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THE COLVER LECTURES 
 
 IN BROWN UNIVERSITY 
 
 1920 
 
 PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 By 
 Arthur Lord 
 
QSroi»n Unii?er0it^, ^§e Coft?et ^eetures, 1920 
 
 PLYMOUTH 
 AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 BY 
 ARTHUR LORD 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 <$i)t ^itoer^ibe ^xt^^ Cambribge 
 1920 
 
^ 
 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY BROWN UNIVERSITY 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 /.6^o 
 
 o '^-^^ " 
 
 OCT 29 1920 
 g)CI.A601171 
 
THE Colver lectureship is provided by a fund of 
 $10,000 presented to the University by Mr. and 
 Mrs. Jesse L. Rosenberger of Chicago in memory of 
 Mrs. Rosenberger's father, Charles K. Colver of the 
 class of 1842. The following sentences from the letter 
 accompanying the gift explain the purposes of the foun- 
 dation : — 
 
 "It is desired that, so far as possible, for these lectures 
 only subjects of particular importance and lecturers emi- 
 nent in scholarship or of other marked qualifications shall 
 be chosen. It is desired that the lectures shall be dis- 
 tinctive and valuable contributions to human knowledge, 
 known for theu* quality rather than their number. In- 
 come, or portions of income, not used for lectures may 
 be used for the publication of any of the lectures deemed 
 desirable to be so published." 
 
 Charles Kendrick Colver (1821-1896) was a graduate 
 of Brown University of the class of 1842. The necrologist 
 of the University wrote of him: "He was distinguished 
 for his broad and accurate scholarship, his unswerving 
 personal integrity, championship of truth, and obedience 
 to God in his daily life. He was severely simple and un- 
 worldly in character." 
 
 The lectures now published in this series are: — 
 
 1916 
 
 The American Conception of Liberty and Government, by 
 Frank Johnson Goodnow, LL.D., President of Johns 
 Hopkins University. 
 
 1917 
 
 Medical Research and Human Welfare, by W. W. Keen, 
 M.D., LL.D. (Brown), Emeritus Professor of Sur- 
 gery, Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia. 
 
1918 
 The Responsible State: A Reexamination of Fundamental 
 Political Doctrines in the Light of World War and the 
 Menace of Anarchism, by Franklin Henry Giddings, 
 LL.D., Professor of Sociology and the History of 
 Civilization in Columbia University; sometime Pro- 
 fessor of Political Science in Bryn Mawr College. 
 
 1919 
 Democracy: Discipline: Peace, by William Roscoe Thayer. 
 
 1920 
 Plymouth and the Pilgrims, by Arthur Lord. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. Plymouth before the Pilgrims 1 
 
 II. The Pilgrims before Plymouth 58 
 
 III. Plymouth and the Pilgrims 117 
 
PLYMOUTH 
 AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE PILGRIMS 
 
 The Pilgrim movement can be but im- 
 perfectly understood if treated as an iso- 
 lated event in the world's history, without 
 reference to the conditions which pre- 
 ceded it and made its success possible. 
 Looking at it broadly, it was part of a 
 great world movement, and its relation to 
 that movement must be considered in 
 order to understand its meaning and ap- 
 preciate the result. 
 
 No fact has had a greater influence on 
 the history of civilization, as stated by an 
 eminent scholar, than that "the land of 
 the globe is divided into two great sec- 
 tions, the mass of Europe, Asia, and 
 Africa on the one side and the two Amer- 
 icas on the other, and that one of these 
 1 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 worlds remained unknown to the other 
 till only four hundred years ago." 
 
 The fact that the New World was situ- 
 ated at such a distance from the other at a 
 time when, unlike the present, the waste 
 of oceans divided, not united, the two 
 continents, made it possible to break old 
 traditions, to revise old institutions, and 
 to think out a new philosophy to fit an in- 
 fant society, and at the same time what- 
 soever there was in the inheritance from 
 the Old World which seemed good and 
 available might be kept. It was an op- 
 portunity which had never before been 
 offered in history, and in the study of 
 modern institutions that fact must al- 
 ways be borne in mind, for its influence 
 upon the result can never be overesti- 
 mated. 
 
 It must be remembered also how singu- 
 larly helpful in the development of the 
 North American continent was its con- 
 figuration, its geographical and topo- 
 graphical details. When Magellan in 1520 
 passed through the straits which bear his 
 2 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE PILGRBIS 
 
 name and sailed northward through the 
 dreary wastes of the Pacific, he had es- 
 tabhshed the fact that the earth was in 
 reahty a globe, not a plane, and that the 
 New World was separated from the Old 
 on both sides by a thousand leagues of 
 ocean. 
 
 When Champlain landed upon the 
 Isthmus of Panama, as reported in his 
 narrative of a voyage to the West Indies 
 and Mexico in the years 1599-1602, his 
 keen vision noted, as he stood by the little 
 river which rises in the mountains and 
 descends to Porto Bello, that 
 
 One may judge that if the four leagues of land 
 which there are from Panama to this river 
 were cut through, one might pass from the 
 south sea to the ocean on the other side, and 
 thus shorten the route by more than fifteen 
 hundred leagues, and from Panama to the 
 Straits of Magellan would be an Island, and 
 from Panama to the New-Found-Lands would 
 be another island, so that the whole of Amer- 
 ica would be in two islands. 
 
 Again a glance at the map shows that 
 the line of early discoveries established 
 3 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 the fact that the territory which we call 
 the United States has its eastern shores 
 deeply indented by great bays and its in- 
 terior pierced by mighty rivers, later to 
 become the highways of commerce, which 
 made possible the rapid growth of settle- 
 ment as soon as political conditions per- 
 mitted, which would have been impossible 
 elsewhere. For instance, the headwaters 
 of the Hudson nearly meet the mighty St. 
 Lawrence and almost permitted the bark 
 of the early voyager to encircle that north- 
 eastern part of the continent lying south 
 of the St. Lawrence and east of the Hud- 
 son, as if it were an island. English forces 
 in the Revolution recognized that fact, and 
 it was part of their strategy to separate 
 New England from the other colonies by a 
 union of the forces of Sir William Howe 
 and Burgoyne on the western bank of the 
 Hudson. A union of the Potomac flowing 
 into the Chesapeake with the Ohio flowing 
 into the Mississippi, and the Mississippi 
 into the Gulf of Mexico, makes another 
 island with these arteries as its northern 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 and western boundary, and the Atlantic 
 and the Gulf as its southern and eastern 
 boundary. Washington urged that the 
 capital city of the United States be lo- 
 cated on the banks of the Potomac be- 
 cause he anticipated the union of the 
 waters of the Ohio and the Potomac by 
 a canal. His clear vision saw the possi- 
 bility, in this junction of the waterways, 
 of the interchange of the produce of east 
 and west along this imperial highway. 
 Through ages this New World had slept 
 unnoticed by the voyagers and explorers 
 of Europe, if we omit that incident, not a 
 factor in its development, of its discovery 
 by the Northmen. 
 
 Without entering into any analytical 
 discussion of those Norse voyages, or of 
 the claim that the "Cape Kjalarnes" of 
 Thorwald is Cape Cod, "Cape Kros- 
 sanes" is the Gurnet, and that on the 
 Gurnet, at the entrance of Plymouth 
 Harbor, the bold Norseman was buried — 
 without accepting that view too literally, 
 the conclusion which I have reached, after 
 5 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 a somewhat careful consideration of the 
 arguments pro and con, is that so well 
 stated by the latest and best writer upon 
 the subject in his ** Voyages of the Norse- 
 men to America," William Hovgaard, late 
 a Commander in the Royal Danish Navy 
 and Professor of Naval Design and Con- 
 struction in the Massachusetts Institute 
 of Technology, published in 1914, that the 
 Norsemen gave to Cape Cod the name of 
 "Cape Kjalarnes" and to a headland, 
 either at Nahant or Marblehead or one of 
 the other headlands near by, the name of 
 "Krossanes." With this passing reference 
 I proceed to the consideration of the re- 
 corded and undoubted explorations of 
 that part of the North American conti- 
 nent now mainly included within the lim- 
 its of the present United States. 
 
 When in 1492 Columbus landed on the 
 Island of Guanahani, which he called 
 "San Salvador," in the West Indies, and 
 raised the Spanish flag, the title of Spain 
 in the New World, based upon discovery 
 merely, began, and at once the rival claim 
 6 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE PILGRIMS 
 
 of Portugal, by reason of her discovery of 
 the Azores, was presented. The contro- 
 versy between these two Cathohc coun- 
 tries was submitted to the Pope for his 
 decision, and on the 3d of May, 1493, 
 Pope Alexander VI issued his Bull of 
 Demarcation conferring upon Spain all 
 the lands and islands found or to be 
 found, discovered or to be discovered in 
 the western ocean, drawing a line from 
 north to south. 
 
 As was to be expected, such a grant of 
 territory could not be accepted by Por- 
 tugal without a protest, and on the next 
 day a second bull modified the first by 
 fixing the Spanish donation to the west 
 of a meridian drawn one hundred leagues 
 west of the Azores and Cape de Verde 
 Islands. 
 
 By the treaty signed at Tordesillas on 
 June 7, 1494, Spain yielded to the demand 
 of Portugal and agreed to the moving of 
 this line west to a distance of three hun- 
 dred and seventy leagues west of the Cape 
 de Verde Islands, namely, between the 
 7 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 forty-first and forty-fourth meridians 
 west of Greenwich, and under this new 
 Hne of partition the Brazihan coast came 
 to Portugal. 
 
 When charters were granted to the 
 Cabots and others for the New World, 
 these charters, in order to be as therein 
 stated "without prejudice to Spain and 
 Portugal," did not grant territorial rights 
 south of forty-four degrees north, a line 
 running through the present Nova Scotia. 
 John Cabot in 1497 had made his landfall 
 on the shores of the New World at some 
 point north of Halifax. How far south 
 along the coast of North America Sebas- 
 tian Cabot sailed is a matter of contro- 
 versy, but it is generally admitted that 
 Verazzano, under a commission from 
 Francis I of Portugal, sailing northward 
 from the Carolinas, entered the bays of 
 New York and Newport and then coasted 
 along the shore nearly to Cape Breton. 
 His letter to Francis of July 8, 1524, is the 
 earliest original and contemporaneous 
 description of the Atlantic coast along 
 8 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE PILGRIMS 
 
 which he sailed. If he followed the shore- 
 line as closely as his letter would indicate, 
 it is probable that his frail bark was the 
 first European vessel which the Indian 
 watcher on the hill at Plymouth ever saw. 
 The extent and influence of the early 
 fisheries in emphasizing and developing 
 the importance of the discovery of the 
 New World as a source of food supply to 
 continental Europe, were a prime factor 
 in stimulating the long line of exploring 
 expeditions in the sixteenth century. An 
 English captain, John Rut, writes to 
 Henry VIII on August 3, 1527, that in the 
 harbor of St. John, Newfoundland, he 
 found "eleven sails of Normans and one 
 Brittaine and two Portugal barkes all 
 afishing." By 1577 France was vigorously 
 and successfully carrying on the fishery 
 with not less than one hundred and fifty 
 vessels, and at that date Spain had one 
 hundred ships employed, flying her flag, 
 and the flag of Portugal flew on fifty 
 Portuguese ships. Under the English 
 statute there were one hundred and fifty- 
 9 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 three days in the year when Enghsh citi- 
 zens were required to abstain from flesh 
 and eat fish, and as early as 1548 the first 
 Enghsh statute which relates to the New 
 World refers to the adventures and jour- 
 neys of her fishermen into Iceland and 
 Newfoundland, and "other places com- 
 modious for fishing and the getting of 
 fish." Two hundred English ships went 
 each year to the Grand Banks by 1600 
 and employed on board and on shore ten 
 thousand men and boys. 
 
 The first English charter for American 
 colonization was granted to Sir Hum- 
 phrey Gilbert, and in 1583 he entered the 
 harbor of St. John and found there thirty- 
 six vessels of different nations. 
 
 With the dawn of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury the annual voyages were so regular 
 that one fishing captain, it was said, had 
 made forty consecutive trips. When we 
 consider the imperfect methods of naviga- 
 tion, the size and rig of the little vessels, 
 and the distance from home ports of the 
 Grand Banks, it would seem that the en- 
 10 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 comiums which Burke paid to the hardy 
 fishermen of New England in his speech on 
 "Concihation with America," apply with 
 even greater force to those daring navi- 
 gators of the sixteenth century. The 
 controversies over the rights of the fish- 
 eries and fishing grounds were between 
 France and England, for Spain made no 
 claim to exclusive rights. The claim of 
 England to these shores rested on the 
 discovery by Cabot and the occupation 
 by Gilbert. 
 
 May I briefly recall some of the first at- 
 tempts of exploration and colonization? 
 In 1506 Jean Deys, of the port of Har- 
 fleur, published a map of this recently dis- 
 covered coast, and two years later Thomas 
 Aubert, a pilot sailing from the port of 
 Dieppe, on his return brought with him to 
 France an Indian captive, the first visitor 
 from the New World to the Old. 
 
 The early French attempts to form set- 
 tlements in Canada were unsuccessful. 
 Jaques Cartier had discovered and ex- 
 plored the Bay of Chaleurs as early as 
 11 
 
PLYIMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 1534, and in the following year he sailed 
 up the St. Lawrence as far as the Saguenay 
 River, to an island where he spent the 
 winter, and the next spring continued his 
 voyage up the St. Lawrence to the present 
 site of Montreal. The severity of the cli- 
 mate was fatal to many of his company 
 and he returned to France to renew the 
 attempt again to form a colony in Canada 
 in 1541, and again to meet with disap- 
 pointment and failure. 
 
 Ribaut's expedition was equally unsuc- 
 cessful. He built a fort near the spot 
 where Charleston is situated, but famine 
 and disease swept through the little set- 
 tlements and the few survivors escaped 
 with difficulty. 
 
 The expeditions of Rene de Laudon- 
 niere and De Gourgues to Florida were as 
 unsuccessful as their predecessors. The 
 Spaniards, if not more enterprising, were 
 more successful than the French explor- 
 ers, in the extent of their explorations. 
 Ay lion planted a colony in 1526 on the 
 Atlantic coast north of Hatteras, possibly 
 12 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 on the site of the Enghsh settlement 
 nearly a hundred years before Jamestown, 
 only to perish without leaving any trace 
 of its struggle and failure. 
 
 De Soto had landed in Florida in 1539, 
 penetrated through the interior to the 
 Mississippi River, explored the river as 
 far north as New Madrid, and paid the 
 penalty of his daring and his enterprise 
 with his death, and is buried in the chan- 
 nel of the river whose waters have never 
 given up the secret of his burial-place. 
 
 Pedro Menendez de Aviles, whom 
 Channing has well described as the 
 "bloodiest Spaniard who has ever cursed 
 the American soil — and one of the 
 ablest," in 1565 lands in Florida, brutally 
 destroys the French settlements, and 
 plants the first permanent settlement in 
 the New World. 
 
 Perhaps the most picturesque and strik- 
 ing adventure of the sixteenth century 
 was the extraordinary march of three of 
 the members of the company of John 
 Hawkins, who sailed in October, 1567, on 
 13 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 his third voyage to the New World. His 
 fleet consisted of five vessels, three of which 
 were lost in his great fight with the Span- 
 iards in September, 1568, at Vera Cruz. 
 Somewhere to the northward of what i& 
 now the Bay of Tampico in Mexico, in the 
 October following the fight at Vera Cruz, 
 he set ashore one hundred and fourteen of 
 his ship's company. Three of these, whose 
 names should not be forgotten, David 
 Ingram, Richard Browne, and Richard 
 Twide, marched northward through the 
 unknown and pathless forests, and at last, 
 after nearly twelve months of laborious 
 journey, reached the Atlantic coast, south 
 of Cape Breton, where they found a 
 French ship, which returned them in 
 safety to their English homes. Perhaps 
 the names of those dauntless three are 
 still as worthy of preservation as the 
 names of those who fell on the English 
 side at Agincourt — 
 
 "Edward, the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk, 
 Sir Richard Keltey, Davy Ham, Esquire, 
 None else of name." 
 
 14 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE PILGRIMS 
 
 The English expeditions to the New 
 World in the sixteenth century were as 
 fruitless of permanent settlement as the 
 French. Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1583 
 sailed with seven ships on his voyage to the 
 west and northwest of America. The ex- 
 pedition reached Newfoundland, posses- 
 sion was taken in the name and right of 
 England, and Gilbert sailed for home on a 
 little ship of ten tons, called the "Squir- 
 rel," and was lost on the passage. If the 
 result of the adventure was not impor- 
 tant, yet he at least left behind him the 
 memory of a gallant deed and words of 
 courage and of faith which may well have 
 been an inspiration to the adventurous 
 seamen who followed. 
 
 "He sat upon the deck. 
 
 The Book was in his hand, 
 
 *Do not fear, Heaven is as near,' 
 He said, *by water as by land!'" 
 
 The expeditions of Sir Walter Ralegh, 
 Sir Richard Grenville, of PhiKp Amadas 
 and Arthur Barlowe, contributed infor- 
 mation as to the coast-line south of the 
 15 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 Chesapeake, but their attempts at Roa- 
 noke Island and elsewhere were as- fruit- 
 less as those which had preceded them. 
 
 It is interesting to note what an impres- 
 sion of accomplishment and success these 
 early voyages of exploration and discov- 
 ery had made upon the minds of the 
 dauntless navigators of that period. The 
 spirit which inspired Sir Martin Fro- 
 bisher as early as 1576, in his search for 
 the northwest passage, to sail the un- 
 charted seas, was because he knew "this to 
 be the only thing in the world that was left 
 yet undone, where a notable mind might 
 be made famous and fortunate." The 
 sixteenth century closed with no perma- 
 ment settlement as yet established north 
 of Florida. 
 
 The destruction of the Spanish fleet at 
 Cadiz and the defeat of the Armada in 
 1588 secured the early settlements of the 
 seventeenth century against Spanish at- 
 tack, and yet the apprehension of peril 
 from the Spaniards lingered for many 
 years, and was a factor in determining 
 16 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 their location. The general instruction 
 given to the first expeditions of the seven- 
 teenth century was to find a location in 
 the New World up some river, at some 
 distance from the seacoast, so that there 
 would be less danger from and more se- 
 curity against the Spaniards. 
 
 One consideration which deterred the 
 Pilgrim Company from settlement in 
 Guiana was that "if they should there 
 live and did well, the jealous Spaniard 
 would never suffer them long, but would 
 displant or overthrow them, as he did the 
 French in Florida; who were seated fur- 
 ther from his richest countries." William 
 Wood, writing as late as 1634, referring to 
 the apprehension of Spanish attack and 
 the reasons why it should not deter the 
 plantations along the New England coast 
 at least, says: 
 
 Some say the Spaniard layes claime to the 
 whole country, being the first discoverer 
 hereof, and that he may make invasion upon 
 those parts as well as he hath done upon S. 
 Christophers, and S. Martins, and those 
 places; but it doth not follow that because he 
 
 17 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE I^TLGRIMS 
 
 tooke such places as lay just in his way to the 
 West Indies, that he should come thousands 
 of miles with a great Navie to plantations, as 
 yet not worth the pillage: and when the plan- 
 tations are growne noted in the eyes of the 
 common foes for wealth, it is hoped that when 
 the Bees have Honie in their Hives, they will 
 have stings in their tailes.^ 
 
 In the settlements which marked the be- 
 ginning of the seventeenth century two 
 material factors must be considered : first, 
 the grounds upon which the colonists 
 based their right and title to their posses- 
 sions in the New World; and second, that 
 other factor which contributed so much to 
 the result; namely, the early and success- 
 ful adventures were under the manage- 
 ment and control of chartered companies 
 who brought to the solution of the prob- 
 lems, which had so often resulted in the 
 destruction of the infant colonies of the 
 preceding century, business experience and 
 enterprise, initiative and ample means. 
 
 The title which the settlers acquired in 
 the New World was based upon one or 
 
 * New England's Prospect, p. 57. 
 18 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 more of these five grounds : first, prescrip- 
 tion or discovery; second, possession and 
 occupancy; third, purchase; fourth, treaty 
 stipulations; and fifth, conquest. 
 
 At the outset the title of Spain, France, 
 Portugal, Holland, and England to the 
 New World rested upon the right of dis- 
 covery. This principle of law, generally 
 adopted by all European nations in case 
 of a conflict of title, involved the determi- 
 nation as to whether the flag of the claim- 
 ant country flew at the masthead of the 
 first discoverer. If it were conceded at first 
 that a nation could acquire title in some 
 little island because a navigator sailing 
 under the King's commission had landed 
 there and planted his country's flag, it 
 could not long be conceded that a mere 
 landing and nothing more gave title to 
 the whole of the New World. 
 
 The English claim was based upon the 
 discovery by Cabot and the alleged fact 
 that he had coasted the shores of the New 
 World from the place of his landfall as far 
 south as Virginia. The next step was to 
 19 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 assert and maintain the proposition that 
 the title by discovery must be consum- 
 mated by actual settlement and posses- 
 sion. If it were conceded that the Indians 
 had title to the soil by virtue of aboriginal 
 occupancy and possession, such use and 
 occupancy must have been actual and not 
 merely desultory or constructive. The In- 
 dian title to the soil was acquired by the 
 Pilgrim Company not only under the 
 patent defining their territorial limits, but 
 also by purchase from the aboriginal pro- 
 prietors. 
 
 The seventeenth century in American 
 history is the century of occupation, not 
 merely of discovery, the century of explo- 
 ration of the interior and not of the coast 
 alone; the century of permanent settle- 
 ment and colonization; the century of real- 
 ization and not of hopes frustrated and am- 
 bitions defeated and dreams unfulfilled. 
 
 Under the charter of 1606 which King 
 James gave to Sir Thomas Gates and his 
 associates and under which the first per- 
 manent English settlement was made, the 
 20 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 territories granted lay between the thirty- 
 fourth and forty-fifth degrees of north 
 latitude, and were subject to the limita- 
 tion **not then possessed by any other 
 Christian prince or people." But in fact 
 the English title to a large part of North 
 America, if claimed to be based on dis- 
 covery or occupation, was finally settled 
 by the sword. 
 
 The grantees named in this charter of 
 1606 to Sir Thomas Gates and his asso- 
 ciates were divided under its terms into 
 two colonies and companies. The first, 
 the London or Southern Company, was 
 granted authority to locate its plantation 
 in some fit and convenient place between 
 the thirty-fourth and forty -first degrees of 
 north latitude, and when so located the 
 charter granted them fifty miles north 
 and fifty miles south of such location, as 
 well as one hundred miles into the sea and 
 one hundred miles into the land. The 
 second, or Northern or Plymouth Com- 
 pany, composed of citizens of Bristol, 
 Exeter, and Plymouth, was granted per- 
 21 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 mission to locate its plantation between 
 the thirty-eighth and forty-fifth degrees 
 of north latitude, with the same territorial 
 extent. The grants were made subject to 
 the condition that colonies should not be 
 planted within a hundred miJes of each 
 other. Each colony had a council and over 
 both was the council called the Council of 
 Virginia, established in London. 
 
 In that charter were two provisions 
 which were of vital influence in the devel- 
 opment of the new settlements which later 
 were to be established by these two com- 
 panies. The first was that the inhabitants 
 and their children born in these new plan- 
 tations or settlements were to have and 
 enjoy all "Liberties, Franchises, and Im- 
 munities as if they had been abiding and 
 born within the English realm." And 
 second, the provision that the lands 
 granted were to be "holden of Us, our 
 Heirs and Successors, as of our Manour of 
 East Greenwich in the County of Kent, in 
 free and common Soccage only and not in 
 Capite." 
 
 22 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE PILGRIMS 
 
 The charter granted to the Northern 
 Virginia Company in November, 1620, 
 and under which the patent of 1620 and 
 the Bradford patent of 1629 were issued, 
 out of special precaution added to the 
 words "in Capite" the words "nor by 
 knights service." These two provisions, 
 often overlooked in the story of New Eng- 
 land plantations and development, de- 
 serve some analysis and explanation. Be- 
 fore the settlement at Plymouth it was, of 
 course, certain that the English settlers in 
 this New World would bring with them 
 not only the language, manners, customs, 
 traditions, and history of England, but it 
 was also determined that they would 
 bring with them its statutes and common 
 law, and the rights, privileges, and liber- 
 ties of Englishmen, and the protection of 
 the English flag. The tenure and descent 
 of lands was also fixed and the effect of 
 these provisions in the development of 
 the English settlements at Plymouth and 
 elsewhere cannot be disregarded nor over- 
 estimated. 
 
 23 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 The phrase "free and common socage" 
 describes the tenure by which a man holds 
 his estate in lands. As defined in the char- 
 ter, it is not in capite or by knight's serv- 
 ice, but by a tenure free from any personal 
 or military service. By the later statute 
 of 12 Charles II, c. 24, the tenure by 
 knight's service was abolished and all the 
 lands were declared to be henceforth held 
 "in free and common socage." The tenure 
 in capite was where the holding was of the 
 person of the King, and the tenure by 
 knight's service was military in its charac- 
 ter, required the possession of a certain 
 quantity of land, and compelled the 
 owner to attend his lord to wars forty 
 days in every year, if called upon. 
 
 This statute of Charles II [says Blackstonel 
 was a greater acquisition to the civil property 
 of the kingdom than even Magna Charta it- 
 self, since that only pruned the luxuriances 
 which had grown out of military tenures, and 
 thereby preserved them in vigor. But the 
 statute of King Charles extirpated the whole 
 and demolished both root and branch. 
 
 The practical effect in the New World 
 
 24 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 then was that they acquired a freehold es- 
 tate upon which there was no obHgation 
 for service, and the only limitation was 
 the fifth of all ores which might be found 
 in the mines on their property. 
 
 The other definitive term, "as of the 
 manour of East Greenwich in our County 
 of Kent," created a tenure in gavelkind 
 peculiar to the county of Kent; of its dis- 
 tinguishing properties the principal one is 
 that under that tenure "the lands descend 
 not to the eldest, or any one son only, but 
 to the sons together. Gavelkind, give all 
 kynd; that is, to all the male children." ^ 
 Whether that privilege was granted to the 
 men of Kent because of their determined 
 resistance, or because of their ready sub- 
 mission to William the Conqueror, or 
 whether "it carry an Antiquity far greater 
 than the time of the Norman Conquest," 
 as Somner thought, is of course not here 
 material. It was a form of tenure then for 
 the yeomanry and not for the nobility; 
 this abolition of primogeniture, this di- 
 * Somner, Treatise on Gavelkind^ 1660. 
 25 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 visible inheritance made impossible a 
 feudal system here. 
 
 The provisions of the Colony Law of 
 1633, reenacted in 1658, provided "that 
 inheritance do descend according to the 
 commendable custome of Engl, and hold 
 of Est. Greenwich." But under the General 
 Laws of the Colony of New Plymouth, 
 revised and established in 1671, it was 
 enacted that 
 
 Whatsoever lands have or shall be granted by 
 the court to the respective townships or to 
 any particular persons, either by the court or 
 particular townships, shall be held to them, 
 their heirs, successors and assigns forever, 
 according to the most free tenor of East 
 Greenwich in the county of Kent, in the realm 
 of England, granted unto us in our charter 
 and patent and our inheritances to descend 
 according to the tenure thereof.^ 
 
 And under the General Laws of 1671 
 (p. 299), it was provided that 
 
 all the Sons of any persons having lands in 
 fee simple shall be Heirs, . . . the Eldest Son 
 shall have double to any of his Brethren, and 
 all the younger equal Shares of the Land of 
 ^ Colony Laws, p. 279. 
 26 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE PILGRIMS 
 
 their Ancestors, and when there is but one son, 
 he shall be sole heir . . . and where there is no 
 son, all the daughters shall inherit alike. 
 
 Now that modification of the law of gavel- 
 kind, and of the manor of East Green- 
 wich, you will find the reason for in Deu- 
 teronomy XXI, 17: 
 
 If a man have more sons than one, the eld- 
 est shall have a double portion assigned him. 
 
 This establishment of freehold lands or 
 lands held in fee simple, and its division 
 among all the sons, was an efficient factor 
 in securing the permanent settlement of 
 the country by actual cultivators of the 
 soil. 
 
 In 1609 a new charter was given by the 
 King to the Southern or First Colony, by 
 which the King granted to the "Treasurer 
 of Company of Adventurers of the City of 
 London for the First Colony in Virginia" 
 the lands extending along the seacoast 
 two hundred miles to the northward of 
 Point Comfort and two hundred miles to 
 the southward, and the islands lying 
 within a hundred miles along said coast 
 27 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 and **up in to the land throughout from 
 
 the sea west and northwest." In 1620 
 
 a charter was granted to the Duke of 
 
 Lenox and others therein, called the 
 
 " Plymouth Company," under which they 
 
 took title to the land lying between the 
 
 fortieth and forty-eighth degrees of north 
 
 latitude. 
 
 Chief Justice Marshall, speaking for the 
 
 Supreme Court of the United States in the 
 
 case of Johnson and Graham, Lessees, 
 
 vs. Macintosh,^ refers and conforms his 
 
 opinion to 
 
 the principle which has been supposed to be 
 recognized by all European governments from 
 the first settlement of America — the abso- 
 lute, ultimate title has been considered as 
 acquired by discovery, subject only to the 
 Indian title of occupancy, which title the dis- 
 coverers possessed the exclusive right of ac- 
 quiring. 
 
 Under the powers granted by the char- 
 ters the grantees therein issued their pat- 
 ents to such grantees as they might se- 
 lect, by whom or their assigns the actual 
 
 1 8 Wheaton, p. 543. 
 28 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE PILGRIMS 
 
 occupancy of the patented territory might 
 be reasonably expected, and the perma- 
 nent settlements were based upon these 
 chartered rights, so far as relate to the 
 English occupation of the country. 
 
 It was reserved to the seventeenth cen- 
 tury to witness the realization of the dreams 
 of French and English discoverers and ex- 
 plorers to establish in the New World per- 
 manent colonies. It is material briefly to 
 note here the establishment of the perma- 
 nent French settlements along the banks 
 of the St. Lawrence and the shores of the 
 Bay of Fundy, and that of the Dutch at 
 New Netherland. 
 
 In 1603 Pierre du Gast, Sieur de Monts, 
 was named by the King of France Vice- 
 Admiral of the coast of Arcady from the 
 fortieth to the forty-sixth degree of north 
 latitude, and in the following year he was 
 made the Lieutenant of the same territory. 
 With the aid of the merchants of the 
 seacoast towns of France, De Monts 
 equipped three ships, and taking Cham- 
 plain with him he sailed from Dieppe in 
 29 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 1603. The ships with De Monts and 
 Champlain, upon their arrival in the Bay 
 of Fundy, selected an island which it was 
 thought was adapted for permanent set- 
 tlement, the ships were unloaded and sent 
 back to France, fort and houses built, and 
 a permanent settlement effected. The 
 tercentenary of the settlements of De 
 Monts and Champlain was celebrated in 
 1904. The next three years Champlain 
 was busily engaged in exploring the coast 
 as far south as Cape Cod, and in 1607 re- 
 turned with De Monts to France. 
 
 The settlement of New Netherland by 
 the Dutch discoverers, industrious, frugal, 
 brave men of whom it has been said "they 
 also imported the lights of the Roman 
 civil law and the purity of the Protestant 
 faith," was brought later into close con- 
 nection with the settlement at Plymouth. 
 
 In 1609, in a little vessel called the 
 "Half Moon," manned by sixteen Eng- 
 lishmen and Hollanders, the Amsterdam 
 directors sent Henry Hudson to the New 
 World. Sailing from the Texel on the 6th 
 30 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 of April, he first readied Newfoundland, 
 then Acadia, then, steering southwest, 
 discovered Cape Cod, and followed the 
 coast as far south as Cape Henlopen, then 
 northward to the great river which he first 
 discovered and explored, and which bears 
 his name. It was not his happy fortune 
 ever to return, either to the North or Hud- 
 son River, or to the coast of New Eng- 
 land, for the next year he sailed to the bay 
 and straits which bear his name in the Far 
 North, a mutinous crew set him and five 
 of his companions afloat in an open boat, 
 and he was never heard of more. 
 
 Hudson's report was effective in induc- 
 ing the Dutch merchants under authority 
 of the States General to equip a ship, and 
 in the year 1614 a small fort on an island 
 in the North River was built and garri- 
 soned, and the Dutch possession and oc- 
 cupancy began. 
 
 The Netherlands claim covered the 
 
 territory from Delaware River to Cape 
 
 Cod, including the island in Long Island 
 
 Sound and along the coast, and extending 
 
 31 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 up the Hudson River as far as Albany, 
 and up the Connecticut River to Fort 
 Good Hope. The Dutch title to this terri- 
 tory, acquired by discovery, occupation, 
 and purchase from the Indians, was prior 
 and superior to that of the English as a 
 matter of strict construction of then ad- 
 mitted principles, but the Netherlands 
 lacked the adequate force to protect the 
 rights of their settlers so obtained, and 
 half a century later the Dutch were ex- 
 pelled by force from the territory which 
 they had won and enjoyed. 
 
 It is necessary only to refer briefly to 
 the Gosnold expedition of 1602 to Mar- 
 tha's Vineyard and the Elizabeth Isles, 
 and to the settlement at Sagadahoc. The 
 Gosnold expedition sailed from Falmouth 
 on March 26, 1602, in a small bark of 
 Dartmouth called the "Concord," and 
 consisted in all "of two and thirtie per- 
 sons." Brereton in his relation, first pub- 
 lished in 1602, thus simply describes the 
 first recorded landing of Englishmen on 
 the New England coast, "Capt. Bar- 
 3^ 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 tholomew Gosnold, myself and three 
 others went ashore." 
 
 This first landing was made at Cape 
 Cod, and because of the extraordinary 
 abundance of fish in the vicinity the ap- 
 propriate name "Cape Cod" was given to 
 the cape, well known to early voyagers. 
 This was the first time an English name 
 was given to any part of New England, 
 and from the same expedition we get 
 the names of "Martha's Vineyard" and 
 "Elizabeth Isles." 
 
 The Popham Colony at Sagadahoc had 
 but a brief and unimportant existence. It 
 sailed in June, 1607, and the little vessels 
 returned in the following October and De- 
 cember to England, leaving behind them 
 forty-four persons. The next year the 
 ship from England brought the news of 
 the death of Sir John Popham, late Chief 
 Justice and foremost patron of this un- 
 successful expedition, and the settlement 
 was finally abandoned. "There were," 
 says Gorges, "no more speeches by the 
 northern company of settling any other 
 33 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 plantation in those parts for a long time 
 after." It is recalled merely as one of the 
 steps in the forward movement of emigra- 
 tion and settlement of the New World. 
 
 The Jamestown settlement in 1607 was 
 by the authority and under the control 
 and direction of that first or Southern or 
 London Company, organized under the 
 charter of James I, dated April 10, 1606. 
 It may be proper, perhaps, in this connec- 
 tion to note some points of resemblance 
 and difference which it presents in com- 
 parison with the settlement of that Pil- 
 grim Company which, nearly fourteen 
 years later, left England under the same 
 authority and the same charter. 
 
 The total tonnage of the three little 
 ships which left England on January 1, 
 1607, for the Chesapeake was less than the 
 tonnage of the " Mayflower " alone. The 
 " Susan Constant " was of the burden of a 
 hundred tons, the " Godspeed," forty tons, 
 and the "Discovery" had a tonnage of 
 only twenty tons, making a total tonnage 
 of one hundred and sixty, as compared 
 34 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 with the " Mayflower's " one hundred and 
 eighty tons. The number of passengers on 
 the three ships was substantially the same 
 as that of the Mayflower Company, one 
 hundred and five Jamestown colonists and 
 one hundred and two Plymouth colonists. 
 But there was an important difference be- 
 tween these two companies; neither wife 
 nor mother was a passenger on the James- 
 town ships, while the Mayflower Com- 
 pany was in effect the migration of fami- 
 lies, the removal of homes, and "their 
 hearths as well as their altars went with 
 them on the voyage." 
 
 The losses of the settlers of Virginia 
 were far in excess of those sustained by 
 the English settlements in New England. 
 Famine, pestilence, and Indian massacre 
 took a heavy toll of life from those early 
 voyagers. Within four months from the 
 landing at Jamestown nearly half of the 
 total number had perished by disease or 
 Indian attack. The winter's storms at 
 Plymouth were more merciful than the 
 summer's heat in Jamestown, for in the 
 35 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 four months from the landing at Plymouth 
 only forty-four had died. Before the first 
 year had passed the number of James- 
 town settlers had been reduced to forty. 
 The mortality of the Virginia colonists, as 
 stated by Dr. Tyler, was extraordinary. 
 Out of a total of fourteen thousand emi- 
 grants from 1607 to 1622, only nine hun- 
 dred and eleven survived at the close of 
 the year 1622. The estimates of Alexander 
 Brown, and accepted by Dr. Channing, 
 are much less extravagant and undoubt- 
 edly more accurate, but are singularly 
 impressive as to the price paid for the free- 
 dom which the New World gave. 
 
 "From 1606 to 1625," says Brown, 
 "5649 emigrants left England for Vir- 
 ginia, and in 1624 only 1095 were living." 
 Out of twelve hundred emigrants who 
 sailed from England in 1619 and the first 
 three months in 1620, one thousand died 
 on the voyage or after their arrival in the 
 Virginia colonies. Although the Virginia 
 colonists did not enjoy the right or privi- 
 lege of electing their governors and their 
 36 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE PDLGRIMS 
 
 form of government was in many respects 
 much less democratic than that of Ply- 
 mouth, it is a fact not to be forgotten that 
 the first representative legislative assem- 
 bly which ever met in America was con- 
 vened on July 30, 1619, each of the eleven 
 boroughs into which the Virginia colony 
 was then divided being represented by 
 two delegates. 
 
 Before the Pilgrims, then, had deter- 
 mined to seek a home in the New World, 
 representative government, the great con- 
 tribution to the science of government of 
 the Anglo-Saxon race, was firmly estab- 
 lished in that New World which now 
 furnishes the best example of its possibili- 
 ties for greatness and success. 
 
 When the attention of the members of 
 Robinson's church in Leyden was directed 
 towards establishing a home beyond the 
 seas and to the means of accomplishing 
 that undertaking, there were north of the 
 Spanish settlement at St. Augustine only 
 the English colony on the Chesapeake Bay 
 and the James River; the Dutch trading- 
 37 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 post at Manhattan on the Hudson; and 
 the French settlements on the St. Law- 
 rence and the shores of the Bay of Fundy 
 — the three strategic points on the At- 
 lantic coast, not merely for their practical 
 advantages of defense, but for their un- 
 limited possibilities for the trade, com- 
 merce, and enterprise of the coming years 
 and the future generations. 
 
 But at the time that the Pilgrims sailed 
 from England there was no harbor, except 
 at those three points, which had been so 
 carefully explored, mapped, and sounded 
 as the harbor at Plymouth. The ships of 
 three nations, England, France, and Hol- 
 land, between 1600 and 1620, had visited 
 what is now Plymouth, and the maps or 
 charts of the voyages and the relations of 
 these expeditions, as told by the naviga- 
 tors and explorers, preserve that interest- 
 ing part of America's history. 
 
 First in time was the expedition under 
 
 command of Captain Martin Pring, who 
 
 sailed from Bristol in June, 1603, with two 
 
 barks, one of fifty tons called the "Speed- 
 
 38 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE TIIE PILGRIMS 
 
 well," with thirty men and boys; the 
 other named the "Discoverer," of twenty- 
 six tons, with thirteen men and boys. 
 With him went as his assistant one Robert 
 Salterne, who had been with Gosnold in 
 his voyage to New England the year be- 
 fore, and to whom we are indebted for the 
 description of the voyage. The story is 
 told by Purchas in the fourth volume of 
 his '* Pilgrims." To the bay of Plymouth 
 he gave the name of Whitson Bay, in 
 honor of that John Whitson, then mayor 
 of the city of Bristol, England, and one of 
 the " Chief e adventurers" and patrons of 
 his expedition. He gives a full description 
 of the natives and of the plants, trees, 
 beasts, fowls, and fish which he found 
 there. The wheat, barley, oats, and peas, 
 and sundry sorts of garden seeds, though 
 late, soon came up very well, "giving cer- 
 tain testimony of the goodness of the cli- 
 mate and of the soil." With the sassafras, 
 which he describes as a plant of sovereign 
 virtue and which was used as a febrifuge 
 and as a specific in certain diseases, he 
 39 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 loaded his small bark and sent her home to 
 England. Beasts and fowls were found in 
 great number and variety, and "as the 
 land is full of God's good blessings, so is 
 the sea replenished with great abundance 
 of excellent fish." 
 
 One curious but unimportant fact 
 seemed, to him at least, worthy of re- 
 membrance, that he had taken with him 
 from Bristol two excellent mastiffs whose 
 names even are preserved, "Foole" and 
 "Gallant," great and fearful, "of whom 
 the Indians were more afraid than of 
 twenty of our men." The names of the 
 dogs live, the names of heroes are for- 
 gotten. 
 
 In the twenty-second volume of Pie- 
 ter van der Aa's Collection of Voyages 
 published in Ley den in 1707, is given a pic- 
 ture of the barricade of Bring on the shore 
 of Plymouth Bay, in which was kept dil- 
 igent watch and ward for the "advertise- 
 ment and succor of the men while they 
 should work in the woods." The picture 
 shows the wooded shores, the barricade 
 40 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 built of logs, with an entrance and what 
 may be two kennels on either side for the 
 two great mastiffs, some Indians armed 
 with bow and arrow, others dancing, and 
 in the forefront the figure of an English- 
 man with his musket on his left shoulder 
 and carrying in his right hand the rest 
 from which it was fired. 
 
 The next voyager to enter Plymouth 
 Harbor, of whose expedition we have a 
 full record, is that of Samuel de Cham- 
 plain, who, on the 18th of July, 1605, en- 
 tered the little bay, now known as "Ply- 
 mouth Harbor." He says that some of the 
 Indians "begged us to go to their river. 
 We weighed anchor to do so, but were un- 
 able to enter on account of the small 
 amount of water, it being low tide, and 
 were accordingly obliged to anchor at the 
 mouth." Champlain went ashore and 
 made an examination of the river, which 
 to him appeared only as an arm of water 
 extending a short distance inland, and 
 "running into this is merely a brook, not 
 deep enough for boats except at full tide." 
 41 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 His reference here is possibly to the Town 
 Brook, the entrance to which was at high 
 tide a small harbor, used as late as the last 
 century for the purpose of wintering small 
 vessels, and where the traces of the 
 wharves are still seen to which the rev- 
 enue cutter was moored as late as the War 
 of 1812. Champlain's map, which ap- 
 peared in his edition of his voyages, pub- 
 lished in 1613, shows the Gurnet as a 
 wooded point at the entrance, and the 
 two islands in the bay "which are not 
 seen till one has entered, and around 
 which it is almost entirely dry at low 
 tide." 
 
 Slafter, in his edition of the ''Voyages 
 of Samuel de Champlain," published by 
 the Prince Society says in a note at vol. ii, 
 page 78: 
 
 This delineation removes all doubt as to the 
 missing island in Plymouth harbor, and shows 
 the incorrectness of the theory as to its being 
 Saquish Head, suggested in a note in Young's 
 Chronicles. 
 
 I cannot agree with Dr. Slafter's conclu- 
 
 42 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE TIIE PILGRIMS 
 
 sion, for it seems to me to be clear that 
 the island is what is now known as Sa- 
 quish, and which, within the recollection 
 of men living in the last century, was at 
 times of extreme high tide or storm an 
 island, and around which in small sloops 
 the fishermen and pilots of the bay had 
 been able to sail. The theory that it was 
 Saquish is also supported by other maps 
 to which I shall hereafter refer. This har- 
 bor Champlain named the "Port du Cap 
 St. Louis" and on the map is marked 
 "Port St. Louis." If Champlain's map is 
 accepted as an accurate description of the 
 Plymouth Harbor at that time, it strongly 
 supports the claim that Plymouth beach 
 was formerly wooded, for the map shows 
 trees upon what appears to be the beach. 
 But perhaps of more interest and im- 
 portance in the accuracy of its description 
 was the voyage of Adrian Block to Ply- 
 mouth in the spring of 1614. The Dutch 
 at Manhattan had built their first ship. 
 They had fitly named it the "Onrust," or 
 the "Restless," and had entrusted its first 
 43 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 voyage to the experience and skill of 
 Adrian Block as its sailing master. This 
 little vessel was forty-four and one half 
 feet long, eleven and one half feet wide, 
 and of about sixteen tons burden. It was 
 not the first decked vessel built in the 
 United States; that distinction belongs to 
 the "Virginia" of Sagadahoc. 
 
 Block sailed along the shores of the Con- 
 necticut, passed the Vineyard and Nan- 
 tucket, rounded the Cape, and dropped 
 anchor in the harbor of Plymouth, which 
 he called "Crane Bay," then sailed north- 
 erly by Foxhaven, now Boston, to Pye 
 Bay, probably Nahant. In the archives 
 at The Hague is a map called the "Fig- 
 urative Map," prepared by Block, or 
 from data furnished by him. It recog- 
 nizes the French title above latitude 40° 
 and the English below 45°, but to the 
 territory between 40° and 45° the Dutch 
 claim title and gave to it the name of 
 "New Netherland." The harbor of Ply- 
 mouth and the Town Brook are clearly 
 shown, the position of the Gurnet well 
 44 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 marked. Two significant and interesting 
 points are, first, two islands lying inside 
 the Gurnet, one later known as "Clark's 
 Island" where the Pilgrims passed the 
 first Sunday; the other, what is now the 
 promontory of Saquish, but which here 
 appears as an island, confirming the de- 
 scription of Champlain and later authori- 
 ties, and the statements of the old pilots 
 that they could recall when at certain 
 stages of the tide Saquish Point was sur- 
 rounded by water. Secondly, the map 
 shows clearly a channel making of Cape 
 Cod an island and following generally the 
 line of the present Cape Cod Canal. 
 Probably Block did not sail up the creek 
 or river to which Bradford refers when 
 he writes of Manomet: 
 
 Standing on the sea to the southward of 
 them, in to which by another creek on this 
 side they would carry their goods and then 
 transport them over land to their vessel, and 
 so avoid the compassing of Cape Cod and 
 those dangerous shoals. 
 
 Block sailing along the shore to the 
 
 south of the Cape and finding the mouth 
 
 45 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 of a river there, and then passing along 
 the interior or northern Hne of the Cape 
 and noting another river or creek extend- 
 ing into the land, might naturally infer 
 that there was a channel or river from 
 Cape Cod Bay to Buzzard's Bay, and that 
 the Cape was an island. On a map of New 
 England by John Seller, hydrographer to 
 the King, believed to be printed about 
 1675, there appears the name of "Crane 
 Bay," and in the map by Pieter van der 
 Aa of New England, as described by 
 Smith in the two voyages made by him in 
 1614 and 1615, and published about 1707, 
 we also find the names "Crane Bay" and 
 "Plymouth" given as "Patuxet als New 
 Plymouth." In a map of the coast of New 
 England, printed probably about 1721, 
 at or near Nauset Bar there is a break 
 through Cape Cod, giving to the end of 
 the Cape the appearance of an island. 
 
 In the month of April, 1614, Captain 
 John Smith sailed from London with two 
 ships to America. The purpose of the ex- 
 pedition was in part to engage in the 
 46 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE PILGRIMS 
 
 whale fishery and also to search for mines 
 of gold and copper. They were unsuccess- 
 ful in securing the purposes of the voyage, 
 and leaving the ships to be employed in 
 the cod fishery, Smith with eight others 
 ranged the coast in a small boat. His de- 
 scription of New England, printed in 
 1616, makes this reference to Plymouth: 
 
 Then come you to Accomack, an excellent 
 good harbor, good land; and no want of any 
 thing to industrious people. After much 
 kindness upon a small occasion we fought also 
 with 40 or 50 of those, (i.e. natives) ; though 
 some were hurt and some slain, yet within an 
 hour after they became friends. 
 
 In this account Smith gives the name 
 "Accomack" to Plymouth, and in his 
 map, before the changes made by Prince 
 Charles, Plymouth was so named. 
 
 Upon his return to England he pre- 
 sented his account of the voyage with the 
 map to Prince Charles, later Charles I of 
 England, asking His Highness to be 
 pleased to change "their barbarous names 
 for such English as posterity might say 
 Prince Charles was their god father." On 
 47 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 Smith's map Prince Charles, therefore, 
 changed the name of **Cape Cod" to 
 "Cape James," gave in place of the 
 Indian name of ''Accomack" the name 
 of "Plymouth," and twenty-nine other 
 places, which upon Smith's map appeared 
 for the most part with their Indian names. 
 Prince Charles renamed with English 
 names. This map of Smith's gives no de- 
 tails of Plymouth Harbor other than its 
 latitude and relative position upon the 
 New England coast, and for that reason is 
 less instructive and important than either 
 the Champlain or Block map, where the 
 coast-line, islands, points, and in the 
 Champlain map the soundings, are clearly 
 shown. 
 
 Smith's relation of his voyages to New 
 England he caused to be printed to the 
 number of two or three thousand, "One 
 thousand with a great many maps both of 
 Virginia and New England I presented to 
 30 of the chief companies in London at 
 their Halls." His contributions to the 
 knowledge and settlement of the New 
 48 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE PILGRIMS 
 
 World by reason of these voyages of ex- 
 ploration and discovery, and his full and 
 complete accounts of the same, should 
 preserve forever his name in grateful re- 
 membrance. His love for, and interest in, 
 Virginia and New England is quaintly 
 stated in a fine passage in which he says : 
 
 By that acquaintance I haue with them, I 
 call them my children; for they haue beene 
 my Wife, my Hawks, Hounds, my Cards, my 
 Dice, and in totall, my best content, as indif- 
 ferent to my heart as my left hand [is] to my 
 right. 
 
 In his "True Travels, Adventures and 
 Observations," which includes a continua- 
 tion of his general history of Virginia, the 
 Summer Isles, and New England from 
 1624 to 1629, and which was printed in 
 1630, he makes this reference to the Pil- 
 grim settlement,^ that in New England 
 
 Nothing would be done for a plantation till 
 about some hundred of your Brownists of 
 England, Amsterdam and Leyden went to 
 New Plymouth, whose humorous ignorances 
 caused them for more than a year to endure a 
 1 Arber, p. 892. 
 49 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 wonderful deal of misery with an infinite pa- 
 tience; saying my books and maps were much 
 better cheape to teach them than myself e; 
 many others have used the like good hus- 
 bandry that have paid soundly in trying their 
 self-willed conclusions. 
 
 The last voyage to Plymouth of which 
 we have any record before the arrival of 
 the Pilgrims was by Captain Thomas 
 Dermer, who wrote an account of the voy- 
 age which is printed in the first volume of 
 *'Purchas's Pilgrims." In that descrip- 
 tion of his voyage along the coast of New 
 England to Virginia, no definite reference 
 to Plymouth is made. In "The Brief Re- 
 lation of the Discovery and Plantation of 
 New England and of Sundry Accidents 
 therein occurring, from the year of our 
 Lord 1607 to this present 1622," dedi- 
 cated by the President and Council of 
 New England to the Prince's Highness, 
 Dermer is reported as having said, after 
 leaving his ship at Monhegan, that "he 
 coasted the shore from thence, searching 
 every harbor and compassing every cape 
 land till he arrived in Virginia." And 
 50 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 Dermer was considered by the Council of 
 Plymouth as the original discoverer of the 
 coasts lying between the Hudson and the 
 southern shore of Massachusetts on the 
 route of Long Island Sound. 
 
 In the letter from Dermer to Samuel 
 Purchas, from Captain Martin's planta- 
 tion in Virginia, he says that on the 19th 
 of May, 1619, in an open pinnace of five 
 tons he passed along the coast and found 
 "some ancient plantations not long since 
 populous, now utterly void. In other 
 places a remnant remains but not free of 
 sickness." This disease he identifies as 
 the plague, from his examination of the 
 sores of some of the natives who had sur- 
 vived, and their description of the "spots 
 of such as usually died." 
 
 When he arrived at Patuxet or Ply- 
 mouth, the native country of the savage 
 who accompanied him as guide and inter- 
 preter, there was no remnant left of the 
 native tribe. He then traveled westward 
 from Plymouth about a day's journey to 
 what is now Middleborough, and from 
 51 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 there sent a messenger to So warns, which 
 the Rhode Island Historical Society has 
 identified as near the railroad station of 
 Hampden Meadows. The two native 
 kings, probably Massasoit and his brother 
 Quadaguina, returned with the messen- 
 ger, and in the conference which followed 
 "my savage and I discoursed unto them, 
 being desirous of noveltie, and they gave 
 me content in whatsoever I demanded." 
 On this expedition he redeemed two 
 Frenchmen who three years before had 
 been wrecked on Cape Cod. The purpose 
 of his expedition accomplished, he sails 
 from Plymouth, around the Cape, through 
 Long Island Sound, to Virginia. 
 
 It is one of the striking circumstances 
 connected with the settlement at Ply- 
 mouth that this was the place selected by 
 the last voyager along the coast as the 
 best locality for a permanent English set- 
 tlement. Gorges says that Dermer sent 
 him a "journal of his proceeding with the 
 description of the coast all along as he 
 passed," and in that relation he writes: 
 52 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 I will first begin with that place from 
 whence Squanto or Tisquantum was taken 
 away, which on Captain Smith's map is called 
 Plymouth. ... I would that the first planta- 
 tion might here be seated if there come to the 
 number of fifty persons or upwards. 
 
 The Indian who accompanied Dermer 
 on this expedition has an interesting his- 
 tory and to him the Pilgrim Company 
 later owed a debt which can hardly be 
 estimated. His name is variously given as 
 "Tisquantum" or "Squanto," and he is 
 thought to have been the Indian whom 
 Gorges refers to as "Tasquantum," who 
 returned with Captain Weymouth to Lon- 
 don in 1605 and there lived for three years. 
 
 Tisquantum, or Squanto, as Bradford 
 calls him, and whom he describes as "a 
 native of this place, who had been in Eng- 
 land and could speak better English than 
 Samoset," was one of the Indians referred 
 to in Smith's account of his first voyage 
 to New England in 1614 with two ships. 
 Smith says that he returned to England in 
 the bark within six months after his de- 
 parture with a lot of furs, train oils, and 
 53 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 fish, leaving the other ship to fit for Spain 
 with dry fish, but that the master, one 
 Thomas Hunt, "betrayed four and twenty 
 of the savages aboard his ship and most 
 dishonestly and inhumanly, for their kind 
 usage of me and all our men, carried them 
 to Malago and there, for a little private 
 gain, sold those silly saluages for Rials of 
 Eight: but this vile act kept him ever 
 after from any more employment in those 
 parts." 
 
 Rescued from slavery in Spain by some 
 kindly priests, Squanto was sent to Eng- 
 land and while there lived with the gov- 
 ernor of the Newfoundland company, who 
 also held the ofiice of treasurer, a mer- 
 chant by the name of John Slanie, who 
 lived in Cornhill. During Dermer's visit 
 to Newfoundland during the years 1616- 
 18, he saw Tisquantum. From Newfound- 
 land Dermer returned to England and 
 was again sent to Newfoundland on a 
 fishing voyage. From Newfoundland he 
 starts for Virginia, taking with him 
 Squanto, making the stop at Patuxet, 
 54 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE Pn^GRIMS 
 
 which has been above described, and 
 leaving there Squanto, the last survivor 
 of that tribe which had roamed the 
 woods, tilled the fields, fished the streams, 
 camped upon the shore, loved, feasted, 
 fought, and died, alone with the empty 
 wigwams, the untilled fields, and the un- 
 marked graves of his people, and there he 
 waits the arrival of the Pilgrims. 
 
 Tell me, man of military science, tell 
 me, student of the voyages of the naviga- 
 tors, explorers, and discoverers of the New 
 World, where on that wide-flung seacoast- 
 line along the Atlantic could a little band 
 of Englishmen in December, 1620, have 
 found another harbor where during the 
 twenty years before their landing the 
 ships of three nations had anchored, and 
 the Cross of St. George, the white flag of 
 Prance, the orange, white, and blue flag 
 of Holland, had been planted on its en- 
 circling shores, or where the coast-line 
 had been so carefully skirted, the harbor 
 so thoroughly mapped and chartered, 
 sounded and named, as in that sheltered 
 55 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 bay of Plymouth? WTiere else lay the 
 waiting fields once cultivated, now de- 
 serted by the aboriginal proprietors? 
 Where else in safety could the simple 
 homes of the new settlers have been 
 erected, where the Indian tribe which 
 once lived there had been removed by 
 pestilence, and only a single survivor of 
 the tribe remained, than on that shore 
 where the Rock lay waiting for Pilgrim 
 feet to press and make immortal? And 
 where else from Labrador to the Gulf 
 could that little company of Englishmen 
 have found a friendly Indian, the last sur- 
 vivor of his tribe, who had lived in Lon- 
 don for many a weary month, had passed 
 a lonely figure up and down its busy 
 streets and grown familiar with the Eng- 
 lish language and English life and customs, 
 to become their guide, interpreter, and 
 friend, alike familiar with his native land 
 and theirs, ready and equipped to show 
 them the way to escape alike the perils 
 of famine and of the savage foe, and give 
 them his rights to those fields and homes? 
 56 
 
PLYMOUTH BEFORE THE PILGRIMS 
 
 Whether you call it a coincidence 
 merely, or whether you regard it, as the 
 pious annalist did, a marvelous interposi- 
 tion of a wonder-working Providence, the 
 happy presence of that friendly Indian in 
 their new home is one of the most remark- 
 able events in human history. 
 
 This was Plymouth before the Pilgrims : 
 which they were hereafter to hold, with 
 all the rights, privileges, and immunities 
 of Englishmen under a title not only the 
 broadest known to the English law, but 
 also, in a special way for them, the most 
 fortunate and the most useful. 
 
 "Here on its Rock, and on its sterile soil. 
 Began the kingdom not of kings but men; 
 Began the making of the world again." 
 
II 
 
 THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 I HAVE considered in the former lecture 
 those early voyages of exploration and 
 discovery which antedated or determined 
 the fitness of Plymouth as a place for the 
 settlement of an English colony on the 
 Atlantic coast, and also some of the influ- 
 ences, political and geographical, which 
 had fixed the prior settlements under the 
 English, Dutch, and French flags at the 
 three strategic points for colonization in 
 the New World north of Florida, and I 
 propose now to present some of the social 
 and economic considerations and religious 
 influences which inspired, shaped, and 
 directed the Pilgrim migration. 
 
 That religious movement in England to 
 which has been given different names by 
 its friends and its enemies, but which 
 more accurately may be defined as 
 the Independent Movement, and which 
 profoundly influenced the Pilgrims of 
 58 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 Scrooby, Leyden, and Plymouth, came as 
 a natural and almost inevitable result 
 from the translation of the Bible into Eng- 
 lish and its publication for general circula- 
 tion in that language. 
 
 The great body of the English Bible 
 was given to the English nation by Tyn- 
 dale in manuscript, and the Genevan Bi- 
 ble, which the Pilgrims used, published in 
 1557-60, is the publication of the transla- 
 tions of William Tyndale and Myles Cov- 
 erdale, first printed under the name of the 
 "Matthews Bible" in 1537. Erasmus 
 (1467-1536), learned and tolerant, to 
 whom Tyndale looked not only as a true 
 reformer, but also as the great light and 
 guide of the age, was the first to give ex- 
 pression to the hope that the Bible might 
 be translated into the languages of all peo- 
 ple, when he so finely said: 
 
 I wish the Gospels were translated into the 
 languages of all people, that they might be 
 read and known not only by the Scotch and 
 Irish and the English, but even by the Turks 
 and the Saracens. I wish that the husband- 
 man might sing parts of them at his plough; 
 
 59 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 that the weaver might warble them at his 
 shuttle; that the traveler may with their nar- 
 ration beguile the weariness of the way. 
 
 And Tyndale but followed in his footsteps 
 
 when he said to a critic: 
 
 If God spare my life ere many years I will 
 cause a boy that driveth a plough to know 
 more of the Scriptures than thou dost. 
 
 The realization of his hopes or dreams 
 made it necessary no longer to present the 
 oracles of God in a dead language, and to 
 make their interpretation the monopoly 
 of a priestly class. But not all the ad- 
 vanced thinkers of the day went as far, 
 for even Sir Thomas More, whose name 
 his "Utopia" will always preserve, be- 
 lieved that the copies of the English Bible 
 should be held at the discretion of the 
 bishop, to be given only to those whom he 
 should determine to be "honest, sad and 
 virtuous." 
 
 But if the Bible itself ought not be 
 
 given to the people for their reading and 
 
 study, still less could the commentaries 
 
 upon its text be printed without a license, 
 
 60 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 as many a publisher and even Brewster 
 himself found to his cost. Those who be- 
 lieved that the Church should have a form 
 of organization less formal and minute 
 than in the then existing organization of 
 the Church of England found in the texts 
 in the Genevan version, and in its side 
 notes, the authority for such officers as 
 pastors or prophets, teachers, elders, dea- 
 cons, widows or helpers,^ and whose du- 
 ties Robinson clearly defined. 
 
 At the beginning of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury the English people legally were all in- 
 cluded within the bounds of the Church 
 of England. Practically there were also in 
 England those who still adhered to the 
 Catholic faith of their fathers, and the 
 Protestant Nonconformists, under the va- 
 rious names of Separatists, Independents, 
 and Baptists. The statutes of England 
 then provided for imprisonment without 
 bail for those who obstinately refused to 
 attend church service or advisedly per- 
 suaded others to forbear attendance, or 
 
 ^ Cor. xn, 28. 1 Tim. v, 17. Romans xii, 6-8. 
 61 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 to receive the Communion, or who were 
 present at any unlawful assemblies or 
 meetings under color of any exercises of 
 religion contrary to the law and statutes, 
 and imposed the further penalties that 
 the convicted offender, if he did not con- 
 form and submit within three months, 
 should depart from the realm, or if he re- 
 fuse to do so or returned to the realm, 
 should be deemed a felon, and the penalty 
 was death without benefit of clergy. 
 
 The famous "Millenary Petition" of 
 1603, signed by seven hundred and fifty 
 ministers, and representing the views of 
 a thousand, expressed no dissatisfaction 
 with the essential doctrines of the English 
 Church, but only with certain of its rites 
 and ceremonies, and asked that in the 
 future the petitioners should not be re- 
 quired to subscribe except to the Thirty- 
 Nine Articles and to the Act of Suprem- 
 acy. 
 
 To prove that the enforcement of the 
 English law bore harshly upon the non- 
 conforming men and women holding the 
 62 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 ideas of church poHty which the members 
 of the Pilgrim Church adopted, there is no 
 occasion to mention other cases than those 
 cited by Bradford in his "Dialogue," 
 where he enumerated six who were pub- 
 hcly executed besides such as died in 
 prison, among them Henry Barrow, John 
 Greenwood, and Jolm Penry, and "many 
 others who have been condemned and 
 brought to the gallows, and have been re- 
 prieved and banished, some of whom we 
 have known and often spoken with." He 
 refers to four who in the year 1604 were 
 forced to adjure the land by oath never to 
 return, and to some seventeen or eighteen 
 that had died in the London prisons prior 
 to the year 1592, besides those who in 
 other parts of the land have perished 
 by cold, hunger, or "noisomnes of the 
 prison," and also to the petition of sixty 
 persons committed without bail to the 
 prisons of London, and "what numbers 
 since those who have been put into com- 
 pulsory banishment and other hard suffer- 
 ings as loss of goods, friends, and long and 
 63 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GIIIMS 
 
 hard imprisonments, under which many 
 have died, it is so well known that it 
 would make up a volume to rehearse 
 them." 
 
 I refer to this persecution because of a 
 suggestion in a recent book that the treat- 
 ment of the Scrooby Congregation, as 
 shown from the records of the Ecclesiasti- 
 cal Commission of the Province of York, 
 was far from severe. But I think it will be 
 found upon examination that the severity 
 of the penalty for nonconformity and the 
 reported cases where the severe penalty 
 had been imposed, and also the fact that 
 the little congregation which assembled 
 in the Manor House in Scrooby were all 
 liable to these penalties, when coupled 
 with the suffering and distress which they 
 endured in their efforts to leave England 
 for Holland, abundantly justiJSed the con- 
 clusion that it was due to persecution, 
 suffered or feared, that they sought free- 
 dom to worship God in the freer air of 
 Amsterdam and Leyden. 
 
 I need not repeat in detail the story so 
 64 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 admirably told by Bradford in his history 
 of the meeting of the little company in the 
 Manor House of the Bishop in Scrooby, 
 where Brewster lived and held, until the 
 last of September, 1607, the position of 
 postmaster. It is obvious that these little 
 villages of Scrooby and Austerfield could 
 have furnished but a small part of the Pil- 
 grim emigrants to Holland; in fact there 
 are only two of the Pilgrim Company of 
 whom it can be said with certainty that 
 they came from either of those two towns, 
 namely, Brewster of Scrooby, and Brad- 
 ford of Austerfield, but the meeting-place 
 was at Scrooby, and the people, as Brad- 
 ford describes them, "were of sundry 
 towns and villages, some of Nottingham- 
 shire, some of Lincolnshire, and some of 
 Yorkshire." Morton in his "New Eng- 
 land's Memorial" fixes the date of the 
 organization of the Pilgrim Church at 
 Scrooby in 1602, but it is probable that 
 he must have referred to the organiza- 
 tion of the church at Gainsborough, for 
 the numerous references to the Pilgrim 
 65 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 Church by Bradford and Winslow, and 
 the dates at which they fix the movement, 
 show that it could not have been earher 
 than 1606, which date is the commonly 
 accepted date of the beginning of this 
 church. 
 
 Eight miles north from Scrooby is Bab- 
 worth, where the Reverend Richard Clyf- 
 ton, the Rector and later the Reformist 
 minister, preached, and who was for a 
 time to be an early leader in the Pilgrim 
 Church and colleague with Robinson at 
 Scrooby. Twelve miles east of Scrooby is 
 Gainsborough where the Reverend John 
 Smith came in 1606. Smith later became 
 one of the Separatists or Brownist minis- 
 ters in Amsterdam, and pressed to the ex- 
 treme conclusion that tenet of Brownism 
 that the Church of England was an utterly 
 false and abominable church, and all its 
 ordinances null and void, which divided 
 the Separatists in Holland. He held that 
 "the separation must ever go back to 
 England or go forward to true Baptism. 
 All that shall in time to come separate 
 66 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 from England must separate from the 
 Baptism of England." 
 
 Clyfton and Smith, as well as Brewster 
 and Robinson, were men who had been 
 educated in the University at Cambridge, 
 scholarly and pious leaders of this Inde- 
 pendent Movement. They are sometimes 
 spoken of as "Brownists," taking that 
 name from Robert Browne, who also was 
 a Cambridge man, and some time in 
 the years between 1580-90 had been a 
 preacher at Norwich. Browne's attacks 
 on the bishops, his advocacy of the duty of 
 separation from the Church of England, 
 and of the right to organize these distinct 
 congregations, had cost him dear. As he 
 says, he had "been committed to 32 pris- 
 ons, in some of which he could not see his 
 hand at noon day." 
 
 The term **Brownists" was always 
 used by the opponents of the Pilgrim 
 Church as a term of reproach, and the Pil- 
 grims deeply resented its use for Browne 
 was believed to have recanted the opin- 
 ions which he had often so violently ex- 
 67 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 pressed by accepting a Church of Eng- 
 land Hving in Northamptonshire and re- 
 siding in the parsonage till his death in 
 1630. 
 
 The term "Separatists," as a descrip- 
 tive word merely, is sufficiently accurate, 
 but the true name, as I believe, for these 
 independent congregational churches is 
 "Independent." It is a curious fact that 
 the word "Independent" is not found in 
 the Bible nor in Shakespeare. It first ap- 
 pears as descriptive of a church as early as 
 1610 in a book which the Reverend Henry 
 Jacob had published in Leyden, entitled 
 "The Divine Beginning and Institution 
 of Christ's True, Visible or Ministerial 
 Church," where he says, "All which were 
 so many proper and distinct churches in 
 those times and independent one of an- 
 other," and in a later work, published in 
 1611, he says, "Each congregation is an 
 entire and independent body-politic, en- 
 dued with power immediately under and 
 from Christ." 
 
 Henry Jacob was a graduate of Oxford, 
 
 G8 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 the minister for several years to the con- 
 gregation at Middelburg, and spent a 
 few months during 1610 in Leyden, In 
 1616 he returned to England and organ- 
 ized a church in Southwark, which is 
 reputed to be the mother church of the 
 Independent denomination. But the Bap- 
 tist Church established by Thomas Hel- 
 wys in London, on his return from Hol- 
 land in 1613, was distinctly Independent 
 in polity and prior in time. Apparently 
 the word "Independent" was first used in 
 Holland and the English Separatists in 
 Holland worked out not only the theory 
 and the form, but the term "Independ- 
 ent." 
 
 Robinson, in his "Apologia" (1619), at 
 page 16, defines the true Church as 'Hota, 
 Integra & perfeda Ecclesia, ex his parti- 
 bus constans immediate & independenter,'' 
 Perhaps the importance which Robinson 
 attached to the term "Independent" is 
 best illustrated by the fact that as there 
 was no Latin word even for "independ- 
 ent," he coined the word "independenter" 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 for the first edition of his "Apology" 
 which was written and printed in Latin. 
 The whole sentence in the English edition 
 (1625), is as follows: 
 
 Neither was Peter or Paul more one, whole, 
 entire, and perfect man, consisting of their 
 parts essential and integral, without relation 
 unto other men, than is a particular congrega- 
 tion, rightly instituted and ordered, a whole, 
 entire, and perfect church immediately and 
 independently, in respect of other churches, 
 under Christ alone. 
 
 A learned student of New England's his- 
 tory wrote me some years ago, "I know of 
 no nobler sentence in literature or law." 
 John Robinson must be recognized as the 
 true founder of Independency or Congre- 
 gationalism. The basis of the Pilgrim 
 Church in Leyden and Plymouth was the 
 principles and polity of which Robinson 
 was the most eminent, the best known, 
 and the ablest exponent. His views as ex- 
 pressed in his later writings were adopted 
 as the unquestioned polity of that church 
 which claims him as its religious teacher, 
 preacher, and leader. 
 70 
 
TIIE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 The translation of the Bible into our 
 English tongue, as has been said, 
 
 opened to one and all, simple and great, poor 
 and rich, learned and ignorant, the treasure 
 house of the Divine wisdom : it gave to each in 
 the daily round of labor and care, as well as in 
 the supreme and testing moments of life, an 
 equal and unstinted share in the teachings 
 which inspire, the consolations which soothe, 
 the faith which can move mountains, the 
 hope which endures to the end. 
 
 It was an inevitable conclusion from 
 that movement which placed the Bible in 
 the hands of English-speaking men and 
 women, whose duty and faith required 
 them to "search the Scriptures," and who 
 believed with Robinson that there was 
 more Truth and Light yet to come out 
 of His Holy Word, that the Protestants 
 would divide into sects, by reason of the 
 special emphasis which each leader might 
 place on some text in the Bible. An 
 independent church was the necessary 
 result. "The foundation of our New 
 England Plantations," says Winslow, 
 "was not laid upon Schisme, division or 
 71 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 Separation, but upon love, peace and holi- 
 
 ness." 
 
 Their faith was not negative, and did 
 not consist in the condemning of others, 
 but in the edifying of themselves; they 
 did not require of any of their members 
 "in the confession of their faith that they 
 either renounce or in one word contest 
 with the Church of England, whatsoever 
 the world clamours of us this way. Our 
 faith is founded upon the writings of the 
 prophets and apostles in which no men- 
 tion of the Church of England is made." ^ 
 Upon this deep foundation they built 
 their independent church, with hope and 
 confidence that the gates of Hell could not 
 prevail against it. 
 
 It is undoubtedly true, as Winslow 
 frankly confessed, that Robinson was 
 ''more rigid in his course and way at first 
 than towards his latter end." In his fare- 
 well sermon to that little company of Pil- 
 grims on their departure to begin the 
 great work of Plantation in New England, 
 
 * Works of John Johnson^ Ashton, vol. m, p. 63. 
 72 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 his breadth and Hberahty of vision were 
 admirably and definitely shown, and his 
 position and their duty clearly stated. He 
 instructed and exhorted them, "If God 
 should reveal anything to them [us] by 
 any other instrument of his, to be as ready 
 to receive it as ever they [we] were to re- 
 ceive any truth by his ministry." Again 
 he reminded them of their Church Cove- 
 nant, the basis of their Church Fellowship 
 under and in accordance with which they 
 covenanted with God and one another 
 "to receive whatever light or truth shall 
 be made known to them from his written 
 Word." That written Word, illumined by 
 the radiance of all that the past had 
 brought, and to shine forth yet more 
 clearly in the further light the future had 
 in store, was their final authority and 
 guide. To the leaders of the Pilgrims 
 and those others at least of the May- 
 flower Company who had lived in Leyden 
 and shared the teachings of their great 
 preacher, teacher, and leader, the name of 
 "Brownist" was a "nickname and brand 
 73 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 to make Religion and the possession of it 
 odious." 
 
 To call them "Separatists " was an "as- 
 persion"; their church was a "free cor- 
 poration spiritual," and that way in which 
 their feet were firmly planted was the In- 
 dependent or Congregational way. 
 
 What in brief was the dogma, what the 
 polity of this Pilgrim Church? Fortu- 
 nately there is conclusive evidence on 
 both of these points. William Perkins 
 (1558-1602), a Cambridge graduate, a 
 learned and scholarly divine, whose writ- 
 ings in Robinson's time were scarcely less 
 authoritative than those of Hooker and 
 Calvin, had gathered into six principles 
 the foundation of the Christian Religion : 
 
 The I Foundation of | Christian Religion: 
 I gathered into sixe | Principles 
 
 And it is to be learned of ignorant people, that 
 
 they may be fit to heare Sermons with profit, 
 
 and to receive the Lord's Supper with comfort. 
 
 Printed for J. L. and I. L. 1600. 
 
 Brewster's library of some four hundred 
 volumes contained thirteen volumes of 
 
 74 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 Perkins's writings, more than of any other 
 theologian. In the inventory of Brewster's 
 library are named "two little chata- 
 chisms," which Dr. Dexter thought were 
 probably the catechisms which John Rob- 
 inson published at Leyden for the use of 
 the Church, being an Appendix to Mr. 
 Perkins's six principles of Christian re- 
 ligion. It is more probable I think that 
 these catechisms were copies of that 16mo 
 edition of Perkins's six principles, printed 
 in 1606. These six principles as stated and 
 explained by Perkins, are as follows: 
 
 1st. There is one God, Creator and Govern- 
 our of all things, distinguished into 
 the Father, the Sonne, and the Holy- 
 Ghost. 
 2nd. All men are wholly corrupted with sin 
 through Adams fall, and so are be- 
 come slaves of Satan, and guilty of 
 eternal damnation. 
 3rd. Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, 
 being made man, by his Death upon 
 the Cross, and by his Righteous- 
 ness hath perfectly, alone by him- 
 self, accomplished all things that 
 are needful for the salvation of man- 
 kind. 
 
 75 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 4th. A man of a contrite and humble spirit, 
 by faith alone apprehending and 
 applying Christ with all his merits 
 unto himself, is justified before God, 
 and sanctified. 
 
 5th. Faith commeth only by the preaching 
 of the Word, and increaseth dayly 
 by it; as also by the administration 
 of the Sacraments, and Prayer. 
 
 6th. All men shall rise again with their own 
 bodies; to the last Judgment: which 
 being ended, the godly shall pos- 
 sesse the Kingdome of Heaven; but 
 Unbeleevers and Reporbates shall 
 be in Hell tormented with the Devil 
 and his Angels for ever. 
 
 They are the doctrine of the Trinity, the 
 Fall of Man through Adam, Salvation 
 by Jesus, Justification by Faith, Faith 
 through the Preaching of the Word and by 
 the sacraments and prayer, and Resurrec- 
 tion of the body, with heaven for the godly 
 and hell for the unbelievers and reprobates. 
 Mr. Robinson's Appendix or Catechism 
 contains forty-six questions and answers. 
 The church is defined as — 
 
 A company of faithful and holy people, with 
 their seed, called by the Word of God into 
 
 76 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 public covenant with Christ and amongst 
 themselves, for mutual fellowship in the use of 
 all the means of God's glory and their salvation. 
 
 And the only limitation of its number is 
 that it shall not exceed such a number as 
 may ordinarily meet together in one place 
 for the worship of God. The present offi- 
 cers of ministry in the church are the 
 pastor : 
 
 1. The pastor [exhorter], to whom is given 
 the gift of wisdom for exhortation. 2. The 
 teacher, to whom is given the gift of knowl- 
 edge for doctrine. 3. The governing elder, 
 who is to rule with diligence. 4. The deacon, 
 who is to administer the holy treasure with 
 simplicity. 5. The widow or deaconess, who 
 is to attend the sick and impotent with com- 
 passion and cheerfulness. 
 
 And the church, being "a free corporation 
 
 spiritual," is to choose her ministers and 
 
 servants unto whom she is to give wages. 
 
 The outward works of the church are 
 
 six in number, defined as: 
 
 1. Prayer. 2. The reading and opening of 
 the Word. 3. The sacraments. 4. Singing of 
 Psalms. 5. Censures. 6. Contribution to the 
 necessities of the saints. 
 
 77 
 
PLYMOUTH AND TIIE PILGRIMS 
 
 This was the Pilgrim's creed, this his sira- 
 ple form of church government and order. 
 
 The time came when, in the opinion of 
 their wise leaders, it was necessary for the 
 believers in independency to seek a secure 
 refuge under another than the English 
 flag. There were then in Holland in 
 the city of Amsterdam the ancient Eng- 
 lish exile Church, a Scotch Presbyterian 
 Church, and possibly the Gainsborough 
 Church, which under the Reverend John 
 Smith went to Holland about the same 
 time as the Pilgrim Church. Both Smith 
 and Robinson were at Amsterdam before 
 the 17th of October, 1608, for they were 
 described in Bishop Hall's Epistles as 
 ''the ring-leaders of the late separation" 
 and at Amsterdam. At the time of the 
 Pilgrim migration there was no Separatist 
 church at Ley den. 
 
 These Nonconformists in the towns and 
 villages of Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, 
 and Yorkshire knew and appreciated the 
 dangers which the exercise of their beliefs 
 and the practice of their faith imposed 
 78 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 upon them. Prosecutions and persecu- 
 tions some had known, and all had feared. 
 Some by bitter experience learned the 
 misery of an English prison, to others its 
 hardships were an ever present danger, 
 and yet under the provisions of existing 
 law it was impossible for the family to 
 migrate without a license from the au- 
 thorities. To remain or to go was alike 
 perilous and disastrous. 
 
 The first attempt was made to sail from 
 Boston in a ship which they had hired for 
 the purpose, but the master betrayed to 
 the authorities their intended departure. 
 They were seized, searched, stripped, and 
 imprisoned. After a month had passed 
 the greater part were dismissed, but seven, 
 the principal men of the company, were 
 kept in prison and bound over to the as- 
 sizes, and among them William Brewster. 
 
 The next year, 1608, another attempt 
 was made. Arrangements were concluded 
 with the master of a Dutch ship to meet 
 them at some port between Grimsby and 
 Hull, where there was a large common, re- 
 79 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 mote from any town, and a convenient 
 creek where the vessel could lie. Some of 
 the party with the baggage sailed down 
 the river Trent, which emptied into the 
 sea at a distance of twenty-two miles from 
 Hull, while the men walked across country 
 to the agreed point of meeting. By the 
 time the first boatload reached the ship, 
 the whole country was raised and a com- 
 pany of horsemen and footmen, fully 
 armed, were seen marching rapidly to in- 
 tercept them. The prudent Dutchman 
 weighed anchor, hoisted sail, and his 
 vessel with only the first boat-load of 
 emigrants soon disappeared below the 
 horizon. It is a painful picture which 
 Bradford graphically draws of the misery 
 of the women and children who were left 
 on the shore as the ship departed bear- 
 ing the husbands and the fathers. 
 
 There seems to have been after that no 
 united effort to get across to Holland, but, 
 in spite of opposition and after great diffi- 
 culties, all got over, some at one time and 
 some at another; some in one place, and 
 
 80 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 some in another; all to meet again with no 
 small rejoicing in their destined haven, 
 the port of Amsterdam. 
 
 "Then twelve slow years in Holland — changing 
 
 years — 
 Strange ways of life — strange voices in their ears; 
 The growing children learning foreign speech; 
 And growing, too, within the heart of each 
 A thought of further exile — of a home 
 In some far land — a home for life and death 
 By their hands built, in equity and faith." 
 
 But Amsterdam could not long remain 
 their home. The dissensions in that Eng- 
 lish church into which they had been re- 
 ceived as members, were too serious for 
 them to cure by any means which they 
 could use. In spite of the fact that a re- 
 moval from Amsterdam would be greatly 
 to the prejudice of their outward estates, 
 both in the present and as it proved in the 
 years which followed, they decided to find 
 a refuge and home in Leyden. And fear- 
 ing "that the flames of contention were 
 likely to break out in the ancient church" 
 in Amsterdam, Robinson and some one 
 hundred members, men and women, peti- 
 81 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 tioned the authorities of Leyden for per- 
 mission to reside in Leyden, *'to have the 
 freedom thereof in carrying on their trades 
 without being the burden in the least to 
 any one." The magistrates reply, ''that 
 they refuse no honest persons free ingress 
 to come and have their residence in this 
 city: provided that such persons behave 
 themselves and submit to the laws and 
 ordinances," and assure the petitioners 
 that their coming will be both "agreeable 
 and welcome." 
 
 The Amsterdam Church before the 
 division contained about three hun- 
 dred communicants, and it is doubtful 
 if the Leyden Church at its maximum ex- 
 ceeded that number. As a French chroni- 
 cler describes it, Leyden, then a city of 
 one hundred thousand inhabitants, was 
 "one of the grandest, the comeliest 
 and most charming cities in the world," 
 and Polyander, the Professor of Sacred 
 Theology in the University in Leyden 
 during a part of the Pilgrims' stay there, 
 says: 
 
 82 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 The Low Countries are the best part of 
 Europe. Of the Seventeen Provinces of the 
 Low Countries Holland is the richest, the 
 most flourishing, and the finest. The most 
 beautiful and altogether charming city of 
 Holland is Leyden. 
 
 From their arrival in 1609 in Leyden to 
 their departure in 1620, the Pilgrims had 
 their home in this "fair and beautiful city 
 but made more famous by the universi- 
 tie," and there they enjoyed "a compe- 
 tent and comfortable living" as Bradford 
 describes it, "but with hard and continual 
 labore." 
 
 Brewster became a teacher and printer, 
 Robinson entered the university as a stu- 
 dent of theology, and was a frequent dis- 
 putant in the public debates as a cham- 
 pion of Calvinism against the errors of 
 Arminianism, in addition to his duties as 
 their pastor and his labors as a controver- 
 sial writer. The other members of the 
 Pilgrim Company in many different, gain- 
 ful, but humble occupations were soon 
 engaged, and the years passed peacefully. 
 
 The debt which the Pilgrims (and this 
 83 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 nation which they helped to found) owed 
 to Holland can scarcely be overestimated. 
 They had seen in Holland a system of free 
 public schools, supported at the public ex- 
 pense, and the result was a land "where 
 every child went to school, where almost 
 every inhabitant could read and write, 
 where even the middle classes were profi- 
 cient in mathematics and the classics, and 
 could speak two or more languages," if we 
 may accept the authority of Motley.^ 
 
 There was no denial there of the liberty 
 of the press, and no occasion for a Milton 
 to plead for an unlicensed press. The 
 right to print subject only to hazard 
 and penalty as John Milton carefully de- 
 fines it, which England denied, Holland 
 granted, and Brewster printed without 
 the necessity of first submitting his manu- 
 script to either prelate or censor. 
 
 The foremost university of Europe was 
 in full view of their simple dwellings in 
 Clock Street or Bell Alley. The propriety 
 and convenience of a civil marriage cere- 
 
 ^ United Netherlands, iv, 432; Campbell, ii, 342. 
 84 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 mony they had learnt by actual experi- 
 ence in Holland, and its practice by Wins- 
 low in New Plymouth was to cost him 
 later seventeen weeks' imprisonment in 
 the Fleet Prison under the illiberal re- 
 quirements of the English law. 
 
 With the advantages of registry in a 
 public office of all deeds and mortgages, to 
 which has been attributed in part the 
 commercial prosperity of the Dutch, they 
 were familiar by actual experience in Ley- 
 den. They had also observed the use of 
 public records in political and religious 
 organizations, for in addition to the im- 
 portant records for mortgages and trans- 
 fer of lands, there were twenty other 
 kinds of public records kept in Leyden. 
 Besides this indebtedness to the Dutch 
 which their life in Holland had brought 
 them, there is another fact worthy of no- 
 tice, that even in the New World the 
 Dutch sagacity and experience were help- 
 ful. The use of wampum as a currency 
 in trading with the Indian the Pilgrim 
 learned from the Dutch at Manliattan. 
 85 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 Neither the planters at Plymouth nor the 
 English in any other plantation in the 
 New World so "much as knew what it 
 was until they had knowledge of it from 
 the Dutch and much less that it was a 
 commodity of worth and value." When 
 its use at the trading-posts became estab- 
 lished, it proved a current commodity 
 which greatly facilitated that Indian 
 trade upon which they depended for the 
 furs and skins, and upon which they re- 
 lied for exports to England. 
 
 But above all and more than all, they 
 had found in Holland that *' freedom of 
 Religion for all men" which they sought 
 and for which they had left their English 
 homes. As the slow years passed there 
 were many factors which contributed to 
 influence the members of the Leyden 
 Church to consider seriously the question 
 of a removal from Holland and which 
 finally determined their policy of migra- 
 tion. 
 
 The Treaty of Antwerp, which defined 
 the relations between Spain and the 
 86 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 Netherlands, provided for a truce of 
 twelve years and was soon to expire by 
 limitation. The future was dark and un- 
 certain. If war were again to break out, 
 their situation would be critical and dan- 
 gerous, and already there was a beating of 
 drums in the streets and the preparations 
 for war had begun. The passing years had 
 reduced their numbers by death and re- 
 moval and few were found to take the 
 places of those who had withdrawn their 
 membership or died. Some preferred even 
 an English prison to liberty in Holland 
 with the afflictions which bore heav- 
 ily upon them. The aged saw old age 
 stealing upon them with no prospect of 
 relief from their heavy burdens. The 
 young men were becoming soldiers or 
 sailors or were drawn into dangerous 
 courses, undisciplined and unrestrained 
 by family ties, and their habits were be- 
 coming corrupt and their character de- 
 generate. They longed for the protection 
 of the English flag; they were losing the 
 English language and the English name, 
 87 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 and they missed for their children the 
 education which they had received in 
 their Enghsh homes. 
 
 "Above all other lands on earth 
 
 They loved the Land that gave them birth. 
 Its seagirt coasts, its downs, 
 Its hamlets and its towns. 
 The green fields where their children played, 
 The chm-chyards where their sires were laid. 
 
 "They loved their England, what was best 
 In her they loved, but not the rest; 
 Her State that made her great 
 But not her Church in State." 
 
 And lastly, they "were inspired with a 
 great hope and inward zeal," as Bradford 
 says, "for the propagation of the Gospel 
 in the remote parts of the world, a mighty 
 work in which they might be the step- 
 ping-stones for those who might follow in 
 the paths where they had led." These 
 considerations were not only persuasive, 
 but conclusive. The Dutch had wel- 
 comed them, approved them, and sought 
 to persuade them to remain as citizens of 
 the Netherlands. "These English," said 
 88 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 the magistrates of Leyden, "have Hved 
 amongst us now these twelve years, and 
 yet we never had any suit or accusation 
 against any of them." 
 
 The Dutch made two offers to the mem- 
 bers of this Pilgrim Church, one, to re- 
 main and settle in the Province of Zea- 
 land ; the other, free transportation to the 
 Hudson River with cattle and other sup- 
 plies for each family. 
 
 The directors of the Netherlands Com- 
 pany petitioned the Prince of Orange, in 
 February, 1C20, to take under the pro- 
 tection of Holland "a certain English 
 preacher residing in Leyden who is well 
 inclined to proceed thither [New Nether- 
 land] to live," and who has assured the 
 petitioners that "he has the means of in- 
 ducing over 400 families to accompany 
 him thither, both out of this country and 
 England." The directors also called at- 
 tention to the evident policy of England 
 to settle the territory in America between 
 the fortieth and forty-fifth degrees of lati- 
 tude, then claimed by the Dutch as the 
 89 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 New Netherland, whose title rested on 
 prior discovery and occupation, and de- 
 *clared that the Enghsh purpose was to 
 dispossess by force the State of the Neth- 
 erlands of its right therein. 
 . They asked that in view of the im- 
 portance of the country that two ships 
 should be dispatched to secure it against 
 the English and protect the Dutch ships 
 already there. That application was re- 
 jected by the States General for reasons 
 which can only be conjectured, as they 
 are not set forth in the reply. 
 
 Then they considered a removal to 
 Guiana, alleging that that country was 
 rich and fruitful and blessed with a 
 perpetual spring where vigorous nature 
 brought forth all things in abundance and 
 plenty, without any great labor or art of 
 man. To that course it was objected that 
 even if the country yielded riches its cli- 
 m^atic conditions were unsuitable to Eng- 
 lishmen, and more serious still was the 
 proximity of the jealous Spaniard who 
 would not suffer them to live there long. 
 90 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 And so Guiana as a place for their planta- 
 tion was rejected. 
 
 The attention of the Pilgrims had evi- 
 dently been directed to Guiana by reason 
 of the voyages of Sir Walter Ralegh in 
 1595, the settlement of Captain Ley in 
 1605, and the explorations of Sir Thomas 
 Roe, Captain William Wliite, and others, 
 and particularly the plantation under- 
 taken by Captain Robert Harcourt inl609, 
 who obtained from Prince Henry a large 
 patent "for all that coast called Guiana, 
 together with the famous River of Ama- 
 zones, to him and his heirs." "And the 
 events relative to the New Netherland 
 possessions in the Brazils and along the 
 coast of Guiana are recorded by several 
 historians in the Netherlands." 
 
 In 1617 Sir Walter Ralegh with many 
 valiant soldiers and brave gentlemen 
 made his last voyage to Guiana, and after 
 his return to England he endeavored by 
 his best abilities to interest his country 
 and state in those fair regions. It is a 
 curious fact that the very year in which 
 91 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 the Pilgrims sailed for the New World, 
 Captain Robert North, with one hundred 
 and twenty gentlemen and others, with a 
 ship, a pinnace, and two shallops to re- 
 main in the country, set sail from Plym- 
 outh on the last of April, 1620, and 
 within seven weeks after he arrived at 
 the Amazon with the loss of only one old 
 man. They sailed up the river one hun- 
 dred leagues to settle the men, "where 
 the sight of the country and people so 
 contented them that never men thought 
 themselves more happy," as the chronicler 
 records it. 
 
 By this process of elimination of possi- 
 ble locations for a permanent home, it be- 
 came clear that there was no place which 
 met so many of their requirements as 
 some part of Virginia. The decision hav- 
 ing been made where they were to go, the 
 next matter for debate was how they 
 were to go. Authority and means were 
 both necessary. The Crown charter of 
 1606 had given to the London Company 
 the territorial and governmental rights in 
 92 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 the New World between the thirty-fourth 
 and forty-first degrees of north latitude, 
 and to the Plymouth Company between 
 the thirty-eighth and forty-fifth, north 
 latitude, and the rights and powers of the 
 two companies thereby overlapped in that 
 part of the grants between the thirty- 
 eighth and forty-first degrees. This inter- 
 lapping territory of three degrees included 
 that tract of land bounded approximately 
 on the coast-hne on the north by the Hud- 
 son and on the south by the Potomac. 
 Either colony had the right to plant there, 
 subject only to the proviso in the charter 
 that neither colony should make a planta- 
 tion within one hundred miles of a prior 
 plantation by the other. 
 
 If, then, the Pilgrims had in the first 
 instance secured their patent from the 
 second or Plymouth Company, as later 
 they did, instead of the first or London 
 Company, their landing either south of 
 the Hudson, or at Cape Cod or Plymouth/ 
 would have been within the territorial 
 limits of their patent and there would 
 93 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 have been no occasion for the Compact 
 and therefore no Compact. 
 
 To secure the assent of the Enghsh 
 Government to this adventure, some 
 time in 1617 Robinson and Brewster, the 
 rehgious leaders of the company and best 
 fitted to express the rehgious convictions 
 of the members of the church, sent a 
 statement caUed the "Seven Articles" to 
 England, a copy of which is still preserved 
 in the Public Record Office, and which de- 
 fines with some minuteness their attitude 
 towards the civil and ecclesiastical au- 
 thorities. This statement seems to occa- 
 sion some embarrassment to the few histo- 
 rians who have commented upon it in their 
 effort to explain its apparent inconsist- 
 ency with the Pilgrims' doctrine and pol- 
 icy. It expresses in exact terms their 
 assent to the Confession of Faith, the 
 Thirty-Nine Articles, and to the authority 
 and supremacy of the King in Church or 
 State. This is in entire conformity v/ith 
 their expressed readiness to take the oath 
 of allegiance and supremacy, and a con- 
 04 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 trolling factor in their decision to go to 
 Virginia was that they might be within 
 the limits of the English dominion and 
 under an English king. But their ac- 
 knowledgment of the authority of the 
 present bishops in England, as set forth 
 in the 5th Article, where they in terms 
 state, "The authority of the present bish- 
 ops in the land we do acknowledge so 
 far forth as the same is indeed derived 
 from His Majesty in them and as they 
 proceed in his name," can best be recon- 
 ciled with their theory of independency by 
 adopting the distinction which they made 
 between civil and spiritual authority. 
 
 It was, of course, to be expected that 
 they would seek to minimize any differ- 
 ences, but the meaning which they gave 
 to this recognition of the authority of the 
 bishops had already been clearly stated 
 by one no less independent than they. 
 That distinction had been made in the 
 formal confession of faith made in 1619 
 by that Independent Church in London, 
 which in that year was established by 
 95 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 Henry Jacob on his return from Holland. 
 That confession in terms states the policy 
 of the Independent Congregation as: 
 "We believe that we and all true, visible 
 churches ought to be overseen and kept 
 in good order and peace and ought to be 
 governed under Christ both supremely 
 and also subordinately by the civil magis- 
 trate, yes, in causes of religion when need 
 is." Nor did Mr. Robinson deny that es- 
 tablished churches were true churches, al- 
 though he held that the errors and defects 
 of that Church were sufficient to justify 
 the formation of separate congregations. 
 Thus, he writes: ''I believe with my heart 
 before God and profess with my tongue 
 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." And as has been before 
 stated, it cannot be controverted that the 
 influences under which Robinson lived in 
 Holland had, as the years went by, con- 
 tributed to a wider liberality in his views 
 of and relations to that Church, which is 
 96 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 well illustrated by the fact, and it should 
 not be forgotten, that Lyford, the first 
 minister of the Plymouth Church, who 
 was sent over by the merchant adven- 
 turers, was a Church of England man and 
 yet accepted by the congregation without 
 protest. Technically the little church 
 which first gathered in the common house 
 or fort, not only during the first year of 
 the colony, but until the Revolution, was 
 within the diocese of London as matter of 
 law, and that fact was clearly stated in 
 that comparatively recent decision by the 
 Consistory Court of London upon the ap- 
 plication for the return of the Bradford 
 manuscript to America, in the opinion of 
 the Chancellor, as follows: 
 
 Up to the time of the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence, New England was for Ecclesiasti- 
 cal purposes in the Diocese of London . . . 
 and the Bishops Registry being the only Pub- 
 lic Registry for the custody of such docu- 
 ments (certificates of marriages, births and 
 deaths) within the Diocese. 
 
 Through Sir Edwin Sandys (the 
 brother of that Sir Samuel Sandys from 
 97 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 whom Brewster held the Manor House at 
 Scrooby) , who was a member of the Coun- 
 cil of the Virginia Company and at some 
 time its president and treasurer, they 
 secured the cooperation of Sir Robert 
 Naunton, the principal Secretary of State 
 under King James, in an effort to persuade 
 the King to formally permit them to live 
 under his protection in America and enjoy 
 liberty of conscience. The King asked the 
 Secretary what the profits might be of 
 such an adventure and the answer was 
 "Fishing," to which the King replied, 
 **So God have my soul! It is an honest 
 trade, it was the Apostles' own calling." 
 The King had his joke and showed to his 
 satisfaction his learning and his wit, but 
 refused to give his formal consent. He 
 was ready to connive at them and agree 
 not to molest them, but no ofiicial per- 
 mission under his seal could issue, and 
 they were referred to the Bishop of Lon- 
 don and Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 
 They did in this matter the sensible and 
 practical thing, and made no application 
 98 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 to the ecclesiastical authorities, but con- 
 tented themselves with the sane reflection 
 that the word of the King was as good as 
 the written grant under the royal seal, 
 for, as they quaintly and accurately 
 stated it, "though they had a seal as 
 broad as the house floor, if he changed his 
 mind, some way would be found to revoke 
 the warrant." 
 
 In the name of John Wincop or Wincob, 
 as Bradford spells it, in June, 1619, the 
 London Virginia Company granted a pat- 
 ent and ordered that the seal should be 
 annexed. Wincop, as the Company's 
 record shows, intended to go in person to 
 Virginia and there to plant himself and 
 his associates. Wincop did not go and the 
 patent was never used and is not known 
 to be in existence. Possibly it was among 
 the papers which were taken from the 
 Fortune in January, 1622, by the French 
 man-of-war and carried to the Isle de 
 Dieu at the time when the Marquis de 
 Cera, governor of the island, took away the 
 goods of the vessel, and especially the let- 
 99 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 ter written by William Bradford, contain- 
 ing a general relation of matters in Plym- 
 outh, the latter a contribution to the his- 
 tory of Plymouth of prime importance, 
 but all efforts for its recovery have proved 
 unavailing. 
 
 The patent having been obtained, their 
 efforts were redoubled to secure the neces- 
 sary assistance to enable them to prose- 
 cute the voyage. For the requisite ships 
 and supplies necessary to give any hope 
 of success for this plantation the coopera- 
 tion of those English merchants who 
 might be ready to adventure in an under- 
 taking like that proposed was essential. 
 The details of the negotiations which the 
 Pilgrims conducted through their repre- 
 sentatives are not material to this in- 
 quiry, but it is important to note that 
 the final terms, reluctantly agreed upon, 
 made necessary a contract which seemed 
 burdensome when made and which be- 
 came more burdensome as the months 
 went by in their homes along the first 
 street in Plymouth. 
 
 100 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 This arrangement between the mer- 
 chant adventurers and the Pilgrims is 
 sometimes spoken of as a joint-stock 
 company, but obviously that was not the 
 form which the undertaking took, for 
 there was neither a corporation, a seal, 
 nor stock. I suppose the error grows from 
 the misinterpretation of Bradford's ex- 
 pression that they put their money into 
 the "common stock." The terms of the 
 agreement show a relation more resem- 
 bling a partnership and not at all unlike 
 the later contracts for the prosecution 
 of fishing voyages in New England, by 
 which the men who furnished the vessel 
 and the main supplies took one share of 
 the catch, and the captain and the crew, 
 in agreed proportion, the other share. 
 
 Under the arrangement it was provided 
 that at the end of seven years the original 
 investment and the profits of the adven- 
 ture should be equally divided between 
 the adventurers and the planters. Each 
 planter above the age of sixteen had a 
 single share and if he furnished money or 
 101 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 provisions to the amount of ten pounds, 
 he was to receive two shares, and so on in 
 that proportion. If the planter took with 
 him his wife or children or servants, he 
 was allowed for every person of the age of 
 sixteen another share; if there were any 
 between ten years of age and sixteen, he 
 had a third share; and any child under the 
 age of ten had no share in the division but 
 was given fifty acres of unmanured land; 
 and in addition to that all the planters, 
 their wives and children and servants, 
 were to have their meat, drink, apparel, 
 and provisions out of the common fund. 
 If the plantation was unsuccessful, the 
 planters lost their time and money in- 
 vested; the adventurers lost their invest- 
 ment. Its effect was to establish a com- 
 munity life in that new land to which they 
 went, by reason of which, long before the 
 seven years had terminated, there re- 
 sulted embarrassments, serious, interest- 
 ing, and significant, which must be more 
 fully considered in the following lecture. 
 The negotiations were completed, the 
 102 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 smaller ship, the "Speedwell," was en- 
 gaged to transport such members of the 
 Ley den Company as were to engage in this 
 plantation, from Delfthaven to Southamp- 
 ton, where they were to meet the " May- 
 flower " with those persons who were not 
 members of the church at Ley den, but had 
 been induced to leave their English homes 
 to join in this adventurous undertaking. 
 
 One other problem waited solution and 
 that was to determine who of the Leyden 
 Church were to go and who were to re- 
 main. Obviously it was impossible for all 
 the members of the church to go in the 
 ships, and the supplies were inadequate 
 even if they had been so inclined. When a 
 minority of the members of the church 
 decided to go, it was agreed that the pas- 
 tor should remain and the elder, Brewster, 
 should go as the religious teacher and 
 leader. It was further determined that 
 those who went should become an "abso- 
 lute" or independent church, and those 
 who remained should continue the exist- 
 ing organization. 
 
 103 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 The date, then, of the organization of 
 the first church in Plymouth should prop- 
 erly be fixed as in the year 1620, and not 
 in the year 1606, when the first members 
 of the congregation assembled at Scrooby. 
 In accordance with the congregational 
 way, it was agreed, if any returned to 
 Leyden or if any from Leyden there- 
 after went to America, no letters of dis- 
 missal or testimonial would be necessary 
 to enable them to unite either with the 
 church at Leyden or with the church in 
 America. 
 
 On August 1, 1620, the Leyden mem- 
 bers of the Pilgrim Company sailed on the 
 " Speedwell " from Delf thaven for South- 
 ampton. 
 
 "And now with lingering long embrace. 
 With tears of love and partings fond, 
 They floated down the creeping Maas, 
 Along the Isle of Ysselmond. 
 
 "They passed the frowning towers of Briel, 
 The *Hook of Holland's' shelf of sand 
 And grated soon with Hfting keel, 
 The sullen shores of fatherland." 
 
 104 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 On the 15th of August, N.S., the " May- 
 flower" and " Speedwell" leave Southamp- 
 ton Water. Before they had passed out of 
 the English Channel they were obliged to re- 
 turn to the sheltered harbor of Dartmouth 
 for repairs to the " Speedwell." On Sep- 
 tember 2 they make a second departure, 
 and when they had sailed a hundred leagues 
 beyond Land's End, it was discovered 
 that the " Speedwell " was leaking so badly 
 that her pumps could barely free her. It 
 seemed impossible then for the " Speed- 
 well " to continue on the voyage and both 
 ships were obliged to return. The disaster 
 to the " Speedwell " is attributed to the 
 deceit of the master and crew who plotted 
 the stratagem of her unseaworthy condi- 
 tion to relieve themselves of the burden 
 of the contract, which required them to 
 stay a whole year in the new country. 
 
 Reaching Plymouth, England, it was 
 necessary to reorganize the expedition. 
 Those who were reluctant to sail re- 
 mained, and the "Mayflower," with a 
 full complement of crew and passengers, 
 105 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 sailed from Plymouth on the 16th of Sep- 
 tember, 1620. 
 
 "Then, the sea's wide blue! — 
 *They sailed/ writ one, *and as they sailed they 
 
 knew 
 That they were Pilgrims/" 
 
 Nearly ten weeks passed before they came 
 to anchor on the 21st of November in 
 Cape Cod Bay, after a voyage of suffering 
 and hardship, and attended with grave 
 perils. One hundred and two passengers 
 sailed on the " Mayflower " from Plym- 
 outh. On the voyage one of the company 
 died, and a child, appropriately named 
 Oceanus, was born, so that the same 
 number of passengers were on board the 
 " Mayflower " when she dropped anchor 
 in Cape Cod Harbor. 
 
 Not all the passengers of the " Mayflow- 
 er" were members of the Ley den Church. 
 Only two are known to have lived in 
 the little hamlets of Scrooby and Auster- 
 field, and many another county than the 
 three which Bradford named, Lincolnshire, 
 Nottinghamshire, or Yorkshire, had con- 
 106 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 tributed to the " Mayflower's " passenger 
 list. The efforts of the merchant adven- 
 turers or agents, the thirst for adventure, 
 and the love of gain had brought together 
 in that solitary vessel many a stranger to 
 the Ley den leaders. The protracted voy- 
 age had been severe and perilous, and 
 grave difference, of opinion arose among 
 the mariners as to whether it were wiser to 
 proceed or to return, as the ship, beaten 
 about by fierce storms, ploughed its 
 lonely way through the dreary and wind- 
 swept Atlantic. Faction appeared; unity 
 and concord were endangered. Here are 
 mutterings of discontent, and there mu- 
 tinous speeches from these strangers on 
 board the ship. 
 
 When Cape Cod was sighted it was re- 
 solved to tack and stand for the south- 
 ward, the wind and weather permitting, 
 and to find some place about the Hudson 
 River for their permanent habitation. 
 But before the day was spent they found 
 themselves in grave peril from dangerous 
 shoals and roaring breakers. It was then 
 107 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 decided to bear up again for the Cape, 
 and the next day their frail bark rode in 
 safety within the sheltering arms of Cape 
 Cod harbor. 
 
 The abandonment of their purpose to 
 settle within the limits of their patent led 
 to more open and positive declarations 
 from the mutineers, that when the voyage 
 had ended and a landing effected outside 
 of the jurisdiction which their patent con- 
 ferred, there would be no authority exist- 
 ing to restrain the liberty of any dissatis- 
 fied passenger, and it became evident that 
 some practical means must be promptly 
 adopted to maintain law, order, and dis- 
 cipline. So long as they remained on the 
 ship the problem was not serious. Not 
 only did the master of the ship have the 
 right and authority to enforce discipline 
 wherever necessary for the security of the 
 vessel and the safety of the passengers, 
 but also before they had left Southampton 
 they had adopted a practical and effective 
 organization. 
 
 They had already chosen a governor 
 108 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 and assistants to order the people by the 
 way and see to the disposing of their pro- 
 visions and such hke affairs. Their pur- 
 pose and their pohty had been clearly de- 
 fined in that striking letter from Robinson 
 to the Pilgrim Company, which had been 
 received at Southampton before they 
 sailed and before they had made choice of 
 Carver as the Governor of the "May- 
 flower" and Martin of the "Speedwell." 
 f Now this letter from the great preacher 
 and leader of the Pilgrims from his home 
 in Leyden in terms stated that the Pil- 
 grim Company were to become in the 
 New World a body politic, using amongst 
 themselves civil government, and con- 
 tained the direction not only that in 
 choosing into the office of government 
 they should choose such persons as did 
 entirely love and promote the common 
 good, but also that they should yield unto 
 those so chosen "all due honor and obedi- 
 ence in their lawful administrations." 
 This advice of Robinson was undoubtedly 
 in conformity with the authority granted 
 109 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 by the formal letters patent issued by the 
 Virginia Company in June, 1619, and sent 
 to Holland for the consideration of the in- 
 tending emigrants, and which defined the 
 territorial limits of the proposed settle- 
 ment to be south of the mouth of the 
 Hudson. 
 
 It was clear that to them had come the 
 opportunity and duty of organizing a 
 body politic, establishing a civil govern- 
 ment, adopting such laws and ordinances 
 as to them seemed fit and necessary by 
 the consent of the majority, and to be en- 
 forced by governors and other officers of 
 their voluntary selection. The letter ex- 
 pressed the idea of civil liberty which 
 Theodore Parker first clearly stated in the 
 sentence, " Government of the people, for 
 the people, and by the people," and which 
 Lincoln made famous. 
 
 The idea, then, which lay at the basis 
 of the Mayflower Compact, and which 
 poets and painters, speculative historians 
 and imaginative orators have assumed 
 was first discovered in the cabin of the 
 110 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 "Mayflower" after she had reached the 
 New World, was in reahty an idea that was 
 presented and considered and adopted be- 
 fore they had lost sight of the gray walls 
 of Southampton, and before the difficulty 
 which now confronted them had been 
 anticipated. It is true that this idea of 
 civil liberty and local self-government 
 was the great conception which lay at the 
 very basis of their undertaking, but it was 
 expressed by Robinson in his letter and 
 must have been found in the original 
 patent itself. 
 
 The later patents of 1621 and 1629 in 
 terms granted to them the right, by con- 
 sent of the greater part, to establish such 
 laws and ordinances as are for their better 
 government, and the same by such officer 
 or officers as they shall by most voices 
 select and choose to put in execution. 
 
 Having then adopted a polity, its form 
 defined in letter and patent, what was the 
 obvious thing for a company of sagacious 
 Englishmen, wisely led, to do under exist- 
 ing conditions.^ Clearly, it seems to me, to 
 111 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 make an agreement which shall carry into 
 effect the plan, and follow as nearly as 
 may be the language of the instrument 
 under v/hich they had so far proceeded, 
 and by which they agree to be bound by 
 such laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, 
 and ofBces as shall be thought most meet 
 and convenient for the general good of the 
 colony, until a new patent could be se- 
 cured. 
 
 And so they covenant and combine 
 into a civil body politic, and there is not a 
 vital word in the Compact which you will 
 not find either in the letter of Robinson or 
 the patent. And because they had already 
 elected a governor by the most voices, 
 they make no reference to that require- 
 ment in the Compact itself. It was a 
 temporary expedient, adapted to and 
 forced by the imperious necessities of the 
 situation. It was an agreement, not a 
 constitution, for a "constitution, in the 
 American sense of the word," as Justice 
 Miller defines it, "is a written instrument 
 by which the fundamental powers of the 
 112 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 government are established, limited, and 
 defined, and by which these powers are 
 distributed among several departments 
 for their more safe and useful exercise for 
 the benefit of the body politic." If, there- 
 fore, they had landed within the limits of 
 the first charter, near the mouth of the 
 Hudson, and the necessity for the execu- 
 tion of the Compact had not arisen, there 
 is no reason to suppose that their scheme 
 of government, that the form of their 
 body politic, or that the laws and ordi- 
 nances which they enacted, would have 
 been in any respect different, or that they 
 would have been governed other than by 
 ofiicers and governors of their voluntary 
 selection. 
 
 And now that they make their first 
 landing in the harbor of Cape Cod, out- 
 side of the territorial limits of the patent, 
 whose usefulness is at an end, the Com- 
 pact to which they subscribe to meet the 
 temporary emergency expresses in form 
 and substance, in thought and in lan- 
 guage, the plan of government set forth in 
 113 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 the letter of Robinson and the original 
 patent itself. 
 
 In the spring the "Mayflower," but half 
 manned, sails away with a Relation of 
 their condition and needs. In November, 
 1621, the "Fortune" arrives, bringing a 
 patent, from the Plymouth Company dif- 
 fering mainly from the first patent in its 
 territorial grant. From the date of its 
 arrival the settlers in the New World 
 found in it the clear authority for the 
 scheme of government adopted. It grants 
 in terms the authority "by consent of the 
 greater part of them, to establish such 
 laws and ordinances as are for their better 
 government, and the same by such officer 
 or officers as they shall by most voices 
 elect and choose to put in execution." 
 The same provision is found in the patent 
 granted by Sheffield to Cushman and 
 Winslow in January, 1623, for the settle- 
 ment of Cape Ann, and also in the Colony 
 patent of 1629, granted by the Plymouth 
 Company to Bradford and his associates. 
 
 The Compact was not signed by all 
 114 
 
THE PILGRIMS BEFORE PLYMOUTH 
 
 the male passengers, even if we assume 
 that the signatures of the fathers made it 
 unnecessary for the sons to sign, or that 
 the sons were minors and therefore they 
 were not asked to sign; there were at 
 least seven male servants and the two 
 seamen who had been hired for a year, 
 whose names do not appear among the 
 signers. 
 
 , No new settler upon the soil, no later 
 passenger in the vessels which followed in 
 the next few years, ever subscribed his 
 name to the Compact. With only two ex- 
 ceptions, so far as I am advised, there is 
 no reference to it in any law or ordinance 
 or public or official action of the Plymouth 
 Colony at any period of its history. These 
 references are in the recital of reasons for 
 making laws in the Revision of the Laws 
 in 1636 and in the "forme to be placed 
 before the records of the severall inheri- 
 tances," etc., in the same year. The Com- 
 pact will always be held in grateful re- 
 membrance and high honor by future 
 generations — 
 
 115 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GREVIS 
 
 "Till the waves in the Bay where the Mayflower 
 lay, 
 Shall foam and freeze no more.'* 
 
 It is the first state paper in the New 
 World to express and typify and symbol- 
 ize the high conception, the inspiring idea, 
 of civil liberty, of self-government, of a 
 true democracy. The vision which they 
 dimly saw is realized, the dream fulfilled. 
 
 "They did the work they had to do, 
 They builded better than they knew. 
 So must the few whom fate 
 Selects to found a State. 
 
 "They founded theirs with psalms and prayers; 
 What sounder state could be than theirs. 
 The first since time began 
 Of faith in God and Man?" 
 
Ill 
 
 PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 In the former lectures I have considered 
 some of the poUtical, geographical, and 
 legal conditions which determined the 
 settlement at Plymouth, and some of the 
 economic, social, and religious influences 
 which directed and shaped the Pilgrim 
 migration from England and Holland to 
 the New World. 
 
 I propose now to consider mainly those 
 incidents in Pilgrim history which are of 
 special interest, it seems to me, in the Pil- 
 grim story and may have their uses in the 
 consideration of the present problems and 
 perhaps serve to illustrate in what par- 
 ticulars the lives and examples of the Pil- 
 grims have contributed in shaping the 
 American polity. 
 
 - As has been stated, the " Mayflower " ar- 
 rived in Cape Cod harbor on the 21st of 
 November, 1620, and the landing at Plym- 
 117 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 outh of the shallop's company was ex- 
 actly one month later, namely, the 21st of 
 December. Between those dates exploring 
 parties from the "Mayflower" had made 
 their expeditions within the limits of Cape 
 Cod and engaged in unimportant and 
 bloodless encounters with the Indian tribe 
 of the Cape. 
 
 On the 16th of December the shallop 
 was dispatched for the purpose of coasting 
 the shore of Cape Cod Bay. In that shal- 
 lop there sailed ten of the principal men, 
 which number included Standish and the 
 three who were later to serve as governors 
 of the colony during the first generation 
 after the landing — Carver, Bradford, 
 and Winslow. With them went the two 
 seamen hired by the Mayflower Com- 
 pany, and of the ship's company two mas- 
 ter mates, a master gunner, and three 
 sailors. It was a distinctively representa- 
 tive company. The ten passengers of the 
 ''Mayflower" who went on this expedi- 
 tion were all signers of the Compact. They 
 coasted along the interior line of the bay, 
 118 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 discovering no place adapted for a harbor, 
 and therefore decided to proceed to the 
 place which the pilot, one of the master 
 mates by the name of Coppin, assured 
 them was a good harbor and which they 
 would be likely to reach before nightfall. 
 
 The snow and rain, the increasing wind 
 and the roughness of the sea, made the ex- 
 pedition one of peril. In a heavy sea their 
 mast broke and was carried away, and 
 they were obliged to take to their oars. In 
 the rain and darkness of the December 
 night they succeeded in getting under the 
 lee of a small island and remained there 
 that night in safety. 
 
 The next day was Sunday. The morn- 
 ing dawned fair. In the warmth of the 
 December's sun they dried their clothes, 
 rested themselves, and gave thanks to 
 God for His mercies in their manifold de- 
 liverances. 
 
 On Monday, the 21st of December, 
 they sounded the harbor which had wel- 
 comed Champlain and Block and Smith 
 before the Pilgrims' arrival, and then, 
 119 
 
PLYIMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 landing upon the shore and marching in 
 to the land, found the abandoned corn- 
 fields and the fresh running brooks. It is 
 the landing of the shallop's company on 
 the 21st of December, 1620, which has 
 passed into history as the Landing of the 
 Pilgrims. 
 
 For the preservation of the Rock and 
 its identification as the spot which the 
 Pilgrim feet first pressed as they landed 
 on the shore which was to be their perma- 
 nent home, we are indebted to the last 
 ruling elder of the Plymouth Church, 
 Elder Thomas Faunce, clarum et venerabile 
 nomen in the annals of Plymouth, who, 
 one hundred and twenty years later 
 (1741), standing beside the Rock in the 
 presence of many witnesses, preserved it 
 from being buried beneath a wharf then in 
 process of construction, and told the story 
 of the Landing as it had been told to him 
 by the Pilgrims. He was Elder of the 
 First Church for nearly half a century, 
 from 1699 to 1746, and for nearly forty 
 years, from 1685 to 1723, the Town 
 120 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 Clerk. Born in 1647 he had Hved in the 
 Kfetime of four members of the shallop's 
 company, a boy of nine years when Stand - 
 ish died, of ten years when Bradford died, 
 and a man of twenty-six years when John 
 Rowland died, and these landed from the 
 shallop on December 21, 1620. He was 
 forty years old when John Alden died. 
 He had known twenty-three of the May- 
 flower passengers, his mother was the sis- 
 ter of Nathaniel Morton, historian and 
 Secretary of the Colony; one sister mar- 
 ried the son of Richard Warren; another 
 sister, the son of Edward Dotey; and a 
 third sister, the son of John Robinson. Is 
 there any valid reason, then, to doubt the 
 story which comes from the lips of one 
 whose high character, oflficial position, 
 and unequaled opportunities to learn the 
 fact which he testifies, compel our respect 
 and justify our confidence? 
 ' With the news that they had selected 
 this place to plant the feeble settlement, 
 they returned to Cape Cod, and on the 
 26th of December, 1620, the " Mayflower," 
 121 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 with torn sails, broken timbers, and bat- 
 tered hull, came to anchor in the harbor 
 of Plymouth. Nine days later they began 
 the erection on Leyden Street of their 
 first house, which was to be the common 
 house for them and their supplies. 
 
 At the time of the arrival, according to 
 the letter from John White of the Massa- 
 chusetts Colony, written ten years later, 
 there was about one foot of snow on the 
 ground, and the weather of the winter 
 months that followed is reported gener- 
 ally to have been mild but wet. 
 
 Of the one hundred and two passengers 
 who were on board the "Mayflower" at 
 the date of the signing of the Compact 
 in Cape Cod harbor, twenty-nine were 
 women and girls. The birth of Peregrine 
 White, the first English child born in New 
 England, increased the number to one hun- 
 dred and three. While the '* Mayflower" 
 lay in Cape Cod harbor four of the passen- 
 gers died, leaving ninety -nine in all from 
 the oldest to the youngest to go forward 
 with this perilous and uncertain adven- 
 122 
 
\ 
 
 PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 ture. The total number of survivors at 
 the end of the first year was fifty-one. 
 More than half of the company then had 
 died between the signing of the Compact 
 and the arrival of the "Fortune" in No- 
 vember, 1621 . Of that number forty-seven 
 had died before the " Mayflower " sailed on 
 its return voyage in April, 1621. Of the 
 forty-one signers of the Compact, twenty- 
 one had perished. Of the eighteen wives 
 and mothers only four survived the hard- 
 ships of the first year. 
 
 "I saw in the naked forest 
 Our scattered remnant cast, 
 A screen of shivering branches 
 Between them and the blast. 
 The snow was f alHng romid them. 
 The dying fell as fast, 
 I looked to see them perish 
 When lo, the vision passed." 
 
 In the last analysis the descendants of the 
 Mayflower Company to-day must trace 
 their descent through different lines to one 
 or more of twenty -two of the male pas- 
 sengers of the " Mayflower." 
 
 On the 15th of April, 1621, the *'May- 
 123 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 flower," after lying one hundred and ten 
 days in the harbor and losing nearly half 
 of her officers and crew by disease, sails on 
 her return voyage to England, leaving the 
 survivors of the Pilgrim Company behind, 
 "alone with their dead." There v/as no 
 general landing of the Pilgrims; many of 
 the company had remained on board the 
 "Mayflower" during the winter, and it 
 was not until March 31 that the ship's car- 
 penter was able to fit the shallop "to fetch 
 all from aboard." 
 
 The picture of the return of the " May- 
 flower " from the New World is a more sug- 
 gestive and striking picture even than the 
 departure of the "Mayflower" from the 
 Old World. Inspired by faith and cheered 
 by the hope of happier days and greater op- 
 portunities in the New World, the May- 
 flower Company had sailed. Now, with 
 half their number gone, what but faith 
 remained.^ The precedent of earlier expe- 
 ditions, where the mortality had been less 
 and the survivors included no women and 
 children in the list, would seem to have 
 124 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 fully justified the return of some of the 
 little company which watched from the 
 shore the white sail of the " Mayflower" as 
 it disappeared beyond the horizon, "as an 
 angel's wing through an opening cloud is 
 seen and then withdrawn." 
 
 A situation more discouraging could 
 hardly be conceived. Their connections 
 with the Old World were severed. The 
 most that could be hoped was that before 
 another winter some vessel might arrive, 
 bringing new additions to their number 
 and supplies which might enable them to 
 overcome the difficulties which surrounded 
 them. But whether the hoped-for vessel 
 would appear depended not only upon the 
 perils of the seas, but upon the ability of 
 the adventurers to furnish and equip an- 
 other ship, and whether also there could 
 be found in England or Holland other Pil- 
 grims to attempt the desperate undertak- 
 ing, in view of the record of the past 
 months. To a degree which can scarcely 
 be overestimated, then, the future of the 
 New World depended upon the indomita- 
 125 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 ble courage and fortitude and faith of 
 these fifty men, women, and children, a 
 company not larger than that number 
 which Dermer, the last voyager to the 
 shores, had stated to be the least number 
 necessary to a successful settlement. 
 
 If one were seeking to best illustrate the 
 Pilgrim spirit, or what perhaps may be 
 termed as the Pilgrim quality, he would 
 find it in the fact that, undaunted by the 
 sufferings and losses of the winter, undis- 
 mayed by the thought of perils which 
 awaited them in the future, with slight 
 grounds for confidence in the final issue, 
 facing pestilence and famine and an In- 
 dian foe, uncertain which of the three 
 were most to be feared, they stand upon 
 that hill overlooking the sea where their 
 dead rested in unmarked graves, an ex- 
 ample to all ages of an heroic devotion to 
 duty as they saw it and of a faith which 
 could overcome all obstacles. 
 
 Such, then, is one of the lessons of the 
 Pilgrim story, and one of the examples 
 which the Pilgrims have left to a nation 
 126 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 which counts them among its founders. 
 It was Sir Francis Bacon who said, "As in 
 the Arts and Sciences, the first founda- 
 tion is of more consequence than all the 
 improvements afterwards, so in king- 
 doms, the first foundation or plantation 
 is of more noble dignity and merit than 
 all that foUoweth." A scene like that 
 which marked the " Mayflower's " depart- 
 ure makes still more clear the meaning 
 of those wise and fine lines. 
 
 The climatic and economic conditions 
 of the first years of the Pilgrim Company 
 at Plymouth have been preserved not only 
 in the writings of Bradford, but in the re- 
 ports of careful and competent observers 
 who visited Plymouth in the early years 
 and noted their observations, and the 
 points of view of these different writers 
 naturally result in laying emphasis upon 
 the conditions which appealed to each the 
 most forcibly. For example, Cushman, 
 the lay preacher, simply describes the 
 general conditions as he found them in 
 1621, "We have here great peace, plenty 
 127 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 of the Gospel, and many sweet delights 
 and varietie of comforts." WiUiam Hil- 
 ton, who was one of the passengers in the 
 "Fortune," in the letter first printed in 
 Smith's "New England's Trials," de- 
 scribes the country as "Very pleasant and 
 temperate. Great store of fruits and 
 vines in great abundance." The woods 
 are full of game; the lake and sea abound 
 in fish, but for him the persuasive argu- 
 ment for emigration is, "We are all free 
 holders. The rent day doth not trouble 
 us!" Evidently having in his mind the 
 contrast between this new land and Eng- 
 land, as Cushman describes it in his 
 "Reasons and Considerations," touching 
 the lawfulness of removing out of England 
 into parts of America: 
 
 In England the hospitals are full of the 
 ancient. . . . And the alms houses are filled 
 with old laborers. Many there are who get 
 their living with bearing burdens, but more 
 are fain to burden the land with their whole 
 bodies. Multitudes get their means of life 
 by prating, and so do numbers more by 
 begging. 
 
 128 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 John Pory, who had been Secretary for 
 Virginia, on his return voyage from Vir- 
 ginia to England in 1622 in the ship " Dis- 
 covery" (Thomas Jones, master) stopped 
 at Plymouth for a brief visit. We have 
 the good fortune to have preserved in the 
 John Carter Brown Library a manuscript 
 copy of his letter to the Earl of Southamp- 
 ton, giving an interesting and graphic pic- 
 ture of that visit to Plymouth. He writes: 
 
 Such is the wholesomeness of the place, the 
 Governor told me that for the space of one 
 whole year of the two wherein they had been 
 there, died not one man, woman or child. 
 The healthfulness is accompanied with much 
 plenty, both of fish and fowl every day in the 
 year, as I know no place in the world can 
 match it. He gives as the reason for this 
 plenty the continual tranquility of the place, 
 being guarded on all sides from the fury of the 
 storms, as also the abundance of fish at low 
 water, the bottom of the bay then appearing 
 as a green meadow and lastly, the number of 
 freshets (brooks) running into the bay, where 
 they may refresh their thirst. 
 
 And then proceeds: 
 
 Now as concerning the quality of the peo- 
 129 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 pie. How happy were it for our people in the 
 southern colony if they were as free from 
 wickedness and vice as these are in this place. 
 
 Pory describes their fortifications and 
 
 pays tribute to their industry, in that they 
 
 have erected 
 
 a substantial pallisado of ^700 feet in com- 
 pass, stronger than I have seen in Virginia, 
 and lastly, by a blockhouse which they have 
 erected in the highest part of the town to 
 mount their ordnance upon, from whence 
 they command all the harbor. 
 
 While John Smith, a more trained ob- 
 server, writing in 1624, says: 
 
 At Plymouth there is about 180 persons, 
 some cattle and goats, but many swine and 
 poultry, 32 dwelling houses whereof 7 were 
 burned the last winter, and the value of 500 
 pounds in other goods. The town is empaled 
 about an half a mile in compass. In the town, 
 upon a high mount, they have a fort, well 
 built with wood, loam and stone, where is 
 planted their ordnance. Also a fair watch- 
 tower, partly framed for the sentinel. The 
 place it seems is healthful for the last three 
 years, notwithstanding the great want of 
 most necessaries, there having not one died of 
 the first planters. 
 
 130 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 And De Rasieres, having been sent on 
 an embassy from New Amsterdam to the 
 Plymouth colony in 1627, in a letter to 
 one of the directors of the Dutch West 
 India Company, describes in detail the 
 careful preparations which had been made 
 against hostile attack by sea or land, but 
 also notes that the Pilgrims give the In- 
 dian tribes an "example of better ordi- 
 nances and a better life" than the Dutch 
 give at Manhattan. 
 
 One lesson which the example of the 
 Pilgrims teaches is the lesson of adequate 
 military preparation for the safety of the 
 state as well as of the little town. Pory 
 was impressed with the extraordinary in- 
 dustry which the Pilgrims displayed in the 
 construction of their military works, and 
 when one considers how few the number 
 of workers in the early years of the colony 
 and how difficult the construction of so ex- 
 tensive works when the facilities available 
 were quite inadequate, one is impressed 
 with the importance which they gave to 
 this problem of preparation. 
 131 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRBIS 
 
 As early as 1622 a fort was built on 
 Burial Hill, of stout timber with a flat 
 roof and battlements on which their ord- 
 nance was mounted and where they kept 
 constant watch. As Secretary Morton 
 says, "It was a great work for them to 
 do in their weakness and in times of want, 
 but the danger of the time required it." 
 Not only was a fort built, but the town 
 was empaled, including the top of the hill, 
 and with four bulwarks or jetties, from 
 which the whole town could be defended, 
 and in three of which were gates. The ex- 
 tent of this palisade was twenty-seven 
 hundred feet as Smith describes it. 
 
 Wlien De Rasieres arrived in 1627 the 
 construction work had been very much 
 extended. The houses were built of hewn 
 planks and the gardens enclosed by 
 planks, so that both the houses and court- 
 yards are arranged in good order. In ad- 
 dition to that, there was a stockade 
 against sudden attacks, and at the ends of 
 the street were the three wooden gates. 
 On the cross-street, in the center of the 
 132 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 palisade, was the Governor's house "be- 
 fore which there was a square en- 
 closure upon which four pedereros* are 
 mounted," so as to flank the streets. 
 Then on the hill is the large square house 
 used both as a fort and a meeting-house, 
 with flat roof, made of thick planks, 
 studded with oak beams on the top of 
 which are mounted six cannon which 
 carry balls of from four to five pounds, 
 and command the surrounding country. 
 The cannon command the street and the 
 ford over the brook. The fort stood upon 
 the military crest of the hill, as it is 
 termed, and above it on the very top of 
 the hiU was placed the watch-tower, from 
 which a view could be had of the entire 
 country, and where later a beacon in case 
 of Indian attack was lighted. 
 
 When they meet for service on Sundays 
 or holidays "they assemble by beat of 
 drum, each with his musket or firelock, in 
 front of the captain's door." Then in or- 
 der, three abreast, led by a sergeant with- 
 out drum-beat, they march up the hill to 
 133 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 the fort. Behind comes the Governor, on 
 his right hand the preacher with his cloak, 
 and on his left hand the captain with his 
 side arms. And so they march in good 
 order and each sets his arms down near 
 him. Thus they are constantly on their 
 guard, night and day. Above the fort 
 floats the English flag. Every able-bodied 
 citizen is trained in the use of arms, and in 
 case of sudden alarm, his post is assigned 
 him. In time of public danger, under the 
 Act of 1675 it was ordered that whoever 
 shall shoot off a gun on any unnecessary 
 occasion, or at any game, except an In- 
 dian or a wolf, shall forfeit five shillings. 
 The fort was several times repaired and 
 enlarged, and finally, just before King 
 Philip's War, was rebuilt. It formed a 
 square one hundred feet on each side with 
 palisades ten and one half feet high, large 
 enough to receive, if necessary, all the 
 citizens in case of attack. There was no 
 danger of a shortage of water, for a flow- 
 ing spring was located within the enclo- 
 sure on the slope of the hill. 
 134 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 It is an interesting fact that no hostile 
 shot was ever fired from the guns upon 
 the fort. Occasionally an alarm gun 
 sounded, but no attack was ever made 
 upon the homes enclosed within the pali- 
 sade, nor was any attack ever made by 
 the Indians upon the homes within the 
 limits of the town of Plymouth until in 
 King Philip's War a few houses were de- 
 stroyed in the village of Chiltonville. 
 
 But the thoroughness of the prepara- 
 tion, the care given to every detail of de- 
 fense, the compulsory training in the use 
 of military arms, the requirement of the 
 law under which it was necessary for each 
 citizen to equip himself with musket and 
 ammunition, and the fact that nothing 
 was omitted which would tend to secure 
 the safety of the infant colony during all 
 those years, is a sufficient explanation, if 
 any were needed, why they escaped the 
 perils of Indian attack. Both treaty and 
 preparedness they found were necessary 
 for security against the horrors of war 
 and for the maintenance of an enduring 
 135 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 peace, and "useless each without the 
 other." 
 
 There are two pohtical and legal instru- 
 ments which measurably shaped and 
 directed the development of the Pilgrim 
 movement, and which in some important 
 respects may be regarded as marking the 
 technical beginning and close of the inde- 
 pendency of town and colony. 
 
 First, the Bradford patent of 1629, and 
 secondly, the New England Confederacy 
 of 1643. The Pilgrim story, as related by 
 historian and annalist, is mainly the rec- 
 ord of the lives and labors of individuals, 
 the details of municipal action, the estab- 
 lishment of little centers of church and 
 corporate life, the relations of the early 
 settlers with the Indian tribes in the im- 
 mediate neighborhood, or with the new 
 settlements of later emigrants in planta- 
 tions somewhat remote from Plymouth. 
 These two incidents stand out somewhat 
 apart in their significance, operation, and 
 eflfect. 
 
 136 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 The Bradford Patent 
 Prior to the issue of the patent from the 
 president and council for New England to 
 Bradford and his associates, dated Janu- 
 ary 13, 1629, the entries in the Colony 
 Records relate mainly to transfers of land 
 and shares in cattle, the only important 
 general legislation being the court order 
 of December 17, 1623, providing for a jury 
 trial in civil and criminal matters; the 
 order of the 29th of May, 1625, prohibit- 
 ing the sale or transport of planks, boards, 
 or frames for houses and vessels, which 
 may tend to the destruction of timber, 
 without the consent of the Governor and 
 Council; and the orders relating to trans- 
 portation of corn, beans, or peas without 
 the colony, and providing that no handi- 
 craftsmen should use their trade for any 
 strangers or foreigners till the necessity of 
 the colony be served. 
 
 The Bradford patent recites that Brad- 
 ford and his associates have for nine years 
 lived in New England and have inhabited 
 137 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 and planted a town called by the name of 
 "New Plymouth," and "by the special 
 providence of God and their extraordinary 
 care and industry, they have increased 
 their plantation to near 300 people and 
 are upon all occasions able to relieve any 
 new planters or others. His Majesty's 
 subjects, who may fall upon that coast." 
 
 The territorial limits of the tract 
 granted by the patent includes substan- 
 tially all of Plymouth County and all of 
 Bristol and Barnstable Counties and the 
 towns of Bristol, Warren, Barrington, 
 Little Compton, and Tiverton in Rhode 
 Island, and further includes a grant of 
 fifteen miles on each side of the Kennebec 
 River, on which was the Pilgrim trading- 
 post for trade with the Indians. It is a 
 grant to- Bradford, his heirs and assigns, 
 subject to a rental to the King of one fifth 
 of the gold and silver within the territory 
 and one fifth thereof to the President and 
 Council. It provides and authorizes an 
 incorporation of the inhabitants, with 
 liberty "to frame and make orders, ordi- 
 138 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 nances and constitutions," for the better 
 government of their affairs here and also 
 in New England, and that the same may 
 be put in execution by such officers and 
 ministers as he or they shall authorize and 
 depute, provided that such laws and or- 
 ders be not repugnant to the laws of Eng- 
 land or to the frame of government by the 
 President and Council to be hereafter 
 established. 
 
 In March, 1641, Governor Bradford 
 surrenders ''into the hands of the whole 
 Court, consisting of the free men of this 
 corporation of New Plymouth, all the 
 right and title, power, authoritie, privi- 
 leges, immunities and freedoms granted 
 in the said letters patent," with some 
 small reservations for the benefit of the 
 old planters. 
 
 The memorandum upon the instru- 
 ment shows that this surrender was made 
 by Bradford in public court to Nathaniel 
 Sowther, then Secretary of the colony, 
 who was especially authorized by the 
 Court to receive the same, together with 
 139 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 the letters patent in the name and for the 
 use of the whole body of freemen. The 
 General Court was composed of all the 
 freemen of the colony; they chose the ojQS- 
 cers of the government, made the laws, 
 and the first list of freemen, under date of 
 1633, includes sixty-eight names. This 
 was the body politic of the Plymouth 
 Colony. 
 
 The officers were a Governor and seven 
 assistants. There was no deputy governor 
 until 1636, when the Governor was au- 
 thorized to appoint one of the assistants 
 to govern during his absence, and not till 
 1679 was a deputy governor actually 
 chosen. 
 
 This Bradford patent of 1629 uses the 
 words "Town of New Plymouth," and is 
 the earliest reference to Plymouth as a 
 town. In the Colony laws of 1632 Plym- 
 outh is referred to as a town, but the first 
 entry in the Town Records which bears 
 any date, the prior entries relating only 
 to the earmarks of the cattle, is March, 
 1637, and the first record of a meeting of 
 140 
 
PLYMOUTH AND TIIE PILGRIMS 
 
 the townsmen of New Plymouth at which 
 " all the inhabitants from Jones River 
 to the Eele River were present" was in 
 July, 1638, to consider the disposition 
 of the stock given by James Sherley, a 
 London merchant, to the "poore" of 
 Plymouth. 
 
 Under the Provincial laws it was pro- 
 vided, in 1775, that "Every incorporated 
 district shall henceforth be and shall be 
 holden, taken and intended to be a town 
 to all intents and purposes," and under 
 the Acts of 1785 it was provided that 
 "The inhabitants of every town within 
 this government are hereby declared to be 
 a body politic and corporate." 
 
 The fact is that, as the Supreme Court 
 later held,^ "Towns become in effect mu- 
 nicipal or quasi-corporations without any 
 formal act of incorporation." Thus the 
 date of the establishment of Duxbury is 
 given as 1637, of Hingham as 1635, of Hull 
 as 1644, of Marshfield as 1642, and of 
 Bridgewater as 1656. The immediate ef- 
 
 1 122 Mass. p. 349. 
 141 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 feet of the patent was firmly to establish 
 the colony on a more secure and more 
 clearly defined foundation and to create 
 a well-regulated body politic and permit 
 a better-organized form of government 
 than had before been practical. 
 
 The second event was the establish- 
 ment, in 1643, fourteen years later, of the 
 New England Confederacy, the union of 
 the four larger colonies, far-reaching in its 
 operation and results. 
 
 The New England Confederacy 
 By 1643 the population of New England 
 had increased to more than twenty thou- 
 sand persons, and some three hundred 
 ships carrying four thousand families had 
 come over from England and Holland to 
 the New World. The Massachusetts Bay 
 Colony, lying immediately north of the 
 Plymouth Colony, had been founded in 
 1629. To the south and west of Massa- 
 chusetts were the colonies of Connecticut 
 and New Haven. In addition to these 
 four colonies were two other modest cen- 
 142 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 ters of English population, Providence 
 and Rhode Island. And north and north- 
 east of Massachusetts in that then distant 
 territory, now divided into the States of 
 Maine and New Hampshire, were the 
 little independent settlements of Dover, 
 Exeter, and others. But the important 
 colonies in numbers and wealth were the 
 four colonies above mentioned, Plymouth, 
 Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, and 
 New Haven. 
 
 A combination among those colonies 
 was proposed in order to prevent a gen- 
 eral conspiracy of the Indians against the 
 English in all parts and to furnish the 
 necessary means to secure the protection 
 of the settlers. Two delegates from each 
 of the four colonies met at Boston to pre- 
 pare the articles of confederation, "the 
 model and prototype," says John Quincy 
 Adams, ''of the North American Confed- 
 eracy of 1774." 
 
 They agree that the name shall hence- 
 forth be the "United Colonies of New 
 England." In the event of peril each col- 
 143 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 ony was to send its quota of men, suffi- 
 ciently armed and provided for the service 
 in the proportion at first of one hundred 
 men as Massachusetts's share and from 
 each of the other three colonies forty-five 
 men. 
 
 • For managing the affairs of the whole 
 confederation two commissioners from 
 each jurisdiction were chosen with full 
 power from their several general courts to 
 determine the affairs of war and peace, 
 the number of men for war, the division of 
 supplies and all things "which are proper 
 concomitants or consequences of such a 
 confederation, for amitie, offence and de- 
 fence; not intermeddling with the gov- 
 ernmente of any of the jurisdictions." 
 
 By the eighth article of the combina- 
 tion it was agreed that the commissioners 
 should endeavor to "frame and establish 
 agreements and orders in general cases of 
 a civil nature, ... for the preservation of 
 peace among themselves and preventing 
 as much as may be all occasions of war or 
 difference with others," and provision was 
 144 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 made for the extradition of fugitive serv- 
 ants or prisoners from one colony to the 
 others. A similar provision is found in the 
 Constitution of the United States/ later 
 superseded by the Thirteenth Amend- 
 ment. 
 
 On the 7th of September, 1643, the 
 General Court of Plymouth, having ap- 
 proved the combination, it was ratified in 
 its behalf by its representatives, Winslow 
 and Collier, and thereafter the confedera- 
 tion in form and substance continued un- 
 til 1686, at which time Sir Edmund Andros 
 appeared with his commission from James 
 II as Governor of all New England. 
 
 From the date of the organization of the 
 confederacy, Plymouth's influence in the 
 important questions of peace and war was 
 limited by the authority vested by the 
 combination in the other colonies of the 
 confederacy. By the year 1644 the popu- 
 lation of the town of Plymouth had been 
 reduced to the estimated number of one 
 hundred and fifty. The more fertile soil, 
 
 1 Art. IV, Sec. 2. 
 145 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 the greater opportunities for trade which 
 the estabhshment of settlements from 
 New Hampshire to Connecticut per- 
 mitted, had been a stimulus to emigration 
 from Plymouth, and had checked the 
 growth of that settlement. Meetings and 
 conferences were held as to the desirabil- 
 ity of the removal of the church to some 
 other fit place which might more conven- 
 iently and comfortably receive the whole 
 "with such others as might come to 
 them." 
 
 It was first determined to remove to a 
 place called "Nauset," which was incor- 
 porated in 1646, and its name changed to 
 "Eastham" in 1651. But further investi- 
 gation showed that that place was remote 
 and not competent to receive the whole 
 body of the church. But many who re- 
 solved upon removal took advantage of 
 the agreement and moved away, and as 
 Bradford quaintly puts it: 
 
 Thus was this poor church left like an an- 
 cient mother, grown old and forgotten of her 
 children, though not in their affections yet in 
 
 146 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 regard of their bodily presence and personal 
 helpfulness. Her ancient members being 
 most of them worn away by death and those 
 of later times being like children, translated 
 into other families, and she, like a widow, left 
 only to trust in God. Thus she that had made 
 many rich became herself poor. 
 
 The establishment of the New England 
 Confederacy, the division of the ancient 
 church, the loss of population and wealth 
 in the town of Plymouth, marks the close 
 of the important influence which Plym- 
 outh and the Pilgrim had in other years 
 exerted in the affairs of New England. 
 But no story would be complete or ade- 
 quate which failed to refer to some inci- 
 dents, well worth remembering, which 
 illustrate the Pilgrim idea and policy and 
 teach their helpful lesson in the considera- 
 tion of some of the problems of the present 
 day. 
 
 The real use of history is not limited to 
 a mere recital of past events without 
 reference to their connection with, or in- 
 fluence upon, the present. We are all 
 more interested in the present and the 
 147 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 immediate future than in the past; "that 
 at least is secure." 
 
 History is the recital of past experience 
 of individuals and nations, and there is no 
 way of judging of the future but by the past 
 and that which the past has revealed to us. 
 
 I ask your attention to some considera- 
 tion of the effect of the Pilgrims' lives and 
 labors, and of the lessons which may be 
 learned from their policy and example. 
 
 Upon the stately gate of the great 
 World's Exposition at Chicago, was in- 
 scribed the impressive line: 
 
 Toleration in Religion the best fruit of the last 
 four centuries. 
 
 That was America's verdict of the value 
 of that gift to humanity and civilization 
 which those centuries have brought. The 
 same hand which wrote the inscription in 
 Chicago drafted the inscription upon the 
 window of the church at Plymouth: 
 
 Religious Liberty, the fruit of Pilgrim sowing. 
 
 These fine phrases by President Eliot fe- 
 licitously express the thought that the re- 
 148 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 ligious liberty and toleration which those 
 centuries have made possible were the 
 Pilgrim ideals. 
 
 It is true that in practice or in precept 
 the fullest expression of that ideal cannot 
 be found within the limits of the Plym- 
 outh Colony. Roger Williams carried 
 the doctrine of absolute toleration to its 
 logical conclusion and justified a broader 
 liberty than many a Pilgrim leader was 
 ready to accept. But the recognition of 
 this principle of toleration, even if not 
 pressed to its logical extreme, is their leg- 
 acy to a nation. The full development of 
 the idea into a principle of law and prac- 
 tice came as a result of years of effort and 
 thought and study, but is a necessary re- 
 sult of the Pilgrim example. 
 
 When in other colonies for a time re- 
 ligious leaders taught, as did Mather, that 
 "Anti Christ has not a more probable 
 way to advance his kingdom of darkness 
 than by a toleration of all religions," and 
 civil governors held with Governor Dud- 
 ley in Massachusetts Bay that *'It was 
 149 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 the duty of men of God in courts and 
 churches 
 
 "To watch 
 O'er such as do a toleration hatch, 
 Lest that ill egg bring forth a cockatrice 
 To poison all with heresee and vice" 
 
 — a Httle candle hghted at Plymouth 
 burned brightly through the darkness and 
 the gloom. The constitution of the great 
 States and greater Union, of which they 
 laid the corner-stone, now expresses that 
 fundamental principle of the right of in- 
 dividual judgment in matters of con- 
 science and of the duty of the State to 
 recognize and enforce that right whenever 
 challenged, and this principle and duty is 
 the necessary result of the practical de- 
 velopment and application of the Pilgrim 
 faith. 
 
 i The example of the Pilgrim Church and 
 the teachings of Dr. Fuller, who not only 
 practiced medicine, but also taught the 
 congregational polity of the Plymouth 
 church when he visited the early settle- 
 ments in the Massachusetts Bay, were 
 150 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PHLGRIMS 
 
 contributing, if not controlling, factors in 
 the establishment of the independent 
 churches in the Bay Colony and later fol- 
 lowed in the plantations in Connecticut 
 and New Haven. 
 
 Church government as well as town 
 government was necessarily affected by 
 local conditions and environment. It was 
 the natural form of government in those 
 little communities and which necessity 
 seemed to compel as best adapted to meet 
 the present requirements and everyday 
 needs. In the election and ordination by 
 each congregation of its own minister, in 
 the adoption by each congregation of a 
 separate and distinct covenant, though 
 bearing a close resemblance to each other, 
 and in the order of public worship the 
 other churches of these early New Eng- 
 land settlements followed the Plymouth 
 form of Independency. "Into this Con- 
 gregationalism," says Dr. Walker, the 
 Plymouth physician, Dr. Fuller was "more 
 than any other man the means of trans- 
 forming New England Puritanism." 
 151 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 The influence of Plymouth in this result 
 was early recognized, and is supported by 
 contemporaneous authorities and is a mat- 
 ter, therefore, of historic record and not of 
 conjecture merely. 
 
 Congregationalism finds its earliest ex- 
 ponent in New England in that first 
 meeting-house on the slope of Burial Hill. 
 
 At the basis of that first foundation or 
 plantation here, lay the great ideal that 
 their migration was a transplanting of the 
 family and the home and not merely of 
 individuals, as had been the case in former 
 expeditions to the New World. The unit 
 of the Pilgrim Company was the family. 
 As they gathered on the Mayflower's 
 deck, the members of each family stand 
 side by side; when the allotment of lands 
 was first made in Plymouth, it was an 
 allotment to designated families. Home 
 and family, then, were central ideas, pri- 
 mary units of the Pilgrim Company. The 
 English word "home" has no exact 
 equivalent in any other language; it has 
 152 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 no synonym in ours. No short phrase ex- 
 presses its full meaning. It conveys not 
 merely the idea of residence, but of per- 
 manence; the idea not merely of a place 
 for the collection of its comforts and neces- 
 sities which supply the present needs of the 
 members of the home, but also the attach- 
 ments, the memories, the associations of 
 the past and the hopes for the future. 
 
 The expeditions to New England in 
 former years were composed of men only, 
 sailors, soldiers, explorers, gallant and ad- 
 venturous, fit types of the proud race 
 from which they sprung. They sail in 
 search of fame and fortune, inspired by 
 the hope that when these were won, they 
 would return with full hands to the old 
 homes which they were leaving behind. 
 Now the Pilgrim Company was animated 
 by no such hope. They knew that there 
 was no alternative save victory or death. 
 To the Pilgrims the presence of the women 
 and children on the " Mayflower," tossed 
 about by the boisterous waves of the 
 stormy Atlantic, and their presence on 
 153 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 the Plymouth hills and shore in that 
 gloomy winter when half the Pilgrim 
 Company perished "before the pestilence 
 that walketh in darkness and the destruc- 
 tion that wasteth at noonday," was an 
 appeal more persuasive and tender and 
 inspiring than any other to lead them to 
 the highest achievements of courage, 
 fortitude, and faith. 
 
 This fact, that the civil polity which 
 they founded had as its central idea the 
 family life and home, that the responsi- 
 bilities which they assumed, the obli- 
 gations and the burdens which rested 
 heavily upon them, depended principally 
 upon the relation of the individual Pil- 
 grim to the family which he loved and to 
 which he owed allegiance and loyalty, 
 was the significant and important differ- 
 ence which marks the Pilgrim migration 
 from those which had preceded it. This 
 fundamental idea of the home or family as 
 the unit in the State has been of far- 
 reaching influence in the development of 
 New England. 
 
 154 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 It is true that the suffrage was a man- 
 hood suffrage, quahfied, Hmited, re- 
 stricted, but widening as the years went 
 by. It is not to be forgotten, however, 
 that this suffrage was also a representa- 
 tive suffrage in which the householder had 
 and exercised the right. There is a fa- 
 miliar passage from an English orator, 
 based upon a judicial opinion of Sir Ed- 
 ward Coke: 
 
 The poorest man may in his cottage bid de- 
 fiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may 
 be frail; its roof may shake; the wind may 
 blow through it and the storms may enter, 
 the rain may enter, but the King of England 
 cannot enter; all his forces dare not cross the 
 threshold of the ruined tenement. 
 
 That passage admirably expresses that 
 central idea of the part which the home 
 played in the community life when legis- 
 lation was solely directed to its security 
 and protection, and to its freedom from 
 unreasonable and illegal search. In the 
 changing conditions of the present that 
 earlier idea is losing ground. If it be true 
 that new occasions teach new duties, it is 
 155 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 no less true that time does not always 
 make ancient good uncouth. The empha- 
 sis which is now laid upon some modern 
 theories of government, under the opera- 
 tion of which the idea of representation 
 fades, and the policy is established that 
 the husband and father shall no longer 
 represent the wife or daughter or home, is 
 likely to bring in its train enduring re- 
 sults whose effect and character cannot 
 now be foreseen. 
 
 I have no intention of entering into the 
 vexed question which that last sentence 
 perhaps suggests. I desire merely to 
 note, as a student of history, the disap- 
 pearance of the old idea of representative 
 government and the fast-growing tend- 
 ency to deny some earlier principles which 
 lay at the basis of New England, polity. 
 The operation, and effect of this polity 
 has played its part in the development of 
 State and Nation, and in spite of the pres- 
 ent pessimistic views of existing conditions 
 and gloomier predictions for the future, 
 has brought to humanity help and oppor- 
 156 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 tunity for which the centuries which have 
 passed furnished no precedent and no 
 parallel. 
 
 Among the great Pilgrim ideals, is this 
 ideal of home and family as the center of 
 the life in the New World, for whose pro- 
 tection, development, and permanence not 
 only forts and palisades were built, but 
 laws and ordinances were also enacted. 
 
 The Treaty 
 
 On the first of April, 1621, occurred 
 that scene in Pilgrim history in some re- 
 spects the most interesting, significant, 
 and important of all that the history of 
 the time preserves. 
 
 It is a fair day, as the chronicler de- 
 scribes it, and the warm sunshine of the 
 approaching spring illumines the hills and 
 shores. The sun had barely passed its 
 meridian when there appear upon the first 
 street the two friendly Indians, Samoset 
 and Squanto, familiar names, the guides 
 and interpreters of the Pilgrims. They 
 brought the startling message that Massa- 
 157 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 soil and sixty of his men were fast ap- 
 proaching. In an hour the Indians appear 
 in plain sight on Watson's HiU. The Pil- 
 grim Company assembles on the first 
 street and on the summit of that hill the 
 more numerous band of Indian warriors. 
 Squanto goes over from the Pilgrims to 
 the Indians as their interpreter and re- 
 turns and reports that as a condition of 
 the friendly visit there must be sent to the 
 Indian chief a messenger and a hostage. 
 For that difficult and dangerous task 
 Winslow is selected. 
 
 In imagination you see that gallant 
 figure, his sword by his side, his armor 
 flashing in the western sun, his arms filled 
 with presents, a messenger of peace and 
 good-will, a hostage among savage foes, as 
 unattended he crosses the shallow brook 
 by the ancient ford, ascends the hill, and 
 now disappears among the trees. The anx- 
 ious moments slowly pass, and now from 
 the waiting Pilgrims the cry goes up, 
 "They come! They come!" 
 
 In single file, with silent step, one after 
 158 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 another of the Indian warriors comes into 
 view until twenty are seen marching 
 slowly down the hill slope, and then, with 
 "the roll of the stirring drum and the 
 trumpet that sings of fame," the Pilgrim 
 captain and Master Williamson and six 
 musketeers march down the first street 
 to meet at the brook the Indian band. 
 And now they turn, and Pilgrim and In- 
 dian, side by side, march up the hill and 
 down the ancient street. It is a striking 
 and suggestive picture, this first formal 
 meeting here in Plymouth of the oncom- 
 ing and the vanishing races. As the sav- 
 age figures pass, the timid children shrink 
 more closely to their mothers' sides and 
 the stout hearts of the sturdy Pilgrims 
 beat more quickly as they grasp their 
 muskets and their eyes rest on those anx- 
 ious faces. 
 
 It is a strange and stirring sight as an 
 eye-witness of that scene describes it. 
 The tall, stately figures of the Indian 
 warriors in the prime of their manhood, 
 all strong men,' grave of countenance, 
 159 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 spare of speech, their bows and arrows 
 laid aside, some wearing skins over their 
 shoulders, and some only a girdle about 
 their loins. On the chief's neck rested a 
 great string of white bone beads from 
 which, over his dark chest, hung a long 
 knife which glistened in the sunlight; a 
 bag of tobacco hung on his neck behind, 
 and in his hand he carried the pipe of 
 peace. His face was painted a deep red 
 like the color of a mulberry, and his fol- 
 lowers' faces were marked and crossed, or 
 wholly colored with black and yellow and 
 white and red paint. 
 
 And now they enter the house then 
 building on the slope of Leyden Street, 
 and seated on cushions and a green rug 
 make the famous treaty. Its clear provi- 
 sions bound them not to injure any of the 
 Pilgrims, and if any one offended them the 
 offender was to be sent to Plymouth for 
 punishment. In case any of the Pilgrims' 
 tools were taken, they were to be restored; 
 if war were made on either Pilgrim or 
 Indian, the other would promptly come 
 IGO 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 to his assistance. To these conditions of 
 peace they pledged the union of the neigh- 
 boring tribes. Unarmed each would visit 
 the other, and in return the Pilgrims gave 
 assurance that King James, if the Indians 
 kept the pledge, would esteem them as 
 friendly allies. 
 
 When the treaty was concluded, the 
 Governor escorts the returning Indians to 
 the brook, and another troop appears 
 with Quadaquina, the king's brother, as 
 their leader. But Winslow still lingers as 
 a hostage in the Indian camp and the 
 lengthening shadows fall before our mes- 
 senger returns. "Samoset and Squanto 
 slept that night in Plymouth ; and the king 
 and all his men lay all night in the woods 
 not above half an English mile from us, 
 and all their wives and women with 
 them," says the chronicler of that day, 
 while the watchful sentinels passed to and 
 fro. 
 
 The provisions of the treaty were faith- 
 fully kept for many a year. It was not un- 
 til those who met and feasted and pledged 
 
 161 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 the peace that day had long passed away 
 that within the Kmits of the old colony 
 the burning homes of the colonists, a pil- 
 lar of flame by night and smoke by day, 
 marked the course of the Indian foray. 
 And Philip succeeds Massasoit before the 
 blood of New England's sons fatten the 
 cornfields, or the war-whoop awakens 
 the sleep of the cradle. 
 
 It was a high tribute which the Gov- 
 ernor of Plymouth Colony fifty-four years 
 later paid to the early colonists when he 
 justly said that the "English did not pos- 
 sess one foot of land in this colony but 
 what was fairly obtained by honest pur- 
 chase of the Indian proprietors." Then 
 a solemn treaty was not regarded as "a 
 mere scrap of paper." 
 
 The agreement with the merchant ad- 
 venturers involved and required a com- 
 mon holding of property by the settlers 
 for the term of seven years, at which time 
 the real and personal property so held in 
 com.mon would be divided in certain 
 1C2 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 agreed proportions, as defined in the pre- 
 ceding lecture, among the members of the 
 company. But the conditions required, 
 in the first instance, that immediate pro- 
 vision should be made for the housing of 
 the people. 
 
 The first building to be constructed 
 would naturally be a common house 
 adapted for meetings, for the storage of 
 common supplies, and for a place of resi- 
 dence on shore while the private dwell- 
 ings were being constructed. For the 
 orderly housing of the people it was nec- 
 essary that they should be divided into 
 families or households, which as Bradford 
 groups them were twenty-four in number, 
 but when the land was measured on Janu- 
 ary 7, 1621, provision was made for all the 
 single men to join with some family, so 
 that fewer houses might be built, and the 
 number was then reduced to nineteen 
 families. The record in Bradford's hand- 
 writing of the meersteads and garden plots 
 which were first laid out shows the first 
 street, now Leyden Street, running from 
 163 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRBIS 
 
 the hill on the west to the sea on the east, 
 and on the south side of that street seven 
 lots. The great mortality of the first win- 
 ter wiped out entirely four households, 
 four others entirely escaped the sickness, 
 and of the remaining sixteen households 
 each lost one or more of its members. So 
 that these seven houses on the south 
 side of Leyden Street represented housing 
 facilities for approximately seven persons 
 each, which practically included the sur- 
 viving members of the Pilgrim Company. 
 In 1623 there was assigned to every fam- 
 ily a parcel of land in proportion to the 
 numbers, but only for present use. The 
 next year the demand became insistent 
 for a permanent division of land, which 
 should grant not merely its present use, 
 but such an absolute title as would insure 
 its transmission by inheritance; and to 
 every person was given one acre of land. 
 The allotments show that the division 
 was made in accordance not only with the 
 then present numbers in each family; but 
 also in some instances a larger number of 
 
 1G4 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 acres, representing undoubtedly the origi- 
 nal members of the family or the contribu- 
 tions in money which had been made and 
 in respect of which an additional share 
 was received in the allotment. The total 
 number of acres distributed among those 
 who came in the " Mayflower " was sixty- 
 nine. Thirty -three acres were allotted to 
 those who came in the " Fortune," and 
 ninety-five acres to those who came in the 
 '' Ann " and the " Little James," the emi- 
 grants in those four ships being designated 
 as the "first comers." This division made 
 an allotment of one hundred and ninety- 
 seven acres in all. It was probably cleared 
 land and was located along the water- 
 front. 
 
 Speaking generally, these lands are in- 
 cluded within a strip extending some two 
 miles along the shore and not more than a 
 quarter of a mile wide in the widest part, 
 and were undoubtedly the most available, 
 convenient, and easily cultivated of the 
 lands adapted to agricultural purposes in 
 the first settlement, and were held in con- 
 165 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PHLGRIMS 
 
 formity with the provisions of the patent, 
 according to the manor of East Green- 
 wich, except that, as De Rasieres noted 
 in his letter describing his visit in 1627, 
 "The eldest son has an acknowledgment 
 for his seniority of birth, which secured to 
 him a double share." 
 
 Now this division of lots was made 
 necessary by what some are pleased to 
 call the "infirmity of human nature," but 
 which in fact appears in history as the 
 most potent and helpful factor in the de- 
 velopment and prosperity of the race. In 
 the first place, as the Governor noted it, it 
 made all hands very industrious. More 
 corn was planted than would have been 
 done in any other way, and as Bradford 
 quaintly put it, "saved him a great deal 
 of trouble and gave [them] far better con- 
 tent." The women now went willingly 
 into the field and with their little ones 
 planted the corn. Before the allotment 
 they would have alleged weakness and in- 
 ability. To have exercised compulsion 
 upon them would have been thought 
 166 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 tyranny and oppression. The young men 
 that were most fit for labor and service 
 repined that they should spend their time 
 and strength for other men's wives and 
 children without return. " The strong, or 
 man of parts, had no more in devission of 
 victaile and cloaths, then he that was 
 weake and not able to doe a quarter 
 the other could." (Bradford.) 
 
 To everybody but the unfit this seemed 
 injustice. But it was thought indignity 
 and disrespect to make no distinction in 
 labor and its returns between the aged and 
 wise and the younger and meaner sort. 
 Neither wife nor husband could brook the 
 slavery which commanded that the wife 
 should do service for men other than her 
 husband. The effect was that this course 
 diminished the actual respect that should 
 be preserved amongst them and "would 
 have been worse if they had been men of 
 another condition; Let none object this 
 is man's corruption, and nothing to the 
 course itself. I answer, seeing all men 
 have this corruption in them, God, in His 
 167 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PttGRIMS 
 
 wisdom, saw another course fitter for 
 them," said Bradford. 
 
 The only two things that appear to re- 
 main unchanged since the first syllable of 
 recorded time are nature and human na- 
 ture. The same procession of the seasons, 
 the same planting and reaping, the same 
 movements of the heavenly bodies and 
 the tides, have endured from the begin- 
 ning. 
 
 "The mists that wrapped the Pilgrims* sleep 
 Still brood upon the tide." 
 
 And human nature is still as constant as 
 in the early times, still fresh is human 
 hope, still vigorous is human credulity. ^ 
 ' If it were impossible for communism to 
 succeed on Leyden Street three hundred 
 years ago in a homogeneous community, 
 speaking the same language, governed by 
 the same laws, with a common history, 
 tradition, and memories, under the very 
 environment which would seem to compel 
 its success, living under a contract which 
 required its adoption and acceptance, en- 
 gaged in the same pursuits and in the 
 168 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 presence of common perils, it is idle to 
 argue that under the widely different and 
 vastly more difficult and complicated 
 conditions of the present, communism can 
 prove a success, and human nature re- 
 main unchanged. "The experience that 
 was had in this commone course and 
 condition, tried sundrie years, and that 
 amongst godly and sober men, may well 
 evince the vaniti of that conceite of Pla- 
 tos and other ancients, applauded by 
 some of later times; that the taking away 
 of propertie, and bringing in communitie 
 into a comonewealth, would make them 
 happy and florishing; as if they were wiser 
 than God." 
 
 { This lesson of the Pilgrim days may 
 well commend itself to the student of 
 modern problems and is a happy illustra- 
 tion how their experience may still con- 
 tinue to be of service. 
 
 So the sagacious Bradford writes the 
 story of the trial and failure of commu- 
 nism in Plymouth. Under its impossible 
 conditions and discipline "Personality 
 169 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 and initiative are crushed. Each man 
 watches his neighbor lest he be not doing 
 his full share of work, each man is himself 
 watched and all distrust all. The prom- 
 ised freedom of action is hampered by 
 this universal atmosphere of distrust." 
 These words which I have just quoted 
 might have been written by William 
 Bradford in Plymouth. They picture, as 
 he described, conditions in Plymouth as 
 the result of the communistic govern- 
 ment, but the language quoted is from 
 a late report of a writer in the London 
 "Times" who graphically portrays the 
 communistic conditions in Russia in 1920. 
 It is an interesting fact that this con- 
 clusion which the Pilgrim reached was 
 based on actual experience, but also that 
 they had listened to the argument on the 
 other side. Robert Cushman in the com- 
 mon house on Leyden Street had preached 
 his sermon, in November, 1621, on "The 
 Sin and Danger of Self Love." In that dis- 
 course he asks, "Why wouldst thou have 
 thy particular portion but because thou 
 170 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 thinkest to live better than thy neigh- 
 bor?" To Satan he attributes the blame 
 of bringing "this particularizing first into 
 the world," and forcibly presents the argu- 
 ment that "if others be idle and thou dili- 
 gent, thy fellowship, provocation and ex- 
 ample may well help to cure that malady 
 in them, being together, but being asun- 
 der, shall they not be more idle, and shall 
 not gentry and beggary be quickly the 
 glorious ensigns of your commonwealth?" 
 The argument for communism is well 
 stated by the lay preacher, who was 
 about to depart to England not to return, 
 and who took the opportunity to present 
 to them some considerations for their ac- 
 ceptance of the somewhat unfortunate 
 agreernent he had made as their agent 
 with the merchant adventurers' company, 
 so distinctly communistic in character. 
 
 But it was a condition and not a theory 
 which confronted the sagacious leaders 
 of the company. The reasons given by 
 Bradford and their own experience were 
 more persuasive and convincing, as to the 
 171 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 course to be adopted, than the eariier ap- 
 peal of Cushman, but it is fair to say that 
 in some respects at least the case for com- 
 munism has not been better presented in 
 the past three hundred years than in the 
 famous sermon of Robert Cushman. 
 
 Among the present-day problems which 
 attract attention, invite discussion, and 
 result in much ill-considered and unwise 
 action, is the question of the proper treat- 
 ment of what are termed "undesirable 
 citizens," who seek by force or violence to 
 overturn constitutional government. At 
 the present time deportation seems to be 
 the peculiar penalty, with slight regard to 
 evidence, and no reference to that great 
 constitutional protection of the individ- 
 ual, jury trial. 
 
 I This problem was presented to the Pil- 
 grims, and relatively was a much more 
 serious one to the little company gathered 
 upon the Plymouth hillside than that 
 which presents itself to one hundred and 
 ten millions of Americans to-day. 
 172 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 A minister, not of their own choosing, 
 by the name of John Lyford, was sent at 
 the charge of the merchant adventurers 
 to the Plymouth Plantation to be their 
 pastor. He confessed his former disor- 
 derly walking and his being entangled 
 with many corruptions, the nature of 
 which particularly appeared later in the 
 investigations, but making a confession of 
 his faith he was received into the church. 
 
 In the later activities of Lyford he as- 
 sociated himself with one John Oldham, 
 and the two together seemed to have 
 formed a conspiracy to create as great a 
 faction as possible in the church and to 
 overturn the church and commonwealth. 
 Their efforts could not fail to attract the 
 attention of the watchful leaders of the 
 company. It was thought judicious as 
 well as necessary in those simple days 
 before making an arrest to secure the 
 necessary evidence. The best evidence 
 then, as now, is the written evidence in 
 the handwriting of and signed by the sus- 
 pected characters. 
 
 173 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 When the ship sailed for England car- 
 rying back with it the letters of Lyford, 
 the Governor takes the shallop, boards 
 the ship in the outer harbor, and seizes 
 the Lyford letters, more than twenty in 
 number, full of false accusations, tending 
 not only to their prejudice, but to their 
 ruin and utter subversion. The Governor 
 returns with the letters or copies and 
 bides his time. 
 
 The delay naturally resulted in reliev- 
 ing Lyford of any apprehension that the 
 Governor had detected and obtained evi- 
 dence of their plot, and the conspirators 
 proceeded busily with their scheme. The 
 Governor let things ripen in order to better 
 discover the intent and see who of the 
 company had joined in this perilous con- 
 spiracy. Oldham and Lyford, thinking 
 they were strong enough, began opera- 
 tions. Oldham being called to stand as 
 watch, refused to come, resisted the cap- 
 tain, and drew his knife at him. The Gov- 
 ernor, hearing the tumult, sent to quiet it, 
 but Oldham raged more like a vicious beast 
 174 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 than a man, and called them all traitors 
 and rebels, and other such foul language 
 as Bradford years after was ashamed to 
 remember. But when they began to act 
 publicly what they had long been plot- 
 ting, the time had come for action. 
 
 A court was called by the Governor, 
 the whole company summoned to appear, 
 and charges were filed against Lyf ord and 
 Oldham. They denied everything and de- 
 manded proof. Then the letters were 
 read. Lyford was struck mute. Oldham 
 raged and called upon his supporters to 
 show their courage, thinking they would 
 side with him in open rebellion. But his 
 deluded followers, struck with the injus- 
 tice of the position of Oldham and evi- 
 dently appreciating that he had carried 
 the matter very much farther than they 
 had intended or he had even stated to 
 them, stood silent. 
 
 The result of the hearing was that no 
 witness could be found to testify in their 
 behalf, and their adherents, while admit- 
 ting that they had attended some of their 
 175 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 meetings, denied that they had agreed to 
 adopt the poKcy and carry out the plans 
 which Lyford had outhned to them. The 
 trial resulted in a full conviction, and was 
 followed by a complete confession on Ly- 
 ford's part that all he had written was 
 false and that he had wronged them be- 
 yond possibility of amends. After the 
 trial, conviction, and confession, the 
 court ordered Lyford and Oldham to be 
 expelled from Plymouth, Oldham to de- 
 part at once, though permission was 
 granted for his family to remain all winter 
 until he could make provision for their 
 comfortable removal, and Lyford had 
 permission to remain six months. So 
 mercy tempered justice. 
 
 During the six months of grace which 
 were allotted Lyford he was again de- 
 tected in correspondence tending to in- 
 jure the colony, but at its expiration he 
 left the colony and later went from Massa- 
 chusetts Bay to Virginia, where he shortly 
 after died, and as Bradford quaintly 
 states it, "I leave him to the Lord." 
 176 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PILGRIMS 
 
 Oldham in the spring, in violation of 
 the terms of his sentence that he should 
 not return without leave being first ob- 
 tained, appeared in the streets of Plym- 
 outh. His passions ran beyond the 
 limits of all reason and modesty, so that 
 some strangers who came with him were 
 ashamed of his violence and rebuked him. 
 He was promptly seized and committed 
 to prison until he was tamer, and then, 
 through a guard of musketeers, every one 
 of whom was ordered to give him a 
 "thump on the brich with the but end 
 of his musket," he was conveyed to the 
 waterside where a boat was ready to 
 carry him away. " Then they bid him goe 
 and mende his maners." 
 
 Even at the present time, when depor- 
 tation is the penalty in those offenses 
 against order and government with 
 which, unhappily, we are now familiar, is 
 it not well to remember the example of the 
 Pilgrims and require that there should be 
 neither conviction nor sentence except 
 after a fair trial, before an impartial jury, 
 177 
 
PLYMOUTH AND THE PH^GRIMS 
 
 and where the accused shall have full op- 
 portunity to hear the testimony of the 
 witnesses summoned against him, and to 
 reply? 
 
 And then the penalty may well be tem- 
 pered with mercy according to the wise 
 and approved rule of the great Pilgrim 
 pastor in his letter to the Governor, the 
 "punishment to a few and the fear to 
 many." 
 
 If for a moment we could lift the veil of 
 the centuries and from out the shadowy 
 past summon the form of one of the great 
 leaders of that immortal company to 
 stand forth and be their spokesman to-day, 
 and bid the dumb lips speak again as in 
 the olden time, this would be the Pil- 
 grim's message which would fall on your 
 attentive and listening ears: 
 
 "The toils we bore 
 
 Your ease have wrought. 
 We sowed in tears. 
 
 In joy you reap. 
 That birthright we so dearly bought 
 
 Here guard, till you with us shall sleep!*' 
 
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
 U . S . A 
 

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 1989 
 
 N. MANCHESTER, 
 ^^^^ INDIANA 46962