Brews- 
 ter took active interest in promoting the 
 religious welfare of that part of England. 
 But apparently he had not yet left the 
 Established Church. Bradford says : — 
 
 Afterwards he wente and lived in y= country, in 
 good esteeme amoogst his freinds and y= gentie- 
 men of those parts, espetially the godly & religious. 
 
j€> The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 He did much good in y= countrie wher he lived, in 
 promoting and furthering religion, not only by his 
 practiss & example, and provocking and incourag- 
 ing of others, but by procuring of good preachers 
 to y^ places thereaboute, and drawing on of others 
 to assist & help forward in such a worke ; he him- 
 selfe most commonly deepest in y^ charge, & some- 
 times above his abillitie.6 
 
 We can imagine easily and with reason- 
 able accuracy the life which he led at this 
 time — that of a grave, dignified, devout, 
 public-spirited country gentleman, busy 
 with the cares of his pleasant estate 
 and his probably not burdensome official 
 duties, and happy in the friendship of the 
 choicest people of the vicinity. Yet he 
 must have been distressed by his knowl- 
 edge of the intolerance of the ecclesias- 
 tical authorities, and conscious of the 
 unhappiness of his Separatist friends and 
 of the increasing likelihood that loyalty to 
 conscience soon must involve him in the 
 same perils which threatened them. 
 
 When those members of the Gainsbor- 
 ough church who had been left behind 
 
Brewster and Bradford. 77 
 
 by the emigration of their associates to 
 Amsterdam established themselves at 
 Scrooby, Brewster, by this time having 
 become an avowed Separatist, was promi- 
 nent among them, and as the manor-house 
 contained a hall or chapel suitable for 
 purposes of worship, and doubtless such as 
 they could find nowhere else, his home 
 became their headquarters. Moreover, his 
 official position under government ren- 
 dered them less likely to be detected or, 
 if discovered, to be interfered with at first. 
 Undoubtedly they organized their historic 
 church under his roof. Bradford adds : — 
 
 After they were joyned togither in communion, 
 he was a spetial stay & help unto them. They 
 ordinarily mett at his house on y^ Lord's day 
 (which was a manor of y= bishop's) , and with great 
 love he entertained them when they came, making 
 provission for them to his great charge.'' . 
 
 When they determined at last to emi- 
 grate to Holland, Brewster had cast in his 
 lot with them finally, and he acted as a 
 leader in the undertaking and shared 
 
78 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 their gravest perils and sufferings. In 
 Leyden he became the elder of the church. 
 Having necessarily sacrificed much of his 
 property in leaving England, he supported 
 himself at first by teaching English and 
 later by setting up a printing press, issu- 
 ing especially Separatist books, which 
 could not be printed in England ; and he 
 appears to have prospered, as was natural, 
 more than most of the others.^ In 1619 
 he was sent to London with Robert Cush- 
 man to negotiate in regard to the pro- 
 posed emigration to America.^ He was 
 one of the Mayflower company and was 
 accompanied by his wife, Mary, two sons. 
 Love and Wrestling, and two servants, 
 Richard More and his brother.^" Another 
 son, Jonathan, the eldest, came over in 
 the Fortune in November, 1621.^^ Prob- 
 ably more than any other one person, 
 except Governor Bradford, he was the 
 mainstay of the feeble colony during the 
 tedious and terrible years until its perma- 
 nence and prosperity had become assured ; 
 
D 
 K 
 O 
 
 o 
 m 
 
 M 
 H 
 en 
 
Brewster and Bradford. 79 
 
 and the fact that he was seldom prominent 
 in connection with the civil government is 
 because, in the lack of a regular pastor, 
 for nearly nine years he performed some 
 of the duties of that office. He died on 
 April 26, 1644.^ He was a man of cul- 
 ture, travel, knowledge of the world, and 
 diplomatic experience, as well as of thor- 
 ough integrity and deep piety. In any 
 age and any conditions he would have 
 been a man of mark. 
 
 Another Pilgrim, something of whom is 
 known, is William Bradford. ^^ He was a 
 native of Austerfield. As early as 1575 
 William Bradford and John Hanson ap- 
 pear to have been the two foremost men in 
 the place. This Bradford had a son, Wil- 
 liam, and Hanson had a daughter, Alice. 
 These two were married June 21, 1584, 
 and became the parents of the future Pil- 
 grim. The date of his birth is unknown, 
 but probably it was early in 1589. It is 
 recorded that Rev. Henry Fletcher bap- 
 tized him <n St. Helen's church, March 
 
8o The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 19, 1589. The Leyden records declare 
 him to have been twenty-three in 161 3, 
 when he was married there on November 
 lo, but they are the more likely to be in- 
 exact. When he was about two years old 
 his father died, and his mother must have 
 passed away soon after. When the or- 
 phaned lad was only about six he also lost 
 his grandfather Bradford ; and two uncles, 
 Thomas and Richard Bradford, took charge 
 of him. They attempted to make him a 
 farmer. A severe illness early in his life 
 developed serious convictions within him, 
 and at about twelve years old the influence 
 of the Bible and of Rev. Richard Clifton, 
 for a short time the first pastor of the 
 Scrooby church, impressed him strongly, 
 and he soon became a Separatist and in 
 time a member of the Pilgrim church. 
 
 He was only eighteen or nineteen when, 
 with his religious companions, he emi- 
 grated to Holland. He inherited a little 
 property, and Hunter says that his family 
 seems to have been acquaintecl with the 
 
Brewster and Bradford. 8 1 
 
 best people socially in the vicinity of Aus- 
 terfield.i* He had the tastes of a student 
 and became somewhat accomplished as a 
 linguist, philosopher, and theologian. He 
 seems to have been a man of grave and 
 modest demeanor, but of unusual ver- 
 satility, good judgment, and executive 
 capacity, and, especially in view of the 
 conditions of his early life, of exceptional 
 culture. In Leyden he, too, shared the 
 common poverty of the company, and sup- 
 ported himself as a fustian worker. There, 
 on December lo, 1613, he married Dorothy 
 May, probably from Wisbeach, England, 
 who was drowned in Cape Cod Bay, De- 
 cember 17, 1620. On August 24, 1623, at 
 Plymouth in America, he married Mrs. 
 Alice Southworth. There is a tradition 
 that they had been lovers in their youth but 
 had been separated by the influence of her 
 parents. They had four children, John, 
 William, Mercy, and Joseph. After the 
 death of John Carver in April, 1621, he 
 became governor of the colony, and this 
 
82 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 office he held, excepting during five years 
 when his earnestly expressed desire to be 
 relieved of the office was granted, until 
 his death, which occurred May 19, 1657. 
 He appears to have been the writer of the 
 larger part of the record of the early expe- 
 riences of the Pilgrims in New England 
 known as Mourt's Relation, and his famous 
 History of Plymouth Plantations is of in- 
 tense interest as well as a standard source 
 of information to all students of Pilgrim 
 history. He also wrote three or four 
 minor works. 
 
 These men, together with John Robin- 
 son, were the leaders of the Pilgrims, espe- 
 cially during the earliest years of their 
 organic life. Brewster must have been 
 about twenty years the older, and in many 
 particulars the two were unlike, but there 
 were marked resemblances between them 
 apart from their common piety and pur- 
 pose. Each supplemented the other effec- 
 tively, and together they did a great work 
 for humanity and for Christ. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 JOHN ROBINSON. 
 
 "PEW records of its kind would be 
 -*- prized more highly now than that of 
 the organization of the Pilgrim church at 
 Scrooby, if it were in existence. Perhaps 
 there never was any upon paper. Even if 
 such a document otherwise would have 
 been felt to be necessary, the conse- 
 quences of its possible capture by the 
 ecclesiastical authorities would have been 
 so ruinous to the church that, if there 
 ever were one, it must have been care- 
 fully kept from public knowledge and 
 doubtless it was lost or destroyed at last. 
 We know where the church probably was 
 formed, who its earliest pastor was, and 
 the names of several of its lay members. 
 But who else were included in it, how 
 many there were in all, the precise date 
 
84 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 of its organization, and what simple cere- 
 monies were observed upon the occasion 
 — these facts never are likely to come 
 to light. 
 
 The original pastor was Rev. Richard 
 Clifton, who seems to have been a mem- 
 ber of the church in Gainsborough before 
 its division, already mentioned. Bradford 
 calls him " a grave and revered preacher, 
 who by his paines and diligens had done 
 much good, and under God had ben a 
 means of y' conversion of many." ^ But 
 he soon became the teacher of the Scrooby 
 church, John Robinson being chosen its 
 pastor and evidently with Clifton's cor- 
 dial assent, perhaps in part because of the 
 latter's advanced years.^ Up to the time 
 of the departure of the Pilgrims from 
 Holland to America, which will be de- 
 scribed in due order, Robinson not only 
 shared the preeminence of Brewster and 
 Bradford in the company, but also in some 
 respects was its chief member, and the 
 veneration of all for his signal ability and 
 
John Robinson. 85 
 
 exalted character endured unabated as 
 long as any of them survived. 
 
 Robinson ^ probably was born at Gains- 
 borough and about 1576. The registers of 
 Leyden University record that he was 
 thirty-nine when matriculated there on 
 September 5, 1615. Hunter says that 
 during the reign of Charles II certain 
 Robinsons were prominent among the 
 Separatists in Gainsborough,* and this fact 
 may supply a clew to his origin. But his 
 earliest appearance in the field of authen- 
 tic history is upon joining Corpus Christi, 
 or Benet, College at Cambridge when 
 about seventeen. At this period Puritan- 
 ism was so prevalent in Cambridge that 
 its existence apparently had to be toler- 
 ated temporarily, and Robinson, probably 
 already somewhat inclined in its favor, 
 was attracted gradually to accept its prin- 
 ciples. Nevertheless, after remaining in 
 Cambridge seven years and distinguishing 
 himself there sufficiently to be appointed 
 to a fellowship belonging to his college, 
 
86 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 he took orders in the State Church and 
 about 1600 he left Cambridge to enter 
 upon work as a clergyman. For the next 
 four years he labored in or near Norwich, 
 probably as a curate. 
 
 Whether he went thither accidentally, 
 or deliberately sought to go there because 
 of its acknowledged sympathy with Puri- 
 tanism, is unknown. In any case the 
 spiritual atmosphere of the region, which 
 had influenced Robert Browne and others 
 so powerfully, soon affected him control- 
 lingly. His Separatist convictions gained 
 strength by degrees and his expression of 
 them became more frank, until at last his 
 bishop, a sturdy foe of Puritanism, sus- 
 pended him. Of course he could not 
 officiate longer in Norwich, so about 1604 
 he left there, resigned his college fellow- 
 ship, severed his connection with the Es- 
 tablished Church, and went up to his 
 home in the North, apparently joining the 
 Congregational church in Gainsborough. 
 When a part of this church soon after- 
 
John Robinson. 87 
 
 wards accompanied its pastor, John Smyth, 
 into exile at Amsterdam, Robinson went 
 over to Scrooby with the remainder, and 
 there he passed the short balance of his 
 life in England as the successor of Clif- 
 ton, in the pastorate of what became the 
 Pilgrim church. 
 
 He must have assumed this ofRce with 
 a clear understanding of what it was likely 
 to cost him. Persecution, swift and se- 
 vere, was certain as soon as the action 
 of his companions and hiijiself should be- 
 come known to their rulers, and it over- 
 took them speedily. But by degrees and 
 in spite of obstacles which only the pro- 
 foundest faith and the stoutest courage 
 could have overcome, they also escaped 
 during 1607-8 to Amsterdam. It is 
 uncertain whether they there united again 
 with their former associates at Gainsbor- 
 ough or not, but there is evidence' that 
 they maintained a separate existence as a 
 church. At any rate it is recorded that 
 certain peculiar opinions held by Mr. 
 
88 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 Smyth bred trouble in his church, result- 
 ing in the exclusion of himself and some 
 of his followers, and that the cautious, 
 peaceable Robinson and his company 
 determined to seek another place of resi- 
 dence. 
 
 They therefore transferred themselves 
 to the neighboring city of Leyden, where 
 Robinson spent the remaining sixteen 
 years of his life and won and exerted 
 most of the influence which has made him 
 famous. In January, 1611, he joined 
 three of his friends — William Jepson, 
 Henry Wood, and Randall Thickins — in 
 the purchase of a house and garden on the 
 Klocksteeg, almost opposite St. Peter's, 
 the cathedral church, and only a block or 
 two from the university. They promised 
 to give for this estate eight thousand 
 gilders — as much as twelve thousand 
 dollars or more in our modern money ^ — 
 paying two thousand gilders down and 
 giving a mortgage for the balance with a 
 pledge of an annual payment of five 
 
Site of John Robinson's House in Levden. 
 House with arched door. 
 
John Robinson. 89 
 
 hundred gilders. Robinson's superior edu- 
 cation doubtless stood him in good stead 
 and he appears to have become able in 
 time to live with at least modest comfort. 
 But it cannot be inferred certainly from 
 his joining the other purchasers of the 
 estate just mentioned that he had accu- 
 mulated much property. It is much more 
 probable that he was not raised conspicu- 
 ously above what is known to have been 
 the poverty of most of his associates. He 
 may have become a partner in the pur- 
 chase merely in his ofificial capacity, the 
 others supplying most or the whole of 
 the funds. Indeed, it is very likely that 
 the whole company subscribed the money, 
 as the purchase seems to have been made 
 for the common benefit, and chose the 
 four whose names appear as a committee 
 to act in behalf of all. They took posses- 
 sion on May i, 1612, and the estate at 
 once became the headquarters of their 
 company.^ They soon built twenty-one 
 little houses in the garden so that a 
 
go The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 considerable number of them were enabled 
 to live together in a sort of colony. 
 Robinson and his family lived in the large 
 house, and they also used it as their place 
 of public worship. 
 
 Six years after settling in Leyden, 
 Robinson became a member, as a student 
 of theology,^ of its famous university, per- 
 haps in some such relation to it as that of 
 the modern post-graduate student. Why 
 he did not join it sooner can only be con- 
 jectured. But in 1615 he obtained the 
 necessary permission of the magistrates of 
 the city, was matriculated and at once 
 assumed its peculiar civil ^ as well as 
 intellectual privileges. In the university 
 circles he found congenial company and 
 his worth was recognized speedily. Before 
 very long a sharp theological controversy 
 broke out between the followers of Ar- 
 minius and the Old Calvinists, and, at the 
 urging of the latter, whose views he held, 
 he engaged several times, and with honor, 
 in public debate with Professor Episcopius. 
 
John Robinson. gi 
 
 He had adopted the then unusual course 
 of attending the lectures of the opposite 
 party, in order to understand both sides, 
 so that he was well qualified to argue 
 against it. 
 
 With the exception of this incident 
 little is known in detail of his career for 
 several years. We are only aware that he 
 was associated closely and tenderly with 
 his Pilgrim companions ; that he was their 
 faithful pastor and also their teacher, the 
 aged Clifton having remained in Amster- 
 dam ; that they regarded him as their best 
 friend and wisest adviser ; that his church 
 grew until it numbered about three hun- 
 dred communicants ; that he wrote and 
 published several books of a theological 
 or religious character; and that he cor- 
 responded with faithful Separatists who 
 had remained in England about the pos- 
 sibilities and prospects of Nonconformity. 
 When the practical question rose whether 
 the Pilgrims ought not to emigrate afresh 
 and to the new world across the Atlantic, 
 
92 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 he largely shaped their decision and for- 
 warded their departure. It was decided 
 that only a part of the company should 
 go at once, but that the others, the major- 
 ity, should follow in due time, and that 
 Robinson should remain with those who 
 at first stayed behind. On July 1 1, 1620, 
 the final decisions were made, and eleven 
 days later, on July 22, the emigrants set 
 sail in the Speedwell from Delfshaven. 
 Less than five years remained to him 
 and they were saddened by domestic 
 affliction. It is recorded that on February 
 7, 1621, "a child of the English preacher" 
 was buried in St. Peter's, and probably 
 this was one of his family. He is enrolled 
 in the city census as dwelling, on October 
 15, 1622, in the Groenport on the Klock- 
 steeg with his wife, Bridget, their chil- 
 dren, John, Bridget, Isaac, Mercy, Fear, 
 and James, and their servant, Mary Hardy. 
 Another and similar burial record, dated 
 March 27, 1623, indicates that a second 
 child of his then was interred in St. 
 
John Robinson. 93 
 
 Peter's. Upon March 4, 1625, he too was 
 buried somewhere therein, the pastors of 
 the various city churches and also repre- 
 sentatives of the university attending his 
 funeral. The sum paid for his burial, nine 
 florins, the largest sum then customarily 
 paid unless exceptional privileges were 
 granted, shows that probably he was in at 
 least comfortable circumstances when he 
 died. 
 
 He was a profoundly spiritual Christian 
 in an a^e when spirituality was rare. He 
 also was eminently genial and lovable. 
 He was a thorough, accurate scholar. 
 Bradford says of him : " He was never 
 satisfied in himself until he had searched 
 every cause or argument he had to deal in 
 to the bottom."^ He was cautious and 
 far-sighted in judgment and energetic 
 in action. In Brewster, Bradford, and 
 others he had able coadjutors, but he was 
 their acknowledged leader. Moreover, his 
 scholarship, his conscientious Calvinism, 
 and his forensic powers rendered him a 
 
94 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 champion in the broader field of the public 
 discussions of the time. He also was an 
 independent thinker, and, as we shall pres- 
 ently see, he taught and practiced a Con- 
 gregationalism almost as pure as that of 
 the apostolic churches. Yet in an age 
 conspicuous for bigotry he was a noble 
 example of tolerance. He insisted that 
 there were many true Christians in the 
 English Church and that Separatists 
 sometimes would do well to attend its 
 worship. 
 
 There are two opinions of his meaning 
 in his famous saying that " the Lord God 
 had more truth and light yet to breake 
 forth out of his Holy Word," but careful 
 study of its connection and circumstances 
 establishes the probability that it had ref- 
 erence to ecclesiastical polity rather than 
 to general spiritual enlightenment.'" In 
 either case it shows him to have been far 
 in advance of his age. He was one of 
 the comparatively few men in human 
 history whose character and work seem 
 
A ,0 
 
 
 RoBINSllN' MliMiiRIAl, TaBI.KT. 
 
John Robinson. 95 
 
 nobler the more they are studied, and 
 whose renown is certain to go on increas- 
 ing hereafter. His publications were eight 
 in number, all of which exist in modern 
 reprints. They are these : The Answer to 
 a Censorious Epistle (1608 or 1 609) ; A 
 Justification of Separation from the Church 
 of England (1610) ; Of Religious Com- 
 munion, Public and Private (1614) ; A 
 Treatise of the Lawfulness of Hearing of 
 the Ministers in the Church of England 
 (1634) [written 1623-25] ; A Defense of 
 the Doctrine Propounded by the Synode at 
 Dort (1624) ; The People' s Plea for the 
 Exercise of Prophesie ; Just and Necessarie 
 Apo logic (1625); Observations Divine and 
 Morall (1625). 
 
 It should be added that, in 1865, Pro- 
 fessor George E. Day, d.d., and the late 
 Dr. Henry M. Dexter caused to be inserted 
 in the wall of the house upon the site of 
 Robinson's home in Leyden a stone in- 
 scribed, " On this spot lived, taught, and 
 died John Robinson, 1611-1625"; and 
 
g6 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 that on July 24, 1891, a large bronze 
 tablet in his honor, affixed to the outside 
 of St. Peter's church, nearly opposite to 
 his house, was dedicated, having been 
 erected by the National Council of the 
 Congregational Churches of the United 
 States." 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 OTHER SCROOBY PILGRIMS AND THE 
 DECISION TO EMIGRATE. 
 
 A LLUSIONS exist to a few others 
 •^^^ who probably were members of the 
 Scrooby company, and in the lamentable 
 absence of full information they deserve 
 mention. Hunter states that Robert 
 Rochester and Richard Jackson,^ from 
 Scrooby, belonged to the Gainsborough 
 church and probably they helped to form 
 that at Scrooby. At any rate, they were 
 condemned with Brewster in August, 
 1608, by the Commissioners of Causes 
 Ecclesiastical for not obeying a sun^mons 
 to appear at the Collegiate Church, South- 
 well, and the three were fined ;£20 apiece.^ 
 Elizabeth Neal is likely to have been 
 another, for the Leyden records — which 
 declare her betrothal ^ to William Buck- 
 97 
 
98 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 ram on November 30, 161 1, and their 
 marriage on December 17 of the same 
 year — also note that she was from 
 Scrooby. Edward Southworth,* who, ac- 
 cording to Hunter, was from Basset Lawe, 
 the "hundred," or civil district, which 
 included Scrooby, apparently was a Pilgrim 
 who accompanied the others to Leyden 
 and died there, his widow Alice (Carpen- 
 ter) later, at Plymouth, Mass., becoming 
 the second wife of William Bradford. 
 
 Francis Jessop also, whose estate was 
 in Tilne, and who was of " a wealthy and 
 considerable family," probably was. one of 
 the Scrooby church. He had been mar- 
 ried to Frances White in Worksop^ near 
 by on January 24, 1605, and was admitted 
 to citizenship in Leyden on May 5, 1625. 
 But neither he nor any other of those 
 just mentioned, except Mrs. Southworth, 
 came to America. Doubtless many others 
 who were members of the Pilgrim body in 
 Leyden had come from Scrooby or its 
 vicinity, for it was a considerable company 
 
Other Scrooby Pilgrims. 99 
 
 which fled from England. Bradford says 
 that " a large companie of them purposed 
 to get passage at Boston " ^ and it is 
 recorded that the number of those who 
 subsequently received permission to settle 
 in Leyden, which evidently included most, 
 if not nearly the whole, of the company 
 from Scrooby, was "one hundred persons 
 or thereabouts." " But it is now impos- 
 sible to determine who the others were, 
 excepting perhaps George Morton, and 
 the evidence in his case is not complete. 
 A short distance northwest of Bawtry 
 there had lived for some generations, at the 
 least, a family named Morton. Hunter 
 quotes Sir Egerton Brydges as calling it 
 one of "the historical families" of Eng- 
 land. It had a fine estate, which now has 
 dwindled to a large farm, but which still 
 is so valuable that it changed hands in 
 1891 for ;^i50,ooo. Back in Roman Cath- 
 olic times one of this family endowed a 
 little chapel and an almshouse for a few 
 poor old women, which still stand close by 
 
lOO The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 the entrance to the grounds of Bawtry 
 Hall, yet actually in the next parish, and, 
 although no longer in the hands of Roman 
 Catholics, continue their useful services. 
 The Leyden records state that on August 
 2, 1612, one George Morton, a merchant, 
 who had come from York in England, was 
 married to Juliana Carpenter. There is 
 no absolute proof, but it probably is true 
 that he was one of this family of Mortons 
 and had grown up in the neighborhood of 
 the Pilgrims in England, and that, after 
 passing at York some time subseiquent 
 to their departure, he followed them to 
 .Leyden. There were other and humbler 
 Mortons in or near Austerfield, and he 
 may have been one of them, but he is 
 known to have been a man of so much 
 education and leadership that he is much 
 more likely to have come of the superior 
 stock. Moreover, just at this time one of 
 its representatives certainly bore his name, 
 and Hunter spfeaks of this one as "unac- 
 counted for," ^ which implies a large possi- 
 
Other Scrooby Pilgrims. loi 
 
 bility of his identity with his Pilgrim 
 namesake. At any rate, Morton became 
 prominent among them in Holland and 
 went to England several times in their 
 interest. He aided in completing the 
 arrangements for their voyage to America, 
 and intended to accompany them in the 
 Mayflower, but he remained for a time in 
 England, where he wrote the introduction 
 to and superintended the publication of 
 the work describing their early American 
 experiences, which, from his connection 
 with it, came to be called Mourt's Rela- 
 tion. He finally followed them with his 
 immediate family to Plymouth in 1623 in 
 the Anne and died in less than a year 
 thereafter, much respected and mourned.^ 
 These few facts seem to be all hitherto 
 ascertained about the Scrooby Pilgrims 
 personally. 
 
 It is difficult to form a completely trust- 
 worthy estimate of their means, their 
 social position, and the degrees of their 
 culture from such meager data as we 
 
I02 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 possess. It is not probable that any 
 member of the company, as it existed at 
 Scrooby, was of noble ancestry, unless 
 this may have been true of George Mor- 
 ton. But Clifton,^" Brewster, and Jessop, 
 at the least, appear to have belonged to 
 the gentry of the region. Evidently the 
 company included representatives of dif- 
 ferent ranks in society. Their subsequent 
 poverty and the humble character of the 
 occupations in which most of them en- 
 gaged after reaching Holland are easily 
 explained by the facts that in exiling them- 
 selves they must have been obliged, as 
 the rule, to sell what property they had in 
 England — so far as this could be done at 
 all — at a heavy sacrifice and probably by 
 stealth, and were forced to support them- 
 selves by any labor open to strangers 
 ignorant of the Dutch tongue and more 
 familiar with the care of land than with 
 manufacturing or trading. Probably most 
 of them were fairly well educated for the 
 times and moderately well off pecuni- 
 
Other Scrooby Pilgrims. 103 
 
 arily, and none but persons of sterling 
 character would have engaged in their 
 undertaking. 
 
 The story of their flight from their 
 English homes now must be told. As has 
 been suggested, their young church for a 
 short time probably escaped the hostility 
 of the authorities. But their tranquillity 
 did not endure long. The severities with 
 which other Separatists were treated soon 
 began to be visited upon them. The 
 state of things became so evil that Brad- 
 ford says : — 
 
 They could not long continue in any peaceable 
 condition, but were hunted & persecuted on every 
 side, so as their former afflictions were but as flea- 
 bitings in comparison of these which now came 
 upon them. For some were taken & clapt up in 
 prison, others had their houses besett & watcht 
 night and day, & hardly escaped their hands ; and 
 ys most were faine to flie & leave their howses & 
 habitations, and the meanes of their livelehood.n 
 
 This was intolerable. Evidently it was 
 only the renewal of previous persecutions 
 
I04 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 of which no specific record remains. 
 There could be but one outcome, and 
 Bradford adds : — 
 
 Seeing them selves thus molested, and that ther 
 was no hope of ther continuance ther, by a joynte 
 consente they resolved to goe into y= Low-Coun- 
 tries, wher they heard was freedom of Religion for 
 all men ; as also how sundrie from London, & other 
 parts of y« land, had been exiled and persecuted 
 for y= same, cause, & were gone thither, and lived 
 at Amsterdam, & in other places of y= land. So 
 affter they had continued togeither aboute a year, 
 and kept their meetings every Saboth in one place 
 or other, exercising the worship of God amongst 
 them selves, notwithstanding all y= dilligence & 
 malice of their adverssaries, they seeing they could 
 no longer continue in y' condition, they resolved to 
 get over into Hollad as they could.12 
 
 This would have been a serious under- 
 taking indeed, even if they had been per- 
 mitted to depart freely. Most of them 
 must have known Holland only by report. 
 There is no evidence that any one of them, 
 except Brewster, ever had been in or near 
 to that country or anywhere else out of 
 
Other Scrooby Pilgrims. 105 
 
 England. Its language and customs were 
 strange. It was a costly country in which 
 to live, and how they were to support 
 themselves they did not know. Few 
 among them can have been other than 
 farmers, and they must have been largely 
 unfamiliar with the Dutch methods in 
 agriculture, and, as they specially desired 
 to keep together as a body, it was impor- 
 tant for them to make their new homes in 
 some city or town and not to distribute 
 themselves at random wherever employ- 
 ment might be obtainable most readily. 
 Moreover, Holland was peculiarly exposed 
 to the miseries of war, being the object 
 of frequent invasions by the Spaniards. 
 It is easy to imagine how much weight 
 these objections must have had, how long 
 and anxiously they must have reflected 
 and compared convictions as to their duty, 
 and how reluctantly they must have de- 
 cided at last that they ought to depart. 
 The providence of God seemed to leave 
 them no other practicable alternative. In 
 
io6 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 Holland, whatever its disadvantages and 
 even perils might prove to be, they were 
 sure of attaining the one privilege for the 
 sake of which they were willing to surren- 
 der every other — freedom to worship God 
 in what they believed to be his own or- 
 dained way. Bradford says upon this 
 point : — 
 
 These things did not dismay them (though they 
 did some times trouble them) for their desires were 
 sett on ys ways of God, & to injoye his ordinances ; 
 but they rested on his providence, & Icnew whom 
 they had beleeved." 
 
 They had no pillar of cloud by day and 
 of fire by night to assure them that the 
 Almighty was watching over and guiding 
 them, but they went forth at last with 
 a reverent faith in him, which, perhaps, 
 was as firm as a direct command from 
 above could have rendered it. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE EMIGRATION TO HOLLAND. 
 
 A S has been explained, no practicable 
 ■^^- alternative remained to the Scrooby 
 church but to depart from England. As 
 Bradford puts it, they were "constrained 
 to leave their native soyle and countrie, 
 their lands & livings, and all their freinds 
 & famillier acquaintance." Yet, although 
 they could not stay, they were not allowed 
 to emigrate freely. The legal and ecclesi- 
 astical authorities interposed every pos- 
 sible hindrance, not hesitating to employ 
 trickery and even actual force. No de- 
 scription can be more suggestive than the 
 pathetic language which Bradford used 
 years afterwards when narrating their 
 experience : — 
 
 Though they could not stay, yet were ye not 
 suffered to goe, but y^ ports & havens were shut 
 107 
 
ids The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 against them, soe as they were faine to seeke 
 secrete means of conveance, & to bribe & fee ye 
 mariners, & give exterordinarie rates for their pas- 
 sages. And yet were they often times betrayed 
 (many of them), and both they & their goods 
 intercepted & surprised, and therby put to great 
 trouble & charge.' 
 
 For example, in 1607 a large number of 
 them hired a ship, intending to sail from 
 some place agreed upon but now unknown 
 near Boston on the Lincolnshire coast. 
 Of course it would not have been safe to 
 embark in the town. The master settled 
 with them upon the day and the place of 
 embarkation. But he failed to keep the 
 appointment and a long delay ensued, 
 which caused them heavy expense and 
 of course serious anxiety. At last he did 
 appear in the nighttime and took them 
 and their goods aboard, but only to betray 
 them. He had connived with the au- 
 thorities for their capture. The officers 
 promptly arrested them. They were put 
 into open boats and taken ashore, their 
 
The Emigration to Holland. 109 
 
 persons, even those of the women, being 
 searched with gross indignities. Stripped 
 of money, books, and much other property, 
 they were carried back into the town 
 through inquisitive crowds, taken before 
 the magistrates, and then imprisoned. 
 
 It is pleasant to be told that the magis- 
 trates " used them courteously, and shewed 
 them what favour they could," although 
 having no power to release them. The 
 case had to be laid before the lords of the 
 council, so settled was the policy of the 
 government not to allow even peaceable 
 and otherwise inoffensive persons to dis- 
 regard the statutes requiring conformity, 
 and, there being then neither telegraphs 
 nor the modern postal service, messengers 
 had to be employed, no matter how long 
 the accused remained in prison awaiting 
 trial. They were kept in jail for a whole 
 month and then, although their lordships 
 of the council dismissed the greater part 
 of them, seven of the leaders were con- 
 tinued in prison and bound over for 
 
no The Story of th^e Pilgrims. 
 
 further trial at the next assizes. Who 
 these seven were is not stated; but Brew- 
 ster was one,2 and there can be little doubt 
 that Robinson and Bradford also were 
 among them. It is stated that those set 
 at liberty were "sent to ye places from 
 whence they came." Probably they had 
 no other alternative but to return sadly 
 to Scrooby, or wherever else they had 
 lived, and try to resume their former life 
 as best they could, while waiting to see 
 what new hope the future might afford. 
 They were not daunted, however, and 
 in the spring of the next year, 1608, they 
 made another attempt. Their seven lead- 
 ers appear to have been again free. Ap- 
 parently distrusting their own country- 
 men, they this time engaged at Hull a 
 Dutch captain from Zeland. They told 
 him their pitiable history frankly, "hoping 
 to find more faithfullnes in him, then in 
 ye former of their owne nation," and he 
 promised to be loyal to them. Between 
 Grimsby and Hull, on the bay formed by 
 
The Emigration to Holland. 1 1 1 
 
 the mouth of the Humber, they knew of 
 a lonely stretch of shore, " a large comone 
 a good way distante from any towne." 
 There this captain agreed to meet and 
 embark them. Thither, therefore, they 
 sent the women and children the previous 
 day in a small vessel, the men planning 
 to follow by land. The little vessel with 
 its precious load reached the rendezvous, 
 but the roughness of the sea had made the 
 passengers ill, so that the vessel was run 
 for shelter into a small creek, where she 
 grounded at low tide. The next morning 
 the Dutch captain appeared, as agreed, 
 but the transfer of passengers could not 
 be made until high tide, about noon. 
 
 Meanwhile the men of the company 
 came. The shipmaster sent his boats to 
 embark them, but as soon as the first boat- 
 load had been shipped the work had to 
 be abandoned. There appeared "a greate 
 company, both horse & foote, with bills & 
 gunes, & other weapons ; for ye countrie 
 viras raised to take them." Whether the 
 
1 1 2 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 emigrants had been watched constantly 
 by spies, or their renewed disappearance 
 from home had been detected at once, or 
 their progress through the country to the 
 coast, which must have been slow and 
 impossible to be wholly concealed, had 
 attracted notice, is matter of conjecture. 
 It is remarkable, not that they were dis- 
 covered and pursued, but that they so 
 nearly escaped. The Dutchman "swore 
 his countries oath ' sacremente,' " and 
 having a fair wind made sail at once, and 
 was not to blame for so doing, inasmuch 
 as his remaining could not have benefited 
 the emigrants and doubtless would have 
 involved him personally in serious con- 
 sequences — probably his own imprison- 
 ment and the loss of his ship. 
 
 The plight of the Pilgrims was pitiable 
 indeed. The few men who had succeeded 
 in embarking, of whom Bradford evidently 
 was one, were compelled to leave their 
 families and companions visibly doomed 
 to arrest and renewed persecution. More- 
 
The Emigration to Holland. 113 
 
 over, most of their money and clothing 
 for the voyage, together with what other 
 little property they had, was on the smaller 
 vessel with the women and children. 
 They sailed away, not only in distress and 
 fear for those left behind, but also in great 
 bodily discomfort, " not having a cloath to 
 shifte them with, more then they had on 
 their baks, & some scarce a peney aboute 
 them, al] they had being abord ye barke." 
 To make matters worse they at once en- 
 countered a heavy gale. For seven days 
 " they neither saw son, moone, nor stars," 
 They were driven almost to the coast of 
 Norway and barely escaped foundering, 
 the ship actually once being given up for 
 lost by her crew, who abandoned them- 
 selves to despair and disorder, and her 
 escape seeming to them, by the record, 
 hardly less than a miracle. The voyage, 
 which was expected to occupy not over 
 two or three days, lasted for two whole 
 weeks, but at last they reached their des- 
 tined port in safety. The length and 
 
1 14 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 severity of the storm had been phenom- 
 enal. It had done great damage generally 
 and their arrival in port caused much 
 popular astonishment at their survival. 
 
 As for those left behind, all the men, 
 except as many as were believed necessary 
 to assist the women and children, pru- 
 dently scattered and escaped. The others 
 of the company were arrested at once in 
 a condition of mind and body easier to be 
 imagined than borne. The artless record 
 is significant : — 
 
 But pitifull it was to see ye heavie case of these 
 poore women in this distress ; what weeping & cry- 
 ing on every side, some for their husbands, that 
 were caried away in y^ ship as is before related ; 
 others not knowing what should become of them, 
 & their litle ones ; others againe melted in teares, 
 seeing their poore litle ones aboute them, crying 
 for feare, and qualcing with could. 
 
 They proved a burden to their captors 
 after all. Says Bradford : — 
 
 They were hurried from one place to another, 
 and from one justice to another, till in ye ende they 
 
The Emigration to Holland. 1 1 5 
 
 knew not what to doe with them ; for to imprison 
 so many women & innocent children for no other 
 cause (many of them) but that they must goe with 
 their husbands, semed to be unreasonable and all 
 would crie out of them ; and to send them home 
 againe was as difficult, for they aledged, as y<= trueth 
 was, they had no homes to goe to, for they had 
 either sould, or otherwise disposed of their houses 
 & livings. To be shorte, after they had been thus 
 turmoyled a good while, and convened from one 
 constable to another, they were glad to be ridd of 
 them in y= end upon any termes ; for all were 
 wearied & tired with them. Though in y^ mean 
 time they (poore soules) indured miserie enough ; 
 and thus in ye end necessitie forste a way for them. 
 
 There may have been some popular 
 sympathy with them in the Lincolnshire 
 region. Certainly some of the local au- 
 thorities were disinclined to treat them 
 with extreme severity. Possibly the 
 harshness shown them had overreached 
 itself and had awakened compassion for 
 them. Probably it was due chiefly to 
 orders and superior officials sent from 
 London, whom the people of the region 
 
ii6 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 did not dare to oppose, yet did not heartily 
 approve. In any case, however, the suf- 
 erings of the Pilgrims were grievous. 
 Yet the hand of God was in that which 
 befell them, overruling it for good. A 
 fitting close of the story is found in these 
 further words of Bradford : — 
 
 Yet I may not omitte y^ fruite that came hearby, 
 for by these .so publick troubls, in so many eminente 
 places, their cause became famouss, & occasioned 
 many to looke into ye same ; and their godly car- 
 iage & Christian behaviour was such as left a deep 
 impression in the minds of many. And though 
 some few shrunk at these first conflicts & sharp 
 beginings (as it was no marvel,) yet many more 
 came on with fresh courage, & greatly animated 
 others. 
 
 It must be remembered that these are 
 only two of the bitter experiences which 
 the Pilgrims underwent in their endeavor 
 to escape from England. But, as Brad- 
 ford adds : — 
 
 In y' end, notwithstanding all these stormes of 
 oppossition, they all gatt over at length, some at 
 
The Emigration to Holland. 117 
 
 one time & some at an other, and some in one place 
 & some in an other, and mette togeather againe 
 according to their desires, with no small rejoycing. 
 
 Robinson, Brewster, and other principal 
 members, it is recorded, were among the 
 last to go, having^tayed to help the weaker 
 ones off before departing themselves. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 IN AMSTERDAM. 
 
 T TPON reaching Holland the Pilgrims 
 ^^ naturally made Amsterdam their 
 home at first, partly, probably, because in 
 so large a city they seemed likely to find 
 occupation most readily and partly because 
 they already had friends there who also 
 sympathized with their religious convic- 
 tions. There were English Congrega- 
 tionalists there before them. Our story 
 primarily is that of the Pilgrims,, but at 
 this point, in order to understand the situ- 
 ation as they found it, it is necessary to 
 consider briefly some facts in the history 
 of these other Congregationalists who had 
 preceded them thither. 
 
 Before his martyrdom John Penry ad- 
 vised his London associates to emigrate.^ 
 
 Afterwards the English government per- 
 ns 
 
In Amsterdam. 119 
 
 ceived that it had gone too far and that 
 a wiser policy would permit the Separatists 
 to leave the country. Indeed, it appar- 
 ently released some from jail upon condi- 
 tion of emigration.^ This spasm of official 
 good sense did not last long, but some 
 advantage was taken of it. In the year of 
 Penry's death, 1593, a few of the London 
 Brownists fled to Holland and soon estab- 
 lished themselves in Amsterdam.^ Others 
 followed, and by the end of 1595 there 
 were several hundreds. They were so 
 poor as to be aided by the city and by 
 friends in England. They maintained 
 their worship ; and apparently their pastor, 
 Francis Johnson, with their elders, joined 
 them, in 1597, Henry Ainsworth previously 
 having become their teacher. 
 
 Johnson,* born about 1562, probably at 
 Richmond, in Yorkshire, and his brother 
 George, two years younger, were Cam- 
 bridge graduates and he was a Fellow of 
 Christ's College. In 1588 he declared 
 himself a Presbyterian and was impris- 
 
1 20 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 oned. He soon recanted, but not satis- 
 factorily. He was expelled from the uni- 
 versity in 1589, evidently because of his 
 beliefs, was again imprisoned, and upon 
 release went to Middleburgh in Zeland 
 and became pastor of a church of English 
 merchants. In 1591 a book by Barrowe 
 and Greenwood, the Plaine Refvtation of 
 M. GiffariTs Booke, etc., — after he had 
 complained of it in behalf of the English 
 ambassador and had caused all but two 
 copies to be burned, — converted him to 
 its views. Resigning, he went to London, 
 visited Barrowe in the Fleet Prison, and 
 joined the new Congregational church in 
 1 592, becoming its pastor. On December 
 5, he too was imprisoned. During his 
 imprisonment a little treatise, A True Con- 
 fession of the Faith, etc., was published, 
 the authorship of which he shared. His 
 brother George was his fellow believer and 
 also was shut up for preaching. After 
 part of the church had gone to Holland 
 troubles arose among those left in London. 
 
In Amsterdam. 121 
 
 Francis Johnson, while in prison, married 
 a widow whose manner of dress gave 
 offense and caused differences between 
 the brothers themselves and disturbed 
 some of their followers. In 1597 the 
 Johnsons were released that they might 
 emigrate to Rainea, one of the Magdalen 
 Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. But 
 the expedition failed, and in September, 
 with most of their companions, they were 
 in Amsterdam with their predecessors. 
 
 The church — although apparently a 
 portion of its membership still remained 
 in London — thus became complete in 
 organization again, its officers being Fran- 
 cis Johnson, pastor; Henry Ainsworth, 
 teacher ; Daniel Studley, George Knyve- 
 ton, and M. Slade, elders; and Christo- 
 pher Bowman, deacon.^ The disagreement 
 about Mrs. Johnson's apparel revived. 
 George Johnson opposed his brother, sev- 
 eral angry church meetings were held, and 
 the issue became involved with ecclesiasti- 
 cal questions, The father of the John- 
 
122 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 sons went to Amsterdam hoping to recon- 
 cile them, but at last both he and his son 
 George were excommunicated. Meanwhile 
 Francis Johnson had published two trea- 
 tises, one original, the other a reissue of 
 that by Barrowe and Greenwood which he 
 formerly had caused to be burned. Some 
 discussion about church principles also 
 had been held with Dutch theologians and 
 a deputation and a petition had been sent 
 vainly to King James after his accession 
 for leave to return to England. Moreover, 
 one Thomas White with a few companions 
 from the west of England also had joined 
 them for a time, later forming a church of 
 their own.^ 
 
 At about this point, in 1686, the Gains- 
 borough emigrants, headed by John Smyth, 
 appeared in Amsterdam.' Smyth also was 
 a Cambridge graduate, of Christ's College, 
 in 1575-76, and became a Fellow in 1579.^ 
 Ten years later he advocated so strict a 
 Sabbath-keeping that he was cited before 
 the university authorities. Later he was 
 
In Amsterdam. 123 
 
 preacher to the city of Lincoln. He 
 studied the question of leaving the State 
 Church nine months and held a public dis- 
 putation about it before withdrawing. In 
 1602 he gathered the Congregational 
 church in Gainsborough, which has been 
 mentioned already, and in 1606 the major- 
 ity of this body under his lead went over 
 to Amsterdam. Here they probably did 
 not unite with Johnson's church but main- 
 tained an independent though at first not 
 unfriendly existence.^ Smyth was an able 
 scholar and preacher, and he had some 
 medical knowledge and was very kind to 
 the poor, but he often was injudicious and 
 must have been an extremist in his 
 opinions and dogmatic and sometimes 
 intolerant in urging them. He soon began 
 to advocate a somewhat new form of 
 Congregationalism and published several 
 treatises criticizing Johnson's church for 
 its errors. Several of his charges were 
 trivial, but one point, that the Scriptures 
 declare the offices of pastor, teacher, and 
 
124 ■^'^^ Stofy of the Pilgrims. 
 
 elder to be not three and different but one 
 and the same, was an important step toward 
 the modern theory. ^° 
 
 Thus there appear to have been two 
 Congregational churches in Amsterdam by 
 1608, having Francis Johnson and Smyth 
 for their respective pastors. A third, 
 of which White perhaps was pastor, also 
 may still have been in existence, although 
 its life evidently was brief. The two 
 other churches formed by the expulsion 
 of Smyth and the secession of Ains- 
 worth had not then come into being. 
 This sketch of the fortunes of the London 
 and Gainsborough churches shows that 
 there were foolish men as well as wise 
 among the earlier emigrants, and that 
 some who ought to have been among the 
 wisest occasionally rivaled the folly of the 
 most foolish. Too much heed was given 
 to trifles, and in vital matters there was 
 too little of a conciliatory and fraternal 
 temper. Most of them were very poor 
 and socially they must have been obscure. 
 
In Amsterdam. 125 
 
 They had managed to exist, but hardly 
 can be said to have prospered. Yet they 
 had secured religious freedom and had 
 practiced Congregationalism as they un- 
 derstood it. It is gratifying to know, 
 also, that, after the absurd disputes about 
 Mrs. Johnson's clothes had been settled 
 and after Smyth and his followers had 
 seceded, Francis Johnson's church enjoyed 
 a short period of real prosperity. Brad- 
 ford, forty years later, wrote : — 
 
 If you had seen them in their beauty and order, 
 as we have done, you would have been much 
 affected therewith, we dare say. At Amsterdam, 
 before their division and breach [apparently subse- 
 quent to what has been mentioned], they were 
 about three hundred communicants." 
 
 But all too soon new trouble arose, this 
 time in Smyth's church. He conceived 
 that valid baptism involves the intelligent 
 assent of the subject of the rite. So he 
 reorganized his church, limiting its mem- 
 bership to consenting adults. He did not 
 insist upon immersion, however, but prac- 
 
126 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 ticed affusion, and, nobody being obtain- 
 able to administer the rite who, on his 
 theory, had been properly baptized, he re- 
 baptized first himself and then his asso- 
 ciate pastor, Helwys, and the others.^ 
 We need not follow their fortunes. Brad- 
 ford sums up the case by saying that they 
 " (for ye most part) buried them selves 
 & their names." 
 
 To the Pilgrim body the existing condi- 
 tion naturally was uninviting. There is 
 some doubt whether they united them- 
 selves with Johnson's company, but it is 
 probable that they kept themselves apart 
 as a church. ^^ They remained in Amster- 
 dam about a year, but in six months, per- 
 ceiving that to stay there must involve 
 them in the disagreements of their prede- 
 cessors,^* from which their peace-loving 
 disposition repelled them, they determined 
 to make another remove. They asked and 
 received official permission to settle in 
 Leyden,^® and by midsummer the transfer 
 was made. Apparently not above six 
 
In Amsterdam. 127 
 
 months more passed before Johnson's 
 church was rent again by grave differences 
 and the outcome was the secession of 
 Ainsworth and others, who formed a 
 church of their own almost next door to 
 that abandoned. 1* 
 
 Ainsworth ^' personally was a learned, 
 godly man, one of the best of the early 
 Congregationalists. He was a native of 
 Swanton Morley, Norfolk, England, in 
 1570, studied at St. John's College and 
 later at Gonville and Caius College, Cam- 
 bridge, perhaps spent some time in Ire- 
 land, and was in Amsterdam in 1593, 
 probably as a bookseller's porter. He 
 was an expert linguist. ^^ In 1596 he 
 became the teacher in Johnson s church. 
 He was, probably with Johnson, the author 
 of the True Confession of Faith of the 
 People Called Brownists, and he wrote not 
 less than twenty-eight other publications.^^ 
 In 1610, as the outcome of a difference 
 between himself and Johnson, Ainsworth 
 claiming that the power of excommunica- 
 
1 28 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 tion rests with the whole church and 
 Johnson that it belongs to the church 
 ofificers only, he and others withdrew. 
 The Leyden church was called upon for 
 advice, but its suggestions seem to have 
 been disregarded. Johnson and his adher- 
 ents excommunicated Ainsworth and his 
 followers, and a lawsuit for the possession 
 of the church building occupied by the 
 former ensued, which appears to have been 
 won by the latter. Smyth having died in 
 1612, his later followers joined a Dutch 
 church, and the other members of his 
 original church having returned to Eng- 
 land, and White's little company also hav- 
 ing disappeared, Ainsworth's church thus 
 finally became the sole representative of 
 Separatism in the city, at any rate for a 
 time, Johnson also with his friends remov- 
 ing elsewhere.^ 
 
 The history of these Amsterdam Con- 
 gregationalists is sad and even shameful, 
 but it throws into the more bold relief the 
 harmony and wisdom which the Scrooby 
 
In Amsterdam. 129 
 
 Pilgrims illustrated. From all such scan- 
 dals their record was wholly free. It is 
 worth noting here that the visitor to mod- 
 ern Amsterdam may see in a narrow lane 
 called Bruingang (Brown Alley), leading 
 from the Bamdesteeg, a venerable building 
 upon the site where one of the Brownist 
 congregations worshiped. Which church 
 this was is not now known, but the history 
 of the spot identifies it with one of them. 
 Robinson and his associates may not have 
 worshiped there, but the spot must have 
 been familiar to them. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 IN LEYDEN. 
 
 \T THEN the Pilgrims were planning 
 • ' to abandon Amsterdam as a resi- 
 dence, Leyden, which then contained 
 nearly or quite 100,000 people, was, in the 
 words of Bradford, "a fair & bewtifull 
 citie, and of a sweet situation, but made 
 more famous by ye universitie wherwith it 
 is adorned, in which of late had been so 
 many learned men." Their first step was 
 to obtain leave to settle there and the. 
 Leyden records state that "John Robin- 
 son " — Jan Robartse the Dutch wrote his 
 name — " minister of the Divine Word, 
 and some of the members of the Chris- 
 tian Reformed Religion born in the king- 
 dom of Great Britain, to the number of 
 one hundred persons, or thereabouts, men 
 and women," petitioned the Leyden mag- 
 
 180 
 
In Ley den. 131 
 
 istrates for permission to remove to that 
 city "by the ist May next and to have 
 the freedom thereof in carrying on their 
 trades without being a burden in the least 
 to any one." This is undated, but the 
 official response was recorded on February 
 12, 1609, and runs thus : — 
 
 The Court, in making a disposition of this pres- 
 ent memorial, declare that they refuse no honest 
 persons free ingress to come and have their resi- 
 dence in this city, provided that such persons 
 behave themselves, and submit to the laws and 
 ordinances ; and therefore the coming of the me- 
 morialists will be agreeable and welcome.' 
 
 By midsummer they had availed them- 
 selves of this permission. 
 
 It is not known in what part of the city 
 they settled at first, but it has been con- 
 jectured that they probably found homes 
 upon what was then its newer border, near 
 its northwest limit, in St. Ursula Street 
 and the vicinity. But the city, " wanting 
 that traffike by sea which Amsterdam en- 
 joys, it was not so beneficiall for their out- 
 
132 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 ward means of living & estats." They did 
 not lose heart, however. " Being now hear 
 pitchet they fell to such trads & imploy- 
 ments as they best could." As has been 
 said, Brewster taught English and later 
 set up a printing press.^ Edward Wins- 
 low, who first joined them here, also was 
 a printer. George Morton, Samuel Buttfcr, 
 John Jennings, and Edward Pickering 
 became merchants, doubtless in a small 
 way. Most of the others were compelled 
 to and, indeed, in view of their different 
 training were only fit for humbler labors, 
 and they were employed variously. Ed- 
 mund Jessop and Henry Collins made 
 bombazine. William Bradford, Samuel 
 Fuller, Edward Southworth, and Roger 
 Wilson were fustian workers, fustian being 
 a kind of serge. Cuthbert Cuthbertson 
 and Samuel Lee made hats. Robert 
 Cushman and Richard Masterson combed 
 or carded wool, and William Bassett sup- 
 ported himself as a hod carrier. Others 
 were weavers of baize, carpenters, masons. 
 
In Ley den. 133 
 
 twine spinners, makers of pipes, gloves, 
 candles, blocks, clocks, pumps, or cabinets, 
 or stocking weavers, bakers, brewers, 
 coopers, or tailors.^ " At length they 
 came to raise a competente & comforteable 
 living, but with hard and continuall labor." 
 Thus they went on for eleven years, 
 "in joying much sweete & delightefull 
 societie & spirituall comforte togeather in 
 y' wayes of God." It is not known where 
 they worshiped during the first two years, 
 but after they had received possession of 
 the estate on the Klocksteeg already de- 
 scribed,* on May i, 161 2, they appear to 
 have held their services there.^ Here they 
 were joined by others from England, " so 
 as they grew a great congregation," num- 
 bering at last nearly or quite three hun- 
 dred. Their history as a church is not 
 recorded in detail. They " lived togeather 
 in peace, & love, and holines." That occa- 
 sional friction, due to natural human im- 
 perfection, occurred is implied in Brad- 
 ford's language : — 
 
134 l"^^ Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 If at any time any differences arose, or offences 
 broak out (as it cannot be, but some time ther will, 
 even amongst ye best of men) they were ever so 
 mete with, & nipt in y^ head betims, or otherwise 
 so well composed, as still love, peace, and com- 
 munion was continued ; or els y= church purged of 
 those that were incurable & incorrigible, when after 
 much patience used, no other means would serve, 
 which seldom came to pass.^ 
 
 But these words also show how rarely and 
 how little their spiritual peace and growth 
 were thus disturbed. 
 
 Furthermore, they never lost their good 
 outward repute. Bradford declares in 
 reply to certain " slanders against them," 
 uttered evidently by English enemies, that 
 
 First though many of them weer poore, yet ther 
 was none so poore, but if they were known to be 
 of yt congregation, the Dutch (either bakers or 
 others) would trust them in any reasonable matter 
 when yey wanted money. Because they had found 
 by experience how carfull they were to keep their 
 word, and saw them so painfull & dilligente in 
 their callings ; yea, they would strive to gett their 
 
In Leyden. 135 
 
 custome, and to imploy them above others, in 
 their worke, for their honestie & dilligence. 
 
 Againe ; y« magistrats of y= citie, aboute ye time 
 of their coming away, or a litle before, in y* publick 
 place of justice, gave this comendable testemoney 
 of them, in y= reproofe of the Wallons, who were 
 of ye French church in y' citie. These English, 
 said they, have lived amongst us now this 12. years, 
 and yet we never had any sute or accusation came 
 against any of them ; but your strifs & quarrels 
 are continually 
 
 During these laborious and severe yet 
 comparatively tranquil years, they enjoyed 
 the religious freedom which they had fled 
 from England to obtain. Most of them, 
 however, remained poor and obscure. 
 William Bradford, Isaac Allerton, Digory 
 Priest, Thomas Rogers, Thomas Tinker, 
 and John Turner, who came in the May- 
 flower, and Edmund Chandler, Henry 
 Colet, Christopher Ellis, Abraham Grey, 
 William Jepson, and John Keble, who 
 remained in Leyden, were admitted to 
 citizenship before the emigration, and 
 Francis Jessop, Stephen Butterfield, and 
 
136 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 Henry Jepson afterwards.* It may have 
 been true of Robinson, for on September 
 5, 161 5, he was matriculated as a mem- 
 ber of the university, which secured him 
 some special civil privileges. Thomas 
 Brewer had been similarly admitted to the 
 university on February 17 of the same 
 year, and John Greenwood also was ma- 
 triculated in 1625. But matriculation may 
 not have involved actual citizenship then 
 any more than it now does at Yale or 
 Harvard. 
 
 Almost the sole evidence of the emer- 
 gence of any one of the company into 
 publicity is the invitation, pressed upon 
 Robinson and at last accepted by him, 
 from Professor Poliander to defend Cal- 
 vinism in public debate with Professor 
 Episcopius. Public feeling in theological 
 circles, which were relatively wider than 
 they are now, ran very high just at this 
 time upon the subject, and political con- 
 siderations seem to have been more or less 
 involved. This task Robinson performed 
 
In Ley den. 137 
 
 with evident reluctance. " He was loath, 
 being a stranger," — clearly he had not 
 become widely known in the city, — but 
 yielded, being told "that ye truth would 
 suffer if he did not help them." When 
 the day came, says Bradford, whose testi- 
 mony, although naturally disposed to be 
 favorable, there is no reason to dispute 
 and which Edward Winslow indorsed,® 
 
 The Lord did so help him to defend ye truth & 
 foyle this adversarie, as he put him to an apparent 
 nonplus, in this great & publike audience. And y= 
 like he did a 2. or 3. time, upon such like occasions. 
 The which as it caused many to praise God y' the 
 trueth had so famous victory, so it procured him 
 much honour & respecte from those lerned men & 
 others which loved y^ trueth." 
 
 But there is no evidence that Bradford 
 or Brewster or any others who later be- 
 came prominent in America were in any 
 way conspicuous in Leyden except in their 
 own body. The welcome and the treatment 
 which the Pilgrims received in Holland, 
 and the impression made by them, can be 
 
138 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 understood best by imagining a parallel 
 case to-day. Suppose a company of Hol- 
 landers, for instance, mostly of little more 
 than local importance at home, but intel- 
 ligent, industrious, religious, and desirous 
 of greater liberty in belief and worship, to 
 petition the authorities of an American 
 city for leave to settle therein. They 
 would receive a favorable reply similar 
 in formality and courtesy to that given 
 the Pilgrims. Suppose them, upon ar- 
 rival, to find what employment they 
 could, to win a good name among their 
 neighbors and employers for integrity and 
 diligence and, in the course of a dozen 
 years, with the civil authorities for their 
 orderliness. Suppose twelve or fourteen 
 of them to become voters in due time, 
 and two or three of the best educated to 
 join the local university, one of these, 
 the pastor of the body, proving an able 
 debater and finally gaining a good rep- 
 utation in public discussion, most of his 
 companions still and always remaining 
 
In Leyden. 1 39 
 
 plain, humble, and useful but obscure 
 working people. 
 
 This imaginary case would be a precise 
 reproduction of that of the Pilgrims in 
 Holland. It is probably a mistake to 
 suppose that as a body they ever attracted 
 much attention in Leyden. The perils 
 of the times, which led public author- 
 ities to keep well informed concerning all 
 classes of the population, doubtless caused 
 the Pilgrims and their doings to be known 
 to the magistrates officially, and their 
 immediate neighbors, their employers, and 
 others of course had more or less to do 
 with them ; but probably much the larger 
 part of the population, including most of 
 the leaders in business and society, knew 
 little or nothing of their presence. 
 
 The Leyden of to-day, quite as truly as 
 the modern Scrooby and its vicinity, looks 
 substantially as it did in the time of the 
 Pilgrims. The Old and the New Rhines 
 flow through it in their ancient channels 
 and with the same lazy currents and are 
 
140 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 thronged with craft of the same clumsy 
 shapes, and the numerous canals which 
 intersect it and have given it its familiar 
 title, " the Venice of the North," and the 
 one hundred and fifty bridges which cross 
 them, are the same as then. So, too, is 
 the Burg, the low hill at the junction of 
 the two Rhines, thrown up by human 
 hands centuries ago to support the little 
 castle which once crowned its summit, the 
 only such mound within miles. The cathe- 
 dral church, St. Peter's, and its almost 
 equally stately companion, St. Pancras 
 and St. Mary's, as well as the quaint and 
 dignified city hall and the university, 
 are essentially unaltered in appearance. 
 Moreover, the general impression made by 
 the architecture of the ordinary houses, 
 and the low, flat, fertile country which 
 surrounds the city, must be just what 
 it was when they were there. A row 
 of little dwellings which used to nestle 
 against the wall of St. Peter's, opposite 
 to their estate on the Klocksteeg, has 
 
In Ley den. 14 1 
 
 been torn down, and other houses else- 
 where have been removed or rebuilt, and 
 there are larger windows in the shops 
 and occasional horse-cars in a few of the 
 streets. But many of the women still 
 wear the picturesque provincial costumes 
 formerly worn, and no violent effort of 
 the imagination is demanded in order to 
 revive the look of things as the Pilgrims 
 saw them. No student of the past can 
 fail to be grateful that all this is true. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONGREGA- 
 TIONALISM. 
 
 TT is now well to pause in the study 0f 
 the personal history of the Pilgrims 
 long enough to observe the gradual de- 
 velopment of Congregationalism up to 
 their departure from Holland to America. 
 Several successive phases have been noted 
 which deserve to be explained and com- 
 pared a little more definitely. 
 
 The first was Brownism.^ Robert 
 Browne taught not only separation from 
 the State Church but also the absolute 
 independence of each local church, as well 
 as the fellowship of these severally inde- 
 pendent churches. Church authority, he 
 held, rests purely in the lordship of Christ 
 over each such local body of believers. 
 Its individual members are to interpret, 
 
 142 
 
Development of Congregationalism. 143 
 
 exercise, and submit to the laws which he 
 has declared. Christ is absolute monarch 
 over his churches, the individual members 
 of which are his vicegerents. This sys- 
 tem is practically an absolute monarchy, 
 but Christ is its only sovereign and on 
 earth it is indistinguishable in its results 
 from a pure democracy. It includes among 
 officers of a church not only a pastor, a 
 teacher, deacons, relievers, and widows, 
 but also elders, and it was in connection 
 with the eldership that new developments 
 occurred. 
 
 The second phase was Barrowism. 
 Henry Barrowe accepted Browne's prin- 
 ciple of the independency of the local 
 church. But he tried to combine with it 
 — apparently distrusting the competence 
 of ordinary church members to manage 
 religious matters, even under the guidance 
 of the Holy Spirit — the theory of the 
 eldership which Thomas Cartwright, the 
 Presbyterian, had advocated. The result 
 was to create Congregational churches 
 
144 ^-^^ Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 governed by Presbyterian boards of elders, 
 an anomalous and illogical combination. 
 As the incongruity between these prin- 
 ciples became evident in practice, two 
 forms of Barrowism grew up. 
 
 One, the third phase, may be called 
 Johnsonism, because Francis Johnson was 
 its prominent exponent. It also has been 
 termed High-Church Barrowism. Accept- 
 ing the independence of each local church, 
 it nevertheless insisted upon the right of 
 the body of elders to rule in the church. 
 It withdrew from the other members, 
 after they had elected their elders, all 
 rights except to submit obediently to the 
 decrees of the elders, and, when once 
 elders had been chosen, it gave to them 
 superior power in naming those who should 
 be added to their own number. It was 
 not true Congregationalism. 
 
 The other form, the fourth phase, may 
 be termed Ainsworthism, because Henry 
 Ainsworth urged it. It also has been 
 called Low-Church Barrowism. It differed 
 
Development of Congregationalism. 145 
 
 from Johnsonism in that it required the 
 elders to act in harmony with, and recog- 
 nizing the coequal rights of, the other 
 church members, and not as a superior 
 and ruling body. It held the decisions of 
 the elders to be valid only after indorse- 
 ment by the other members of a church. 
 This was more like, but even this was not, 
 actual Congregationalism. 
 
 The fifth phase was that taught and prac- 
 ticed by John Robinson and the Pilgrim 
 church. It may be called Robinsonism 
 or Broad-Church Barrowism. It was an 
 advance upon Ainsworth's teachings in 
 respect to the eldership. The Leyden 
 church seems never to have had more 
 than one elder,^ William Brewster, and 
 after he had gone to America it apparently 
 never filled the eldership thus left vacant. 
 Although the office was not abolished for- 
 mally, it practically ceased to exist in that 
 church. Moreover, the theory of the 
 church — the same theory which the Pil- 
 grims acted upon after reaching America 
 
146 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 — was that the elders are neither the 
 church nor the rulers of the church, but 
 merely its moral advisers and leaders. It 
 differed from Ainsworthism less in form 
 than in substance, but the difference, 
 which lay in the fact that it reduced the 
 distinction between elders and their fellow 
 church members to the lowest possible 
 terms, was of the utmost practical sig- 
 nificance. 
 
 Robinsonism also was an advance upon 
 even Ainsworthism in that it recognized 
 more distinctly the genuineness of churches 
 otherwise organized and in a guarded way 
 permitted and justified communion with 
 them. In his early life, and even while he 
 held the Church of England to be no 
 longer a true church, Robinson gladly 
 conceded that it included many true Chris- 
 tians and that conscientious Separatists 
 properly might unite with them in private, 
 unofficial worship. Later he granted the 
 propriety of " hearing the godly Ministers 
 preach and pray in the publick Assem- 
 
Development of Congregationalism. 147 
 
 blies " of that church, and he also favored 
 communion and exchange of members 
 with the Church of Scotland and with the 
 Reformed churches of France and Hol- 
 land. Moreover, in his Treatise of the 
 Lawfulnes of Hearing of the Ministers of 
 the Church of England, he declared that, 
 although he could "not communicate with 
 or submit unto the said church order " : — 
 
 For myself, thus I believe with my heart before 
 God, and profess with my tongue, and have before 
 the world, that I have one and the same faith, hope, 
 spirit, baptism, and Lord, which I had in the 
 Church of England, and none other; that I esteem 
 so many in that church of what state, or order so- 
 ever, as are truly partakers of that faith, as I ac- 
 count many thousands to be, for my Christian 
 brethren, and myself a fellow-member with them of 
 that one mystical body of Christ scattered far and 
 wide throughout the world ; that I have always, in 
 spirit and affection, all Christian fellowship and com- 
 munion with them, and am most ready in all out- 
 ward actions, and exercises of religion, lawful and 
 lawfiilly done, to express the same : and withal, that 
 I am persuaded, the hearing of the Word of God 
 there preached in the manner, and upon the grounds 
 
148 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 formerly mentioned, is both lawful and, upon 
 occasion, necessary for me, and all true Chris- 
 tians, withdrawing from that hierarchical order of 
 church government and ministry and appurtenances 
 thereof.' 
 
 It is needless to consider here such 
 minor episodes as the secession of John 
 Smyth and his followers from fellowship 
 with the Amsterdam Congregationalists 
 under Johnson, which already has been 
 mentioned. Smyth's party certainly took 
 issue with Johnson's partly on grounds of 
 polity, for the former held that it is un- 
 scriptural to have a pastor, a teacher, and 
 elders in a church, the pastorate properly 
 including the duties of the two other 
 offices. But this principle, although im- 
 portant in itself, and then a quite new 
 position, does not seem to have been made 
 so prominent in their controversy as 
 others, for example, the alleged sinful- 
 ness of using the English text of the 
 Bible instead of the Hebrew and Greek, 
 of using a book in prophesying or in 
 
Development of Congregationalism. 149 
 
 singing, and of allowing non-church mem- 
 bers to contribute to the church treasury. 
 Smyth evidently was so eccentric that, 
 probably for this reason, his really valu- 
 able contribution to the development of 
 Congregationalism as a polity failed to 
 attract the attention which, if made by 
 a different sort of man, it might have 
 secured. 
 
 Such, briefly outlined, was the develop- 
 ment of Congregationalism up to the time 
 of the emigration from Holland to Amer- 
 ica. Its tendency was steadily in the 
 direction of liberty; not a liberty equiva- 
 lent to license but an intelligent, enlight- 
 ened, orderly liberty, consistent with and 
 promotive of the highest spiritual de- 
 velopment of both the churches, as bodies 
 of believers, and of the individual Chris- 
 tians who composed them. Another step 
 in advance remained to be taken, but the 
 Congregationalism of the Pilgrims was 
 substantiall)' the same with that of modern 
 times. It also deserves to be noted here 
 
I so The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 that during the intervening generations, 
 and recently more than ever, a tendency 
 has been evident in those branches of the 
 Christian Church which have continued 
 to be governed hierarchically toward the 
 restriction of the authority of ecclesias- 
 tical officials and toward the increase of 
 the freedom of the body of the laity. Un- 
 doubtedly this tendency has been due 
 largely to the influence and example of 
 Congregationalism. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE DEPARTURE FROM HOLLAND. 
 
 p)ROBABLY the Pilgrims cared little 
 -■- about conspicuous prosperity or 
 social eminence in Holland. Could they 
 have secured moderate material comfort 
 and an assured opportunity of desirable 
 moral and spiritual development they 
 would have been content in Leyden. But 
 the opposite was true. The expressions 
 already quoted which testify to their peace 
 and welfare are only to be understood 
 aright when compared with others of a 
 different tenor. That they rejoiced greatly, 
 after their hardships in England, in their 
 new religious liberty is true ; and that, 
 because of this liberty, their material con- 
 dition seemed enjoyable in a real sense, 
 in spite of its severity, also is a fact. But 
 it is not to be inferred that they were 
 
 161 
 
152 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 situated fortunately as a body even at the 
 best, unless perhaps for a short time. It 
 was their desire to keep chiefly to them- 
 selves, to live their own life, and to develop 
 their own ideas of truth. But in the 
 community in which they found them- 
 selves this proved impossible. 
 
 Most of them continued to be oppressed 
 by poverty and hardship. Bradford de- 
 clares : — 
 
 Though ys people generally bore all these diffi- 
 culties very cherfully, & with a resolute courage, 
 being in y^ best & strength of their years, yet old 
 age began to steale on many of them, (and their 
 great &. continuall labours, with other crosses and 
 sorrows, hastened it before ye time,) so as it was 
 not only probably thought, but apparently seen, that 
 within a few years more they would be in danger to 
 scatter, by necessities pressing them, or sinke 
 under their burdens, or both.* 
 
 Moreover, their condition was so grievous 
 that it not only rendered them miserable, 
 but also hindered their English sympa- 
 thizers from joining them in anything like 
 
The Departure from Holland. 153 
 
 the expected numbers, in which antici- 
 pated union had lain much of their hope 
 for the future. If there were only 
 10,000 of their fellow Brownists in 
 England by the time of their departure to 
 Holland in 1607-8, and probably there 
 were more,^ it certainly was not unreason- 
 able in them to suppose that more than 
 two hundred or thereabouts would come 
 over to join them after they had estab- 
 lished themselves. 
 
 But no such anticipation was fulfilled. 
 
 They saw & found by experience the hardnes of 
 ye place & cuntrie to be such, as few in comparison 
 would come to them, and fewer that would bide it 
 out, and continew with them. For many y* came 
 to them, and many more y' desired to be with them, 
 could not endure y' great labor and hard fare, with 
 other inconveniences which they underwent & were 
 contented with. But though they loved their per- 
 sons, approved their cause, and honored their suf- 
 ferings, yet they left them as it weer weeping. . . . 
 For many, though they desired to injoye ye ordi- 
 nances of God in their puritie, and y^ libertie of 
 the gospell with them, yet, alass, they admitted of 
 
1 54 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 bondage, with danger of conscience, ratlier then 
 to indure these hardships ; yea, some preferred & 
 chose y<= prisons in England, rather then this liber- 
 tie in Holland, with these afflictions. 
 
 The Pilgrims, perhaps, might have endured 
 all these things themselves, but they were 
 wounded in a peculiarly sensitive spot. 
 They were forced to see their children 
 suffer. Bradford remarks pathetically : — 
 
 As necessitie was a taskmaster over them, so 
 they were forced to be such, not only to their serv- 
 ants, but in a sorte, to their dearest chilldren ; the 
 which as it did not a little wound y= tender harts 
 of many a loving father & mother, so it produced 
 likwise sundrie sad & sorowful effects. For 
 many of their children, that were of best disposi- 
 tions and gracious inclinations, haveing lernde to 
 bear ye yoake in their youth, and willing to bear 
 parte of their parents burden, were, often times, 
 so oppressed with their hevie labours, that though 
 their minds were free and willing, yet their bodies 
 bowed under ye weight of y* same, and became 
 decreped in their early youth ; the vigor of nature 
 being consumed in ye very budd as it were. 
 
 This was bad enough, but it was not the 
 
The Departure from. Holland. 155 
 
 worst. A danger in their eyes infinitely 
 greater, one than which no other could 
 seem more formidable, threatened them. 
 Bradford adds: — 
 
 That which was more lamentable, and of all 
 sorowes most heavie to be borne, was that many 
 of their children, by these occasions, and y^ great 
 licentiousnes of youth in y' countrie, and ye mani- 
 fold temptations of the jilace, were drawne away 
 by evill examples into extravagante & dangerous 
 courses, getting y<= raines off their neks, & depart- 
 ing from their parents. Some became souldiers, 
 others tooke upon them farr viages by sea, and 
 other some worse courses, tending to dissolutenes 
 & the danger of their soules, to y= great greefe of 
 their parents and dishonour of God. So that they 
 saw their posteritie would be in danger to degener- 
 ate & be corrupted. 
 
 These hardships — poverty, oppressive 
 toil, the perils of their children, the fail- 
 ure of the company to grow as had been 
 hoped, and the probability of its ultimate 
 extinction — convinced them that they 
 had not yet found a proper home. The 
 existing twelve years' truce between the 
 
1 56 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 Dutch and the Spaniards also was about 
 to expire, — in 1621, — so that to remain 
 might mean to incur all the horrors of 
 war. Moreover, they had a larger purpose 
 than merely to provide for themselves. 
 They had come from England glowing 
 with missionary zeal. They had hoped to 
 maintain their existence as a body in Hol- 
 land so as to set the example of a godly 
 community and a pure church, and, this 
 hope failing, the same motive impelled 
 them to look to more distant lands for 
 some opportunity to live, labor, and testify 
 for God. Says Bradford : — 
 
 Lastly (and which was not least,) a great hope & 
 inward zeall they had of laying some good founda- 
 tion, or at least to make some way therunto, for y« 
 propagating & advancing ye gospell of y<= kingdom 
 of Christ in those remote parts of ye world ; yea, 
 though they should be but even as stepping-stones 
 unto others for y performing of so great a work. 
 
 Slowly their new purpose took definite 
 shape. In spite of their conviction of its 
 expediency and even necessity, the pro- 
 
The Departure from Holland. 157 
 
 posed change involved the gravest conse- 
 quences, as they fully understood. It 
 might lead them to success, but it was 
 almost equally likely to prove their ruin, 
 as their sad history for several subsequent 
 years will be found to show. Many objec- 
 tions had to be considered, and grave prac- 
 tical hindrances appeared. The question 
 whither to move was most difficult to be 
 answered. Some proposed Guiana, be- 
 cause of its known fertility. But its hot 
 climate and the danger of annoyance by 
 the Spaniards deterred them from going 
 thither. Others favored Virginia, where 
 Englishmen already had established the 
 feeble Jamestown settlement. 
 
 They finally decided to go somewhere 
 in Virginia, but to establish an independ- 
 ent colony of their own, in order to avoid 
 as much as possible, the interference of 
 the English ecclesiastical powers. So 
 they sent Robert Cushman and John 
 Carver over to London in the autumn of 
 161 7 to obtain, if possible, the royal permis- 
 
158 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 sion and to make arrangements with the 
 Virginia Company, which owned Virginia 
 under the king. But King James was 
 almost as bitter against them as ever and 
 could only be brought to say that if they 
 behaved peaceably he would not interfere.^ 
 All sanction of the undertaking he refused. 
 The Virginia Company was favorable, how- 
 ever, being eager to have its territory 
 settled, and offered to grant a liberal char- 
 ter. With this report the envoys returned. 
 The history of the negotiations need 
 not be related here in full. They were 
 not completed until the late spring or 
 early summer of 1620. Brewster also was 
 sent to London to aid in making arrange- 
 ments, and it is uncertain whether he 
 returned to Leyden or remained in Eng- 
 land until the emigrants arrived there on 
 their way to America.* The council of 
 the Virginia Company opposed them after 
 all, for ecclesiastical reasons, and explana- 
 tions had to be made. Friends failed and 
 merchants betrayed them, and annoyances 
 
The Departure from Holland. 1 59 
 
 of various other sorts occurred. Mean- 
 while, certain Dutch acquaintances urged 
 them to settle in Zeland or at New 
 Amsterdam, now New York, and applied 
 through the proper officials to the Dutch 
 States General, or national legislature, for 
 the granting of conditions. But the 
 scheme came to nothing, although it seems 
 to have been considered with some atten- 
 tion by the Pilgrims. At last one Thomas 
 Weston and other London merchants and 
 speculators made them offers of sufficient 
 aid, and they made ready to depart from 
 Holland. 
 
 Some could not go, nor could transpor- 
 tation for all be obtained. So the com- 
 pany was divided into two parts, the 
 majority remaining. When the question 
 arose how their ecclesiastical organiza- 
 tion was to be affected by the division, it 
 was decided that the majority should fol- 
 low the minority to America as soon as 
 possible, that each of the two portions 
 of the church should be considered an 
 
i6o The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 absolute church by itself meanwhile, and 
 that members should be interchanged, upon 
 occasion, without formalities. Robinson, 
 partly because it was the majority which 
 remained and partly for other reasons, 
 stayed behind, but it was determined that 
 Brewster should go. Then preparations 
 were hastened. Only a very few weeks, 
 probably not more than three or four, 
 intervened between their final decision to 
 go, as described, and their setting out. 
 Those who were to emigrate sold what 
 property they had in Leyden and made 
 a common purse. A small vessel, the 
 Speedwell, was bought both for the voyage 
 and for subsequent use in America; and 
 a larger ship, the Mayflower, was hired in 
 London for the voyage only. 
 
 Finally, after a day of solemn fasting 
 and prayer, on which Robinson preached 
 an impressive sermon from Ezra 8:21, 
 they bade farewell to Leyden. 
 
 They lefte y' goodly & pleasante citie, which had 
 been ther resting-place near 12 years; but they 
 
The Departure from Holland. i6l 
 
 knew they were pilgrims, & looked not much on 
 those things, but lift up their eyes to ye heavens, 
 their dearest cuntrie, and quieted their spirits. 
 
 They journeyed over to Delf shaven, 
 fourteen miles distant, accompanied by 
 most of their friends, and on the next day 
 — July 22, 1620 — they set sail. Brad- 
 ford's account of the parting is too touch- 
 ing to be omitted : — 
 
 That night was spent with little sleepe by ye 
 most, but with freindly entertainmente & christian 
 discourse and other reall expressions of true chris- 
 tian love. The next day, the wind being faire they 
 wente aborde, and their freinds with them, where 
 truly dolfull was ye sight of that sade and mournful! 
 parting ; to see what sighs and sobbs and praires 
 did sound amongst them, what tears did gush from 
 every eye, & pithy speeches peirst each harte ; that 
 sundry of ye Dutch strangers y' stood on ye key as 
 spectators, could not refraine from tears. Yet com- 
 fortable & sweete it was to see shuch lively and 
 true expressions of dear & unfained love. But ye 
 tide (which stays for no man) caling them away 
 y' were thus loath to departe, their Reve<J pastor 
 falling downe on his knees, (and they all with 
 him,) with watrie cheeks comended them with most 
 
1 62 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 fervente praiers to the Lord and his blessing. And 
 then with mutuall imbrases and many tears, they 
 tooke their leaves one of an other ; which proved to 
 be ye last leave to many of them. 
 
 They had a short and pleasant voyage to 
 Southampton, where they found the May- 
 flower awaiting them. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE VOYAGE TO AMERICA. 
 
 " I ""HEY received a hearty welcome at 
 -*- Southampton from " all the rest of 
 their company," by which is meant the 
 few whom they had sent over beforehand 
 to consummate arrangements, and also a 
 number of their fellow Separatists, who 
 never had joined them in Holland, but had 
 determined to accompany them to America 
 and were awaiting them at Southampton. 
 A letter from Robert Cushman to John 
 Carver implies that the whole number of 
 intending emigrants was about a hun- 
 dred and fifty.i These additions to their 
 company and the assurances of sym- 
 pathy which they received must have 
 been most encouraging. But they found 
 themselves in financial difficulties at once. 
 Before the departure from Leyden, while 
 
 163 
 
164 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 communication between the English sec- 
 tion of the party and that in Leyden had 
 been maintained by letters and occasional 
 messengers, one Christopher Martin from 
 Billerica, in Essex, had been chosen to 
 represent the English element in conjunc- 
 tion with Brewster, Cushman, and Carver, 
 who had been sent to London in behalf 
 of the Leyden contingent. Owing to 
 some carelessness or misunderstanding 
 on the part of these agents — Cushman 
 seems to have been chiefly at fault — in- 
 sufificient energy had been displayed and 
 debts had been incurred. 
 
 The niggardly Weston also had de- 
 manded that the conditions originally 
 drawn up between the colonists and the 
 merchants who were helping to fit them 
 out be altered, and Cushman had taken 
 it upon himself to agree in behalf of the 
 emigrants to a proposed equal division, 
 between the settlers and the merchants, 
 of the whole property in the colony at 
 the end of seven years after its settle- 
 
The Voyage to America. 165 
 
 ment, which was unfair to the former and 
 which they now, upon learning of it, at 
 first very properly objected to indorse. 
 They claimed that the houses and im- 
 proved I lands, their gardens and home 
 lots, upon which they would have ex- 
 pended special pains for the sake of their 
 necessary comfort, ought to belong to 
 them at the end of the seven years and 
 not be liable to fall into the hands of the 
 London merchants. They also insisted 
 that each colonist should be allowed to 
 work for himself two days in each week 
 and not be compelled to labor all six days 
 for the company. These positions cer- 
 tainly seem reasonable, and, in any case, 
 the colonists were not bound by Cush- 
 man's unauthorized acceptance in their 
 behalf of other conditions. But Weston 
 " was much offended, and tould them, they 
 must then looke to stand on their owne 
 leggs," and they sailed finally without 
 having signed the disputed contract. 
 They were forced to sell some of their 
 
1 66 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 provisions in order to pay their debts, and 
 reduced themselves to " great extremities, 
 scarce haveing any butter, no oyle, not a 
 sole to mend a shoe, nor every man a 
 sword to his side, wanting many piuskets, 
 much armoure, &c." In the end, how- 
 ever, their affairs were settled and they 
 were ready to depart. They were called 
 together, a wise and loving letter from 
 Robinson, which appears to have been 
 written on or about July 27 and to have 
 followed them from Leyden, was read, and 
 they elected a governor and two or three 
 assistants for each vessel, to have in 
 charge their order and comfort on the 
 voyage. At last, on August 15, they 
 sailed from Southampton. 
 
 Fairly afloat and headed westward they 
 must have thought that now their hin- 
 drances were ended. But this was not 
 true.' The Speedwell began to leak, and 
 Mr. Reinolds, her captain, declared that 
 repairs were unavoidable. So both ships 
 were headed about and, probably on 
 
The Voyage to America. 167 
 
 August 23, they put in at Dartmouth, 
 that picturesque little Devonshire harbor 
 whence so many privateering or explor- 
 ing expeditions had gone forth in former 
 days. Here the Speedwell was over- 
 hauled at considerable cost, which they 
 could only with difficulty afford, and 
 while a fair wind blew, of which they 
 were eager to take advantage. On Sep- 
 tember 2, they set sail once more. 
 
 But after they had proceeded about 
 three hundred miles the leaks reopened 
 and again both ships put back, this time 
 to Plymouth. Of course all this addi- 
 tional voyaging was not only exceedingly 
 disheartening but it also made heavy 
 inroads upon their provisions, which at 
 the best were none too abundant for the 
 unknown future. It was finally decided 
 to abandon the Speedwell as unfit for the 
 proposed voyage and to transfer to the 
 Mayflower as many of her passengers and 
 stores as could be accommodated. So an- 
 other painful parting occurred, and at 
 
1 68 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 least twenty persons, and probably more, 
 including Robert Cushman, whose heart 
 had failed,^ and his family, went back to 
 London in the Speedwell. It appeared 
 later that there had been nothing really 
 the matter with this vessel, but that she 
 deliberately had been oversparred and 
 caused to carry too much sail in order 
 to force her to strain and leak, the reason 
 being that the captain and crew, who had 
 been hired to stay a year with the colony, 
 wished to avoid the fulfilment of this 
 pledge.^ As soon as she was refitted in 
 her former trim she ceased to leak and 
 long did good service. One hundred and 
 two persons remained in the Pilgrim 
 company. 
 
 It is probable, however, that this com- 
 pany actually was no weaker for this 
 sifting which it experienced. Most of 
 those who were left behind would have 
 proved unequal to the severe demands 
 of the early life of the colony. Says 
 Bradford : — 
 
The Voyage to America. 169 
 
 Those that went bale were for the most parte 
 such as were willing so to doe, either out of some 
 discontente, or feare they conceived of y« ill success 
 of y= vioage, seeing so many croses befale, & the 
 year time so farr spente ; but others, in regarde of 
 their own weaknes, and charge of many yonge 
 children, were thought least useful!, and most 
 unfite to bear y^ brunte of this hard adventure ; 
 unto which worke of God, and judgmente of their 
 brethern, they were contented to submite. 
 
 Yet in any case, and especially happen- 
 ing as it did, this diminution of the little 
 company must have been acutely depress- 
 ing. Once more, on September 16, the 
 Mayflower put to sea, this time to accom- 
 plish her errand. 
 
 No picture of this famous vessel is 
 known to exist. Some idea of her 
 appearance can be obtained by the study 
 of other vessels of her time, as shown in 
 old maps and paintings, but they neces- 
 sarily are only examples of what she 
 may have been. It is certain that she 
 now would be considered a very slow 
 and clumsy craft. Undoubtedly she was 
 
1 70 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 shorter than many American coasting 
 schooners of to-day and was much less 
 graceful in her lines than the most old- 
 fashioned ones among them. Doubtless 
 she had a blunt, full bow and stern, each 
 of which was built up much higher than 
 is now customary, and probably she was 
 of a considerably broader beam in pro- 
 portion to her length than would be true 
 at present. This shape lessened her 
 speed but of course added largely to 
 her carrying capacity. Whether she had 
 two masts or three is not known. Prob- 
 ably her bowsprit pointed upward much 
 higher than that of any modern ship, and 
 she may have had a short mast rising 
 almost from her very stem. Many a ves- 
 sel of her period carried a small sail under 
 or uplifted on a short mast upon the 
 outer end of the bowsprit, in order to 
 aid in going about, and in some imaginary 
 pictures of the Mayilower she has been 
 given one. Doubtless she was square- 
 rigged. Internally she probably differed 
 
The Voyage to America. 171 
 
 less from modern vessels, although lack- 
 ing many of their conveniences. But at 
 her best she must have been a confined 
 and disagreeable abode for her one hun- 
 dred and twenty-five to fifty inmates 
 during their nine weeks' voyage. 
 
 At first she had a fair wind which 
 continued for a number of days, so that 
 she made good progress, and ordinary 
 seasickness was the only drawback to the 
 comfort of the passengers. But in due 
 time they encountered foul weather and 
 fierce storms. The upper works of the 
 ship became leaky enough to render her 
 uncomfortable, and one of her main beams 
 amidships somehow became sprung and 
 also cracked. There was sufficient ap- 
 pearance of danger to cause a conference 
 of the ship's officers and the leading 
 passengers about the advisability of aban- 
 doning the whole undertakihg and return- 
 ing finally. But examination showed the 
 ship to be stanch below the water line, 
 and by the aid of a great iron jackscrew, 
 
1/2 T fie Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 which the Pilgrims had on board, the 
 defective beam was forced back into place 
 and braced. So they held on their course 
 although compelled by the violent gales to 
 lie to for days at a time. 
 
 On one occasion a young man of the 
 Pilgrim company, John Rowland, had a 
 narrow escape from drowning. He was 
 thrown overboard by a lurch of the ship, 
 buticaught hold of a loose topsail halyard 
 and held on until he could be dragged on 
 board again. Those who have made a 
 westward Atlantic voyage in the teeth 
 of autumnal or winter storms and have 
 seen the largest and stanchest modern 
 steamers unable, as they sometimes are, 
 to make any headway for many hours 
 at a time can imagine the distress and 
 fear of the company on the little May- 
 flower. On November i6, three days 
 before they made land, William Butten, 
 a servant of Samuel Fuller, died, and 
 doubtless was buried in the sea. This 
 death was offset, however, by the birth 
 
TJie Voyage to America. 173 
 
 of a son, who was named Oceanus, to 
 Stephen Hopkins. 
 
 The longest voyages end, however, and 
 on November 19,* more than nine weary 
 weeks after leaving Plymouth, they made 
 Cape Cod. It is no wonder that, as Brad- 
 ford says, "they were not a little joyfull." 
 It was their wish to settle on or near the 
 Hudson River, so they stood away towards 
 the south to clear the cape. But they 
 soon found themselves among dangerous 
 shoals, probably off the present towns of 
 Eastham and Orleans,^ and were glad to 
 go about and return to Cape Cod. Doub- 
 ling the end of the cape, they anchored at 
 last, on November 21, sixty-six days out 
 from England, in the calm and spacious 
 harbor of what is now Provincetown. 
 Then, characteristically, 
 
 they fell upon their knees & blessed ye God of 
 heaven, who had brought them over ye vast & furi- 
 ous ocean, and delivered them from all ye periles & 
 miseries thereof, againe to set their feete on ye firme 
 and stable earth, their proper elemente. 
 
174 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 After all their tribulations they had 
 reached America in safety. Fortunately 
 they could not foresee the new perils and 
 bitter distresses which they soon were to 
 be called upon to face, or they would have 
 been sorely tempted to return without 
 disembarking. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 OTHER PILGRIM LEADERS AND 
 THEIR COMPACT. 
 
 TN proportion to its numbers the colony 
 -*■ was richly endowed with able leaders, 
 and without them it must have failed 
 utterly and speedily. Mention has been 
 made already of Robinson, who, more than 
 .any one else, although he remained in 
 Leyden, gave to it its abiding moral and 
 spiritual impulse ; of Brewster, its original 
 principal, wise and experienced, the pa- 
 tron, so to speak, of the enterprise ; and of 
 Bradford, its thoughtful scholar, careful 
 historian, and prudent, energetic man of 
 affairs. It remains to describe several of 
 their almost equally efficient coadjutors. 
 
 For instance, there was the discreet and 
 trusted John Carver,^ their first governor 
 He was one of the company in Leyden, 
 
 176 
 
176 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 where he was a deacon in their church, 
 but when and whence he joined them is 
 unrecorded. There is no evidence that 
 he was one of thena before they reached 
 Leyden, and probably he went oyer to 
 them there from England. He was suffi- 
 ciently prominent among them to be sent 
 back to England in 161 7 with Robert 
 Cushman, to make arrangements for the 
 proposed emigration to America, and he 
 returned to Leyden in the same year and 
 later was sent once more on the same 
 errand. Apparently he left Holland 
 finally before the others and joined them 
 again at Southampton. Robinson sent to 
 him from Leyden, after the departure of 
 the emigrants, a special personal letter of 
 confidence and affection, together with 
 one addressed to the whole company. He 
 was accompanied to America in the May- 
 flower by his wife, Catherine, by a maid- 
 servant. Desire Minter, and by two men- 
 servants and two lads, which little retinue 
 probably implies that he was a man of 
 
Other Pilgrim Leaders. lyy 
 
 more substance than most of the others. 
 He was chosen to be the first governor of 
 the colony before they landed, and was re- 
 elected in the spring of 1621, but imme- 
 diately afterwards he received what seems 
 to have been a sunstroke and soon died, 
 and was buried with such official honors 
 as the feeble company was able to pay. 
 He was greatly missed, and Bradford, who 
 was made governor in his place, wrote 
 home about him : " His care and pains 
 was so great for ye commone good, both 
 ours and yours, as that therwith (it is 
 thought) he oppressed him selfe and 
 shortened his days ; of whose loss we can- 
 not sufficiently complaine." His wife sur- 
 vived him only a few weeks. 
 
 Then there was Edward Winslow,^ who 
 properly may be termed their diplomatist. 
 He had been born at Droitwich, October 
 28, 1694, of a prominent family, and he is 
 said to have made the tour of Europe 
 while yet young, a fact then sufficiently 
 unusual to imply almost certainly that his 
 
1 78 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 parents were not only of superior social 
 position but also comparatively wealthy. 
 But in 1617 he joined the Pilgrims in 
 Leyden, the records of which city declare 
 him to have been a printer there and to 
 have come from London. That he was 
 obliged to support himself thus indicates 
 that he had cut loose from or had been 
 cast off by his family, probably because of 
 his Separatist opinions. On May 17, 
 1618,^ he was married to Elizabeth Barker, 
 who, with a maid and two men servants, 
 accompanied him in the Mayflower. His 
 wife soon died and on May 22, 1621, he 
 was married again to Susanna White. 
 He was prominent in treating with the 
 Indians and establishing the colony and 
 was its governor during several years. 
 
 He also was sent to England repeatedly 
 in its behalf and in 1635 he was impris- 
 oned in London for several months, at the 
 instance of Archbishop Laud, for having 
 presumed to teach in the church, although 
 only a layman, and for having as a magis- 
 
Other Pilgrim Leaders. 179 
 
 trate performed the marriage ceremony. 
 In 1649 he was one of the founders in 
 England of a corporation formed for the 
 propagation of the gospel among the 
 Indians of New England, and he also was 
 one of three commissioners appointed in 
 1654 by Cromwell to determine the value 
 of certain English ships destroyed by the 
 king of Denmark. Furthermore in 1655 
 he was the chief of the three commission- 
 ers who accompanied the English naval 
 expedition to Hispaniola, commanded by 
 Admiral Penn and General Venable. 
 Much of his later life seems to have been 
 spent in England and in positions of 
 honor, but his loyalty to the Plymouth 
 Colony never diminished. He appears to 
 have been the only member of the Pilgrim 
 company who gained an eminence recog- 
 nized at the time in England as conspicu- 
 ous. He died at sea between St. Dominjjo 
 and Jamaica, on May 8, 1655. In addi- 
 tion to his other valuable services he was 
 an author of repute. He wrote a large 
 
l8o The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 portion of Mourt's Relation and several 
 entire works : Hypocrisie Vnmasked ; Good 
 News from New England; A brief Narra- 
 tive of the True Grounds or Cause of the 
 first Planting of New England; New 
 England! s Salamander ; etc. 
 
 Another Pilgrim, and one whom Long- 
 fellow has rendered one of the most 
 widely known, was Miles Standish,* their 
 foremost man in military matters. This 
 stout-hearted soldier, whom the wily and 
 cruel Indians could neither outwit nor 
 frighten, and who, although short in 
 stature, was a formidable opponent, is 
 supposed to have been born of a good 
 family at Duxbury Hall, near Chorley, in 
 1584. He is said to have been heir to a 
 large estate but somehow was deprived of 
 it. On reaching manhood he served as a 
 soldier in the Low Countries, where he 
 somehow fell in with the Pilgrims and 
 joined them, although without uniting 
 with their church. His wife. Rose, came 
 over with him in the Mayflower but soon 
 
Other Pilgrim Leaders. i8i 
 
 after died. Whether there is any basis 
 for the tradition in regard to his attempt 
 to woo Priscilla Mullins by proxy — John 
 Alden, whom she chose to marry, acting as 
 Standish's agent and receiving from her 
 an intimation to substitute the part of 
 principal for that of representative — is 
 uncertain. The poet has made the tradi- 
 tion pleasantly familiar at any rate. 
 Whether it be true or not, Standish did 
 not break his heart over the matter, for in 
 1623 he was married again to Barbara 
 
 , a recent arrival in the colony whose 
 
 surname is not on record. He was the 
 mainstay of the colonists during their 
 difficulties with the Indians and with the 
 troublesome settlers at Merry Mount, and 
 he was employed often and otherwise in 
 the public service. In 1625 he too was 
 sent to England for the colony. About 
 1 63 1 he settled on what has since been 
 called Captain's Hill, in Duxbury, and 
 died there on October 13, 1656. He 
 was a sturdy, rugged character, in some 
 
1 82 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 respects quite unlike most of his fellow 
 Pilgrims, but he was deservedly beloved 
 and trusted by them. 
 
 Their most active man in commercial 
 affairs was Isaac AUerton,^ who joined 
 them, from London, in Leyden, where he 
 was a tailor. On November 4, 161 1, he 
 was married there to Mary Norris, and 
 he became a citizen of Leyden on Febru- 
 ary 7, 1614. He brought with him on the 
 Mayflower his wife, three children, and a 
 boy, but his wife soon died, and he married 
 William Brewster's daughter. Fear, and 
 after her death in 1633 he married a third 
 wife. Apparently he soon became the 
 wealthiest man in the colony and he was 
 sent to England several times on its busi- 
 ness. But as the severity of the condi- 
 tions of life at Plymouth gradually abated 
 and as opportunities for accumulation 
 increased, his money-making passion got 
 the better of his nobler nature, as so often 
 happens, and he became more strenuous to 
 promote his own prosperity than that of 
 
Other Pilgrim Leaders. 183 
 
 the colony, and did not always obey his 
 instructions. At last he mismanaged 
 their funds so suspiciously, that in 163 1 
 the Plymouth church felt compelled to dis- 
 cipline him for his shortcomings, and the 
 next year he left the colony. After vari- 
 ous wanderings he reached New Haven, 
 where in 1659 he died insolvent, the not 
 unusual fate of such men. He was almost 
 the only one of the original Pilgrim body, 
 and the only one eminent among them, 
 who failed to maintain a good repute, and 
 for a number of years he was one of the 
 most active and useful of the company. ' 
 
 Mention also should be made here of 
 Samuel Fuller,* the good physician of the 
 colony. He is believed to have lived for 
 a time in London before joining the Pil- 
 grims in Leyden. There he was a deacon 
 in the church, and he held the same office 
 after they had reached Plymouth. He 
 also was one of the governor's assistants 
 in 163 1. Like others of the company he 
 was married several times, first to Alice 
 
1 84 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 Glascock, then to Agnes Carpenter, and 
 after her death to Bridget Lee, to whom 
 he was united in Leyden in 1617, and 
 who, with their child, remained there until 
 1623, when she came over in the Anne 
 and rejoined him. He was one of their 
 most trusted members, and in 1629, when 
 an epidemic of "scurvy and malignant 
 distemper " had broken out in the new 
 colony at Salem, and Endicott had sent to 
 Plymouth for help, he hastened thither 
 and rendered most acceptable aid. It also 
 was largely due to his explanations at this 
 time of the polity of the Pilgrim church 
 that the misunderstandings and prejudices 
 which leading men at Salem entertained 
 in regard to it were removed. He died in 
 1633 on July 30, and his will, which was 
 proved on October 28, is said to be the 
 earliest on record in the colony. 
 
 The only other Pilgrim whom it is im- 
 portant to mention in this connection is 
 John Alden.' He was "a young English- 
 man who joined the emigrants, to serve 
 
Other Pilgrim Leaders. 185 
 
 them as a cooper, at Southampton. After 
 reaching Plymouth in America, he married 
 Priscilla Mullins. He was one of the 
 most efficient and prominent men in the 
 colony until his death, in 1687, and left a 
 large family, from whom many descendants 
 have sprung. 
 
 We turn now to the famous Mayflower 
 compact. The orderly and religious char- 
 acter of the men who have just been 
 described and their fellow Pilgrims cer- 
 tainly needs no demonstration. But even 
 among the best of men a formal agree- 
 ment determining authority always is wise, 
 if only because of its convenience. More- 
 over, the Mayflower company, as it finally 
 was composed, included some who were 
 not actual members of their body. A 
 number of sailors or adventurers appear to 
 have made the voyage with them, who were 
 minded to remain, and whose lack of relig- 
 ious purpose was tolerated because of their 
 fewness and of the value of every able- 
 bodied man ; and even before a landing 
 
1 86 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 had been made it became evident that 
 some of these men might make trouble 
 unless restrained. Bradford speaks of 
 
 ys discontented & mutinous speeches that some 
 of the strangers amongst them had let fall from 
 them in ye ship — That when they came a shore 
 they would use their owne libertie; for none had 
 power to coinand them.' 
 
 In order to nip any such factious spirit, 
 in the bud, it was therefore decided that 
 formal action was necessary. Bradford, in 
 that portion of Mourfs Relation which he 
 wrote, says : — - 
 
 This day before we came to harbour, obseruing 
 some not well affected to vnitie and concord, but 
 gaue 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 governours, as 
 we should by common consent agree to malce and 
 chose, and set our hands to this that foUowes word 
 for word." 
 
 So they drew up and signed their re- 
 
Other Pilgrim Leaders. 187 
 
 nowned compact, a document of great and 
 permanent significance. It was this : — 
 
 In the name of God, Amen. We whose names 
 are vnderwritten, the loyall Subiects of our dread 
 soveraigne Lord King Iames, by the grace of God 
 of Great Britaine, France, and Ireland King, 
 Defender of the Faith, &c. 
 
 Having vnder-taken for the glory of God, and 
 advancement of the Christian Faith, and honour of 
 our King and Countrey, a Voyage to plant the first 
 Colony in the Northerne parts of Virginia, doe by 
 these presents solemnly & mutually in the presence 
 of God and one of another, covenant, and combine 
 our selues together into a civill body politike, for 
 our better ordering and preservation, and further- 
 ance of the ends aforesaid ; and by vertue hereof to 
 enact, constitute and frame such just and equall 
 Lawes, Ordinances, acts, constitutions, offices from 
 time to time, as shall be thought most meet and 
 convenient for the generall good of the Colony: 
 vnto which we promise all due submission and obe- 
 dience. In witnesse whereof we haue here-vnder 
 subscribed our names, Cape Cod, 11. ot November, 
 in the yeare of the raigne of our soveraigne Lord 
 King Iames, of England, France and Ireland 18. 
 and of Scotland 54. Anno Domini 1620. 
 
1 88 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 John Carver. 
 William Bradford. 
 Edward Winslow. 
 William Brewster. 
 Isaac Allerton. 
 Miles Standish. 
 John Alden. 
 Samuel Fuller. 
 Christopher Martin. 
 William Mullins. 
 William White. 
 Richard Warren. 
 John Rowland. 
 Stephen Hopkins. 
 Edward Tilley. 
 John Tilley. 
 Francis Cook. 
 Thomas Rogers. 
 Thomas Tinker. 
 John Ridgdalel 
 
 Edward Fuller. 
 John Turner. 
 Francis Eaton. 
 James Chilton. 
 John Crackstone. 
 John Billington. 
 Moses Fletcher. 
 John Goodman. 
 Digory Priest. 
 Thomas Williams. 
 Gilbert Winslow. 
 Edmond Margeson. 
 Peter Brown. 
 Richard Britteridge. 
 George Soule. 
 Richard Clark. 
 Richard Gardiner. 
 John Allerton. 
 Thomas English. 
 Edward Doten. 
 Edward Leister.*" 
 
 Having thus organized themselves into 
 a body politic, and having elected John 
 Carver their first governor, they then set 
 about exploring the country which, after 
 so many hardships, they had reached. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 FIRST EXPLORATIONS. 
 
 TT was on Saturday, November 21, 1620, 
 -*■ — they dated it November 11, be- 
 cause they used the old style, — that the 
 Pilgrims cast anchor in Provincetown 
 harbor, and drew up and signed their civil 
 compact. On the same day they sent 
 their first party ashore for wood and fresh 
 water, and the latter, at least, they must 
 by this time have come to desire greatly. 
 Before their eyes lay an agreeable scene, 
 " a good harbour and pleasant Bay, circled 
 round, except in the entrance, which is 
 about foure miles ouer from land to land, 
 compassed about to the very Sea with 
 Okes, Pines, luniper. Sassafras, and other 
 sweet wood," ^ and this statement that 
 the end of Cape Cod ever was thus 
 thickly wooded may be a surprise to many 
 
I go The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 of those who are familiar with it now. 
 The name "Wood End " still is applied to 
 it occasionally. But in other respects the 
 prospect' which lay before them was dreary 
 indeed. Says Bradford : — 
 
 They had now no freinds to wellcome them, nor 
 inns to entertaine or refresh their weather-beaten 
 bodys, no houses or much less townes to repaire 
 too, to seeke for succoure. It is recorded in scrip- 
 ture as a mercie to y« apostle & his shipwraked 
 company, yt the barbarians shewed them no smale 
 kindnes in refreshing them, but these savage barba- 
 rians, when tliey mette with them (as after will 
 appeare) were readier to fill their sids full of arrows 
 then otherwise. And for y^ season it was winter, 
 and they that know ye winters of y' cuntrie know 
 them to be sharp & violent, & subjecte to cruell & 
 feirce storraes, deangerous to travill to known 
 places, much more to serch an unknown coast. 
 Besids, what could they see but a hidious & deso- 
 late wilderness, full of wild beasts & willd men? 
 and what multituds ther might be of them they 
 knew not.' 
 
 Even the joy of reaching land hardly can 
 have afforded them more than partial and 
 temporary satisfaction. 
 
First Explorations. 191 
 
 It was of vital importance, of course, to 
 find a suitable place of settlement speed- 
 ily. So having passed Sunday quietly on 
 board ship, and having landed some of fhe 
 company on Monday long enough to wash 
 clothes, it was determined to send out an 
 exploring party. Their largest boat, the 
 shallop, had been injured during the 
 voyage and could not be used until re- 
 paired. But on Wednesday, November 
 25, they sent off sixteen men by land 
 under Captain Standish to learn what they 
 could of the country and its inhabitants.^ 
 They were absent two days, camping at 
 night with fires and sentries. They saw 
 five or six natives and a dog, but could not 
 get near enough for intercourse. They 
 explored the country for perhaps a dozen 
 miles through the woods or along the 
 shore and discovered some springs in what 
 is now Truro. They saw a deer and trav- 
 ersed land where corn had been raised by 
 the Indians and also found some heaps of 
 corn buried in the ground. Moreover they 
 
192 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 came upon the ruins of a house and of 
 what seemed to have been a small fort, as 
 well as a bow, arrows, a large kettle, and 
 two canoes, but they met no more 
 inhabitants. 
 
 They carried away the com, intending 
 to pay for it should they discover the 
 owners, and returned safely to the May- 
 flower, William Bradford, one of the party^ 
 having had a narrow escape from injury on 
 the way by being caught in a trap set by 
 the Indians for deer. The country seemed 
 to abound in wild game, for they saw con- 
 siderable flocks of ducks and geese and 
 some partridges. They also saw more 
 deer but could not kill any. They had 
 traveled as far as the Pamet River, but 
 had accomplished little. They must have 
 formed a procession at once picturesque 
 and pathetic, as they waded heavily 
 through the soft sand of the seashore or 
 pushed their way through the straggling 
 underbrush of the forest, — which was so 
 stubborn that they said " it tore our very 
 
First Explorations. I93 
 
 armor to pieces," — obliged to be ever on 
 the watch against sudden attack from 
 hidden human foes or savage wild beasts 
 and equally alert to allow no important 
 feature of the country to escape their 
 crftical observation. 
 
 For the next few days they were busy 
 repairing the shallop, but on December 7 
 they sent out a larger exploring party in 
 her and the long boat under charge of 
 Master Jones, the captain of the May- 
 flower.* They experienced bitter cold 
 with high winds and snow, but coasted 
 alongshore and also penetrated the coun- 
 try somewhat farther than before. They 
 shot some geese and ducks, discovered 
 some Indian graves and two empty wig- 
 wams, found more corn, together with 
 some wheat and beans, as well as a bottle 
 of oil, and rejoined the ship on December 
 10. During their absence Peregrine White 
 had been born, the first child bom to any 
 of them in America. 
 
 They were not favorably impressed with 
 
194 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 the fitness of the region for settlement, 
 yet they weighed the matter well before 
 deciding to continue their explorations. 
 It might easily be that to go further would 
 mean to fare worse at last. Some desired 
 to remain where they were, urging that 
 they had a good anchorage for boats, 
 although the bay was so shoal in that part 
 that the Mayflower had to lie at an incon- 
 venient distance from the shore ; that the 
 soil was good for corn and they had found 
 enough — some ten bushels — for seed; 
 ■ that the fishing promised to be excellent ; 
 that the region seemed healthy, secure 
 and defensible ; and that further investi- 
 gation of the country, while it would use 
 up provisions and would be necessarily in 
 the teeth of bitter weather, might accom- 
 plish nothing. Moreover, Captain Jones 
 and his crew were eager to land the com- 
 pany and set sail for home as soon as pos- 
 sible. But others raised objections, chiefly 
 relating to the difficulty of obtaining 
 water where they were, and it was pro- 
 
First Explorations. 195 
 
 posed to try to find Agawam, the present 
 Ipswich, of which they had heard. Fi- 
 nally it was determined to send out one 
 more exploring party and await results. 
 Meanwhile, Francis,* a scapegrace son of 
 John Billington, caused a great excitement 
 by firing a fowling-piece in the cabin, in 
 which some powder was stored, and nearly 
 blowing up the ship. 
 
 On Wednesday, December 16, the third 
 and last party set forth.® It consisted 
 of twelve Pilgrims, apparently volunteers, 
 under Standish, together with six of the 
 ship's officers and crew. They went in 
 the shallop and the first day they pro- 
 ceeded as far as the present Eastham and 
 saw some Indians at a distance on the 
 shore, cutting up a "Grampus." The 
 next day they held on their course toward 
 the modern Wellfleet and found a small 
 abandoned Indian village. That night, 
 however, they were sharply attacked by 
 Indians but escaped harm. The day fol- 
 lowing, Friday, December 18, they followed 
 
196 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 the coast around to the west and north 
 and somehow, probably because it rained 
 and snowed severely, passed the entrance 
 to Barnstable Bay without seeing it. But 
 after a hard battle with the gale, breaking 
 both mast and rudder and almost being 
 wrecked upon a lee shore, in the evening 
 they ran into Plymouth Bay and anchored 
 under the shelter of Clark's Island, which 
 is said to have been thus named because 
 one Clarke, a master's mate and pilot of 
 the Mayflower, was first of the party to 
 set foot upon it. They landed on Satur- 
 day and explored the place and rested 
 there quietly on Sunday, and on Monday, 
 December 21 — now called Forefathers' 
 Day in memory of that event — they set 
 foot on the main shore, where Plymouth 
 now is, and made some examination of 
 the region. They were pleased with it, 
 and doubtless on the next day returned to 
 the Mayflower, agreeing to recommend the 
 spot as the site of the proposed settle- 
 ment. But the satisfaction of William 
 
pq 
 
First Explorations. 197 
 
 Bradford, who was one of the party, over 
 its success was overshadowed upon its 
 return, for he learned that on the day- 
 after their departure his wife, Dorothy, 
 had fallen overboard and been drowned. 
 The Mayflower set sail from Province- 
 town on Christmas Day and stood over 
 t«ward Plymouth, but could not make 
 harbor until the day following, on which 
 at last she dropped anchor inside of the 
 bay, and the Pilgrims had reached their 
 new home. They devoted a day or two 
 more to examination of the immediate 
 neighborhood in order to determine which 
 of several spots would be most advanta- 
 geous for their purpose, and finally, on 
 Wednesday, December 30, they selected 
 their now famous abiding-place. It is 
 interesting to note how it impressed 
 Bradford. He says : — 
 
 After our landing and viewing of ttie places, so 
 well as we could we came to a conclusion, by most 
 voyces, to set on the maine Land, on the first pl.ice, 
 on an high ground, where there is a great deale of 
 
igS The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 Land cleared, and hath beene planted with Come 
 three or four yeares agoe, and there is a very sweet 
 brooke runnes vnder the hill side, and many delicate 
 springs of as good water as can be drunke, and 
 where we may harbour our Shallops and Boates 
 exceeding well, and in this brooke much good fish 
 in their seasons : on the further side of the river 
 also much Corne ground cleared, in one field is a 
 great hill, on which wee poynt to make a platforrae, 
 and plant our Ordinance, which will command all 
 round about, from thence we may see into the Bay, 
 and farre into the Sea, and we may see thence Cape 
 Cod : our greatest labour will be fetching of our 
 wood, which is halfe a quarter of an English myle, 
 but there is enough so farre off; what people inhabite 
 here we yet know not, for as yet we haue seene 
 none.' 
 
 Even in the bleak winter the spot evi- 
 dently had genuine attractions and prom- 
 ised reasonable safety, convenience, and 
 comfort. The cause of the dearth of a 
 native population, as they learned before 
 many months, was the fact that nearly all 
 the Indians thereabouts had died of an 
 epidemic,^ which the Pilgrims called the 
 plague, about four years previous, the way 
 
First Explorations. 199 
 
 thus having been cleared providentially for 
 the comparatively unopposed settlement 
 of the Mayflower colony. Nevertheless, 
 not yet being aware of this and having 
 already received clear proofs of the reluc- 
 tance of the natives to welcome them and 
 even of active hostility towards them, they 
 naturally were afraid of being attacked 
 and felt compelled to be continually on 
 their guard. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE BEGINNING OF THE COLONY. 
 
 TT was now midwinter and the region pre- 
 ^ sented its least winsome aspect, but 
 their general impressions continued favor- 
 able as their knowledge of the locality in- 
 creased, and neither any regret because of 
 their decision not to settle on the end of 
 Cape Cod nor any desire to try their fortune 
 elsewhere is recorded. Preliminary ex- 
 plorations made near Plymouth were con- 
 fined almost wholly to Clark's Island and 
 the shores of the bay. No one ventured 
 far inland for fear of attack by Indians, 
 but, so far as they went, they saw no 
 inhabitants. They found the country 
 "goodly," having a rich soil and with 
 disused cornfields and ample forests, with 
 "4. or 5. small running brookes of very 
 sweet fresh water . . . the best water 
 200 
 
The Beginning of the Colony. 201 
 
 that ever we drunke," and the bay " a 
 most hopeful! place," with " innumerable 
 store of fowl, and excellent good, and 
 cannot be but of fish in their seasons," with 
 "abundance of Musles, the greatest & 
 best that ever we saw," and " Crabs and 
 Lobsters, in their time infinite." Their 
 choice being thus confirmed, they finally, 
 after prayer for divine direction, chose a 
 favorable spot for building. 
 
 This decision was made on Wednesday, 
 December 30, and some of the company 
 camped on shore that night. ^ But the 
 hardships of the season at once befell 
 them afresh. A severe storm prevented 
 work and even forbade communication 
 between ship and shore, until Saturday, 
 January 2, 1621, when as many of them 
 as could went on shore and "felled and 
 carried tymber, to provide themselves 
 stuffe for building." It was necessary, of 
 course, to put up some sort of dwellings 
 and, in order to make as few houses as 
 possible serve their purpose at first, they 
 
202 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 assigned the unmarried men to the differ- 
 ent families, thus reducing the number of 
 houses to be built to nineteen, which, as 
 there were but eighteen married couples, 
 apparently includes, as Bradford describes 
 it, "the common house, in which for the 
 first, we made our Rendevous," ^ a build- 
 ing which was erected first of all in order 
 to shelter the workers, the balance of the 
 company continuing on the Mayflower. 
 
 They also determined to form a street 
 with houses up6n each .side, the present 
 Leyden Street, and they staked out the 
 land in plots. The areas of these in- 
 closures were proportioned to the sizes of 
 the families, " to every person half a pole 
 in breadth, and three in length." This 
 gave to Carver's household, for example, 
 in which were eight persons, a lot of sixty- 
 six feet by forty-nine and a half feet. This 
 seems a small allowance for so numerous 
 a family, especially in view of the abun- 
 dance of land ; and Bradford touchingly 
 suggests the trials which they were ex- 
 
The Beginning of the Colony. 203 
 
 periencing in giving the reason of it^ He 
 says : — 
 
 We thought this proportion was large enough at 
 the first, for houses and gardens, to impale them 
 round, considering the vveaknes of our people, 
 many of them growing ill with coldes, for our former 
 Discoveries in frost and stormes, and the wading at 
 Cape Cod had brought much weakeness amongst us, 
 which increased so every day more and more, and 
 after was the cause of many of their deaths. 
 
 It is plain that they already had begun 
 to suffer seriously and generally from their 
 inevitable exposures, and one of the earliest 
 buildings completed had to be devoted to 
 the uses of a hospital. 
 
 They assigned the different plots of 
 land by lot. Then they set themselves as 
 vigorously as they could in their enfeebled 
 condition to the task of erecting their 
 houses. By January 4 they were hard at 
 work upon the "common house." It was 
 only twenty feet square, but, says the 
 historian, the "foule weather hindered vs 
 much, this time of the yeare seldome 
 
204 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 could wee work halfe the weeke." It was 
 an inclement New England winter,* and 
 to all who know by experience what this 
 means the few words of the record are full 
 of mournful significance. This building, so 
 important to their comfort and even safety, 
 rude and hurriedly constructed although 
 it was, was not finished until January 
 20 or later, and then a new peril began 
 to threaten. The thatched roof took fire 
 at least twice from sparks out of the 
 chimney and was burned, leaving only the 
 frame timbers. On one of these occasions 
 both Bradford and Carver were sick in 
 bed within, and, as a number of loaded 
 guns and apparently some gunpowder also 
 were stored there, they had a narrow 
 escape from being blown up. But no 
 harm was done except to the thatch, which 
 soon was replaced. The little village 
 came into visible existence by degrees, 
 and at last the whole company was disem- 
 barked in time to keep their first Sabbath 
 ashore together on January 31. 
 
The Beginning of the Colony. 205 
 
 While at work upon their houses they 
 did no exploring and did not often venture 
 far away from the settlement, although 
 once or twice some of them penetrated 
 six or seven miles into the country. But 
 upon one occasion John Goodman and 
 Peter Brown, while cutting coarse grass 
 and flags for use in thatching, saw a deer 
 and, while pursuing it, managed to lose 
 themselves without food and had a bitter 
 experience walking up and down under a 
 tree during "an extreame colde night" and 
 in great fear of " Lyons roaring exceed- 
 ingly," and it was late the next afternoon 
 before they found their way back. The 
 " Lyons " undoubtedly were wolves. Their 
 companions naturally feared that they had 
 been captured and possibly killed by 
 Indians, of whom they all were in con- 
 tinual apprehension. For some weeks they 
 saw none, but several times they discerned 
 in the distance smoke and fires which 
 could have been made only by Indians. 
 At last, on February 10, some of them 
 
2o6 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 saw two savages in the distance, and on 
 February 26 one of the company, having 
 ventured a mile and a half away from the 
 settlement after wild fowl, saw a dozen 
 or more Indians pass the spot where he 
 lay concealed, and Captain Standish and 
 PVancis Cook also had some tools stolen 
 which they had left over night where they 
 had been at work in the woods. 
 
 These occurrences naturally rendered 
 the settlers additionally uneasy, so on Feb- 
 ruary 27 they held a meeting to effect 
 a military organization and chose Miles 
 Standish captain. While this very meet- 
 ing was in progress two savages appeared 
 upon a neighboring hill, but ran away 
 when an effort was made to parley with 
 them. This led the Pilgrims to mount 
 their cannon at once upon the hill near 
 their houses, where they had planned to 
 have a fortification. About a month after- 
 wards, on March 26, — by an odd coinci- 
 dence, which also occurred twice more a 
 few days later, — while they were holding 
 
The Beginning of the Colony. 207 
 
 another meeting about military matters, 
 an Indian walked in among them, who to 
 their surprise accosted them in broken 
 English. His name was Samoset, and he 
 was chief of a tribe living in what is now 
 Maine. He had met many English fisher- 
 men along the northern coast, had accom- 
 panied one of them to Cape Cod some six 
 months before, and had remained in that 
 part of the country. He proved to be 
 friendly to the Pilgrims and served subse- 
 quently as an interpreter between them 
 and the natives. 
 
 He remained over night and then was 
 sent away with gifts. He returned the 
 next day with five others and stayed three 
 days, and the day following, April i, re- 
 turned again with Squanto, a native Indian 
 who also spoke English, — having been 
 formerly taken to England by Captain 
 George Waymouth or Captain Thomas 
 Hunt, — and announced that Massasoit, 
 the Indian sagamore of that region, with 
 his brother, Quadequina, and sixty others. 
 
2o8 The Story of the Pilgrims, 
 
 sought an interview. This was felt to be 
 an important event and it was treated with 
 due respect. Edward Winslow was sent 
 to greet them, a formal meeting was held 
 with appropriate hospitalities, and a treaty 
 of peace was agreed upon. Thus the 
 colonists' fears of the natives were largely 
 removed ; and, as matters turned out, partly 
 because of the comparatively small num- 
 ber of Indians in the nearer country and 
 partly because of the uniform fair dealing 
 of the Pilgrims with the natives, as well as 
 of the firm and apparently fearless be- 
 havior of the former whenever the latter 
 did venture upon an aggressive policy, the 
 settlers thenceforth had only occasional 
 and never very serious trouble from this 
 source. 
 
 As the spring opened they were able to 
 devote themselves more freely to complet- 
 ing their settlement. At the best, how- 
 ever, their case was hard and their pros- 
 pect far from cheering. In addition to the 
 ordinary severities and perils attending 
 
The Beginning of the Colony. 2Ci(j 
 
 the establishing of a new colony, and their 
 not yet finally allayed fear of the Indians, 
 concerning atrocities at whose hands else- 
 where they continued to hear now and 
 then, they had encountered a far more 
 cold and tempestuous winter than they 
 were equipped to endure. There also had 
 been disaffection among some, as had 
 been feared when their compact had been 
 drawn up, but this fortunately had been 
 suppressed by firmness and fair dealing. 
 Sickness, however, had been, among them 
 continually and death frequently. That 
 they had not abandoned the colony in 
 despair reveals their firmness of purpose 
 and faith. The straits in which they had 
 been at times cannot be described in any 
 other words so faithfully as in those of 
 Bradford himself. 
 
 That which was most sadd & lamentable was, 
 that in 2. or 3. moneths time halfe of their company 
 dyed, e.spetialy in Jan : & February, being ye depth 
 of winter, and wanting houses & other comforts; 
 being infected with ye scurvie & other diseases. 
 
2IO The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 which this long vioage & their inacomodate condi- 
 tion had brought upon them ; so as ther dyed some 
 times 2. or 3. of a day, in ye foresaid time; that of 
 100. & odd persons, scarce Jo. remained. 
 
 They did not even dare to bury their 
 dead openly, lest the Indians should detect 
 the growing weakness of the colony, and 
 were forced to inter them at night. They 
 laid them not in the present burying- 
 ground on the hill but probably on Cole's 
 Hill, a mound or bluff lower and near the 
 rock where they had landed, even smooth- 
 ing the soil "bver them lest their graves 
 should attract attention.* So greatly was 
 the strength of the company reduced 
 that 
 
 of these in ye time of most distres, ther was but 6. 
 or 7. sound persons," who, to their great comenda- 
 tions be it spoken, spared no pains, night nor day, 
 but with abundance of toyle and hazard of their 
 owne health, fetched them woode, made them fires, 
 drest them meat, made their beads, washed their 
 lothsome cloaths, cloathed & uncloathed them ; in 
 a word, did all ye homly & necessarie offices foi 
 them weh dainty & quesie stomacks cannot endure 
 
The Beginning of the Colony. 211 
 
 to hear named ; and all this willingly and cherfully, 
 without any grudging in ye least, shewing herein 
 their true love unto their freinds & bretheren. 
 
 Truly their trials after gaining their spir- 
 itual liberty were equal to those which 
 they had undergone during their long en- 
 deavor to obtain it. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE FURTHER HISTORY OF THE 
 FIRST YEAR. 
 
 A S the spring season came on, the 
 ■^*- forlorn condition of the colony 
 slowly began to mend. Warmer weather 
 brought them both health and encourage- 
 ment. 
 
 It pleased God the mortalitie begane to cease 
 amongst them, and ye sick and lame recovered 
 apace, which put as it were new life into them; 
 though they had borne their sadd aflSiction with 
 much patience & contentednes.' 
 
 On April 2 the civil organization was 
 completed and John Carver was reelected 
 governor for a year. After his death 
 about a fortnight later William Bradford 
 was chosen in his place, and as Bradford 
 had not yet recovered wholly from a dan- 
 gerous illness Isaac Allerton was chosen 
 
 212 
 
The First Year. 213 
 
 his assistant. The two were reelected 
 annually afterward for some years. The 
 attention of the colony naturally was 
 directed at once to planting the crops for 
 the year, and in this work they found the 
 Indian, Squanto, a great help. The corn 
 which they had discovered at various times 
 and places had been kept carefully for 
 seed, and now Squanto taught them how 
 to manure it with fish and plant it, and 
 how to tend it after it began to grow. He 
 also instructed them as to the season for 
 fish in the neighboring brooks and how to 
 capture them, and where other kinds of 
 provisions could be found. But for his 
 aid they might have come to famine, for 
 the English seed, wheat, peas, etc., which 
 they had brought with them, finally proved 
 fruitless, and the corn turned out to be 
 
 # 
 
 their mainstay. 
 
 Early in April, on or about the fifth, the 
 Mayflower set sail for England. The un- 
 intended prolongation of her stay at Plym- 
 outh had been due at first to the extreme 
 
214 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 difiSculty of rendering the colony habita- 
 ble and later to the death or grave illness 
 of many of the crew. Apparently, too, 
 the authorities of the colony, although 
 determined not to abandon the enter- 
 prise needlessly, had felt at one time, 
 when matters were at the worst, that it 
 might become necessary for them all to 
 return. 
 
 The Gov'' & cheefe of them, seeing so many dye, 
 and fall downe sick dayly, thought it no wisdom to 
 send away the ship, their condition considered, and 
 ye danger they stood in from ye Indeans, till they 
 could procure some shelter ; . . . The mr and sea- 
 men likewise, though before they hasted y^ pasen- 
 gers a shore to be goone, now many of their men 
 being dead, & of y^ ablest of them, . . . and of ye 
 rest many lay sick & weake, ye m'. durst not put to 
 sea, till he saw his men begine to recover, and ye 
 hart of winter over. 
 
 But by April matters looked brighter 
 and the ship sailed for home. Then, at 
 last, as her topsails sunk below the eastern 
 horizon, the Pilgrims must have realized 
 
The First Year. 215 
 
 with a new solemnity that they were com- 
 mitted irrevocably to their chosen work. 
 
 Her departure gave them their first 
 opportunity of reporting their progress to 
 their friends left behind in England and 
 Holland. Their letters, if now in exist- 
 ence, would be worth more than their 
 weight in gold. With what sadness the 
 writers must have recounted for the eyes 
 which they knew would read their pages 
 so eagerly the distressing story of their 
 hardships and perils on sea and land, and 
 especially the long list of the already 
 dead ! Yet we may be sure that they also 
 wrote in brave and hopeful words, empha- 
 sizing the promising features of the colony 
 and bearing witness, and in no merely 
 formal terms, to their unshaken trust in 
 the Divine love and care. 
 
 A prominent event which soon followed 
 was the wedding of Edward Winslow and 
 Susannah White. It took place on May 
 22 and was the first to occur among them. 
 Winslow was a widower, his former wife, 
 
2i6 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 Elizabeth, having died as recently as 
 March 24, and Mrs. White's first husband, 
 William, also had died no earlier than 
 February 21. Probably the brevity of the 
 interval between their respective bereave- 
 ments and their marriage was due very 
 largely, if not wholly, to the peculiar con- 
 ditions of the young colony, in which 
 family relations were felt to be much more 
 advantageous than single life. The cere- 
 mony doubtless was very simple and unat- 
 tended by any special festivities. It was 
 civil in character and probably was per- 
 formed by Governor Bradford as their 
 magistrate. There was no minister among 
 them,^ and if there had been their views 
 at that time did not allow them to make 
 use of his services on such an occasion. 
 Says Bradford : — 
 
 May 12. was y= first manage in this place, which, 
 according to ye laudable custome of ye Low-Cun- 
 tries, in which they had lived, was thought most 
 requisite to be performed by the magistrate, as 
 being a civill thing, upon which many questions 
 
The First Year. 2 1 7 
 
 aboute inheritances doe depende, with other things 
 most proper to their cognizans, and most consonante 
 to y« scripturs, Ruth 4. and no wher found in y« 
 gospell to be layed on y= ministers as a part of 
 their office. 
 
 There is no record beyond this concern- 
 ing the occurrence and they were in too 
 depressed and needy a state to make much 
 ado over it, even if in other circumstances 
 they would have been disposed to do so. 
 
 In the course of the summer and autumn 
 several expeditions were sent out which 
 deserve mention. One was to visit the 
 Indian sachem, Massasoit, "their new 
 freind," in order that they might 
 
 bestow upon him some gratuitie to bind him y= 
 faster unto them ; as also that hearby they might 
 veiw y= counlrie, and see in what maner he lived, 
 what strength he had aboute him, and how y= ways 
 were to his place. 
 
 So, on July 12, they sent off Edward 
 Win slow and Stephen Hopkins, with 
 Squanto to guide them, carrying as gifts 
 "a suite of deaths, and a horsemans coate, 
 
2 1 8 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 with some other small things." They 
 were not much impressed with what they 
 saw. The plague had decimated his people 
 a few years before, as has been related, so 
 that but few remained, and these were 
 destitute and dirty. The journey of the 
 envoys was tedious and apparently they 
 did not follow the shortest possible route. 
 Probably, however, it was then the easiest 
 and therefore practically the shortest. It 
 took them some forty miles westward from 
 Plymouth, through the present Middle- 
 borough and Taunton to Swansea on 
 Narragansett Bay and back. "They found 
 but short comons, and came both weary 
 & hungrie home," is Bradford's terse 
 comment on the trip. 
 
 A second expedition was sent towards 
 the end of July to Nauset on Cape Cod 
 after John Billington, one of the boys in 
 almost the only habitually restless and 
 troublesome family in the colony,^ who 
 had lost himself in the woods and fallen 
 among the Indians. The Pilgrims heard 
 
The First Year. 219 
 
 of his whereabouts through Massasoit and 
 sent their shallop after him and brought 
 him back. In the fact that Bradford says 
 that they " had him delivered " and that 
 "those people also came and made their 
 peace," there is no intimation that he had 
 been detained among the Indians against 
 his will, but only that he had fallen into 
 the hands of a tribe which up to that time 
 had had no intercourse with the settlers 
 and which now exchanged gifts with them. 
 It is worth noting that the Pilgrims took 
 advantage of this opportunity to find the 
 owners of the corn which they had dug up 
 in that vicinity in the previous November 
 and to pay for it. About the middle of 
 August they also were obliged to make a 
 show of force toward some of the usually 
 peaceable natives. Corbitant, an Indian 
 ally of Massasoit but unfriendly to the Eng- 
 lish, was reported to have killed Squanto 
 and another friendly Indian, Hobomok, 
 some dozen miles west from Plymouth. 
 The latter escaped and warned the colony 
 
220 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 but Squanto was detained. So the Pil- 
 grims sent out Captain Standish and four- 
 teen men, well armed, who wounded sev- 
 eral of Corbitant's people slightly, before 
 learning that Squanto was unharmed, and 
 thereby taught the Indians a useful lesson 
 or two and fortunately were not obliged 
 to take life. 
 
 On Tuesday, September 28, they sent 
 their first party northwards to Massachu- 
 setts Bay. It contained ten of their own 
 men, besides Squanto and two other 
 Indians, and went in the shallop. It was 
 gone until Saturday, October 2. It appears 
 to have landed first at the present Squan- 
 tum, in Quincy, and to have crossed the bay 
 later to where Charlestown now stands. 
 It formed friendly relations with the In- 
 dians on each side of the bay and obtained 
 a number of skins. It also was learned 
 that the natives in that region were much 
 afraid of the Tarratines, a tribe living 
 in what is now Maine but often invading 
 Massachusetts. It has been asserted so 
 
The First Year. 221 
 
 frequently that the Pilgrims abused the 
 Indians * that it is proper to add here a 
 quotation from Edward Winslow's pub- 
 lished account of the trip, which sets forth 
 the policy which they pursued habitually. 
 
 Here Tisquantum [Squanto] would haue had vs 
 rifled the Saluage women, and taken their skins, 
 and all such things as might be seruiceable for vs ; 
 for (sayd he) they are a bad people, and haue oft 
 threatned you : But our answere was ; Were they 
 neuer so bad, we would not wrong them, or giue 
 them any just occasion against vs. for their words 
 we litde weighed them, but if they once attempted 
 any thing against vs then we would deale far worse 
 then he desired. 
 
 The explorers liked Massachusetts Bay 
 so well as to wish that the colony had been 
 established there. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 MORE HAPS AND MISHAPS. 
 
 A UTUMN had now come, and the 
 •*^^ work of gathering their harvest and 
 making ready for the winter demanded 
 attention. Whether the previous winter 
 had been uncommonly severe or not, they 
 could not be certain that the coming cold 
 season would not prove equally trying. 
 So they took all possible means to prepare 
 for the worst. Their crop of corn was 
 small, but at first it appeared to be suffi- 
 cient, and they sought to supplement it 
 with a store of fish and game. Says Brad- 
 ford : — 
 
 They begane now to gather in y small harvest 
 they had, and to fitte up their houses and dwellings 
 against winter, being all well recovered in health & 
 strenght, and had all things in good plenty ; for as 
 some were thus imployed in affairs abroad, others 
 were excersised in fishing, aboute cod, & bass, & 
 
More Haps and Mishaps. 223 
 
 other fish, of which yey tooke good store, of which 
 every family had their portion. All y= soiSer ther 
 was no wante. And now begane to come in store 
 of foule, as winter approached, of which this place 
 did abound when they came first (but afterward 
 decreased by degrees). And besids water foule, 
 ther was great store of wild Turkies, of which they 
 tooke many, besids venison, &c. Besids they had 
 aboute a peck a meale a weeke to a person, or now 
 since harvest, Indean come to y' proportion. Which 
 made many afterwards write so largly of their plenty 
 hear to their freinds in England, which were not 
 fained, but true reports.' 
 
 This confidence in the sufficiency of 
 their supplies, however, was soon de- 
 stroyed. On November 21 the Fortune 
 arrived, a small ship sent by the London 
 Company, which had been on the way 
 since early in July, in which came thirty- 
 five additional settlers, together with 
 Robert Cushman, who had started with 
 the Pilgrims on their own voyage and had 
 returned in the Speedwell. 
 
 Partly because of imperfect original 
 equipment and partly because of the ex- 
 
224 ^'^^ Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 cessive length of the voyage, the Fortune's 
 company arrived in a state of lamentable 
 want. Probably the colonists had received 
 no announcement of her coming until they 
 discovered her heading into Plymouth Bay ; 
 but then, after assuring themselves that 
 she was not hostile, they must have as- 
 sumed with rejoicing that she had come 
 laden with the various supplies of which 
 it was well known at home that they 
 would be in need. But any such assump- 
 tion had. to be abandoned as soon as she 
 had dropped anchor. Instead of adding 
 anything of value to the resources of the 
 colony, her company had to be fed and 
 cared for, and the colonists even had to 
 furnish the ship some provisions in order 
 that she might reach England again. 
 Some suits of clothing seem to have been 
 all which she brought as cargo which was 
 of much use. So reduced were her people 
 that there remained on board 
 
 not so much as bisket-cake or any other victialls 
 for them, neither had they any beding, but some 
 
More Haps and Mishaps. 225 
 
 sory things they had in their cabins, nor pot, nor 
 pan, to drese any meate in ; nor overmany cloaths, 
 for many of them had brusht away their coats & 
 cloaks at Plimoth [in England, where they had 
 touched] as they came. . . . The plantation was 
 glad of this addition of strenght, but could have 
 wished that many of them had been of beter condi- 
 tion, and all of them beter furnished with provis- 
 sions ; but y' could not be helpte. 
 
 It is plain that the Adventurers in Eng- 
 land, who had engaged to see that the col- 
 ony was properly supplied with what it 
 needed, were shamefully negligent in re- 
 spect to both quantity and quality of the 
 goods sent out. It is evident, also, that 
 little or no care was used to select proper 
 persons as additional colonists. The Pil- 
 grims had become so reduced in numbers 
 that they would have been glad of more 
 people if these had been suitably equipped, 
 but more mouths without more food only 
 embarrassed them. With their accustomed 
 courage, however, they made the best of 
 the situation. But they had to bear an 
 additional annoyance and of a peculiarly 
 
226 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 painful sort. Mr. Cushman, who had not 
 come to remain, brought letters from 
 Thomas Weston and his associates re- 
 proaching the Pilgrims for not having sent 
 back a cargo in the Mayflower. In \dew 
 of their knowledge of the sufferings of the 
 colony during the Mayflower's delay there, 
 the unfairness of these letters is remarka- 
 ble and betrays the sordid greed of most 
 of the Adventurers and their almost 
 complete indifference to the needs of the 
 colonists. 
 
 It would have been only natural for them 
 to be disappointed by the delay of profits 
 from their investments in the colonial un- 
 dertaking, had the circumstances rendered 
 such returns possible, but they ought to 
 have understood that their own failure to 
 equip the Pilgrims properly at first, and to 
 send out to them sufficient supplies until 
 the colony had become established and 
 prosperous, was the true cause of this 
 delay. Cushman, however, managed to in- 
 duce the Pilgrims to sign the contract with 
 
More Haps and Mishaps. 227 
 
 the Adventurers which they had refused to 
 sign at Southampton. Doubtless they felt 
 that almost any material concession was 
 better than to risk losing wholly the evi- 
 dently declining interest of the London 
 merchants. The Fortune made only a 
 short stay. She sailed for home at the 
 end of a fortnight, Cushman returning in 
 her, and she carried back about ;£soo 
 worth of clapboards, skins, and other 
 goods which had been accumulated for 
 this purpose. Governor Bradford also 
 sent by her a manly letter defending him- 
 self and his companions from Weston's 
 accusations. 
 
 Then precautions against famine had to 
 be taken at once. 
 
 The Gove"' & his assistante haveing disposed 
 these late comers into severall families, as y^y best 
 could, tooke an exacte accounte of all their provis- 
 sions in store, and proportioned y= same to y^ num- 
 ber of persons, and found that it would not hoiild out 
 above 6. months at halfe alowance, and hardly that. 
 And they could not well give less this winter time 
 
228 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 till fish came in againe. So they were presently put 
 to half alowance, one as well as an other, which 
 begane to be hard, but they bore it patiently under 
 hope of supply. 
 
 This decided manner of dealing with 
 the situation was of course inevitable, but 
 it must have been doubly unpleasant in 
 view of the previous general understand- 
 ing that the supply of provisions was suf- 
 ficient. But at the time when they had 
 supposed themselves to have food enough 
 to last through the winter they had num- 
 bered only some fifty persons. The ad- 
 dition of thirty-five more was a serious 
 matter. Many of these new-comers also 
 were " lusty yonge men," sure to be among 
 the hungriest and not likely to be espe- 
 cially patient or considerate, for they had 
 come to the colony recklessly rather than 
 with serious purpose and sympathy with 
 its object. Bradford describes them as 
 being "many of them wild enough, who 
 litle considered whither or aboute what 
 they wente, till they came into y= harbore 
 
More Haps and Mishaps. 229 
 
 at Cap Codd, and ther saw nothing but 
 a naked and barren place." Plainly they 
 were more of a hindrance than a help to 
 the colony. 
 
 Three incidents which befell during this 
 same year deserve mention here. One, 
 which occurred on June 28, is the first 
 recorded attempt at a duel in New Eng- 
 land if not in America.^ Although the 
 Pilgrims were ready enough to fight in 
 self-defence against any common foe, they 
 were far from approving of -private com- 
 bats. But one was undertaken in their 
 midst. Edward Doten and Edward Leis- 
 ter, the two servants of Stephen Hopkins, 
 had a quarrel and foolishly determined to 
 settle it with swords and daggers. One 
 was wounded in the hand and the other in 
 the thigh. They were promptly arrested 
 and were tried with solemn formality 
 before the whole company. They were 
 condemned to be tied together by the 
 hands and feet and left without food or 
 drink for twenty-four hours. But, after 
 
230 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 having endured this uncomfortable, igno- 
 minious, and suitably ridiculous penalty 
 for only one hour, they pleaded so hard 
 for relief and promised good behavior so 
 earnestly that, upon Mr. Hopkins's inter- 
 cession, they were released. Their expe- 
 rience appears to have checked any ten- 
 dency towards duelling in the colony 
 completely. 
 
 The second was more serious. Soon 
 after the Fortune had sailed, at about the 
 end of November, a new alarm was caused 
 by the Indians. The largest and most 
 warlike tribe near enough to Plymouth to 
 take much notice of the colony was the 
 Narragansett, which occupied most of 
 what now is the State of Rhode Island. 
 It is stated to have numbered 30,000, of 
 whom 5,000 were warriors.^ Perhaps this 
 tribe had learned of the reduced numbers 
 of the colony, which hardly can have been 
 kept secret permanently. At any rate it 
 undertook to intimidate the colonists and 
 sent a messenger to Plymouth 
 
More Haps and Mishaps. 231 
 
 with a bundl of arrows tyed aboute with a great 
 sneak-skine [snake-skin] ; which their interpretours 
 tould them [that is, the settlers] was a threatening 
 & a chaleng. 
 
 But the Indians had misunderstood the 
 spirit of the Pilgrims. 
 
 Y= Gov, with y= advice of others, sente them a 
 round answere, that if they had rather have warre 
 then peace, they might begine when they would; 
 they had done them no wrong, neither did yey fear 
 them, or should they find them unprovided. And 
 by another messenger sente y^ sneake-skine back 
 with bullits in it ; but they would not receive it, but 
 sent it back againe. 
 
 This reply quenched the ardor of the 
 Narragansetts for war, but the Pilgrims at 
 once set at work to renew and improve 
 their military organization, and built a 
 fence, with gates and "flankers,"* all 
 around the settlement, and maintained a 
 systematic watch at night and sometimes 
 by day. 
 
 The third incident occurred on Christ- 
 mas. Says Bradford : — 
 
232 TJie Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 I shall remmember one passage more, rather of 
 mirth then of waight. One y= day called Christ- 
 mas-day, ye Govr caled them out to worke, (as was 
 used,) but ye most of this new-company [the thirty- 
 five] excused them selves and said it wente against 
 their consciences to work on y' day. So ye Gov 
 tould them that if they made it mater of conscience, 
 he would spare them till they were better informed. 
 So he led-away ye rest and left them ; but when 
 they came home at noone from their worke, he 
 found them in ye streete at play, openly ; some 
 pitching ye barr, & some at stoole-ball, and shuch 
 like sports. So he went to them, and tooke away 
 their implements, and tould them that was against 
 his conscience, that they should play & others 
 worke. If they made ye keeping of it mater of 
 devotion, let them kepe their houses, but ther 
 should be no gameing or revelling in ye streets. 
 Since which time nothing hath been atempted that 
 way, at least openly. 
 
 Should this exercise of authority by the 
 governor seem arbitrary to any reader, the 
 fact ought to be recalled that the colony 
 was face to face with threatening famine 
 and already had been for some weeks 
 on half allowance of food. Whatever the 
 
More Haps and Mishaps. 233 
 
 governor's ideas about Christmas ordi- 
 narily may have been, in the existing cir- 
 cumstances he hardly could be blamed 
 for objecting to untimely merrymakings. 
 There was need, for the sake of the com- 
 mon safety, that every man should work 
 his hardest and every day, and the release 
 of the young men from toil for that occa- 
 sion was a generous concession, especially 
 in view of the probable insincerity of their 
 plea of conscience. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 TREMBLING IN THE BALANCE. 
 
 THE depressing uncertainty in regard 
 to the life of the colony continued 
 for several years. It proved to be almost 
 impossible to establish themselves success- 
 fully and it is surprising that the attempt 
 was not abandoned. As already has been 
 explained, most of the members of the 
 London company, the Adventurers, were 
 so ignorant of or indifferent to the needs 
 of the colony, besides being very jealous 
 and quarrelsome mutually, that it did little 
 to contribute to the prosperity of the Pil- 
 grims or even to secure them a bare suste- 
 nance. Out of the six or seven vessels 
 which made harbor at Plymouth during 
 1622 and 1623 only the last two appear to 
 have been sent by the Adventurers. In 
 May, 1622, a shallop reached Plymouth 
 
 234 
 
Trembling in the Balance. 235 
 
 from the Sparrow, a ship which Weston 
 had sent fishing to the Maine coast, in 
 which were brought seven passengers and 
 some letters.^ About the end of June the 
 Charity touched there, on her way for 
 Weston to Virginia, but brought them no 
 goods or provisions ; and the colony had 
 to help feed her people, about sixty, dur- 
 ing her stay, and keep and care for a num- 
 ber of them who were ill during " ye most 
 parte of ye somer," until she came in 
 again on her way home.^ 
 
 In the autumn the Discovery, owned by 
 English merchants not among the Adven- 
 turers, touched at the colony, and the Pil- 
 grims were able to procure from her some 
 beads and knives for trade with the 
 Indians, but at exorbitant prices, and they 
 obtained from her no food.^ Not long 
 after, in the spring of 1623, another ship * 
 reached them, sent out for himself by 
 John Peirce, one of the Adventurers, who 
 seems to have accompanied her, but there 
 is no account of any addition to the sup- 
 
236 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 plies of the colony from this source. At 
 about the last of June, Captain Francis 
 West, commissioned as admiral of New 
 England, arrived in the ship Plantation, 
 but he, too, was only a visitor. They tried 
 to buy food or seed from the master of 
 this ship, who 
 
 had some 2. hh of pease to sell, but seeing their 
 wants, held them at £^. sterling a hoggshead, & 
 under ;^8. he would not take, and yet would have 
 beaver at an under rate. But they tould him they 
 had lived so long with out, and would doe still, 
 rather then give so unreasonably." 
 
 Apparently some individuals bought a 
 small quantity of the peas, but the greed 
 of the master prevented the sale of most 
 of his stock. In July the Anne arrived, 
 and early in August "ye pinass," the 
 Little James, the two vessels bringing 
 about sixty new colonists, among them 
 George Morton and family, and some sup- 
 plies, although not enough to support even 
 the new-comers.^ The old difficulty con- 
 tinued to exist. " All [that is, all the pro- 
 
Trembling in the Balance. 237 
 
 vision] ye company sent at any time was 
 allways too short for those people yt came 
 with it." ' In their penury it must have 
 been an inexpressible distress to the Pil- 
 grims, who were bravely and loyally keep- 
 ing their faith with the Adventurers, to 
 hear from the mother country so seldom, 
 and to have ship after ship arrive bringing 
 no aid but usually in actual need of help 
 from them. Yet they never failed to do 
 all in their power for those who thus 
 claimed their assistance. 
 
 Although their trials during the first 
 winter had been of the severest character, 
 they now were obliged to brave a new 
 peril quite equal to any which had pre- 
 ceded it. The lack of food increased 
 until they found themselves face to face 
 with actual starvation, and the extremity 
 of their want deserves to be set forth 
 more at length. As early as May, 1622, 
 " in a maner their provissions were wholy 
 spent, and they looked har-d for supply, 
 but none came,"^ Not long after, how- 
 
238 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 ever, they heard of a fishing-vessel some- 
 where off the northern coast, and Edward 
 Winslow was sent to 'obtain provisions 
 from her if possible. Fortunately he did 
 not have to return quite empty-handed, 
 yet he was able to procure but very little 
 food in comparison with what they needed. 
 
 He gott some good quantitie and returned in 
 saftie. . . . But what was gott . . . being devided 
 among so many, came to but a litle, yet by God's 
 blesing it upheld them till harvest. It arose but to 
 a quarter of a pound of bread a day to each person ; 
 and y« Gov caused it to be dayly given them, other- 
 wise, had it been in their owne custody, they would 
 have eate it up & then starved. But thus, with 
 what els they could get, they made pretie shift till 
 come was ripe.° 
 
 But the harvest time brought little and 
 only temporary improvement. The con- 
 ditions of the season may not have been 
 sufficiently favorable, and in any case they 
 cannot yet have become expert in rais- 
 ing corn. Indeed, Bradford declares this 
 plainly. Moreover, the longer the scarcity 
 
Trembling in the Balance. 239 
 
 of food continued the less able to perform 
 physical labor they became. 
 
 All had their hungrie bellies filled. But it arose 
 but to a litle, in comparison of a full year's supplie ; 
 partly by reason they were not yet well aquainted 
 with yi= raaner of Indean come, (and 'they had no 
 other,) allso their many other imployments, but 
 cheefly their weaknes for wante of food, to tend it 
 as they should have done. Also much was stolne 
 both by night & day, before it became scarce eata- 
 ble, & much more afterward. And though many 
 were well whipt (when they were taken) for a few 
 ears of corne, yet hunger made others (whom con- 
 science did not restraine) to venture.'" 
 
 These thefts undoubtedly were committed 
 chiefly, if not wholly, by persons who but 
 recently had arrived in the colony. Fish- 
 ing of course was pursued as much as 
 possible, but its success was limited by 
 their lack of sufficient equipment, and it 
 was hard work and often unrewarding. 
 
 Haveing but one boat left . . . they were devided 
 into severall companies, 6. or 7. to a gangg or 
 company, and so wente out with a nett they had 
 
240 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 bought, to take bass & such like fish, by course, 
 every company knowing their turne. No sooner 
 was ye boate discharged of what she brought, but 
 ye next company tooke her and wente out with her. 
 Neither did they retume till they had cauight some- 
 thing, though it were j. or 6. days before, for they 
 knew ther was nothing at home, and to goe home 
 emptie would be a great discouragemente to ye rest. 
 ... If she stayed longe or got litle, then all went 
 to seeking of shelfish, which at low-water they 
 digged out of ye sands. And this was their living 
 in ye somer time, tUl God sente y" beter; & in 
 winter they were helped with ground-nuts and foule. 
 Also in ye somer they gott now & then a dear." 
 
 It is difficult to read this artless and 
 pathetic record without profound emotion. 
 What gallant courage, what loyalty to their 
 beliefs, what intense faith in God the Pil- 
 grims must have possessed in order to 
 endure, after so many and so diversified 
 previous trials, such distresses as these ! 
 
 This discouraging and weakening con- 
 dition of comparative famine continued 
 about a year and a half, until the autumn 
 of 1623. In the spring of that year they 
 
Trembling in the Balance. 241 
 
 became convinced that something was 
 amiss with their methods, and renewed 
 study of the situation led them to alter 
 their policy of labor in an important 
 respect, which in view of modern discus- 
 sions of the same subject should be de- 
 scribed. Apparently there had prevailed 
 among them to some extent a belief in 
 what may be termed Christian Commu- 
 nism. It has been noted already that, 
 when about to depart from Leyden, 
 
 those that weare to goe, prepared them selves with 
 all speed, and sould of their estats and (such as 
 were able) put in their moneys into y= commone 
 stock, which was disposed by those appointed, for 
 ye making of generall provissions."' 
 
 Apparently also after landing at Plym- 
 outh they practiced a modified commu- 
 nism, especially in regard to labor and its 
 fruits. They had their individual houses 
 but raised their crops in common and for 
 general consumption. Each man worked 
 four of the six days of the secular week 
 for the public benefit, including that of 
 
243 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 the Adventurers in London as well as that 
 of the colony itself, and only two days in 
 his own interest. But when it had become 
 clear that they must grow larger harvests 
 or starve, 
 
 after much debate of things, the Gov (with y« 
 advise of y= cheefest amongest them) gave way that 
 they should set come every man for his owne per- 
 ticuler, and in that reg3.rd trust to them selves ; in 
 all other things to goe on in ye generall way as 
 before. . . . This had very good success ; for it 
 made all hands very industrious, so as much more 
 corne was planted then other waise would have bene 
 by any means y^ Gov or any other could use." 
 
 Bradford emphasizes the good results of 
 this change of method and then adds : — 
 
 The experience that was had in this coiiione 
 course and condition, tried sundrie years, and that 
 amongst godly and sober men, may wfell evince the 
 vanitie of that conceit of Platos and other ancients, 
 applauded by some of later times ; — that ye taking 
 away of propertie, and bringing in comunitie into 
 a comone wealth, would make them happy and 
 flourishing ; as if they were wiser then God. For 
 this comunitie (so farr as it was) was found to breed 
 
Trembling in the Balance. 243 
 
 much confusion & discontent, and retard much im- 
 ploymet that would have been to their benefite and 
 comforte. . . . Upon y<= poynte all being to have 
 alike, and all to doe alike, they thought them selves 
 in jre like condition, and one as good as another ; 
 and so, if it did not cut of those relations that 
 God hath set amongest men, yet it did at least 
 much diminish and take of y^ mutuall respects tKat 
 should be preserved amongst them. And would 
 have been worse if they had been men of another 
 condition." 
 
 This is practical testimony and based upon 
 experience and observation. It is worth 
 being weighed carefully by those who 
 theorize, as some do nowadays, about the 
 establishment of socialistic or communis- 
 tic settlements, in which most of the labor 
 is to be performed for the general benefit. 
 No such modern colony, it is safe to say, 
 would be likely to be composed of more 
 orderly, intelligent, diligent, or public- 
 spirited settlers than those of the Plymouth 
 Colony, and the policy of common labor 
 as opposed to individual apparently had a 
 fair trial among the Pilgrims and ought to 
 
244 I'f^ Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 have succeeded there if it can be depended 
 upon to succeed in the long run anywhere. 
 But it failed completely, and it is not 
 likely that social conditions have altered 
 sufficiently to render a different result 
 probable now. Human nature varies little 
 from age to age. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE DAWN OF BETTER DAYS. 
 
 '' I "HAT the longest night has an end is 
 -■• a true proverb, and by degrees the 
 situation of the colony began to improve. 
 Their change of policy about planting pro- 
 duced large crops in 1623 and afterwards 
 they suffered less from scanty food, 
 although one more alarm first disturbed 
 their peace and even threatened^heir 
 safety. Their hopes of this harvest were 
 nearly shattered by a prolonged drought. 
 
 Notwithstand all their great paines & Industrie, 
 & y« great hops of a large cropp, the Lord seemed 
 to blast, & take away the same, and to threaten 
 further & more sore famine unto them, by a great 
 drought which continued from ye 3. weeke in May, 
 till about ye midle of July, without any raine, and 
 with great heat (for ye most parte), insomuch as ye 
 corne begane to wither away . . . and some of ye 
 drier grounds were partched like withered hay. ' 
 215 
 
246 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 After having done all in their own power 
 to remedy the situation in vain, they had 
 recourse to the Almighty, and their prayers 
 were followed by the rain. 
 
 They sett a parte a solemne day of humilliation, to 
 seeke ye Lord by humble & fervente prayer, in this 
 great distrese. And he was pleased to give them a 
 gracious & speedy answer, both to their owne, and 
 the Indeans admiration, that lived amongest them. 
 For all y= morning, and greatest part of the day, it 
 was clear weather & very hotte, and not a cloud or 
 any signe of raine to be seen, yet toward evening it 
 begane to overcast, and shortly after to raine, with 
 shuch sweete and gentle showers, as gave them 
 cause of rejoyceing, & blessing God. . . Which 
 did so apparently revive & quicken ye decayed corne 
 & other fruits, as was wonderful! to see, and made 
 ye Indeans astonished to behold; and afterwards 
 the Lord sent them shuch seasonable showers, with 
 enterchange of faire warme weather, as, through his 
 blessing, caused a fruitfull & liberall harvest. 
 
 Moreover, they had become accustomed 
 to the climate of their new home. The 
 surviving original settlers gradually had 
 established themselves in a condition of 
 
The Dawn of Better Days. 247 
 
 moderate comfort, and such new-comers as 
 had joined the colony had been spared 
 the pain and risk of undergoing many of 
 its early hardships. The general health, 
 therefore, was much improved and the 
 death rate fell to something like its normal 
 figures. 
 
 They also had little more trouble from 
 the Indians. In the spring of 1622 they 
 heard that the Narragansetts were about 
 to attack them, but it proved a false alarm, 
 although it caused a temporary and prob- 
 ably unfounded suspicion that Squanto 
 was insincere.^ But some rivalry, not to 
 say jealousy, between him, Massasoit, and 
 Hobomok, enabled the Pilgrims to manage 
 them all safely, and in the autumn Squanto 
 died, 
 
 desiring y^ Gov to pray for him, that he might goe 
 to y= Englishmens God in heaven, and bequeathed 
 sundrie of his things to sundry of his English 
 freinds, as remembrances of his love ; of whom 
 they had a great loss.' 
 
 He had been of inestimable service to 
 
248 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 them and there seems little reason to 
 doubt his loyalty. Early in the next year, 
 1623, they cured Massasoit of a serious 
 illness and in gratitude he revealed to 
 them the fact of an extensive Indian con- 
 spiracy against them.* This was the most 
 dangerous as, indeed, it proved to be the 
 only serious peril in their whole experience 
 with the Indians. With their usual energy 
 they determined to strike the first blow, 
 having ample proof of their danger; and 
 on April 4 Standish and eight others with 
 Hobomok set sail for Wessagusset, where 
 on April 6 they attacked the hostile 
 Indians, killed the two chiefs, Pecksuot 
 and Wituwamat, and five others, who were 
 about to attack them, and frightened all 
 the neighboring tribes exceedingly.® 
 
 In the summer of this same year they 
 built on what is called Burial Hill, which 
 rises one hundred and sixty-five feet above 
 the sea level, a fort 
 
 both strong & comly, which was of good defence, 
 made with a flate rofe & battlments, on which their 
 
The Dawn of Better Days. 249 
 
 ordnance were mounted, and wher they kepte con- 
 stante watch, espetially in time of danger. It 
 served tliem allso for a meeting house, and was 
 fitted accordingly for that use." 
 
 The ordnance, says Isaac De Rasieres, 
 the diplomatic agent of the Dutch in the 
 New Netherlands, who visited Plymouth 
 in 1627, consisted of "six cannons, which 
 shoot iron balls of four or five pounds and 
 command the surrounding country." The 
 same witness describes picturesquely their 
 manner of going to church, as follows : — 
 
 They assemble by beat of drum, each with his 
 musket or firelock, in front of the captain's door; 
 they have their cloaks on, and place themselves in 
 order, three abreast, and are led by a sergeant 
 without beat of drum. Behind comes the Governor, 
 in a long robe ; beside him on the right hand comes 
 the preacher with his cloak on, and on the left hand 
 the captain with his side-arms and cloak on, and 
 with a small cane in his hand ; and so they march 
 in good order, and each sets his arms down near 
 him.' 
 
 The colony had no regular minister for 
 about nine years, and during this interval 
 
250 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 William Brewster, although he never ad- 
 ministered the sacraments, "taught twise 
 every Saboth, and yt both powerfully and 
 profitably, to ye great contentment of ye 
 hearers, and their comfortable edification ; 
 yea, many were brought to God by his 
 ministrie."^ Doubtless he was "the 
 preacher" to whom De Rasieres referred.^ 
 It has been mentioned that the Anne 
 and the Little James, which arrived in 
 the summer of 1623, brought a consider- 
 able addition to the colony, not less than 
 sixty persons.^" Most of them were " very 
 usefull " and "became good members to 
 ye body," and some were the wives and 
 children of original settlers. Others, how- 
 ever, were so bad that they had to be sent 
 home the next year. A number of them, 
 also, had come "on their perticuler," 
 which seems to mean that they were an 
 organized company willing to submit to 
 the laws of the colony yet desirous of 
 maintaining their own organization.^ The 
 Pilgrims readily arranged satisfactory 
 
The Dawti of Better Days. 251 
 
 mutual relations with them, and most of 
 them became useful citizens and were 
 absorbed in due time and naturally in the 
 general colony. Yet the food question 
 still was so serious when these new colo- 
 nists came that it was determined finally 
 that they should subsist upon the pro- 
 visions which they had brought, the earlier 
 settlers also depending upon their own, 
 until the next year.^ But the harvest 
 gathered soon after set all fears at rest. 
 " In stead of famine, now God gave them 
 plentie, and ye face of things was changed 
 ... so as any generall wante or famine 
 hath not been amongst them since." 
 
 In addition to the comfort of plenty, 
 the Pilgrims also must have found cheer in 
 the fact that they were able to hold their 
 ground. In the spring of 1622 they 
 learned that a general massacre by the 
 Indians had occurred " in ye south-collonie 
 of Virginia," in which nearly or quite 
 three hundred and fifty English had 
 perished.^ At about the same time the 
 
252 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 nearest effort to found a new colony 
 proved a total failure. The restless 
 Thomas Weston, not even yet compre- 
 hending the hindrances to the carrying 
 out of such an enterprise, had obtained a 
 grant of land further north and sent a 
 small colony to settle at Wessagusset, 
 now Weymouth.^* They visited Plymouth 
 first and of course were equipped insuffi- 
 ciently, and the Pilgrims out of common 
 humanity had to care for them a long 
 time and just when it was hardest to take 
 care of themselves, and after settling at 
 Wessagusset their provisions soon ran 
 out. They ill-treated the Indians and 
 naturally had trouble, and the Pilgrims 
 had to send a party under Standish to 
 rescue them and enable them to abandon 
 their settlement and get off to join the 
 fishing fleet at the northward. The enter- 
 prise was bungled from the beginning and 
 deserved its fate. 
 
 Early in 1623 Weston himself also 
 appeared, but in sore need.^^ He had 
 
The Dawn of Better Days. 253 
 
 come over, in disguise for some reason, 
 to visit his colony, which already had col- 
 lapsed. He had been shipwrecked and 
 in addition had been robbed by the 
 Indians, and he barely reached Plymouth 
 alive. The Pilgrims took pity upon him, 
 too, and fitted him out afresh, so that he 
 was able to make his way back to the 
 northern fishing fleet, but he afterwards 
 proved more unfriendly to them than ever. 
 He must have been as ungrateful as he 
 was reckless. 
 
 In September, 1623, a more consider- 
 able attempt was made to colonize in the 
 same region. Captain Robert Gorges, who 
 was commissioned to be "generall Cover of 
 ye cuntrie," endeavored with a number of 
 families and individuals to settle at Wessa- 
 gusset, which Weston's colony had aban- 
 doned. He had large authority on paper, 
 and the governor of the Plymouth Colony 
 had been appointed one of his three 
 Assistants. Weston reappeared about 
 this time and Gorges called him to ac- 
 
254 T^^^ Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 count for misconduct. A long controversy 
 ensued, with which the Plymouth men 
 managed to avoid being complicated 
 annoyingly. Weston was arrested once 
 or twice but released, and in a few months 
 the colony of Gorges scattered and 
 Gorges himself returned to England, " not 
 finding the state of things hear to answer 
 his quallitie and condition." ^^ He was 
 more desirous of exercising authority and 
 of making a show than of engaging in 
 hard work. 
 
 In connection with his undertaking' 
 occurred the first attempt of the spiritual 
 authorities of England to regain control 
 over the Pilgrims. He had brought over 
 two clergymen of the Church of England. 
 One was Rev. William Morell,^^ who 
 remained about a year, apparently a part 
 of the time at Plymouth, and who had 
 been sent out to exercise some sort of 
 ecclesiastical authority in New England. 
 But he made no attempt in that direction, 
 probably because there was no church 
 
The Dawn of Better Days. 255 
 
 except that in Plymouth, where small 
 notice would have been taken of his 
 claims ; and he spent his time in compos- 
 ing a fairly meritorious Latin poem about 
 New England, of which he made an Eng- 
 lish translation, and which, with the trans- 
 lation, he published after returning to 
 England. The other was William Black- 
 stone,^^ who soon became the pioneer set- 
 tler of what is now the city of Boston. 
 There is some dispute, however, whether 
 he were not a Puritan, and he made no 
 more effort to secure ecclesiastical recog- 
 nition than Morell made. Apparently 
 this outreaching of the Church of Eng- 
 land authorities into the western world did 
 not alarm the Pilgrims much. 
 
 During the same year other attempts 
 were made to settle at Piscataqua, Monhe- 
 gan, and elsewhere, in the hope of in- 
 creasing the products of the fisheries by 
 providing storehouses and caretakers so 
 that fishing could be carried on during the 
 larger part of the year, but all in vain.^^ 
 
2s6 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 For some years the Pilgrims were the only 
 colonists who had courage enough to face 
 the inevitable hardships. Probably, had 
 their own undertaking been merely com- 
 mercial, they too would have abandoned 
 it. But their religious liberty was at 
 stake and their faith in God upheld them. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE COMMERCIAL HISTORY OF THE 
 COLONY. 
 
 TT is worth while to consider somewhat 
 -^ more connectedly the history of the 
 Plymouth Colony on its business side, even 
 at the cost of some repetition of state- 
 ments already made. First a few prelim- 
 inary facts deserve notice. The Virginia 
 Company had been formed in England in 
 1606 in order to establish trade with North 
 America. In fact there were two com- 
 panies, also called colonies, the First or 
 Southern, which was to colonize the terri- 
 tory between the thirty-fourth and forty- 
 first degrees of north latitude, and the 
 Second or Northern, which was allotted 
 the territory between the thirty-eighth and 
 forty-fifth degrees, their grants overlap- 
 ping. The grants of the two colonies 
 
 257 
 
2S8 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 were established by two patents^ issued 
 by King James on April lo, 1606. Each 
 company was to be, governed by a council 
 of thirteen members. The first or London 
 Company was that with which the Pilgrims 
 had their earlier dealings,, and it soon 
 appropriated exclusively the title of the 
 Virginia Company, the other often being 
 called the Plymouth Company, named from 
 Plymouth in England. The council of 
 the former was divided by factions when 
 negotiations with the Pilgrims were begun, 
 but after some delays it granted a patent 
 intended to cover the case of the Pilgrims, 
 to a Mr. John Wincob.^ He intended to 
 accompany them but did not, nor was any 
 use ever made of this patent, no copy of 
 which is known to exist and the provisions 
 of which also are unknown. What has 
 been said thus far, it will be observed, 
 relates merely to the possible location of 
 the Pilgrim Colony. 
 
 We come now to the organization with 
 which the Pilgrims stood in the relation of 
 
Comm ercial History. 259 
 
 business partners. In 1619 or early in 
 1620 another commercial company had 
 been formed of some seventy persons, 
 chiefly living in or near London, called 
 the Merchant Adventurers.^ It was not 
 a regular corporation but a kind of part- 
 nership, and although it professed to have 
 a partly religious aim it was chiefly if not 
 wholly intent on pecuniary gain. This 
 company, among the managers of which 
 Thomas Weston was prominent, under- 
 took to back the Pilgrims financially, to 
 aid in equipping them, and to furnish them 
 with supplies until they could support 
 themselves. A contract was drawn up of 
 which the principal features were the pro- 
 visions that the mutual relation should 
 continue seven years, that until the end of 
 that period all profits should be held in 
 common, and that then all the houses, 
 lands, and goods of the colony, and all 
 other profits should be divided, the Ad- 
 venturers taking half and the colonists 
 half. 
 
26o The. Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 The modifications of these terms which 
 the Pilgrims proposed, although they were 
 not granted, certainly seem reasonable, 
 but probably it was partly on their account, 
 although the colonists finally yielded to 
 Cushman's pleading in 1621 and signed 
 the contract after all, and partly because of 
 the previous disputes among the Adven- 
 turers that some of these withdrew wholly 
 and others contributed reluctantly and 
 scantily, so that interest in the undertak- 
 ing largely died out and the Pilgrims were 
 neglected grossly. It has been mentioned 
 earlier that they actually had to sell some 
 of their provisions in order to sail for 
 America free of debt. Of course the 
 success of the colony depended upon a 
 sufficient, not to say a liberal, equipment, 
 and if ordinary men and women had 
 formed the Pilgrim band it would have 
 been doomed before it started. 
 
 As has been said, they had obtained 
 a patent from the Virginia or Southern 
 Company, of which no use was made. 
 
Commercial History. 261 
 
 Apparently, rather than delay longer, they 
 set out intending to take advantage of 
 this patent if it continued good. They 
 did not then mean to settle near Cape 
 Cod but much farther west and south. 
 But only a little while before they had 
 started the Second, the Northern Com- 
 pany had sent a petition to the king for 
 a new act of incorporation, as to which 
 favorable although not final action had 
 been taken. This was granted on No- 
 vember 13, 1620. It applied the name of 
 New England for the first time to the 
 territory concerned, included the country 
 between the fortieth and forty-eighth par- 
 allels of latitude, and became the basis 
 of subsequent patents.* It covered the 
 actual location of the Pilgrim Colony. 
 Doubtless the Pilgrims were aware of this 
 petition and knew that after their change 
 of plan and their decision to settle in 
 Massachusetts their own patent after all 
 might have no force. This may have been 
 one reason why they drew up their com- 
 
262 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 pact. Circumstances having perhaps cut 
 them off from the government under 
 which they had meant to settle, they saw 
 that they must provide, at least tempo- 
 rarily, some substitute of their own. On 
 June II, 1621, however, a new charter for 
 their benefit was granted to " John Peirce 
 and his associates," who were among the 
 Adventurers, by " the President and Coun- 
 cil of New England," apparently the man- 
 agers of the Northern Company, within 
 whose jurisdiction the colonists had set- 
 tled.^ Nearly a year later Peirce, who 
 does not seem to have been much more 
 honorable than Weston, secretly obtained 
 a much more inclusive charter in his own 
 name, but he finally was persuaded to 
 turn it over to the company of Adven- 
 turers. Little is known of it except that 
 Peirce brought several lawsuits on account 
 of it against others, apparently in vain.^ 
 
 The letter which announced the new 
 charter, the first granted to Peirce, — the 
 original copy of which, by the way, is now 
 
Commercial History. 263 
 
 treasured at Plymouth, — reached them in 
 the Fortune on November 21, 1621,^ but 
 the announcement seems to have made no 
 particular difference to them. Weston 
 wrote it and it was the same in which he re- 
 proached them bitterly for not having sent 
 home a cargo in the Mayflower. During 
 the next three or four years several ships 
 were sent to the colony at long intervals, 
 and a few others touched there on their 
 way to Virginia or elsewhere. The colo- 
 nists loaded the Fortune with skins and 
 clapboards, but she was captured and plun- 
 dered by the French, and they made what 
 shift they could to find cargoes for subse- 
 quent vessels but with no great success 
 for some time. Early in 1622 disagree- 
 ments among the Adventurers became so 
 sharp that Weston wrote to the colony 
 proposing that the mutual contract be 
 abandoned.* Governor Bradford prudently 
 kept this news secret for a time, fearing 
 that the courage of his associates would 
 fail wholly if they should learn that the 
 
264 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 Adventurers wished to abandon them, 
 small although the aid received from that 
 source had been ; and his discretion was 
 justified by a subsequent letter from 
 Edward Pickering and William Greene, 
 two other Adventurers, stating that their 
 company had bought out Weston, who had 
 been seeking to deceive the Pilgrims and 
 meant to injure them.® He soon pro- 
 ceeded to send out ships and set up his 
 rival colony at Wessagusset, the speedy 
 collapse of which already has been men- 
 tioned. 
 
 In 1623 Edward Winslow was sent back 
 to England in the Anne to confer with the 
 Adventurers and procure supplies for the 
 colony, and in 1625 he returned with 
 clothing, a few cattle, and other necessa- 
 ries, but reported a strong hostile faction, 
 in the London Company and a great 
 reluctance to allow the remainder of the 
 Pilgrims, who had been left in Leyden, to 
 join the Plymouth people.^*' Meanwhile, 
 the Adventurers had sent over the 
 
Commercial History. 265 
 
 "pinass," the Little James, to be kept by 
 the colony and used as a fishing and cruisr 
 ing ship. But she soon was wrecked and 
 sunk and after being raised was sent back. 
 The next year, 1625, she came over again, 
 but was captured by the Turks on her 
 return voyage, with her load of fish and 
 furs. Another and larger ship in com- 
 pany with her carried home a full cargo, 
 but rumors of war between England and 
 France caused her to put into one or two 
 English ports instead of making straight 
 for Bilbao, her destination, and the delay 
 cost her her market. In 1624 the colony, 
 through Winslow and Robert Cushman, 
 the former being in England where the 
 latter had remained, obtained a patent 
 covering land for a fishing station at Cape 
 Ann, but no permanent use was made of 
 it.^^ In this same year an excellent ship- 
 carpenter, whose services they greatly 
 needed, was sent over to Plymouth, but he 
 soon died, and another man, sent out to 
 make salt for them, proved wholly incom- 
 
266 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 petent. Prosperity did not come to them 
 speedily even after their fortunes had 
 begun to improve. 
 
 In 1624 their difficulties with John 
 Lyford and John Oldham began, which 
 resulted in breaking up the company of 
 the Adventurers and in securing for the 
 colony a new agreement, , by which their 
 commercial independence finally was at- 
 tained. The former had just arrived. 
 The latter had come in the Anne. Lyford 
 was a reprobate but nominally a clergyman 
 of the Church of England. Avowing a 
 wish to join the church in Plymouth, he 
 was received and treated with great re- 
 spect. But he and Oldham soon were 
 detected in a conspiracy against the 
 public welfare. They were tried and con- 
 victed. The particulars need not be nar- 
 rated. Lyford professed deep penitence 
 and was pardoned. But he soon turned 
 out to be both treacherous and corrupt and 
 finally was expelled from Plymouth. He 
 went to Nantasket and then to Salem and 
 
Commercial History. 267 
 
 died at last in Virginia. Oldham also 
 was expelled from the colony, and more 
 speedily. In 1625 Oldham reappeared, 
 more violent than ever, but they dealt 
 with him summarily. They 
 
 apointed a gard of musketers w* he was to pass 
 throw, and ever one was ordered to give him a 
 thump . . . with ye but end of his musket, and 
 then [he] was conveied to y= water side, wher a 
 boat was ready to cary him away. Then they bid 
 him goe & mende his maners.'^ 
 
 Not long after he repented and the 
 Plymouth men good-naturedly became 
 reconciled to him and had no further 
 annoyance from him. He settled at Nan- 
 tasket, went back to England, and was 
 active in planning with the Gorges family 
 for the settlement of the Bay, returned to 
 America after the Bay colony had been 
 established by others, and lived afterwards 
 at Watertown, and in 1636 was killed by 
 Indians. These men had friends among 
 the London Adventurers, and a dispute 
 over them finally broke up that company. ^^ 
 
268 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 It had been rent by divisions from the 
 first, had suffered heavy losses and there 
 was no prospect of greater harmony and 
 success. But the Pilgrims had no desire 
 to take advantage of this condition of 
 affairs, and finally, through Standish and 
 AUerton, who successively had been sent 
 to England on the business, they agreed 
 to pay ;^i,8oo within six years, thereby 
 purchasing their financial freedom.^* Al- 
 lerton paid £,2ca down and brought back 
 £,^00 worth of supplies. The colony was 
 reorganized at once for better farming 
 and trade, and, in spite of their burden of 
 debt, they entered courageously upon their 
 new and at last independent career. This 
 arrangement was accomplished in 1627 and 
 1628. 
 
 They never possessed a royal charter. 
 But in 1629 the Council of New England, 
 of which the Earl of Warwick then was 
 president, granted to the colony of New 
 Plymouth a new patent, made out to 
 "William Bradford, his heirs, associates 
 
Commercial History. 269 
 
 and assigns." ^^ It is dated January 23, 
 1630, and the original parchment is in the 
 office of the Register of Deeds at Plym- 
 outh. It defines the territorial limits of 
 the colony for the first time and it also 
 includes a grant of land for fifteen miles 
 on each side of the Kennebec River, 
 which they obtained in order to establish 
 a fishing and trading station there. They 
 came near being wrecked financially after 
 all, for in 163 1 Allerton proved to have 
 mismanaged their funds and to have in- 
 curred debts in their name to the large 
 amount of £4,770, in addition to which 
 they still owed ;^i,ooo of their purchase 
 money.^^ But good fortune smiled upon 
 them and by great exertions they appear 
 to have paid all their obligations in full in 
 the course of 1633.^'^ 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 SUCCEEDING YEARS. 
 
 BEFORE the scheme of buying out 
 the share of the- Adventurers in 
 their common interest had been carried 
 out, several incidents had occurred in the 
 domestic life of the colony which deserve 
 brief notice. On November 15, 1623, a 
 fire was caused by the carelessness or 
 malice of some sailors belonging to a ship 
 lying in the harbor, who were "royster- 
 ing" ashore. The thatch upon the roof 
 of the building in which they were ignited, 
 and that house, as well as several others, 
 was destroyed with all the goods and pro- 
 visions in them. The common house, 
 which stood next door and was full of 
 valuable stores, was barely saved. Of 
 course the sailors insisted that the fire 
 was accidental, but it probably was set, yet 
 
 270 
 
Succeeding Years. 271 
 
 incendiarism could not be proved. The 
 settlement had a narrow escape from ruin.^ 
 At the annual election in 1624 Governor 
 Bradford desired to retire. The colony 
 insisted upon reelecting him, however, 
 but chose five Assistants for his relief 
 instead of one.^ 
 
 Later seven Assistants became custom- 
 ary, and the governor had two votes. 
 This simple, democratic government seems 
 to be all which the colony had, or needed, 
 for a considerable period. The officials 
 cannot have had much to do beyond sup- 
 plying the proper authority for the general 
 control of the settlers, preserving good 
 order, collecting and expending their small 
 taxes after it had become necessary to 
 levy any, managing their common business 
 relations with the Adventurers, and occa- 
 sionally acting as the representatives of 
 the colony in its intercourse with the 
 Indians or with other settlers at Massa- 
 chusetts Bay or elsewhere. They did not 
 even appoint a constable until 1633 and 
 
272 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 had no tithing-man until 1694, long after 
 the union with the Bay Colony.^ Trials 
 were held before the whole body of free- 
 men until the end of 1623, when, a:s 
 Goodwin states, it was enacted on Decem- 
 ber 27 that "all criminal facts, and also all 
 matters of trespasses and debts between 
 man and man, should be tried by the 
 verdict of twelve honest men, to be im- 
 panelled by authority, in form of a jury, 
 upon their oath."* 
 
 In the same year some of those who 
 still were "on their particuler," that is, 
 laboring outside of, although by leave of, 
 the organized body of colonists, created 
 some disaffection among certain of the 
 more impressionable members of the body, 
 and the latter demanded to be released 
 from their obligations. A faction among 
 the Adventurers in England was strongly 
 suspected, if not actually known, to be 
 behind this movement. After deliberation 
 it was agreed that they should continue to 
 dwell in the colony until the original term 
 
Succeeding Years. 273 
 
 of partnership with the Adventurers, 
 seven years, should have expired ; that 
 they should support themselves during the 
 interval ; and, at its end, should recom- 
 pense the colony for its charges on their 
 behalf by paying into the common stock 
 half of all property which they should 
 have accumulated above their food. This 
 arrangement was as shrewd as it was just. 
 No reasonable objection could be offered 
 to it, yet it prevented those who might 
 accept it from gaining any great advan- 
 tage by the change, and but a few finally 
 took advantage of it.^ 
 
 During the same year Bradford and 
 Brewster each received an affectionate 
 letter from John Robinson, written in 
 December, 1623, at Leyden.^ In the 
 former he lamented earnestly the killing 
 of the seven Indians by the expedition 
 under Captain Standish at Weymouth 
 early in 1623, apparently a justifiable and 
 even necessary use of force. Had Robin- 
 son understood the situation he would 
 
2/4 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 have regretted the necessity equally, but 
 probably would not have protested as he 
 did. His letter, however, was characteris- 
 tically beautiful in spirit. In the spring 
 of 1626 came another letter to Governor 
 Bradford and Elder Brewster, written 
 from Leyden by Roger White, which de- 
 scribed touchingly the last illness and the 
 death of Robinson, on March i, 1625. 
 Said Mr. White: — 
 
 If either prayers, tears, or means, would have 
 saved his life, he had not gone hence. But he hav- 
 ing faithfully finished his course, and performed his 
 worke which y<= Lord had appointed him here to 
 doe, he now resteth with ye Lord in eternall happi- 
 nes. We wanting him & all Church Gov^, yet we 
 still (by ye mercie of God) continue & hould close 
 togeather, in peace and quietnes ; and so hope we 
 shall "doe, though we be very weake. Wishing (if 
 such were y will of God) that you & we were againe 
 united togeather in one, either ther or here; but 
 seeing it is y^ will of ye Lord thus to dispose of 
 things, we must labour wth patience to rest con- 
 tented till it please ye Lord otherwise to dispose.' 
 
 This glimpse of the condition of those 
 
Succeeding Years. 275 
 
 who had remained in Leyden shows that 
 prosperity there had been as difficult to be 
 attained as had been feared. 
 
 In 1627 a kind of stock company was 
 formed, in order to provide for the fulfill- 
 ment of their new agreement with the 
 Adventurers.^ Each unmarried free man, 
 that is, each unmarried man who was not 
 a servant, was allotted one share, and each 
 head of a family one for himself and one 
 apiece for the other members of his 
 family. Their cattle were distributed as 
 nearly equally as possible, and the land 
 lying near the town also was divided up at 
 the rate of twenty acres to each share, 
 the holders also retaining whatever land, 
 apparently in single acres, they had owned 
 previously. No meadow land for mowing 
 was allotted, 
 
 but every season all were appoynted wher they 
 should mowe, according to y= proportion of catle 
 they had. . . . Also they gave y^ Cover & 4. or 5. 
 of ye spetiall men amongst them, ye houses they 
 lived in ; ye rest were valued & equalised at an 
 
276 TJie Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 indifferent rate, and so every man Icept his owne, 
 and he that had a better alowed some thing to him 
 that had a worse, as y^ valuation wente. 
 
 This arrangement " gave generally good 
 contente, and setled men's minds." Each 
 shareholder also was to assume his propor- 
 tion of the common debts and of the pur- 
 chase money pledged to the Adven- 
 turers. During the previous winter a 
 ship bound for Virginia had been wrecked 
 on the south side of Cape Cod, and the 
 Pilgrims had to shelter her company, 
 which was numerous, until the end of the 
 next summer. They obtained from her 
 various useful commodities, however.® 
 During the same season, in order to en- 
 large their facilities for fishing and trad- 
 ing, they built a boat and a house and 
 established a few men at Manomet in the 
 present Sandwich, so as to have access,. by 
 portage of a few miles from one creek to 
 another, into Buzzard's Bay, and thus avoid 
 the dangers of Cape Cod.^" and the meas- 
 ure proved quite profitable. At about this 
 
Succeeding Years. 277 
 
 time also they received letters and mes- 
 sages in Dutch and French from the 
 Dutch settlers at New Netherlands, now 
 New York,^ and for some years subse- 
 quently they had occasional communica- 
 tion and some trade with this western 
 colony. 
 
 In 1628 they were compelled to exert 
 their influence once more for good order 
 beyond the bounds of their own territory. 
 They had trouble with the famous, or in- 
 famous, Thomas Morton, of Merry Mount, 
 who, by the way, was in no way related, so 
 far as ever has become known, to his re- 
 spectable namesakes, the Mortons of their 
 own colony. In the spring of 1625 one 
 Captain Wollaston, with a considerable 
 company, among whom was a certain 
 Thomas Morton, had attempted to settle 
 in that part of the present Quincy which 
 from him has come to be known as Mount 
 Wollaston.^ He soon had wearied of the 
 undertaking and carried most of his com- 
 panions away to Virginia. Morton, how- 
 
278 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 ever, had remained with others. He 
 ejected Wollaston's lieutenant, Fitcher, 
 who had been left in charge, and entered 
 upon a scandalous, dangerous career, even 
 supplying the Indians with arms and am- 
 munition, which the Plymouth men and 
 others who now were trying to gain a foot- 
 hold here and there in the country saw 
 must be suppressed. The Plymouth colo- 
 nists, therefore, first admonished him in 
 friendly fashion, then warned him faith- 
 fully, and finally, he remaining obdurate, 
 sent up Captain Standish with a party. 
 They captured him and his followers and 
 brought him to Plymouth, whence he soon 
 was shipped off to England for the Council 
 of New England to punish. But he es- 
 caped penalty somehow, and the next year 
 Allerton foolishly brought him back to 
 Plymouth as a sort of private secretary. 
 He soon was sent away, returned to Mount 
 Wollaston, resumed his evil courses, and 
 after some seventeen years more of an 
 equally checkered career, in the course of 
 
Sticceeding Years. 279 
 
 which he turned up again at Plymouth for 
 a short time, where he was treated very 
 coolly, he finally died in Maine. He 
 wrote a book called The New English 
 Canaan, which the sober settlers consid- 
 ered " infamous and scurrilous," but it 
 contained some valuable information. 
 
 Meanwhile the region around and near 
 Massachusetts Bay had slowly begun to be 
 settled. The site of the present Salem 
 had been occupied in 1626,^^ and John 
 Endicott's company landed there on Sep- 
 tember 6, 1628.^* Communication with 
 this colony began soon and gradually 
 became frequent. The difficulty about 
 Thomas Morton was felt alike by the two 
 colonies ; the Plymouth men sent their 
 physician. Dr. Samuel Fuller, to Salem 
 when its people were suffering from 
 scurvy, which kindness Endicott acknowl- 
 edged in a grateful letter, ^^ and in July, 
 1629, Deacon Charles Gott, of the Salem 
 church, wrote to Plymouth announcing 
 that a pastor and a teacher had been 
 
28o The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 chosen, and that August 6 had been set 
 apart for the election and ordination of 
 elders and deacons, on which occasion 
 Governor Bradford and others from Plym- 
 outh were present and expressed the 
 fellowship of their own church. i® 
 
 At about this time, too, the Pilgrims at 
 last obtained a minister of the gospel. In 
 1628 Mr. Allerton had brought over to 
 Plymouth a young man, by name Rogers, 
 to serve the colony in this office ; but they 
 knew too little about him to accept him, 
 and he proved crazy, so they sent him 
 back." But in 1629 Mr. Ralph Smith, 
 who had been a minister, and whose sym- 
 pathies were with the Separatists, came to 
 Plymouth from the Bay Colony, and after 
 becoming acquainted with him they ap- 
 proved him as their pastor.^^ Then for 
 the first time since leaving Holland they 
 became fully equipped ecclesiastically and 
 once more enjoyed the sacraments. In 
 the same year, or soon after, most of the 
 Leyden remnant of the Pilgrim body came 
 
Succeeding Years. 281 
 
 over to Plymouth in two companies,^" 
 apparently landing first at Salem and 
 Charlestown. Thus the long and perilous 
 emigration from England to America was 
 consummated, and Holland knew the Pil- 
 grims in the flesh no more. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 EARLY LIFE IN THE COLONY. 
 
 'nr'HE life of the young colony sel- 
 -■- dom has been described, but such 
 descriptions are worth being attempted 
 although that now to be given must be 
 based, as the others have been, upon infer- 
 ences from a few known facts rather than 
 upon full records. The Pilgrims had no 
 newspapers, and not many journals writ- 
 ten by individuals among them have come 
 down to us. Nor do many of their letters 
 remain. Probably they corresponded only 
 seldom with their friends in the mother 
 country, for opportunities of communica- 
 tion were rare. Indeed, theirs was not a 
 letter-writing age like our own, and most 
 of their letters at this time must have 
 related principally to business affairs or 
 religious and ecclesiastical topics. John 
 

 
 ~ -^ -Id ^ 
 
 ^ =i :i. -^s 
 
 :3^ 
 
 "^ CQ -^ 
 <L) ri n 
 
Early Life in the Colony. 283 
 
 Robinson's last letters, written from Ley- 
 den in December, 1623, to Governor Brad- 
 ford and Elder Brewster,^ although sent 
 to the colony instead of from it, and the 
 more than thirty contents of Governor 
 Bradford's own Letter-Book,^ written by 
 various persons, probably are fair examples 
 of the usual character of the correspond- 
 ence of the period, at any rate among 
 them, and contain very little of the per- 
 sonal or general information, except upon 
 the classes of subjects just suggested, with 
 which most modern letters abound. 
 
 The habits and manners of the Pilgrims 
 were so simple and so similar in general 
 to those of their friends at home that it 
 hardly would have been natural for them 
 to describe such things at length upon 
 paper. , Some significant statements occur 
 in Governor Bradford's history and in 
 accounts of their observations in the col- 
 ony by a few such visitors as De Rasiere.s, 
 already mentioned, but these are incom- 
 plete and far from numerous. It is pos- 
 
284 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 sible, however, to form a reasonably satis- 
 factory idea of colonial life from the scanty 
 sources which exist. Let us try to picture 
 it about the years 1622-23, for example. 
 
 The little village, still chiefly aligned 
 along the opposite sides, and mostly upon 
 the south side, of its short street, — which 
 can have had no pavement nor any side- 
 walks, — was growing, but cannot yet have 
 included at the most more than ten or a 
 dozen ^ dwellings with a few outbuildings. 
 Doubtless they were merely log houses, 
 possessing but a single story, or at most 
 one story and an attic, with their crevices 
 plastered with clay* and with earth or turf 
 banked up around their foundations for 
 the sake of warmth. The roofs were 
 thatched and most of the chimneys prob- 
 ably were constructed upon the outside. 
 Within, as no sawmill had yet been built, 
 the floors must have been made of planks 
 roughly hewn out by the axe, and doubt- 
 less many consisted simply of hard-trodden 
 earth. In either case they are likely to 
 
Early Life in the Colony. 285 
 
 have been sprinkled thickly with fre- 
 quently renewed sand or rushes. There 
 may have been a few rugs or carpets in 
 the colony, but they cannot have been 
 numerous at this time.^ Nor can they 
 have possessed much window glass. Most 
 of the windows, if they had in them any- 
 thing else than wooden shutters, must 
 have been filled with oiled paper ^ or 
 some other imperfect substitute for glass. 
 They must have used candles principally 
 after dark, but they certainly had some 
 lamps.'^ 
 
 Presumably most of the houses con- 
 tained not more than three or four rooms 
 apiece, furnished plainly and in many 
 instances only coarsely, although in some 
 of them chairs, tables, cradles, spinning- 
 wheels, desks, clocks, chests, and other 
 articles, brought from England or Holland 
 and precious because of their associations, 
 must have stood side by side with the 
 ruder constructions which necessity had 
 compelled them to shape for themselves. 
 
286 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 Probably much of their tableware was 
 wooden, yet in many households pewter 
 spoons, platters, etc., were to be seen. 
 Possibly also they owned a little silver. 
 Matchlocks, powder-horns, bullet-pouches, 
 and swords rather than pictures must have 
 hung upon their walls, although perhaps 
 they owned a few family portraits; and 
 books cannot have abounded among them. 
 Doubtless copies of the Bible were most 
 common. The so-called King James ver- 
 sion hardly can have become widely known 
 by their time, and there is every proba- 
 bility that they used the Genevan version.^ 
 A few of the best educated or formerly 
 most prosperous settlers possessed small 
 libraries. It is known, for example, that 
 Elder Brewster left at his death a well- 
 selected and remarkably diversified col- 
 lection, numbering about four hundred 
 volumes, of which, judging by their dates 
 of publication, he may have brought nearly 
 three fourths over with him in the May- 
 flower.8 Bradford left two hundred and 
 
Early Life in the Colony. 287 
 
 seventy-five books, and Fuller and Stand- 
 ish are known to have had small collections. 
 The costumes customarily worn in the 
 colony must in general have been such as 
 then were usual in England, and they are 
 familiar to many modern eyes through old 
 portraits and other pictures. Those of 
 the men seem to have been the more 
 picturesque, and consisted of doublets or 
 short coats, belted at the waist and com- 
 monly surmounted by wide linen collars. 
 Similar cuffs often were worn at the 
 wrists. They also wore knee breeches, 
 long stockings, and stout shoes, sometimes 
 with large buckles over the instep. Their 
 hats probably were made of felt and had 
 high, conical crowns and broad and often 
 flapping brims. Loose cloaks also were 
 common. The dress of the women, al- 
 though not ungraceful, probably differed 
 less from that of the simplest and plainest 
 modern life and in general resembled it. 
 All seem to have preferred dark or neutral 
 colors and to have avoided much in the 
 
288 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 way of ornament, yet they were not with- 
 out brightly colored garments.^" Unless 
 they were better provided at first with 
 clothing than they were with other neces- 
 sary supplies, many of them must have 
 been in great need before prosperity en- 
 abled them to renew their stock, and some 
 of them may have been reduced at times 
 to the use of skins and other substitutes 
 for cloth. 
 
 On the brow of a low hill affording a 
 fine view of the bay, the historic Burial 
 Hill, but known among them for some 
 time as Fort Hill," close at hand and 
 commanding the village, stood the block- 
 house, or fort, prepared to shelter and 
 defend them in case of attack by any 
 enemy and used also as their meeting- 
 house on the Sabbath. Although appar- 
 ently it was considerably larger than any 
 one of their dwellings, it must have been 
 constructed in much the same manner as 
 these and cannot have been imposing in 
 either size or architecture. Around and 
 
Early Life in the Colony. 289 
 
 behind their homes lay their little gardens 
 and beyond these the fields, which they 
 gradually broke up and tilled. At first 
 they were obliged to go only about an 
 eighth of a mile to reach the surrounding 
 woods, but their inroads upon the forest 
 for fuel and building material must gradu- 
 ally have pushed back its nearest edge. No 
 roads extended from the tiny settlement 
 in any direction. A few footpaths through 
 the underbrush, narrow, uneven, and wind- 
 ing, were their sole ways of egress except 
 as it was possible to skirt the shore, where 
 lay their only boat, to the north or south 
 upon the sandy beach. 
 
 As yet their barns and fields were bare 
 of cattle,^ but by 1624 they had "many 
 swine and poultry " and a number of 
 goats. ^^ Even household pets must have 
 been very few, but mention is made of a 
 "great Mastiffe" and a "little spannel," 
 and probably they had a few cats. 
 
 Their lives must have been laborious 
 to an extreme degree. Such pleasures as 
 
290 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 they were able to enjoy must have been 
 almost wholly domestic or neighborly. 
 They had no lectures, concerts, or other 
 such entertainments. Apparently they 
 observed no public holidays except an 
 occasional Thanksgiving or Fast Day. In 
 order to secure moderate comfort and 
 even to maintain their existence they were 
 obliged to devote almost their whole time, 
 except upon the Sabbath, to energetic toil. 
 Even the women and children went into 
 the fields and helped with the corn plant- 
 ing at the time when threatening famine 
 led to the distribution of the land into 
 individual allotments. But ordinarily the 
 women doubtless confined themselves to 
 the customary domestic duties and the 
 care of the sick, and were abundantly busy 
 with these employments ; the men con- 
 structed buildings, brought fuel, tilled 
 the fields, and hunted the wild game of the 
 forest or sought to catch the fish of the 
 ocean or the neighboring brooks for food ; 
 and the children aided their parents in 
 
Early Life in the Colony. 291 
 
 the house and the garden and studied or 
 occasionally played like other children. 
 It has been claimed by some that a com- 
 mon school was established almost as 
 soon as the colony had been founded. But 
 the earliest record of any such institution 
 is in 1670.^* It cannot be that such a 
 company as the Pilgrims neglected educa- 
 tion for fifty years, and the natural infer- 
 ence, which a few hints support, is that 
 the children were taught in one or more 
 private schools, which doubtless were as 
 good as public schools then could have 
 been. And at first for some years they 
 seem to have been educated only at home. 
 After the provisions which they had 
 brought over in the Mayflower had been 
 exhausted, their food for several years con- 
 sisted wholly of what they could raise or 
 obtain otherwise for themselves. They 
 had provided themselves with English 
 wheat, peas, and some other kinds of seed 
 for planting, but for some reason these 
 crops failed entirely. Except for the 
 
292 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 Indian corn which they found or bought of 
 the natives and learned from Squanto how 
 to cultivate, and from which they made 
 the coarse but nourishing meal now famil- 
 iar to all New Englanders, they must have 
 starved. Too often they had much less 
 even of that than they needed. After it 
 became plentiful, however, they used it as 
 money for a time. But they shot wild 
 turkeys and smaller birds and now and 
 then a deer in the woods and sea fowl 
 along the shore, and they dug clams and 
 mussels from the beach and caught cod, 
 bass, and other fish, probably including 
 alewives, in the water. Thus they ordi- 
 narily managed to obtain food enough, 
 although, as has been narrated, there were 
 times when these sources of supply almost 
 failed and they were in dire distress. 
 Fortunately, although there are indications 
 that they missed the beer to which they 
 had been accustomed in England and 
 Holland, they had an abundance of pure, 
 sweet water close at hand. 
 
Early Life in the Colony. 293 
 
 Religion always was prominent in their 
 thoughts and conduct. Probably family 
 prayers were customarily held at least 
 once a day and in many of their homes 
 twice. ^^ Public worship on the Sabbath ^ 
 was maintained regularly and was ex- 
 pected to be attended by all who had no 
 proper reason for absence, yet there is no 
 good ground for supposing that religious 
 obligations were enforced in any such a 
 narrow and oppressive manner as often 
 has been intimated. It is uncertain when 
 they built their first proper meeting-house 
 but it seems to have been in 1637.^" Up 
 to that time they probably continued to 
 hold their public worship in the block- 
 house, with occasional services in the 
 "common house." It was in the latter 
 that Robert Cushman, during his visit 
 in the autumn of 1621, delivered his 
 address on self-love, which — although it 
 was no more a sermon than any one of 
 Elder Brewster's customary addresses on 
 the Sabbath — has been called "the first 
 
294 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 sermon preached in New England and 
 the corner-stone of American literature." 
 They had no Sunday-school and even the 
 custom of holding a prayer-meeting in the 
 middle of the week was unknown among 
 them.i^ 
 
 As has been suggested already, the ver- 
 sion of the Bible in use among them, 
 although they may have had copies of any 
 one of several, — the Bishops' Bible, or 
 Coverdale's translation or even Tyndale's 
 or Wyclif's, — is by far most likely to have 
 been the Genevan. Either of these sounds 
 rugged and quaint to modern ears, but, 
 whichever they had, it was a great com- 
 fort to them. We know that they sang 
 out of the even more quaint, and posi- 
 tively uncouth, contents of the Book of 
 Psalms, compiled by Henry Ainsvvorth, 
 the former friend of some among them in 
 Amsterdam, a book in which the psalms 
 are arranged for metrical use. But it was 
 the best they had, if not also the best 
 book of the sort then in existence. 
 
Early Life in the Colony. 295 
 
 It would be of great interest if we knew 
 the order of public worship which the 
 Pilgrims followed at this time. But we 
 can only infer what it was from what we 
 know that it had been a few years earlier 
 in Holland, and what we also know that 
 it was in their own colony only a few 
 years later. 
 
 In a book written by Rev. Richard Clif- 
 ton after the Pilgrims had removed from 
 Amsterdam to Leyden occurs an outline 
 of the order of service in the church of 
 which Francis Johnson was pastor in the 
 former city. It is as follows : ^^ 
 
 1 . Prayer and thanksgiving by tJie pastor or teacher. 
 
 2. Reading of two or three chapters of the Bible, 
 
 with brief explanation of the same, as the 
 time may serve. 
 
 3. The singing of some of the Psalms of David. 
 
 4. A sermon — that is, the pastor or teacher ex- 
 
 pounds and enforces some passage of the 
 Scripture. 
 
 5. The singing again of some of the Psalms of 
 
 David. 
 
 6. The Sacraments are administered — that is, the 
 
296 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 Lord's Supper on stated Sundays, and baptism 
 whenever there might be a candidate. 
 7. Collection is then made, as each one is able, for 
 the support of the officers, and the poor. 
 
 There is much probability that this 
 order was that customary for substance 
 in the early Congregational churches, and 
 that it was followed by the church of the 
 Pilgrims in Leyden and also after their 
 settlement at Plymouth. 
 
 Additional light is thrown upon the sub- 
 ject by a passage in Governor Winthrop's 
 famous journal in which he is describing 
 a visit made at Plymouth by him in 1632. 
 He says : ^ 
 
 On the Lord's day [in the forenoon] there was 
 a sacrament, which they did partake in ; and, in 
 the afternoon, Mr. Roger Williams, (according to 
 their custom) propounded a question, to which the 
 pastor, Mr. Smith, spake briefly ; then Mr. Wil- 
 liams prophesied ; and after [ward] the Governour 
 [Bradford] of Plimouth spake to the question; 
 after him the Elder [Brewster] ; then some two or 
 three more of the congregation. Then the Elder 
 desired the Governour of Massachusetts [Winthrop] 
 
Early Life in the Colony. 297 
 
 and Mr. [Rev. John] Wilson to speak to it, which 
 they did. When this was ended, the Deacon, Mr. 
 Fuller, put the congregation in mind of their duty 
 of contribution ; whereupon the Governour and all 
 the rest went down to the deacon's seat, and put 
 into the box, and then returned. 
 
 It hardly is to be understood that 
 prayer, singing, and the reading of Scrip- 
 ture were omitted upon this occasion 
 because Governor Winthrop does not 
 specify them. Doubtless they all were 
 given place as usual and his neglect to 
 record them must have been because he 
 knew that any probable reader of his diary 
 would perceive that they were to be taken 
 for granted, mention being made only of 
 the more striking portions of the service. 
 Apparently they gave more prominence to 
 the sermon than we give it and used it for 
 the explanation and enforcement of Scrip- 
 tural doctrine more than is now common, 
 although they certainly did not neglect 
 due consideration of Christian virtues and 
 practical duties. Sometimes also they 
 
298 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 seem to have listened to several succes- 
 sive speakers during a single service. 
 
 Such, evidently, were some of the char- 
 acteristic features of the early life of 
 the colony. Compared with our modern 
 usages, or even with their own life a gen- 
 eration or two later, it seems monotonous 
 and confined, to say the least. But the 
 Pilgrims had won their freedom, for which 
 to them no sacrifices were too great, and 
 after their own quiet manner they must 
 have taken much substantial enjoyment 
 in their new home, in spite of their some- 
 times hard conditions. The common im- 
 pression that they were stern and morose, 
 destitute of the sense of humor and always 
 inclined to gloomy views and indifferent 
 to the graces of life, is exaggerated. Cer- 
 tainly their history and circumstances were 
 such as would have rendered any thought- 
 ful men or women who ever lived grave 
 and sedate, more intent upon the realities 
 of this life and the life to come than upon 
 comparative trivialities, however innocent 
 
Early Life in the Colony. 299 
 
 and pleasant in themselves ; and such the 
 Pilgrims for the most part undoubtedly 
 were. But conspicuous fortitude, energy, 
 and Christian faith like theirs do not render 
 people gloomy, and it is safe to believe 
 that in their domestic life and their mutual 
 friendly intercourse there was abundant 
 cheerfulness, and even genuine merry- 
 making, whenever their circumstances 
 were not too depressing. 
 
 Surely- such a study of them and their 
 ways, which, imperfect although it is, must 
 be reasonably true to the facts, reveals 
 them as a company of men and women of 
 whom their children well may be proud. 
 Their life, although primitive and un- 
 adorned, was dignified, honorable, and 
 ennobling, and has proved to b6 of world- 
 wide service. They cherished the highest, 
 holiest purposes. They demonstrated their 
 sincerity by their sacrifices. Moreover, 
 they were as ready to move forward along 
 inviting lines of commendable social prog- 
 ress as they were careful to hold fast by 
 
300 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 what they had proved safe and serviceable. 
 In spite of what now seems to many their 
 extreme conservatism, their whole history 
 shows that they were not among the con- 
 servatives but the progressives of their 
 times. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN THE PLYMOUTH 
 AND BAY COLONIES. 
 
 TV /TENTION already has been made of 
 ■*-'-*- several attempts to settle upon 
 Massachusetts Bay, and there had been 
 Others. Ii^ the same year, 1622, in which 
 Weston had sent his colony to Wessa- 
 gusset, now Weymouth,^ a trading station 
 had been established by Thomas and John 
 Gray and Walter Knight at Nantasket, or 
 Hull, which had become permanent in 
 1624.^ Robert Gorges had tried vainly to 
 colonize at Wessagusset in 1623.^ Samuel 
 Maverick had occupied Winnisimmet/ now 
 Chelsea, in 1624, moving to Noddle's Isl- 
 and, now East Boston, in 1627.* Thomas 
 Walford had established himself at Mi- 
 shawum, the present Charlestown, in 1624 
 or 1625,® and in the same year Mount 
 
 301 
 
302 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 Wollaston had been settled by Captain 
 Wollaston's expedition, Thomas Morton 
 and William Blackstone remaining after 
 most of the company had withdrawn,^ and 
 the latter soon, probably in 1625, moving 
 over to Shawmut, now Boston.^ Other 
 small beginnings also had been made by 
 1628 where Dorchester, Watertown, Salem, 
 Gloucester, and Dover, N. H., now are. 
 But no proper colony had been established 
 successfully. , 
 
 On September 6, 1628, however, John 
 Endicott landed from the ship George 
 at Salem ^ with a considerable company, 
 some of whom settled there, while others 
 established themselves at Charlestown. 
 It is said that by the autumn of 1629 
 about a hundred persons were in the latter 
 settlement.® Other ships and immigrants 
 followed the George during the same year. 
 On June 9, 1630, the first shipload of 
 John Winthrop's company reached Nan- 
 tasket in the Mary & John,!" and on June 
 22 Winthrop in person and accompanied 
 
Distinctions. 303 
 
 by another portion of his company landed 
 at Salem. Five days later Winthrop visited 
 Charlestown and examined that region 
 and liked it so well that he decided to 
 settle there.^i But it did not prove as 
 favorable a situation as was expected, and 
 the lack of good water and food sufficient 
 for so many soon scattered his colonists. 
 
 Some moved to Roxbury, others to 
 Medford, and Winthrop himself, with the 
 Rev. Mr. Wilson and most of his congre- 
 gation, over to Boston. From that time, 
 in spite of one or two periods of temporary 
 hardships, the Massachusetts Bay Colony, 
 to which all these settlements fairly be- 
 longed, continued to increase and prosper. 
 It outnumbered the Plymouth Colony from 
 the outset and quickly surpassed it in 
 prominence. But in some most important 
 particulars the latter exerted the more 
 controlling influence. To narrate the 
 career of the Bay Colony, interesting 
 although it is, is not included in the pur- 
 pose of this book. But, in view of the 
 
304 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 fact that even to the present day the two 
 colonies often are confused in popular 
 thought and speech, it is important that 
 the actual distinctions between them 
 should be indicated briefly. 
 
 First, then, it should be remembered 
 that the Plymouth Colony was a company 
 of Separatists and Congregationalists, who 
 revolted from the Church of England be- 
 cause of its many abuses and felt obliged 
 in conscience to sever their connection 
 with it. The ruling purpose of their sep- 
 aration and of- their subsequent emigra- 
 tions from England to Holland and from 
 Holland to America was to obtain and 
 maintain their religious liberty. They 
 seem to have been content with the 
 material conditions of their lives in Eng- 
 land and probably would not have left 
 their native land in order to better them- 
 selves financially. So far as they can be 
 said to have prospered at all in a worldly 
 sense in Holland, they were grateful, but 
 did not forget their spiritual aims or come 
 
Distinctions. 305 
 
 to regard them as of minor importance. 
 Moreover, after reaching Plymouth, their 
 zeal in founding their colony and in farm- 
 ing, trading, and sending back fish and 
 skins to England was due more to the 
 necessity of self-preservation and to their 
 obligation to the Adventurers, without 
 whose aid, no matter how grudgingly ren- 
 dered, they could not have crossed the 
 ocean at all, than to any ruling ambition 
 to acquire wealth. It is true that among 
 them, even on the Mayflower, were some 
 who had little sympathy with their spiritual 
 beliefs and aspirations and chiefly sought 
 adventures, wealth, or both. This was in- 
 evitable, but — excepting Allerton, and he 
 was no exception for some years at first — 
 not only the leaders but also the great 
 majority of the other members of their 
 colony were both devout and godly in life 
 and were stanch, intelligent Separatists, 
 who deliberately were risking everything 
 for the sake of freedom in matters religious 
 and ecclesiastical. 
 
3o6 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 In the Bay Colony the case was quite 
 different. This colony was definitely Pu- 
 ritan in distinction from Separatist. Rev. 
 Francis Higginson, of Salem, wrote thus : 
 
 We will not say as the Separatists were wont to 
 say at their leaving of England, Farewel Babylon! 
 Farewel Rome ! But we will say, Farewel Dear 
 England ! Farewel the Church of God in England, 
 and all the Christian friends there ! We do not go 
 to New England as Separatists from the Church of 
 England ; though we cannot but separate from the 
 Corruptions in it : But we go to practise the positive 
 Part of Church Reformation, and propagate the 
 Gospel in America. "" 
 
 And Winthrop's company published in 
 London, just before they sailed for Amer- 
 ica, a treatise. The hvmble Reqvest of his 
 Majesties loyall Subjects, etc., in which 
 they speak of themselves 
 
 As those who esteem it our honour to call the 
 Church of England from whence wee rise, our deare 
 mother ; and cannot part from our native countrie 
 where she specially resideth, without much sadnes 
 of heart and many tears in our eyes.^' 
 
 They were simply Puritans. They were 
 
Distinctions. 307 
 
 grieved by the corruptions of the English 
 Church, but they meant to reestablish it, 
 purified of its evils, in their colony. They 
 were not Separatists and still less Congre- 
 gationalists, and did not mean to become 
 such. Circumstances soon proved too 
 much for them.^* but so far was their origi- 
 nal purpose from favoring separation that, 
 when Rev. Ralph Smith applied to come 
 over with some of the early colonists of 
 Salem and the governor and council 
 learned that he was disposed towards Sep- 
 aratism, they at first decided to forbid his 
 joining them and. later, upon changing 
 their minds, directed that "vnless hee 
 wilbe conformable to or [our] governmt, 
 yow suffer him not to remaine wthin the 
 limitts of or graunt." ^^ As has been 
 related. Smith soon found his way to Plym- 
 outh — there is evidence that he was 
 forced to leave Salem ^^ — and became the 
 pastor of the Pilgrim church. When the 
 Bay colonists came over they meant to 
 have a reformed and purified church, but 
 
3o8 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 nevertheless the State Church. Naturally, 
 therefore, and speedily, as early as May 
 28, 1 63 1, the General Court of the Massa- 
 chusetts Colony voted 
 
 That for time to come noe tnan shalbe admitted to 
 the freedome of this body polliticke, but such as are 
 members of sotne of the churches within the lymitts 
 of the same.'''' 
 
 It had the right to pass such a vote and 
 there were some apparently good reasons 
 for it, although it led to serious evils. It 
 should be remembered, too, — the name 
 General Court being misleading, — that 
 this action was not that of the legislature 
 of a State or even a colony, but of the 
 stockholders and managers of a financial 
 corporation.^^ 
 
 This must not be forgotten. It is quite 
 true that many of the patrons and leaders 
 of the Bay Colony also were actuated by • 
 religious motives, some of them promi- 
 nently, and meant to exemplify Puritan- 
 ism as they were not allowed to in 
 England. Yet the whole scheme of the 
 
Distitictions. 309 
 
 Bay Colony was primarily commercial and 
 grew out of the purpose to establish a 
 strong, prosperous trading colony and to 
 do this so quickly as to outwit John Old- 
 ham and anticipate him in occupying per- 
 manently the region bordering on Mas- 
 sachusetts Bay, which he was aiming 
 to settle in cooperation with the Gorges 
 family.^^ So far as there is any difference 
 in the significance of the records which 
 relate to this subject, it is due to the fact 
 that some writers took one view of the 
 dominant purpose of the colony, others 
 the other view, all being alike interested 
 in its success. But a comparison of them 
 seems to exhibit the commercial motive in 
 the strongest light. 
 
 The effect of this vote of the General 
 Court was to unite the State, so far as any 
 existed, with the Church. "Church and 
 State were one ; and the church dominated 
 the state. The franchise was an incident 
 to church membership."^ But at Plym- 
 outh this was not the fact.^^ So far as is 
 
3 1 o The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 known, even Miles Standish never joined 
 the church,^ and there is some ground for 
 believing that he was, at least nominally, 
 a Roman Catholic. And in reply to a 
 charge made by the convicted slanderer, 
 Lyford, that " if ther come over any 
 honest men that are not of y« separation, 
 they will quickly distast them," Governor 
 Bradford and others declared that "they 
 had many amongst them that they liked 
 well of, and were glad of their company ; 
 and should be glad of any such like that 
 should come amongst them." ^ 
 
 It already has been shown, and therefore 
 need only be repeated, that these non- 
 Separatists were regular legal members of 
 the colony. This suggests that, as a result 
 of the difference in reference to the union 
 of Church and State, the Plymouth Colony 
 was a democracy but the Bay Colony an 
 aristocracy. This also was due quite as 
 much, doubtless, and perhaps more, to the 
 fact that, while most of the Plymouth Pil- 
 grims were of comparatively humble origin 
 
Distinctions. 311 
 
 in England, only three or four being 
 known to us as having been of gentle 
 birth, although several others were men of 
 university training and much culture, the 
 Bay Colony contained a comparatively 
 large number of representatives of Eng- 
 lish aristocratic families.^ 
 
 One other point of difference, already 
 hinted at, must be mentioned. The Plym- 
 outh Colony was distinguished for lib- 
 erality and tolerance. The occurrences 
 which so often are quoted indiscrimi- 
 nately against both as proofs of bigotry 
 and intolerance belong to the history of 
 the Bay Colony. Oldham and Lyford 
 truly were expelled from Plymouth in 
 1625 for public and extravagant offenses, 
 but they had rendered themselves unen- 
 durable, and even Oldham was welcomed 
 back as soon as he was willing to behave 
 himself. Not long afterwards Roger Wil- 
 liams lived among the Pilgrims for a year 
 or two, kindly treated and allowed free 
 speech, even being permitted to act as 
 
312 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 assistant to Mr. Smith, the pastor, al- 
 though his peculiar views generally were 
 distrusted.^ The Plymouth men also 
 refused to persecute the Quakers after- 
 wards, several of them being deprived of 
 colonial offices for this reason.^ 
 
 But in the Bay Colony Thomas Morton 
 was punished severely in 1630 on trivial, 
 trumped-up charges in order to get rid 
 of him, which, in spite of his many and 
 serious actual offenses, was a grave injus- 
 tice.^ Philip Ratcliff,^ in 1631, was 
 whipped, had his ears cut off, and was 
 fined ;^40 and banished for denounc- 
 ing the church authorities and the 
 Salem magistrates, and there occurred 
 other similar cases. At about the same 
 time two prominent men in Salem, named 
 Brown,^ were summoned before the gov- 
 ernor and council for objecting to the 
 disuse of the English prayer-book ; and, 
 being compelled to choose between the 
 prayer-book and the colony, they pre- 
 ferred the former and were sent back to 
 
Distinctions. 3 1 3 
 
 England. Troubles with Mrs. Hutchin- 
 son, Roger Williams, and others occurred 
 afterwards and on a larger scale, agitating 
 the whole colony, and are too well known 
 to need detailed mention here. 
 
 The Plymouth Pilgrims, then, were Sep- 
 aratists and Congregationalists from the 
 outset, but the Bay colonists came over 
 merely as non-separating Puritans. The 
 former fled from bitter persecution in 
 England ; the latter came away with the 
 approval and indorsement of the civil 
 authorities. The former came to America 
 definitely in pursuit of religious liberty ; 
 the latter sought additional religious lib- 
 erty, but also were distinctively a commer- 
 cial corporation with a business aim. The 
 former severed the Church from the State ; 
 but the latter united and, in a sense, identi- 
 fied them. The former colony was a dem- 
 ocracy, the latter an aristocracy. The Pil- 
 grims were conspicuous for liberality and 
 tolerance ; the Bay Puritans too often were 
 undeniably intolerant. The Puritans of 
 
314 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 the Bay were earnest and generally noble 
 Christian men and women. The fault of 
 their intolerance, it is true, lay not with 
 them so much as with their age. It was 
 as characteristic of England as it was of 
 their colony. They only acted as most 
 good people then thought it right, and 
 even necessary, to act ; and, with all their 
 faults, they did a grand work and can 
 afford to have the truth about them told. 
 But the Plymouth Pilgrims were in ad- 
 vance of the age. They had risen to a 
 higher level of charity and tolerance, and 
 they exhibited a type of Christianity then, 
 and too often even now, as rare as it is 
 beautiful and honorable. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 SUBSEQUENT DEVELOPMENT OF CON- 
 GREGATIONALISM. 
 
 /""^UR attention necessarily has been 
 ^-^ fixed largely upon the material side 
 of the growth of the Plymouth Colony, 
 because for some years it was uncertain 
 whether the enterprise would live or die. 
 It is not to be inferred, however, that even 
 during this period of struggle and distress 
 the Pilgrims were forgetful of their de- 
 termination to rule themselves, under 
 God, in ecclesiastical and religious affairs. 
 But it was almost ten years, as has been 
 said, before they obtained an ordained 
 minister, and it was nearly nine years 
 before the second church in New England 
 — that in Salem, organized, or completed 
 in its organization, August 6, 1629— was 
 formed.^ Thus left to themselves, they 
 
 315 
 
3 16 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 practically were forced by circumstances 
 to adhere to their theory of an independ- 
 ent, self-governing church, as otherwise 
 they might not have been. Moreover, 
 they not only learned to believe more 
 firmly than ever in this theory, but also, 
 when the time came, they served as a not- 
 able example of its excellence in practice. 
 Evidence to this effect is on record. For 
 example, in 1644 Mr. W. Rathband, in his 
 Brief Narration of some Church Courses, 
 etc., wrote that he had been told by " Mr. 
 W. [possibly Winslow], an eminent man 
 of the Church at Plimmoth . . . that the 
 rest of the Churches in New Eng. came 
 at first to them at Plimmoth to crave their 
 direction in Church courses, and made 
 them their pattern."^ 
 
 The Bay colonists also felt the con- 
 trolling force of the conditions of their 
 new life. At first, owing to their predis- 
 position against Congregationalism and 
 even against Separatism, and also to cer- 
 tain reports about the Pilgrims which had 
 
Subsequent Development. 3 1 7 
 
 reached them in England, they were pre- 
 pared to distrust the ecclesiastical methods 
 of the latter. But when Dr. Samuel 
 Fuller, a deacon in the Plymouth church, 
 had explained these, — during his visit to 
 the Bay in 1629, already mentioned, 
 almost as soon as the Salem colonists had 
 arrived, — Endicott, their leader, became 
 fully convinced that the Pilgrims had been 
 misunderstood. Thenceforth, therefore, 
 the example of the Plymouth church had 
 its due weight. 
 
 Moreover — and it is somewhat surpris- 
 ing that the results should have come to 
 pass so soon — the Salem colony had been 
 founded less than two years, and whatever 
 addition it received from Winthrop's com- 
 pany had been ashore only about a month 
 when it had altered its former views so 
 radically that it actually formed an inde- 
 pendent church for itself, and not only 
 elected and ordained its pastor and 
 teacher, but did so in spite of the fact 
 that each of them formerly had been 
 
3i8 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 ordained in England.^ Furthermore, those 
 in control also recognized, the fellowship 
 of the churches by inviting the Plymouth 
 church to be present at the succeeding 
 ordination of elders and deacons ; and 
 Governor Bradford and others, although 
 detained by stress of weather, arrived and 
 in time for him to give the right hand of 
 fellowship.'' The action of the Salem 
 men was not only Separatism but Congre- 
 gationalism ; and, although it caused out- 
 spoken alarm among patrons of the c6lony 
 in England, it was imitated by others as 
 new churches were needed and organized. 
 But the freedom of modern Congrega- 
 tionalism had not yet been attained. The 
 ruling eldership continued to exist and to 
 exert its abnormal and cramping influence. 
 In the Plymouth church there was but 
 one elder during its early life, William 
 Brewster, and he guided his fellow mem- 
 bers so wisely and so much by the mere 
 weight of his exalted personal character 
 that, although the eldership received honor 
 
Subsequent Development. 319 
 
 through him, it was the man rather than 
 the official who exerted the influence. 
 But in the churches of the Bay Colony 
 the ruling elders were conceded and exer- 
 cised a domination quite inconsistent with 
 the proper liberty of the other members. 
 So great was the authority yielded to 
 them that in Rev. Richard Mather's vol- 
 ume, Church-Government and Church-Cove- 
 nant discussed, etc., printed in 1643, it is 
 declared that although the power of gov- 
 ernment in the church should be given 
 "neither all to the people excluding the 
 Presbytery, nor all to the Presbytery ex- 
 cluding the people," ^ nevertheless the rea- 
 son why the presbyters or elders can do 
 nothing without the consent of the people 
 is that when they do their duty the people 
 ought to assent to it, and " if any man 
 should in such a case willfully dissent, the 
 Church ought to deale with such an one, 
 for not consenting."^ That is, the elders 
 should rule the church and, if any lay 
 member should object, he should be 
 
320 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 disciplined. Some individuals and some 
 churches held a more liberal theory, but 
 this prevailed commonly. The famous 
 Cambridge Platform, drawn up between 
 1648 and 1651, takes the same ground in 
 substance. 
 
 Moreover, the power of the elders tended 
 to increase rather than to diminish from 
 the first. This was a natural result of the 
 old endeavor — a characteristic of Henry 
 Barrowe's and Francis Johnson's scheme 
 of church government, which has been 
 described earlier — to manage a Congre- 
 gational church on a Presbyterian theory. 
 As the churches multiplied, of course the 
 influence of this theory was extended, and 
 as the Bay Colony soon became much 
 more extensive, numerous, wealthy, and 
 influential than the Plymouth Colony, and 
 in time absorbed it, the type of Congrega- 
 tionalism in the Bay Colony became domi- 
 nant generally, especially as the Plymouth 
 church still retained the formal eldership. 
 Both the direct testimony and the indirect 
 
Subsequent Devetopmeni. 321 
 
 — including that drawn from criticisms 
 upon the New England way — show that 
 this type was not truly democratic. It 
 was not such Presbyterianism as had 
 become controlling temporarily in Eng- 
 land, but it was not Congregationalism. 
 Indeed, half a century later, after some 
 churches had ceased to elect ruling elders, 
 their power remained in the hands of the 
 pastor, whose veto outweighed the vote of 
 the whole church.'' Meanwhile, in 1662, 
 the Half-way Covenant, admitting ortho- 
 dox and moral baptized, but not necessa- 
 rily converted, persons to all church privi- 
 leges except the Lord's Supper, had been 
 adopted, and grave and widespread demor- 
 alization had resulted.^ 
 
 This condition of matters continued 
 until 1705.® In that year the Boston As- 
 sociation of Ministers adopted sixteen 
 proposals, which they submitted to the 
 other similar associations in the State for 
 approval. The most important of these 
 proposals involved the membership of all 
 
322 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 ministers in associations ; the union by 
 delegates of these associations in an 
 annual meeting ; the establishment of a 
 standing council, composed of the memr 
 bers of this delegated association and of a 
 proper number of other delegates, appar- 
 ently to be laymen, representing the 
 churches ; and the control of all church 
 affairs throughout the State by this stand- 
 ing council. This practically meant the 
 destruction of whatever measure of inde- 
 pendence still remained to the individual 
 churches. In Connecticut three years 
 later, in 1708, a synod met at Saybrook, 
 consisting of twelve ministers and four 
 laymen chosen by the ministers of all the 
 churches and authorized and summoned 
 by the General Court. It reaffirmed the 
 Savoy Confession and the Heads of Agree- 
 ment adopted April 6, 1691, by the lead- 
 ing Congregational and Presbyterian min- 
 isters of London, and drew up the famous 
 Saybrook Platform, which provided a sj's- 
 tem of consociations for the government 
 
Subsequent Development. 323 
 
 of ecclesiastical afEairs in that State. This 
 was another step, and an equally important 
 one, in the direction of limiting the free- 
 dom of the churches. These measures at 
 once awakened opposition and criticism, 
 although they long continued to possess 
 influence, and Consociationism still exists 
 in parts of Connecticut, although in name 
 more than in substance. 
 
 They helped to prepare the way, how- 
 ever, for the final step in the process of 
 developing ancient Congregationalism into 
 essentially its modern form. In 17 10 Rev. 
 John Wise,!" pastor of the church in Ips- 
 wich, Mass., gave to the public a little 
 book called The Churches Quarrel Es- 
 poused ; or a Reply in Satyre, to certain 
 Proposals made, and in 1 717 he brought 
 out another book entitled, A Vindication of 
 the Government of New England Churches, 
 Drawn front Antiquity; the Light of 
 Nature; Holy Scripture; its Noble Na- 
 ture ; and from the Dignity Divine Provi- 
 detKc has put upon it. These books were 
 
324 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 read widely and had a great influence. 
 It is believed by some that probably their 
 author only meant to recall the churches 
 to the ground taken in the Cambridge 
 Platform, but he started a movement 
 which carried them much further, aroused 
 the laity to the danger of being deprived 
 of their rights, and led by degrees in due 
 time to the abolition of the ruling elder- 
 ship and the recognition both of the demo- 
 cratic character of the government of each 
 church and also of its independence, yet in 
 genuine mutual fellowship. ^^ Thus the 
 spirit of the Plymouth Pilgrims at last be- 
 came that of New England and now is 
 that of Congregationalists throughout our 
 country. 
 
 It has been proper, and in a sense 
 necessary, to outline thus the develop- 
 ment of Congregationalism in times sub- 
 sequent to the period naturally covered by 
 this volume, because the success of the 
 undertaking attempted by the Pilgrims, 
 that of founding " a free Church in a 
 
Subsequent Development. 325 
 
 free State," cannot otherwise be under- 
 stood fairly. They " builded better than 
 they knew," indeed. The later develop- 
 ment of their ideas of spiritual and eccle^ 
 siastical truth has proved to be along the 
 very lines which they laid down. Their 
 purpose in leaving England was attained 
 by them, and it also has been fulfilled by 
 their spiritual children, of whom many are 
 also their descendants in the flesh, more 
 richly than they ever can have dreamed 
 possible. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 "■ I ""HE object of our study now has 
 -■- been accomplished. The rise and 
 progress of the Pilgrim movement has 
 been described, so far at least, it is hoped, 
 as to make plain something of the exalted 
 character of the men and women whom 
 preeminently the world has agreed to 
 call the Pilgrims, and also the promi- 
 nent facts in their civil and ecclesiastical 
 history. After the Plymouth Colony had 
 become established successfully, had se- 
 cured its financial independence, and had 
 witnessed and assisted at the inauguration 
 of the practice of its own peculiar ecclesi- 
 astical theory in the young sister colony 
 at the Bay, the -history of its members, as 
 Pilgrims, fairly may be said to have closed. 
 Their pilgrimage was ended and its reward 
 
Conclusion. 327 
 
 had been won. Out of their sorrows and 
 perils they emerged at last into liberty and 
 peace. They were not faultless, yet it 
 would be difficult to point to any other 
 community on record in which more of 
 real happiness was experienced generally 
 than in theirs. Their life was simple, 
 natural, and laborious, but, after the diffi- 
 culties inherent in the firm establishment 
 of the colony had been overcome at last, 
 it was not one of hardship. They gradu- 
 ally attained a high degree of material 
 comfort and some of them enjoyed what 
 for the times was moderate luxury. 
 
 They maintained steadily their lofty in- 
 tellectual, moral, and religious standards 
 and soon exerted an enlightening influence 
 upon the world out of all proportion to the 
 smallness of their colony. Unreasoning 
 praise would be peculiarly inappropriate to 
 them, but the discriminating judgment of 
 the ages is ranking them high. Long ago 
 Christendom learned to admire and re- 
 spect them and it is safe to believe that in 
 
328 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 the future they will be honored even more 
 than in the past. Indeed, it only recently 
 has begun to be perceived intelligently 
 how great a debt is due to them and how 
 noble and far-reaching the influence of 
 their careers has been. In 1692, about 
 seventy years after the settlement at Plym- 
 outh, — so that the period of its separate 
 life must have coincided closely with that 
 of some of its earliest native-born mem- 
 bers,i — the colony was united with the 
 neighboring colony of Massachusetts Bay.^ 
 But, as has been suggested already, the 
 larger colony had modeled itself upon 
 the smaller in some most important par- 
 ticulars, so that much of the power and 
 influence of Massachusetts ever since has 
 been due conspicuously to the Plymouth 
 people. 
 
 Moreover, the success of the colony 
 proved to be the turning-point of the 
 feeble and waning flow of English coloni- 
 zation in North America. Says Governor 
 Hutchinson, "the ablest historian who 
 
Conclusion, 329 
 
 wrote in this country before the Revo- 
 lution":— 
 
 The settlement of this colony occasioned the 
 settlement of Massachusetts Bay, which was the 
 source of all the other colonies of New England. 
 Virginia was in a dying state, and seemed to revive 
 and flourish from the example of New England. I 
 am not preserving from oblivion the names of heroes 
 whose chief merit is the overthrow of cities, prov- 
 inces and empires, but the names of the founders of 
 a flourishing town and colony, if not of the whole 
 British empire in America.' 
 
 What nobler or more instructive pano- 
 rama can be found in the whole broad field 
 of human history than that composed of 
 the successive episodes in the career of 
 the Pilgrims .' We have seen them at 
 first, generally humble and obscure, cruelly 
 oppressed in their native England and 
 most bitterly persecuted in respect to that 
 which to all noble souls is dearest, their 
 right to worship God as their consciences 
 dictated. We have seen them meekly yet 
 firmly loyal to divine truth, as they under- 
 stood it, and calmly yet sadly consenting 
 
330 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 to exile themselves from home and country 
 lest they be disloyal to the Almighty. 
 We have seen them, pursued and harassed 
 like shameless criminals, unable to remain 
 in England yet long forbidden to depart, 
 and at last only contemptuously allowed 
 to banish themselves ; incurring poverty, 
 imprisonment, the perils of the sea, and 
 the discomforts of a strange and uncon- 
 genial land ; and gaining a temporary 
 resting place in Amsterdam only to find 
 the dissensions of their countrymen almost 
 as perilous to their peace and safety as 
 the tyranny of their rulers had been at 
 home. 
 
 We have seen them, again removed and 
 settled for a few years in Leyden, humbly 
 and patiently industrious, law-abiding, win- 
 ning the confidence of the people and the 
 praise of the public authorities, enjoying 
 religious freedom, and working out their 
 ecclesiastical theories for the benefit of 
 coming generations. We have seen them 
 even then hampered by extreme poverty, 
 
Conclicsion. 331 
 
 alarmed by the perils of their children, 
 and disappointed in the failure of their 
 great hopes of being able to preserve their 
 existence as a body and of securing for 
 their theories of spiritual and ecclesiasti- 
 cal truth an advantageous and permanent 
 opportunity of successful illustration. We 
 have seen them, therefore, once more exil- 
 ing themselves bravely and venturing this 
 time not into a well-known, even though 
 to them unfamiliar, land but beyond the 
 confines of civilization itself. We have 
 seen them, still hindered by grievous 
 penury, forced to divide themselves as a 
 body in twain, hampered by the falseness 
 or negligence of those who had pledged 
 them sufficient and immediate aid, delayed 
 by treachery, sickened and alarmed by the 
 perils of the deep, and reaching at last 
 not their intended destination but an un- 
 known, bleak, inhospitable shore, and in the 
 dead of winter. 
 
 We have seen them exploring patiently, 
 establishing their colony feebly and slowly, 
 
332 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 and sickening and suffering uncomplain- 
 ingly until every other member of their 
 company had succumbed to death and had 
 been laid in a necessarily hidden grave. 
 We have seen them starving by inches, 
 annoyed and actually endangered by vis- 
 itors whose hungry mouths they had to 
 fill out of their insufficient, precarious, and 
 failing supplies of food, threatened by the 
 Indian natives, and imperiled by the reck- 
 lessness and incompetency of settlers of 
 other and newer colonies. We have seen 
 them forced to allow the settlement among 
 themselves of many who had no sympathy 
 with their spirit or purpose, who sought 
 to create dissensions and who had to be 
 controlled with a strong hand. We have 
 seen them deprived for years of the sight 
 of the relatives and friends whom they 
 had expected to follow them soon from 
 Holland, and unable for nearly a decade 
 to enjoy the precious fellowship and 
 services of a Christian minister and the 
 holy comfort of the sacraments. We have 
 
Conclusion. 333 
 
 seen them neglected and even meanly 
 reproached by those at home who had 
 promised to supply permanently their 
 material needs, hampered by the miser- 
 able mismanagement of the Merchant 
 Adventurers, and forced at last either 
 to assume the whole financial burden of 
 their undertaking at a heavy cost and 
 a heavier risk of total failure or else 
 to lose all which they had invested or 
 accomplished. 
 
 But also we have seen in them examples 
 of sagacity, patience, versatility in re- 
 source, fortitude, persistence, and conse- 
 cration such as never have been surpassed. 
 We have seen not only strong men but 
 also tender women and little children 
 sharing the burdens and perils of their 
 common experience with unconscious but 
 not less lofty heroism. We have seen 
 material success and prosperity trium- 
 phantly won in spite of the most adverse 
 conditions. We have seen an almost 
 peerless devotion to God and a self- 
 
334 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 sacrificing missionary spirit. We have 
 seen an evident, absolute absorption in the 
 effort to learn and obey the divine will, 
 which rarely has been paralleled among 
 men. We have seen a tolerance, a char- 
 ity, and a degree of spiritual enlighten- 
 ment far in advance of their times and 
 which the^ Christian world in general even 
 now hardly can be said to have attained. 
 We have seen an intelligent, orderly, gen- 
 erally self-consistent and always peaceable 
 and harmonious development of a theory 
 of church existence and government which 
 many now believe, as they believed, to be 
 at once most natural and most Scriptural, 
 and which — partly through its direct, 
 acknowledged influence, exerted by hun- 
 dreds of thousands of Christians in various 
 branches of the earthly church, and partly 
 through its less evident and admitted but 
 undeniable general influence upon Chris- 
 tian bodies differently named and gov- 
 erned — soon justified itself as well as 
 the toils and sacrifices of the Pilgrims 
 
Conclusion. 335 
 
 and of their fellow believers, who else- 
 where and otherwise have striven for the 
 same great object. 
 
 The Pilgrims long ago rested from their 
 labors and entered into their reward. But 
 their works still follow them. The mul- 
 titude of their descendants in the flesh 
 does well to honor their memory, and the 
 far greater and ever increasing host of 
 their spiritual children never will cease 
 to reverence them. But even reverence 
 will be empty unless accompanied by imi- 
 tation. Both the need and the opportunity 
 of the spirit of the Pilgrims still continue 
 among us. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 1. Neal, History of the Puritans [Harpers, 1844], 
 i, 30-1. J. R. Green, A Short History of the English 
 People [Harpers, 1888], 267. 
 
 2. Green, A Short History of the English People, 349. 
 Massingberd, English Reformation [Longmans, Green 
 & Co., 1866], 285. Lord Herbert of Cherbury, History 
 of England under Henry VIII [A. Murray, 1870], 478. 
 Skeats, History of Free Churches in England [A. 
 Miall, 1869], 2. 
 
 3. Neal, History of the Puritans, i, 34-6. 
 
 4. Ibid, i, 57. Green, A Short History of the English 
 People, 368. 
 
 5. Neal, History of the Puritans, i, 59. Green, A 
 Short History of the English People, 362. 
 
 6. Neal, History of the Puritans, i, 60. 
 
 7. Ibid, i, 66. 
 
 8. Ibid, i, 64. 
 
 9. Ibid, i, 71, 81-2, 216. Green, A Short History of 
 the English People, 376. 
 
 10. TuUoch, English Puritanism and its Leaders 
 [Blackwoods, 1861], 15. Froude, History of England 
 [Scribners, 1870], xii, 582. Green, A Short History of 
 the English People, 376. John Fiske, Beginnings of 
 New England [Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1889], 60. 
 
 11. Neal, History of the Puritans, i, 74, 89, 137. 
 Strype, Annals, iii, 183-4. Green, A Short History of 
 the English People, 408. 
 
 337 
 
338 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 12. Neal, History of the Puritans, 1, 182. Green, A 
 Short History of the English People, 405. 
 
 13. Neal, History of the Puritans, i, 76, 112, 127, 158. 
 Massingberd, English Reformation, 491-3. Green, A 
 Short History of the English People, 468-72. 
 
 14. Neal, History of the Puritans, i, 86, 149. 
 
 15. Ibid, i, 93, 97. 
 
 16. Ibid, i, 148. 
 
 17. Ibid, i, 134-5. 
 
 18. Ibid, i, 147, 179. 
 
 19. Ibid, i, 131. 
 
 20. Ibid, i, 104, 1 76. 
 
 21. Ibid, i, 116. 
 
 22. Ibid, i, 83, 116, 146-7, 159, 165-6, 168, 179. 
 
 23. Ibid, i, 146. 
 
 24. Ibid, i, 102-3, 146- 
 
 25. Ibid, i, 146, 165, 173, 181. 
 
 26. Ibid, i, 86. 
 
 27. Ibid, i, 126-7, 'S4> 215. 
 
 28. Ibid, i, 232. TuUoch, English Puritanism and its 
 Leaders, 37. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 I. Blomefield, History of the County of Norfolk, iii, 
 282, 291. Quoted in H. M. Dexter's Congregationalism 
 as Seen in the Literature of the Last Three Hundred 
 Years [Harpers, 1880], 72, note. Froude, History of 
 England, vii, 270, 413. 
 
 z. Blomefield, History of the County of Norfolk, iii, 
 
 337- 
 
 3. Neal, History of the Puritans, i, 66. Rev. John 
 Brown, D.D., mentions one at Booking in 1551 and 
 thinks that there were others of earlier dates. See Ter- 
 centenary Tracts, No. VI, Congregationalism Old and New 
 
Notes. , 339 
 
 [Congregational Union of England and Wales, 1893], 9, 
 10. But it does not seem clear that any of them were 
 sufficiently well organized or permanent to be considered 
 regular. 
 
 4. Neal, History of the Puritans, i, 66. Brown, Ter- 
 centenary Tracts, No. VI, 1 2. 
 
 5. Neal, History of the Puritans, i, 104-5. 
 
 6. Ibid, i, 106, etc., 214. 
 
 7. Ibid, i, 106. Professor Williston Walker, PH.D., 
 The Heads of Agreement, etc. [Proceedings of Ameri- 
 can Society of Church History, 1891], 32. 
 
 8. Skeats, History of the Free Churches in England, 
 23. Dexter, Congregationalism in Literature, 69-70, loi. 
 
 9. Neal, History of the Puritans, i, 198. Strype, 
 Annals, iv, 1 74. John Robinson, Justification of Sepa- 
 ration, 460. Dexter, Congregationalism in Literature, 
 114-15,631-4. Dr. Brown — Tercentenary Tracts, No. 
 VI, 13, etc. — quotes Thomas Lever's testimony that 
 there was a church in London in 1559 and also refers to 
 Richard Fitz's church as probably formed in the Bride- 
 well Prison in 1567 or a little later. That these com- 
 panies existed is clear. The fact needing to be estab- 
 lished is that they, or either of them, professed distinclive 
 Congregationalist principles instead of being Congrega- 
 tionalists merely so far as their independence, the neces- 
 sary result of their circumstances, rendered them like 
 Congregationalists. This fact does not yet appear to 
 have been proved. 
 
 10. Sir S. D'Ewes, Journal of all the Parliaments dur- 
 ing the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, etc., 517. Quoted by 
 Dexter, Congregationalism in Literature, 631, note. 
 
 11. History of the Puritans, i, 149. 
 
 12. Constitutional History of England, ii, 296. 
 
 13. On the other hand Green, Short History of the 
 English People, edition of 1894, pp. 1 177-8, thinks. 
 
340 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 and quotes Bacon in his support, that by the end of the 
 reign they had been practically suppressed. But the 
 weight of the evidence is the other way. 
 
 14. Baptists, Unitarians, and others are Congregation- 
 alists in respect to polity. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 1. Dexter, Congregationalism in Literature, 61-128, 
 furnishes a careful study of the man, his theories, 
 etc. 
 
 2. See chapter ii, note i. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 1. Dexter, Congregationalism in Literature, 407, 459- 
 60. 
 
 2. Those of Robert Browne, for example, mentioned 
 in chapter ii. 
 
 3. Their titles are as follows: 2. Oh read ouer D. 
 lohn Bridges, etc. : Or an Epitome of the fyrste Booke, 
 etc.; 3. Certaine Minerall and Metaphisicall School 
 points, etc.; 4. Hay any worke for Cooper, etc.; 5. 
 The Protestatyon of Martin Marprelat, etc.; 6. Theses 
 Martinianee, etc.; 7. The iust censure and reproofe of 
 Martin lunior, etc. The first and second must not be 
 confused with each other through the similarity of their 
 titles. 
 
 4. Dr. Dexter proposed this theory. Congregational- 
 ism in Literature, 192-201. 
 
 5. Ibid. 208-10. 
 
 6. Ibid. 209-10. 
 
 7. Copping and Thacker are said to have answered 
 " cruel Judge Popham " thus : — 
 
Notes. 341 
 
 " My Lord, your face we fear not, 
 
 " And for your threats we care not, 
 
 " And to come to your read service we dare not." 
 
 Bradford, Dialogue in Young, Chronicles, 427. 
 
 8. Dexter, Congregationalism in Literature, 208. 
 
 9. Young, Chronicles of the Pilgrims [Little & 
 Brown, 1844], 427. 
 
 10. Dexter, Congregationalism in Literature, 211-45. 
 
 11. Ibid. 211-45. 
 
 12. Ibid. 246-51. 
 
 1 3. A public service was held in the City Temple on 
 April 6, 1893, and an open-air meeting at the main gate 
 into Hyde Park, where the " Tyburn Tree," that is, Ty- 
 burn gallows, used to stand, on April 8. The attendance 
 at the latter service was estimated at 15,000 persons. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 1. B. Evans, Early English Baptists, i, 202. Brook, 
 Lives of the Puritans, ii, 196. J. Ivimey, History of 
 English Baptists, i, 114. A.Taylor, History of English 
 General Baptists, etc., i, 67. All quoted by Dexter, 
 Congregationalism in Literature, 312, note. 
 
 2. Founders of New Plymouth [J. R. Smith, 1854], 
 20-1. 
 
 3. See his letter in article " King James at Scrooby," by 
 Dr. E. E. Hale, New England Magazine, September, 1889. 
 
 4. Dexter, article " Footprints of Pilgrims in England," 
 Sabbath at Home, March, 1867. 
 
 5. Founders of New Plymouth, 20. 
 
 6. Itinerary, i, 36. 
 
 7. Dexter, article " Footprints of Pilgrims in England," 
 Sabbath at Home, March, 1867. 
 
 8. Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantations [Col- 
 lections of Massachusetts Historical Society, 4th series, 
 vol. iii], 411-12, notes. 
 
342 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 9. Article " Round About Scrooby," New England 
 Magazine, September, 1889. Hunter, Founders of New 
 Plymouth, 21. 
 
 10. See account in The Congregationalist of August 
 
 13. "891. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 1 . Dexter, article " Footprints of Pilgrims in England," 
 Sabbath at Home, March, 1867. 
 
 2. Hunter, Founders of New Plymouth, 61. 
 
 3. History, 409. 
 
 4. Encyclopaedia Britannica [Scribners, 1885], Post- 
 office. 
 
 5. Dexter, " Footprints of Pilgrims in England," Sab- 
 bath at Home, March, 1867. 
 
 6. History, 410. 
 
 7. Ibid. 411. 
 
 8. Ibid. 412-13. 
 
 9. Ibid. 30-8, 31, note. 
 
 10. Ibid. 447. 
 
 11. Ibid. 339, note. 
 
 12. Plymouth Church Records, written by Nathaniel 
 Morton, secretary of the colony. But the late Charles 
 Deane, editor of Bradford's History, accepted April 28, 
 1643, as probably correct. 
 
 13. See Deane's preface to the 1856 edition of Brad- 
 ford's History. Dexter, Mourt's Relation [J. K. Wiggin, 
 1865], 14, note. 
 
 14. Founders of New Plymouth, 107, no. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 1. History, 10. 
 
 2. Bradford, in Young, Chronicles, 453. Hunter, 
 Founders of New Plymouth, 40-6. 
 
Notes. 343 
 
 3. Bradford, History, 18, 20-1, 205. Dexter, Con- 
 gregationalism in Literature, 359-410. 
 
 4. Founders of New Plymouth, 93. 
 
 5. According to testimony of Baron Elsivier and 
 Professor Pluygers. Referred to by Dexter, article " The 
 Pilgrims in Leyden," New England Magazine, Sep- 
 tember, 1889. 
 
 6. The house now standing where the large house 
 then stood is called the Pesijns Hof, after Jan Pesijn, 
 who founded there an asylum for aged and poor married 
 people in 1683. 
 
 7. University Registers. The date is September 15, 
 1615. 
 
 8. For example, he became exempt from the jurisdic- 
 tion of the magistrates of the city and entitled to receive, 
 free of town or state duties, half a ton — 1 26 English 
 gallons — of beer every month and about ten gallons of 
 wine every three months. 
 
 9. Young, Chronicles, 492. 
 
 10. The following is a summary of the arguments. 
 In proof that Robinson had reference to progress and 
 liberality in general it is urged that 
 
 {a) His words must be given their natural meaning; 
 
 (/)) His biographer's [Ashton's] testimony as to his 
 character establishes a probability that he meant to be 
 understood in the broadest sense; and, 
 
 (c) This interpretation harmonizes with the immedi- 
 ately succeeding sentences of his address. 
 
 In proof that he referred only to church government 
 it is urged that this interpretation is the more consistent 
 
 (a) With his often expressed ecclesiastical opinions; 
 
 (J)) With the conditions of the occasion of the 
 utterance ; 
 
 (<r) With the circumstances in which it was reported 
 by Edward Winslow, through whom it has come to us; 
 
344 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 (</) With the common understanding of it in New 
 England for a century and a half after Window pub- 
 lished his report of the address; and, 
 
 («) With several other closely following and unmis- 
 takably significant sentences of the address. 
 
 For a full examination of the subject see Dexter, Con- 
 gregationalism in Literature, 403, etc. 
 
 II. See account in The Congregationalist of August 
 13, 1891. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 1. Founders of New Plymouth, 128, 131. 
 
 2. Ibid. 19, 72-3, 128-31. 
 
 3. In Holland at this time betrothal had to be regis- 
 tered officially like marriage. 
 
 4. Hunter, Founders of New Plymouth, 17, 1 16-17. 
 
 5. Worksop Parish Records. Hunter, Founders of 
 New Plymouth, 126. 
 
 6. History, 12. 
 
 7. Leyden Records, quoted by Dexter, Congregation- 
 alism in Literature, 383. 
 
 8. Founders of New Plymouth, 124. 
 
 9. Dexter, Mourt's Relation, xviii, etc 
 
 10. Hunter, Founders of New Plymouth, 40-6. 
 
 11. History, 10. 
 
 12. Ibid. II. 
 
 13. Ibid. II. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 1. For statements in this chapter see Bradford, His- 
 tory, 11-16. 
 
 2. Young, Chronicles, 465-6. 
 
Notes. 345 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 1. Dexter, Congregationalism in Literature, 266 and 
 note. 
 
 2. Ibid. 267, 277. 
 
 3. Ibid. 267-8. 
 
 4. Ibid. 263, etc. 
 
 5. Ibid. 278 and note. 
 
 6. Ibid. 310. 
 
 7. Ibid. 31 1-12, etc. Also True Story of John Smyth, 
 the Se-Baptist [Lee &Shepard, 1881], 2, note 13. 
 
 8. So the university records state. But Professor 
 Scheffer places these dates about ten years later, in 
 1586-93. De Brownisten, 78. 
 
 9. Dexter, True Story of John Smyth, 2, note 18. 
 
 10. Dexter, Congregationalism in Literature, 313-14. 
 
 11. Dialogue in Young, Chronicles, 455. Quoted by 
 Dexter, Congregationalism in Literature, 317, with com- 
 ments. 
 
 12. This has been disputed but seems established. See 
 discussion by Dexter, True Story of John Smyth and 
 Congregationalism in Literature, 319, note. 
 
 13. Dexter, Congregationalism in Literature, 318, note. 
 
 14. Bradford, History, 16-17. 
 
 15. Leyden Records, quoted by Dexter, Congrega- 
 tionalism in Literature, 383. 
 
 16. Dexter, Congregationalism in Literature, 331 and 
 note. 
 
 17. Ibid. 270 and note. See also, for latest discov- 
 eries, Henry Ainsworth, the Puritan Commentator, by 
 W. E. A. Axon and Ernest Axon, reprinted [1889] from 
 Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian 
 Society, 1888. 
 
 18. His commentary still is so valuable that the recent 
 English revisers of the Old Testament made use of it. 
 Dexter, Congregationalism in Literature, 342, note. 
 
346 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 19. See Bibliography in Dexter's Congregationalism in 
 Literature. 
 
 20. Dexter, Congregationalism in Literature, 325, etc. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 1. Dexter, Congregationalism in Literature, 383. 
 
 2. One book known to have been printed by him is 
 " a commentary on the Proverbs, by Cartwright, with a 
 preface by Polyander, the Leyden Professor, 8vo, 1617." 
 Hunter, Founders of New Plymouth, 137. 
 
 3. Various Leyden public records, marriage entries, 
 etc., state their occupations. 
 
 4. See chapter vii. Also Dexter, Congregationalism 
 in Literature, 387 and note. 
 
 5. The reasons establishing this conclusion are these : 
 I. There is no record of their worshiping anywhere 
 else or of any grant to them by the authorities of a place 
 of worship, which was sometimes made. 2. The Dutch 
 government often confined the toleration of new and 
 unusual sects to worship in private houses. 3. Robinson's 
 burial in St. Peter's implies that they had no house of 
 worship, or they would have buried him in it. 4. There 
 is evidence that this house was too large and costly for 
 them to have been likely to buy it except for use in wor- 
 ship. See Dexter, article " Pilgrims in Leyden," New 
 England Magazine, September, 1889. 
 
 6. History, 17-18. 
 
 7. Ibid. 19-20. 
 
 8. Leyden Records. 
 
 9. Hypocrisie Vnmasked, etc., 95. 
 10. History, 21. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 1. For statements in this chapter see Dexter, Congre- 
 
Notes. ^^y 
 
 gationalism in Literature, 98, 236, 314, etc., 325-6, 353, 
 392, etc., and 695. 
 
 2. Dexter speal^s, Congregationalism in Literature, 
 328-9, of the " Elders " of the Leyden church but 
 seems to be using the term loosely. Bradford, Dialogue 
 in Young, Chronicles, 418, calls the same men " mes- 
 sengers " twice, which is exactly appropriate in the 
 circumstances and corresponds to the modern term 
 " delegates." 
 
 3. Works [Boston Tract Society, 1851], iii, 377. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 1. For statements in this chapter see Bradford, His- 
 tory, 23-44, 58-60. 
 
 2. See page 32. 
 
 3. Apparently the Pilgrims conceded so much as to 
 consent to acknowledge some right of authority on the 
 part of bishops duly appointed by the crown, but their 
 language leaves it uncertain whether they referred to 
 civil or ecclesiastical authority, and they insisted upon 
 the right of a church to elect its own pastor, which claim 
 neither king nor bishops were willing to admit. See the 
 Seven Articles, quoted by J. A. Goodwin, Pilgrim Repub- 
 lic [Ticknor & Co, 1888], 41, and referred to by Sir 
 Edwin Sandys, Bradford, History, 30. 
 
 4. Probably the latter is true. There is evidence that 
 the English government tried to have him arrested for 
 printing obnoxious religious books, that the Dutch felt 
 obliged to assent, that one Thomas Brewer was appre- 
 hended by mistake, and that Brewster escaped to Eng- 
 land safely and remained there and got off to America 
 in the Mayflower undetected or at any rate unmolested. 
 Goodwin, The Pilgrim Republic, 33. 
 
348 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 1. For statements in this chapter see Bradford, His- 
 tory, 57-78. 
 
 2. This is disputed, but Bradford, History, 70, says so 
 plaiijy. Cushman afterwards was very useful to them in 
 England. 
 
 3. Young, Chronicles, 98-9. 
 
 4. It is at least open to question if this date should 
 not be November 20. 
 
 5. Dexter, Mourt's Relation, 2, note. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 1. Dexter, Mourt's Relation, 7, note; 43, note. 
 
 2. Ibid. 44, note. Bradford, History, 330, 442, note. 
 
 3. Leyden Records. But Dexter, Mourt's Relation, 
 44, note, says May 26. 
 
 4. Dexter, Mourt's Relation, 13, note. 
 
 5. Ibid. 96, note. See also many allusions to him in 
 Bradford's History. 
 
 6. Bradford, History, 264, note; 306, note. Dexter, 
 Congregationalism in Literature, 415. 
 
 7. Bradford, History, 449. 
 
 8. Ibid. 89. 
 
 9. Bradford, Mourt's Relation, 5, 6. 
 10. Ibid. 6, 7, and note. 
 
 CHAPTER XVL 
 
 1. Mourt's Relation, 3. 
 
 2. Bradford, History, 78. 
 
 3. Mourt's Relation, 13, etc. 
 
 4. Ibid, 27, etc. 
 
Notes. 349 
 
 5. Mourfs Relation, 43, note, says "one of Francis 
 Billington's sonnes," which probably is an error. Brad- 
 ford's list of the Mayflower Pilgrims (see preceding 
 chapter) confirms this as an error by mentioning John, 
 not Francis. So does Young's list, quoted from Prince, 
 Annals of New England, 173, in Chronicles, 121-2. See 
 also Chronicles, 214, note. 
 
 6. Mourt's Relation, 43, etc. 
 
 7. Ibid. 64. 
 
 8. Ibid. 84-5. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 I. For statements in this chapter see Mourt's Relation, 
 68-81, gi, etc. Also Bradford, History, 90-1. 
 
 z. Death reduced their numbers so rapidly that they 
 did not need after all to build so many dwellings. 
 Winslow says : " We have built seven dwelling houses 
 and four for the use of the plantation " Young, Chron- 
 icles, 173, note. He seems to have meant that only 
 seven dwellings for families were built, and it is quite 
 likely that more than one house for general uses was 
 needed. 
 
 3. Its exceptional severity has been disputed on the 
 ground that the harbor is not recorded as having frozen 
 over. But in any case it was much more inclement than 
 any winter in their experience. 
 
 4. Young, Chronicles, 198-9, and notes. Pal&ey, His- 
 tory of New England [Hurd & Houghton, 1866], i, 
 65. The statement rests only upon a tradition, but the 
 tradition seems trustworthy. Abiel Holmes, Annals [W. 
 Hilliard, 1805], 161, quoted by Young, Chronicles, 
 199, says that he personally had the fact from Ephraim 
 Spooner, who had been told it by Thomas Faunce, who 
 had been well acquainted with several of the Mayflower 
 
350 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 company. There is the same authority, and only this, 
 for the tradition that the Pilgrims first landed on Ply- 
 mouth Rock. 
 
 5. Brewster and Standish were two of these. Young, 
 Chronicles, 198. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 1. For statements in this chapter see Bradford, History, 
 98-105, also Mourt's Relation, 98-130. The latter 
 describes the three expeditions at some length. 
 
 2. A minister, a Mr. Crabe, had agreed to join them, 
 apparently at Southampton, but did not. He was " much 
 opposed," but whether by them or by his friends is not 
 stated. Young, Chronicles, 85. 
 
 3. In March of this year one of this family, apparently 
 its head, had been tried before the whole company for 
 contempt of Captain Standish's orders and condemned " to 
 have his neck and heels tied together." 
 
 4. On the general subject of the treatment of the 
 Indians by the Pilgrims, see Young, Chronicles, 259 and 
 note; also article " Did the Pilgrims Wrong the Indians? " 
 Congregational Quarterly, i, 129-35 ! ^""^ •-■ ^- Adams, 
 Three Episodes of Massachusetts History [Houghton. 
 Mifflin & Co., 1892], i, 100, etc. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 1. For statements in this chapter see Bradford, His- 
 tory, 105-12. 
 
 2. Young, Chronicles, 201 . 
 
 3. Ibid. 280, note. 
 
 4. " Flankers " are projections built out so as to com- 
 mand the ground along the outside of -t fence or wall 
 and thus prevent an enemy from (inding shelter there. 
 
Notes. 351 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 1. Bradford, History, 114. 
 
 2. Ibid. 118 and note; 123-4. 
 
 3. Ibid. 127. 
 
 4. Ibid. 138. 
 
 5. Ibid. 141. 
 
 6. Ibid. 142 and note. 
 
 7. Ibid. 116. This is a general statement. Bradford 
 did not begin his history until about 1630. History, 6. 
 
 8. Ibid. 114. 
 
 9. Ibid. 125. 
 
 10. Ibid. 126. 
 
 11. Ibid. 137. 
 
 12. Ibid. 44. 
 
 13. Ibid. 134. 
 
 14. Ibid. 135. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 1. Bradford, History, 141, note. 
 
 2. Ibid. 113. 
 
 3. Ibid. 128. 
 
 4. Ibid. 131. 
 
 5. Ibid. 132. Adams gives details. Three Episodes, 
 i, chapter vi. 
 
 6. Bradford, History, 126. 
 
 7. Ibid. 126, note. 
 
 8. Ibid. 413. 
 
 9. Although only an elder he probably wore the gown 
 and bands while conducting worship^ as they are included 
 in the inventory of his possessions at his death. Good- 
 win, Pilgrim Republic, 34, note. 
 
 10. Bradford, History, 142. 
 
 11. Ibid. 143. Bradford's language is not quite clear. 
 But his use of the word " company " seems to imply that 
 they were to some extent organized, especially in view of 
 
352 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 the fact that individual already had been substituted for 
 common farming. If these new-comers merely had 
 wished to labor each for his own account, the fact hardly 
 would have been noted, because it would have involved 
 no exception to what had become the custom. 
 
 12. Ibid. 146. 
 
 13. Ibid. 124-5. 
 
 14. Ibid. 128, etc. 
 
 15. Ibid. 133-4. 
 
 16. Ibid. 148-54. 
 
 17. Ibid. 154 and note. Adams, Three Episodes, i, 
 142-61. 
 
 18. Adams, Three Episodes, i, 142, 160-1, 322-8. 
 
 19. Bradford, History, 154. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 1. Bradford, History, 28, note. Adams, Three Epi- 
 sodes, 117. 
 
 2. Bradford, History, 41 and note. 
 
 3. Ibid. 43, 45 and note. 
 
 4. Ibid. 44, note. 
 
 5. Ibid. 107, note. 
 
 6. Ibid. 138-9. 
 
 7. Ibid. 107 and note. 
 
 8. Ibid. 1 17. 
 
 9. Ibid. 119-20. 
 
 10. Ibid. 157-8. 
 
 11. Ibid. 168 and note. 
 
 12. Ibid. 171-96. 
 
 13. Ibid. 196. 
 
 14. Ibid. 211-14. 
 
 15. Ibid. 250 and note. 
 
 16. Ibid. 289-90. 
 
 17. Ibid. 315. 
 
Notes. 3 S3 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 1. Bradford, History, 151 and note. 
 
 2. Ibid. 156. 
 
 3. W. T. Davis, Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth 
 [A. Williams & Co., 1883], 76, 88. 
 
 4. Pilgrim Republic, 251. 
 
 5. Bradford, History, 157. 
 
 6. Ibid. 163, 165. 
 
 7. Ibid. 205-6. 
 
 8. Ibid. 215-17. 
 
 9. Ibid. 217. The frame of this ship is in the 
 museum at Plymouth. 
 
 10. Ibid. 221. 
 
 11. Ibid. 222-5. 
 
 12. Ibid. 235-46. Adams, Three Episodes, i, chapters 
 x-xv and xix. 
 
 13. Bradford, History, 169, note. 
 
 14. Ibid. 23S, note. Adams, Three Episodes, i, 209. 
 
 15. Bradford, History, 264. 
 
 16. Ibid. 265-6 and note. 
 
 17. Ibid. 243. 
 
 18. Ibid. 263. Adams, Three Episodes, i, 230. Smith 
 had come over from England to Salem with Higginson. 
 
 19. Bradford, History, 245-9. John Robinson's widow 
 was not in either of these companies. Dr. Charles 
 Deane, editor of the 1856 edition of Bradford's History, 
 accepted the tradition that she was in one of them as 
 " respectable " and thought that she came "with her son 
 Isaac, and perhaps with another son." On the other 
 hand Dr. Dexter said, in a note found among his papers 
 after his death, " that no trace of her presence here was 
 ever shown; that it is stated by a Dutch writer of the 
 highest respectability [and] having means of knowledge 
 that she never came; and that she is on record as still 
 living in the Peterskerkhoff in Leyden in the spring of 
 
354 T^^ Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 1640, ten years after the date of her alleged arrival here." 
 The Leyden record of course settles the point. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 1. Bradford, History, 163-7. 
 
 2. Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Soci- 
 ety, 1794, vol. iii. 
 
 3. There were only thirty-two in 1624. Davis, 
 Ancient Landmarks, 55. 
 
 4. A storm " caused much daubing of our houses to 
 • fall down." Young, Chronicles, 1 79 and note. 
 
 5. Carpets had been imported into England for three 
 quarters of a century or more, but hardly can have 
 become common unless among the rich and luxurious. 
 
 6. Glass had been used in windows for some time, but, 
 if they had provided any, it is probable that they would 
 have sold it when they were paying their debts at South- 
 ampton before starting, rather than provisions, which we 
 know that they sold. Moreover, Winslow wrote home, 
 probably to George Morton, telling him to " bring paper 
 and linseed oil for your windows with cotton yam for 
 your lamps." Young, Chronicles, 237-8. 
 
 7. See note 6. 
 
 8. Published in 1560, but not in England until 1575. 
 "It very soon became the Bible of the household." 
 Blackford Condit, History of English Bible [A. S. 
 Barnes & Co., 1882], 241-51. 
 
 9. Dexter, Elder Brewster's Library, etc. [Proceed- 
 ings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1889]. 
 
 10. Even Elder Brewster owned at his death a violet 
 coat and a green waistcoat. Goodwin, Pilgrim Republic, 
 34, note. 
 
 11. They did not use it for interments for some years. 
 Burials probably were either on Cole's Hill, near the 
 
Notes. 355 
 
 rock, or upon their private grounds. Fort Hill was 
 abandoned for defensive uses in 1679, and the oldest 
 gravestone now standing, Edward Gray's, is dated i68l. 
 Davis, Ancient Landmarks, 1 30-1. 
 
 1 2. The first cattle were brought over by Winslow in 
 1624. Bradford, History, 158. 
 
 13. Davis, Ancient Landmarks, 55. 
 
 14. Ibid. 107-8. 
 
 15. "After prayer" they had breakfast, etc., on their 
 third exploring expedition from the ship. Young, 
 Chronicles, 156. 
 
 16. They called the day the " Sabbath," or the " Lord's 
 Day," or " First Day," objecting to " Sunday " as a title 
 of heathen origin. Dexter, Congregationalism in Litera- 
 ture, 459. 
 
 17. William Palmer's will — he died in 1637 — ^^' 
 queathed "somewhat towards y= meeting-hqasig^jt 
 Plymouth," as if one were being or about to be built. 
 Plymouth Records. 
 
 18. A meeting somewhat of this character is recorded 
 in Dedham as early as 1637, but nothing of the sort 
 became generally customary until long afterwards. But 
 the weekly lecture, " essentially a repetition of one Sab- 
 bath service," became usual in the Bay Colony almost 
 as soon as the colony was established, and probably the 
 Plymouth men had some meeting of this sort, at any 
 rate after the first few years. In Boston it was held on 
 Thursday and in the daytime. Dexter, Congregational- 
 ism in Literature, 456-7 and notes. 
 
 19. Ibid. 333. 
 
 20. i, 109. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 I. See chapter xxi, note 14. 
 3, Adams, Three Episodes, i, 183, 
 
3S6 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 3. See chapter xxi, note 16. 
 
 4. Adams, Three Episodes, i, 161, 192. 
 
 5. Ibid, i, 161. 
 
 6. See chapter xxiii, note 12. 
 
 7. See chapter xxi, note 18. 
 
 8. See chapter xxiii, note 14. 
 
 9. Adams, Three Episodes, i, 218. 
 
 10. Ibid, i, 228. 
 
 11. Ibid, i, 233. 
 
 12. Cotton Mather, Magnalia, iii, 74. 
 
 13. T. Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts, i, 431. 
 
 14. Dexter, Congregationalism in Literature, 415-17. 
 Professor Williston Walker, PH.D., The Influence of 
 the Mathers in New England Religious Development 
 [Proceedings of American Society of Church History, 
 1892], 63. 
 
 15. Massachusetts Colonial Records, i, 390. Quoted 
 by Dexter, Congregationalism in Literature, 414. 
 
 16. Adams, Three Episodes, i, 230. 
 
 17. Massachusetts Colonial Records, i, 87. Quoted 
 by Dexter, Congregationalism in Literature, 420. 
 
 18. Dexter, Congregationalism in Literature, 420. 
 Adams, Three Episodes, ii, 815. 
 
 19. Adams, Three Episodes, i, 21^-17. 
 
 20. Ibid, i, 382. 
 
 21. In 1633, John Doane, who had been made a dea- 
 con, was on this account voluntarily dropped from the 
 Governor's council. Goodwin, Pilgrim Republic, 376, 
 note. 
 
 22. Young, Chronicles, 126. 
 
 23. Bradford, History, 177. 
 
 24. Adams, Three Episodes, i, 364. Palfrey, History 
 of New England, i, 106-7. 
 
 25. Bradford, History, 310. This passage is tpo long 
 tQ be (jiioted |ierej but is yery significant, 
 
Notes. 357 
 
 26. Douglas Campbell, The Puritan in England, Hol- 
 land, and America [Harpers, 1892], ii, 142. Lauer, 
 Church and State in New England [Johns Hopkins 
 University Studies in Historical and Political Science, 
 Tenth Series, ii-iii], 54-55. 
 
 27. Adams, Three Episodes, i, 245-6. 
 
 28. Ibid. 259-61. 
 
 29. Dexter, Congregationalism in Literature, 418. 
 Palfrey, History of New England, i, 103. Lauer, Church 
 and State in New England, 52. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 1. Bradford, History, 264-6. 
 
 2. Page I, note u. 
 
 3. Goodwin thinlis that the only worship held in the 
 several little colonies at the Bay up to this time had been 
 in the Episcopal form. Pilgrim Republic, 318, 325-6. 
 
 4. Bradford, History, 266, note. 
 
 5. Page 57. 
 
 6. Page 58. 
 
 7. Dexter, Congregationalism in Literature, 484-5. 
 
 8. Ibid. 471, etc. 
 
 9. Ibid. 488, etc. 
 
 10. Ibid. 494, etc. 
 
 11. It should be noted here that it also is claimed by 
 Professor Williston Wallier, PH.D., — Creeds and Plat- 
 forms of Congregationalism [Scribners, 1893], 492-4, — 
 that the difference in the characters of the Governors 
 and General Courts of Connecticut and Massachusetts at 
 tlys time had much to do with the developments of Con- 
 gregationahsm in the two colonies. In the former colony 
 civil interference in ecclesiastical affairs was customary 
 and not specially unpopular. But in Massachusetts this 
 pp longer was tolerated as it had been. 
 
3 $8 The Story of the Pilgrims. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 1. In 1679 twelve of the Mayflower Pilgrims them- 
 selves survived. History of Massachusetts, ii, 456. 
 Quoted by Young, Chronicles, 3, note. The last survivor 
 died in 1699. Goodwin, Pilgrim Republic, 476. 
 
 2. In 1643 it had formed — with the three other colo- 
 nies of Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and New Haven 
 — a league called The United Colonies of New England. 
 
 3. Quoted by T. W. Higginson, article " An English 
 Nation," Harper's Magazine, April, 1883. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Achurch-cum-Thorpe, 44. 
 Adams, C. F., 350, 352, 353, 
 
 354»356,3S7. . 
 
 Agawam. See Ipswich. 
 Ainsworth, Henry, 119, 121, 
 
 124, 127, ia8, 144, 145. 
 Alden, John, x8x, 184, x88. 
 Allerton, Isaac, 135, 182, 188, 
 
 213, 268, 269, 278, 280, 305. 
 Allerton, John, 188. 
 Anne, The, 184, 236, 250, 264. 
 Ash ton, 343. 
 Austerfield, 69, 79. 
 Axon, W. E. A. and Ernest, 
 
 345- 
 
 Bacon, 330< 
 
 Barker, Elizabeth, 178. 
 
 Barrowe, Henry, 53, 55-58, 120, 
 122, 143. 
 
 Bassett, William, 132. 
 
 Basset Lawe, 98. 
 
 Bawtry, 69, 99. 
 
 Benet College, 37, 85. 
 
 Bibles, WyclifTs, 13; Tyn- 
 dale's, 15; the Pilgrims', 294. 
 
 Bitlington, John, 188, 195, 349; 
 Francis, 195, 3^9; John, 2x8. 
 
 Blackstone, William, 255, 302. 
 
 Blomefield, 338. 
 
 Bocking, 338. 
 
 Boston, in England, 108; in 
 America, 302, 303; Proposals 
 o( Ministers of, 321. 
 
 Bowman, Christopher, X3i. 
 
 Bradford, Thomas and Richard, 
 80; William, Sr., 79; William, 
 Governor, 55, 70, 73, 79-82, 
 ixo, 1x2, 139, X35, z88, X92, 
 197, 204, 212, 216, 263, 268, 
 271, 273, 274. 380, 283, 28^, 
 310, 3x8; Mrs. Dorothy, 81, 
 xg7. 
 
 Brewer, Thomas, 136, 348, 
 
 Brewster, William, Sr., 66, 73; 
 Fear, 182 ; Jonathan, 78 ; 
 Love, 78 ; M ary , 78 ; Pru- 
 dence, 73 ; William, Elder, 66, 
 72-79, 97, 102, IXO, 1x7, 132, 
 145, 158, x64, 188, 250, 273, 
 274, 283, 286, 293, 3x8, 348, 
 355; Wrestling, 78. 
 
 Bridewell Prison, 339. 
 
 Brill, 74. 
 
 Britteridge, Richard, 188. 
 
 Brydges, Sir Egerton, 99. 
 
 Bryne, James, 66. 
 
 Brook, 3^1. 
 
 Brown Alley, 129. 
 
 Brown, Dr. John, 338, 339 ; 
 Peter, x88, 205. 
 
 Browne, Robert, 31, 36-49, 86, 
 142, 340. 
 
 Brownists, 32, 33, 153. 
 
 Browns, of Salem, 3x2. 
 
 Buckram, Williamu 97. 
 
 Burghley, Lord Treasurer, 40, 
 42. 
 
 Burial Hill, 248, 288. 
 
 Butten, William, 172. 
 
 Butter, Samuel, 132. 
 
 Butlerfield, Stephen, 135. 
 
 Campbell, Douglas, 357. 
 Cape Cod, 173, 189, 200, 276. 
 Carpenter, Agnes, 184; Alice, 
 
 81,98; Juliana, 100. 
 Cartwright, Thomas, 51, 143, 
 
 346' 
 Carver, John, Governor, 81, 
 
 iS7f 163, X64, 175-177, 188, 
 
 202,204,212; Catherine, 176. 
 Catherine, Queen, 13. 
 Chandler, Edmund, X35. 
 Charity, The, 235. 
 Charlestown, 220, 281, 301, 303, 
 ^303. 
 Chelsea, 301, 
 
360 The Story of the Pilgrims, 
 
 Cherbury, Lord Herbert of, 337. 
 
 Chilton, James, 188. 
 
 Chorley, 180, 
 
 Christ's College, 119, 122. 
 
 Clark, Richard, 18B. 
 
 Clarke, 196. 
 
 Clark's Island, 196, 200. 
 
 Clifton, Richard, 80, 84, 87, 
 102, 295. 
 
 Clink Prison, 56. 
 
 Cole's Hill, zio, 355. 
 
 Colet, Henry, 135. 
 
 Collins, Henry, 132. 
 
 Colonial Records, Massachu- 
 setts, 356, 357. 
 
 Condit, Blackford, 355. 
 
 Congregationalism, Beginnings 
 of, 30; First Church, 40; 
 Early growth of, 142-150; 
 Later growth of, 315-325. 
 
 Cook, Firancis, 188, 206. 
 
 Copping, John, 41, 54, 340. 
 
 Cotbitant, 219, 220. 
 
 Corpus Christi. See Benet. 
 
 Council, International Congre- 
 gational, 69; National Con- 
 gregational, 96; of New Eng- 
 land, 268. 
 
 Crabe, 350. 
 
 Crackstone, John, 188. 
 
 Cromwell, 179. 
 
 Cushman, Robert, 78, 132, 157, 
 163, 164, 165, 168, 176, 223, 
 226, 227, 260, 265, 293, 348, 
 
 Cuthbertson, Cuthbert, 132. 
 
 Dartmouth, 167. 
 
 Davis, Hon. W. T., 353, 354, 
 
 355- 
 Davison, William, 73, 74, 75. 
 Day, Dr. G. E , 95. 
 Deane, Charles, 342, 354. 
 Dedham, 356. 
 Delfshaven, i6x. 
 Dennis, William, 55. 
 De Rasieres, Isaac, 249, 250, 
 
 283. 
 D'Ewes, Sir S., 339. 
 Dexter, Dr. H. M., 67, 69, 95, 
 
 ^4o-347> ^4-356. 
 Discovery, ihe, 235. 
 Doane, John, 357. 
 Doncaster, 62. 
 Dorchester, 302. 
 Doten, Edward, 188, 229. 
 Dover, 302. 
 
 proitwich, 177, 
 
 Dry Drayton, 38. 
 Duel, First, 229. 
 Duxbury, 181; Hall, 180. 
 
 East Boston, 301. 
 Eastham, 173. 
 Eaton, Francis, 188. 
 Edward VI, King, 15, 16. 
 Elizabeth, Queen, 17, 21, 74. 
 Ellis, Christopher, 135. 
 Elsivier, Baron, 343. 
 Endicott, John, 184, 279, 302, 
 
 317- 
 English, Thomas, 188. 
 Episcopius, Prof., 90, 136. 
 Evans, B., 341. 
 
 Faunae, Thomas, 35a. 
 
 Fisher, Bishop, 14. 
 
 Fiske, John, 337. 
 
 Fitcher, 278. 
 
 Fitz, Richard, 339. 
 
 Fleet Prison, 120, 
 
 Fletcher, Rev. Henry, 70, 79; 
 
 Moses, 188. 
 Flushing, 74. 
 Fort Hill, 288, 355. 
 Fortune, The, 78, 223, 224, 227, 
 
 263. 
 Froude, J. A., 337, 338. 
 Fuller, Edward, 188; Samuel, 
 
 132, 172, 183, 184, 188, 279, 
 
 287, 297, 317. 
 
 Gainsborough, 33, 61, 76, 85, 
 
 86,123. 
 Gardiner, Richard, 188. 
 George, The, 302. 
 Glascock, Alice, 184. 
 Gloucester, 302. 
 Gonville and Caius College, 127. 
 Goodman, John, 188, 205. 
 Goodwin, J. A,, 272, 347, 348, 
 
 352. 355. 3S7» 358. 
 Gorges, Captain Robert, 253, 
 
 254, 301. 
 Gott, Charles, 279. 
 Gray, Edward, 355; John, 301. 
 Green, J. R.j 337, 338, 339. 
 Greene, William, 264. 
 Greenham, Rev. Richard, 38. 
 Greenwood, John, 55-58; John, 
 
 136. 
 Grey, Abraham, 135. 
 Grimsby, 62, tio. 
 Grindal, Archbishop, 66, 
 
Index, 
 
 361 
 
 Hale, Dr. E. E., 341. 
 Hanson, Alice, 79; John, 79. 
 Hardy, Mary, 92. 
 Harrison, Robert, 39. 
 Heath, Archbishop, 66. 
 Helwys, 126. 
 Henry V, King, 13. 
 Henry VIII, King, 13, 14, 65. 
 Higginson, Rev. Francis, 306, 
 
 354: T.w.,358. 
 
 Hobomok, 219, 247. 
 
 Holmes, Abiel, 350. 
 
 Hopkins, Oceanus, 173 ; Ste- 
 phen, 173, 188, 217,229,230. 
 
 Houghton, Lord, 67. 
 
 Howland, John, 172, 188. 
 
 Hull, no. 
 
 Humber, 111. 
 
 Hunt, Captain Thomas, 207. 
 
 Hunter, Rev. Joseph, 65, 80, 
 97. 98. 99. 342, 344. 346- 
 
 Hutchinson, Governor '1., 328, 
 356; Mrs. Anne, 313. 
 
 Idle River, 71. 
 Ipswich, 195. 
 Islington, 26, 37. 
 Ivimey, J., 341. 
 
 Jackson, Richard, 97. 
 
 James I, King. 21, 65, 122, 158, 
 
 187. 
 Jennings, John, 132. 
 Jepson, Henry, 136; William, 
 
 88, 135- 
 Jessop, Edmund, 132; Francis, 
 
 q8, 102, 135. 
 Johnson, Rev. Francis, 56, 119- 
 
 128, 295; Mrs. Francis, 121, 
 
 125; George, 119-122. 
 Jones, 193, J94. 
 
 Keble, John, 135. 
 Kennebec, 269, 
 Knight, Walter, 301. 
 KnyvetOD, George, 121. 
 
 Laud, Archbishop, 178. 
 
 Lauer, 357. 
 
 Lee, Bridget, 184; Samuel, 132. 
 
 Leicester, Earl of, 74. 
 
 Leister, Edward, 188, 229. 
 
 Leiand, 65. 
 
 Lever, Thomas, 339. 
 
 Leyden, 88, 126, 130, 139; 
 
 Records, 80, 97, 100, 131, 346; 
 
 yniversity Registers, 85, 343. 
 
 Libraries, 386-7. 
 Little James, 236, 250, 265. 
 Liverpool, 62, 
 Lollards, 13. 
 
 London Company. See Mer- 
 chant Adventurers. 
 Lyford, John, 266, 310, 311. 
 
 Manomet. See Sandwich. 
 Margaret, Queen, 65. 
 Margeson, Kdmond, 188. 
 Mar-prelate, Martin, tracts, 53. 
 Marshall, William, 66. 
 Martin, Christopher, 164, 188. 
 Mary, Bloody Queen, 16; 
 
 ?uecnof Scots, 74; and John, 
 he, 302. 
 Massasoit, 207, 217, 219, 247, 
 
 248. 
 Massingberd, 337, 338. 
 Masterson, Richard, 132. 
 Mather, Rev. Cotton, 356; Rev. 
 
 Richard, 319. 
 Maverick, Samuel, 301. 
 May, 32 ; Dorothy, 81. 
 Mayflower, 135, 160, 162, 167, 
 
 169, 193, 194, 196, 197, 202, 
 
 213. 
 Medford, 303. 
 Merchant Adventurers, 159, 
 
 164, 225-6, 234, 242, 258-269, 
 
 305. 
 Merry Mount, 181, 277. 
 Middleburg, 40. 
 Minter, Desire, 176. 
 .Mishawum. See Churlestown. 
 Monhegan, 255. 
 More, Chancellor, 14; Richard, 
 
 78. 
 Morell, Rev. William, 254, 255. 
 Morton, George, 99-101, 102, 
 
 Z36> 355 • Nathaniel, 342; 
 
 ThomaS) 277-279, 302, 312, 
 Mullins, Priscilla, z8i, 185; 
 
 William, x88. 
 
 Nantasket, 266, 267, 302. 
 
 Narragansetts, The, 230-31, 
 247. 
 
 Nauset, 218. 
 
 Neal, 32, 337r 338. 339: Eliza- 
 beth, 97. 
 
 New Netherlands, 277. 
 
 Noddle's Island. See East Bos- 
 ton. 
 
 Norfolk, Duke of, 37. 
 
 Northampton, 43, 45. 
 
362 The Story of the Pilgri-ms. 
 
 Northern Company, 257, 261. 
 Norris, Mary, 182. 
 Norwich, 39, 40. 
 
 Oldham, 266, 267, 309, 311. 
 Orleans, 173. 
 
 Palfrey, 350, 357. 
 
 Palmer, William, 355. 
 
 Pamet River, 192. 
 
 Pecksuot, 248. 
 
 Peirce, John, 235, 262. 
 
 Penn, Admiral, 179. 
 
 Penry, John, 53, 55, 58-9, 118. 
 
 Pesijn, Jan, 343. 
 
 Pickering, Edward, 132, 264. 
 
 Piscataqua, 255. 
 
 Plantation, The, 236. 
 
 Pluygers, Professor, 343, 
 
 Plymouth, in England, 167,258; 
 in America, 196, 197, 200, 249, 
 25?, 253, 254, 255, 263, 269, 
 378, 280, 296. 
 
 Plymouth Colony, 304. 
 
 Plymouth Company, 258. 
 
 Poliander, 136,346. 
 
 Popham, Judge, 340, 341. 
 
 Pnest, Digory, 135, 188. 
 
 Prince, 349, 
 
 Provincetown, 173, 189. 
 
 Psalms, Ainswor^'s, 294. 
 
 Quadequina, 207. 
 
 Rainea, 121. 
 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 32. 
 
 RatcliflT, Philip, 312. 
 
 Rathband, W., 316. 
 
 Reinolds, 166. 
 
 Rich, Lord Rohert, 55. 
 
 Ridgdale, John, 188. 
 
 Robmson, Rev. John, 82, 84- 
 96, no, 117, 130, 136, 145, 
 i6d, 166, 273, 274, 283, 339, 
 343; Mrs. John, 354. 
 
 Rochester, Roberl, 97. 
 
 Rochford, 55. 
 
 Rogers, Rev. Mr., 280. 
 
 Rogers, Thomas, 135, 188. 
 
 Rough, 26. 
 
 Roxbury^ 303. 
 
 Ryton River, 64, 68, 71. 
 
 Salem, 279, 281, 302, 303, 307. 
 Samoset, 207. 
 Sandwich, 276, 
 
 Sandys, Archbishop, 66 ; Sir 
 Edward, 347; Sir Samuel, 66. 
 
 Savage, Archbishop, 65. 
 Saybrook Synod, 322. 
 Scrooby, 61, etc., 72, 73, 74. 
 Shawmut. See Boston. 
 Simpson, 27. 
 Skeats 337, 339. 
 Slade, M., 121. 
 Smith, Rev. Ralph, 280, 296, 
 
 307. 3^2,354. 
 Smyth, Rev. John, 61, 87, 122- 
 
 126, 12S, 148, 149, 345. 
 Soule, George, 188. 
 Southampton, 162, 163, 166. 
 Southwark, 37,44. 
 Southworth, Edward, 98, 132; 
 
 Mrs. Alice, 81, 98. 
 Sparrow, The, 235. 
 Speedwell, The, 160, 166-168. 
 Spooner, Ephraim, 350, 
 Squanto, 207,213, 217, 219, 220, 
 
 247. 
 Squantum, 220. 
 Stamford, 42. 
 Standish, Captain Miles, 180- 
 
 182, 188, 191, 195, 206, 220, 
 
 248, 268, 273, 278, 287, 310, 
 
 35a; Barbara, 181; Rose, 180. 
 Stock Company, 275. 
 Strype, 337,339. 
 Studley, Danipl, 121. 
 St. Helen's Church, 70, 79. 
 St. John's College, 127. 
 St. Olave's School, 44. 
 St. Pancras and St. Mary's 
 
 Church, 14.0. 
 St. Peter's Church, 88, 93, 96, 
 
 140. 
 St. Wilfred's Church, 62. 
 Sumner, George, 69. 
 Swansea, 218. 
 Swanton Morley, 127. 
 
 Tarratines, The, 220. 
 
 Taylor, A., 341. 
 
 Thacker, Elias, 41, 54, 340. 
 
 Thickins, Randall, 88. 
 
 Thoroton, 67. 
 
 TiJley, Edward, 188; John, 188- 
 
 Tilne, 98. 
 
 Tinker, Thomas, 133, 188. 
 
 Truro, 191. 
 
 Tulloch, 337, 338. 
 
 Turner, John, 135, 188. 
 
 Venable, General, 179. 
 Virginia Company, 158, 257, 
 2^3, 260r 
 
Index, 
 
 363 
 
 Walker, Dr. Williston, 339, 356, 
 358. 
 
 Warren, Richard, 188. 
 
 Warwick, Earl of, 268. 
 
 Watertown 267, 302. 
 
 Waymouth, Capt. George, 207. 
 
 Weliaeet, 195. 
 
 Wessagusset. See Weymouth. 
 
 West, Captain Francis, 236, 
 
 Weston, Thomas, 159, 164, 165, 
 226, 252-254, 259, 263, 264. 
 
 Weymouth, 248, 252, 253, 264, 
 301. 
 
 White, Frances, 98; Peregrine, 
 193; Roger, 274; Susannah, 
 178,215; Thomas, 122; Wil- 
 liam, 18S, 2x6. 
 
 Williams, Roger, 296, 311, 313; 
 Thomas, 188, 
 
 Wilson, Rev. John, 297, 303; 
 Roger, 132. 
 
 Wincob, John, 258. 
 
 Winnisimmet. See Chelsea. 
 
 Winslow, Edward, 132, 137, 177- 
 x8o, 188, 208, 215, 217, 238, 
 264,265,343 3'i9»355; Eliza- 
 beth, 216; Gilbert, 188. 
 
 Winthrop, Governor John, 296, 
 297* 302, 303, 
 
 Wise, Rev. John, 323. 
 
 Wituwamat, 248. 
 
 WoUaston, Captain, 277, 302; 
 Mount, 277, 278, 302. 
 
 Wolsey, Cardinal, 68. 
 
 Wood, Henry, 88. 
 
 Worksop, q8. 
 
 Wycliff, 13. 
 
 York, 62. 
 
 York, Archbishopric of, 68. 
 Young, 341-343* 347-351* 354- 
 358.