Yale Universitv Lihrary

39002002957810

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Giftof

ARTHUR BREWER

^oofeB ip Slltilliam©. OrtffiB, 25.3:).

THE LILY AMONG THORNS. A Study of the Biblical
Drama entitled The Song of Songs. i6mo, $1.25; white
cloth, gilt top, $1.50.
MATTHEW GALBRAITH PERRY. A Typical American
Naval Officer. Illustrated. Crown Svo, gilt top, $2.00.
JAPAN: IN HISTORY, FOLI^-LORE, AND ART. In Riv
erside Library for Young People. Small i6mo, 75 cents.
BRAVE LITTLE HOLLAND, AND WHAT SHE TAUGHT
US. Illustrated. i6mo, ;?i.2S. In Riverside Library
for Young People. Small i6mo, 75 cents.
TOWNSEND HARRIS, First American Envoy in Japan.
With portrait. Crown Svo, $2.00.
THE PILGRIMS IN THEIR THREE HOMES, — ENG
LAND, HOLLAND, AND AMERICA. Illustrated. i6mo,
$1.25. In Riverside Library for Young People. Small
i6mo, 75 cents.
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY,
Boston and New York.

DEPARTURE OF THE PILGRIMS FROM DKLFSHAVEN
From an old Dutch painting owned by George H. Boughton, by permission of S. P. Avery, Jr., New York City.

THE PILGRIMS
IN' THEIR THREE HOMES
ENGLAND, HOLLAND, AMERICA
BY
WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS
Dens fetit

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

COPYBIGHT, 1898, BT WILLIAM ELLIOT GBIFFIS
ALT, BIGHTS KESEKVED

IN GEATBPOL MEMORY
OF
MY ENGLISH ANCESTOES
OF NOTTINGHAM AND DEVON
THE SHIBES MOST CLOSELY CONNECTED WITH
PILGKIM HISTORY
AND IN HEARTY ADMIRATION OF THE
MIGHTY ENGLAND WHICH IS
AND THE NOBLER ENGLAND
THAT IS YET TO BB

PREFACE
On Monday evening, the 24th of February,
1890, at its meeting in Horticultural Hall, the
Congregational Club of Boston voted, upon the
recommendation of the Hon. Samuel R. Thayer,
a New Englander, and then Minister Plenipoten
tiary of the United States at the Hague, to erect
a memorial at Delfshaven, as follows : —
Whereas, Remembering the hospitality of the free
republic of HoUand, so generously bestowed upon the
PUgrims, who, after twelve years' residenee in Amster
dam and Leyden, saUed from Delfshaven on a voyage
which was completed at Plymouth Rock, it is fitting
that we, members of Congregational Clubs throughout
the United States, should unite in grateful recognition
of Dutch hospitaUty and at Delfshaven raise some
durable token of our appreciation of both hosts and
guests, — calling upon aU Americans who honor alike
the principles and the founders of the two repubUcs to
join in the enterprise. Therefore be it
Resolved, That the Club heartUy approves of the
erection of such a commemorative monument.

iv PREFACE
When the committee appointed "to act with
fuU power in conjunction with committees of other
Congregational clubs, and of any other appropri
ate organizations, to obtain the necessary funds,
and to secure the erection of such a memorial,"
began their work, they encountered an amount of
sectional and sectarian opposition which was sur
prising to Americans and Christians who honor
men of other religion, ancestry, and nationality
than their own. There seemed to be a deter
mination to ignore facts in American history and
to make of the story of New England's origins a
panegyric only.
The author of this book, seeing the need of a
restatement of the facts, determined to re-visit the
three homes of the Pilgrims and so study their
story, and also the Dutch language, as to be free
from the necessity of taking second-hand opinions
and statements from any one.
Considering historic truth as sacred as that in
any other form, and inheriting from my English
ancestors a love of fair play, I have tried to teU
the story of the Pilgrims, though in very con
densed form ; for the limitations of the book and
series do not aUow of notes or of the citation of
authorities. I have tried to state only the facts

PREFACE v
or to give expression to well-grounded inferences ;
but knowing, from some experience as a student
of both Oriental and Occidental history, how diffi
cult it is to keep out what is not and to keep in
what is strictly true, I shall be grateful to any
one for corrections of inaccuracies or of proved
errors. The first founders of Massachusetts were not
merely representatives of church polity. They
were men and women of beautiful life and of
attractive character. If they had the infirmities
and limitations of other mortals, they also showed
the touches of nature which make the whole world
kin. I have tried to depict them amidst the
hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows, of their
daily environment in three lands.
Besides studying critically the autograph writ
ings of the Pilgrim leaders, repeatedly perusing
Bradford's " History of Plimouth Plantation," I
have read much in English and Dutch state papers
and statute law, the letters of Earl Leicester, Sir
Dudley Carleton, and others prominent in politics
during the Pilgrim period, as well as many of the
writings of the enemies of the Separatists. I
have made grateful use also of the published pro
ceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society,

VI PREFACE
the Koninglijke Akademie at the Hague, and
the Nederlandsche Archief voor Kerklijke Ge-
schiedenis, the original archives of the city of
Leyden, and the researches of the English, Dutch,
and American specialists. Hunter, Bartlett, Scott,
Brown, Arber, Kist, De Hoop Scheffer, Swalue,
Young, Dexter, Murphy, Davis, and others. I
made three leisurely visits also to the three homes
of the Pilgrims in England, Holland, and Amer
ica : in 1891, 1892, and 1895.
My thanks are especially due to those librar
rians in England and Netherland, whose courtesy
I gladly acknowledge, and to the Eev. Dr. Wil
liam H. Cobb, of Boston, the Eev. M. G. Hansen,
of East Orange, N. J., and William Nelson No
ble, Esq., of Ithaca, whose criticisms and sugges
tions have been of great value.
May passing time but brighten, and added truth
but illuminate, the inspiring Pilgrim story.
W. E. G.
Ithaca, N. Y., February 10, 1898.

CONTENTS.
Chaptee. Page
I. Introduction and Cosiparison ... 1
TI. Austerfield and the Pilgrim District . 14
III. SCROOBY AND Its History .... 26
IV. Nottingham and the Robin Hood Country 35
V. William Brewster  45
VI. William Bradford  60
VII. " Into a New World " — Amsterdam . • *72
VUL "A Fair and Beautiful City" — Leyden 84
IX. Love, Courtship, and Marriage ... 97
X. Work and Play in Leyden . . . 117
XI. Life under a Federal Government . . 1.33
XII. The Debate upon Emigration . . . 149
XIIL Westward Ho I  162
XIV. The Compact at Cape Cod ... 177
XV. In Their Third Home . . . .187
XVI. The First Families of America . . 199
XVII. Sickness and Health, War and Diplomacy 210
XVHI. PoiiTios: Domestic and Foreign . . 228
XIX. A Visit from Manhattan .... 242
XX. Law and Punishment . ... 254
XXI. Food, Dress, and Soclal Life . . 263
XXII. Customs and Superstitions . 275
XXIH. The New England Confederation . . 285
Index .... . 291

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Page

Departure from Delfshaven . . . Frontispiece
Austerfield Church Door ...... 24
ScKOOBT Church and Grounds in 1890 ... 30
The Great North Road in 1890 .... 56
" Old Hundredth " in Ainsworth's Psalm Book . 82
A Dutch Home on Santa Claus Morning (Dec. 6) 122
Sir Dudley Carleton  134
Homes and Journeys op the Pilgrims . . 168
Edward Winslow . . ... 204
Robinson's Family Record in Leyden City Census,
1622 . ... 241
Pilgrim Relics at Plymouth, Mass. 264
Facsimile from a Page of Bradford's Manuscript 276

THE
PILGRIMS IN THEIR THREE HOMES

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION AND COMPARISON
All English-speaking people ought to know
the difference between the Pilgrims and the Puri
tans. The Pilgrims separated Church and State.
They believed in the right and power of Christian
people to govern themselves, and they believed
this when, even in England, it was dangerous to
breathe such an idea. They were hunted out of
their home-land into the Dutch republic, where
conscience was free. Thence they crossed the
stormy ocean, and began on American soil the
experiment of self-government.
To-day their descendants, direct and coUateral,
may number a million. They are found in aU
the States of the Union, and among Christians of
every name. By them the heroic Pilgrim ances
tors have been transfigured, their story has been
embalmed in art and poetry, and kept alive in
monuments and in celebrations. Descent from a

2 INTRODUCTION AND COMPARISON
Pilgrim father or mother is like a patent of nobil
ity. New England societies, Congregational clubs
and churches of many names, from Sandy Hook
to the Golden Gate, from the fresh-water ocean to
the hot salt gulf, annually recount their merits,
and retell the old story. In all lands where the
English tongue is sweet to the ear, their name
is honored. Whittier, in order to make known
the German Pastorius, who first in the region
of the United States protested against slavery,
has to call him " The Pennsylvania Pilgrim."
Tens of thousands of tourists each year visit
the old historic spots at Plymouth. The boulder
from the far north, which in history was only a
threshold, has become in rhetoric mountain-large,
though as keepsake and paper-weight as small as
a scarab. By Longfellow the poet, Hawthorne
the romancer, Boughton the painter, historiogra
phers by the score, a library of books concerning
them, great pictures in the national Capitol ro
tunda at Washington, and vignettes on the na
tional bank-notes, the Pilgrims are well advertised.
A mighty shaft on Plymouth heights, with its ped
estal cuirassed with bas-reliefs, surmounted and
flanked with sculptures, and another of lesser pro
portions at Provincetown overlook the sands of
their third home. Bronze tablets at Scrooby,
Leyden, Provincetown, and the two Plymouths
serve to keep bright their memory. Eelics of
stone, on which their feet may have trodden, are

INTRODUCTION AND COMPARISON 3
built into the faQades and walls of great churches.
The two great English-speaking people thrill when
the miscalled "Log of the Mayflower" — the
book of Genesis in the history of Massachusetts —
recrosses the ocean. Their fame has gone through
out the world, and their glorious testimony to the
ends of the earth.
Their story is worth telling without fear or
favor, in simple style for young people, as I shall
try to tell it.
Strange to say, their place of origin was not
known to living men until half a century ago.
Not only during their own lives, but long after
they had passed away, the Pilgrims, now immortal
in American history and in the story of human
progress, were like the " poor wayfaring man of
grief," so far as their king or country cared.
When they left England, nobody recked whither
they went. In Holland few inquired whence
they came. James Stuart, their "dread sover
eign," was only sorry that he could not lay violent
hands on them while in their Dutch asylum. They
were plucked, like fowls for the spit, by the Mer
chant Adventurers. Besides utterly neglecting
Dutch history, few Americans, except John
Adams, took the trouble to visit their old home
in Leyden. Until near the year 1850, their de
scendants, and our own and the English nation,
could not place the Pilgrims' cradle-land.
This was finally discovered to be just where

4 INTRODUCTION AND COMPARISON
William Bradford, their historian, who wrote the
first book of American history, said it was. Brad
ford's work, dubbed by the English newspapers
" The Log of the Mayflower," but by the author
entitled the " History of Plimouth Plantation," is
the written volume which our English friends in
1897 restored to us. It was the property of the
Old South Church of Boston, from whose library
it had been taken in Eevolutionary days. Our
first ambassador to Great Britain, Thomas Fran
cis Bayard, brought it across the sea, and on
Wednesday, the twenty-seventh of May, 1897, it
was delivered to the State of Massachusetts, in
the archives of which it now rests.
Bradford, writing between the years 1640 and
1650, says that these people of three homes and
two continents were originally " of several towns
and villages, some in Nottinghamshire, some in
Lincolnshire, and some in Yorkshire, where they
bordered nearest together." Yet although this
statement was copied by Prince in his annals, and
though Cotton Mather, in a sketch of Bradford's
life, writes that he was born at Ansterfield, there
was a riddle which for over two centuries stood
like a sphinx in American literature. The puz
zle was not solved till an American and an Eng
lishman put their heads together, and penetrated
the mystery.
That little misprinted letter n was as the sym
bol X in algebra, — an unknown quantity which

INTRODUCTION AND COMPARISON 5
baffled those who tried to solve the problem. No
such place could be found in all England, ancient
or modern. Instead of an n it ought to have been
a u. When Mr. James Savage, of Massachusetts,
the genealogist, in 1842 visited the Eev. John
Hunter, a native and an historian of Yorkshire,
this English gentleman discovered Austerfield
and the baptismal record of William Bradford.
In 1849, in a little book, he told what he had
found out about the "Founders of New Plym-
mouth." Even before this, however, the Leyden profes
sor, N. C. Kist, and the Mennonite scholar. Dr.
J. G. D. Scheffer, of Amsterdam, who had read
the Dutch records of two cities, discovered much
of delightful interest ; for Holland is rich in Pil
grim memories. After these have come a host of
wise men from both west and east of the Atlan
tic, who have searched diligently to find where
the young Pilgrim republic was born. Every year
the twilight becomes more like day and mysteries
vanish. The hidden church now shines forth.
The story is luminous and nearly complete. New
links of interest bind us as Americans to the
mother-country of England and the fatherland
of Holland. " History is a resurrection."
To understand why these North Country folk
left " Merrie England," we must ride backward on
the winged wheel of imagination to the opening
of the sixteenth century. Three hundred years

6 INTRODUCTION AND COMPARISON
ago everything, except human nature and the
ocean and sky, were quite different from what we
see in our time. Dress and food, manners and
customs, politics and religion, houses and the way
of living, farming and crops, the relations of land
and water, and the outlook of people on the great
world and the countries beyond, were not as now.
Think of living, even in cities, where there were
no newspapers, railways, telegraphs, telephones,
photographs, matches, fire engines, water pipes,
tinware, china dishes, tea or coffee. Fancy vil
lages where brick houses and iron ploughs, under
clothing and starch, — " the Devil's liquid," as
the Puritan Stubbes called it, — were just begin
ning to come into fashion, and where these novel
ties from the continent were hardly more than
curiosities. Then paved roads, fenced or hedged fields, post-
offices, postage stamps, and letters carried by
government for the people were unknown. Then
England was a weak and sparsely populated coun
try of about four million people. In large por
tions of it, and even where is now good farm-land,
were great areas of swamp, heath, and forest.
Most of the eastern counties consisted of reedy
marshes, above which uncounted wild fowl wheeled
in the air, while only here and there were patches
of ploughed land. Then the seven states of the
Dutch republic had only eight hundred thousand
inhabitants. All of what is now the United States

INTRODUCTION AND COMPARISON 7
of America was but a savage wilderness inhabited
by possibly a third of a miUion of Indians, and a
few hundred Spaniards in New Mexico and Flor
ida. How strange it must have been to live in
those times, and how hard to imagine now how
people got along then !
Fortunately for the present writer, this is not
so very difficult a thing for him to do. I can
hold up a mirror and draw from experience.
Even in this nineteenth century, I lived during
four years in an island empire much like Great
Britain. During one whole year, while in a city
of forty thousand people, rich in castle towers,
drawbridges, moats, guilds, and things mediseval
and feudalistic, I saw no newspaper, milk wagon,
telegraph, telephone, railway, horse carriage or
wagon, gas lamp, iron or terra cotta water pipe, sta
tionary washstand, or house furnished with water,
other than from wells. There were very few of
the modern things or ideas. The condition of
society, state, and church was like that of six
teenth-century Europe. There were castles and
cathedrals, abbots and armed men. All gentle
men wore swords. The land was not owned by
those who worked it, but was rented, through many
grades of rank, from the sovereign to lords tem
poral and spiritual. Except the yeomen, or frank
lins, who were freeholders, the agricultural labor
ers were not much better than serfs.
The king was hedged about with divinity, and

8 INTRODUCTION AND COMPARISON
supposed to get all his power direct from Heaven.
When he appeared in public, common folks fell
down on their knees. Eeligion was a matter of
the state, governed by the court and the politi
cians. People who did not agree with the state
church were persecuted, thrown into prison, or put
to death. Yet, paradoxical as it may seem, these
nineteenth-century heretics, or separatists, were
not allowed to leave the country. Exactly as
in sixteenth-century England, a large part of the
best land was owned by the monasteries, which
like the monks and nuns were very numerous, a
great ecclesiastical corporation controUed human
life from the cradle to the grave, and the " tor
tures of hell were graded according to the money "
paid the priests in temple, monastery, or chantry,
who had charge of masses. The priests had sharp
eyes upon the deathbed of the wealthy. These
who would not give or will much property to the
religious corporations were pretty sure to be
damned. In this country, in which I dwelt nearly four
years, torture was used in the courts, just as in
Europe, and even in England, until the reign of
William III. In law and science the people were
no better off than in religion. Strange and curi
ous superstitions fettered the minds of both learned
and unlearned in matters of building, crops, the
weather, and household and social life, just as in
the old Europe where our pagan and our Chris-

INTRODUCTION AND COMPARISON 9
tian forefathers lived. Here, also, were witch
craft, sorcery, plague, pestilence, and famine, be
sides pretty material for legend and fairy tale.
Outwardly the different classes of people were
marked by their dress. The bishops, as weU as
the nobles, abbots, and priests, wore peculiar uni
forms. Nobles of church or state had many idle
followers, retainers, and servants, who were attired
in their masters' livery. Parades and shows made
fine sights for the people, who were fleeced by
these gayly dressed fellows ; for king, princes,
earls, dukes, marquises, barons, and all degrees
of nobility and gentry lived off " the commons,"
among whom were yeomen, farmers, mechanics,
and others little better than slaves. There were
craftsmen's guilds and trade monopolies, just as in
old Europe. The merchant was socially of small
account. The noblemen, priests, and gentlemen
made society. The tenant farmer was respected,
but was ground down to support those above him.
People in each grade of society dressing in a dif
ferent way, there was a great variety of costume.
Matters of clothes and etiquette, splendor and
show, old customs and festivities, were of vast
importance. There was nothing of what we caU
underclothing, though there was plenty of silk
and gay equipment, but the majority of the people
lived very plainly as to dress and food. There
were no brick houses. Ploughs and other farm
tools were of a very rude sort.

10 INTRODUCTION AND COMPARISON
When the reformation came, which has made
a new nation of these island dweUers, and the
revenues of the monasteries were confiscated,
there were insurrections of the rudely armed peo
ple led by reactionary and impoverished nobles,
gentlemen and priests, wonderfuUy like the " Pil
grimage of Grace " and the " Uprising in the
North," as in old England of the sixteenth cen
tury. The description of one country wiU do for
the other.
In a word, this country in which I Uved was
surprisingly Uke sixteenth-century England at a
thousand points, whether we look at the landscape,
which had few or no fences or hedges, but plenty
of feudal castles, monasteries, and nunneries, or
at the oddly dressed characters going up and down
the horse tracks and footpaths, — for there were
few roads, in the modern sense of the term. AU
around were shrines and objects of religion and
superstition, with plenty of beggars, lepers, and
miserably poor folk. Instead of post-offices, there
were, besides inns for meals and beds, relays,
where people in government employ could secure
horses or burden bearers, exactly as on the great
North Eoad between London and Edinburgh.
Curiously enough also, these times, during which
I lived at the capital of a baron, among his retain
ers and under the shadow of his castle near a
monastery, were politicaUy just like the times of
Queen EUzabeth. In the matter of social changes,

INTRODUCTION AND COMPARISON 11
economic progress, the introduction of foreign
notions and machines and people to work them,
and of the transformation of the whole nation
from an agricultural to a commercial and manu
facturing people, the country of my sojourn was
just like Elizabethan England. A closer union
was being formed between the throne and the
people. The court peers, landed nobles, and
lords spiritual were becoming of less importance.
The merchants were rising in social dignity. The
old Ufe was everywhere being modified because
of foreign ideals, customs, and importations. The
simple industries carried on in dwelling-houses
were changing to multiplied and varied activities.
The weavers, potters, and mechanics, instead of
having looms, wheels, and anvils in their own
houses, were being assembled into factories. Life
from 1870 to 1874 in this island empire, at one
end of the earth's- greatest land division, appeared,
as in a theatre, to be the reproduction on a stage of
the life on that island empire at the other end, at
a time when the founders of Massachusetts were
boys and girls in England. Old Japan iUustrated
Old England, and New Japan, New England.
Eace and color of skin and form of religion
might be different, but human nature was the
same. Note also two strange coincidences. Just when
the Pilgrim fathers and mothers in the May
flower were leaving their old home-land, which

12 INTRODUCTION AND COMPARISON
had been shut against them, to open a new world,
the ancient empire was expelling the Jesuits, wel
coming the Dutch at Deshima, and barring its
gates against aU other foreigners.
Over two centuries later, in 1848, exactly when
Mr. Hunter was discovering the Pilgrims' home
and Bradford's baptismal record, the shipwrecked
American sailor, Eonald McDonald, from Sag
Harbor, New York, became the first teacher of the
English language in the sealed empire, and thus
the real founder of her new national education.
The whaling ship which carried him to Japan was
named Plymouth. When the star of Perry's
broad pennant was mirrored in the clear waters of
Yedo Bay, his oldest ship bore the same name,
Plymouth. When Japanese officers asked pri
vate sailor and plenipotentiary commodore the
supreme source of authority in the United States,
both answered " The people."
The Pilgrim faith had but deepened and ex
panded. Come then, fellow Americans and speakers of
the English tongue, subjects of King Shakespeare
and inheritors of the Pilgrim idea of government,
and let us visit England at about the latitude,
though not in the climate of Labrador, between
the fifty-third and fifty-fourth degrees, where Not
tinghamshire and Lincolnshire adjoin. We shaU
stand upon Gringley-on-the-Hill, over which the
lad WiU Bradford used to walk in going to church

INTRODUCTION AND COMPARISON 13
at Gainsborough, and from which the view is fine
and far. We select him as our typical Pilgrim.
His life comprehends the whole of the poetic and
heroic period of the Pilgrim story. After him,
we name Brewster. For convenience, to avoid
circumlocutions and to save space, I shall at once
and throughout this book speak of the company
led by Brewster, Eobinson, and Bradford as " The
Pilgrims." Of my four visits to Scrooby, the home of
Brewster, the first was made with a great com
pany. It was in 1891, when to the International
Council in London it seemed as if " dear mother
England " were caUing back her outcast children.
Few Englishmen had then visited the place, or
knew where it was. On " Bank Holiday " in
1892, desiring a second leisurely sight of the Pil
grim cradle-land, I started from Lincoln. I asked
at this station, which is on a great railway and
within thirty miles of the village, for a ticket to
Scrooby. The agent knew not the name of the
place. He compelled me to repronounce and spell
the word, but was stiU incredulous as to the exist
ence of such a station. So I " booked " for Baw-
try, and then walked up to Scrooby. The hamlet
is now visited annually by scores, perhaps hun
dreds of Americans. Worksop, the home of my
Eyre ancestors, is a few miles to the southwest.

CHAPTER II
AUSTERFIELD AND THE PILGRIM DISTRICT
Many things have changed in our fathers' old
home — dear and mighty England — since the
flight of the Pilgrims from Scrooby. Even the
very memory of their exodus to HoUand died out
long ago from this region. Yet the landscape is
much the same, though that too has changed in
, respect of surface water, which is far less than
then. On aU the slope from the central hiUs of
the island toward the North Sea and the Wash,
the ground was once very wet and swampy, and
much more liable to overflow from the Humber,
the Ouse, and the Trent rivers, than it is now.
Indeed, the whole line of eastern counties from
Essex to York formed a great fen region, full of
standing as weU as of flowing water, with only
here and there hard ground which served as roads,
sites for towns, and soil for cultivation. Ely got
its name because it was an eely place, and the
telltale terminations of many places ending in
" wick," " beach," " holme," " beck," and " hoe,"
suggesting low places near or on water, show what
they were formerly.
Names ending in "ford" and "bridge," in-

AUSTERFIELD 15
dicating that there had to be some way for get
ting across the water, are plentiful. For the
traveler, there was always " one more river to
cross." John Bunyan, in his " Pilgrim's Pro
gress," Defoe, in his " Tour through the Eastern
Counties," Jean Ingelow, in her " High Tide on
the Coast of Lincolnshire," and Charles Kingsley,
in his classic paper on " The Fens," have made
wonderful word-pictures of this sunken land. Not
a few old churches in this region were once built
on islands, and approached by causeways. To
this day, as one alights from Scrooby railway
station, he notices, flrst of all, drains and cul
verts. As he walks to the village, past the old
manor fields on the right, his pathway is upon
timber raised above the oft-flooded road.
Since the great drainage operations in the form
of canals, causeways, and dykes, made chiefly by
the Dutch engineers in the seventeenth and eigh
teenth century, the whole face of the country has
changed. The area of fertile soU having vastly
increased, population has doubled, tripled, and
quadrupled. Land once under water and given
to breeding malarial diseases now smiles with
grain and gardens, and is rich in cattle and men.
Where two rabbits used to fight for one blade of
grass, there are now a hundred stalks. John
Wesley in 1703 opened his eyes on the island
formed by three rivers, Trent, Idle, and Don,
which in Pilgrim days was a pestilential marsh.

16 AUSTERFIELD
Vermuyden and his Dutchmen had drained it,
making of it rich and dry soil. On Axelholme,
once the swamp island, sprang up Epworth. To
this day the Dutch accent and blood are notice
able in Lincolnshire. No region is more inter
esting to Americans than these eastern counties.
Study the names of places, and this part of
England fronting Denmark and Friesland wiU
teU stories as fascinating as fairy tales. Here
has been the great battlefield of invading Briton,
Eoman, Anglo-Saxon, Frisian, and Dane. On
every square mile they have fought, camped, or
settled, made beacons on its hiUs, cut paths, and
built roads. We recognize the names which each
nation left behind it, and often as easily and as
clearly as we tell the difference between the hoof-
mark of a horse, the paw-print of a dog, or the
track of a pigeon's pink toes. The Keltic " pen "
and " combe " and " ock " appear and reappear.
Count up the Eoman's " castra " or camps, as in
Doncaster, and note his " colonia," as in Lincoln.
These and other Latin words have suffered a
slight change of form. Of Anglo-Saxon names
there is an abundance, as in " ham," which means
home, such as Eotherham ; in "field," such as
Sheffield and Austerfield ; and in " try," the name
of a town, such as Coventry and Bawtry. After
Frisians and Anglo-Saxons came the Danes, whose
town names ended in " by " and " ing," as we see
in Scrooby and Eeading.

AUSTERFIELD 17
These Danes or Norsemen, our ancestors, were
famous old pagans. Like the rest of their Scan
dinavian brethren, they remained " heathen " after
the Frisians and Anglo-Saxons, both on the con
tinent and in England, had become Christian.
They worshiped Woden and Thor, whose names
we preserve in Wednesday and Thursday. Woden
was the god that knew everything, because two
ravens, wisest of birds, flew out into all the world
during the day, and came back at night to perch
on his shoulder, and whisper in his ear, telling
him everything. These ravens, Munin and Hugin,
perception and reflection, helped to make Woden
omniscient. When the Norsemen went out on
the deep sea without chart or compass, they not
only worshiped Woden, but honored the raven as
his wise servant, using the bird at sea as a pilot,
and on land as an indicator of the god's wiU.
Very probably from this Norse mythology, Edgar
A. Poe borrowed the idea of his talking bird, the
raven of dark memory with its accusing " Never
more." The Danes were more than pirates. They were
bold navigators, discoverers, and colonizers. Com
ing up the Humber and Trent rivers, they made
this part of England especially theirs. They di
vided the country into " ridings," and enjoyed local
government. Gainsborough is probably the place
where Canute's foUowers wanted him to turn back
the waters of the sea. Wherever the Danes got

18 AUSTERFIELD
a foothold in England, there and only there do
we find names of places ending in " by " and
"ing," whUe other settlements of theirs have
" raven " or " ran " in their names, such as Eans-
kiU, the hamlet next to Scrooby; that is, the
raven's knoll, or hiU. It is not merely an acci
dent that over the Austerfield church door are
carved a dragon, the lightning zigzag of Thor, and
the raven's beak of Woden's servants, conven
tional in form though they be.
These Norsemen, who were kinsmen of the later
and more civilized Normans, not only robbed,
burned, and killed, like our Saxon forefathers
before them, but they loved to go into Christian
churches to defile and burn them. But woe to
them when they were caught ! They were flayed
alive, and their skins were fixed to the church
doors. In more peaceful centuries bits of human
skin found under the old nail-heads of oaken
church doors have been deposited in the British
Museum. It is well to pay attention to these names, be
cause like bones, nerves, and organs, whether of a
man or a monkey, of a geological horse with toes
or a modern horse with hoofs, as weU as the fea
tures of plants and vegetables, they reveal early
history, through heredity and evolution, far better
than any later traditions or writings or ortho
doxies possibly can do. They are original docu
ments, which we can interpret without prejudice

'AUSTERFIELD 19
or heresy. To understand what kind of men and
women lived in the Pilgrim district we must study
their composite ancestry, the physiognomy of the
country, and know the superstitions and beliefs
of the people who lived on the soil. Neither
Calvinism nor Puritanism nor Anglicanism can
bleach out the stains of the primitive paganism of
our Teutonic fathers. Just as the Spaniards
chased the shadows of ancient myths in Florida
and Mexico, so into North America Pilgrim and
Puritan brought the legends and superstitions of
northern Europe.
What we call the Pilgrim district is in the
very heart of the Danish region. It lies chiefly
along the steel tracks of the Great Northern
Eailway over which the lightning train called
the " Flying Scotchman " whizzes on its way be
tween London and Edinburgh. As on the
silk threads of a double rosary, we can string
most of the towns famous in Pilgrim story, either
on this railway, or on the North Eoad, which,
from Newark to Bawtry, at the end of Notting
ham, is close to it. In Eoman days the legions
tramped towards the North Star, and the mer
chants transported their goods, over ground much
the same, called the Fosse Way, or Ermine
Street. In Elizabethan England, so soon as one
got beyond the cities and towns, there were,
roughly speaking, nothing better than unfenced
paths. The highway to Scotland was little else

20 AUSTERFIELD'
than a horse track, though we shall find that it
is the main geographical thread of our story.
This horse track but a few feet wide, on which
kings, nobles, and armies traveled, was called the
Great Northern Eoad. It was the artery by
which the people in this quiet agricultural region
were connected with the mighty world beyond,
through which they felt the throbs of England's
life and the pulses of the continent.
The Pilgrim country is plain, and the scenery,
though pretty, is not bold, striking, or romantic.
It is mostly lowland, in the valleys formed by the
Eyton and the Idle, — little rivers whose united
flood helps to swell the Trent. Each of these
three streams takes its source on the westward
slopes of the famous Sherwood Forest. The Pil
grim district lies mostly in the vaUey of the
southern Trent, which further north unites with
the Ouse to form the river Humber. It was
never very thickly populated, nor is it now, for
its soil is not particularly fertile. Bawtry, the
town lying between Austerfield and Scrooby, is
one hundred and fifty -three miles north of Lon
don. The Idle, which forms part of the boundary
line between York and Notts, is usuaUy a rush
ing stream and not at aU lazy. Its name means
" flowing through grain fields." The upper limit
of the Pilgrim district is Austerfield. * Take
for its lower limit East Eetford on the right.

AUSTERFIELD 21
with Worksop (the home of the writer's an
cestors) on the left, and we have a triangle,
whose sides are, roughly, eleven, seven, and nine
miles long. York, where the archbishop lived,
was forty-six miles northward. Southward, Not
tingham is thirty-five miles, and Newark upon
Trent (where the writer's ancestor. Sir Gervaise
Eyre, in command of the castle of King Charles
I., was slain in the civil war), about twenty-five
miles distant. Eastward, Gainsborough is twelve
miles, Lincoln thirty-one miles, and Boston sixty-
seven miles away.
The traveler must remember that the roads, as
they now appear, are of modern construction.
Such a thing as a wheeled wagon was quite un
common in the early years of Henry VIII. Plea
sure carriages were not seen until introduced
from the continent. When the first one was
driven abroad in London, people thought it was
some Oriental shrine or curiosity. In aU pic
tures and prints of the time, we see lords and
ladies riding on horseback, but never in a car
riage. " Palfrey," meaning an extra post-horse,
was the common term for the animal carrying a
lady. Fond of jewelry as they were in the age of
Elizabeth, when the gold and spices and silks
of the East and the wonderful things from Amer
ica were getting to be weU known in England, it
was not uncommon to see " a lady on horseback "
with peaked headdress, very long veil, skirts

22 AUSTERFIELD
sweeping to the rear and upheld by pages, or
even with " rings on her fingers and beUs on her
toes." Mother Goose's Melodies contain some
very clear and very wonderful pictures of the
England of long ago.
Scrooby and Austerfield, though small and
mean places, were not the least among the north
ern viUages. Near Austerfield is an old Eoman
earthwork linked with the name of the imperial
general Ostorius, though the name (speUed
Ousterfield in the Domesday book and Anster
field in early Yankee printing) is most probably
Teutonic for Easternfield.
Anglo-Saxon Austerfield had a little church in
which a great question was settled for aU Britain
by a synod held in the year 702. A great con
troversy had arisen about the celebration of
Easter. One party favored the British and the
other the Eoman date. Wilfrid, the handsome
and eloquent Bishop of York, made a journey to
Eome to find what the Pope thought. He was
shipwrecked on the coast of Friesland, but the
language on both sides of the North Sea being
the same, he preached the gospel and introduced
Christianity into the Netherlands. After seeing
Eome, he returned to England and became a hot
partisan of the southern style and time. He
built many churches in England, but was always
on the Eoman side, taking his politics, as well as
his dogmas, from the Tiber. He quarreled with

AUSTERFIELD 23
King Egfrid and his queen of Northumbria, who
deposed him from the bishopric. He once more
went to Eome and appealed to the Pope, who
decided in his favor : but when he returned to
England, the Saxon king snapped his fingers at
the Italian bishop's decision, and imprisoned
Wilfrid. He, however, escaped to Sussex, and
there was successful as a missionary preacher.
He stiU hoped to get back the bishopric of
York, but even after Egfrid's death this king's
father, Aldfrid, refused to reinstate the now aged
prelate. At the great synod which met at Austerfield
in 702, King Aldfrid, the Archbishop Berthwald
of Canterbury, and the bishops of almost all
Briton assembled in this most central spot to
hear the complaint of Wilfrid. Despite the
pleadings of Wilfrid's brother. Archbishop of
Canterbury, on his behalf, the king was sustained
in his action. The synod of Austerfield excom
municated Wilfrid and his companions. So
thoroughly was this work done that if any of the
abbots or priests of Wilfrid's party said grace be
fore meat in a man's house and signed the food
with the sign of the cross, it was ordered to be
cast forth as though offered to idols.
The pith and meaning of this ancient Auster
field matter is that in England the party backed
by the Pope was beaten and the spirit of inde
pendence prevailed. The English won the day.

24 AUSTERFIELD
preferring to regulate their religion in their own
way. The twelve hundredth anniversary of this
famous synod of Austerfield, which deposed Saint
Wilfrid, wUl occur in 1902.
Nevertheless, Wilfrid got back his see before
he died, and after his death this twice-deposed
bishop and stanch upholder of Eomish customs
was canonized as a saint, while the church of
Scrooby, built of stone, was named after him.
It is Saint Wilfrid's church in which the PUgrims
first worshiped and which we see to-day.
In the Norman era, after the year 1088,
Thomas of Bayeux became Archbishop of York.
In crusading times, the lady Idorea de Vipont
or her father, John de Busli, gave the whole
viUage of Austerfield for the support of a chap
lain to pray, and to celebrate, in the house at Lon
don, masses for the soul of Eobert de Vipont.
In the reign of Henry II. this John de Busli or
BuiUi (1154-1189) buUt the new chapel at Aus
terfield, attaching it, as well as the chapel at
Bawtry, to the convent at Blyth. The edifice was
thus originaUy a " chantry," erected for the bene
fit of a " soul in purgatory." It is stiU standing
and is caUed the Chapel of St. Helen. It was in
this little house of worship, with its quaint port
and double arched entrance carved with the
Norsemen's symbols of the lightning's zigzag,
raven's beak ornament, and a rude sort of dragon
such as Saint George may have slain, that Wil-

austerfield church door

AUSTERFIELD 25
liam Bradford was baptized March 19, 1590.
Within the building some alterations, including
new pews, have been made, but the outside of it
was much the same as in Pilgrim days, until
1897, when a process of restoration began.

CHAPTER III
SCROOBY AND ITS HISTORY
Scrooby was originally a Danish settlement,
and had a close relationship with York, that
wonderful place of Eoman, Anglo-Saxon, Nor
man, and English fame. York is one of the
most ancient of British cities, and was renowned
for Jewish wealth as well as for clerical ambition.
It had been the reputed birthplace of one
Eoman emperor, Constantine, the dweUing-place
of another, Hadrian, and here Severus died. It
was the seat of the first English parliament, and
in this august body the abbot of the York monas
tery had a seat and wore a mitre. Though the
archbishop dwelt in magnificence at York, he
moved from place to place while attending to
political and religious matters. At Scrooby was
one of his summer palaces, hunting lodges, or
places of abode, where he could also give lodging
to his retainers.
In comparison with the cottages around it, the
episcopal residence at Scrooby was a palace. Be
cause it stood on a manor or estate owned by the
prelate, it was also caUed a manor house, and
in it on the 12th of January, 1535, there were ,

SCROOBY AND ITS HISTORY 27
thirty-nine chambers or apartments. According
to an inventory there were in the great hall three
screens, six tables, nine benches, and one cup
board. The furniture of the chapel consisted of
a timber altar and two superaltars, or stone tops,
to lay upon the w^ood, a reading-desk, a pair of
organs, and a clock, possibly from Freiburg, but
out of repair, lacking weights and cords. Shake
speare, in " Love's Labour 's Lost," makes Biron
poke fun at the German clocks, " still a repair
ing ; ever out of frame."
Probably the handsomest of aU the apartments
was the refectory, or dining-room, which was
lined on ceiling and walls with carved oak panels
and beams. The dining-chamber was " ceiled
and dressed with ' wainscot,' " — which is an old
Dutch word for the finest oak without knots or
flaws. Many of these oaken beams are now to
be found in the roof supports of the cow-houses
and stables on the old site. As with most old
castles and manors in those days, there was a
moat or ditch around the four-sided inclosure,
which was crossed by a drawbridge. The gate
was on the east side. There were three fish-ponds,
in which " Friday food " was kept swimming ;
for no meat was eaten on the day named after
the old goddess Freyja, and on which Christ is
believed to have been crucified.
Old John Leland, librarian and chaplain to
Henry VIIL, teUs us about Scrooby of Tudor

28 SCROOBY AND ITS HISTORY
days. He received the king's commission to ex
plore the cathedrals, coUeges, abbeys and priories,
and antiquities of his realm. He made a journey
on horseback from Gainsborough westward over
the Trent Eiver into Nottinghamshire to the
vUlage of Mattersey. " Thence I rode a mile,
in low wash and somewhat fenny ground ; and
a mile further or more by higher ground, to
Scrooby." Besides the church, he " noted a
great Manor Place . . . aU builded of timber ;
saving the front of the haU, that is of brick, to
which one ascends over cut-stone steps." After
this, he forded the unbridged Eyton Eiver, " and
so betwixt the pales of two parks belonging to
Scrooby," he came to Bawtry.
On this we may remark that probably the only
bricks in the village were upon the Hall front.
The rest of the edifice was of wood. The people's
houses were of wattle, timber, and cement. Prob
ably the only palings or fences were those of
parks, belonging to rich landowners, who were
at this time greedily encroaching upon the old
common lands of the viUages and taking away
from the people what belonged to the public and
not to the lords. In the latter part of the six
teenth century things were going hard with the
common people, especiaUy with the agricultural
workers. Phillip Stubbes, in 1583, complained
bitterly of these landlords who were getting rich,
not by stealing a goose from off the common, but

SCROOBY AND ITS HISTORY 29
by stealing the whole common from under the
goose. In the six northern counties most of the
land in the form of great estates was held by six
families, and the farmers had an increasingly
hard time, which made Pilgrim emigration more
easy than it would have been if aU had been
well. The church at Scrooby is named after the
great Saint Wilfrid, so famous in England, Hol
land, and Eome, who was deposed, as we have
seen, by the synod at Austerfield. It is built of
cut square stones in what is called the early Eng
lish and decorated style, with the crenelated
walls rising above the edge of the roof. It has an
eight-sided spire and four pinnacles, the five to
gether representing the wounds of Christ. There
are heads sculptured at the ends of the window
mulUons. On the east side of the church there
seems to be what was once a leper window.
Within, there is an aisle on the south side, but
none to correspond with it on the north. Of the
beUs in the tower, one is of recent casting, and
one was put there in 1647, but the other two
bear the dates 1411 and 1511.
The tower, which has been twice struck by
lightning during this century, is now equipped
with a lightning rod such as Benjamin Franklin
invented. The old oaken pews, which were
carved in patterns representing vines, leaves, and
grapes, lasted until about 1862. When the

30 SCROOBY AND ITS HISTORY
church was restored, and American lamps lighted
with petroleum were put in, the old pews were
sold for firewood, much to the grief of descend
ants of the Pilgrims who later tried to get the
timber for souvenir material. Nevertheless, my
friend Charles Carleton Coffin, of Boston, in 1890
secured from the parish clerk in the vicarage the
old oaken box-desk, on which so long and so often
lay the church register of baptism, marriage, and
burial. It is carved in the same style of rude
zigzag-and-beak carving, in Norman taste, which
adorns the church porch at Austerfield. The
desk is possibly as old as Saint Wilfrid's church
itself. In the churchyard there seems to be no tomb
stone older than 1620, and the parish registry
does not go back even so far. Among the monu
ments in this God's acre is one to the memory of
Archbishop Sandys' daughter. The arrange
ment of the tombs as we see them to-day has
more respect to regularity of lines than to history
or the bones beneath. To the northeast is the
cottage known as the vicarage, where the parish
clerk has for many generations lived. It is very
plain, and inside there is a ladder by which one
ascends to the upper floor.
Near by is the village pinfold, and within a
few feet stood until lately the stocks, — one of
the old-time institutions of every English viUage,
the pound being intended for four-footed, and the

Q'Ap
OOO<
ou

o oo

SCROOBY AND ITS HISTORY 31
stocks for two-footed transgressors of the law.
Like the old font in which the young Pilgrims
were baptized, the timber of the stocks was long
since bought by Americans (for five pounds ster
ling). There is nothing now to be seen but the
site whereon these stood.
I have visited Scrooby and the surrounding
country four times, studying by day and night
life in this little village, which has changed but
slightly in three hundred years. There are two
public houses, the " George and the Dragon,"
and " The Saracen's Head," where one can get
refreshment for man and horse, but no lodging
over night. On the morning of August 1, 1895,
it was like seeing Gray's " Elegy " acted out be
fore my eyes, as " the lowing herds wound slowly
o'er the lea," after the "cock's shrill clarion"
had been heard. In the fields the sheaves of cut
grain were standing ready for the fork and wain,
to be loaded and hauled into the barns. The
birds were numerous and lively ; so also were
the August flies and the whirring beetles. In
the grain fields I noticed that the plan was first
to drive the mowing-machine along the outward
edges, graduaUy approaching the centre. This,
I found, was in order to force the rabbits into
the last clump, where they could easily be killed
and thus made ready for pie.
Where stood the old manor house is now a
pasture, which by its lumpy and irregular sur-

32 SCROOBY AND ITS HISTORY
face shows to the eye skiUed in studying old
historic sites the lines of foundations long since
hidden by overgrowing grass. Three circles, the
sites of former fish-ponds, can be discerned. The
moat has in some parts been entirely filled up
and in others nearly so, while in no place is there
more than a few feet of water. Horses and cows
were grazing down in these ancient feudal boun
daries and over the ridgy meadow.
AU that is left of the ancient edifice is a por
tion of the modern house in which dwelt the
postmaster of the village, Mr. David Shillito,
who kept a record of American visitors and
chatted freely of old times. He died at the age
of seventy-six in 1896. The farm is held by a
long lease from the Archbishop of York. This
plain brick house, mostly of modern material and
structure, has in one waU a lofty and round-
headed arch, which is now filled in and may once
have formed a coach-gate or carriage entrance to
the manor house. Pn this house is now a
bronze tablet affixed by grateful Americans.
Going out into the stables and cow-houses, built
of brick and holding up roofs of red tile, I saw
many stout beams of carved oak. These, though
dusty and cobwebbed, show that they were once
used for a nobler purpose.
It is under a piece of one of these carved
beams that I am writing this story of " The Pil
grims in their Three Homes." In the Massa-

SCROOBY AND ITS HISTORY 33
chusetts house at the World's Fair in Chicago,
in 1893, this piece of English oak, cased in Ameri
can glass and wood and duly inscribed, formed
the starting-point for a tour of the various rooms
which, in their furnishing and relics, showed the
history of the old Bay State. Had it a tongue,
it might be more definitely eloquent, and tell of
many wonderful things which it had seen of
Cardinal Wolsey and the archbishops. It might
whisper how it had heard the prayers, the laugh
ter, and the jests of gay lords and their retainers.
It might also reecho fervent petitions, heart-
stirring sermons, and possibly the songs of the
Pilgrim fathers, mothers, and children.
Scrooby, like an oft-touched bead slipped on
the rosary of England's great northern high-road,
has many precious associations.
It belonged to the Archbishops of York even
when the Domesday book was written. Then
" Scroobye " was only a " berrie " (bury), or
hamlet, and William.de Melton had "free war
ren " here. There must have been a lodge or
building of some kind in the townlet in 1178,
when John, the constable of Chester, granted to
Eoger, Archbishop of York, the town of Plumtree.
Later on William Whorwood claimed twenty
tofts, ten dovecotes, and twenty gardens here.
In 1537 a successor in the line of York prelates
demised to his brother, Geoffrey Lee, Plumtree
Field, which was surrounded by palings, " besides

34 SCROOBY AND ITS HISTORY
Scrooby Park, with the lodge upon the same, to
gether with all his warren and game conies in the
parishes of Scrooby and Haworth for forty-one
years." A word about warrens. From the most an
cient times down to these years of grace, the
English folk have always enjoyed hunting and
eating the conies or rabbit-s as mentioned in the
bequest. By the law of 1539 it was felony " to
take in the king's ground any egg or bird . . .
or to kill any conies or rabbits ... or to enter
... to kiU and steal any conies."
It was at Scrooby that Archbishop Gray, in
1232, wrote to the brethren of the Hospital of St.
John, Nottingham, a letter which is still extant.
Here also, in 1530, came Cardinal Wolsey, whom
some call " the greatest political genius England
ever produced." After having studied the hearts
of men, he was glad to commune with nature, and
to muse over the fickleness of princes' favors.
He had been Archbishop of York by title sixteen
years before visiting the province over which he
was placed. He spent three months at Scrooby
before going to the chief city of his see. He
died at Leicester, November 29, 1530. Among
his last written words was a request to the king
" to depress this new pernicious sect of the
Lutherans."

CHAPTER IV
NOTTINGHAM AND THE ROBIN HOOD COUNTRY
The county or shire of Nottingham is not
varied and hilly like Derby, its famous neighbor
on the west. Its climate is much dryer, for it lies
just out of the influence of those great hill-ranges
which form the backbone of England and attract
the rain clouds. The name "Nottingham " means
the home of dens or caves. These, excavated out
of the New Eed Sandstone series of rocks, are
very numerous in its southern portion.
DuU as it looks to the traveler seeking bold
scenery, this is the county of Maid Marian,
and of Eobin Hood, Friar Tuck, Little John,
and the other gay fellows who lived in Sherwood
Forest. It is the scene of Sir Walter Scott's
" Ivanhoe," and of Arthur Sullivan's opera of the
same name. To be sure, nobody knows whether
such persons having those particular names ever
lived, though something like documentary proof
of the existence of Eobin Hood is not wholly
lacking. To have been in English prose and
poetry for over six hundred years, and to be read
about in one of the first books printed in Eng
land, makes rather respectable antiquity. It was

36 THE ROBIN HOOD COUNTRY
" The Little Jest of Eobin Hood " in which the
English people at large first saw their native
language put in type, by the Dutch printer Wyn-
ken de Worde and his compositors and press
men. This booklet contained a string of popular
baUads. It was the " libretto " of a sort of rustic
opera, a widespread annual celebration of country
sports and masquerading, in which the fat friar,
the expert archer, the tall John, and the pretty
maid were gayly represented. With this came
to be associated aU sorts of merry games, athlet
ics, dances, and masquerades, often coarse and
even lewd. The fun, the songs, and the dances
extended through Nottingham into other coun
ties. This annual " epidemic of rapture " gave
the reformers much trouble to put down. No
doubt the young folk of Scrooby enjoyed the
lively revels, and the Puritan leaders had hard
work to stop the excesses. On the other hand,
King James, who hated " Papists, Puritans, and
Precisians," in the " Dance Book " of 1618 al
lowed May-games, Whitsun ales, Morris dances,
leaping, vaulting, and acrobatic shows on Sunday
afternoons to aU those who would attend the state
church. It is right here in this county of Notts
that we find more about Eobin Hood and the
places made famous by him, or the legends about
him, than in any other shire of England.
Scrooby is in the district of " Basset Law."
The old Danish term " law " means something

THE ROBIN HOOD COUNTRY 37
fixed or set, whether a custom, a writing, or a
hill. It is often applied to rising or strikingly
visible ground, hard and immovable. All through
North England and Scotland this word " law "
refers to a hill, especially one standing alone and
not in ranges. Probably the most remarkable
natural feature in the " flat and featureless " north
half of Notts is this Berset or Basset Hill. Long
ago it was called the Basset Law or "lawe,"
which has given its name to the " hundred."
This division of the land was made by the Ger
manic tribes which settled England. As a unit of
arrangement it was originally based on the num
ber of fighting men furnished. Ten tithings of
freeholders made a " hundred," and ten families
a " ton," or town. The " hundred " afterwards
became the basis of taxes and other financial and
political matters. In the divisions of laud in
America, the systems varied, but there were the
" hundreds " in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Mary
land, and Delaware. In the Chesapeake Bay
State they served as election districts. In the
State of Delaware they were retained longest.
Nottingham produces coal, but it is far down
below the surface. It was long after the Pil
grims went away that the coal measures were
reached by driUing under the overlying strata of
clay. By this application of science coal mines
were opened and developed and new industries
were established ; and now Nottingham laces,

38 THE ROBIN HOOD COUNTRY
curtains, and stockings have become as household
words in every land where English is spoken.
The sixteenth century seemed a very wonder
ful one to our fathers. Great changes took place
within the four countries in the British Isles,
both in politics, religion, and commerce. Drake
ploughed " the first English furrow round the
world." England began to influence more and
more potently other nations, and to be more and
more influenced by them. Henry VIII. broke
with the Pope of Eome, and Italian power in Eng
land largely ceased. The old monasteries, of
which there were a great many in Northern Eng
land, — Scrooby being in the midst of a large
circle of them, — were suppressed. A few schools
were founded in their place, but most of the lands,
revenues, and buildings having been made by act
of Parliament the property of the king, were
made over by him to his favorite noblfes. This
high-handed act of the king was not a movement
in favor of the people. The people, not having
been educated in the Eeformed faith, did not
take kindly to the change from Eomanism to that
semi-reformation which afterwards became Angli
canism. Many famous families and men, like
Miles Standish's kin at Duxbury HaU, in Lanca
shire, and Milton's grandfather and brother, re
mained Eoman Catholics.
There was more than one great uprising in Lin
colnshire against Earl Cromwell and the king's

THE ROBIN HOOD COUNTRY 39
authority. " The Pilgrimage of Grace " in 1536
was attended with riot and bloodshed, and so was
" The Eising of the North " in 1569. The peo
ple had liked the old customs and privileges,
doles and charities, to which they had become
used under the monastic system, and they wanted
them again. They clamored for the " Sunday of
joy," the hot cross buns, the dances and sports,
the stories and jokes from the pulpit at Easter, the
shining cross set up in the rood loft between the
nave and the chancel, the church ales and glut
ton masses, the colors and varied dresses of the
priests and monks, and the enjoyable good things
which had been swept away along with some
which they were not sorry to see go. The first
insurrection was put down by King Henry VIII.
with an iron hand. "The whole country was
covered with gibbets."
The second insurrection, which gathered an
army at Doncaster, expected aid from Spain, but
did not get it. Elizabeth in her severe punish
ments showed herself the daughter of Henry
VIIL, the memorials whereof still lie on the land
scape. " Gibbet Hill " and " Hangman's Lane,"
not far from Scrooby, teU their own story. The
ancient Greeks erased every sign of ill-omen and
memorial of disaster from the landscape, but the
"Anglo-Saxon" people in both England and
America seem to delight in things ugly and
gloomy, and befoul much lovely scenery with hide-

40 THE ROBIN HOOD COUNTRY
OUS names. The English people had to become
accustomed to the new order of things, which in
the end was for their benefit, but the change
from the Eoman to the Eeformed religion went
on slowly.
In those times it was customary for the sheriff
of Yorkshire to come to Bawtry, the county boun
dary-line, for " Scrooby water divideth the shires,"
there meet the king when he was traveling north,
and escort him over the border. So when Bluff
King Hal came to Bawtry in 1541, it was neces
sary for the noblemen and the yeomen of aU that
region to show that they were loyal to him and
were sorry for the late rebellion caUed " The Pil
grimage of Grace." It was a grand sight when
"two hundred gentlemen of the country in vel
vet, and four thousand taU yeomen and serving
men weU horsed ... on their knees made a sub
mission by the mouth of Sir Eobert Bowes and
presented the King with £900." A similar scene
I have witnessed, when two thousand feudal re
tainers of the Prince of Echizen, all robed in silk,
fell on their knees before their lord, in the great
castle halls at Fukui, Japan, presenting their
gifts and assurances of fealty.
King Henry's wastefulness entailed great pov
erty and distress upon the people. A large de
mand for wool and sheep led to the inclosing of
the pastures on common land which had always
been practically the property of the people. Un-

THE ROBIN HOOD COUNTRY 41
der Elizabeth things were improved in every way,
but more particularly for the benefit of the peo
ple living in towns and cities than for the farm
ing communities. Her ambition was to unite the
throne and the people, to weaken the power of
the nobles, to introduce arts and manufactures,
to improve the currency, to welcome foreigners
who were skilled mechanics or persons of craft
and talent. She compelled each family of the
tens of thousands from the Netherlands who had
come into her realm to take an English appren
tice, so that the country might immediately get
the benefit of continental superiority in science,
art and handicraft. In this way England was
quickly changed from a purely agricultural to a
manufacturing country, though the weaving, dye
ing, fulling of cloth, and the various processes
made use of in working glass, iron, pottery, met
als, and wood were carried on, not in large facto
ries, but in private houses, exactly as I saw was
the case in the Japan of 1870. Elizabeth person
aUy encouraged these industries. Her visits to
manufacturing towns, notably one to Norwich,
were long famous for artificers' pageants and in
dustrial tableaux.
The Virgin Queen was strenuous in making
everything uniform in church and state. Her one
idea was to make England great. In her eyes reli
gion was a method in politics. Whether at heart ¦
Elizabeth was a Protestant or a Papist, Eomish

42 THE ROBIN HOOD COUNTRY
or Eeformed, no man knoweth unto this day.
This queen, caUed " that bright Occidental Star "
by those who saluted King James as " the Sun,"
certainly treated the Puritans even more roughly
than she treated the Catholics. Her economic
methods were of benefit to manufacturers, but did
not improve the condition of the farm laborers.
After keeping off war with Spain by means of
her diplomacy for thirty years, she agreed to help
the Dutch republic and thus to have the actual
fighting done on the continent. Brave little Hol
land was England's outer dike of defense.
With ten thousand English, Welsh, Irish, and
Scottish soldiers, fighting under the red, white, and
blue flag of the republic, thousands of British
contractors, merchants, traders, and agents in the
Low Countries, and a hundred thousand Nether-
landers, mostly educated people and skiUed work
men, in the British Isles, relations between Eng
land and Holland were close and varied. Through
enlarged commerce, the English people began to
enjoy abundantly what had been curiosities for
the rich. These were new vegetables and other
articles of food, gay and substantial clothing,
starch and white linen goods, bricks and brick
houses, improved ploughs, pleasure carriages, well-
made wagons, carpets, looking-glasses, and ten
thousand new and wonderful comforts and novel
ties which made life, not only in English towns
and cities, but also in the rural districts, very dif-

THE ROBIN HOOD COUNTRY 43
ferent from what it had been in the days of
Eobin Hood, or in the fifteenth century.
Southern and especiaUy eastern England was
most rapidly and thoroughly affected by these
changes for the better. It is out of the eastern
counties, until quite modern times, that most of
England's men of civil abilities and military
power, and her chief wealth, have come. The
western counties were more famous for their
ships and sailors. In northern England the popu
lation was sparse, and the people more rude and
ignorant. There were few schools. Education
was very backward. The Eoman Catholic spirit
was much stronger than in the freer south. The
people were more attached to the monks and
lords, the castles and monasteries. The great
mass of population, as weU as of wealth, was in
the southern shires, where the people were peace
ful, progressive, and up to the times. There was
a bitter sectional feeling between the north and
the south, the poorer and more priest-ridden
northerners envying the wealth and comfort of
the more commercial southerners. So far back
as 1361 we find Queen Margaret moving with an
army on London, only to be beaten by Edward
IV. at the battle of Towton. " The Pilgrimage
of Grace " in 1537 and " the Uprising of the
North " in 1569, which were animated with the
same envy, were the last attempts of the north
forcibly to express opposition to the south.

44 THE ROBIN HOOD COUNTRY
Until about 1590, then, the people of northern
Nottingham, and of the little hook of Yorkshire
which comes into Notts, lived their quiet lives,
unvexed by the great world without, though they
had excitement enough at home with the " bruits,"
and the uprisings, and the royal armies sent to
suppress these, whenever words of complaint
turned to acts of violence. America had been
discovered by the Venetian Cabot sailing from
Bristol in 1497, nearly a century before, but fifty
years went by before the fact was popularly
known, or any allusion had been made to it in
an English book. What we Americans know so
weU about Sir Walter Ealeigh's attempts to colo
nize the Carolinas was almost unheard of in
northern England, for most of Ealeigh's colonists
were Irishmen and southerners.
Of many of the counties in England we may
say that they were, from the point of view of
farm laborers, almost like foreign countries, hav
ing different dialects, manners, customs, ideas,
and superstitions. The general condition of the
people in the northern counties was much like
that of the mountain whites of " Appalachian
America " fifty years ago. In these people of
the plateau formed by western North Carolina
and eastern Kentucky and Tennnesee, we see
our " contemporary ancestors," who stiU use about
two hundred old English expressions which are
obsolete elsewhere, and which uneducated Britons
think are " Americanisms."

CHAPTER V
WILLIAM BEEWSTEE
Men believe that they are hearing the Divine
Voice when they are called to reform manifest
abuses. So felt the English Puritans of the six
teenth century, among whom were those who later
became Separatists. In the development in north
ern England of the Pilgrims, we may discern five
notable factors. These were the Bible in Eng
Ush, the presence of the Anabaptists in England,
the visit of William Brewster to the Netherlands,
the coming at Brewster's invitation of three other
Cambridge men into the Pilgrim district, and the
system of inclosures for sheep pastures, which
made farming a losing occupation, and so inclined
many plain people to emigrate. The leaders of
the movement in Gainsborough and Scrooby
were four men, Brewster, Eobinson, Clifton, and
Smyth, each of whom had been trained in Cam
bridge University. The first and greatest of them
was Brewster, and the next was Eobinson.
In English intellectual history Oxford has
stood for privilege, royalty, high churchism, things
conservative, and faith in things as they are and
have been, — the safe side. This was the prevail-

46 WILLIAM BREWSTER
ing sentiment and feeling in the middle counties
of England, which were not so easily influenced
by the continent or the ocean and foreign com
merce. On the other hand, Cambridge has stood
for the people, for freedom and progress, and for
the truth, not only that has been, but which is
and is to be. Cambridge is the product of, and
has profoundly influenced, eastern England. It
is in close and living touch with that great region
from Lincolnshire to Kent, between the backbone
of England's central hills and the German Ocean.
Cambridgeshire borders those counties of Essex,
Suffolk, and Norfolk, which have ever been quick
to respond to the fertilizing ideas, commerce, and
inteUectual movements of continental Europe.
It is closest to Holland, from which it has bor
rowed most of her republican ideas. This region
of country is very homelike to Americans, because
of famUiar names and idioms, and as the birth
place of so many of their ancestors. We could
not imagine a Pilgrim movement starting from
Oxford, especiaUy from sixteenth-century Oxford,
where during one of its many reactions Cranmer,
Latimer, and Eidley were burned. It is easier
to think that to Cambridge, far more than to
Oxford, the United States and the world owe
immeasurable debts of gratitude.
The man who emerges as the beginner of the
Pilgrim movement was WUliam Brewster, whose
father had charge of the relay station or post at

WILLIAM BREWSTER 47
Scrooby, and who was born before 1567. He
grew up in the village, seeing whatever came into
the place from the great world outside. When
the king's messengers changed horses, drank their
ale, or took their supper and breakfast at his
father's inn, he was apt to hear news. Occasion
aUy some gay or even royal lady would pass that
way. Margaret, Queen of Scotland, daughter of
King Henry VII., slept at Scrooby on the 12th
of June, 1603, on her way northward. Perhaps
as a great curiosity, new and strange, the young
Brewster would see a man burning tobacco in a
bowl, and "drinking the smoke," as people used
to say in those days. He little realized then that
he would one day be a cultivator of the weed in
its home-land beyond the Atlantic. After he had
been to school somewhere in the neighborhood,
probably at Bawtry, he went to Cambridge. It
is not at all improbable that he walked the whole
way thither. Thirteen of the seventeen coUeges
now forming the university were then in exist
ence. Brewster entered Peterhouse, the oldest
college of aU, founded in 1284, and made his
first record, December 3, 1580. An English col
lege in those days was much like some of our
smaller " universities," — little more than a gram
mar school. Though it is quite probable that
Brewster did not graduate or take a degree, yet
he was long enough at Cambridge to come under
the influences of the Puritan preachers, and to

48 WILLIAM BREWSTER
become most decidedly earnest in his Christian
character. Brewster was caUed away from his studies to
help WUliam Davison, who had long been Eliza
beth's envoy at Antwerp. Davison had in 1583
traveled from London to Scotland, which was
then to an Englishman like a foreign country, and
so continued to be until after Cromwell's time.
It is almost a certainty that Davison stopped
at Scrooby inn, where he may have met young
Brewster, then about sixteen or seventeen. Davi
son was on royal business, to head off an aUiance
which the French wanted to make with the Scot
tish King James VI. When in 1585 Elizabeth
finaUy concluded to join forces with the Dutch
United States in order to help the cause of free
dom, and keep the Spaniards occupied and away
from England, Davison was dispatched as her
envoy to negotiate terms, for the thrifty queen
wanted to be sure of getting back the money
loaned. HoUand and Zealand were in reality
fighting England's battle, and the States were
paying her troops, yet she acted more like a
usurer than a friend, requiring them to deUver
up two towns and a fort as security. These were
to be garrisoned by English governors, and to be
put under martial law. Under Providence it was
this arrangement that gave not only Sir PhUip
Sidney to HoUand, but Miles Standish to Amer
ica. The EngUsh garrisons were maintained even

WILLIAM BREWSTER 49
during seven years of the Twelve Years' Truce,
1609-1621. Just as the Japanese submitted to the humilia
tion of " extraterritoriality " for over forty years,
so did the Dutch Eepublicans for thirty-one years
(until Barneveldt's masterly statesmanship re
lieved them), since it was a matter of life and
death with them to get English aid. So they
handed over at once, in token of their good faith,
the great iron keys of the city gates of Flushing
on the Scheldt, Brill on the Maas, and the fort of
Eammekens on Walcheren. This island, owing
to the fact that so many fine vegetables and table
delicacies, then practicaUy unknown in England,
were imported thence, came to be called " Queen
Elizabeth's kitchen garden." These keys of the
" cautionary towns " were ponderous affairs, and
were held on a great iron ring. They were so
heavy that Davison could not well carry them
around with him. So he gave them in charge of
the young college boy, Brewster, who proudly
slept with them at night under his pillow. Prob
ably the young Puritan was familiar with the
text in Isaiah xxii. 22.
Davison had long lived in Antwerp, where his
children were born, and where he was an elder in
an English Puritan church. The Pilgrims were
not the first Englishmen who fled to the Low
Countries for freedom's sake, for there were Eng
lish churches at Antwerp, Middelburg, and Emb-

50 WILLIAM BREWSTER ^
den, as well as in other places on the continent,
such as Frankfort and Geneva, where the Puritan
parties formed their opinions and polity, and made
the popular English Bible. Davison knew the
freedom of thought, religion, and publishing in
the democratic Netherlands, and his influence in
training Brewster was excellent. The female
ruler of England generally followed very good
advice when she listened to Davison, who told her
truly what kind of people the Dutch were, though
he thereby shocked those insular prejudices, so
many of which Americans have foolishly inherited.
The relations between Davison and Brewster
must have been very close and even affectionate.
Bradford declares that Davison trusted Brewster
above aU that were about him, and employed him
in all matters of greatest trust and secrecy, esteem
ing him rather as a son than a servant. In pri
vate he talked with him more like a friend than
a master, and thought much of the lad because of
his wisdom and godliness.
Landing at Vlissingen, or " Flushing," as
English people call the port city of Zealand, the
Puritan master, Davison, and his young servant,
Brewster, rode to Middelburg, at which city the
Pilgrim story may, in a very important sense, be
said to have begun. Here the Anabaptists were
first in Europe given liberty of conscience, and
here Eobert Browne, besides finding asylum and
toleration, printed and issued his books which

WILLIAM BREWSTER 51
first taught in English the Congregational idea
of church government. Within the period of
six score years, between stadholder and great-
grandson, the toleration secured in the Nether
lands by William the Silent, in 1577, and in
England under WiUiam III. of " ever blessed
memory," in 1688, lies the story of the begin
ning and maturing of the Pilgrim enterprise. In
short, the definite epoch of the Pilgrims in their
three homes fills a little more than a century.
Brewster entered Holland just after the death of
the man whom the Dutch called Father of his
Country, and Plymouth Colony ceased when Wil
liam III. became King of England.
It must have been a wonderful experience for
this bright young Englishman to travel in a
state so highly civilized as Holland, which then
was in many respects, especiaUy in social refine
ment and the comforts of life, far superior to
Brewster's native country. He saw gayly dressed
and weU-fed people in many walled cities, excel
lent farms, well-made and well-kept roads, noble
church edifices, superb city halls, dwellings built
of brick, and striking cleanliness everywhere,
while the carillons of bells in the spires doubtless
pleased his ear.
We may be sure that so observing and keen-
minded a man as Brewster afterwards showed
himself to be could not fail to notice especiaUy
those things which were very different from what

52 WILLIAM BREWSTER
one could find in the England of his time, such
as the federal union of seven states, self-govern
ment of cities, judges independent of the execu
tive, the democratic spirit of the churches, public
schools for the youth and free instruction to poor
children, the freedom of the press, and the liberty
of printing and publishing. He could not but
note the toleration granted to Eoman Catholics,
Jews, Anabaptists, and other people without
the state church. These " dissenters," though
not aUowed public processions or parades, or
crosses or symbols on the outside of their places
of worship, were perfectly free indoors and suf
fered no molestation. The great number of peo
ple able to read and write, of cheap books and
pictures, of schools, hospitals, orphan asylums,
and benevolent institutions, must have impressed
Brewster ; while the number and variety of manu
factures, the gayety of the markets, the vast fish
eries and tremendous commerce, — proportionally
so much greater than anything then known in his
own country, — opened his eyes to the wonderful
world beyond his native island. Above all, this
idea of liberty of conscieiice, the devoutness and
earnestness of the Dutch Puritans, and the deter
mination of all, Protestants and Catholics alike, to
fight Spain until their freedom was acknowledged,
must have kindled new thoughts in the mind of
William Brewster.
How the English and Irish troops, led by Eob-

WILLIAM BREWSTER 53
ert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, landed at Flushing
and marched to the Hague, amid bonfires, pa
geants, fireworks, and every sort of civic rejoi-
ing, can be seen in the Dutch picture gaUeries,
and read in Leicester's correspondence and the
state papers of both countries. The Netherland-
ers are famous for making calls on New Year's
Day, a custom which Dutchmen introduced into
the American United States. Davison, and pos
sibly young Brewster, was present during that
memorable caU on New Year's morning of Jan
uary 14, 1586, when the deputies of the States-
General offered the earl the absolute government
of the Low Countries. Strange as it may seem,
the democratic and Calvinistic forces rallied
around Leicester, while the aristocratic and state-
rights elements gathered about Barneveldt.
Leicester's head was turned by such an honor
and he accepted. Sidney and Davison did not
dissuade him from doing this, though it was in
direct violation of Elizabeth's command, and woe
fully did the queen make her servant rue his pre
sumptuous act. With vast pomp Leicester was
installed governor and captain-general of the
Union of states on February 6. Instead of
his dispatching explanations to the queen much
sooner, especially as a fair wind was blowing,
Davison was not sent from the Hague until Feb
ruary 5. He was to sail at once from Brill, but
he and Brewster were detained by stormy weather

64 WILLIAM BREWSTER
five or six days, so that they did not arrive in
London until February 13.
Long before this, Elizabeth had heard that the
Countess of Leicester was about to join the earl
in HoUand, with a train of ladies, and such rich
" coaches, litters, and side-saddles " as should
make a court which would surpass her own. This
made the jealous queen furious and stirred her to
" extreme choler and dislike of all the earl's pro
ceedings." With strong language she declared
she would have " no more courts under her obei
sance than her own." Davison on his arrival had
to hear the queen's wrath against both himself and
Leicester, and later the ungrateful earl managed
to throw most of the blame, which his own folly
deserved, upon Davison. But the latter defended
himself with spirit ; and the treaty with Scotland
having been concluded successfully on the 17th
of July, and the Scottish commissioners dismissed
in good humor, Walsingham wrote to Leicester
on July 22 that Elizabeth " seemeth to be dis
posed to make Mr. Davison my assistant in the
place I serve." This she did, though the warrant
was not issued until the 12th of December, 1586.
Part of Davison's business while in office was to
effect the transportation from Ireland to the
Netherlands of a further contingent of one thou
sand Irishmen, as part of the British forces fight
ing for freedom.
When he came back after a year's absence,

WILLIAM BREWSTER 55
Brewster was no longer merely a country lad or
college student.
The Dutch United States had honored Davi
son, as they usually did the foreign envoys that
pleased them, with a gold chain. Arriving in
England, Davison put this gold chain on young
Brewster as his own charge, and commanded him
to wear it as they rode through the country till
they came into the queen's presence.
The episode of WiUiam Brewster's presence in
Holland at a critical period in Dutch history, and
during the movement of the Calvinistic demo
cratic and unionist elements in the federal repub
lic, which Davison could not but favor, is of great
significance to the philosophic student of Pilgrim
history. Brewster must then and there have
seen clearly the difference between the forces
making for the uplifting of the common people
and the consolidation of a strong and united nar
tion, and those which nourished aristocracy, privi
lege, and wealth, and even secession. Evidently
he went back to his old home mightily reinforced
in heart and inteUect. His whole after life shows
what principles he followed — even those which
have made the better life of England, Holland,
and the United States of America.
As early as November 15, Davison, as the
queen's secretary, wrote to Earl Leicester, ex
pressing Her Majesty's great grief for the loss
at Zutphen of Sir Philip Sidney, whose elegant

56 WILLIAM BREWSTER
Latin has supplied the motto of that great State
of Massachusetts, of which Brewster was to lay
the foundation-stone.
Eemaining from the autumn of 1586 until
February, 1587, with Davison, who was during
this time in daily attendance upon the queen, the
young man Brewster must have seen a good deal
of English court life. AU seemed to be going
well with him, and he was apparently destined to
become a shining figure in political life, either
at court, in parliament, or on some foreign em
bassage. But a woman was destined to change the
current of the Scrooby lad's career, to be the
innocent cause of Davison's disgrace, to cause
a controversy which has not yet been settled, and
indirectly to be one of the makers of the Pilgrim
community and of New England. This was none
other than the beautiful Mary Stuart, Queen of
Scots. Elizabeth Tudor believed that she must
put Mary to death, thinking her own throne and
her country were not safe while the adherents of
Eome had hopes of a living leader. Elizabeth,
however, who was as unscrupulous as she was
brave, and who always sought to have a scape
goat on whom she could throw any odium which
might come from her own acts, selected Davison
as her beast of evil burden. She first allowed
her wrath to explode upon him, and then drove
him into the Tower solitudes.

WILLIAM BREWSTER 57
In February, 1587, it was published abroad
that the Scottish queen had been beheaded.
Davison was then imprisoned, and Brewster re
turned to live with his father at Scrooby. As a
popular and beloved friend and gentleman, his
true character shone as brightly in the country
village as at court or in foreign lands. His
father's health was failing, and young Brewster
did the real work at the relay station, as his
father and grandfather had done before him.
Although the royal postmaster-general in London
wanted to appoint one of his own relatives, a
lawyer of Gray's Inn, to the vacant position, and
aU the more because young Brewster was not that
kind of an office-seeker that flatters men who have
patronage to dispense, yet though largely through
Davison's earnest exertions, William Brewster
was appointed as post at Scrooby on the great
North Eoad to Scotland. It was most probably
about this time that he married.
There were four of these posts, or royal routes
from London, three of which went towards for
eign countries, and one to the place whence dis
tant voyages were most frequent. The first led
to the north into the foreign country of Scot
land ; the second westward to Anglesea and across
the Irish Sea to Ireland ; the third southward
to Dover and the continent ; and the fourth to
Plymouth, where was the chief naval station. The
method of the posts was much like that which

58 WILLIAM BREWSTER
I saw and used in 1871 in Japan. It was not
like our " pony express " over the Western plains,
before the days of railways, in that it was very
much slower. It was for travel and the exchange
of horses rather than for the carrying of letters.
With other perquisites, Brewster's salary
amounted to about fifteen hundred dollars a
year, at a time when money was worth four times
what it is now, thus making fine pay. This ena
bled him to entertain, often at his own charges,
as Bradford tells us, the whole Pilgrim company
to dinner, when they would come to the manor
house for worship. Some of these earnest peo
ple walked from two to twenty miles for this
purpose. Among them was one, Gervaise Novell,
who, as I have good reason for believing, was a
kinsman to my own ancestors. He was destined
to be the first Pilgrim caught, imprisoned, and
summoned before the court at York for " Brown-
ism." He afterwards fled to Amsterdam.
From the first, Brewster was the soul of the
Pilgrim company, and this was before any Puri
tan minister who was also a Separatist had come
into the region. Throughout his adult life he
was the generous provider, the nursing father of
the Pilgrim church. Yet one would not appreci
ate him rightly who did not pay proper tribute
also to his intellectual abilities and personal influ
ence. From first to last, as must not be forgot
ten, the Pilgrim church, like the very first Chris-

WILLIAM BREWSTEIi 59
tian churches, was not only composed of, but was
served and managed by laymen, — a majority of
the congregation of believers forming the simple
and sufficient government, under Christ their
only over-lord and master. As the Pilgrims read
the New Testament, they found in it no trace of
a clerical caste. Neither did they discover power
in any corporation, ecclesiastical or political, out
side of the congregation, that insures validity of
ordination. Brewster not only found freedom of
conscience in the Bible, but at Scrooby he pub
Ushed the news of a country which practiced and
guaranteed it.

CHAPTER VI
WILLIAM BRADFORD
Next to Brewster the chief man of the Pilgrim
company, taking all things into consideration, was
William Bradford, who was baptized March 19,
1590, and was brought to baptism by Henry
Fletcher, who made the record in the register.
Bradford's father was a yeoman, and died when
the boy was about a year old.
After his father's death young Bradford was
put under the care of his grandfather, who died
when he was about six years old. He was then
brought up by his three uncles, William, Thomas,
and Eobert Bradford. William's grandfather
and old William Bradford were the two subsidy-
men, or tax collectors, at Austerfield, and when
young Bradford's uncle Eobert died, his will
showed that he owned an iron-bound wagon, while
in his " house," which in old countr/ English
means the sitting, or " living " room, were a cup
board and a long settee, or bench. He had also
armor and leases of land. His acquaintances and
connections show that he was one of the most
important persons in the village. If the tradi
tion that the dwelling pointed out in Austerfield

WILLIAM BRADFORD 61
to-day as the home of Bradford be correct, then
in the fact that they lived in a brick house —
poor and small though it seem to us — we have
a further argument to show that the Bradfords
were of importance and of high character. Brew
ster was twenty-three years old when Bradford
was born, which was on the day that the former
was appointed post of Scrooby.
Bradford grew up in the village, the centre of
which was the little chapel. He had a long sick
ness, which left him a delicate boy, and helped to
flt him to become the serious man that he after
wards was. Even when about a dozen years old,
the reading of the Scriptures fed his imagination
and made a profound impression upon his mind.
Very probably, after learning to read, he gained
what knowledge he could from the books of the
Eev. Mr. Silvester, of Alkly, the guardian of his
cousins, who had not only some land, but also an
EngUsh and Latin library.
Bradford's impressions were much assisted and
improved when he heard the preaching of the
Eev. Eichard Clifton at Babworth, about ten
miles away, to whose church and rectory Brad
ford no doubt often walked.
Dr. Cotton Mather, who tells us these things,
says that Bradford was further befriended by
being brought into the company and fellowship
of earnest Christian young men, though one of
those who at first most influenced him afterwards

62 WILLIAM BRADFORD
became profane and wicked. He adds : " Nor
could the wrath of his uncles, nor the scoff of his
neighbors, now turned upon him as one of the
Puritans, divert him from his pious inclination.
. . . He set himself by reading, by discourse, by
prayer, to learn whether it was not his duty to
withdraw from the communion of the parish as
semblies, and to engage with some society of the
faithful that should keep close unto the -written
Word of God, as the rule of their worship."
As a true Christian soldier Bradford learned
early to stand fire. After much mental distress
he resolved to give up going to the state church,
and began to attend as regularly as possible the
meetings of those Christians who took only the
written Word for their rule of life, without re
gard to politicians, whether lay or clerical. At
Gainsborough and Scrooby he found the food
which his spirit craved. " And the sudden deaths
of the chief relations which thus lay at him quickly
after convinced him . . . and so to Holland he
attempted a removal." As surely as Abraham
listened to the Divine voice, so Bradford and his
yoke-feUows heard this call, " Wherefore come
out from among them, and be ye separate, said
the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing ; and
I will receive you, and wiU be a Father unto you,
and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the
Lord Almighty."
We do not know, and can but guess that tradi-

WILLIAM BRADFORD 63
tion is possibly correct in hinting that for Brad
ford, at least, one of the attractions at church was
the pretty face of the girl whom years after
wards he married in America. What English
maids in their beauty are, we know well by sight
and not merely by faith. What they were in
Bradford's day we learn from Erasmus. Does
he not teU us that they were " divinely fair " ?
and well did this Eotterdammer know. No need
for them to paint their cheeks of damask and
rose ; for as a German traveler once said of Eng
lish ladies, " They do not heretic their faces."
Let us now look at those Puritan ministers who
gave up their livings under the political establish
ment in order to serve a church founded on the
primitive New Testament model. The first was
Eichard Clifton, originally from Derby, the next
county to Notts. He was thirty-three years old
when he came, probably at Brewster's invitation
or through his influence, to Babworth, July 12,
1586. He showed himself to be an advanced
preacher who believed thoroughly in the necessity
of reforming the church. His field of labor was
among the farmers and farm laborers, for his
church was in the country where there was not
even a village. Bradford speaks of him in the
highest terms. Another Nottinghamshire man
and Cambridge graduate, the Eev. Eichard Ber
nard, was made vicar of Worksop June 19,
1601. Before this, in 1598, Bernard had been

64 WILLIAM BRADFORD
in charge of the rectory at Epworth, on the river
island of Axelholme, in Lincolnshire, where John
Wesley was born and which is now the Mecca of
the Methodists, American and British. Thus in
one small district of northern England, wherein,
one generation before the Pilgrim movement,
the people had risen in rebellion to preserve the
corruj)t church and the monasteries, we find the
beginnings of three great bodies of Christians, —
three folds of the " one flock, one Shepherd."
Besides being a Puritan, Bernard was ready to
be a Separatist. He worked with Clifton and
Brewster, his neighbors, and went so far as to
set up a Congregational church within his parish
and edifice.
The Scrooby brethren fully expected him to be
one who through good and evil report would fol
low them to the goal of scriptural freedom. It
turned out differently. When persecution, im
prisonment, and death showed beyond a doubt
that episcopacy was to be established by military
force, and when Bernard was silenced by the
Archbishop of York, then he drew back, and, con
forming to the state church, wrote books against
his former fellow workers. Whether he did this
from lack of moral stamina, or from fondness for
literary dalliance, or whether he was actuated by
a sincere conviction of duty, God knows. Deo
Vindice I It was in answer to the charges of the
vicar at Worksop that John Eobinson wrote his

WILLIAM BRADFORD 65
most famous book, " A Justification of Separa
tion from the Church of England."
On the other side of the Trent, in Lincoln
shire, Puritan sentiments among ministers who
did not approve of the Eomish ceremonies re
tained in the church were in some respects even
more forward than in Nottingham. A Congrega
tional church was formed at Gainsborough in
1602, probably meeting in the old Guild Hall,
which is still standing. Brewster, Bradford, and
those who with them had walked over from
Scrooby met often with the people of this church.
Their bishop, or pastor, was John Smyth, who
had taken his degree at Christ's College, Cam
bridge, having for one of his tutors Francis
Johnson, afterwards pastor of the Separatist
church in London and Amsterdam. Johnson
suffered for his faith at the hands of the rulers of
England in this time of spiritual twilight. He
fled to Amsterdam in 1606.
About 1606 the brethren at Scrooby and on
the western side of the Trent formed a church,
of which the Eev. John Clifton, late rector at
Babworth, became pastor. This church was or
ganized like those of the early Christians, by the
free choice of the people, who elected their own
officers, voting not by written ballot, as in Fries
land, but by the holding up of hands. Beside
the teaching members of the congregation, usually
called clergymen, and in some branches of the

66 WILLIAM BRADFORD
Christian church made into a separate caste,
there were the serving members or deacons.
Clifton continued to be the chief bishop, or pas
tor, and John Eobinson the assistant bishop, or
pastor. This John Eobinson, one of the makers of dis
tinctive America, was born, probably in Gains
borough, certainly in Lincolnshire, and went to
Corpus Christi College in Cambridge, in 1592,
entering as a freshman when but seventeen years
old. He took his degree and was made fellow in
1598. He settled at Norwich, but he preached in
a way that led to his suspension. Then separating
from the Establishment ruled by the queen, he
became pastor of a Congregational church in
Norwich about 1601 or 1602. So many Dutch
Anabaptists and martyrs under " Bloody Mary"
had been burned here, in the dry moats at the
foot of the old Norman castle, that firewood be
came dear and the poor suffered from the cold.
In this city, as is very probable, Eobert
Browne, also educated at Corpus Christi College
in Cambridge, usually reputed to be " the founder
of modern Congregationalism," probably got his
first ideas of primitive Christianity from the
Dutch Anabaptists, and his followers were called
" Brownists." This word was for over a century
a common term in English speech. Shakespeare
makes one of his characters say, " I had as lief be
a Brownist as a politician." Browne, in 1580 or

WILLIAM BRADFORD 67
1581, organized a church in Norwich ; but finding
his limbs and life in danger, he fled to Zealand,
then the most intensely Protestant state in all
Europe. In Middelburg, he printed tracts and
books which were smuggled into England and
circulated by two of his feUow believers, Coppin
and Thacker. These, when caught by the author
ities, in 1583, were hanged.
It was surely not an accident that both Eobert
Browne and John Eobinson, while settled in Nor
wich among the Dutch Anabaptists, who held to
the congregational principles of church polity,
should learn from them and become like them.
Eobinson neither liked nor took the name of
" Brownist " any more than that of " Anabap
tist," both being terms of reproach. Like the
Brethren themselves, both Browne and Eobinson
contended that in the Scriptures alone were found
the source of their light and the basis of their
church polity.
An argument against the idea that Browne
learned the way from the " Anabaptists " has
been attempted to be based on the fact that the
names of Browne's co-workers are not distinc
tively Dutch ; but from this nothing can be
argued, because most of the Dutch, like the Wal
loons and the Huguenot emigrants to England,
quickly translated, shortened, assimilated to Eng
lish sound, or otherwise anglicized their names.
De Wilde became Savage ; van de Velde, Field ;

68 WILLIAM BRADFORD
du Bois, Wood. These are but three instances
out of a hundred that could be named. Who
would ever suppose that Deems, Spurgeon, Dann,
Blake, Dwight, Packard, Cooper, Scidmore,
Hanna, Hansard, and scores of other English
names were originally Dutch ? Johan Winkler's
book of De Nederlandsche Geslachtsnamen
(Dutch Ancestral Names) shows among its
thousands hundreds that are known to have
been altered into other forms by immigrants to
England. Dutch Anabaptists were in Norwich by 1530.
A Walloon congregation had been formed as
early as 1570, so that by 1604 there must have
been many English speaking children and grand
children of these refugees from the Flemish
Netherlands. In the hostile writings of this era,
the " Brownists " and " Anabaptists " were usu
ally identified as fraternal sects.
John Eobinson would gladly have remained in
Norwich, but persecutions and imprisonments
which continually troubled him and his church
members drove him to the northwest, where
he soon found that the catchpoll officers and
minions of the bishops were just as ready there
to do their abominable work as in Norwich.
Elizabeth died in 1603, and the son of Mary
Queen of Scots, James VI. of Scotland, became
King James I. of England. On his way to Lon
don he passed through Scrooby, and it is possible

WILLLAM BRADFORD 69
that Brewster saw his future persecutor, and may
even have served him with refreshments at the
inn. One county sheriff, of Nottingham, met
the king, and the other, of York, took leave of the
king, at Bawtry. He slept at Worksop, lunched
near Blyth, and hunted in Sherwood Forest. He
showed what kind of a ruler he was going to be
by having a man hanged at Nottingham without
trial, which was royal lynch law. From London
he wrote to the York prelate, offering to buy the
manor house at Scrooby. This property had
been transferred by Archbishop Sandys to his
oldest son Samuel, who was Brewster's landlord,
and brother of Edwin, later the warm friend of
the Plymouth Colony.
Whatever hopes of living peaceably under this
king the Scrooby church may have cherished
were blown to the winds after the Hampton Court
Conference in 1604, when the edict of " conform
ity or exile " went forth. In 1606 the Bishop of
Durham, Tobias Matthews, was made Archbishop
of York. The new prelate was a great reader of
" Brownist " books. He had a nose for heresy as
keen as that of a bloodhound for slave tracks.
So early as March, 1607, this sheriff-like bishop
began the coercion of conscience.
The Separatists had not long to wait to see the
bloodhound's teeth. In March, 1607, one Wil
liam Blanchard, a messenger, was sent to appre
hend Gervase Nevyle, who was " one of the sect of

70 WILLIAM BRADFORD
Baroists or Brownists holding and maintaining
erroneous opinions and doctrines." For such
schismatical obstinacy and irreUgion he was to be
delivered by straight warrant " to the hands,
ward and safe custody of the Keeper of His
Majesty's Castle of York." The accused ap
peared and made answer, March 22. It is quite
probable that this Gervase Nevyle was kins
man to the writer's ancestors, the Eyres. The
entry is in these words, " Office against Jervase
Nevyle of Scrobie dio: Ebor." (diocese of York).
The names of the informers who demanded that
Eichard Jackson and WiUiam Brewster, of
Scrooby, gentlemen charged with Brownism, and
later for not appearing " upon lawful summons
at the collegiate church of Southwell," are also
given. In the first hunt the seekers were unable
to find their game, probably because the men were
at that hour in the jail at Boston. The second
attempt failed likewise, for they were probably
then in Holland. The warrants issued for the
arrest of Brewster are dated September 15 and
December 1, 1607. A " very dangerous schis
matical Separatist, Brownist and irreligious sub
ject " is the bishop's description of each gentle
man. Under such a " Defender of the Faith " and
such " shepherds of the flock," the Scrooby Sepa
ratists turned Pilgrims, and began their wander
ing life, changing often their skies, but never

WILLIAM BRADFORD 71
their steadfast mind. How they fled from their
native land, after arrest, robbery, and imprison
ment in the autumn of 1607, at Boston, and cap
ture and separation in the springtime of 1608,
between Grimsby and Hull, is a familiar narra
tive which the limits of our space forbid retelling.
" At sundry times and in divers manners " they
left their first home, England, and reached their
second home, the United States of the Nether
lands.

CHAPTER VII
" INTO A NEW WORLD " — AMSTERDAM
When the Dutch sailor says that " Amsterdam
is built on herring bones," he tells a " fish story "
that is true. Its name pictures the dam on the
Amstel Eiver, at the side of which in the thir
teenth century clustered fishermen's huts under
the shadow of the feudal castle. In Dutch his
tory the use of the word " dam " in the end of a
name marks the transition from the power of the
feudal lords to that of the burghers in the cities.
No Dutch town whose name ends in " dam " is
older than the twelfth century, after which char
ters and municipal rights, wrested or bought
from the barons and castle lords, ushered in the
era of industry and civic freedom. The fishing-
village on the Amstel became a town, and then a
city. After Antwerp had, in 1585, been captured by
the Spaniards, and turned over to the Jesuits, it
ceased to be the home of freedom. Amsterdam
then became the refuge of the oppressed of every
clime. Here, in 1593, as naturally as the com
pass needle trembles toward the pole, moved those
Londoners who, for having applied democracy to

"INTO A NEW WORLD" — AMSTERDAM 73
church poUty, had been hunted out of their native
land. There was then no waterway direct from
Amsterdam to the German Ocean, nor was the
North Holland canal from the Helder yet cut.
All vessels had to go round by Texel Island, and
into the Zuyder Zee.
We hear of parties of these English refugees
at Kampen, the city now so famous for its tobacco
and theology, and at Naarden, the scene of the
awful Spanish massacre of 1572. Being without
money or food, these stranded folk had to be
helped by the town authorities ; but finally get
ting into Amsterdam, very poor and miserably
rent, divided, and scattered, they formed the " An
cient English Church " of which Henry Ainsworth
was teacher. At first they received some assist
ance from friends in London and Middelburg.
By 1607 their affairs had vastly improved. When
Eobinson arrived, there were no fewer than seven
reUgious communities of English-speaking people
in the great Dutch city.
One of these, the Scottish Presbyterian church,
formed in 1607, remains until this day, having its
place of worship off the Kalver Straat in the Be-
guynhof, or Court of the Beguyn Nuns. In this
old edifice, once the cloister chapel of the " ceU-
sisters," the writer preached June 30, 1895.
From the first, this Presbyterian church was con
nected with the State Establishment, and there
fore was given an edifice by the city magistrates,

74 "INTO A NEW WORLD" — AMSTERDAM
while the Separatists had to find a place of wor
ship, and pay their own rent; yet so also did
the Jews, Catholics, Lutherans, Anabaptists, and
other worshipers of God.
Because of their tolerance, the Dutch repub
licans were made the butt and byword of the
English politicians and of every royal persecutor
of Europe, but they cared for these as little as
Americans care to-day for like gibes. They
valued freedom as life itself.
It was a wonderful country — this land where
conscience was free — to these people who had
come from the interior rustic villages in the back
ward and thinly populated parts of northern Eng
land. As Bradford says, " It seemed they were
come into a new world. They saw many goodly
and fortffied cities strongly walled and guarded
with troops of armed men. Also they heard a
strange and uncouth language, and beheld the
different manners and customs of the people with
their strange fashions and attires." It is more
than probable that during the whole eleven years
of their sojourn in the republic these Puritans
wore what to the natives seemed a curious garb.
Their English speech was " broken Dutch " to the
HoUanders. Amsterdam was already one of the world's
great markets, one of its handsomest and richest
cities, and was destined during the seventeenth
century to excel all. It had a bank, which was

'¦INTO A NEW WORLD" — AMSTERDAM 75
then a new thing in northern Europe, nothing like
it being known in England, where the rates of
interest on money loaned were enormous. The
city on the Amstel had mightily enlarged since
the beginning of the war of independence against
the Spaniards. Even in 1609 the large canals,
new waterways, newly reclaimed land, and build
ing lots, were none too ample for the increase of
the population.
The first business of the newcomers was to find
employment, and this they did at various occupa
tions. It is very probable that most of them lived
in that part of the city where rents and houses
were cheap, as for instance around the Binnen-
Amstel near the Baker Straat ; that is, inside the
Amstel Eiver near Baker Street. Not far away
was the street of dyehouses, on what is now the
Groenen-burg, or the green thoroughfare anciently
lying along the waU of the burg or castle.
A building in which some of these English folk
worshiped is in a place stiU called, as a Dutch
woman on the spot told me, " Brownisten gang,"
or Brownists' Alley, — the word " gang " being
the same as in Eobert Burns's line, " gang aft
agley," or in "gangway." To-day, if one visits
this place, starting from the centre of the city,
say the Doelen Straat, he goes north along the
Kloveniers Burgwal (that is, by the old archery-
path to the Culverineers' castle wall) down to the
New Market. This is an open space, at the south

76 ''INTO A NEW WORLD" — AMSTERDAM
end of which is one of the old walled city's mas
sive gate-houses with imposing conical towers.
To the left he will notice one street called Blood
Street, and another Barnde-Steeg, meaning the
place of the burned. Here, between 1522 and
1578, the Anabaptists and Protestants were either
beheaded or burned. Turning to the left, down
one of these streets, and to the right into a narrow
alley, we find at the end an uninviting-looking
building, several stories high, and having walls
three or four feet thick, which is now used as a
tenement house. In the fourteenth century this
was a convent or house of the cell-sisters. At the
top of the first flight of steps there is a large low-
ceiled room in which the English refugees, and
probably John Eobinson's company, worshiped in
1609. Amsterdam did not come under the control of
magistrates of the Eeformed faith until 1578.
During Alva's reign of terror, the blood of the
beheaded flowed and the ashes of the burned
martyrs were cast into the canals on either side
of Blood Street, or of the Alley of the Burned,
and were borne down into the great haven, past
that famous old round tower, which then, as well
as now, was occupied by the harbor-master. Even
in Pilgrim days it was called the Weepers' or
Shriekers' Tower, because here ships began their
voyage to distant lands in the orient, America,
or at the poles. The shrieks and the cries of

"INTO A NEW WORLD" — AMSTERDAM 77
weeping relatives mingled with the words of fare
weU. From this very place, only a few days before
Eobinson's company arrived, their own fellow-
countryman, Henry Hudson, (or in Irvingese,
" Hendrik " Hudson) had sailed away. Hudson
was a friend of Captain John Smith, who had
just named Plymouth and sent to his feUow ex
plorer charts of the Massachusetts coast. With
his first mate, Eobert Juet, Hudson sailed in the
Half Moon, both his ship and crew being Dutch,
to seek the northeast passage to China. Failing
in this, he tried to reach the Asian gold lands by
the northwest passage. He did not give up until
he had entered the Hudson Eiver and gone up to
the latitude of Albany and Troy. Even then he
hoped to find the waterway to Asia, but the shal
lowness of the stream flowing from the Adiron
dacks compeUed him to turn back. Before Eob
inson and his company had left Amsterdam, the
Half Moon and her Dutch crew were back again
in the Amstel haven, though the grasping govern
ment of King James detained Hudson at Plym
outh and did not quite give up the idea of laying
claim to the lands of his discovery, because, for-
sogth, he was an Englishman. New England,
the future home of the Pilgrims, and New Nether
land, in which they intended to settle, received
their names on the same day. The future " em
pire region " of the United States discovered by

78 "INTO A NEW WORLD" — AMSTERDAM
Henry Hudson lay between New France and Vir
ginia ; and the name New Netherland, in the
singular, was the symbol of the union of States in
one federal republic.
For a little while the church under Smyth and
that under Johnson lived in union. Then,
Smyth's congregation split and quarreled ; first
on the subject of using translations of Scripture
instead of the original, and then on the subject
of the form of baptism. The other English
church had its troubles because Johnson, who was
aristocratic in his tastes, became more and more
a Presbyterian, believing in the government of
the church by elders ; while Ainsworth held to
the strict New Testament idea of democracy.
Eobinson sided warmly with Ainsworth and held
to the simple democracy of the primitive Chris
tian church.
Other troubles, not wholly ecclesiastical, in the
congregation which the Scrooby folk had joined,
were largely on account of feminine fashions.
This was an epoch of gorgeous clothes and extra
vagant fashions among all classes. By a natural
reaction, the protest of reformers also was great.
As Csesar had his Brutus, so Mrs. Johnson, the
wife of the Eev. Francis Johnson, had her bro
ther-in-law, who threatened to kill her reputation.
This puritanical critic, having had a prolonged
quarrel with his sister-in-law in London, reopened
the discussion in Amsterdam. He accused her

"INTO A NEW WORLD" — AMSTERDAM 79
of wearing "apparel unreformed," meaning espe
cially gay hats and jauntily trimmed dresses. On
the other hand, several of the brethren believed
the brother-in-law had " a crackt brain." Fur
ther particulars of offense, — spicy and comical
they seem now, — and duly fortified by scriptural
passages, were charged against Mrs. Johnson.
One fault was that she "laid in bed on the
Lord's day till 9 o'clock and hindered the exercise
of the Word," the accuser supporting this last
charge with four Scripture passages : Ps. cxix. ;
Is. Iviii. 13 ; Ezek. xx. 12 ; and Acts xx. 7.
Matters were afterwards somewhat improved,
and a truce foUowed for a few months, until the
pastor's wife was so indiscreet as to buy a velvet
hood, such as none but the richest, finest, and
proudest ladies sought to use. This was to the
brother-in-law as a red rag shaken at a bull.
After much striving and wrestling of conscience
about performing his duty, he wrote her a long
letter which he concluded by expressing a fear
lest " such attire wiU open the adversary's mouth,
disconfute the ungodly, discredit the gospel and
dishonor God."
Alternate peace and storm foUowed ; but at all
the meetings and conferences the main topic of
the accuser's conversation was the pastor's wife.
It came to pass that the venerable father of the
husband and the brother-in-law came over from
England to heal the difficulty, with the result

80 "INTO A NEW WORLD" — AMSTERDAM
that both father and brother-in-law were put out
of the church. The final handling of the matter
lasted through twelve weeks. After this excom
munication the controversy of years was closed,
and a short season of peace came to the church
of which Johnson was pastor.
This is the sensible comment of William Brad
ford on this whole affair. " She (Mrs. Francis
Johnson) was a young widow . . . and was a
godly woman . . . Because she wore such apparel
as she had formerly been used to, which were
neither excessive nor immodest, for their chiefest
exceptions were against her wearing of some
whalebone in the bodice and sleeves of her gown,
corked shoes and other such like things as the
citizens of her rank then used to wear. And
although for offence sake, she and he were willing
to reform the fashions of them so far as might
be without spoiling of their garments, yet it would
not content them except they came full up to
their size." Bradford then goes on to show how
rigid were the notions of some Puritans even on
the subject of starch.
The late Dr. Henry Martin Dexter, who, with
Professor de Hoop Scheffer, has most fully stud
ied the history of these English people in the
Dutch metropolis, has given the details of what
he calls " The Old Clothes Controversy " and has
recovered the names of over four hundred and
fifty free churchmen.

"INTO A NEW WORLD" — AMSTERDAM 81
Another and a far more serious controversy
broke out on the question of church polity, when
Smyth came under the influence of the " Water-
lander " Mennonites and the Arminians, and be
came a Baptist. Ainsworth and his friends se
ceded from Johnson and his adherents, and there
was every prospect of a long continuance of un
pleasantness. This decided Eobinson and his
company to leave the Amstel and find a home
on the Ehine. Next to Amsterdam, the richest
and most important city of Holland was Leyden,
which was within easy reach by canal. Here all
were likely to gain a livelihood, for the cloth and
woolen industries of this city were famous. The
great university, exceUent schools, and large print
ing-offices attracted the lettered men of the com
pany, who had found that Holland was a wonder
ful place for cheap books and first-rate education,
from the free public schools to the renowned
universities of the republic, two of which, Ley
den and Franeker, were then in their bloom.
It is not difficult to picture this city on the
Ehine in A. D. 1600, for few places on this planet
have richer antiquities, archives, and memories in
art. Jan Orlers, who was burgomaster of the
municipality, has given in his oft-reprinted book
full details of its history and administration, so
that we know the important facts and hundreds
of names of local officers, those from 1609 to
1625 being of most interest to Americans.

82 "INTO A NEW WORLD" — AMSTERDAM
The application of Eobinson, in behalf of him
self and about one hundred other persons, for per
mission to come and reside in Leyden may stiU
be read in the Court Day Book among the muni
cipal archives, under the date of February 12,
1609, with the indorsed reply that " the coming
of the Memorialists will be agreeable and wel
come." So it came to pass that in Leyden City in Hol
land, as weU as in Leyden Street in America, the
first sound heard from strangers who were natives
of the asylum-lands of these Pilgrim exiles was
the word " welcome," which they would have been
so glad to hear in their home-land, but for which
they had listened in vain.
Though the story of " the ancient church " in
Amsterdam is a sad one, disclosing disagreeable
traits of character, yet after all it is no different
from that of struggling man in every age and
country. The controversies, the manifestations
of human infirmity, and the questions at issue
were not different or any worse than those which
have repeatedly occupied and vexed larger organ
izations and more famous assemblies. No theory
of faith or system of church government can sup
press or eliminate human nature. In what vital
respect the discussions of convocations and
synods about surplices and cassocks, gowns and
vestments, candles and credence-stools, or the
disputes about mysteries and dogmas, either in

Ps A L M E IOO,

s^^iM^H

Howt folehovah, all the earth, i.

^te^^gjg

Serve ye lehovah with gladncs: be fore

^^

-^t~±

him come with finging-m rth. Know

^M

±=^r»~

that lehovah he God « :
'OLD HUNDREDTH" IN AINSWORTH'S PSALM BOOK

I. Shout to Jehovah all the earth.
2. Serve ye Jehovah with gladness; before him come
with singing-mirth.
3. Know that Jehovah he God is. It's he that made us
and not we, his flock and sheep of his feeding.
4. Oh, with confession enter ye his gates, his courtyard
with praising. Confess to him, bless ye his
name.
5. Because Jehovah he good is ; his mercy ever is the
same, and his faith unto all ages.

"¦'INTO A NEW WORLD" — AMSTERDAM 83
past centuries or in this generation, differ from
those among the Separatists at Amsterdam in
1609, cannot be easily discerned.
Those Christians who were nicknamed " Brown
ists " maintained a church or churches in Amster
dam until 1701, though before that time most
of them had united with the Dutch Baptists,
Mennonites, or Friends, or had entered the Ee
formed church. Among them was the polished
scholar and journalist William Sewall (1654—
1720), who made an English-Dutch dictionary,
and wrote a " History of the Quakers."
Music was cultivated by the Separatists. As
early as 1562, the English hymns they sang had
been put into metre and set to notes. In 1612
Henry Ainsworth published in Amsterdam " The
Book of Psalmes, Englished both in Prose and
Metre," which had thirty-nine separate tunes in
it. For eighty years this book was part of the
daily spiritual food of the Pilgrims on both sides
of the Atlantic. Ainsworth, known aU over Eu
rope as a leading Hebrew scholar, whose annota
tions have helped even the makers of the Eevised
Version of 1885, was so poor a poet, and his verses
were so uncouth, that the Continental scholars at
first imagined there must be two Ainsworths. In
trying to unravel the mystery, some of them got
badly tangled up in their own higher criticism.
More than one half of Ainsworth's tunes show
their Netherlandish environment.

CHAPTER VIII - LEYDEN
Amsterdam in 1609 was only about one third
of its present size. The great triple line of
" grachts " which^ like semi-circles, inclose the
old and form part of the crescent city had not
then been dug, nor were the inclosed spaces built
upon, though this work of enlargement was car
ried out in the seventeenth century. The Dutch
make a difference between a " gracht " and a
canal. The former is one of the city moats or
waterways. A canal is a longer water passage,
generally between two cities, and is a highway
for travel. " Gracht " is the more common word
for a waterway within or near the city walls, and
" canal " is used to designate a waterway from
one place to another. The Pilgrims loaded their
boats in a " gracht." They traveled by "canal "
to Leyden.
We can imagine the little flotilla freighted
with household goods and crowded with plainly
and soberly dressed English people, conspicuous
among whom was the dignified John Eobinson.
In clerical garb, and wearing a cap which looked
exactly like a watermelon cut in half, with per-

"A FAIR CITY" — LEYDEN 85
haps a little band of lace around the bottom, and
wearing also a ruff around his neck, he would be
easily recognized. Brewster, the man in middle
life, being forty-two years old, and Bradford, the
young bachelor of nineteen, would perhaps be
prominent. The women and children would en
joy the outing in the lovely springtime, as they
passed through the garden region of Europe,
where even at that early time the tulips were
gorgeous and the other cultivated flowers magnifi
cent. Where now, however, are square miles of
bloom and color or rich pastures dotted with
cows, was then a colossal checker-board of green
with squares of white, for there were acres of
linen bleaching on the sward. Chlorine was not
then isolated or its virtues recognized, but some
qualities in the water of the Spaarn Eiver and the
skiU of the bleachers, who deftly handled their
wooden shovels as sprinklers, made Haarlem linen
famous throughout the world.
The journey would be along the Haarlem Canal
from the city until they got into the Haarlemmer
meer or lake, on which naval battles between the
Dutch and Spaniard had been fought. During
the siege of Leyden, relief had been sent by boats
in summer, and on sledges over the ice in winter,
to the garrison, for the water washed the waUs of
both cities. The lake no longer exists, but in its
place is an area of gorgeously blooming gardens,
the richest bulb-lands in Holland, with viUages,

86 "A FAIR CITY" — LEYDEN
farms, hedges, and highways over which one rides
in the steam tram. In our century, after many
years of pumping by wind and steam miUs, the
bottom of the lake has been made visible and use
ful. A whole museum of curiosities, consisting
of anchors, ship timber, and ship iron, relics of
human beings and accoutrements of soldiers and
sailors, came to light as the waters lowered.
With the fields so green, the mild-eyed cows
grazing everywhere, the birds in immense num
bers flitting about, it must have been an enjoyable
trip both to the parents and to the children, who
would note many things and clap their hands in
glee over what adults might ignore. While trav
ersing the lake and the green fields of South
Holland, they saw that the great flat landscape
was everywhere dominated by the church spire.
In the distance, on their left, were the shining
waters of the Zuyder Zee. On the right rose the
great sand hiUs, or dunes, which form Holland's
waU of defense against the ocean. This pretty
country, not so very different in those days from
the flat lands, marshy fens, and water-courses of
Nottingham and Lincoln, would be in view all
day. After the walls and great church spire of
Haarlem had been left far behind, they would,
probably late in the afternoon, come within sight
of the turreted gates and walls of Leyden, gay
with the orange, white, and blue flag of the fed
eral republic. They would see the great church

"A FAIR CITY" — LEYDEN 87
of St. Peter, " as an elephant stands among com
mon cattle," under the shadow of which was to be
their home, the roof of St. Pancras, the glorious
bulb spire of the State House, from which bells
sounded out sweet chimes, and the Burg, the cen
tral landmark and the highest mass.of land within
the city.
While on the lake they were in the open,
but when nearing Leyden they turned aside into
smaUer and narrowing bits of water, each having
its own name, until they came to the Ehine, which
flows through and incloses Leyden. At the Zijl
Poort, or Canal Gate, they would be chaUenged
by the guard. When it was found that their
papers were aU right, they would be admitted.
Then they would be allowed to take up their quar
ters, which probably they had already selected, in
the northwestern part of the city on and near St.
Ursula Street. It is very likely that some of the
company from Amsterdam had already found
employment and established their quarters in
" the northern Venice," and that they were pre
sent to welcome the newcomers. Yet even while
the little company waited in the canal outside,
they could see, besides the many windmills, the
spires of the halls of the guilds, in which silk,
fustian, and veils were finished, approved, stamped,
and sold. Leyden was a great emporium for the
manufacture of aU kinds of woven goods ; and
next to finding peace and quiet to serve God, the

88 "A FAIR CITY" — LEYDEN
idea of these Pilgrims on their second journey
was to get work, that they might have food and
the comforts of life.
Leyden had flourished and grown up largely
through the woolen manufactures. The first
canal ever cut and embanked for the making of
a dam was that wherein the wool-men washed
their fleeces. The earliest streets took their
names from the industries of those who dealt or
wrought in wool, — clipping, washing, combing,
carding, weaving, and finishing it. When the
Pilgrims arrived, there were no large factories
with machinery as there are now, but there were
hundreds of houses devoted to the washing, clean
ing, dyeing, carding, combing, weaving, and aU
the other occupations connected with the working
of wool and the manufacturing of cloth. These
are represented in English by the names of oc
cupations, families, and places, such as Webb,
Webber, Webster, Weaver, Blake, Blakeslee,
Dyer, Spinner, Burrell, Fuller ; and, in combina
tion, Washington, FuUerton, and hundreds of
others ; and in Dutch by even older forms of
slightly different spelling and pronunciation.
These names, which are common among us to-day,
show the honest trades of our forefathers. In
the detailed lists of the prominent directors and
overseers of the Fustian, Cloth, Bay, and Serge
Halls given by Jan Orlers, we read the names of
the employers of the Pilgrim fathers. In those

"A FAIR CITY" — LEYDEN 89
days the only way to make a living within a
waUed city was by some handicraft. If these
English folk had gone out into the country to
work on farms, they would have been compelled
to scatter, whereas their vital need and great pur
pose required them to keep together.
Bradford says that they put their hands to
such trades and employments as they best could,
and that many of them became baize and serge
weavers, others wool - carders, spinners, wool-
combers, hat-makers, rope-makers, twine-twisters,
masons and carpenters, block-makers, cabinet
makers, stocking-weavers, brewers, bakers, tail
ors, and pipe-makers. The old Dutch books on
" Bezigheiden," or occupations, with their spirited
woodcuts drawn from life, show exactly how the
laborers, mechanics, and professional men dressed,
lived, and worked in this industrial era. The
industrial situation was then just as I have seen
it in Japan, — the finest and costliest products
of the bookbinders, potters, lapidaries, weavers,
and metal-workers were wrought in small shops,
the vats, the wheels, the furnaces, or the looms
being usually in the owner's or worker's own
dwelling. Even in printing and publishing, the
typesetter or compositor often worked in his own
house and carried his forms, when fiUed, to the
pressman to have his sheets printed.
Leyden was not so large then as some people
think it was, that is, with " one hundred thou-

90 "A FAIR CITY" — LEYDEN
sand " people, — which it almost certainly never
had. To-day the city has about forty thousand
inhabitants, and is still noted for its blankets,
woolen goods, and various other manufactures,
as the catalogue of the great exhibition of Ley
den products held in 1889 shows. Indeed, as
the old tax lists prove, Leyden probably never
had much more than fifty thousand permanent
residents. No city in all the world is so rich in
memorials of the Pilgrims as this " Venice of the
North." Certainly none is more interesting to
the American of catholic appreciation and unsec-
tional tastes, who knows how to find his way
around and how to get at the records, which bear
witness to the loves, the industries, the troubles,
and the triumphs of the Pilgrims.
Leyden gets its name from the old Celtic word
" Lugdun," which means the looking place, or out
look, referring to the great mound or burg placed
anciently at the junction of the two branches of
the Ehine to command both waterways. Though
lying on low land, Leyden's name and situation
are like that of the hill city of Lyons in France,
which has in its name the same root-word, lug,
and this is no other than that in our word " look."
Before the Eomans lengthened the local term
to Lugdunum, or even the Teutonic tribes had
come into the land, there were human habitations
here. Wli^n the helmets of the legionaries
flashed in the northern sunlight and written Ian-

"A FAIR CITY" — LEYDEN 91
guage told of this place, it was called Lugdunum
Batavorum, or the Outlook of the Batavians.
What is now the Breede Straat, or Broadway,
was once the Eoman road laid out on the old
Celtic footpath and horse track which led to the
seashore. As excavations and researches to-day show,
the Eomans built their fortress on the old Celtic
foundation of " the Burg," in the centre of the
city, and also dug the Vliet, or Fleet, which is
still part of the water system of Leyden. When,
after five centuries of occupation, the Eomans
were driven back and out of the land, the Ger
manic peoples came again and once more rebuilt
the forti-ess on top of the two lower foundations,
Celtic and Eoman, and began here their city on
the forked Ehine. These were the " Anglo-Sax
ons." The Angles or Engels, from which England
and the English get their name, must have lived
a good while in HoUand, for there are nearly fifty
places in the Dutch kingdom to-day named
" Engeland," or England, with associated names
meaning the " English " hill, court, or landmark
of some kind. The Saxons also passed through
the land on their way to the British Isles. It
may even be that one half of the immigrants into
Britain called " Anglo-Saxons " were Frisians.
The Pilgrims in sailing eastward to the older
home-land were in the track of one line of their
forefathers. They were reversing history, but

92 "A FAIR CITY" — LEYDEN
only long enough to store up and unite their
forces for a longer voyage and a third-home.
It is more than probable that the educated
men of the party, who had often worshiped in or
lived under the shadow of St. Wilfrid's church
at Scrooby, recognized the image of this saint so
common in Dutch literature and sculpture, and
so prominent on or in the Catholic church edifices
of the Netherlands. Vlissingen takes its name
from Wilfrid's water-flask or bottle, long kept
there as a relic.
When the Counts of Holland, which was the
name of the holt land or well-wooded region
along the lower Ehine,. built their castle at Ley
den, the city became rich and famous for its mar
kets and trade, and especially for its woolen
products. Its guilds of mechanics and skilled
workers were known throughout Europe. Al
ready, in the Middle Ages, the city was noted for
its splendid churches, for its hospitals, its orphan
asylums, and its schools, where the poor received
instruction free of charge, the schools being sup
ported by public taxation. Jan Orler's pages
show that the most honorable and learned men
in Leyden were among the directors and inspec
tors of these schools.
The original ancient city lay between the
Eapenburg Gracht and the Ehine. In this most
famous and oldest part stands the cathedral, or
St. Peter's Church, dedicated in 1121 and enlarged

"A FAIR CITY" — LEYDEN 98
in 1339. Its superb spire, once a landmark
beheld far out at sea, fell in 1512. Eunning
alongside and named after its belfry, there was,
and still is, the Klok Steeg, or Bell Alley, in
which the Pilgrims afterwards lived. Facing the
Eapenburg is the nunnery building, with its beau
tiful grounds, which afterwards became the pro
perty of the university. On Broadway, the main
thoroughfare of the city, was the City Hall,
where so many of the Pilgrim youth and maidens
went to declare their intentions of marriage. In
this neighborhood are also the university library
— in which Eobinson spent many hours of enjoy
ment — and the present museum of antiquities.
On the broad quays fronting the Ehine Eiver and
convenient to the boats were then, and still are,
the six markets for timber, flowers, eels, sea-fish,
vegetables, and butter. In short, this is still to
the visitor the most interesting part of the city.
Not a few things in American life, especially life
in the Middle States, take their origin or prece
dent from Leyden.
In the year 1200 there was an enlargement of
the city made by the addition of that portion of
land between the Heeren Gracht and the Burg.
Four other enlargements, the last in 1659, were
made, and each was inclosed with waUs and moats.
It is the fourth increase, that made in 1610, which
most interests us, because it was here, on the new
and cheap lands, that the Pilgrims settled. In

94 "A FAIR CITY" — LEYDEN
view of the Great Truce then completed, and the
prospect of at least twelve years of peace and un
disturbed business, the city magistrates and land
speculators felt justified in laying out this new
part of Leyden. This portion runs from the
Heeren Gracht westward to Boerhave Street and
the Plantage, or garden. On the southern side,
facing the wide Vest Gracht, are the potato and
the beast markets.
The very interesting building called the Laken-
hal, or Cloth Hall, although not built until after
the Pilgrims had left the city, is very stimulating
to the imagination of the student, because on the
outside are beautiful bas-reliefs showing all the
various stages through which a piece of cloth,
made in the days before steam machinery, passed,
from the sheep's back until, as an attractively
folded, wrapped, af)proved, and stamped package,
it came into the hands of the cutter and tailor.
To-day the old tubs, benches, looms, scissors,
tools, stamps, and certificates are only curiosities.
Steam, the child born of water and fire, has
wrought a revolution in the methods of the cloth
trade and the weaver's art.
Yet besides these relics of industry, there are
other memorials within the edifice of a more gen
eral and fascinating nature, which touch the im
agination, and in them one may read Leyden's
history. Old Eoman fossils and remains, curious
old mediseval ornaments and tools, cannon-balls,

"A FAIR CITY" — LEYDEN 95
arrow-shafts and bolts shot by the bow-gun, frag
ments of old catapults, dented helmets and armor,
war-clubs, all kinds of tools for stabbing, cutting,
and kiUing, besides jewelry and fashionable finery,
and household furnishings, illustrate Leyden life
in aU its phases. More interesting than anything
else are the reminders of the famous siege, espe
cially the metal cooking-pot, duly inscribed, in
which the hungry but panic-stricken Spaniards
left their hodge-podge — a stew made of meat
and vegetables — smoking hot in their fort, near
est the city walls, which they were obliged to
evacuate before the Zealand " Water Beggars "
on the night of October 2, 1573. Near by hangs
a great silken banner upon which is painted the
figure of the suffering Christ, captured from a
vessel in the Spanish Armada. The streaming
rays of glory in the nimbus over his head, long
faded and still invisible to the naked eye, have
come to resurrection in the photograph.
These reUcs of the siege and war of independ
ence here gathered together were formerly in the
City Hall, which on all public holidays was thrown
open to the public. Undoubtedly the Pilgrim
boys and girls looked with wonder and delight on
these emblems of victory when they were new
and fresh, and on the old paintings of Lucas van
Leyden and Engelbrechtsze which Eembrandt
studied, and which shed lustre on the city. Of
the' buildings older than the Cloth Hall, such as

96 "A FAIR CITY" — LEYDEN
the Natural History Museum and the University
Library, besides the Botanic Gardens, we have
good contemporary pictures by Professor Swannen-
burch, who was also a school director. These en
gravings show many specimens of bird, beast, fish,
and the curious things in the mineral, vegetable,
and animal worlds, just as they were arranged in
Pilgrim times. In the library we see that the
readers, in high peaked hats and cloaks, stood
at desks, while reading, and that the books were-
chained or held by rods. The inevitable pet dog
is there also. This was the city of Eembrandt's
boyhood. The miller's lad, who was destined to
be the world's greatest master of light and shade
on canvas, played in the same streets that were
familiar to the Pilgrim boys and girls.

CHAPTER IX
LOVE, COURTSHIP, AND MARRIAGE
By the end of the first year, 1609, it is quite
probable that all the men and older boys and
girls of the Pilgrim church company who wanted
to get work at various trades and occupations out
side of their own homes, had been able to do so ;
for Leyden at this very time was in a high state
of prosperity. Employment was quite easy to
obtain, though perhaps only a few of Eobinson's
company were skUled craftsmen. Even before
they arrived, there were many people from the
British Isles already living in Leyden. Most of
these, who were neither students nor military
men, were engaged in some kind of business or
manual occupation connected with the making of
woolen goods. As we can see from the Dutch
records, these foreigners in HoUand came princi
paUy from southern and eastern England, though
a few were from the western and northern coun
ties, and some also from Scotland and Ireland.
In the list of twenty-four British citizens in Ley
den from 1603 to 1608, ^ve were Scotchmen, one
was an Irishman, but nearly all of them were
woolen-workers. The various books in the Ley-

98 LOVE, COURTSHIP, AND MARRIAGE
den archives which contain records of the Pilgrims
are the book of burghers or citizens, the lists of
those paying poll tax, the registries of deeds and
securities, the university records, and the book of
burials. The greatest number of Pilgrim names is found
in the Trouw, or Troth Book, and are those of
persons declaring intentions of marriage, who
came with their witnesses or sureties. While in
Leyden, as is quite certain, the Pilgrims were in
the main a happy and a healthy company, and
the majority of them enjoyed life richly. So
early as December 4, 1610, we find in the Trouw,
or Betrothal Book, on page 162, that " William
Pantes," a fustian-worker, come out of England
from " Marendorf," near Dover, appeared with
his witnesses, " William Bruwster, Eogier Wil
son, and Eduwaert Sutwaert," to give notice of
his marriage with " Wibre Hanson," a young
maid out of England who appeared with three
friends, "Janneken White, Anna FoUer, and
Maryt Bottaer."
One can easily recognize the true English form
of these names in their Dutch caricatures. In
later history we find that Mr. and Mrs. William
Pantes did not go to America, because when
their opportunity came they were probably too
old. The good wife of 1610 is found in the mid
summer of 1611 coming as voucher for Margaret
Oldham, a maiden from England, who married

LOVE, COURTSHIP, AND MARRIAGE 99
Willem Berset (William Basset), of Sandwich,
the widower of Sisle Lecht (Cecil (?) Lecht).
Basset, whose name is the fourth to declare in
tentions, was to have married " Mayke Botler "
(Mary Butler), of Norwich, but " De bruid is
gestorven bij het derde gebod," that is, the bride
died before the third publication of the banns.
However, Basset soon found a new bride, for
whom Wybre Pantes vouched, and Mr. and Mrs.
Basset went in due time to Plymouth.
We can imagine these little parties coming over
out of Belfry Lane into the Broad Street. They
go up the steps of that same City Hall which we
still see, and into the room of the registry. There
they give their names, which we read in the once
white veUum-bound books, now yellowish with age.
They are written in the best manner possible, after
filtering through a Dutch ear, and reappearing in
the spelling of a Dutch clerk. I confess that,
in looking over the Leyden records, considerable
study was required in some cases to discover the
English originals, so strangely transmuted in
their Dutch orthography. Yet I can assure the
reader that Dutch names in England have fared
equally hard. There are thousands of genuine
Netherlandish names, especially in the eastern
and the southern counties, and in New as weU as
in Old England, which in the records look, read,
and sound as if pure English.
To-day thousands of people having in their

100 LOVE, COURTSHIP, AND MARRIAGE
veins what they believe to be " the bluest of
English blood " bear not only Dutch names in an
altered form, but have plenty of Dutch ancestral
blood in their arteries. Even in the Pilgrim
company and Plymouth Colony the names of
Dutch men and women and of the numerous
French folk as well, are anglicized beyond the
recognition of an ordinary Hollander, such as
" Simmons " for Symonson, " Cuthbert Cuthbert-
son" for Godbert Godbertson, and "Mullins"
for Molines, or Molineaux. Other names on the
tongues of speakers of English suffered surprising
changes. Bompasse was compressed into Bump,
La Douce into Dewson, and de la Noye into
Delano. The prefix " de " in nearly all the Neth
erland or French names has melted into the main
word, as seen in scores of instances, such as
D' Albert, D'Anvers, De Haan, De Hahm, which
have become Dolbeare, Danvers or Denver, Dann,
Damm or Deems, respectively.
Still further, while we may think the Dutch
men queer fellows, thus to play pranks with the
already unsettled orthography of English names,
we must remember that the English language, as
it sounded on the tongues of these rustic folk
from the back country of North England, was
not precisely the same as that heard in London's
West End in our day. When, again, we consider
the varying values of consonants and vowels in
our patchwork alphabet, — which we inherit as

LOVE, COURTSHIP, AND MARRIAGE 101
the cast-off garments which Hebrews, Phoeni
cians, Greeks, and Eomans have used before us,
— there is no mystery about the grotesque forms
in the Leyden and Amsterdam records. In many
cases it is not at all certain that the intending
brides and bridegrooms of the Pilgrim company
could have written or spelled their own names
even so well as did the Dutch functionaries of
the goose-quiU. Like numerous lords and ladies
in the Europe of that day, some of the Pilgrim
fathers and mothers could not write their own
names, nor was this any disgrace then.
Any authorized person, civil or clerical, who
has joined in marriage many score couples, native
and foreign, and written out licenses or made reg
istration of vital statistics will easily understand
this. I know from experience that the correct
recording of the names of shy or embarrassed
young people, who have had need but rarely to
pronounce their full and formal names to a
stranger, is very difficult. Again, the whole mat
ter of speUing, either in Dutch or English, is
even now hardly under the domain of law. In
the sixteenth century the situation was that of
anarchy. In his history, Bradford speUs the
same word in six or seven different ways, and
men more learned than he often twisted even a
well-known proper name " nine ways out of
shape." In most old English documents, one
can discover so many varieties of cacography as

102 LOVE, COURTSHIP, AND MARRIAGE
a postmaster can collect in one of our American
towns of Indian or classic name, such as Omaha
or Eomulus. Even of Ithaca — a name that has
been in written language, polished speech, and
classic editions during three thousand years —
over twenty-five variations have been noted, and
many educated people give two dotted vowels to
the name of the city associated with the one-eyed
Cyclops. Nor do we imagine that the majority of young
people of Belfry Lane, with slight thought for
posterity and no dream of history, cared much
more than a fig how the Dutchmen wrote their
names. These, pronounced hastily and awk
wardly, their true spelling often perhaps unknown
to their owners, who rarely saw them in writing,
were hard enough for a Dutch ear to catch. Of
seven Pilgrim leaders, the birthplaces of only four
are known, and of two only has the baptismal
record been found in England. What is true
of the leaders is at least equally so of the rank
and file.
Coming down from the Stad-Huis, due pro
clamation of the banns by the city clerk would
follow, exactly as I have seen them read in Hol
land and Friesland. The young folk would be
married by civil process, and then would follow
the marriage feast, with plenty of innocent gayety,
jest, and mirth, despite the fact that they were
genuine Puritans.

LOVE, COURTSHIP, AND MARRIAGE 103
To continue the story of love and marriage, we
find that on the SOth of December, 1610, John
Jennings, a fustian-worker from Colchester, in
England, never before married, and accompanied
by Eoger Williams and Edward Southworth, both
of whom vouched for him, came with Elizabeth
Pettenger, never before married, out of England,
who had as vouchers Anna Eas and Janneken
Peck. This betrothal does not seem to have
ripened into marriage, for no further record of
banns is given, but we find Elizabeth coming on
November 20, 1613, to vouch for her sister Doro
thea, who is to wed the widower Henry CruUins,
of Amsterdam.
There were no more weddings apparently until
April and May, 1611 ; but from that time forth
are the registrations of no fewer than about fifty
marriages, which in ten years is a pretty fair
record for a church company never at any one
time numbering over probably three hundred
communicants. Puritanism never hindered love,
but purified it. The Song of Songs declares that
love is a fire of God. These folk from Merrie
England no doubt had many pleasant though
modest wedding festivals.
Not all the Separatists lived on the Ehine.
We find the future governor, William Bradford,
in Amsterdam November 9, 1613. He has come
to declare his intentions to wed Dorothy May,
who signs herself " Dority," thus leaving on the

104 LOVE, COURTSHIP, AND MARRIAGE
city records her only known sign-manual. Theirs
is " a tale of two cities." Like Moses, she was
destined to see a promised land, yet not enter it,
for after seven years of married life she was
drowned from the Mayflower off Cape Cod.
Young men from Leyden went to the cities on
the Amstel and Eotte to marry English or Dutch
girls. Others came from various states of the
republic to the city of St. Peter's Keys on the
Ehine to do their courting, to woo, and to win.
The rosy-cheeked lads and lassies from England
did not confine themselves to their own nation,
but married freely among the men and maids of
the land.
Indeed, one of the causes which finally decided
the leaders to cross the sea was the fact that, as
a company, they were being gradually merged
into the Dutch people, through marriage of their
sons and daughters, as well as by the enlistment
of the young men in the Dutch army, navy, and
mercantile marine. There was danger of their
tiny ark being swamped in the Dutch ocean.
To resume our list, we find that Degory Priest
had for his witnesses William Leslie and Samuel
Fuller. Here are the names of Isaac Allerton
and Edward Southworth, of Bridget Eobinson
and Sarah Priest, of Thomas Morton and Alex
ander Carpenter, appearing as witnesses. Again,
Samuel Fuller appears as a widower. Jacob
Mekancke, who is a " hand-shoe " or glove maker

LOVE, COURTSHIP, AND MARRIAGE 105
from Scotland, marries an English maid. By
November 20, 1613, we find that Henry Collins,
a bombazine-maker from England, living in Am
sterdam, has come down to Leyden to get mar
ried. He brings to the City HaU as his voucher
the Leyden lover who has himself been wooing
in the metropolis. This is WiUiam Bradford,
who becomes a husband ten days later. It is
written in Leyden that on the 8th of November,
1613, WiUiam " Kadfort," a fustian-worker, " van
Oosterfeldt in Englandt," has given notice of
his engagement to " Dorothea May, van Witz-
buts, in Engelandt." The two were made one in
the northern city on the 30th of November. It
is quite evident that on that day either the Dutch
clerk must have been an old fellow who could
not hear very weU, or Bradford did not speak
up clearly, for after the absurd " Kadfort " the
Dutchman has put in parentheses, " Badfort or
Hadfort." Yet this is none other than our first
American historian, William Bradford, who per
haps did not roll his r like the later dwellers in
the land of the east wind. Dorothy May was
from Wisbeach, in Lincolnshire, which is very
rich in Dutch names and blood, and after her
name (which was a common Dutch as well as
English one, as we see in Cape May, for example)
the clerk wrote, " has not appeared but has deliv
ered an attestation." In the next notice of banns
and marriage, Bradford appears with Moses

106 LOVE, COURTSHIP, AND MARRIAGE
Fletcher, widower of Maria Evans, who is going
to marry Sarah Dinbay, the widow of William
Dinbay. Most of the males who thus far had come to
get married were makers of baize or serge or
gloves or shoes, but on September 5, 1614, we
meet on the written page with one who is a
" boy," " Jehan Jene " (John Jenney) from Nor
wich, England, living at Eotterdam, and working
in a brewery, who has found in Leyden her who
in his eyes is the fairest among women, " Sara
Kaire " (Sarah Carey), a maid from " Mouck-
soom." On the 22d of May, 1615, Eoger Chan
dler, whose name is spelled (and from a Dutch
point of view most properly) Kandelaer, from
Colchester, marries a maid Isabel from Canter
bury ; which, as it stands on the records, is
" Cantelberch." We see how the Dutch "burg"
becomes in English "bury," "borough," "burgh,"
or " burg," and how the k in " kerk " or " Kande
laer " becomes ch, as in " church " and " Chandler."
In July, 1615, Samuel Butler, whose name
appears as Boetlaer, and who was a "koopman"
(in English cheap-man or chapman, meaning a
raerchant, while a partner is a coop-mate), brings
for his vouchers Samuel Fuller, the doctor, and
WiUiam Jepson, the carpenter, of whom we shall
hear again. When Edmond Jesep (or Jepson,
as the Dutch clerk adds), a bombazine-woiker,
comes to declare his love for Abigail Hunt, who

LOVE, COURTSHIP, AND MARRIAGE 107
is an unmarried girl from France, but who came
from England, the clerk adds that he lives in the
Greenport over the Belfry.
There was a good deal of known Dutch blood
infused into the Leyden and Plymouth company,
before aU the immigrant ships from Delfshaven
had crossed the Atlantic. The names of " Nelken
Kaerlil," a young maid " out of Holland in Eng
land," with " Anneke Eas," her sister, may not
have been Dutch ; but Elizabeth Willincks, who
wedded Eoger Wilson, had a Dutch name. On
the 17th of April, 1616, we find that Eobert
Lamkin appeared with his intending brother-in-
law, as his only witness or voucher, to marry
Miss Jacob Mijntje Jucosar de Graef, who is a
fair maid of Leyden. She bears a family name
famous in science and politics. The physician
who discovered the Graafian vesicle, and the gov
ernor of the West India Island of St. Eustatius,
who fired the first salute to the American flag
having stars as well as stripes, — to mention no
others, — bore that name. On May 13, 1616,
Mr. Heraut Wilson, the pump-maker, entered the
City HaU, in company with WilUam Jepson and
John Carver, to marry Elizabeth Claes, from
" Sermuyde," of England, whose vouchers were
Sarah Minther and Dorothy Bradford, wife of
WilUam, or so at least do we understand the
Dutch of " Derreke Bretfort."
Other spellings of English names are suffi-

108 LOVE, COURTSHIP, AND MARRIAGE
ciently amusing. Zachariah Burr becomes " Sa-
carius Boore," Cushman becomes " Coetsman,"
the said Eobert Cushman declaring his intentions,
19th of May, 1617, and marrying, on the 3d of
June, Mary Singleton, whose name appears as
" Chingelton." Most naturaUy the Dutch clerks in spelling
names reverted, as it were, from Lowest Dutch
or English, to Piatt, or Middle Dutch, which is
HoUandish, German being High Dutch. Hence,
we find not only Osterfeldt for Austerfield, but
Stephen Butterfield's name as Butterfelt. He
was a silk-worker.
Up to the year 1617 the trades of the young
men raarrying, are, in monotonous succession,
those connected with the products of the sheep,
but thereafter we find men who had every day to
handle black pads and type, and wash printer's
ink off their fingers. There was a good deal of
typesetting and presswork done in Leyden, where
stood the great Elzevir house, whose books are
famous all over the world, and whose printing is
in quality hardly exceUed to-day.
It is quite probable that some of the journey
men printers in the Pilgrim company were at
work in this establishment. Among other books
on the press in 1617 was the folio volume of Pro
fessor Ubbo Emmius of Groningen, who tells us
so minutely about local government in the towns
of democratic Friesland. There, with prayer,

LOVE, COURTSHIP, AND MARRIAGE 109
baUot-box, and a written ballot, magistrates were
chosen. Lands were divided and held in comraon,
and things were done generally in very rauch the
same way that the Pilgrim Fathers afterward set
them going in New Plymouth.
Wherever printers go Cupid follows. We read,
in the first mention of a printer among the Pil
grims, that on the 28th of July, 1617, " Jan Eey-
nouts" (John Eeynolds), who is a young "gesel"
from London, is going to marry Prudence Grin-
don, a young daughter and maid frora England,
whose avouching companions are Maria Brewster
and Mary Allerton. Passing over other names,
we come to another printer, Edward Winslow, a
young man from London who, on April 27, 1618,
declared his intentions of raarrying Elizabeth
Barker, which he did on the 17tli of May, 1618,
her place of origin being " Chatsura ; " but whether
this be meant for Chester or for Cadzand, we can
not tell. The next record is that of Samuel Lee,
a hat-raaker. The next is a brick-maker, Eoger
Simons, who hails from Sarum, but dwells in
Amsterdam. He has come down to Leyden to
marry Sarah Minther, the widow of William
Minther, who appears with his father and mother
as her vouchers. Again, John Smith, a widower,
marries " Elsgen Knets."
In September, 1619, we find that John Cod-
more, a widower, whose trade is that of linen-
weaver, is to marry the raaid Sarah Hooper.

110 LOVE, COURTSHIP, AND MARRIAGE
Here, as in so many other places, we learn that
certain men and women of the church company
were raore frequently at the City HaU acting as
match-makers, — using the word in a good sense,
— or witnesses, than others. This may have been
not only because of their respectability, character,
and station, but also, as is very probable, because
of their geniality and willingness to help young
people put their necks into the matrimonial yoke.
The last record that we find, before the first cora
pany or advanced guard of the young and strong
went off in the Speedwell to England, is of
Leonard Dunster, a silk-worker. As the Dutch
record tells us, he came with his prospective
father-in-law, while his betrothed, " Maycken
Bruynes," a young maid frora Colchester, Eng
land, is accompanied by " Mayken SuUenders,"
her mother, who may have been twice a widow,
for evidently there is a step-parent in the case.
Two or three days after the Mayflower com
pany had stepped ashore at Plymouth, record was
made of Stephen Tracy, who was evidently, as we
judge from the name, like Samuel Terry, Hester
Cooke, the Mullins faraily, Edward Burcher, An
thony Dix, Mrs. Tracy, and others, of Huguenot,
or Walloon, birth or descent. Tracy was the last
of the forefathers who went to America who can
be traced on the list at the City HaU. He
married "Tryfoce [Triphosa] Le  ." Evi
dently the Dutch clerk did not catch the other

LOVE, COURTSHIP, AND MARRIAGE 111
name, but what odds? Certainly there was no
hindrance, for they were married on January 2,
1621. Evidently she also was a Walloon, as the
prefix " Le " shows. Still further in the City
HaU list down to 1630, we meet with over a
score of records of the betrothal and marriage of
British wool-combers and hat-makers, and workers
in serge, baize, cloth, and bombazine, — for Laud
was impoverishing England to enrich Holland,
driving out the Nonconformists, — but on the
10th of May, 1629, we find " John Grynwith,"
who was a student in theology and probably the
sarae as John Grinwodus (Greenwood), of the
Leyden University entrance record of July 9,
1625. After courtship and graduation, he re
turned to raarry Bridget Eobinson, daughter of
the pastor, who came with her mother as a wit
ness. Bridget was then a common name among
English women. CromweU addressed not a few
of his letters to his wife, " Dear Biddy."
We find that our friend " Jan Eeynouts,"
the printer, having become a widower, went up
to Amsterdam, where he found a new wife.
Prudence Grindon, who lived by the Bourse
(Bourse) or Exchange at Amsterdam. The
last of the records is that of Thomas Philips,
a serge-worker from Norwich, who married
Susannah Siers, from Sandwich, England, on
July 25, 1630. AU these dates, we must remem
ber, were in the new, or modern style, while

112 LOVE, COURTSHIP, AND MARRIAGE
English dates of that period were like those of
Eussia in our times, — ten days beyond the rest
of the civilized world. The Dutch, though
stern Protestants, did not hesitate to be in the
van of science even though the calendar had been
made by the Pope.
This church company of men and woraen, who,
because of the union of politics and religion, had
been uprooted from their homes and driven from
their native land, arrived in a country where,
in all its history of many centuries, the fires of
man's master passions were never hotter. The
struggle between caste, privilege, and monarchy
in religion, led by Spain on the one hand, and
democracy in state and church, led by Holland
and Zealand on the other, had been going on for
forty years. Because in substance victory had
been already won, the English refugees had rest
and time for growth. Araong theraselves the
great dominating, overmastering, organizing, and
unifying idea was that of religion, but politics
were not forgotten. They hoped to see a purified
church, and they prepared also to establish " the
republic of God." Yet as we have seen, the
business of love went on industriously, and just
so soon as bread was provided, there were mar
riages many and in continuance.
Necessarily the Leyden records preserve only
a portion of the names of those who were mar
ried out of the church company in Belfry Lane.

LOVE, COURTSHIP, AND MARRIAGE 113
The names of those daughters and sons who went
elsewhere in the republic than to Eotterdam and
Amsterdam to wed Dutch, English, or French
yoke-fellows, as weU as the names of the young
men who enlisted in the Dutch army and navy to
fight the Spaniards, or who went on voyages of
discovery, exploration,* or trade will probably
never come into the realm of the known. StiU
less are we likely to recover the names of those
who, not liking the .strict ways of the Leyden
Pilgrims, went back to England, or, settling
among the Dutch, lived what seemed to them
raore reasonable and pleasant lives. In Amster
dam, as Dr. Scheffer has found, there were one
hundred and eighteen marriages among these
English exiles from twenty-nine counties, between
1598 and 1617.
One of these Englishmen in the Netherlands,
named John Starter, though we are not certain
that he was a Separatist, became a faraous poet
and singer in Friesland. He lived a gay and
luxurious life, and has left behind him many
sweet and stirring songs and amorous and humor
ous poems in elegant Dutch, thus raaking income
and fame. His works are still reprinted in fine
editions. There do not, so far as we can see, appear to
have been many marriages between these plain
English Separatists, most of them mechanics and
country people, with the other British people in

114 LOVE, COURTSHIP, AND MARRIAGE
the church next door to them, under the pastorate
of the Eev. Eobert Durie, whose salary was paid
by the city of Leyden, or with the other English
churches, of which eight or ten of the whole num
ber of twenty-six or thirty known in the seven
teenth century, were then in the Netherlands
before 1620. The Separatists made unions for
life more commonly with the Walloons and Dutch
than with the English or Scottish people of the
state churches of Great Britain.
While the Pilgrims were in Holland, the Book
of Common Prayer was translated into Dutch.
There were many marriages of English and Scot
tish soldiers with Dutch women.
Three Pilgrim men were especially interested
in local and practical politics. They were Wil
liam Bradford, Isaac AUerton, and Degory Priest.
The future governor was the first to avail him
self of the privileges of citizenship in Leyden,
his registration as freeman having been made
March 30, 1612, Eoger Wilson and WiUiam
Lysle being his securities. Eoger Wilson did
not come to America, but seems to have been
otherwise a prominent man in the company, for
on February 7, 1614, he became security for Isaac
Allerton, and on November 16, 1615, for Degory
Priest, the hatter. These men would thus, by be
coming citizens of Leyden, and personally and
practicaUy enjoying its privileges, learn the work
ing of municipal government and ward organizar

LOVE, COURTSHIP, AND MARRIAGE 115
tion, and be interested in the movements of poli
tics in a municipal and federal republic.
Political procedure in the Low Countries was
considerably different from that in England ; and
though republicanisra was then in a very iraper-
fect condition, yet it was in spirit and often in
forra like that of the later government in the
United States of America. With the living
example of a federal republic before them, and
in a country which counted as one of its States
Friesland, where the tastes and methods of the
people were of the most deraocratic kind, the
Pilgrims could not but learn much that fitted
them to be builders of a new commonwealth. In
Friesland, local government was still the general
rule. There the old Teutonic ideas, of the town,
with the rights of pasture, woodland and water
held in common, were still kept up. Instead of
being comparatively dead traditions, as in Eng
land, these were working and effective. Many of
these Dutch ideas have gone into the law, espe
cially of the Middle States, notably of New York
and Pennsylvania.
There was no absolute liberty at that time any
where in Europe, yet throughout the Dutch repub
lic there was an atmosphere of wonderful freedom
of speech and of the press, and in the Dutch
churches there was a democracy which compelled
the more aristocratic city and state governments
to execute the popular will. In later centuries

116 LOVE, COURTSHIP, AND MARRIAGE
the American people, in the evolution of their
destiny and confronted by the problems of federal
politics, borrowed ideas, laws, constitutional prin
ciples, and even pet phrases, approved standard
methods, and party names, from the republic in
which the Pilgrims found asylum and education.

CHAPTER X
WORK AND PLAY IN LEYDEN
How many children were born in the Leyden
church company between 1610 and 1620 ? How
many lived and grew up among Dutch playmates
and learned their speech? It is very probable
that not a few of the Pilgrim children went to the
Dutch free public schools, where they acquired
the rudiments of education in the sister language
which is nearest to English. We may judge that
at least twenty children came first to Leyden in
1610, and that about one hundred were born or
lived a longer or shorter space in Holland and
became familiar with Dutch things and ideas.
Leyden, from the early Middle Ages, as her
archives still show, had a noble story of popular,
as weU as of special education. Besides the
Dutch public schools, there was also one for
the WaUoons in Leyden. Frora these records,
the contemporaneous paintings, and the little
book entitled " A Peep into the Old School
World," published in Leyden in 1890, when a
great exhibition of the antiquities, as weU as of
the modern improvements in Dutch national edu
cation was held, we can form a clear idea of the

118 WORK AND PLAY IN LEYDEN
comparative excellence of instruction in the ele
mentary public schools, which were free to the
poor. A proportion of the Pilgrim company became
coof)-mates, — to use the old English word, — or
partners with the natives, their fellow workmen.
Living while at work in every-day association
with Leyden people, they must have learned to
think and talk in Dutch. Especially the younger
and raore intelligent portions must have so ac
quired the language as to use it fluently and weU.
Bradford, Winslow, and others, as we know, were
able to write Dutch. In the library of the PU
grims' own writings, there is frequent mention of
" our members that understood the [Dutch] lan
guage." No doubt this noble speech of a free people
sounded, as it still does to all who first hear
it and do not know it, " uncouth." The Dutch
is not a dialect of Gerraan. It is a language by
itself, and is one of the strongest, clearest, and
best fitted to express high ideas and to resist the
intrusion of foreign elements. The speech of
Erasmus, Grotius and Vondel is as different
from that of Luther, Goethe, and Schiller as
English is different from Dutch. When the Sep
aratists arrived in the Netherlands the Dutch lan
guage had already been cultivated and adorned
by the writings of a host of poets, prose-writers,
scholars, dramatists, jurists, and men of science.

WORE AND PLAY IN LEYDEN 119
It had even been made the subject of critical re
search, being one of the first languages in Europe
to be so treated, for Killian was one of the fore
most pioneers in modern linguistic science.
Scholarly English-speaking students of Dutch
know that the likeness between the two languages
spoken on opposite sides of the North Sea is very
close, and that Dutch is especially the repository
of the old and dear and hallowed words in Eng
lish speech and literature. It raust not be for
gotten that the later British prejudices against
their neighbors, which arose out of commercial
jealousy and the wars of CromweU and Stuart
days, were unknowii to the Pilgrims, as well as
to most Englishmen before A. D. 1630.
The children, besides easily picking up a new
language with far raore rapidity than adults, see
a thousand things which their elders do not notice.
As a rule, a child's range of observation is of
things not higher than the top of a yardstick.
A five-year old boy notices what is close at hand
or on the ground. He has keen impressions of
those things primitive and basic, to which a grown
person is often nmnb or callous. He easily be
comes acquainted with animals. He likes the un
conventional and natural. In Leyden the elders
might wrinkle their foreheads over the future
and be sad with forebodings, but the children
were happy. Despite the troubles of their par
ents, — hardship and toil, and at times poverty.

120 WORK AND PLAY IN LEYDEN
the uncertain future, the dangers from their sov
ereign to life, limb, and liberty, the wrestling with
spiritual and social probleras, — the young folk
were happy, knowing as a rule nothing of the
things unseen or unfelt. Leyden was at that time
the heart of Holland ; and since it was one of the
liveliest cities in Europe, life there must have
been very delightful to the boys and girls.
Beyond the walls, water-courses and fiowery
meadows lured them to angle or to stroll, and the
seashore was only a few miles off. In winter
skating, sleighing, sledding, and the merry games
of the people made fun and frolic.
Inside the city, they could go up on the Burg,
and, looking over the country for miles around,
have pointed out to them the historic sites made
famous during the siege. Their Dutch friends,
who had heard it from their fathers, could tell
the story. Quite probably some of the older men
and women, who had once suffered almost to
starvation and it may be to wounds, were glad
to fight once raore the battle over again. Here
rose a Spanish bastion. There such a body of
troops camped. In this village the Spanish cora
raander had his headquarters. Yonder the Ley
den boy, Gisbert Cornellison, in early morning
waded out and found the fort of Lamraen empty
and the stew-pot (still kept as a precious relic)
hung over the fire and full of " hutch-putch."
As on a map, flat Holland lay before them.

WORK AND PLAY IN LEYDEN 121
They could see the fields which had been flooded
by cutting the dikes at Delfshaven, the sluice
gates up to which the Zealand relief ships came,
and the place where the sailors tossed up herring
and loaves to the starving people. They would
hear told many a wonderful tale and anecdote.
The carrier pigeons which carried messages to
and from friends outside, had been gratefuUy
cared for and fed, and after their death were
stuffed and kept as memorials. All Leyden was
full of reminders, and scars, even then fresh, of
the great siege, which had lasted one hundred and
thirty-one days.
Most popular and interesting of all the single
festivals — for the Kermiss, or universal merry
making, lasted a week — was the annual Thanks
giving Day on October 3, when all the Dutch
people of the city went to church to thank God
for deliverance from the enemy and for his mer
cies, and then returned home to eat their favorite
historic dish, — a stew of meat and vegetables,
Spanish hodge-podge, or hutch-putch, as they
called it, — in memory of their fathers. To this
dish they added dainties and rich things for joy
and gladness. Thus the Pilgrims had before
them a living example, which they could never
forget, of an annual Thanksgiving Day to God.
Like equally sacred commemorative days in
America and in all the world, perhaps, the mode
of celebration became after a few generations less

122 WORK AND PLAY IN LEYDEN
rigidly reUgious. For those festivals handed
down from the Eoman form of Christianity the
Pilgrims would have little sympathy and much
antipathy ; but at the holidays of Santa Claus,
or St. Nicholas (which is not the same as Christ
mas), New Year's Day, the Maypole festivities,
the Kermiss, and the local and national rejoicings
there is little doubt that many of the English
folk rejoiced with their Dutch feUow-Christians
of the Eeformed faith.
Jan Steen, born in 1626, and one of the world-
renowned Leyden school of artists, has painted
the joyous merriment in a Dutch home on the
day of Santa Claus, or St. Nicholas. Heaps
of cookies, waffles, and sugar-loaves, and baskets
of toys amuse the youngest of the children.
One small boy plays with his father's cane.
The daughter puts hay in the shoe to show the
naughty older boy that he wiU get only that from
Santa Claus. This unlucky urchin is making
such a wry face that he looks as if he had taken
a pinch of snuff, but he is only crying. The
windows, fireplace, curtained or closet bed, and
the cozy comforts of home life are pictured with
spirit. They show scenes and surroundings fa
miliar especially to those raembers of the Separa
tist church who had social privileges above the
average, and who were addressed as " Mr." and
so wrote their names — a right and reservation
now free to all.

A DUTCH HOME ON SANTA CLAUS MORNING (DECEMBER 6)

WORK AND PLAY IN LEYDEN 123
The young people having that keen sense of
the ludicrous, which no Puritanism can remove,
and having light spirits and few cares, raust have
enjoyed plenty of fun. That the young quite
largely, and the adults moderately, at least, saw
and appreciated the ludicrous side of Dutch life,
may be surely believed. From what we learn
from Bradford, who showed his wit in his letters.
History, and Dialogue, the old deaconess had her
hands fuU during church hours in keeping the
lively boys and girls in order. In the Dutch
church the sermon always consisted of a prelude,
or exordium remotum, and an application ; while
with Bible reading, psalm singing, and prayers
and two coUections, the services would be at least
two hours long. In the Pilgrim house of worship
the time would probably be no shorter, making it
hard for juvenile flesh and blood to stand the
tedium. The service in both the Dutch and the
EngUsh churches was much the same, epecially in
length. Many faraous visitors came to this city of
learned men, and the people in BeU Alley could
hear a good deal of English spoken on the streets
by hundreds of English people, students, soldiers,
raerchants, contractors, and their families. These
Pilgrim folk were not lonely, except as they chose,
for the sake of a high purpose and noble ideal, to
make themselves so.
The number of English-speaking students was

124 WORK AND PLAY IN LEYDEN
especially great after the universities of the home
land had been closed to the people of the four
nations at large in the British Isles, and becarae
accessible only to those of the one sect patronized
by the state. In the list of students we find the
narae of Eobert Durie, the rainister of the Eng
lish church which raet in a house on the lot next
to that of the Pilgrims. He matriculated in 1610.
Being fifty-five years old and married, it is evi
dent that he and men like Eobinson, who had
wives and families, were what we should call spe
cial students ; for connection with the university
gave one a position in the society of the city
which was very desirable, and of which the Pil
grim leaders took rightful advantage. On Feb
ruary 7, 1615, Thomas Brewer, whose name was
spelled " Braber," matriculated as a student of
literature. On August 26, 1516, the Eev. John
Eobinson, then thirty-nine years old, entered as a
student of theology.
While Durie is described as the minister of
" the English church," which, by the way, was
largely attended by Scottish people, nothing is
said about Eobinson's being the pastor of a
church. The reason of this seems to me to be
plain. All congregations that were professedly
in conformity with the general doctrines and
order of the Eeformed faith in Europe, — among
which the Church of England, as well as of Scot
land, was recognized as one, — were not only

WORK AND PLAY IN LEYDEN 125
acknowledged as churches by the Dutch magis
trates, but were furnished with places of worship,
and the salaries of the ministers were paid in
whole or in part at the cost of the city. Eobin
son and his people, however, no more allowed or
approved the regulation of the church by the ma
gistrates, than the Dutch recognized his company
as a church, by giving him and them a church
edifice or house of worship, whether they wanted
it or not. Both parties left each other alone, and
this beautifully and appropriately, with mutual
satisfaction. Eobinson's application from Am
sterdam for residence in Leyden, and the freedom
of the city " in carrying on their trades without
being a burden in the least to any one," dated
February 12, 1609, shows the independent spirit
of the Pilgrims. It contains no suggestion of
asking for a house of worship from the authori
ties. Neither Eobinson nor his people ever asked
for a house of worship free, or for any pecuniary
assistance in religious matters, for such a pro
ceeding would have been against their principles.
They wanted only full toleration, and they got it.
The university record, in Latin, states that Eobin
son entered by permission of the raagistrates, and
that he had a family.
Besides his literary and social privileges, a
feUow of the university was free from patrol duty
in time of war. He could buy or brew a certain
amount of beer, or make wine for his private

126 WORK AND PLAY IN LEYDEN
use free of excise tax. He also enjoyed freedom
from arrest by authorities other than those of the
university. This immunity, which the British
king vainly tried to ignore, prevented extradition
to any foreign country at the whim of a sovereign.
Membership in the university proved a tower of
defense to Brewer and Brewster, and shielded
them from the clutch of James Stuart and his
henchman. Laud, when these worthies were trou
bled by the freedom which the Dutch allowed to
authors and printers.
AU things considered, the Pilgrim community
prospered well, for they had been in Leyden only
about a year when they were able to buy, at a
bargain, a lot in Bell Alley, or Belfry Lane, in
the very heart of the city, and its oldest and finest
part, directly opposite and paraUel with St. Peter's
Church, and adjoining on the rear the lot and
house where the other English church worshiped.
It was within almost a stone's throw of the uni
versity and the Eapenburg upon the one side, and
of Broad Street, on which was the City Hall, upon
the other ; that is, about midway between the two.
The purchasers were four men, not one of whom
went to America, — John Eobinson, the pastor ;
WiUiam Jepson, the carpenter, his brother-in-law ;
Eandolph Tickens, a looking-glass maker, and
Henry Wood. These four, as agents of the church
company, bought a house and garden, paying for
them eight thousand guilders, which, expressed in

WORK AND PLAY IN LEYDEN 127
our money values of to-day, would be about six
teen thousand dollars. Of this sum they paid two
thousand guilders down, and the remainder in
easy installments during May of every year until
aU was paid, — " the last penny with the first."
The deed — the scene of the drawing and reg
istry of which we can, after our visits to the City
HaU, easily imagine — was dated May 5, 1611.
There are some who imagine the Pilgrira Fathers
to have been men directly inspired to invent in
stitutions and customs, such, for exaraple, as the
registration of land deeds and mortgages. Such
notions and statements are amusing to one who
has raade hiraself acquainted with the riches of
Leyden's archives, and of those at Leeuwarden,
Groningen, ZwoUe, Dordrecht, and other Dutch
cities. The Pilgriras saw much and improved on
some things which they saw, but we Americans
are debtors to the Dutch as weU as to the Eng
lish. The registration of deeds and mortgages
and the ease of access for proof and publicity is
an old story in the Netherlands, and for the sev
enteenth century a wonderful one.
We have also copied out from the Dutch ar
chives a sketch of the grounds and lots as they were
before the purchase, showing that the lot which
they bought from Jan de La Laing was the one
nearest the Commandery and Heeren Straat.
To this Commandery, as being the railitary head
quarters. Miles Standish and other English offi-

128 WORK AND PLAY IN LEYDEN
cers would no doubt frequently visit or be on
duty. Here, perhaps, Standish first got acquainted
with the brave men who were to be his future
comrades in arms beyond sea. The lot purchased
of La Laing, and one of two owned by hira, was
one hundred and twenty-five feet in length ; and
at the rear of it, just beyond a well, rose a wall
inclosing the land on which stood the old chapel
of the Veiled Nuns' Cloister, on the lower floor of
which the English church, where the Eev. Eobert
Durie preached, met for worship, while on the
upper floor was the famous university library.
Here was their opportunity. They had land
enough on which to build a number of small
houses in which families could live, forraing a
settieraent which would attract little public no
tice ; for to the outward eye it was much like those
numerous communities, not only of nuns and
monks, but also of aged married couples, and of
old men and women, which were so common in
the Netherlands. Within these hofs, or courts,
where we see many little houses built around the
central garden or open space, a noteworthy pro
portion of the less active part of the inhabitants
of Holland still live. There are over forty hofs
in Leyden and many more in Arasterdara. Hence,
we frequently find the word " hof," a memorial of
origins, in Dutch family names. Thus this fea
ture of Dutch city life fitted admirably to the
Separatists' needs, and enabled them to carry out

WORK AND PLAY IN LEYDEN 129
their purpose without seeming to be odd or eccen
tric. The Pilgrims were able to live as a genial
society, having their own rules of life. "They
stood on their own legs " more closely even than
when at Scrooby or in Plymouth, for they were
more independent. They had less alloy and adul
teration in their mass than when in the wilder
ness. Eobinson's large " house " became their place
of worship; for then, as now and in the early
New Testament times, a church was not a build
ing, but a congregation of believing Christians.
Their edifice for worship, whether looking like
a "church" or not, was their meeting "house."
The Pilgrims willingly and gladly chose to do
what the Eoman Catholics and other dissenters
and sects outside the state church were compelled
to do, that is, to worship in a house that did not
look Uke a " church." They were people who
cared raore for reality than phenoraena. To them
the life was raore than the meat, and the body
more than the raiment. Furthermore, they were
familiar with such New Testament passages as
Eom. 16. 5 ; 1 Cor. 16. 19 ; Col. 4. 15. It must
not be forgotten that in North English parlance
the word " house " meant particularly the parlor,
place for conversation, or chief sitting or living
room, and in this part of Eobinson's dweUing
was the meeting " house."
Under the direction of Jepson, who was a car-

130 WORK AND PLAY IN LEYDEN
penter, there were put up no fewer than twenty-
one houses, probably then built of wood, though
now the Uttle houses standing on the same lot are
of brick; and so this Pilgrira place of abode
made a " town " vnthin the city. Primitive Ger
manic speech made a distinction between the
" house " and the " home ; " the former was the
edifice or dweUing, while the latter was the ground
within which was the house. The town was the
hedge or inclosure wherein the community dwelt.
To this day the Dutch word " tuin," the original
of our word " town," means a garden. When a
biU advertising a house and lot to be sold is
posted, as the owner of the lot in Bell AUey pos
sibly had caused to be done before Eobinson
purchased, the sign is " Huis en tuyn te koop,"
or literally, house and garden for sale.
Without holding their goods in coraraon, the
Pilgrims made a covenant with each other to bear
one another's burdens. It is even possible that
the whole company was accomraodated inside the
houses, which were arranged on two sides of the
long quadrangle. When, years afterwards, they
made a settlement at Plymouth, it was laid out
on exactly the same model — " two rows of houses
and a fair street."
These humble dwellings of the church company
in Leyden were not built with all the solidity,
comforts, and conveniences of the best Dutch
houses, which stand on piles, are of brick well

WORE AND PLAY IN LEYDEN 131
anchored with iron, and have walls tiled, papered,
or tapestried, many windows furnishing abun
dance of light and air, spacious hearths and
chimneys, sociable stoop or doorsteps, with a
canopy and seats, and those handy double doors
which allow ventilation and light while keeping
out animal intruders. Nevertheless in the Pilgrim
settieraent the dwellings were doubtless made
as cheery and comfortable as the means of their
owners aUowed. The purchasers did not get
possession of their property until May 1, 1612,
for the Dutch moving day was May 1. This idea
having been borrowed by the founders of New
Netherland, " Moving Day," on May 1, is now
an American " institution " as surely as " Wash
Day," instituted by the Pilgrim women at Cape
Cod, comes on Monday.
It was not Eobinson's house, nor the Pesyn
Hof, standing on the old site, which the American
envoy John Adams, in 1781, visited with emotion,
mistakenly supposing that he had entered the
Pilgrims' place of meeting. The building in
which John and Abigail Adams stood was that
wherein the English and Scottish Presbyterians
worshiped, — the old Veiled Nuns' Cloister. As
a matter of fact, the Pilgrim property passed
from the hands of the " Brownists " in 1637, after
Jepson, the last owner, had died. While William
Penn was in Holland, gathering his Dutch emi
grants to help in founding Pennsylvania, Eobin-

132 WORK AND PLAY IN LEYDEN
son's house and some others were, in whole or
in part, taken down. In the Hof, on the site of
the little Pilgrim settlement, was erected a Home
for Aged Persons of WaUoon Extraction. As
such it stands to-day, doing, with the forty or
more similar settieraents in Leyden, its noble
work of charity. No country takes better care of
its poor than Nederland. On the outer waUs of
this house, and of St. Peter's Church opposite,
are Araeriean tablets in honor of Eobinson.
In true priraitive and apostolical fashion, this
church in Eobinson's house dwelt in the unity of
the Spirit and in the bonds of peace. Members
of the Eeformed churches of England, Scotland,
France, and the Netherlands were received into
comraunion. The Pilgrim congregation, though
at its core English, was as cosmopolitan as Chris
tianity itself, having in its membership the repre
sentatives of seven nations, four from the islands
and at least three from the continent. Its bond
of union was not in a set of logical propositions,
or a creed in a forra of words, but in a covenant
of rautual love and service, and of loyalty to the
Divine Master. Under the training of their
noble, self-effacing pastor, who ever charged them
to receive the truth by whatever channel it should
come to them, they throve in all holy virtues and
graces. Eobinson " was very confident that the
Lord had more truth and -light to break forth
out of his holy Word."

CHAPTER XI
LIFE UNDER A FEDERAL GOVEENMENT
One darling hope and set purpose of these
Leyden upholders of the primitive democracy of
the church of Christ was that they might pro
pagate their doctrines. Dwelling in a corarau
nity where printers and cheap printing materials
abounded, they had an inviting opportunity to
fulfiU their mission by means of the types.
There was no absolute liberty anywhere in Europe
during the early seventeenth century, but per
haps the largest measure of it was in the Dutch
republic, and of this liberty the Pilgrims took
advantage. The Dutch being as Gentiles, these
gospellers would preach first to those of their own
household in the English home-land.
It is not surprising, therefore, that so early as
October, 1616, Elder Brewster, who had hereto
fore supported himself comfortably by teaching
the English language to Danes and Germans, be
gan printing books containing those sentiments
which were in advance of his time, but which are
now widely accepted. Thomas Brewer furnished
the money, and WiUiam Brewster set up the
type. This work infuriated King James of Eng-

134 LIFE UNDER A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
land, who set his envoy at the Hague, Sir Dudley
Carleton, on a chase after Brewster, which led to
a lively game of hide and seek.
The facts make an interesting narrative, which
may be read almost in full in Professor Arbor's
book, " The Story of the Pilgrim Fathers," but
the limits of this work do not allow the space for
its recital. At least fifteen books, " if not more,
were produced in the thirty-three months, at the
furthest, between October, 1616, and June, 1619,
both inclusive." Most of these were " Brownist "
books, which contained sentiments that are per
fectly harmless in a free country, but which were
regarded then as moral dynamite.
One or two of the pamphlets (by the Eev.
David Calderwood) which Brewster printed
exposed King James's political chicanery in at
tempting, at the Perth Assembly, to compel the
Scottish churches to conform to the Anglican
establishment. These Leyden "libels" nearly
drove James Stuart crazy. His ambassador. Sir
Dudley Carleton, had all Amsterdam, Leyden, and
Middelburg ransacked to find the printer. Brew
ster, having gone to England to attend to the
scheme of emigrating to America, escaped the
fury, but Brewer was seized in his stead, and
the types were confiscated. Frora July, 1619, to
February, 1620, there was a lively tilt in politics
and diplomacy between the monarchy and the
republic, which powerfully excited the Pilgrims

SIR DUDLEY CARLETON

LIFE UNDER A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT 135
and illustrated to them both the charms and the
perils of federal government. For Brewer the
result was a journey to England under the pro
tection of the Dutch republic, at his sovereign's
expense ; but the ability of Carleton and great
friendship of Maurice, the stadholder, finally en
abled James to gain his main point — the restric
tion of libels against the sovereign of England,
then the chief ally of the Dutch republic.
If any one thing convinced the wavering mem
bers and decided the Pilgrim company to emi
grate as a body, it raust have been this seizing of
their elder's types and the raalignant deterraina-
tion of their " dread sovereign " to destroy even
themselves if possible. The stoppage of their
printing press meant the end of all propagation
of their principles and the carrying out of the
missionary idea, which with the Pilgrims were su
prerae. They had no thought of converting the
Dutch people. It was England and their own
countrymen whom they had hoped to enlighten
and influence. Now this hope was blasted. The
Pilgrim press was at an end. A ship must wait
upon them, that they might do their work beyond
the Atlantic.
The year 1619 was one of continual excitement
to the Pilgrim company. Besides the royal chase
after Brewster, the affair of Brewer, and the de
struction of their printing operations, there was
a tremendous commotion in church and state.

136 LIFE UNDER A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
The real question at issue in 1619 in the Dutch
repubUc was much the same as that settled in
1865 in the American republic, the preservation
of the Union. The decision in both cases was
that the central government had a right to be
superior to the various states which composed
the Union, and to compel their obedience. In
the one case slavery was the pretext, in the other
theology. Leyden was the focus of the exciteraent. In
this city the two places and edifices where theo
logy and State-right had their citadels were the
university on the one hand, and the City Hall on
the other. It was just between the two, not rauch
over a quarter of a mile from either, and in the
thoroughfare between thera, that the Pilgriras
lived. Frora first to last the Pilgriras were no doubt
unanimously on the side of the Unionists in poli
tics and of the Calvinists in theology. They
were opposed, both sociaUy and politically, to the
Arminians. In 1579 the Dutch provinces, or states, had
formed at Utrecht a federation, with a written
constitution in twenty-six articles. The act and
document were referred to as " The Union of
Utrecht," and the city was caUed " The Old
Cradle of Liberty." At first the government of
the Dutch United States issued its comraissions
in the name of Philip of Spain, just as the Eng-

LIFE UNDER A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT 137
lish Parliament, during the English Civil War,
issued theirs in the name of Charles I., and the
authorities of Massachusetts and the Continental
Congress in 1775 wrote theirs in the name of
George III. Even Leyden University was, ac
cording to a fiction of law, founded in the name
of Philip of Spain. This ruler, who was not
king of the country, but only Count of Holland,
thoiigh spoken of in the charter as a benignant
protector, would gladly have burned up the Pro
testant university with aU the professors and
students inside of it.
In 1581 the Dutch United States dropped the
legal fiction and declared themselves forever free
of Spain. With this declaration of independence,
as weU as with the national Dutch flag, the red,
white, and blue, the Pilgrims were sufficiently
familiar. In the Union of Utrecht, or the written
constitution, it had been agreed by Article XIIL
that each province should have a right to reg
ulate its own religious affairs, but at that time
the only religions then in mind were Eomanism
and Calvinism. The Arminians claimed that
this thirteenth article referred to any religion, or
at least any phase of the Christian religion in its
Protestant form. The Calvinists insisted that it
meant only the Eeformed religion, which they
identified with Calvinism. Just here was the
point at issue, the hinge on which the question of
national or of state sovereignty and of orthodoxy

138 LIFE UNDER A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
or heterodoxy should turn. Eoughly speaking,
on one side were the people and nation at large,
the Calvinists ; on the other were the aristocratic
elements, Arminians and stanch upholders of
State-right, among whom were many unselfish
patriots and earnest Christians.
To understand the situation, we raust go back
to the century before and see how the Nether-
landers changed their views, or rather grew out
of the Eoman Catholic form of Christianity into
that which is founded upon the Scriptures alone.
It has been demonstrated by the late Dr. de
Hoop Scheffer that the Eeformation among the
raasses of the Dutch people was, first of all,
wrought by the people called Anabaptists. Under
Williara the Silent in the year 1577, they were
protected in that noble order of his to the magis
trates at Middelburg, which is one of the land
marks in raodern history and one of the spiritual
corner-stones of the Dutch and American repub
lics : —
" We declare to you that you have no right to
interfere with the conscience of any one, so long
as he has done nothing that works injury to an
other person, or a public scandal."
This was eight years before William Brewster,
with Secretary Davison, made his first visit into
the Netherlands, as we have seen, and thirty-
three years before Eoger Williams, the apostle of
"soul-liberty," was born. To this day, as for

LIFE UNDER A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT 139
over three centuries and a half, the Mennonites,
the successors of the " Anabaptists," are numer
ous and influential in the Netherlands.
The next reformatory wave in the Netherlands
was the Lutheran, which influenced many people
of the better classes, the wealthy raerchants, but
did not become in any sense national or general.
The third tidal wave, which is the most potent
of the three movements, was that propagated by
Calvin, and the men of like mind frora the city
republic of Geneva. This system of doctrines
harmonized most subtly with the Dutch tempera^
ment and character. If any one to-day, confused,
as so many Americans and English are, as to the
difference between Dutchmen and Germans,
would make the demarcation clear, let him note
but one fact. Eoughly speaking, the Germans
are Lutherans, the Dutch are Calvinists. Cal
vinism is almost invariably democratic in spirit
and republican in form.
It was by no accident that the ultra-democratic
doctrines, both of the " Anabaptists " and of Cal
vinism, came from the Swiss republic, or federa
tion of states, and were so eagerly embraced by
the Dutch. In all federal governments there
must be toleration of various ideas and opinions,
and both Switzerland and the Dutch republic
illustrate this truth. The fact that the Gaelic
and Highland Scots, who in the days of the clan
system and semi-feudalism rallied around the

140 LIFE UNDER A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
Stuart pretender, " Bonnie Prince Charlie," were
Calvinists, forms no true exception to the rule
that Calvinism is the nurse of democracy and
freedom. The Arminians took their name from James
Arminius, professor of theology in Leyden. He
was a noble and aspiring servant of God who
loved his feUow men. When a boy, living at
Oudewater, the Spaniards had captured the town
and massacred the people, and he was left an or
phan. He grew up a bright student and became
a noble citizen and patriot. He secured the
repeal of hostile legislation against the Jews, and
was always warmly in favor of full toleration.
When made professor he began to modify the
strict system of Calvin. His rival and opponent.
Professor Gomarus, opened a public controversy
with him. The discussions soon passed out be
yond the scholastic and aristocratic circles and
down among the common people. The whole na
tion became a school of thought and arguraent on
one of the greatest themes that can occupy the
mind of man — the reconciliation of human free
will with the divine sovereignty. Arminius did
not live to see his doctrines and those of Calvin
forged into political weapons and his country
men on the brink of civil war. He died October
19, 1609, while the Pilgrims were in Amsterdam.
It was nearly a century and a half afterwards
that John Wesley in England preached a form

LIFE UNDER A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT 141
of Christianity quite other than that of the Dutch
divine, which is called " Arminianism."
By the year 1615 the lines of division in the
Dutch republic showed that on one side were
ranged the rich and wealthy people of the cities
and those influential in municipal councils and
state governments, especially in the mighty single
State of Holland. These were the Arminians and
men emphasizing State-right. These suspected
that the ambition of the stadholder was to be
come a king and to destroy the republic and local
freedom. They feared that the soldier would
override law, and the sword dictate both might
and right.
On the other hand were the masses of the
people at large, led and directed at first by their
domines, or pastors, and afterwards by the stad
holder and his advisers. At first the question
was purely theological; but where State and
Church are united, and the life of one seems to
depend upon the life of the other, it is not possi
ble to keep theology and politics apart. It is, as
state churchmen fear, very much as in the case
of the Siamese twins, — the death of one is the
death of the other, though the experience of the
American republic proves that this is not neces
sarily so. At first, also, as there seems little
reason to doubt, the Arminians, having wealth
and power on their side, were oppressive and
overbearing. The Calvinists were almost fanati-

142 LIFE UNDER A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
cal Union raen, and suspected that the Arminians
were at heart secessionists and would sell out to
Spain. They called Barneveldt a pope, a tyrant,
and a traitor. So far as we can judge, he was a
sincere patriot, though not a statesman of deep
insight, nor of sympathy with the commons. He
was a raan of precedents, unable to see or mea
sure new forces. He had opposed Leicester and
the " English party." In many respects he was
a public functionary of consummate ability and
unceasing industry. Intellectually he was an
agnostic, his motto being " To know nothing is
the safest faith."
The two leaders in whom the conflicting prin
ciples were incarnated were Maurice, the soldier,
and Barneveldt, the statesman. The former was
a young man of splendid military abilities, though
not of pure private life ; the latter was a sage in
years and of stainless private character. The one
was the head of the Union array and the stad
holder of several of the States. The other was
the soul of the legislature of Holland and the
ablest man in the national congress, or States-
General. On the 4th of August, 1617, the issue
between union and secession seeraed squarely
drawn, when, after Maurice's military demonstra
tion in the Cloister church at the Hague, the
legislature of Holland, at Barneveldt's motion,
passed the famous Sharp Eesolve, which stated
the doctrine of State sovereignty in its plainest

LIFE UNDER A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT 143
form. Then began the enroUraent and training
of State railitia in the interest of State-right and
possibly of secession.
In Leyden and Utrecht the partisans of Barne
veldt were raost numerous, and here the waart-
gelders, or State militia, were in greatest force.
In front of and surrounding the City Hall in
Leyden had been built a strong fort of oak
beams bolted together and furnished with iron
prongs to prevent escalade. This fort was mounted
with cannon and garrisoned by Arminian militia.
During the troubles several citizens were killed.
With bloodshed so very near their own doors,
and the flaraes of civil war apparently ready to
burst out, what wonder is it that at this very tirae
the Pilgrims began action which ended in their
settlement in America? Between King James
and Dutch deviltry there seemed little to choose
but the deep sea.
There must have been lively talk at the Pil
grim supper tables when day's work was over, on
the evening of October 23, 1618. Fences, curb
stones, and walls were plastered with political
squibs, rhymes, and caricatures of the opposing
parties, but on the whole they pointed to the wan
ing fortunes of the Arminians. On the previous
evening, Maurice, the Union general, had sent
some companies of national troops to garrison
the city. The supremacy of the red, white, and
blue flag, the Union banner, over the lion flag of

144 LIFE UNDER A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
the State of HoUand, was demonstrated in Ley
den, as it was soon to be over that of the cross
and shield of Utrecht.
On the next day the Arminian cause in Leyden
was dead beyond power of resurrection. Maurice
came to the City Hall with his staff and force,
all in their brilliant uniforms and amid an im
mense crowd of people. The city magistracy was
changed. The palisade, or fort, which had been
dubbed " Barneveldt's teeth," was tom to pieces
by the people, who dragged the timber and iron
to the market-place, where they were sold at auc
tion for fuel or souvenirs. It was a day of great
popular rejoicing in Leyden, and in the general
delight there is little doubt that some of the Pil
grim men and boys had their share.
The people in the seven States of the republic
had refused to take the decision of a provincial
synod, or to have a single State like HoUand settle
the questions at issue. They demanded the voice
of the whole nation in council and the ultima-
tura of the national church. The great national
Synod of Dordrecht, " the only Protestant CEcu-
menical Council," was therefore called. It was
opened on Monday, November 13, 1618, with
delegates frora nearly all the countries and states
in which there were Eeforraed churches, including
Great Britain, which sent over several eminent
men. These sat at a table by themselves and
received extra pay, allowances, and gifts, the party

LIFE UNDER A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT 145
in power being very anxious to keep the friend
ship of King James.
The synod was in its management wholly a
political affair and the creation of the Dutch
Congress. It had but one purpose — the con
demnation of the Arminians and the strengthen
ing of the national power. After one hundred
and nineteen sessions held in the Artillery Arm
ory at Dordrecht, the synfod concluded with its
famous declarations called the Canons of the
Synod of Dort. The Arminian ministers had
their salaries paid, and being invited to leave the
country, they did so. They were in all about
two hundred in nuraber, and most of them went
out quietly and peaceably. They were not har
assed or persecuted, as were the Dissenters at
this tirae in England ; they were only shut off
from the state church patronage.
Maurice was very slow in forming a judgment
or entering upon a Une of policy ; but when once
his mind was made up, he was in action as quick
as lightning and implacable as death. Confronted
by threats of secession and seeing, as he believed,
the raising of troops to resist the Union, he drew
the sword.
Barneveldt, on the charge of a purpose to
" plunge the nation into a blood bath," had been
arrested and imprisoned, August 29, 1618. The
question was now what to do with him. As the
synod progressed, and Maurice felt his course

146 LIFE UNDER A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
approved, so also the tribunal created to try Bar
neveldt became more ready to yield to popular
clamor. The judges found him guilty, and Mau
rice ordered his execution. On the 13th of May,
1619, four days after the adjournment of the
Synod of Dort, the aged statesman was beheaded
in the public square of the Binnenhof at the
Hague. This unnecessary act was probably a
judicial raurder. It was accomplished in the
presence of thousands of spectators, including a
body of English troops, among whose officers may
have been Miles Standish.
To those who can understand the situation,
there is little difficulty in seeing why John Eob
inson was strenuously a Calvinist and in favor
both of the Synod of Dort and of its doctrines,
and why the members of the Pilgrim corapany,
very probably in overwhelraing raajority if not
to a raan, approved of the action of Maurice, and
took the Union side. No one need raake any
apology for the Pilgriras in this, unless he is de
termined to judge the seventeenth by the light of
the nineteenth century.
It is very probable that Eobinson attended some
of the sessions of the synod. He certainly entered
heart and soul into the controversy. Bradford
says that he " was an acute and expert disputant,
very quick and ready, and had much bickering
with the Arminians, who stood more in fear of
him than of any of the university of Leyden."

LIFE UNDER A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT 147
Governor Winslow also says, " And our Pastor,
Master Eobinson, in the time when Arminianism
prevailed so much, at the request of the most
orthodox divines as Polyander, Festus Hommius,
etc., disputed daily in the academy at Leyden
against Episcopius and others, the grand cham
pions of that error, and had as good respect
amongst them as any of their own divines.'-' ,- In
deed, Eobinson had attended the lectures on both
sides of the controversy, in order to make up his
mind. It is idle to identify or even make close com
parison of the Dutch political Arminianism of
the period from A. D. 1609 to 1621, with the
theological system of Wesley and the Methodist
Christians. Whatever may be the relative merits of the
theological controversy, into which we cannot here
enter, it is hard to see how the Leyden com
pany, being lovers of freedora and the pure gos
pel, could be anything else than what they were.
They saw, or thought they saw, that the tendency
of Arminianism then was not, as perhaps Barne
veldt saw or thought, to the prevalence of the
civil spirit over militarism, and law over war, to
toleration and freedom, to the sure maintenance
of local rights in politics and of the conscience
in religion, to national wealth, peace, and unity,
but wholly to the contrary.
The Pilgrim company, with the Dutch Calvin-

148 LIFE UNDER A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
ists, believed that Calvinisra and union raeant
right thinking and right living before God, a
strengthened and purified nation, supremacy of
the national over the local and state government,
freedora frora Eorae, the humiliation of Spain,
colonization of America, and a free development
of the huraan spirit in all departraents of activity,
especially in schools, education, and everything
that uplifts the plain people. To them the tri
umph of the Union meant democracy and the
rights of the people, as well as orthodoxy in reli
gion. It is very probable that these exiles for
conscience' sake rejoiced equally with the natives
at the issue. Probably no man understood the
whole situation better than Elder Brewster, John
Eobinson, and William Bradford. Their feeling
toward Maurice was probably much like that
which John Bright in our day had for Abraham
Lincoln or Ulysses Grant.

CHAPTER XII
THE DEBATE UPON EMIGRATION
One notable point at issue between Barneveldt
and Maurice was over a matter that directly con
cerned the Pilgrim company and influenced their
future. The Dutch Calvinists believed, with Mau
rice, in colonization. Barneveldt and his par
tisans did not. Long before the West India
Company was actuaUy chartered under that
name, the HoUanders began the agitation about
settling New Netherland. During the time of
truce, between 1609 and 1619, it would have been
an act of war for the Dutch to send emigrants to
the Hudson Eiver region, because Spain claimed
all North America. But though they would not
break faith by taking action, they discussed the
matter. Among the first, so early as 1615, to
plan a colony beyond sea, was Jesse de Forest,
one of the several hundred Walloons Uving in
Leyden, working side by side with the English
dyers and silk-workers, his place of worship being
but a few feet away from Eobinson's home.
As Maurice, Prince of Orange, is in a large
sense the founder of New York State, so is Jesse
de Forest of New York City. De Forest was

150 THE DEBATE UPON EMIGRATION
born at Avesnes, in Hainault, from which pro
vince many Protestant refugees reached England.
Many Americans, as weU as English folk, de
scended from these now speU their names Haines,
Hanway, Hanna, or with sorae other variation.
Of good social connections, the parents of Jesse
de Forest left their native city, probably to escape
religious prosecution, and arrived at Leyden in
1603, living there a year and a half, and then
going to Arasterdara. Gerard de Forest, brother
of Jesse, lived in Leyden from 1605 to 1654, as
a dyer. Jesse is found in Leyden in February,
1615, where one of his children was baptized. A
few months later, in July, he applied to Sir Dud
ley Carleton, asking assistance by which his com
pany raight get to Virginia, there being fifty-
six Walloon families wanting to go. But King
James, though he was willing to grant permission,
refused assistance, and the project failed. It was
not until 1622 that de Forest was able to carry
out his scheme. The ship New Netherland in
March, 1623, carried to Manhattan Island and
the Walloon's Boght, or bend, now called Wal-
labout in Brooklyn, thirty famiUes, and thus be
gan the settieraent of New Netherland and the
great Empire State.
How early the Pilgrims began to talk of find
ing a new home, and one as far as possible out of
the direct reach of King James and the persecut
ing bishops, is not known. Between the Span-

THE DEBATE UPON EMIGRATION 151
iards and King James there was little to choose,
but where should they go ? Ireland and Zealand
were proposed, and so was Venezuela. Zealand
seemed rather a congenial home, for the Sabbath
laws were very strict there, but land was high,
and EngUsh people would sooner or later become
Dutch. There had been many attempts to plant an
English colony upon the American shores, but
none had proved a success until that started at
Jamestown. Even this had many troubles and
trials, and its continued existence was still very
uncertain at the time when the Pilgpms were be
coming restless with schemes of migration. With
the Spanish war against the Dutch about to open,
and King James and his bishops rampant and
making their lives dangerous ; between the dif
ficulty of some of their less qualified raerabers in
getting a living, — they having been not skilled
mechanics, but only plain country people, — and
the probability of losing their names and their
language, and being submerged among the Dutch
people, like " the ten lost tribes of Israel ; " the
smaU likelihood of enforcing their notions of
Sabbath-keeping upon the Dutch ; the inability
of their leading men, Eobinson, Brewster, Wins
low, Bradford and others, to give such an Eng
lish education to their children as they themselves
had received or now desired ; and last but not
least, with their press or social means of propa-

152 THE DEBATE UPON EMIGRATION
gating their ideas destroyed — it is no wonder
they longed to make a change. They yearned to
go where they could keep alive their convictions
and propagate their ideas of church government
and practical Christianity ; but to go to James
town, where the political bishops could touch
them, would be hardly better than returning to
England. Through Sir Edwin Sandys, their friend, or at
least the friend of Brewster, they learned that
the sovereign would grant no freedora of con
science in America. After thinking it over. King
Jaraes referred their request for toleration to the
Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of
London. This was like recommending lambs to
wolves. They soon found that no Brownists or
Separatists need apply to go to the James Eiver
country. There was already a Virginia Company
formed, but it was divided into two hostile fac
tions. One party represented the nobler and
progressive, and the other reactionary and un
lovely England, and the former befriended the
Leyden Separatists. Hard as it was for the Pil
grims to resolve to try the ocean and wilderness,
they found it, as Bradford says, harder than they
expected to get leave and opportunity to go.
Eobinson was probably one of the first to de
cide upon removal elsewhere. He is known to
have spoken of his design of founding a free
religious colony to two of his Dutch friends. Pro-

THE DEBATE UPON EMIGRATION 153
fessor A. Walaens and Daniel Festus Hommius.
When the directors of the New Netherland Trad
ing Company heard through these two gentleraen
of Eobinson's desire, they made " large offers,"
as Bradford says, promising not only to give the
Pilgrim colonists free passage to America, but
also to furnish every family with cattle. Eobin
son thought at that time that about four hundred
families from Holland and England would form
the settlement. Since these Pilgriras had an ex
cellent reputation in Leyden for honesty, dili
gence, and general good character, and raost of
them knew Dutch pretty well, they would raake
first-rate colonists. The directors of the New
Netherland corapany, on February 20, 1620, ap
plied to Maurice, the stadholder, telling about
this English preacher of Leyden who was versed
in the Dutch language. They asked permission
not only to plant the colony, but also requested
that two Dutch men-of-war might convey the
colonists to New Netherland. With Spanish
cruisers on the seas and King James ready to
seize these people as his prey, danger must be
provided against.
When looked at by Maurice and the States-
General in a political and diplomatic light, the
proposition to transport these Englishmen to
America was something quite the reverse of what
had been seen through the rosy coraraercial me
dium of the Amsterdam directors. In the first

154 THE DEBATE UPON EMIGRATION
place, it was not certain but that King James, on
the strength of the fact that Henry Hudson was
an Englishman, might claim New Netherland as
English property. Eidiculous though the idea
might seem to be, the English government had
detained the Half Moon upon its arrival at
Plymouth en route for Amsterdam ; and although
the ship and crew reached home, it is not certain
that Henry Hudson ever got again to HoUand.
Furthermore, the idea of offending both Spain
and King James at once could not be entertained.
The " Spanish party " was at this time very pow
erful at the English court, and King James was
angling for the alliance of one of his children
with a Spanish princess. To help openly and
directly a nest of heretics who had printed books
which stung King James and angered him beyond
the telling, so that he wanted to seize the authors
and printers and have " the Devil rive their
souls and bodies all in coUops and cast them into
heU," would be a suicidal policy. It would have
looked exactly like a personal insult to the British
James, the seeking of a quarrel, and a direct defi
ance of the government at London, thus to have
any official sanction given at the Hague to this
company of Englishmen. A scheme which would
not only give the Separatists aid and comfort,
but which required the employment of war-ships
of the republic to cover and protect them under
its flag, could not be tolerated for a moment.

THE DEBATE UPON EMIGRATION 155
Then the war with Spain was to be resumed
in a few months, and every man and ship, car
tridge and cannon, was urgently needed at home.
The petition of the directors of the New Nether
land corapany was therefore denied. Eobinson,
who knew local and foreign politics so well, must
have foreseen the issue ; for prior to the stad-
holder's decision, negotiations had been opened,
most probably through Brewster, with the Vir
ginia Company in London.
Brewster in England had one strong and gen
erous friend in Sir Edwin Sandys, whom we may
caU one of the political forefathers of the United
States of America. When president of the Vir
ginia Company in 1620, he introduced the Frisian
custom of unconstrained and secret voting by
means of the written ballot. He was a son of
the Archbishop of York, Edwin Sandys, who
in 1576 had appointed Brewster's father as his
agent at Scrooby. Before his death, the arch
bishop had transferred the manor to his son. Sir
Samuel Sandys, who was Brewster's landlord. Sir
Edwin Sandys, the brother of Samuel, a liberal
member of the government, opposed the " Spanish
party " at court, secured the foundation of a con
stitutional state with a representative government
in Virginia, and laid generous plans for the Pil
grims' proposed settlement in America. It was
he who obtained two patents for the Plymouth
Colony. It was probably Sir Edwin Sandys,

156 THE DEBATE UPON EMIGRATION
as Dr. Edward Eggleston suggests, who lent the
Leyden congregation three hundred pounds with
out interest for three years, and this sum, when
the Pilgrims could get no rates better than those
of Asiatic money-lenders, was equal to about five
thousand dollars in our money of to-day. In all
probability it was Sir Edwin Sandys's aid in
friendship and raoney that enabled and decided
the Pilgrim company to erabark for America.
After prayer, conference, and a sermon from
Eobinson, on the text in 1 Samuel xxiii. 3. 4, the
younger and stronger portion of the company
decided that their Judah was Leyden and their
Keilah was in America, and that between King
James and the Spaniards there was little differ
ence. So trusting in God they resolved to sail.
Mr. Thomas Weston, a London raerchant, and
about seventy other Englishmen planned an emi
gration scherae at ten pounds a share. Each
colonist was to be allowed to work two days in a
week for his own benefit. At the end of seven
years, the profits on the total possessions and
earnings of the colonists were to be divided be
tween the colony and the corporation. On this
basis articles were signed.
While Carver and Cushman went over to Eng
land to get the money and to charter a ship and
equip it with provisions, those who were bent on
going, — the strongest, bravest, and most of thera
the younger ones, — began to prepare, selling off

THE DEBATE UPON EMIGRATION 157
everything except what they raight need for the
voyage and for life in the New World. Weston's
corapany was caUed the Merchant Adventurers,
and their great idea was to get raoney through
the fisheries and farming in New England and
by means of the work of the Pilgrims or other
colonists. The Adventurers got fresh powers
from the Plymouth company and a patent grant
ing a measure of self-government, and also, with
what must have seemed tremendous English im
pudence and unscrupulousness to the Dutchmen,
the right to land near the mouth of the Hudson
Eiver. In order to get reenforcements of colonists
from England, Carver and Cushman associated
Christopher Martin to carry out their arrange
ments. If we are to believe Cushman, this Mr.
Martin, of Essex, proved to be a bad-tempered and
impracticable man. When the Merchant Adven
turers met with Cushman, they wanted an altera
tion in the original terms which showed great
greediness in these speculators ; and Cushman,
without consulting the Leyden people or his joint
representatives, agreed to it. By this, each colo
nist was obliged to work every day in the week
except Sundays, having no time to himself. The
whole of the work and profits of the colonists,
going into a common fund, was to be equally
divided at the end of seven years between the
capitalists and the workmen.

158 THE DEBATE UPON EMIGRATION
As soon as the Leyden company heard of this
new contract, they declared that Cushman had
made conditions more fit for thieves and slaves
than for honest men. Nevertheless they consented
to them. Captain John Smith offered his services
to the Leyden Pilgrims ; but these were declined,
probably because Smith's true character was
known to them, but more probably because they
had already agreed with Miles Standish that he
should be their military commander; and better
always one good general than two in coraraand.
In Holland the Speedwell, a pinnace of sixty
tons burden, was bought and fitted out, and the
English pilot arrived toward the end of May.
Araong the Leyden raen, there were few, if any,
— possibly there was not one man, — familiar with
ships or sea life. No harpoons or whaling im
plements and very little fishing tackle seem to
have been provided. In their eagerness to get
away promptly and across the sea in sumraer
weather, that they might reach the Hudson Eiver
region before frost, they made the mistake of
ordering for the Speedwell heavier and taller
masts and larger spars than her hull had been
built to receive, thus altering most unwisely and
disastrously her " trim." Bradford says she was
" overmasted," but whether in England or Hol
land is not certain. Captain George Waymouth
and Sir Walter Ealeigh have left us severe criti
cisms on the English-built ships of their time, as

THE DEBATE UPON EMIGRATION 159
being of bad proportions, and not being able to
bear sail or steer readily, " for want of art in pro
portioning of the mould and fittings of the mast
and tackling." We do not hear of these invet
erate landsmen and townsfolk, who were about to
venture on the Atlantic, taking counsel of Dutch
shipbuilders or mariners as to the proportions of
their craft.
When later, however, the English captain, who
did not relish going on the voyage, found this out,
as he quickly would, he crowded on too much sail
so that the hull became as "leaky as a sieve."
The PUgrim experiences with seafaring men do
not raise our opinion of the latter. It is a monoto
nous and discouraging story of dishonesty and
profanity. Bradford teUs us that the Speed-
weU was afterwards " sold and put into her old
trim ; " that is, masts of the right size and weight
for the hull were set in. Then " she made many
voyages, and performed her service very suffi
ciently ; to the great profit of her owners." It is
even possible that from this mistake of the Ley
den landsmen, the subsequent miseries and trou
bles of the seafaring passengers and sick, starv
ing, and dying colonists came. Professor Arber,
who calls the captain a " rascal," says : " For this
fatuous and supreme error of judgment in busi
ness matters, and all that came of it, the Leyden
church alone was responsible. No one in Eng
land had anything to do with it." All of which.

160 THE DEBATE UPON EMIGRATION
so long as we do not know every detail, may be
true. Both Speedwell and Mayflower are names of
well-known plants and blossoms in England,
though the name " Mayflower " is wholly a popu
lar, rather than a scientific or botanical term.
In England it may be the hawthorn, the cuckoo
flower, the marsh marigold, or it may be some
thing else ; in the United States it is the trail
ing arbutus. The narae Mayflower was exceed
ingly common among English ships. Two of
Drake's vessels were so named, and there were
many others called the Mayflower in the records
of the British navy and merchant marine.
The speedwell is an herb, with creeping and
ascending stem, and bright blue flowers in the
raceme or on a stalk. In England it is also
naraed the eye-bright, to say nothing of the terms
angel's eye, God's eye, bird's eye, and so on, each
of which was caUed the speedwell. There were
various varieties of the flower and of the one
which was formerly much used in medicine.
Neither Bradford nor Mourt refers to the names
of these historic ships ; but we find the more
famous one mentioned in the Plymouth records :
"The falls (apportionments) of their grounds,
which came first over in the Mayflower : accord
ing as their lots were cast, 1623." The Speed
well is first named in Nathaniel Morton's book
" The New England's Memorial."

THE DEBATE UPON EMIGRATION 161
When all was ready, it was resolved that those
who should go on the Speedwell, before others
should follow, should be the youngest and strong
est ; second, they must be volunteers ; and if a
majority went, Eobinson should go with them ;
and if a minority. Elder Brewster. If the voy
age turned out disastrously, — " if the Lord
should frown upon our proceedings," — then those
remaining in Leyden should help those that re
turned ; but " if God should be pleased to favor
them that went, then they also should endeavor
to help over such as was poor and ancient and
willing to come." When it came to vote, the
majority agreed to stay for a while, all except
a very few intending ultimately to cross the At
lantic. So it came to pass that the pinnace at Delfs
haven was the pioneer of a Pilgrim fleet, consist
ing of the Speedwell, Mayflower, Fortune, Anne,
Little James, Mayflower 2d (1629), and the
Handmaid (1630). The affectionate term " Pil
grim Fathers," coined by later generations, in
cludes (1) the members of the Leyden church
who voted for emigration, whether able or unable
to go ; (2) those who came from England and
joined the church. The Mayflower passengers
constituted the " Old Stock" of Bradford's nam
ing. Those who reached New Plymouth in the
Mayflower, Anne, and Little James were called
the " Old Comers," or " Forefathers."

CHAPTER XIII
WESTWARD ho!
The inland voyage of the Pilgriras, from the
Nun's Bridge on the Eapenburg in Leyden to
Delfshaven, was twenty-four miles in length.
The route is parallel with the lines of the modern
rail and tram roads, and in the form of an obtuse
angle, or like a widened-out V, the point being a
little below the Hague. The waters to be trav
ersed were the Vliet and the Schie. They first
moved southwestwardly eleven miles, skirting a
morass, now the dry and green Veen or Fen
polder, until near Eyswick, and then southwest
wardly directly through the city of Delft. At
the village of Overschie, they went straight
forward to Delfshaven, on arriving at which,
they had voyaged alongside of or through three
" lands," — Ehineland, Westland, and Schieland.
The haven of Delft, or Delfshaven (Delft's
Haven), was a pretty little town founded in the
fourteenth century, where were early erected the
chapel of St. Anthony and other buildings which,
when the men with their faces set towards Araer
ica arrived there, had already seen the sunsets of
three hundred years. It had its own burgoraas-

WESTWARD HO! 163
ter, council, and " arras " — a three-banded shield
showing, between herring and wheat, a centre of
alternate strips of white and green. The motto
on the seal of the brick church, past which the
Pilgriras sailed, reads "The haven of salvation
alone with God of Zion is."
Coming from Leyden it could not be otherwise
than that these people, at least half of whom,
perhaps, had been born in Holland and talked
Dutch, would know the story of the land and
water over which they sailed. A generation or
two before, and during the siege of Leyden, the
great dike through which, by lock and sluice, they
were now to pass had been cut to let in the water
to " over-stream " the whole country up to the
beleaguered city, in order to bring in the relief
ships. Between Overschie and Delfshaven the
makers of New Plymouth floated high above the
pastures below them, for here the dikes rise in a
great mass above what is one of the lowest por
tions of the Low Countries, much of the land being
sixteen feet beneath the unit of level or high-tide
mark at Amsterdam. The great sea dike, which
runs from the seacoast forty miles into the coun
try, has intrusted to it the safety of the whole
country of South Holland from the Maas Eiver
to Leyden.
The Pilgrim pioneers had a night to pass in
Delfshaven. Where and how did they spend it ?
Fortunately, as Bradford says, they found the

164 WESTWARD HO!
ship and all things ready. There was probably
little sleep for the most of them, who raade the
hours speed along " with friendly entertainment
and Christian discourse and other real expressions
of true Christian love." There is no record for
or against the pretty but baseless tradition that
the Speedwell passengers and their friends held
a fareweU meeting in the Eeforraed church of
Delfshaven. The Book of the Minutes of the
Consistory covering the year 1620 is not known
to be in existence, having disappeared some
years later (1634-1642) during the disputes, or
" twisten," between the authorities of the church
and the city. Intrinsic probability is against the
idea. The local tradition is possibly a true one,
that most of the emigrants and their friends slept
in one of the warehouses of the Netherlands Trad
ing Corapany. These were on the banks of the
canal near the ship's anchorage. Possibly some
of the passengers or their friends occupied the
boats and storage houses or huts closer to the
landing. To-day the chief sights for the tourist in Delfs
haven are, besides the church, the birthplace and
the statue of Piet Heyn, the admiral who in
1628 captured the Spanish silver fleet. The
maps of Delfshaven in 1620, in the Water-State
office, show that the frontage of the city and the
lines of the quays and wharves were quite differ
ent from what they are to-day. The iraposing

WESTWARD HO! 165
windmills now built near the river were not then
in existence. Nevertheless, the chief canal, streets,
and older quays were much the same as at pre
sent. Out in the river there was then free course
of deep flowing water, where to-day there is a long
island. This accumulation of silt could, by the
year 1761, be sailed over only at high water. It
is now grass-grown and even hilly. It is pierced
in the centre with a sluice called the Schieraond,
or mouth of the Schie, and the whole western half
of the double island called Eiuge Piatt (Eough
Place) is occupied by various dweUings or edifices
of industry. The avenue, lined with trees and
having a southern exposure, fronts the main chan
nel of the Maas Eiver, and was (in July, 1892)
appropriately named by the burgomaster and city
councU of Eotterdam, of which Delfshaven is now
a part, " Pelgrim Kade ; " that is. Pilgrim Avenue
or Quay.
In picturing to our minds the departure of the
Pilgrims, we cannot imagine the elegantly dressed
ladies and gentlemen with feathers and silks and
jewels such as we see in some highly idealized pic
tures, any more than we can conjure up, as a cer
tain lithographer once did, two full-rigged ships
with a vast crowd of people in boats waving fare
wells, or the imaginary rocks and high lands
which exist on canvas, but not in reality. It is
more than probable that the picture painted by
the Cuyps, father and son, gives the exact facts.

166 WESTWARD HO!
This painting, sraall in size, superb in color, and
lively in detail, represents, with the usual Dutch
realism, a gay horse and horseman, the inevi
table little dog, a Diana-like huntress, with boy
carrying her birds, arms, and case, in the fore
ground, and a group of sheds or huts, serving
as storehouses for cargoes and naval goods, at the
end of a quay. It gives no hint of any island
such as now fronts Delfshaven, and which one sees
as he enters or leaves Eotterdam on the steamers
of the Dutch or Holland-America line. The
buildings were not splendid affairs of masonry,
brick, and iron, as to-day. The woodcuts and
paintings of the period depict them as they were.
In garb of dark or brown clothes of the rigid
style and cut of English Puritans, with high
and wide-rimmed black hats, with ruffs around
their necks, a company of raen numbering a dozen
or so, with a boy or two, are walking down toward
the end of the pier. A big Dutch j)orter-woman
in front and a porter-man at the rear carry big
bundles for them. Three or four of the party
have muskets, and one, a short, doughty figure,
with his legs covered with long high cordovan
leather boots, holds his arms akimbo and wears
a sword. In the middle, arm in arm with the
mate or captain, both of whom are dressed not as
Puritans, but as ship folk, is a raan with a round
or melon-shaped cap, such as clergymen wore in
those days. This is not Elder Brewster, who

WESTWARD HO! 167
probably wore no special costume, and who was
then, as we think, hiding in England, but the
Eev. John Eobinson. About the cabins or store
houses on the shore are more emigrants, and
among the shipping to the left, beside the tri
color Dutch flags on the vessels sailing, or about
to sail, is a heavily masted pinnace, lying on the
low but rising tide, apparently of about sixty tons
burden. Out of her sides are poked the noses
of three cannons. On board are many people,
among whom are gayly dressed English sailors.
Though the Dutch flag flies fore and aft, yet
toward the bow is carved the beast best known
in English heraldry. This rampant red lion, the
shape and rig of the vessel, its abundance of
color, and the gay dress of the crew teU of an
English ship of the model of Elizabethan or
Jacobean times.
Evidently the situation here is as usual with
the Pilgrim company. The women and children
and most of the party are already on board, and
the leading raen, Eobinson, Bradford, Standish,
and others, are the last to attend to details and
to erabark. The tide is rising, but rauch shore
space is yet exposed that is to be covered at flood.
Before the raain body of the resolute voyagers
parted from their friends there were farewells,
with sighs, and sobs, and prayers, and tears gush
ing from every eye, and pithy speeches piercing
every heart. Some of the people of Delfshaven

168 WESTWARD HO!
who stood by on the quay, moved with sympathy,
could not refrain from tears. These English
people in the pioneer ship were going out, as
they thought, to New Netherland, to the wild
country across the Atlantic, and this time little
Delfshaven had a scene such as was common at
the Weepers' Tower in metropolitan Amsterdam.
Long afterwards, when Winslow wrote of the
incident, he said that the memory of the first Pil
grims' parting (for the several other ships which
reached Plymouth later doubtless sailed from
Delfshaven) was still fresh among the people of
this port on the Maas.
The tide, which waits for no raan, had risen ;
Eobinson and the few friends who had come on
board must disembark. So falling on his knees,
and they all with him, with watery cheeks, their
pastor commended them with raost fervent prayers
to the Lord for his blessing. These were English-
raen who were not afraid to shed tears. Before
the ship passed out of the haven into the river,
the arraed men in the company " gave them a
volley of small shot and [the sailors fired] three
pieces of ordnance." Then lifting up their hands
one to another, that is, waving farewells, the ship
moved out on the bosom of the Maas, sailing over
water where now is solid land, then down the
river and past the Hook of Holland into the Ger
man Ocean. The Pilgrim church was now half
on land and half on sea.

homes AND JOURNEYS OF THE PILGRIMS

WESTWARD HO! 169
To-day, as the passengers on the Dutch steam
ers of the Netherlands-American Steam Navisra-
tion Company enter or leave Eotterdam, they may
easily see, while on the Maas Eiver, the exact
place whence the Speedwell sailed out, for the
sluice piercing the island in the centre enables
one to look into and up the very canal and at the
street and quays whence the departure took place.
The Speedwell, leaving Delfshaven on Satur
day, the 1st of August, might have joined the
Mayflower at Southampton on the following
Wednesday, August 5. Had the two ships been
able to sail promptly, the united company could
have reached the Hudson Eiver region in tirae to
be weU housed before winter. It was not so
to be.
After a joyful welcorae and mutual congratula/-
tions from their English friends, including prob
ably Elder Brewster, the Leyden people fell to
parley about their business and how to dispatch
it with the best expedition. Then their troubles
broke out afresh, for they were vexed about the
stipulations, Weston having changed the original
agreement. The Speedwell people would not
agree with the new conditions without the con
sent of those left behind in Leyden, and, indeed,
they had been charged not to do so. At this
Weston was angry, and told them to " stand on
their own legs," and went off in a huff: "and
whereas there wanted well near one hundred

170 WESTWARD HO!
pounds to clear things at their going away ; he
would not take order to disburse a penny ; but
let them shift as they could." So the Pilgrims
were obliged to sell off three or four score firkins
of butter, which fortunately was something of
which they had enough and to spare.
A more agreeable incident at Southampton was
the engagement of a cooper, who was none other
than John Alden. He was a hearty, healthy, and
handsome young fellow. As Paul found his Luke
at Troas, so Bradford met at Southampton his
future companion and helper of unfailing fidelity.
Ale or beer being then part of daily diet, a
cooper was indispensable. Furthermore, no ves
sel carrying kegs or barrels could leave port with
out giving surety to import into England as much
timber for staves, then called " clapboard," as
had been used in making the kegs or barrels ex
ported. The Pilgrim ships could not have sailed
without a cooper, for the law was explicit. Part
of the statute of Parliament passed in 1543
reads : —
" Every Artificer of the Mystery of Coopers
raay take, for every Beer Barrel by hira sold, x. d.
and for every Beer Kilderkin, vi. d. Whosoever
shall carry Beer beyond Sea, shall find Sureties
to the Customers of that Port, to bring in Clap
board meet to make so much Vessel as he shall
carry forth."
We shall see that the first load of merchandise

WESTWARD HO! 171
sent home from America by the Pilgrims consisted
largely of staves, or " clapboards."
With a governor and two or three assistants
for each ship, for good order and the proper
use of provisions, which the shipmasters desired
and agreed with, they sailed away. The May
flower was by far the better provisioned, equipped,
and armed ship of the two, but, as usual, the noble-
hearted leaders went on board the Speedwell.
Then, most probably because the rascally captain
crowded sail on the overraasted Speedwell, al
though she had been twice examined and trimmed
at much cost at Southampton, she was found,
after a day or two, to be unseaworthy. Accord
ing to Cushman, she was " as open and leaky as
a sieve " and in danger of sinking. The captains
consulting together, and being near the coast of
Devon, they put in at the mouth of the Dart
Eiver, though they lost thereby a fair wind, and
the poor Pilgrims had to pay the expenses of the
stay of ten days at Dartmouth.
Thoroughly searched from stem to stern, the
SpeedweU's leaks were found and mended. Then
they put to sea again on August 23 with good
hopes, expecting no raore hindrances ; but when
well out on the Atlantic, Captain Eeynolds de
clared that the Speedwell must bear up or sink
at sea. Since no special leak could be found, it
was judged that the trouble was on account of
the general weakness of the ship. So back they

172 WESTWARD HO!
went to Plyraouth, where they had to stay sorae
tirae. While there, they were treated very kindly
by the people of the free church, forming what is
now the Grange Street Chapel, the Mayflower
meanwhile lying off the Barbican.
Plymouth was not then, as it is now, guarded
and defended by a raassive breakwater of raa-
sonry, but only an open roadstead. In time of
heavy storms the vessels anchored close together
were apt to be knocked to pieces, one against the
other, or dashed from the crest of the wave to
the ground. Fortunately it was fine weather dur
ing the Pilgrims' stay. The SpeedweU was sent
back to London, and, being remasted, became a
seaworthy vessel, as has been said. The May
flower was to go alone. They stowed on board
from the Speedwell whoever and whatever the
Mayflower could take. Since none but volunteers
were wanted to cross the Atlantic, those discon
tented or fearful, least useful or raost unfit to
bear hardships, — some twenty in nuraber, — went
back to London.
Thus after delays and disappointments enough
to appall the stoutest spirits, the voyage began,
all being compact together in one ship. The
Mayflower became a floating bethel, and this
company of Christians the church on the sea.
Sail was set in a prosperous wind. At first they
enjoyed fair weather. When starting from Ley-'
den, they had hoped to be in the new world, their

WESTWARD HO! 173
third home, before frost ; but when in raid-ocean
the winds were contrary. The equinoctial storms
burst upon them. By this tirae the Pilgrira lead
ers, rendered suspicious by their many disappoint
ments at the hands of rascally men, gathered from
the mutterings of the sailors that the ship was
unseaworthy. In the gale she was strained so
badly that one of the main beams amidships was
bowed and cracked, so that it looked as if the
Mayflower would go to pieces in mid-ocean, or
at least that they would have to turn back once
more. They even entered into serious consulta
tion with the captain and mates whether they
should not, after all, retrace their course, rather
than cast themselves into a desperate and inevi
table peril. With the shipmen, it was a question
between money and life, to lose their contract
and wages, or to hazard their lives too desper
ately. After considering all phases of the question,
the ship's officers, trusting their ship and know
ing her to be firm under the water, believed that
with proper repairs, and without too heavy a press
of sail, they would make the voyage in safety.
Fortunately one of the passengers had brought
out of Holland, where, at Delft especially, the
natives were famous for ship hardware, a great
iron screw. This was probably a " lifting jack,"
or " jackscrew," called in Dutch a domme kracht,
or vijzel. As cannon were invented before guns

174 WESTWARD HO!
or pistols, so the vijzel was a forerunner of the
monkey-wrench. The same people who invented
the ship's camel invented this, the ship's crutch.
Though not usually found on English vessels at
that time, lifting jacks were common on Dutch
ships, and were used for the very purpose to
which this " great screw " of the passenger from
Leyden was now put ; that is, to force the dis
located beam up and back into place.
This bit of iron turned the scale of decision,
and saved to the world — New England. Both
the carpenter and the captain agreed that when
raised into its place, and a post put under it and
set firm into the lower deck, and otherwise bound
and buckled together, the timber would be suf
ficiently secure to remove all cause for anxiety.
This work was done, and thereafter they had no
further trouble. Furthermore, by calking the
decks and upper works there would be no great
danger from the waves, though by the straining
of the ship in the storra the water still came down
into the cabins and below deck, keeping the
wretched passengers wet and cold.
In sundry of these storms the seas were so high
that they could not bear a knot of sail, but for
days together were forced " to hull ; " that is,
they drifted at the mercy of the wind, or went
" scudding under bare poles," while the company
was fastened below decks, shivering, seasick, for
lorn. In the foul air were bred the germs of

WESTWARD HO! 175
that quick consumption of which so raany, when
on land, were soon to die.
It was during one of these storms that a lively
young fellow named John Howland, coming from
below the hatches out on deck, was, in the roU
of the ship, thrown into the sea. Providentially,
at the same time the topsail halyard happened to
have broken loose frora its belaying pin and was
trailing in the sea, and John caught hold of it.
In Bradford's words, " He was sundry fathoms
under water." He held on till "he was hauled up
by the same rope to the brim of the water," and
then with a boat-hook was got into the ship again
and his life saved. Young Howland was some
what the worse for his adventure, but lived to be
a signer of the immortal compact at Cape Cod,
useful in church and comraonwealth, and the an
cestor of many families.
A sailor, proud of his strength and health,
made himself very disagreeable by swearing at
the poor seasick passengers, saying he hoped to
cast one half of thera into the sea. Before the
voyage was half over, this hearty wretch was
struck with disease, and " he was himself the first
that was thrown overboard." We wonder from
the description Bradford gives whether he was
a hard drinker and died of delirium tremens.
WUliam Button, who was probably a raedical
student and assistant of the doctor, William
FuUer, died on November 16, and his body was

176 WESTWARD HO!
committed to the deep. Bradford says nothing
about any religious exercises, such as are often
so impressive on seaboard on committal of a body
to the deep. The Puritans cared next to nothing
about ceremonies over a corpse whether at wave
or grave. In their reaction against priestcraft
they were on principle opposed to all mortuary
ritual. Theirs was a religion of life, not of death.
The loss of Dr. Fuller's assistant was raade up
by the birth at sea of a baby boy, born of Giles
Hopkins and his wife Elizabeth, and naraed
Oceanus. There were one hundred and two
people in the Pilgrira company when they left
Plymouth the second time. Early in December
Peregrine White was born, making the total
number of individuals on the register of the
Mayflower company, between old and new Plym
outh, one hundred and four, seventy-five males
and twenty-nine females. Among the adults were
twenty-four heads of households, eighteen wives,
thirteen sons or male relatives, seven daughters
or other female relatives, fourteen male servants,
one female servant, and fifteen single raen, making
ninety-two in all. There were also nine boys
and three girls. Of the ship's officers, Jones was
the captain and Coppin the pilot.

CHAPTER XIV
THE COMPACT AT CAPE COD
If the Mayflower had started out with a pilot
who had been inside Sandy Hook, her passengers
would probably have had no difficulty in reach
ing their desired haven and of coraing to fertile
land. However, it is probable that with the ques
tion of a pUot the Pilgriras had no more to do
than with choosing the other officers of the ship,
all of whom were furnished by their hard masters,
the Merchant Adventurers.
That part of the coast first sighted was the
best-known point between Nova Scotia and Flor
ida. Eastern Massachusetts had already been
explored by men of three nations, Samuel Cham
plain, John Sraith, and Adrian Block, and visited
by not a few fisherraen, traders, and English
slavers, or kidnapers, of Indians. Smith had
in 1614 made a map, which these "humorists,"
as Smith caUed the Pilgrims, had taken instead
of his advice. He had put a good many English
names, fanciful and otherwise, upon his map,
such as London, Cheviot Hills, Edinburgh, Cam
bridge, and so on, though some of these still
hold their own, such as Plymouth, Charles Eiver,

178 THE COMPACT AT CAPE COD
and Cape Ann. Cape Cod was variously naraed :
by Block, Flat Cape ; by Smith, Cape James ;
and by later comers. Cape Malabar. Champlain
had sprinkled some French names on his maps.
Block, who rounded the cape and crossed to Na-
hant, and of whose fame Block Island is a monu
ment, had given the name of Nassau to Buzzard's
Bay, and others, now obliterated or anglicized,
such as Ehode Island for Eood Eilandt. Housa-
tonic is the Dutch Woesten Hoek or Wilderness
Place. The Dutch claims were based on the
right of discovery.
Had the Mayflower been steered due west, she
would have reached the American coast at or
near the place of John Cabot's landfaU. There
have been many theories, some ingenious, others
absurd, as to why Cape Cod was raade and held
to. Most of the notions entertained are modern
after-thoughts, and some are spawned out of dis
graceful prejudices. Probably the real reason
lay, not in the total depravity of the captain, or
of the pilot, or of the Dutch, but in the Gulf
Stream, that vast and shifting ocean current
whose very existence was then unknown. As we
now know, the channel of this river of indigo-
blue warm water frequently changes, swerving
miles east or west. Its vagaries could therefore
easily puzzle even an experienced pilot, and drag
the Mayflower westward. When Verrazzano set
his compass for Florida, he also, and rauch to his

THE COMPACT AT CAPE COD 179
surprise, made landfall at Cape Cod. Neither
Jones, nor Coppin, nor the Dutch then knew any
thing of the Gulf Stream, which was first discov
ered and described by Dr. Benjamin Franklin.
Furthermore, like the French, and Captain
John Smith, the English pilot had the idea, from
which Englishmen were not wholly free till the
eighteenth century, of finding gold mines or the
mythical Indian city, called Norumbega. Quite
probably this theory also had its influence in
bringing the Mayflower to Cape Cod instead of
Sandy Hook.
Geologists who have inquired concerning the
ages past teU us that the eastern end of Massa
chusetts, shaped like an arra with an elbow and
fist, was fashioned by the forces of glacier and
floe-bergs, wind, ice, and waves. These hollowed
out Boston Harbor, and ground and shaped its
many islands, depositing the detritus in the form
of a sandy hook or bar, which is now Barnstable
County. Sandy Hook, named by the Dutch, is
another instance of matter redeposited as a bar,
after a bay has been scoured out.
It was at break of the day on the 9th of Novem
ber that the shore was first spied. The searweary
eyes of the passengers were comforted at " espe
cially seeing so goodly a land, and wooded to the
brink of the sea." It was probably to the north
ern extremity of the cape that they came. After
deliberation among themselves and with Captain

180 THE COMPACT AT CAPE COD
Jones, they tacked about and resolved to stand
for the southward. " But after they had sailed
that course about half the day, they fell among
dangerous shoals and roaring breakers [probably
at the Pollock Eip], and they were so far intan-
gled therewith, as they conceived themselves in
great danger ; and the wind shrinking upon them
withal, they resolved to bear up again for the
Cape ; and thought themselves happy to get out
of these dangers before night overtook them, as
by God's good providence they did."
Evidently to these landsraen, crowded together
almost like slaves in a slave vessel, poorly fed,
enfeebled by their long confinement and bad air,
barely escaping the dangers of foundering in the
stormy mid-ocean, and now again in peril from
treacherous shallows and currents which nearly
caused shipwreck, it seemed in retrospect as
though " a sea voyage was an inch of hell."
Furthermore the ship folk gave thera clearly to
understand that they must hurry up and get a
place to settle, for the Mayflower would not
stir from her good anchorage, and captain and
crew were bound to keep enough victuals for
themselves both while there and while on the
way back to England. "Yea, it was muttered
by some that if they got not a place in tirae, they
would turn them and their goods ashore and
leave them."
The Pilgrim Fathers having first been plain

THE COMPACT AT CAPE COD 181
farmers, and then mechanics in a strange coun
try, and several times passengers by inland wa
ters, salt sea, canal and ocean, now expected to
become explorers, but " order is Heaven's Jirst
law." Before this work of spying out the land
could begin, there was another question to settle,
that of government.
They inherited the tradition of English free
dom, but they had been nobly reinforced also by
residence in a free republic, where the spirit of
the churches was democratic and where that of the
city and state was republican. They had seen be
fore their own eyes in HoUand what a large share
the people had in the making of government.
Above aU, believing that even common men led
by the spirit of God were kings and priests unto
God, they had formed a Uttle republic of their
own. Their church life, theoreticaUy democratic,
was also practicaUy so in large measure ; though
here, as iu every form of social order on earth,
the men of light and leading were powerful in
influence, and able to overawe those of lesser
abUity, and move them for mutual good. Now
that they were inside Cape Cod, instead of Sandy
Hook, and their patent, which they had, conferred
no rights in New England, since the Virginia
Company had none there, the Mayflower was
an " undocumented vessel " on the high seas.
Furthermore there were symptoms of anarchy
among some baser spirits in the party, which
must be instantly met and curbed.

182 THE COMPACT AT CAPE COD
We must not forget that this Mayflower
corapany was not the sifted and select party
that had come from Leyden. There were a few
people, as Bradford says, " shuffled " in upon
them, who were probably unmitigated scoundrels.
There were others also, hired laborers, who had
not been trained and tempered in righteousness.
These, so soon as the ship turned back from the
southward, possibly, also, urged on by the sailors,
were " not well affected to unity and concord,"
but " gave some appearance of faction." Be
tween the two extremes — of foolishly indiscrimi
nate laudation of " the one hundred and one " at
banquets on Forefathers' Day, and* Palfrey's dic
tum that " eleven (of the Pilgrims) are favorably
known, the rest are either known unfavorably,
or else only by name" — the truth probably lies
midway. Evidently, then, there was a necessity for sorae
form of government, to be agreed upon, which
the majority would adhere to and the minority
must obey. So before undertaking exploration
or anything on land, the men who had, according
to the authority of the Bible, formed a church, —
far better authority than popes or bishops or
kings could give, — proceeded to form a govern
ment. This they had no difficulty in doing, for
their " large patent " obtained for them by Sir
Edwin Sandys permitted the leaders of " plan
tations " to make all necessary laws and forms of

THE COMPACT AT CAPE COD 183
authority, provided they held loyally to the sover
eign of England, and were not opposed to the
laws of the realm. It was under this documented
authorization that the Mayflower men elected,
or rather confirmed, a governor and made the
Cape Cod Compact, subscribing their names as
subjects of the king of Great Britain. They
formed themselves into a civil body politic for
carrying out the purposes of planting a colony in
the northern parts of Virginia. They promised
all due submission to such just and equal laws as
should be thought most meet and convenient
for the general good.
The effective Mayflower company at Cape
Cod consisted of seventy-three males an'd twenty-
nine females. Of thirty-four adult males con
stituting the colony proper, eighteen had wives
and fourteen of the eighteen had children under
twenty-one, — twenty boys and eight girls. Of
these thirty-four men, — the real nucleus of the
colony, — probably all but four were from Leyden.
But in addition to the householders and their
heads, there was the uncertain element of ser
vants, sailors, and craftsmen, large enough to be
dangerous if not properly disposed and influenced.
There was, indeed, in the Mayflower a major
ity of noble souls trained and tempered by long
years of friendship and mutual joys and dangers.
These, as Englishmen duly empowered by their
charter, did what any sensible men of England,

184 THE COMPACT AT CAPE COD
Scotland, or Holland would have done at that
time under like environment.
Thus, without looking at this document in the
transfiguring glow of after-dinner oratory in later
centuries, we may still see in it a noble framework
of government, simple but efficient. It is not
free from the stilted language and even the fic
tions of law which belong to the age. We read
the phrase " dread sovereign lord," so common in
those times, and we also find James called " the
King of France," which, since the loss of Calais
in January, 1558, was almost as ridiculous a term
then as it would be now. It was sixty-two years
behind the facts. As to King Jaraes being a
" defender of the faith," this must have been to
the Pilgrims a grim joke. The strong points of
the document are, the sentences " in the name
of God, Amen," and " having undertaken . . .
to plant the first colony in the northern parts of
Virginia ; we do by these presents solemn and
mutually in the presence of God and of one an
other covenant and combine ourselves together
into a civil body politic." It was signed by forty-
one men, out of the seventy-five male passengers
then on board the Mayflower. Of the remain
ing twenty-four males, thirteen were sons and
minors whose fathers' signatures answered for
their own. Nine others who did not subscribe
were male servants. These were probably too
ill to sign or be interested in the matter, for all

THE COMPACT AT CAPE COD 185
of them except one soon died, nor is it likely
that they could write. This compact of the peo
ple, for the people, and by the people was ex
pressed in a truly democratic document, and
furnished the basis of one of the best governments
that could be advised.
To the boys and girls, to say nothing of the
adults, the first view of their new home was de
lightful. All around were the "trees of the
Lord," such as those which they had seen in Hol
land and which had given that land of primeval
forests its name. The ship lay inside the good
harbor wherein a thousand sail of ships may
safely anchor. They noticed that the timber
came down to the water's edge ; oaks, pine, juni
per, and the sassafras, which was then esteemed
extremely valuable in medicine, besides other
sweet woods, could be discerned. So the first
odors that greeted them were not of turf, or from
burning hearth fires, — which to one approach
ing Ireland or England has such a suggestion of
human habitations, — but the balsamic odors of
the forest, of rude nature.
Now, also, they began to see their wretched
poverty, how poorly they were prepared to make
money or obtain food, or even to sustain life.
There was the greatest store of fowl that they
had ever seen. There were also whales, playing
close to the ship, which, had they only possessed
harpoons and ropes, they could have captured.

186 THE COMPACT AT CAPE COD
and, trying out the oil, have secured what would
now be sixty or eighty thousand dollars' worth of
bone and oil. Whale-fleet, now " Wellfleet," stiU
teUs the story of past abundance. The Pilgrims
tried to fish for cod, but found none, despite the
name of the cape, for it was not the season. In
deed, aU the time that the Mayflower lay there,
seven weeks, they got no salt-water fish, but only
a few little ones on the shore. They tried to
eat the fat coarse mussels, but in their gastric
condition such meat only made them ill.
They could not get nearer than three-quarters
of a mile to the shore, for the waters were very
shaUow. When they sent sixteen armed men
ashore to get firewood and fresh water, these had
to wade through the freezing cold brine, because
the anonymous shallop had been sagged out of
shape by men sleeping in it during the voyage, and
its seams were all opened. The sand hills were
found to be much like the dunes of Holland, but
with this difference, — that in many places below
the overlying wind-blown sand lay excellent
black earth, enriched by ages of growth and of
fallen leaves and vegetable matter. The first
product of the land which they used was juniper,
or cedar wood, which they burned while on the
ship, and it smeUed very sweet and strong.

CHAPTER XV
IN THEIR THIRD HOME
After the Sabbath of November 23, practical
life in the New World began on Monday, the 24th
of November, by the women going ashore to wash
clothes, which it had not been possible to do on
board the ship, where all the fresh water in store
was precious. We may imagine that the women
had plenty to do, when they thus began the great
American institution of "Wash-day Monday."
They had been one hundred and thirty-three days
on board ship since they left DeUshaven.
The "juniper," or red cedar, which made the
aromatic fire under the wash kettles, has long
since disappeared before the axe. The pool of
fresh water, so useful for their laundry, is now
submerged in Provincetown Harbor.
Thus began, also, in the cold raw air, the colds
and coughs which put so many of them into their
graves within a few weeks. One of the most
pathetic facts about the first winter in their third
home is the almost entire destruction of the wives
of the Pilgrims, fourteen out of eighteen dying
off, while four of the twenty-four households were
entirely obUterated.

188 IN THEIR THIRD HOME
Meanwhile the stronger men were impatient to
spy out the country, especially since there seemed
to be a river opening into the main land. Miles
Standish, the soldier, is now first mentioned in
Pilgrira literature. He appears in view as cap
tain of the exploring expedition, which was " rather
permitted than approved." Of the sixteen picked
men, all had swords and corselets. Their fire
arms were partly old-fashioned matchlocks, and
partly " snaphances," which is a Dutch word for
snap-cock guns. Their provisions were crackers
and cheese, and their medicine a bottle of brandy.
William Bradford, Stephen Hopkins, and Edward
Tilley forraed, with Standish, a council of advice.
The little company started off in single fUe,
marching along the sea at the edge of the woods.
Well used to ambuscades in the Netherlands,
Standish was continually on the alert. After
they had gone about a mile they saw the first
human beings, five or six in number, with a dog.
At first they supposed them to be the skipper and
some of his crew, but soon saw that they were
natives or Indians, who quickly ran away. Stan-
dish's party foUowed them for about ten railes,
stepping in their trail, and losing sight of thera
after having seen thera run up a hill, possibly
Negro Head.
By this tirae night had corae. Kindling a fire,
they set two sentinels and slept on the ground.
At break of day they resumed their march.

IN THEIR THIRD HOME 189
This time they went into the woods (which have
long ago disappeared) through boughs and bushes,
which damaged their armor lacings. They found
no fresh water or food or Indian houses. At
about ten o'clock they reached a deep valley
marked with the little paths or tracks made by
Indian feet, and there also they saw a deer and
found springs. Heartily glad and long tired of
the water kept in the ship's tanks, they sat down
at or near what is now East Harbor, and drank
fresh water with as much delight as ever they
had drunk wine or beer in all their lives. Going
southward they came to the shore of the bay and
kindled a fire, as a signal to the Mayflower's
people. After seeing a pond of fresh water, with
many vines and wild fowl and much sassafras,
they found about fifty acres of old maize-land
which had been used by the Indians. Following
the seashore awhile, and again moving inland,
they saw Indian graves and a stubble field.
Walnut-trees, strawberries, and grapevines were
also noticed. The ruins of an old house, evi
dently the hut of European sailors, aroused their
curiosity, for in it was a ship's kettle brought out
of Europe, together with three or four bushels of
corn, some of the ears of which were yeUow, some
red, and some mixed with blue. This maize
with grains of various tints was a new and won-
derful thing to these people, who had never, ex
cept perhaps in the Leyden museum, seen any-

190 IN THEIR THIRD HOME
thing like it. While thus eagerly occupied, they
were aU, as on every occasion, very alert, posting
sentinels in a ring.
At night they came back to the fresh-water
pond, reared a barricade against the wind, and
set a watch. The sentinels stood with matches
burning aU night long during the rain. Next
morning as they further wandered, Bradford, the
file-closer, was caught, but not hurt, in a deer
trap, which some Indian had made by bending
down a sapling held with a noose, strewing acorns
underneath the trigger. No doubt Bradford's
corarades had a hearty laugh over the mishap,
out of which he got so easily. They scared up
partridges, wild geese, and ducks, but bagged no
game. They even saw three deer ; and Bradford
cracks a joke to the effect that one buck on the
shoulder is worth three in the woods. When
within sight of their ship they fired their guns,
and the longboat came to fetch them back, and
there was mutual gladness. The corn was held
for seed, and the Indian noose made of wild hemp
kept for imitation, both to be paid for, should the
owners be found.
While the shallop was being repaired, time was
spent in sawing timber, fashioning tool handles,
and otherwise preparing for the making of homes.
On Monday, the 27th of November, thirty-four
men, including Captain Jones, the commander,
and nine sailors, set out on a new expedition. It

IN THEIR THIRD HOME 191
blew and snowed all day and night, so that some
of the raen " took the original of their death
here." Sailing into the river which they had dis
covered, they found it was not navigable for
ships. It must have been a delightful variation
to their monotonous fare, when on the night of
Tuesday they had three fat geese and six ducks
for supper. These they ate with soldiers' appe
tites. The next day, Wednesday, they left the hilly
region and turned toward the Indian granary.
By a lucky shot two geese were killed. Launch
ing the Indian canoe, they crossed over, seven or
eight at a time. Digging in Corn Hill they ob
tained about ten bushels of maize. The next day
they came to a mound, which they dug open, finding
two skeletons, of a man and of a child, wrapped
up in bundles and packed in red powder. On
the man's head was fine yellow hair. The child
had strings of shells wrapped around the limbs,
and there were toys near by. Whether, as has
been supposed, this was the body of a Norseman,
or whether the finely carved and painted board
with fleur-de-lis upon it pointed to the loss on the
coast, in 1616, of a French ship, is not known.
The wreck would explain the numerous European
relics found by the Pilgrims. It is known that
one white survivor had married in the tribe and
had had a son. The child was probably arrayed
for burial by a sorrowing Indian mother. The

192 IN THEIR THIRD HOME
Pilgrims scrupulously covered up the grave-
mound. They found also two empty wigwams,
into which two sailors frora the ship or shaUop
had also entered. In addition to the Indian bas
kets and implements, were deer's heads and hoofs,
eagle claws, seeds, food, material to raake mats,
and a European bucket. To all these things the
explorers helped themselves freely, intending to
pay for them when they could. Toward night,
December 10, they boarded the shaUop and
reached the ship.
After a long discussion as to their place of set
tlement, they decided not to seek another distant
harbor, but to make some discovery within the
bay, and there settle, as Coppin advised them to
do. The number of males on the ship was in
creased by the birth of Peregrine (Pilgrim)
White, who lived until the year 1704.
All this time, it must have been hard work to
keep so raany small boys out of mischief, nor was
it entirely possible to do this, cooped up as they
were on shipboard. On the 15th of December,
Tuesday, young Francis Billington, while his
father was away, had got hold of sorae gunpow
der. Besides shooting off the musket once or
twice, he raade squibs, and enjoyed hiraself as the
small boy loves to do with things dangerous.
Not content with this, having found a loaded
fowling piece, he discharged it in the cabin, where
there was a little barrel of powder about half full.

IN THEIR THIRD HOME 193
which had probably been opened to supply the
cartridges or bandoleers of the explorers. Loose
powder lay scattered about the cabin, and the fire
from the muzzle was within four feet of. the bunk,
so that, with many flints and iron things lying
around, where so raany people were crowded to
gether, it is a wonder that the ship was not blown
up. Of this Billington boy and his pranks we
shall hear again.
A third exploring party, consisting of twelve
Pilgrims and six of the crew, set out on the 16th
of December in cold, hard weather. While the
shallop was being rowed with exhausting labor
clear of Long Point, two of the men became ill
and one nearly swooned with cold. But once
clear of the sandy point, they hoisted sail, caught
the wind, and got into smoother water, though the
spray froze on their clothes. After some hours
they landed, raade a barricade, built fires, and
posted sentinels. Four or five railes off they saw
the smoke of the Indians' fire. The next morn
ing twelve explorers spent a fatiguing day on
land, rejoining the shaUop at dark. They were
very hungry and very faint, but after a little food
and warmth they went to sleejJ. At midnight they
were alarmed by the crying of " foxes," as they
thought, which were driven off by firing guns.
The next morning at five o'clock they tried
their muskets. These raen were of the sort that
feared God and kept their powder dry. They

194 IN THEIR THIRD HOME
had prayer, and after eating started again. Now
came the first meeting between these men of
iron with those still living in the stone age. Sud
denly in the winter dawn they heard the same
cry which had disturbed them at midnight. It
was an Indian warwhoop. The next moment one
of the men, being out from the carap, ran in,
crying, " They are men, Indians, Indians ! " and
then a shower of arrows came flying among them.
These missiles were tipped with deer horn, eagle
claws, or brass. Fortunately none of the white
men were hit, though the shafts came very close
on every side, and some of their coats hung up on
the barricade were shot through and through.
The whites ran to the beach to get their arms
and armor. Captain Miles Standish had a snap-
cock gun, and he and a comrade flred. By this
time Bradford and another man were ready, there
being only four at that moraent fit for combat,
but Standish ordered them to withhold fire until
they could take aim. It looked as if a battle was
coming on. The men near the fire called to their
corarades in the shallop, asking how it was, and
heard three shots, while another called for a fire
brand to light their raatch cord. One of the men
at the camp seized a burning fagot and rushed
with it to the boat, to give the men a light. Mean
while terrific Indian yells sounded in their ears.
By this time all the company had got their arms.
The Indian chief was behind a tree and let fly

IN THEIR THIRD HOME 195
three arrows at short range, which the white men
dodged or avoided by stooping down. The chief
stood his ground even when some one fired three
shots of a musket at him. On the fourth shot,
the Indian yeUed, and then aU the red raen fled.
Warily leaving six raen to keep the shallop, the
PUgrim squad pursued the savages for a quarter
of a mile, but did not come up with them. It was
supposed from the sound that there were thirty
or forty warriors, but in the morning twilight
they could not easily be seen among the trees,
while on the other hand the white men were
readily discerned by the light of the fire. They
picked up eighteen of the arrows to be sent to
England by the captain. Then they thanked
God, took courage, and went on their journey,
caUing this place " The First Encounter." This
battlefield was at Nauset, which Charaplain had
visited a few years before. It is now called East
hara, and the Indians were the Nausites. It seems
wonderful that with so many arrows and bullets
flying through the air no one was hurt.
The next day was snowy and rainy with high
winds. The rudder hinges having broken, two
men had to steer the boat with oars. The mast
split in three pieces, and the danger was great.
Late in the afternoon thej' found an island and a
sandy place good for the shallop to ride safe and
secure for the night, during which sentinels kept
watch. As Clark, the captain's mate, was first
to land, they named it Clark's Island.

196 IN THEIR THIRD HOME
On the 20th of December, it being the Sab
bath, they rested. On Monday they sounded the
harbor, which they found very good for their
shipping, and then made the landing, possibly on
the rock now so famous. They found close at
hand maize fields, running streams, and a hill for
defense — all the requisites for a successful settle
ment. This was the scene of their future home,
" a place very good for situation." It was no
other than the place named Plymouth by Captain
John Smith. This is the date of " Forefathers'
Day," which began to be annually celebrated in
1769. The next day, Tuesday, they made straight for
the ship, carrying the good news to their people,
who were greatly comforted. On the 25th of
December the Mayflower hoisted anchor to make
the run across the bay to Plymouth ; but unable
to do so on account of contrary winds, she put
back again towards Cape Cod. On Saturday,
the 26th, the wind being fair, they came safely
into Plymouth Harbor. Other visits on shore
and explorations were made, and it was shown
that here was a good site, rich in all kinds of
sea food, with abundance and variety of timber
and herbs, and having a fairly fertile soU.
After calUng on God for guidance, the final
council was held on the morning of Wednesday,
December 30. They decided by a majority vote
to settle at Plymouth, where there were cleared

IN THEIR THIRD HOME 197
land, plenty of fresh water, a hill on which a fort
could be built and made, like the Burg at Ley
den, a place whence to view the surrounding
country. The PUgrim settlement was in a certain respect
copied after that in Leyden. The company was
arranged into households, the single men being
required to join some family, so that fewer houses
might be required. Not given at this time to mere
words or much sentiment, they laid out a name
less thoroughfare, first caUed " The Street," then
" First Street," " Broad Street " (the name of
the main street in Leyden), and finally, in 1823,
" Leyden Street." In their housekeeping they
were crowded together, as they had been in the
city on the Ehine, in their little houses, every
one of which contained probably an average of
ten persons.
Troubled and discouraged with rain and wet,
storm and snow, they kept on at work, during the
dark days of late December and the increasing
cold of early January, losing much time in going
and coming between ship and shore, for the tide
waited not for their convenience, and the May
flower lay nearly a mile and a half away. They
had no time to make shingles or to bake tiles,
such as they lived under in Leyden, so on the
13th of January parties went out to gather
thatch wherewith to put something between them
selves and the sky. As yet only a few of the men

198 IN THEIR THIRD HOME
had seen any human being. Not having any small
fish-hooks, they caught no fish, and the finding
of a live herring on the shore was a great event.
On Monday, the 18th of January, the shallop was
sent out, coming back with three seals and a cod
fish. On the same day one of the Billingtons,
having climbed a high tree on a high hill, saw a
sheet of water. Walking with one of the mas
ter's mates, " Billington Sea," from which the
town brook issues, was discovered.
The idea of calling a pond a " sea " is old Eng
lish, and the use of the word is illustrated in the
" sea " of Galilee, as Lake Gennesaret is caUed.
This was among the first seen of the two hundred
ponds which lie in Plymouth township, but it was
not the source of the Hudson Eiver, as probably
some of the company then supposed. Even until
near the time of the Eevolution, New England
was supposed by many in Great Britain to be an
island. It was So referred to even by one of King
George's high officers.

CHAPTER XVI
THE FIRST FAMILIES OF AMERICA
On the 19th of January, the weather being rea
sonably fair, the town was laid out, and the plots
of ground were assigned. The big common house,
which was to be a rendezvous, church, barracks,
hospital, and storehouse, was twenty feet square,
made of hewn logs, pointed with mortar or mud
in the chinks between the timbers, and thatched.
The work was slow, for the winter days were
short, and the rains often made them stop. On
Friday, the 22d, two men, having gone out for
thatching material, followed too far their dogs
that chased the deer, and lost their way in the
woods. They had no arms except a sickle. They
had to make their bed on the ground, and were
kept awake by the roaring of wolves. They
walked up and down under a tree aU the night,
which was extremely cold, expecting to climb up
in the branches when the wolves came, though
these failed to appear. By the next night they
reached the company, nearly dead with hunger
and cold.
As we have seen, there were no " Tylers " in the
party, but only "Thatchers." Very probably.

200 THE FIRST FAMILIES OF AMERICA
these Leyden people had not been used to thatch
and its dangers. We know not what sort of a
chimney these amateur house-builders had erected,
or whether there was any ; but the roof of the
big common house caught on fire. A spark flew
up into the thatch, which burst into flame, raaking
a tremendous blaze. Seen from the ship, the
people on board supposed that the Indians had
attacked and burned the place. The house was
full of bedding. The guns were loaded, with
powder near at hand. Carver and Bradford lay
sick at the time, but fortunately they got up
quickly and saved themselves and the building
from an explosion.
Three or four days of sunshine followed, and
then more rain, but by the 30th a shed was built
to shelter the goods of the community, which were
now brought over frora the ship. On Sunday,
January 31, the whole corapany, being ashore,
met for divine service in the common house, —
New England's first public building. Local tra
dition declares that Mary Chilton was the first
woman who stepped on land, and that for her and
the others the solitary boulder was the landing-
place. Plymouth Eock began with her its fame.
On the 14th of February a most tremendous
storm burst upon them. It knocked the mud out
of the chinks in the houses, and made the May
flower rock in a lively way, for she was now
empty of her lading and unballasted. Again, the

THE FIRST FAMILIES OF AMERICA 201
house being full of sick people, they were in dan
ger from a fire kindled by a spark, though no
great harm was done. Probably too much birch
fuel was used. Captain Jones, having killed five
geese, distributed them among the sick.
The Indians now appeared, off and on, in such
numbers that it was necessary to be prepared
with some kind of defensive organization. So,
on Saturday, the 27th of February, 1621, a meet
ing was caUed to form a military corapany. Miles
Standish was made captain, and given authority
to command. In the fort the Pilgrim battery
consisted of four cannon. Hard as must have
been the work of landing the artillery, it must
have been harder to drag the two light and two
heavy pieces up to the top of the hill, where they
were to be planted in a commanding situation.
The sailors, however, lent a hand, and reinforced
Pilgrim muscle.
Evidently not knowing the New England cli
mate, they had begun to sow some garden seeds
on the 7th of March. On the 13th of March they
heard thunder for the first time in their new home
land. Friday, March 26, 1621, was a fair, warm
day. WhUe busy with further council about
military affairs, there came a sudden and delight
ful interruption. They heard their own native
tongue uttered by a savage, who said "Wel
come." He was naked, except a fringe of skin
about his waist, and had a bow and two arrows.

202 THE FIRST FAMILIES OF AMERICA
He was tall and straight, with his black hair hang
ing down behind him, and cut on his forehead like
a bang, and was entirely beardless. He asked for
beer, but they gave him brandy and some biscuit
and butter, cheese and pudding, and a piece of
mallard duck, all of which he was well accustomed
to, and liked very much.
This Indian gentleman, for such we raust call
him, being, as he was, from one of the first farai
lies of America, and by name Samoset, was also
a man of culture and travel. He was a chief, a
native of Pemaquid, where Bristol, Maine, now
stands. Having come on Captain Derraer's ship
with another countryraan named Squanto, he
landed on Cape Cod, where six French fisherraen
had been shipwrecked only six raonths before the
Mayflower arrived. Samoset helped to redeem
two survivors from their savage captors, and
probably told of that Frenchman from an earlier
wreck, who, with his half-breed child, had filled the
grave which the Pilgrim explorers opened. In
stead of going back home, Samoset had remained
in this region, and was now able to tell the Pil
grims the history of the land they were to live on,
and why the Indians were so hostile. English
slave-traders had in 1614 kidnaped and sold into
the Spanish galleys twenty-seven natives. Hence
the red man's desire for revenge upon all whites.
The Pilgrims' tenure of land was not likely to
be disputed, for there were no other claimants.

THE FIRST FAMILIES OF AMERICA 203
About four years before, a plague had swept off
all the people in the neighborhood, which was
caUed Patuxet. The nearest chief was Massa
soit. When on Saturday Samoset left, he was given
a knife, a bracelet, and a ring. He promised to
return within a night or two, and to bring with
hira some of Massasoit's men, with such beaver-
skins as they had for barter.
Samoset came back with most undesirable
promptness on Sunday. With him were five
sturdy Indians, whose bodies and legs were raore
or less covered with deer and panther skin. Since
the Pilgrims wore short, baggy trousers, with stock
ings coming to the knees, the Indian leggings
seemed to them like " Irish trousers," coming
aU the way up to the thighs and waist. In com
plexion they resembled the gypsies, whom the
Plymouth men had seen in England and Holland.
They had no hair on their faces, which were
painted according to whim or fashion. The
coarse black hair on their heads was braided into
long tresses, banged on their foreheads, or tied up
over their heads, with a feather or a fox tail hang
ing out. In token of peace, they had left their
bows and arrows a quarter of a mile from the
town. They ate heartily of the food offered
them. They gave a speciraen of their songs and
dances. They carried at the waist their rations,
— sorae powdered corn in a bag, — and their luxu-

204 THE FIRST FAMILIES OF AMERICA
ries, which were pipes and a tobacco pouch. They
brought back the tools taken in the woods, where
the white men had left them. They had three or
four skins for sale ; but after proper politeness
shown, it being Sunday, the Pilgrims drove no
bargain, but got their red friends off. Samoset
remained, and was furnished with a hat, a pair of
stockings, shoes, a shirt, and a piece of stuff for
a loin cloth.
On three different occasions, while elaborating
their military business, the Pilgrims had been
interrupted by the coming of the strange people
whom they were most likely to meet in combat.
Again a squad of Indians approached, this time
apparently whetting their arrows, and rubbing
their bow-strings as if in defiance ; but when four
of the white raen went over the Town Brook to
ward thera, they ran away. It was on this day,
March 31, that the last of the company finally left
the Mayflower. The carpenter, who had been
sick for a long tirae of the scurvy, fitted up the
shallop, and brought all ashore. No doubt the
actual prosaic facts of the landing and the subse
quent fancies of poet and painter do not tally.
The next day, April 1, was also eventful, for
while at public council they were again visited
by Samoset, who this time was accompanied by
Squanto, the only survivor of the Patuxet cap
tives that had been kidnaped and carried away
into slavery by Captain Hunt in 1614. Squanto

' *j « ";/ ¦" ^^.M^i^ s I ft '(v '/

ll ^?
1 ' 'life, \ ''':¦*

THE FIRST FAMILIES OF AMERICA 205
had been in London, where he lived with Master
John Slaney in CornhiU, and could therefore
speak a little English. Besides bringing a few
skins to sell and some dried red herring, the pair
intimated that Massasoit and all his company
were coraing, and, indeed, were near at hand.
That this was true, was soon proved. In about
an hour they saw on the top of a hiU a band of
about sixty natives led by Massasoit. The whites
chose Edward Winslow, who was the diplomatist
of the company, to signify that they wanted peace
and trade, and that they would confer with dele
gates sent by the Indians. The presents sent
consisted of a knife and a copper chain with a
jewel in it for Massasoit, an ear jewel for his
brother Quadequina, and a pot of brandy, plenty
of biscuit, and some butter for the party.
To these men of the stone age, Winslow made
a speech in the name of King James, and the in
terpreters turned it into Algonquin as weU as
they were able. After Massasoit had eaten and
drunk, he wanted to buy Winslow's armor and
sword, which the owner would not sell. Feel
ing in good humor after his dinner, Massasoit
left Winslow as hostage in custody of Quade
quina, and with twenty unarmed men carae over
the Town Brook. There he was met by Captain
Standish and Allerton, with half a dozen men,
who escorted hira to an unfinished house, where
they placed a rug and cushions. Governor John

206 THE FIRST FAMILIES OF AMERICA
Carver, with druraraer, trurapeter, and a few raen
in armor, came in also. After salutations. Car
ver called for brandy and drank to Massasoit's
health, while the red man also drained a " bum
per." " The king " and his followers were also
given fresh raeat. Then foUowed a treaty of
peace, which lasted raany years. The reds and
the whites, the raen of stone and the raen of iron,
savage and Christian, rautuaUy agreed not to in
jure or hurt each other, and to be friends and
allies in war and peace.
Squanto, who remained a little while longer,
made himself very useful to these Englishmen,
who knew next to nothing about maize or its
nature. He showed them how to plant the chief
American staple, by first raanuring the ground
with fish, putting the grain and the alewives in
the same hill. He further showed thera how
to hoe the earth around the stalks to secure fat
ears. By the middle of April, he said, there
would be plenty of fish coming up the Town
Brook, and he also told thera where to get other
provisions. In due time the whites found by
their own trial and experience that what Squanto
had told them was true. He also taught them
just how to catch eels. Going out on the muddy
shore and treading them out with his feet, he
caught a mess. Thus, without a trap, hook, or
net, he provided sea food offhand. These eels
were fat, sweet, and very nutritious. In many

THE FIRST FAMILIES OF AMERICA 207
other helpful ways the red men were teachers and
benefactors of the foreigners. Moccasins, snow-
shoes, birch-bark canoes, and the art of " gir
dling " trees and thus quickly opening forest-land
to sunshine and cultivation, were the great gifts
of the Indians.
It was proper for the Plymouth men to return
the call of Massasoit, to learn more about the
country and to continue the league of peace.
For this purpose Governor Carver chose Stephen
Hopkins and Edward Winslow to go among thera.
Squanto, as the official interpreter, was presented
with a bright red cotton coat, properly laced.
This was not a military sign, for the red-coated
soldier of the British army was not known until
after the days of the Commonwealth. The em
bassy started on Monday, July 2, at nine in the
morning, but did not raeet Massasoit until far in
land, on Wednesday, the 14th of July. The chief
promised to continue peace and friendship and to
procure good seed corn for them. Then they aU
lighted their pipes and talked of England and
King James, who at this time had no wife, and of
the Frenchmen who came often to Narragansett.
When they went to bed, which they did without
any supper, the chief and his squaw lay at one
end of the couch, which was made of plank with
a thin mat upon it. Two more of the Indians,
for want of roora, also pressed by and upon the
Englishmen so that they were worse of their

208 THE FIRST FAMILIES OF AMERICA
lodging than of their journey. The next day the
Indians entertained them at games, and the white
raen shot at a mark, using " hail," or bird-shot,
which made the Indians wonder to see the target
so full of holes. At about one o'clock that day,
two fish, probably bass, shot with arrows, were
brought in and boiled, and out of this meal forty
raen took their sustenance.
By this tirae the white raen had had enough of
life in the stone age. They had not enjoyed deep
slumbers, for the barbarous noises by which the
Indians sang themselves to sleep, the vermin in
side the wigwam, and the mosquitoes outside
aUowed thera very little rest. Longing for a
quiet Sabbath at home, they set out on Friday,
Massasoit being both grieved and ashamed that
he could not better entertain them. Having to
subsist on such nourishment as they could gather
by the way, they wrote on to Plymouth, sending
the letter by Indian messengers, asking that food
be sent thera to Araasket. Wet, weary, and foot
sore they reached horae on Saturday.
The next adventure was a voyage raade by ten
men of the corapany to find the small boy, John
Billington, Jr., who had strayed off at the end of
July and wandered up and down some five days,
living on berries and what he could find. After
much travel and trouble they found and brought
him back. Other adventures araong the Indians
were in the forra of an expedition to chastise the

THE FIRST FAMILIES OF AMERICA 209
enemies of Massasoit at Namaschet, where there
was some fighting, though no one was killed, and
an expedition to Boston Bay, where they made a
treaty of peace with the natives there. These
were of the Massachusetts tribe, who took their
name from a " hill shaped like an arrow-head,"
probably the Blue Hills near Boston.
Indian life then, as it had been for centuries
previous, was one monotonous story of war, of
human beasts seeking their prey, of fighting and
murder, the savages finding such food as they
could, and from tirae to time being swept off by
contagious diseases.

CHAPTER XVII
SICKNESS AND HEALTH, WAR AND DIPLOMACY
That first winter of the Pilgrims at Plymouth
was the most doleful in all their history. Start
ing out from Leyden with the young, strong, and
healthy, their augmented numbers at Southamp
ton had been sifted at Plyraouth, and none had
died on the voyage except young William Butten.
Why, then, were both the colonists and the May
flower crew so frightfully decimated again and
again ?
When we consider the crowded ship's cabins,
the hatches battened down, and the people kept
over two months without proper ventilation or
possible cleanliness, and the five weeks' exposure
in midwinter on ship and shore at Cape Cod,
there is no mystery. Many on board the ship
were already reduced by scurvy. The food was
bad and with little variety, and in those days the
salt used was impure and often much more fit
for paving raaterial than for food. The first
house built immediately becarae a hospital, "as
fuU of beds as they could lie one by another," —
the same bedding which had already been used
in the ship. Nearly every person, at one time or

SICKNESS, HEALTH, WAR, DIPLOMACY 211
another, was ill, and one half of the company
died of quick consumption.
When the landspeople were through with their
worst misery, the shipfolk inhabiting their germ-
infested quarters were taken with the same epi
demic. " The disease began to faU among the
seamen, so as almost half their number died be
fore they went away." One half of the whole
human freight of the Mayflower found graves
in earth or water before the return of the ship,
on the 15th of April, 1621.
On land the deaths in December numbered six,
in January eight, in February seventeen, in March
thirteen, and during the rest of the year, six more.
There is significance in the ages of those who died.
Of thirty-six out of the sixty-one adult Pilgrims,
most were between the ages of twenty and thirty,
when the liability to pulraonary consumption is
greatest. Only seven out of the thirty-two youths
and children, but eight out of the nine servants,
died. In a word, what kUled off the Pilgrims
during the first year was the infectious disease,
acute pulmonary tuberculosis, or " galloping con
suraption." From that day until this, consurap
tion has ever been the scourge of New England,
and the greatest single cause of death araong
adults in the Eastern States. The emigrants
who survived disease and exposure were undoubt
edly tough. They made splendid stock for the
buUding up of families and the state.

212 SICKNESS, HEALTH, WAR, DIPLOMACY
Governor Carver, in April, 1621, worn out
with many labors in three countries and on the
sea, as counselor, agent, nurse, farmer, raagistrate,
and man of God, was stricken in the field and
died, after but a few hours of distress. He was
buried with such official honors as the little band
could render. Before summer was ended, the
body of his devoted wife was laid by his side in
the earth. As in the case of the other dead, the
heroic survivors dared not mark the spots, lest
savage enemies might count the graves. William
Bradford was then chosen governor. With the
exception of five years, when he refused reap
pointment, he served in this office until his death
in 1657.
Eheumatisra, sciatica, and scurvy, at first, and
later, sraallpox, troubled the colonists ; but from
one disease, common in Old and New England,
the Pilgrim company was wholly free. This
was the " bewitchment sickness." The medical
books of those days show that physicians and
common people believed that there were " pinings
and wastings of the whole body, which many
times so altered it as if it was not the same crea
ture, causing various and foolish actions, in which
raany have called their children changelings, the
alteration in their outward form, as well as of
the raind, has been so great." It was then part
of popular and even learned theology, and of
raedical " science," that the devil took up his

SICKNESS, HEALTH, WAR, DIPLOMACY 213
residence in the huraan body and made it his
playground. Many remedies were enumerated
which were supposed to be " offensive to devils,"
such as mistletoe, ivy, coral, peony, rue, loadstone,
amber, and various jewels. One or more of these
antidotes to witchcraft were worn about the body
by thousands of people in Europe. Cinnabar,
put into a goosequiU, or into a hazelnut, sealed
up with wax, was good to hang on the pit of the
stomach. A ring made of an ass's hoof was also
recommended. Children were to be removed
from the company of the supposed witch, in order
that the influences which caused this disease of
fascination raight be neutralized.
In those days, when medicine was more mixed
up with astrology, and theology with superstition,
than now, and when thousands of people were
judicially put to death, often by burning, for sor
cery and witchcraft, it is certainly remarkable,
though not inscrutable, that the Pilgrims had no
epidemic of witchcraft. This was not because all
the people of Plymouth, in the second generation,
at least, did not believe in vritches, for many of
thera shared the common notions of the times, —
that human beings actually had direct dealings
with the devil, — and late in their history they
embodied this superstition in their laws. There
were even two trials for witchcraft, within the
Old Colony, but with this remarkable difference,
as compared with those in Salem, — they cross-

214 SICKNESS, HEALTH, WAR, DIPLOMACY
examined the witnesses, scanned their testimony,
and found the charges not proved.
In a word, the Plymouth men were Europeans
who had been born or educated and trained in
the Dutch republic, where, during the very year
that France, Germany, and England were putting
to death thousands of people accused of witch
craft, was heard the first modern voice to rebuke
this insanity of the human mind. After John
Wier, of Grave, in 1563 challenged the very exist
ence of witches, came a long line of writers end
ing with Balthazar Bekker, who in his classic
work, " The Bewitched World," gave the final
death blow to the superstition by exposing the
worthlessness of the theory upon which it was
founded. Long before the Pilgrims had arrived
in Leyden, Holland was bathed in an atmosphere
of wholesome skepticism, and the Leyden church
thrived in the tonic air. Bekker was a benefac
tor of the human race. After his book, witch
craft took its place with the moles and the bats.
This remarkable state of affairs in their second
home, when accusations of witchcraft and witch
trials were at their height in their first home
land, must have powerfully impressed the Pil
grims dwelling in Leyden, and so the new world
to which they came was not one bewitched. The
Pilgrims showed themselves proof against this
superstition. When the madness fell upon the
Salem community, smiting wise and foolish alike.

SICKNESS, HE.ILTH. WAR, DIPLOMACY 215
the Plymouth people were cooler-headed, and
showed handsomely the results of their training
in the land which an English Jubilee poet, in
1897, salutes as the "First Home of Mental
Liberty." The first crops did fairly weU. Although the
peas blossomed, they were parched in the sun and
not worth gathering, but the maize proved to be
then, as it is now, the raost important American
crop. Happy over their first harvest. Governor Brad
ford sent men to go out and shoot some wild
fowl, that they raight have, not one Thanksgiving
Day, but a whole week of fun, froUc, rejoicing,
and gratitude to God. These hunters in one day
kUled so much feathered game as would, with
side dishes, supply the company of about fifty
survivors almost a week. This season, which
may have been early in October, is sometimes
called the beginning of our national American
Thanksgiving Day, though at Plymouth, so far
as we know, this first festival had no special re
ligious features, certainly not so definitely as the
historic day of October 3, which they had for
ten years seen celebrated in Leyden. The PU
grims began every day with prayer and thanks
giving, and enjoyed their religion on no particu
lar day, but on all of them. They observed a
perpetual joyful Sabbath. They were religious
in everything, whether in eating, drinking, or

216 SICKNESS. HEALTH, WAR, DIPLOMACY
working, in their pleasures as well as their duties
and devotions.
What they wanted now, after harvest toil, was
mirth and frolic, recreation and feasting ; and so,
inviting the Indians to come and enjoy the glad
some season, they "exercised their arras " ^ — no
doubt shooting at a mark, bows and arrows con
tending with muskets and ball at the ranges. In
other words, they enjoyed one of the Doelen or
target festivals, such as they had so often seen in
Holland as well as in England. We can easily
picture these men in corselets and bandoleers, top
hats and knee breeches, firing their heavy guns
from a rest, while the red archers used the most
ancient of all long-range weapons. What a tre
mendous impulse has been given to civilization
by gunpowder ! What an evolution from the
stone chip to the finished leaden arrow — the ful
minate copper cartridge !
The Indians who came with Massasoit num
bered about ninety men, and these also were
feasted and entertained during three days. The
red raen themselves provided much of the fare,
having gone out and killed five deer, the choice
pieces of which they gave to Governor Bradford,
Captain Standish, and others. It was true states
manship for the Pilgrim leaders thus to win so
soon the good will of the natives, and the fruits
of their excellent Indian policy were already ap
parent, for they could " walk as peaceably and

SICKNESS. HEALTH, WAR, DIPLOMACY 217
safely in the woods as in the highways in Eng
land." Evidently these men, long used to town
life, had not yet become skiUf ul enough to hunt
deer very successfuUy, and so they appreciated
aU the more the friendliness of the Indians in
bringing venison.
By the time that the first anniversary of their
arrival had come round, seven dwellings had been
completed, besides four houses for the use of the
coraraunity. Others were in preparation. The
climate at first seemed much like that of England,
except that the summers were hotter ; the winter
was no colder, though they found later that the
season of 1620-21 had been a mild one. Fish
and fowl were in great abundance, the cod coming
in the summer and being but " as coarse meat "
with them. This " Cape Cod turkey," which has
for centuries fiUed the stomachs and enriched the
brains of dwellers in the Eastern States, is a fish
that can be cooked in manifold ways, eaten salt
or fresh, is good aU the year round, and is easily
preserved. The codfish is nature's great gift to
Massachusetts. Bradford probably did not then
foresee that what the wool sack was to England
— the emblem of its wealth, and in honor made
the chief seat in Parliaraent — the codfish would
be to Massachusetts, and in gilded effigy hang in
the chief legislative haU beneath a golden dome
under which his own precious manuscript would
rest in the year of grace 1897.

218 SICKNESS, HEALTH, WAR, DIPLOMACY
Besides the bay's being fuU of lobsters, a hogs
head of eels, dug out of their beds, could often
be taken in a night with sraall labor. All winter
there were mussels and clams at their doors, and
the Indians also brought oysters. Good solid
herbs sprang up naturally in the springtime,
with grapes, white and red, strawberries, goose
berries, three sorts of plums, white, red, and
black. There was abundance of roses, red, white,
and damask, single but very sweet indeed. Brad
ford noted other flowers, and the curious noises,
particularly those of mosquitoes, seventeen-year
locusts, and rattlesnakes. The country wanted
only industrious men to cultivate it ; and from
over-crowded England such men ought to come.
Even in winter, when no farming could be done,
the women kept busy in household work and in
making and mending clothing, while the men cut
timber, raade clapboards, stripped off sassafras,
bought furs, and stored up a cargo to send to
Europe at the first opportunity.
When on the 19th of November, 1621, Indian
runners from Cape Cod informed them that a
ship was at hand, which they thought to be
French, it being too early to expect a friendly
vessel, Bradford ordered the cannon to be fired
to call horae the raen in the fields and asserable
the little army of twenty men. Whereupon,
every man and boy that could handle a gun
stood to arms. Happily, instead of a man-of-war

SICKNESS, HEALTH, WAR, DIPLOMACY 219
fuU of preying enemies, in sailed a ship sraaUer
even than the Speedwell with praying Chris
tians from Leyden. AU on board were in good
health, having suffered, during their long passage
of four months, nothing raore than seasickness.
The first night after landing, a son was born
of goodwife Ford. This ship, the Fortune, of
fifty-five tons, or one fourth the size of an Erie
canal-boat, brought thirty-five persons. These
were mostly young men, more lively than fore-
sighted, and with good appetites. Not having
much provision left, they had to be satisfied with
what the Pilgrims could offer them out of their
own store. The sight of the toil-worn and partly
ragged colonists removed any rosy illusions which
the newcomers may have had. New England was
not yet a land of luxury.
The Mayflower had gone back empty, because
the colonists had not time or opportunity to load
a cargo. The Fortune, on the contrary, was
laden with beaver skins and other peltry, with
sassafras, prepared timber, and clapboards, worth
in all about five hundred pounds, or, appraised
in money of our day, ten thousand doUars. John
Alden, the cooper, would oversee the clapboards,
and Dr. Fuller the sassafras.
Though returning rich as a fat sheep, the For
tune was destined to illustrate the proverb of
going for wool and coming horae shorn. She
sailed away on December 23 ; but belying her

220 SICKNESS, HEALTH, WAR, DIPLOMACY
" hail," this little craft, — no wonder the Bible re
visers of 1611 called a fishing-smack on the " sea "
of Galilee a "ship," — when near the English
coast, January 29, 1622, was captured by a French
man-of-war and taken to God's Island (Isle
Dieu). The cargo was confiscated bythe French
governor, and the corapany of thirteen persons,
after imprisonment and rough treatment, were
only too glad to get away from Isle Dieu to
" God's country," England. Their captor com
pelled them to sign a paper, saying that he had
taken only two hogsheads of " fox " skins. Be
ing ignorant of beaver and not expert in zoology,
the Frenchman gave the best name he could
think of to the animal which was destined to be
the financial salvation of the colony, and to adorn
the flag of colonial New York, the arms of more
than one American city and state, and the Con
tinental money of the Eevolution. What the
Frenchmen did with this English vessel, however,
was nothing more than what Englishmen and
Spaniards, Dutchmen and Danes very frequently
did to each other. The law of the safety of the
seas, which is now that of the civilized world,
was in process of evolution, and Hugo de Groot's
great book on international law was not yet writ
ten. After the Fortune's misfortune, Canonicus,
chief of the Narragansetts, evidently felt inclined
to move out on the warpath. He sent a messen-

SICKNESS, HEALTH, WAR, DIPLOMACY 221
ger to Plymouth with a bundle of new arrows
wrapped in rattlesnake skin.
When Squanto returned and saw the Indian
substitute for a letter and heard how the messen
ger had acted, he translated the emblem as raean
ing a challenge. It was the Indian's way of
flinging down the gauntlet. The serpent skin
and the arrows were as real a symbol of war as
the caduceus of Mercury is of comraerce, or the
dove and olive leaf are of peace. After some
deliberation. Governor Bradford stuffed the skin
full of powder and shot and returned the docu
ment. At this answer of defiance to the savages,
their " king " was terrified, and would not touch
it or have it stay in his house or country. In
deed, all the Indians were far more afraid of the
dead skin than if it had life within it, with sound
ing rattles at one end and lidless eyes and poison
fangs at the other. They posted it from place to
place, and at length the skin, with its novel stuff
ing, came back whole to Plymouth.
These Plymouth men were neither bullies nor
cowards. They offered prayer and employed the
wisest and best means, that their prayers might
be answered. So ever looking to the Great
Friend of Man, even while using their reason
and having as yet no other defenses than their
arms, they began to build palisades around the
little town. They hewed down young trees, and,
cutting off the branches, set their ends well in

222 SICKNESS, HEALTH, WAR, DIPLOMACY
the ground and braced thera at the top. By hard
work throughout the month of February and a
few days in March, they were able to have a wall
for their dweUings. The little town nestled at
the foot of what is now Burial Hill, and the pali
sades ran up the slope from the town to the fort.
There were also four bastions, in three of which
were gateways. Miles Standish commanded the
military band, which was also organized and
trained to act as a fire company.
During the two years, 1621 and 1622, these
Plymouth people lived in a state of semi-famine.
During four months of the latter year, having no
bread, they were forced to live out of the sea
on clams and fish, with an occasional bit of game
from the woods and groundnuts. They had even
to feed new immigrants who came without provi
sions, such as the six or seven who arrived on the
fishing-fleet, in May, 1622, by way of Maine, and
also the Weymouth party of fifty or sixty sent by
Weston in the ships Charity and Swan. During
this winter they tried once raore, but in vain, to
double Cape Cod and get by sea southward ; and
Squanto, who had encouraged thera to do so, died.
They made a trip to Boston Bay, finding trade
very poor. At Nauset they secured, but only
after great toil, eight or ten hogsheads of corn
and beans.
OccasionaUy a little cheer lightened their dark
days. When an Indian stole some beads and

SICKNESS, HEALTH, WAR, DIPLOMACY 223
scissors from the shallop while lying in a creek,
Standish went to Aspinet, the sachem, and de
manded the return of the goods or the culprit.
The doughty captain took leave, refusing gifts or
kindness. The next morning Aspinet came to
make up, and in such a comical way that the white
men could hardly keep from laughter. The In
dian chief thrust out his tongue, so that one could
see its very root, and licked the captain's hand
from the wrist to the finger's end, — evidently an
imitation of a dog's way of making an apology.
Then, following a fashion iraitated from the Eng
lish, having been taught by Squanto, he got down
on his marrow bones, but in so rude and savage a
manner as to bring a smile to the white men's
faces. After that he handed back the beads
to Captain Standish, assuring him that he had
flogged the thief and had raade the women bake
bread for the white men. It was aU as amusing
as if in a comic opera.
The wolf being still at the door and starvation
more than a possibility, Bradford went to the two
other places, Middleboro and Sandwich, to buy
corn. The " noble " red man, in a state of na
ture, makes his wife a beast of burden. In a state
of grace he at least helps her. From the forraer
place, the grain was transported upon the backs
of the squaws, who were taken ill on the road,
so that the Plyraouth men had to go after the
food and bring it home. At another time, being

224 SICKNESS, HEALTH, WAR, DIPLOMACY
still uncertain whether they would not yet die of
starvation, Captain Standish, in the bitter winter
weather, went with the shallop to Barnstable Har
bor for more food, and got it through vigilance
rather than violence. Being obliged to lodge in
the wigwam on account of the great cold, " God
possessed the heart of the captain with just jeal
ousy," and while some of his company slept,
others kept awake. When the Indians stole the
beads Standish called up all his men and de
manded satisfaction of the sachem. This so
daunted the courage of the savages that they not
only returned the beads, but brought out plenty
of corn for trade and attempted no further in
jury. Hearing that Massasoit was very ill and likely
to die, and that a Dutch ship had grounded on
the beach near the chief's wigwam at Pokonokat,
Bradford sent Winslow, who knew Dutch well,
with John Hamden and the Indian Hobomok.
Winslow was not only a good diplomatist, but
had some skill in healing and nursing. He found
that the ship had sailed away, but under his care
Massasoit recovered.
Massasoit, in gratitude, had revealed to Wins
low a plot of the Massachusetts Indians to kill
all the Plymouth people. In a council of war,
Standish and a picked band of eight men were
authorized to go forth and bring back the head
of Wituwamut, the ringleader, who was a bold

SICKNESS, HEALTH, WAR, DIPLOMACY 225
and bloody viUain. Arriving in the Indian coun
try, this committee of justice were not able to get
many of the red men together ; but Standish and
four comrades, finding theraselves in a wigwam
with Pecksuwot, Wituwamut, and another young
brave, the captain gave the signal and a fearful
struggle began. The three Indians were killed,
another, a youth, was hanged, and in all seven
red men were slain and the plot came to naught.
The raedicine administered by Standish was
drastic but salutary. The other savages were
struck with terror. " They forsook their houses,
running to and fro like men distracted, living in
swaraps and other places, and so brought raanifold
diseases araongst theraselves whereof raany are
dead." The head of Wituwamut was stuck upon
one of the palisades of the fort. It was then a
general European custom to expose the heads of
criminals, just as it was in Japan in 1870, as I
have often seen. Much later in the colony's his
tory, the head of " King Philip " was exposed
upon the fort in a sirnilar manner for over twenty
years. Something as wonderful as the swarm of
honey -making bees in the skeleton of the lion
slain by Samson entered. A pair of wrens made
their nest in the skuU.
The summer of 1623 was a very discouraging
one, for although the colonists worked hard in
preparing the soil and sowing the seed, there was
a great drought, during six weeks of which there

226 SICKNESS, HEALTH, WAR, DIPLOMACY
was hardly any rain ; but showers at last fell and
saved their crops. In the spring also, a Scots
man named David Thompson, who had begun a
plantation at Portsraouth, New Hampshire, sold
some food to Captain Standish and returned with
him to visit Plymouth.
At about the beginning of August two vessels,
the ship Ann, of one hundred and forty tons, and
the Little James, a pinnace of forty-four tons,
came with provisions, bringing about one hundred
new colonists, who found no one sick at Plymouth
and none dead since the woeful winter of 1621.
Many of the newcomers were old friends from
Leyden, including near and dear relatives, and
some had been passengers on the Paragon who
had failed to get over on this unfortunate .ship.
A few others, however, who had been picked up
by the Adventurers, were so plainly unfit for colo
nial life that Governor Bradford shipped them
back to Europe at the expense of the Plymouth
community. Thus was begun the American sys
tem of protection against pauperism, of which
Castle Garden is in our day the exponent. The
Pilgrim fleet had thus far brought about two hun
dred and thirty-three colonists.
The ship Little James, which had been built
for the Adventurers, was fitted for trade and dis
covery to the southward, but proved an expensive
and troublesome charge. The Ann set sail on the
20th of Septeraber, loaded with clapboards and

SICKNESS, HEALTH, WAR, DIPLOMACY 227
peltry for England, where the demand for kegs
for beer and fur for coats was great.
Edward Winslow returned to England in the
Ann, and when at horae wrote a book, which was
printed in 1624, entitled " Good News from New
England." He showed " three things that over
throw and bane plantations," and he described
the religion of the natives, who groped after God
if haply they might find him. It is interesting
to compare, as landmarks of Christianity, Wins-
low's narrative and Whittier's " The Grave by the
Lakeside." Thus, already, the Pilgriras were " in
print " and weU known to raany interested per
sons. Winslow's book shows that in the building
of their coraraonwealth they set the greatest store
on character. Between their story and their
glory, however, there is a difference. The first
never lacked publicity from this year 1624. The
latter has come more slowly.
While in England, though not until 1651, in
his fifty-seventh year, Winslow had his portrait
painted, and this, with Cuyp's picture of the
Delfshaven exodus, makes two conteraporary rae-
morials in art. If the reputed portrait of John
Carver be genuine, we have three.

CHAPTER XVIII
POLITICS : DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
The planting season of 1623 called for a new
departure. Until this time the system had of
necessity been cooperative, almost to communism,
for the Pilgrims worked as a corapany rather than
as individuals. This led to dissatisfaction, and
ended in failure. In 1623 the land was divided
and assigned, so that each person should have one
acre, the division being according to lot.
At once there was a marked difference for the
better. More land was planted, and all worked
with new vigor, even the women and children
going out gladly to help in the fields. Diplomacy
was needed in dealing with the new people who
had corae over on the Little James, and who
wanted to set up a separate colony. Conference
and concession were necessary before there was
perfect harmony between these new " Particulars "
and the old " Generals." Early in 1624, of the
two hundred and thirty-three persons who had
arrived on the four ships, one hundred and eighty
were Uving.
What kind of a government could these Plym
outh men, ignored by their sovereign and living

POLITICS: DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN 229
in a wilderness, form? Under what social and
political methods could they live? In natural
history a cultivated plant or animal which has
been long accustomed to a special environment
maintained under certain conditions, artificial or
natural, usually "reverts " to a simpler type when
the environment is changed or the previous con
ditions are removed. Whether strawberry or
pigeon or man, this is the law. So these English
people adopted the forms of life under which their
ancestors had lived a thousand years previously.
In Friesland and adjoining islands, these old Teu
tonic forms were stiU a living reality when the
Plymouth men began their community at the edge
of the American wilderness. The Pilgrims pro
ceeded exactly as the Swiss democracies still do,
and as I have seen them do, in their town meet
ings. Nearly everything was decided in general
meeting of the whole colony. Outwardly, also,
in the arrangement and apportionment of hogs
and cattle, in their daily call by sound of the
horn to common pasture, and in their going and
coming at morning and evening, there was a
marked resemblance to an ancient Teutonic vil
lage. Nevertheless, in every form and under all forms
of government, as I have noted, — in the despotism
of Old Japan, or the freedom of the American
commonwealth, in the ultra-democracy of a Con
gregational church or of a New England village, —

230 POLITICS: DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
the zealous and willing men of superior intelli
gence, experience, character, and power influence
and lead the others. There may be dummies on
the thrones of despotism, and there may be popes
and shahs in a democracy.
At first everything at Plymouth was decided
after council, and then carried out by the gov
ernor. It was " Eaad voor daad," as the Dutch
say — Council before action ; but late in 1623
the colonial records begin, and these show a gov
ernment gradually but increasingly representative
and delegated. Trial was by jury, and in an elec
tion all the males of the colony were entitled to
take part if of fuU age. Though Bradford heart
ily believed in rotation in office, he was elected
and reelected many times. Edward Winslow
served three years, Thomas Prence two years,
Josiah Winslow one year, and Thomas Hinckley
five years in the chief raagistracy of Plymouth,
before the tyranny of Andros trampled on law
and local government. The colonists created a
council of five to consult with the governor, who
had a double vote at all the meetings.
Besides the menace of extinction through starva
tion, disease, or the savages, and the risks from
bad characters sent from Europe, there was con
stant danger from the Puritan party, the bishops,
and the king, lest they should be robbed of their
religious freedom, and their democracy be de
stroyed. Such a thing as self-government was

POLITICS: DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN 231
hateful to more than one party in the England of
that day.
In 1623 Eobert Gorges sent out another com
pany of settlers to AVeymouth, and among thera
was an Episcopal clergyman, the Eev. William
Morrell, to whom was granted power to regulate
and control religious affairs in aU the region
about. This gave Bradford new trouble, though
in a letter which was brought by the ship Char
ity, he had been warned by Eobinson of what was
likely to happen. But when Morrell came into
the new land of America, he found himself one of
the pioneers of that long and interesting list of
failures who have tried to make a political church
and other old world notions work in the new
world, and who discover that what is appropriate,
historical, and beautiful in Europe may be ugly,
unsuitable, and worthless in the new world. Mor-
reU, however, was a man of character and good
sense. He became a student and an observer,
but attempted no exercise of any authority. Even
the " Particulars " could not make a tool of him.
Soraewhat like " Churchmen " of England who
became " Dissenters " in Scotland, the Pilgrims,
who had themselves been Separatists, were now of
the " established " religion, and found a body
of nonconforraists among themselves. Their wis
dom was taxed to the uttermost in dealing with
the new problem, for the " Particulars " among
them sent back complaining letters to the Mer-

232 POLITICS: DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
chant Adventurers in London, giving rather a
dark picture, as it seemed to them, of the state
of religious affairs in the colony.
When the Charity returned in 1624 with cows
and provisions, she brought, besides a catechism
from the Adventurers requiring answers. Master
John Lyford, his wife, and four children. This
gentleman, a Puritan preacher in the state church,
had been sent in defiance of the protest of Wins
low and Cushman, who were at the meeting which
voted the mission, and through whom it was set
tled that Lyford should have no official power,
except as the church at Plymouth should grant it.
At first Lyford was all obsequiousness ; but soon
the heads of himself, of Oldham, and of others
among the " Particulars " were so frequently to
gether, that Bradford's suspicions were aroused,
and he took a bold step, which, in the weak state
of the colony, was like that of a cony fighting a
hedgehog. He intercepted the letters which had
been put on board the ship to be sent to England.
After Oldham, the organizer of the elements of
disturbance, had quarreled with Standish, refus
ing to do sentinel duty, calling the captain names,
and even drawing a knife, for which he was put
into the guard-house, Bradford confronted the
plotters in a general town meeting with the inter
cepted letters. These had recommended that
John Eobinson be kept out of the colony, that
Miles Standish should be deposed, and another

POLITICS: DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN 233
captain appointed, while very serious charges were
made against the colony in general. The court
voted that the ringleaders should be expelled from
the settlement, but that Lyford might remain six
months longer. The parson, thus put on proba
tion, lived at Plymouth during the winter of 1624.
He then joined Oldham at Nantasket. When, in
1625, Oldham visited Plymouth, only to revUe
the colonists as rebels and traitors, he was put
into jail. After this, he was led out between two
lines of armed men, each of whom gave him a
mild rap as he moved along, and he was thus
ignominiously expelled from the colony. Possibly
the Indians taught the whites this military pun
ishment of running the "gauntlet," though it
may have been introduced by Standish from the
Dutch array.
Bradford justified his action by showing that
to receive a raan erapowered to work mischief by
the politico-religious machine, at the head of
which was Archbishop Laud and King James,
would be like the cony which on a stormy day
aUowed the hedgehog to share its quarters. This,
in the end, meant that the creature with the
prickly spines had the whole of the borough to
itself. The Merchant Adventurers in London were
very angry with this act of the colony, and when
Winslow came over early in 1625, the company
charged the colony with being "Brownists."

234 POLITICS: DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
They demanded, as the conditions of further co
operation, that the Pilgriras should adopt the
French or Presbyterian discipline, both in sub
stance and detail ; and that their old pastor and
leader, John Eobinson, should not be allowed to
join them, unless they should first reconcile them
selves by written recantation with " our church,"
— by which they meant, not only the venerable
and beautiful Episcopal form of Christianity, but
the political machine associated with it, at the
head of which were James Stuart and William
Laud. The brave answer of this little company of
Christians on a strange continent and between the
wilderness and the sea, showed their true temper
and knowledge of the Scriptures. It proved also
that John Eobinson's teaching had not been for
gotten. It served to authenticate his parting
words. The Pilgrims declared that their disci
pline was in harmony with that of the Eeformed
churches. They instanced the example of Paul,
who would have no raan follow him except as he
foUowed Christ. Neither would they allow that
any raan or any church corporation had " so
sounded the Word of God in all its depths, as to
be able to set down precisely the church or disci
pline without error in substance or circumstance."
By their bold answer the Pilgrims won and
held their freedom. The faction among the
Adventurers who were hostile to freedom of con-

POLITICS: DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN 235
science, even in America, dropped out of view.
The other party favorable to the Plymouth men
wrote encouragingly, and, stating that fourteen
hundred pounds were due, asked that the debt
should be met as soon as agreeable. The Plym
outh leaders joyfuUy hailed this as their oppor
tunity. In the summer of 1625 Miles Standish
went across the ocean to buy out the Adventurers,
so that the colonists could be free in possession of
their goods and lands as well as in their con
science. Though times were hard, money very
difficult to borrow, and the plague was raging in
London, Standish had some success. He returned
after five months, bringing news and letters from
their two former homes. King James, Maurice
the stadholder, and John Eobinson were dead.
Despite the partial failure of Standish's mis
sion, the prospects of the colonists improved from
this time forth. Evidently more care and pains
were taken in the conduct of trade. Material for
traffic with the Indians fortunately came to their
hands, when the English trading- post at Monhe
gan was about to break up. Bradford and Wins
low went thither in an open boat. With David
Thompson, of Piscataqua, they joined forces, and
bought the whole stock for about eight hundred
pounds. This they divided equaUy, getting some
goats among the property. From their first arri
val they had dogs, swine, and poultry, but no
cattle until the Charity came, in 1624, with a buU

236 POLITICS: DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
and three heifers. A French ship loaded with
rugs and other material was wrecked at Sagada
hoc. This equipped them finely with more mate
rial. The next question was how to build a
larger boat, that they might extend their trade.
They cut the shallop in half, added six feet in the
middle, and put on a deck.
With their renovated craft, they were able to
go up the Kennebec Eiver so far as where Au
gusta, the capital of Maine, now stands, and
there work up a fine trade. They also sent Aller
ton, who was the raost skillful trader among them,
to London to conclude the bargain begun by
Standish. Allerton was able to borrow two hun
dred pounds at thirty per cent., and this he in
vested carefully in goods for the corafort of the
plantation. He had also contracted with the
Adventurers, buying off their entire interest at
eighteen hundred pounds, to be paid in install-
raents of two hundred pounds yearly, in London.
The responsibility for this radical stroke of busi
ness was assumed by the " firra " of " under
takers," Bradford, Standish, Allerton, Winslow,
Howland, Alden, and Prence, who, thus, by being
bondsmen, became virtually the owners of the
plantation. Allerton returned on a fishing-vessel
to Maine, and thence got to Plymouth.
Having taken so great a responsibility in one
line of policy by raaking themselves vouchers for
the colony, the " firm " became " undertakers " in

POLITICS: DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN 237
another direction, — toward the colonists them
selves. They agreed to import every year fifty
pounds' worth of shoes and stockings, monopoliz
ing also the trade outside the colony, and using
as they pleased the boats, equipments, and trad
ing material. On the other hand, the colonists
were to buy of the " undertakers " their hosiery
and footgear, paying therefor three bushels of corn
or six pounds of tobacco, and at the end of the
six years the whole of the trade was to return to
the use and benefit of the colony as before. The
purchasers numbered about one hundred and fifty-
six in all, of whom ninety-one were males, or
fifty-seven men and thirty-four boys, and sixty-
five females, of whom twenty-nine were matrons
and thirty-six were girls. There were also twenty
or thirty servants or apprentices.
The eight men, who were " undertakers," or
securities, now reorganized the little coraraunity,
dividing the land into shares of twenty acres each,
giving to each settler, described and enrolled as
a purchaser, one share in addition to the land
he already possessed. The heads of households
were, of course, each to have as many shares as
there were persons in their families. This new
plan put the " Particulars " on the same level
with the " Generals." The meadow-land, how
ever, was held as common.
In other words, here was the village community
system, in which the rights of the individual were

238 POLITICS: DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
recognized along with the common ownership of
land. This had been the original mode of life
in Friesland and in New Netherland, as well as
in Anglo-Saxon England and at Plymouth. It
seems to be a natural order.
No cattle, as has been said, were in the settle
ment until 1624, though there were dogs, swine,
and poultry. In 1625 there were nine and in
1627 twelve cows. These were then so appor
tioned that there was one cow to thirteen persons,
the cattle, like the land, being assigned by lot to
each of the divisions. The cows were probably
of both English and Dutch stock. One was
blind, another was noted for smooth horns, and
one or two were red. The more numerous refer
ences to black and white, however, show that
most of the herd were of the Holstein-Friesland
breed so faraous and frequent in Holland. The
descriptions of their colors and horns show that
they were weU known by sight but not by names,
for the Pilgrims were such stalwart realists that
they had apparently little sentiment in the giving
of naraes, except to their children.
This year, 1627, begins the Pilgrims' book of
Numbers. After their Genesis, or beginning, in
England, their Exodus, or going out to Holland,
their Leviticus in Leyden, where their polity and
worship were shaped, came the fourth phase of
their development. Henceforth we have in their
books of records the story of their methodical

POLITICS: DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN 239
arrangements, lists of names, inventories, statis
tics, and treasury accounts, which remind us of
the fourth book of the Pentateuch, and recall the
older Pilgrim's Progress, which was led by Moses
and written by him or his successors. Counting
those who had come to stay, or had been born in
New Plymouth, the total number was two hundred
and sixty-seven. Fifty-eight had died, and fifty-
three had removed. After the first awful winter,
the colonists were so healthy that but six persons
died during the succeeding six years.
From this year, 1627, their finances were estab
lished on a sound basis. As once they had found
shelter frora persecution and many years of life
and comfort in Holland, so now from the Dutch
in America they were to learn the secret of wealth
by getting from them the idea and the reality of
Indian currency. Their old neighbor in Leyden,
Jesse de Forest, had at last persuaded both his
WaUoon friends and the Dutch government to
start permanent colonies of men, women, and
children on Manhattan Island and in the Hud
son and Mohawk river valleys. By 1627 there
were two hundred and seventy people in New
Netherland, who had over one hundred cattle.
Although the Dutch claimed the territory in
which the Pilgrims had settled, they had too
much to attend to at home to urge their claims ;
but in March, 1627, Bradford was pleasantly
surprised on receiving a friendly letter from the

240 POLITICS: DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
secretary of the West India Company's govern
ment at Manhattan. With true republican cour
tesy, that recognized untitled citizens as " noble,
worshipful, the wise and prudent lords," — espe
cially if they were really so, — the Dutch authori
ties addressed the governor and counselors resid
ing in " Nieu-Pliemuen " (or New Plymouth),
and, after wishing them teraporal and eternal
happiness, expressed a desire for kindly inter
course. Now that the mother countries beyond
sea had renewed their league, they would meet
their English friends for trade wherever desired.
The secretary, Isaac de Easieres, was evidently
one, or the son of one, of those Walloons, or Bel
gian French, of the Eeformed faith, who had,
like the Pilgriras, come to Holland for religious
freedom. It shows how well Dutch was under
stood among these late and long residents in
Leyden, that the reply to the director and Coun
cil of New Netherland, " our very loving friends
and Christian neighbors," was in Dutch. It has
in it none of that abominable prejudice which
disgraces English speech and people, and which
Araericans have inherited from the old-world
naval wars of later times, while it reveals the
gratitude, the honesty, and the noble character of
the Pilgrims. The Pilgrims were English to the
core, yet they were not ashamed, but very glad,
to recognize their obligations. Eeciprocating the
Dutch friendship, this occasion was taken for

r. £¦

POLITICS: DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN 241
expressing grateful remembrance of the way the
Pilgrims had been treated in Holland.
One passage from a letter is as follows : " Ac
knowledging ourselves tied in a strict obligation
into your country and state, for the good enter
tainment and free liberty we had, and our breth
ren and countrymen yet there have, and do enjoy
under your most honorable Lords and States
. . . for which we are bound to be thankful and
our children after us."
With a characteristic English thriftiness and
love of honorable gain, and with an eye to the
main chance quite equal to the Dutch, and wish
ing, withal, to keep out of difficulties, Bradford
cautioned his neighbors against settling within
the territory claimed by England. He requested
them not to trade in the field already occupied
by the Plymouth men, around Buzzard's Bay or
the Narragansett and Sowams region.
Meanwhile in Leyden, on March 4, 1625, John
Eobinson had died. , There are two Dutch records
of the burial. The city census of October, 1622,
enroUed hira and his wife Bridget ; his children,
John, Bridget, Isaac, Mercy, Fear, and James ;
and their servant maid, Mary Hardy. Isaac Eob
inson, the ancestor of a host of good people, came
to America in 1631. The congregation in Leyden
flourished until 1658, when, being more Dutch
than English, it united with the Eeformed
Church.

CHAPTER XIX
A VISIT FROM MANHATTAN
In the following August, 1627, the government
at Manhattan sent a firm and respectful answer
to Plymouth Colony, intimating that the territory
between the fortieth and forty-fifth parallels of
north latitude was claimed by the Dutch Con
gress, or States-General, as well as by the Eng
lish king; that its right to trade was as good
as that of the Pilgrims, and that this claim
would be maintained. The bearer of this letter
was John Jacobson, who was from Wieringen,
an island in the Zuyder Zee near the Helder.
This Hollander was pleasantly entertained at
Plymouth, and took back a letter from Bradford,
kind, but firm, asserting that any intruders on
their domain of trade would be expelled by force.
He requested that a Dutch officer frora Manhat
tan should visit thera and make a rautual agree
ment, but gave warning of the danger incurred
because of the unscrupulous pirates and kidnap
ers infesting the coast. Should they fall into the
hands of the privateersmen, or those of Virginia,
or the fishing-ships which came to Maine from
England, they would suffer.

A VISIT FROM MANHATTAN 243
The Dutch responded promptly and sent their
secretary, Isaac de Easieres, who on the 4th of
October, in the bark Nassau, came to Buzzard's
Bay, at Manomet, or Sandwich, where the Plym
outh men had a trading-house. John Jacobson,
being a good pedestrian, tramped in six hours
the twenty miles from IManomet to Plymouth,
but de Easieres, being a corpulent gentleman,
was not able to walk so far. He feared that
his feet would fail him, and asked that a boat
be sent. His request was granted, and this first
foreign embassy, consisting of the secretary from
New Amsterdam, with his trumpeters and some
other attendants, came by water. De Easieres
had cloth of three sorts and colors, a chest of
white sugar, and some smaU wares, for which
the Plymouth people paid him in home-grown
tobacco. Thus began a trade which for many
years was one of mutual benefit. It lasted until
the Virginians, coraing up by sea, diverted it.
Most important of all the results of this meet
ing: of the American Dutch and the American
English was tl^at Plymouth learned the use of
wampum. The Iroquois, or the confederated
Five Nations in New Netherland, were far higher
in the scale of civilization than any other Indians
north of Mexico. They were traders, as weU as
fighters, having even a fixed currency. On com
ing to America the Dutch, with their keen com
mercial sense, perceived at once the tremendous

244 A VISIT FROM MANHATTAN
importance of this shell money for both traffic
and diplomacy. They saw that seawant, or wam
pum, was more than coinage to the men of the
forest. Beside being used like pieces and sums
of money which circulated among many tribes,
even far in the interior, they noted that when
strung and wrought into patterns, it was in
America what letters, sealed documents, precious
vouchers and memorials, and even crown jewels
were in Europe. To this day, the ancient tradi
tions and the history of those tribes which stiU
keep their organization are expressed in belts of
wampum. Long Island had been named Sea-
wanaka, the island of shells, from its abundance
of seawant, or warapum raaterial.
With their superior tools, drills, hammers,
knives, and lathes, the men from the land of banks
and of the diamond-polishing industry were able
quickly to get and to keep the manufacture of wam
pum almost entirely in their own hands. Some of
the Dutch settieraents, notably Schenectady, be
carae veritable mints for the raaking of this kind of
money. Here the intelligent and nimble squaws
were employed in considerable numbers to string
and arrange the perforated beads, which were
drilled, ground, and polished by the white men.
The wampura raade by the Dutch, or by squaws
under Dutch oversight, was not only far better,
but rauch raore beautiful, than that from the red
men's fingers alone. To-day sorae of the noblest

-i VISIT FROM MANHATTAN 245
and most striking documents and autographs in
American history are of wampum, the archives
of the Iroquois being especiaUy interesting.
Among other shell muniments is the treaty
document of Penn, " never sworn to and never
broken." It was de Easieres who acquainted Bradford
with this money. He thus gave the Pilgrims
their first idea of aboriginal currency, and sold
them fifty pounds' worth. Among the Algonquin
Indians wampum was then not much known, if at
all, east of Narragansett Bay. At first the Pil
grims may have thought that the Dutch had over
reached them, for it was nearly two years before
their red neighbors took up even the fifty pounds'
worth of sheU money ; but after that time, the
eastern Indians having learned its benefits, the
Plymouth men could hardly supply it fast enough.
MeanwhUe these Indians had learned how to driU
and string similar tokens, which they made from
the quahog or big clam sheUs. Six white beads
or three purple ones made from the eye of the
clam were worth a penny, or a dime in the values
of to-day. The EngUshmen were not at first so
skillful as the Dutch in making the Indian money,
and they could not produce it so cheaply as the
Indians made it. Not only was trade stimulated
through this business and the Pilgrims enriched,
but the Indians also were made wealthier, and now
began to buy firearms, which not only the Dutch

246 A VISIT FROM MANHATTAN
and French and English fishermen, but probably
all of the whites in New England who came to
the coast, except the Plymouth men, sold thera.
In time the red men with their new weapons took
courage to begin " King Philip's war."
No extant description of the town of Plymouth,
even from the pen of Bradford or Winslow, is so
coraplete and interesting as that of de Easieres,
whose letter to his friend Herr Blommaert, a di
rector of the Dutch West India Company, is in
the Eoyal Library at the Hague. He pictures
the town and the ceremonious way of attending
divine worship on Sunday. When the drum beat,
the men assembled in front of Captain Standish's
door, each with his musket or firelock, and in cold
weather having on their cloaks. Forming ranks
three abreast, the sergeant led them without beat
of the drum to the church. Behind the guard
walked the governor, who had on his right hand
the preacher, and on the left hand the captain,
who carried a little stick in his hand. They
marched in good order, and in the meeting-house
each one set his gun near him. Thus they were
vigilant day and night. " Their government is
after the EngUsh form," the election being held
annually ; but in inheritance the Pilgrims had
discarded English primogeniture and followed
the Dutch method of placing the children aU in
one degree, making only a nominal acknowledg
ment to the oldest son, on account of the seniority

.4 VISIT FROM M.iNHATTAN 247
of birth. De Easieres praised warmly the high
morality of the Pilgrims, showing how they influ
enced also the Indians to nobler living. He even
criticises severely the Dutch in the Hudson Eiver
region. In appraising the exact value of de Easieres's
letter we must not lose sight of the subjective
element, or of local politics and of commercial or
ecclesiastical jealousies, with which the Dutch,
like the English, were afflicted. De Easieres,
who wrote when his fellow-countrymen in New
Netherland were without a church or a minister,
and in the year before the Eev. J. Michaelius
carae to organize a church in New Amsterdam,
had already lost his position through some fac
tion. Then, his one great idea was to show in
the darkest colors possible how bad was the gov
ernment at Manhattan, how low the morals of
those who had displaced him, and how wicked the
people were. As a matter of course, he takes
without criticism what his friends at New Plym
outh tell hira, and uses the information in order
to rub brine into the wounds of those whom he
would injure.
Financial freedom for Plymouth Colony was
graduaUy and slowly won as wampum was more
and more used, and as the beaver skins sent over
to England brought good prices.
Although the Plymouth men never possessed a
royal charter, yet in 1629 the Council of New

248 A VISIT FROM MANHATTAN
England, the Earl of Warwick being president,
granted to the colony a new patent, dated Janu
ary 23, 1630, which for the first tirae defined
the limits of territory, including a grant of land
for fifteen miles on each side of the Kennebec
Eiver. This charter, with the compact framed
at Cape Cod in 1620, formed the basis of govern
ment. The colony was to follow the laws of Eng
land " as near as may be."
The Plymouth men having built a fortified
trading-house on the present site of Augusta,
Maine, and stocked it with dry goods and cloth
ing, rugs and blankets, corn and biscuit and
dried fruit, knives, hatchets, and wampum, were
getting rauch beaver in return and making money.
Their financial prosperity, however, came near
having a dangerous setback because the over-
adventurous Allerton exceeded his authority, mis
managing the funds and getting the colonists
in debt to the amount of nearly five thousand
pounds, while they were owing one thousand
pounds. Nevertheless, their excellent trade, good
crops and fisheries, and the application of experi
ence to business enabled thera to pay off all their
debts in 1633, so that at the end of that year they
owed no man anything but love.
The red Indians were not the only immediate
enemies who threatened to break up the settle
ment at Plymouth. There were dangerous char
acters among the miscellaneous white men that

A VISIT FROM MANHATTAN 249
now began to get a foothold along the seashore.
One of these was the infamous Thomas Morton,
of Merrymount. This renegade lawyer from Lon
don, after inciting a rebellion among the inden
tured servants at Quincy, in the absence of his
partner, or employer, Wollaston, opened a lively
trade with the red men, and with his companions
spent his spare time in drunkenness and worse
wickedness. They brought in Indian squaws,
laid in a supply of rum, and erected a Maypole
decorated with rhymes of Morton's own writing.
Then the squaws and whites joined in the revels
with dances, Morton being the chief. The whites
sold arms to the Indians, employing them to hunt
for them and get furs.
Still further and worse, these communists wel
coraed to their company whatever white men
would join them. This made the situation dan
gerous, not only to Plymouth, but to the other
colonies, some ten in number, that were scattered
about in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
With stalwart hunters suddenly changed from
the stone age, so far as opportunity to do mis
chief was concerned, and becoming expert marks
men with firearms, and Merrymount liable to be
an AduUam's cave, where unruly servants and
lawless characters could find refuge, there were
dangers worse than those of an Indian plot. For
the safety of all the colonists. King James had,
in 1622, forbidden the sale of guns to the Indians.

250 A VISIT FROM MANHATTAN
Eespectful letters were sent to Morton calling his
attention to this fact, and urging him to be loyal
and obedient. His reply was one of defiance.
Thereupon Governor Bradford was implored
to enforce the laws by military aid. Standish
Uked nothing better than to atterapt the enter
prise. Probably, since Morton had called the
short and fiery captain " Captain Shrimp," he
had the spur to his pride to show what a shrimp
could do. When Morton saw the Plymouth
armed men approaching, he got ready his amrau-
nition and loaded his own gun until it was nearly
half full. After setting out plenty of powder and
bullets where they would be handy, he began to
suspect that his barricades would not help him
and raight be set on fire. So he gallantly led out
his followers, who, unfortunately, were full of
liquor. He advanced on Standish, but the little
captain pushed Morton's gun to one side and
seized the commander of Merrymount. The only
blood shed was from the nose of a drunken man
of the garrison, who lost a little of his hot ichor
by running against a sword. The historian of
the Netherlands, John Lothrop Motley, who made
these episodes the basis of his novel "Merry
mount," writes of the victor, " Miles in narae,
leagues in valor, and but a few paltry inches in
stature." Morton was taken prisoner to Plyraouth, and
then sent to England in charge of an agent ; but

A VISIT FROM MANHATTAN 251
when in the old country Sir Ferdinando Gorges,
being a favorite at court, had the good " church
man " saved from punishment, as having been
persecuted by the " Brownists." Shielded by
Laud, Morton twice visited Plymouth, and was
expelled. In 1637 he published a scurrilous
book fuU of lies and slander, under the title " The
New English Canaan." Turning up again in
Plymouth in 1643, Morton lived there during the
winter, sometimes shooting birds over Captain
Standish's land, evidently with the idea of getting
into a quarrel, and thus bringing the Plymouth
men into trouble with the government of London.
Being unsuccessful, he went to Boston and then
to Piscataqua, where he sank out of sight and
died. By this time Plymouth plantation had spread
beyond its original bounds, for the people were
learning the country. They began to see that
the soil was much better in the interior. They
had settled on the old glacier drift, but the river
valleys and the bottom-lands were much richer.
Going farther inland they fared better. Hence
we find many graves, of both the old comers and
the newer arrivals, but especially of those of the
second and the third generations of the Pilgrims,
in central Massachusetts or in States adjacent.
Furthermore, as the cattle increased, their owners
were compelled to go farther afield for a pasture.
At first they built summer huts and encampments

252 A VISIT FROM MANHATTAN
wherein to stay between frosts; but later they
erected winter dwellings. Thus gradually vari
ous villages were formed.
Miles Standish, William Brewster, and John
Alden went to live in Duxbury, around which
are places with old names, showing that Lon
doners settled the second town of the Old Colony.
Edward Winslow obtained land at Green Harbor,
afterwards known as Marshfield. This was the
Second of the eight separate towns which existed
when, in 1643, following the example of the fed
eral Dutch republic, the New England confedera
tion proposed by the Plymouth men was formed.
These towns were Plymouth, Duxbury, Marsh
field, Scituate, Barnstable, Taunton, Yarmouth,
and Sandwich.
By this time, also, despite all their difficulties,
opposition at home and abroad, and the determi
nation of the faction among the Adventurers to
keep further " Brownists " from coming to them
from Leyden, the raen and woraen of New Plym
outh — for the women, no less than the men, were
factors in the case — had demonstrated the suc
cess of their plantation.
Animated by the shining example of success
of the Pilgrira company, there now began from
England, thanks to the tyranny of Charles Stuart
and the persecution of Laud, a great movement
of emigration, lasting from 1628 to 1640, dur
ing which no fewer than twenty-three thousand

.4 VISIT FROM MANHATTAN 253
English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish people came
to America ; or more than the whole number from
1640 to 1775. The English immigrants, though
representing forty counties, were chiefly from that
eastern side of England, which, having always
been so close to the Continent, was quick to re
spond to reformatory and civilizing movements,
and which was not only nearest to the Nether
lands, but was richer in Netherlandish blood,
having been for a thousand years continually
reenforced by fresh emigrations of Saxons, An
gles, Frisians, and Dutchmen. God makes the
best manhood out of a composite of the best
human stocks.

CHAPTER XX
LAW AND PUNISHMENT
The Pilgrim republic was a true prototype of
the United States of Araerica, cosmopolitan, tol
erant. Christian. Here were people of at least
seven nationalities, of varying degrees of charac
ter, culture, and social standing, and of different
creeds and ideas of government in church and
state. Yet into this colony men of all sects and
of no sect were received if they were willing to
obey the laws and usages. With an intense and
positive faith, the Pilgrims made no form of words
to bind the conscience. They welcomed to their
church fellowship all who raade Jesus Christ
their teacher and model. To safeguard their own
organism, they warned off and kept off all who
proposed to destroy their freedom or to introduce
anarchy or revolution.
Yet even among themselves there were charac
ters " shuffled in," as Bradford says, who were
dangerous to the peace and integrity of the settle
ment. Stocks had been used in most European
and perhaps all English towns and villages prior
to this time, but were not put up in Plymouth
until necessity compelled their erection. There

LAW AND PUNISHMENT 255
would have been use for them so early as 1621,
or before the Pilgrims had been on shore more
than five months. Billington, whose sons had
already given him and others so much trouble, on
refusing to obey some order of Captain Standish,
was tied neck and heels together and put in a
public place before the whole settlement. Two
servants who wanted to fight a duel were served
in like manner.
In 1630 Billington, being angry with John
Newcomen, for interfering in some way with his
hunting, waylaid and fired at him, mortally
wounding him. The murderer was arrested, and
by regular process of trial by jury condemned to
be hanged. He pleaded for his life, questioning
also the authority of the colony to inflict capital
punishment, and the matter was referred to the
Puritan Governor Winthrop and his counselors
as a court of appeals. Their answer was that
Billington ought to die and the land be purged
from blood. Greatly to the grief of the Plymouth
men, who made their feelings give way to con
science, they carried out the sentence.
Goodwin, in his " Pilgrim Eepublic," notes the
fact that in Plymouth town of to-day " the public
places so rarely bear the names interwoven with
her early history, and that the few exceptions com-
raeraorate AUerton the treacherous, Shirley the
defrauder, and Billington the malefactor." As
a matter of fact, there is very little that shows

256 LAW AND PUNISHMENT
much sentiment, in the ordinary meaning of the
terra, among the Pilgrim company : certainly very
little, such as later artists and poets have sug
gested in the transfiguring creations of their
imagination. One does not find, except in the
names of towns, much to suggest either their old
Fatherland or their home during their stay in
HoUand. Those names which, like Leyden
Street, seem to recall raeraories or to breathe
gratitude are of modern suggestion and by their
descendants. There is not yet any town in the
United States named Scrooby, Austerfield, or
Bawtry. Not only were the Pilgrim Separatists
not much given to surface sentiment, and cer
tainly never to weak sentimentalism, but we
must remember that for one whole generation
after reaching America, they were looked upon
by their Puritan neighbors as " Brownists," and
were spoken of with contempt. Even in the sec
ond and third generation this offensive epithet
was more or less in use.
Probably the real reason for the absence of
place names redolent of sentiment or gratitude
was a political one. The special use of English
or Dutch names of their old homes would have
looked like defiance or disloyalty to King James.
Little as we realize it now, the hostility of the
throne and church in England, until Cromwell's
time, was a constant menace of death to the Pil
grim church and republic.

LAW AND PUNISHMENT 257
In these phenomena of history and phases of
human nature there is nothing extraordinary.
Whether it be a great raan or a great idea, it
takes huraanity a long time to appreciate what is
excellent. Whether it be Jesus of Nazareth, or
Paul, or St. Francis of Assisi, or Oliver Crom
well, or Abraham Lincoln, or the Pilgrims, or
the Methodists, or the Anabaptists, or the Mikado-
reverencers, time is necessary for the truth to rise
clear of the murky vapors and impure media
through which men look. Only after ages can
some truths be seen shining as clear as the sun
by day and as bright as the stars by night. Yet
" time at last sets aU things even," and truth is
safe, for " the eternal years of God are hers."
To-day all that the Pilgrims need is to have their
story told without embroidery, without detraction.
The narrative itself is an epic.
The legislation and punishments of the Old
Colony period are to-day subjects for amusement
as well as for reflection. These Englishmen at
Plymouth were of the seventeenth and not of the
nineteenth century. The old coraers brought
with them the legal ideas and the social custoras
which they had seen in vogue in England and
HoUand. Vice and crime were dealt with no
worse, and usually better than had been the case
in the England which they had seen. The sec
ond generation, as has been so often illustrated
in other colonies, was of ruder manners and of a

258 LAW AND PUNISHMENT
lower grade of intelligence than had been the
first immigrants. Those who had not been edu-
cated in England and mellowed in Holland, or
had never joined in the mirth and sports of either
of the older countries, were harsher and less in
telligent, as well as more narrow and supersti
tious. Indeed, this seems to be the rule among
people not born in the old seats of civilization,
who must yet be pioneers in subduing the wilder
ness. Social improvement usually comes with
later generations. There is little doubt, also, that
by being confederate with the Puritans, from
1643 to 1686, the Plymouth men lost in manli
ness and in self-reliance what they gained in po
litical security and mercantile success. So also
in the making of their laws and in the cast of
their minds, the second generation was less rea
sonable than the first. The theological climate
was much more rigorous, and the intolerance of
youth and the reversion to mere animal instincts
were more noticeable.
The stocks were often put to use. This means
of punishment is especially an English institution,
going back to the Middle Ages. It was sorae
tiraes found even at the church porch, for correct
ing a variety of offenders. Beside their own
home-grown malefactors, the Plymouth men some
times kept their stocks well warmed by Friends
to whom they were not friends. The stocks were
a great aid to good order in the meeting-house.

LAW AND PUNISHMENT 259
for any one caught laughing, joking, flirting or
asleep, especiaUy if such practices were persisted
in, was dragged out by the tithingman and framed
to make a public picture. These oaken timbers
had openings for the legs and arms. While sit
ting on the bench or stool, with legs held helpless
in the notches of the beams, every small boy and
idle person could jeer at the poor victira.
We can iraagine many a scene in Plymouth
where with horn lantern and staff" in hand the
magistrate at night went after some victim whom
he dragged out of bed, to put in timber locks.
Then the next day, boys and girls, straggling
Indians, and surprised fathers and mothers would
go out to see the man or woraan held helplessly
in sharaeful plight. Sometimes a written paper,
describing the crime of the person disgraced, was
nailed up.
The stocks, ducking-stools, pillory, whipping
post and gag were temporary punishments bor
rowed from England, but the continuous wearing
of a shameful badge for any offense was probably
not of English, but of continental origin. We
all know what a romantic story Nathaniel Haw
thorne has raade of " The Scarlet Letter." This
badge of sharae was not imaginary, but real. In
mediseval Europe it was not only the custom to
compel the criminal to wear letters indicative of
crime, such as / for incest, A for adultery, and
T for thief, but even the Jews were compelled

260 LAW AND PUNISHMENT
to wear a certain article of dress or a mark to
declare their generation. Lepers, other diseased
persons, and heretics were also branded. These
social scars were made first with the hot iron
upon the skin, just as slaves were branded with
owners' names. Later, as the laws were amelio
rated, the embroidered or painted letter was made
a substitute for the brand in the flesh.
The following is one of several similar entries
in the records of the Plymouth Colony : ^ " At
this court, Catheren Kaines ... is sentenced by
the court to be forthwith publicly whipped here
at Plymouth and afterwards at Taunton on a
public training day and to wear a Eoman B cut
out of red cloth and sewed to her open garment
on her right arm ; and if she shall be ever found
without it so worn while she is in the government
to be forthwith publicly whipped." This was for
blaspheray. Among letters employed in Plym
outh justice were B for blasphemy, D for drunk
enness, T^for viciousness, and so on.
We never hear of, nor could we imagine books
being conderaned to the fire in Plymouth, as was
the case in Boston in 1650, with Mr. Williara
Pynchon's work on " A Meritorious Price of Our
Eederaption." Indeed, this was not the only time
that books were burned or authors whipped in
Boston, — the city which now has Pynchon's
name on one of its streets and is so hospitable to
new ideas.
1 Vol. iii. pp. Ill and 112, 16.56-57, 5 March, Bradford Governor.

X.4TT' -LVD PUNISHMENT 261
The Englishmen in America set up the whip
ping-post very quickly after their arrival. They
were not particular whether the skins welted with
the scourge were white, black, or red. The work
of stripe-making was often done on lecture days
and even on Sundays. This punishment was in
flicted for profanity, perjury, lying, selling fire
water to the Indians, or for even sleeping in church.
Neither women nor men were spared. In 1638
the court in Plymouth found that " divers persons
unfit for marriage, both in regard of their young
years as also in regard of their weak estate, some
practicing the inveigling of men's daughters and
maids and contrary to their parents' and guard
ians' liking, and of maid servants without the
leave and liking of their masters," ordered pun
ishment either by fine or flogging. No doubt the
behavior of the victims or the officers of law fur
nished a good deal of amusement, revealing also
a lack of sensitiveness to human suffering, — just
as in old Japan the public decapitation of crimi
nals always brought, and in the China to-day
brings, a crowd of spectators from Christian na
tions. In Plymouth there must have been a good
deal of public whipping, both of women and men,
when suffering mingled with the noise of the
mob ; but even this judicial flagellation was insig
nificant, compared with what was done in some
other colonies.
After aU that can be truthfully said of Puri-

262 LAW AND PUNISHMENT
tan rigor or Pilgrim severity, the punishments
were worse in the southern colonies than in the
northern, but far below the standard of justice
tempered with mercy which prevailed in the mid
dle colonies. That portion of the New Europe
in America settled under the more enlightened
ideas of the Netherlanders avoided the extremes
of both Cavalier and Puritan. Being under the
sway of milder and more Christian legislation
and custom, the empire region of the middle
colonies was more free from unreasonably cruel
punishments. The legislation of the Plymouth Colony, while
closely conformable to that of the rest of the
world in Christendom, was singularly free from
the extremes seen in the rest of New England
and in the southern colonies. It was wonderfully
like that of the Netherlands, where both in
government and custom Christianity and civili
zation were then much better iUustrated. On the
statute books of Plymouth there were fewer capi
tal crimes named than in any other colonies north
or south of New York and Pennsylvania. The
Plymouth law decreeing the death sentence upon
Quakers was passed late in their history and was
never enforced. The spirit of the Pilgrims had
been chastened by their persecutions, sufferings,
and exile and by dwelling in a tolerant republic,
which was then the leader among nations.

CHAPTER XXI
FOOD, DRESS, AND SOCIAL LIFE
Let us see how the Plyraouth people ate their
food, and what kind of a diet the men would be
able to provide and the women to cook, dress, and
serve. Within ten or twenty years after that
first awful winter, life had settled down to steady
routine. Living in timber houses, at first very
rough, mud-plastered, with thatched roof and
greased paper windows, neither furniture nor
household adornment could have been anything
but the simplest. As time sped on and they
became better acquainted with the resources of
the country, and the ships from Europe brought
over raore numerous comforts, the homes became
brighter and cheerier, and approached more
nearly the standard of daily life in Europe.
The era of hot drinks imported from the far
East, and first used in Holland, had not yet
come. During the first years of the colony,
tea, coffee, and Delft or Japan ware were things
probably merely heard of, and even in the later
years were curiosities. Not until toward the end,
in 1691, did they become even luxuries to be en
joyed by a few.

264 FOOD, DRESS, AND SOCIAL LIFE
Beer was the every-day drink among the Plym
outh people. Those who could not afford this
drank water. Earely was a piece of china seen
upon the table, though earthenware was occa
sionally in use. Most of the dishes, apart from
the mugs and cups, were of wood or of pewter.
All well-to-do housekeepers took pride in polish
ing their metal ware, making it shine like silver,
and adorning their mantelpieces, shelves, and
cupboards with the platters and dishes.
Tobacco, the seed of which the Pilgrims ob
tained from the red men, was grown at Plymouth
and formed in the first years, until the better
Virginia article displaced it, a small crop. The
men often refreshed themselves with its fumes,
but usually did so indoors. In 1638 a law for
bade smoking in the streets. The legislation
against drunkenness in one's house, the sale of
spiritous liquors to Indians, or in quantities to
cause intoxication, was stringent. The idea was
prohibition to Indians and temperance among
the whites.
In our minds' pictures, we may imagine the
people sitting down to their tables made of hewn
wood, smoothed by the axe, and on stools or
benches made of the sarae material and in the
same fashion. Only the well-to-do folk had rush-
bottomed chairs from the old land. Governor
Carver's chair is preserved to this day, and is an
exact copy of those still found in rural Holland.

PILGRIM RELICS
I Belonged to Elder Brewster. 2 Belonged to Governor Carver.
3 and 4 belonged to Myles Standish, 5 Belonged to Dr. Samuel
Fuller, the phj'sician of the Pilgrims.

FOOD, DRESS, AND SOCIAL LIFE 265
The Mayflower of legend — the ship which had
no more real existence than the Flying Dutchman
— sailed into Plymouth Harbor apparently with
her decks loaded and all her spars hung with old
furniture, teapots, luxurious table-ware, and mis
cellaneous household stuff. The historic ship
had room for very little indeed except the pas
sengers and their personal apparel and equipment.
In the American colonies, as elsewhere in
Christendom, the Oriental hot drinks proved a
powerful factor, not only in developing the cera
mic art, but in the social elevation of women.
The mother took her place at the head of the
table. Teapot, sugar-bowl, and cream-pitcher, or
jug, became of more importance than the salt
cellar or spice-box.
Knives were plentiful, but spoons less so, while
forks were unknown. Large or long-handled
prongs were used to turn the meat in the pot, but
a table fork for each person was probably never
seen in Plymouth Colony. The meat was held
with the fingers and cut in pieces on the platter,
and the bits taken to the raouth by the unassisted
hand. Forks became fashionable first in Italy,
and the nine hundredth anniversary of their in
troduction was celebrated in 1897. Among Eng
lish people, until late in the seventeenth century,
they were curiosities as great as umbrellas would
have been at that time even in London. The pre
historic men used a certain kind of fork, just as

266 FOOD, DRESS, AND SOCIAL LIFE
the Fiji Islanders did until their conversion to
Christianity during this century, but most prob
ably only at their cannibal feasts.
Well-to-do people, in the days when vegetables
were very few and when all kinds of spices were
in demand, sprinkled saffron upon their meat ;
and in Essex, from which county many settlers of
Massachusetts carae, this plant was so much culti
vated that one place was called Saffron Walden.
Its powder made an agreeable flavor, was easily
dissolved in water, and was not injurious. It was
quite common, before forks came into use, to see
the left-hand fingers of ladies yellow with the
stain. The word "saffron " was often used as a
verb, even as we see in Chaucer.
As napkins and hand-wipers were quite neces
sary on the Pilgrims' tables, so we find them to
have been very common.
Vegetables were comparatively few. The white
potato was unknown, and the sweet potato was
not common until the next century. The food
for the children would be milk and corn-meal
pudding, or, to use a mongrel word, " porridge."
Although other grains were cultivated and white
bread was at first most popular, and rye bread
well known, yet Indian corn was always the great
staple for the making of what Defoe calls " the
staff of life." Beside the various kinds of pud
dings and bake-stuff raade from the cereal grains,
pease and beans were much employed for soups

FOOD, DRESS, AND SOCIAL LIFE 267
and stews. Other vegetables cultivated and used
were pumpkins, beans, squashes, turnips, par
snips, and onions. In the course of time, in the
Dutch ovens, which the Pilgrim women knew so
well how to use, began the evolution of those
substantial and nutritious dishes, baked beans,
brown bread, codfish baUs, and pumpkin pies.
Other deUcacies, such as strawberry shortcake, for
which New England has a weU-deserved reputa
tion, either as every-day affairs, as Sunday morn
ing features, or as dishes in season, took their
places upon the tables.
Fresh fish was always coraraon, but unsalted
beef, rautton, and lamb were not. After the ex
cellent stock of the imported Dutch and English
cattle had multiplied, the products of the cow
were abundant and much enjoyed. Butter and
cheese were staple articles. With maize so plenty,
the old word "corn" — which was Dutch before
it was English — came to mean the corn, that
is, maize. Since fish, both salt and fresh, was
every-day food, the term " meat " was graduaUy
restricted to what is raised on land and furnished
by the butcher, and not drawn from the sea and
provided by the fisherman, so that the phrase
" butcher's raeat " fell out of vogue. Instead of
being used as the opposite of drink, the word
referred to flesh food only.
Gradually there grew up a necessary and proper
difference in some phases of English as spoken

268 FOOD, DRESS, AND SOCIAL LIFE
on this side of the Atlantic. As fashions changed
and thought widened on both sides of the ocean,
language grew, and there were deaths and survi
vals of words not known except to scholars and
critical readers of Shakespeare. What are called
" Americanisms " by the ill-informed are often
living descendants of very old-fashioned English
speech. Not a few such expressions still in the
Eastern States are classic English, and raay be
found, not only in the poets and prose writers
before the age of the Stuarts, but even yet in
rural England.
We are certain about one thing, and that is
that these God-fearing and God-loving people
always looked first to the Giver of their refresh
ment and sustenance, never eating until they had
bowed their head to " say grace " or rising from
the table until they had returned thanks. These
joyful Pilgrims were not drunk with wine, where
in is excess, but they were fUled with the spirit.
They reveled in the life of the soul as well as in
that of the body. To a Plyraouth dinner of boiled
claras and a cup of cold water, they brought as
grateful hearts as when before an English feast
or a Leyden banquet. Good digestion waited
on appetite, health on both, and genuinely filial
religion over all.
How did they dress ? It is not very difficult
to answer this question, for the abundant oil
paintings, etchings, copper and wood cuts of Hoi-

FOOD, DRESS, AND SOCIAL LIFE 269
land and the prints and Uterature of England,
with their own records and relics, make the matter
tolerably plain. Muslin or cotton goods were
very rare untU the days of the Plymouth Colony
were nearly over, but wool, hemp, and flax were
staple materials.
Linen being very cheap in Holland during the
seventeenth century, we are not surprised that
men, maids, and matrons were weU provided with
stores of napery, which they used with aesthetic
effect upon their tables as well as in their out
ward clothing. Stiffened with starch, the snowy
fabric helped conspicuously to make a costume
that was beautiful and serviceable. The true
Puritan, whether in France or Holland or Eng
land, dressed neatly and becomingly in a style
that would have delighted an ancient Greek, even
as it charms many a modern artist.
In the first generation of their history in the
old home-land, the Puritans wore woolen coats,
and breeches which ended at the knee and were
tied together with strings having ornamented
tags, their lower limbs being encased in stockings
or hose. In the second generation starch and
linen became more common. The old ruff had
disappeared, and in its place was the roUing or
faUing coUar, usuaUy tied with a white string and
tassels. The dress of the women was simple but un
questionably artistic. We may be quite sure

270 FOOD, DRESS, AND SOCIAL LIFE
that. Pilgrims though they were, the Plymouth
maids were particular about getting the proper fit
of shoe, and wearing their stockings without ridges
or loose wrinkles. Their skirts were sensibly
short, and they were warmly dressed in woolen
raaterial, their bodices being either raade plainly
or laced together over some white or bright
colored underdress, while at their shoulders and
sleeves they were fond of slashing or opening the
woolen fabric so as to show the white underdress.
Upon their heads they wore linen caps of snow
like hue, or often simply a top piece with lace,
and they had lace at the end of their cuffs toward
the shoulders. Over their bosoms and shoulders
they usually wore, in time of rest or on special
occasions, a white handkerchief, or often one large
handkerchief underneath, with a smaller one like
a collar over it, displaying their throat and a little
of the upper chest. In the season of frost and
ice, they had often a bow and necktie also. Some
times this upper white dress had a lace fringe at
the bottom, going around the shoulders and higher
part of the bust. Doubtless the long gauntleted
gloves were not absent. In winter time, at least,
the bonnets or close fitting caps of velvet did not
lack either bows at the top or strings gracefuUy
tied under the chin.
No perverted theories of Puritanism, however
rigid, could kill or conceal the innate love of
beauty which God has implanted in woman's

FOOD, DRESS, AND SOCIAL LIFE 271
nature. While kings and queens, gallants and
ladies might think theraselves properly arrayed
in costumes which more properly befitted the
theatre, the Puritans, not " in spite of them
selves," but guided by the unerring law of Greek
art and of eternal beauty, which lays more stress
on form than on decoration, created a becoming
and beautiful type of dress. Having the sheep
of the meadow, the flax of the garden, and his
own inventive ability, man, male and female, can
dress beautifully without the silkworm or the
cotton plant.
The spinning-wheel, the direct evolution of the
ancient distaff and spindle in union, said to have
been invented at Nuremberg so late as 1530,
came into Holland flrst, and then into England,
and displaced the old whorl-stones, holding its
own until the present century. The deft fingers
of the Pilgrim mothers and daughters became
very expert in using the spinning-wheel and in
making the material for the garments of hus
bands, children, and kinsfolk. Quite early in the
history of the colony, knitting becarae an industry
especially favored by women in their few hours
left over from severer toil.
Unlike the Bay Colony, Plymouth never made
any law regulating personal costume, and in gen
eral kept free of sumptuary legislation. Yet
this matter of dress, or rather the necessity of
providing the material for it, had become serious

272 FOOD, DRESS, AND SOCIAL LIFE
in New Plymouth when in 1633 it was forbidden
to export any sheep. In 1639 every householder
was ordered to sow at least one square rod of flax
or hemp. It was only graduaUy that the distinct
trade of webster or weaver became known and
recognized in the colony.
Cotton was a great novelty when it made its
appearance in New England from the West In
dies. This " tree wool " was not woven in Eng
land until the eighteenth century, being only
rarely seen as a great curiosity. It is no wonder,
then, that its nature was not at first well under
stood. Several children in New England, when
first dressed in cotton clothes, were burned to
death, and one man whose cotton clothes took
fire saved his life by jumping into a well. When,
however, the English Civil War broke out, and
imports from the home-land were much curtailed,
wool became dearer, and cotton was rauch used
for weaving and clothing. By about the year
1666, clothing was so abundant and often made
into such attractive forms, that the rather super
stitious Morton ascribed the loss of the wheat
crop to the wrath of God against the " licentious
ness of apparel."
Without doubt both Pilgrim and Puritan, with
out being foppish or dandyish, set sufficient store
upon good clothes. They knew well how great,
how continuous was the influence of proper garb
upon good manners and even upon character.

FOOD, DRESS, AND SOCIAL LIFE 273
Marriage was a frequent episode of life in New
Plyraouth, for such a thing as an unmarried wo
man could hardly be known while so many single
men wanted mates. There could be no perma
nent widows or widowers in such primitive life,
where the necessity of providing food, and there
fore of working hard, was so urgent, for both the
most and the best of men's work is done when
he has a helpmate with him. Time could not be
spared for long mourning or periods of seclusion,
and the conventionalities of older and more fin
ished society were out of place.
Very siraple indeed were the ceremonies of
these first weddings. Both out of principle and
from necessity, they were, as Bradford says, after
" the laudable custom of the Low Countries."
The Pilgrims were Calvinists in their theories.
Calvinism, which means realism in religion, did
not at first, nor does it now, see any necessity for
the minister of religion to be present either at
the marriage altar, at the grave, or at the infant's
birth, except as an invited servant ; though it
teaches that God presides over all and that to
him each act of man should be consecrated.
Believing in the priesthood of all true believers
and the equality of all redeemed souls before
God, it holds that no child born of Christian
parents is unclean. Those Calvinists who admit
infants to holy baptism justify it ujjon the faith
of its parents as the true channel of divine grace
and fulfillment of the divine promises. Calvinism

274 FOOD, DRESS, AND SOCIAL LIFE
teaches that marriage is a mystery of love, the
fire of God, the union in holy wedlock for the
continuance of the race, and the maintenance of
purity and obedience to the commands of God.
It considers the so-called " consecrated ground "
as the invention of sectarian priestcraft and an
outrage upon our common humanity.
This being their belief the Pilgrims could not
see the need of the " professional mercenary " of
the ecclesiastical corporation, even though they
might invite and enjoy the presence and services
of the modest servant of God and of the church,
the rainister of the Word. Death, to the believer
in Christ who takes the New Testament as his
sole guide, is the union of earth to earth, the
honorable return of the dissolved earthly house
to its original elements, and the rejoining of the
spirit to its first home with God. The Pilgrims
did not therefore feel that any religious services
at the grave-side were necessary, though they felt
free to have these if they desired.
In New Plymouth the grand simplicity and
divine sufficiency in Christ of men who knew
their Bibles well enabled them to marry, to bury,
and to bring up their children without the aid of
diocesan bishops, church corporations, or priests,
or kings. They had, under God, created a state
where none of these things were needed. They
laid the foundation of a nation in which priest
and pastor wiU ever be servants and not masters
of the congregation.

CHAPTER XXII
CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS
The Pilgrim wedding ceremony was very sim
ple. The couple were joined in wedlock by the
magistrate, though prayer was not omitted. The
first marriage took place in the lovely raonth of
May, 1621, when Edward Winslow, whose wife
had died but seven weeks before, married Susanna
White, a widow with children, whose husband
had died twelve weeks before. Mrs. White was
the mother of Peregrine, the first child born of
white parents in New England. Another son,
born after her second marriage, became governor
of an American colony, so that this Pilgrim
raother has a triple honor. Yet about this his
toric wedding no poetry has been written, nor of
it has any picture been painted or printed. The
Pilgrim fathers have had their meed of fame ;
but the story of the Pilgrim mothers, could it be
told aright, would at raost points be of equal fas
cination. The imagination of poet and artist and popular
interest have gathered around another episode of
love, courtship, and marriage, all three elements
of which were doubtless as simple in all their

276 CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS
appointments and circumstances as were those
which made Edward Winslow and Susanna
White one ; and this, notwithstanding that the
dramatic incidents told in the hexameters of
Longfellow are probably every one of them purely
imaginary, and several of them decidedly anachro
nistic. Nevertheless, a majority of first readers
of " The Courtship of Miles Standish," and raany
editors and orators, accept this poem as genuine
history. In Longfellow's metrical romance, the
soldier - widower sends " John Alden, the fair-
haired taciturn stripling," as his agent to win
Priscilla Mullens' love ; but the doughty captain
is not the one desired of the maiden, and she
hints to the gaUant envoy to speak for himself,
which, of course, he does. The wedding takes
place ; but when the service is ended, the som
bre, powerful, and armor-clad figure strides in,
grasps the bridegroom's hand, and asks forgive
ness. Applying the proverb, " No man can gather
cherries in Kent at the season of Christmas,"
he implies that no graybeard can equal a hand
some youth in pleading for the hand and heart
of a maiden still in life's springtime. Taking
each other for husband and wife in the magis
trate's presence, " after the Puritan way and the
laudable custom of Holland," the bridegroom and
the bride go forth and stand at the doorway,
while the friends scatter for the labors of the
day. Then, from a stall near at hand, araid

dyf'^V'

fconi^ 

FACSIMILE FROM A PAGE OF BRADFORD'S MANUSCRIPT

CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS 277
exclamations of wonder, Alden brings out his
" snow-white bull " covered with crimson cloth,
and led by a cord that was tied to an iron ring in
his muzzle. A cushion is placed for a. saddle,
that she may ride Uke a queen on a palfrey, and
not tread along like a peasant. Bride and groom
move to their new habitation, crossing the ford
in the forest. As one pair
" in the endless succession of lovers,
So through the Plymouth woods passed onward the bridal
procession."
The pictures of John Alden and PrisciUa Mul
lens at their courting show a style of house and
furniture probably never seen in old Plymouth
colony. As a simple matter of fact, there were no cattle
in the colony at this time, and in a little hamlet
with one short street and houses close together,
the bridal tour or procession could not have been
very long in time or far in space. Nevertheless,
we doubt not that the young couple were as happy
as if they had been married in a great cathedral
with the light streaming in through stained glass,
and even with the wedding procession, as in our
day, fashionably slow and solemn.
The whole life of the English Separatists was
Uke that set forth in the wonderful pilgrim psalms
in that oldest hymn-book of the Church of God,
which is written in Hebrew. Theirs was ever " a
Song of Ascents." Like good Christians, who

278 CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS
knew by sweet experience every one of the bless
ings naraed in the Fifth Book of the Psalras,
frora Number CXX to CXL, each Pilgrira father
counted it a great and continual joy to have in
his home a " fruitful vine " and plenty of " olive
plants " around his table. He rejoiced to have
his quiver full. John Alden and his Priscilla
were especially permitted to enter into the joys
of the 127th and 128th Psahns. The bride's
father and mother, with their son, a little child,
had died in the first winter's sickness.
Instead of her father, God gave her sons, who
with their descendants became as princes in the
earth, and her name will be remembered in all
generations. John and Priscilla Alden had eleven children,
and were both living in 1650, by which time Pris
ciUa was a grandmother, her oldest daughter
having a husband and five children. To-day the
descendants of John Alden are like the stars of
the heavens in multitude.
As the first marriage was between Edward
Winslow and Mrs. White, it is probable that
John Alden with Priscilla Mullens made the sec
ond, Francis Eaton with Mrs. Carver's servant-
maid the third, Bradford with Mrs. Alice South-
worth the fourth, and Standish with a lady naraed
Barbara, whose faraily name is not known, the fifth,
John Howland with Elizabeth Filley the . sixth,
and Peter Brown with Mrs. Ford the seventh.

CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS 279
No divorces are heard of at Plyraouth until
forty-one years had passed away, when one wo
man, on scriptural grounds, obtained a divorce
from her husband, who, after being publicly
whipped, left the colony. After this, only six
cases of divorce are known during the colony's
existence, from 1620 to 1691.
There are in the records cases of suits of breach
of promise, with the amount of claim and recovery
stated. There are instances of men making com
plaint that their desires of marriage with daugh
ters are frustrated by parents. Several times,
the court, after hearing, punished men by threat
of fine or whipping for urging unwilling damsels
to receive their attentions. In one case the toler
ant spirit of John Howland towards the Quakers
had angered Governor Thomas Prence, who in
1660 brought suit against Howland's nephew for
making love to his daughter without her father's
permission. Nevertheless, for seven years, the
young couple remained constant to each other.
Then the angry father again had the young man
brought before the court and fined five pounds,
because he had " disorderly and unrighteously "
endeavored to obtain the affections of his daugh
ter. So the patient lover was put under a bond
of fifty pounds to refrain and desist. Neverthe
less, the young raan and woman were, a few
months later, united in marriage.
Greatly to the delight of those who called the

280 CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS
Pilgrims " Brownists," and who desired and ex
pected that the freedom of the Plymouth Colony
would run into anarchy, in order to have the petty
prophet's rapture of saying " I told you so," there
was much trouble about marriage, after the death
of the leaders of the " old stock," on account of
radical notions. The second generation, not hav
ing won, but only inherited their liberty, went
further than the Dutch, who, after instituting
civil marriage, safeguarded it most scrupulously.
The Plymouth uprooters went so far as to marry
themselves, or to get persons without authority to
perform the wedding ceremony. In 1654 one
man was fined five pounds for disorderly mar
riage, and then fined five pounds again ; and noti
fied that he would be fined every three months,
until he came to be raarried by a magistrate.
Later on, three others were mulcted for the same
offense. Perhaps the severity of the Plymouth rulers
defeated the very end which they had in view, of
maintaining personal purity throughout the whole
colony. It does not necessarily follow that the
morality of the time or place was below the aver
age in America or England to-day, for no such
diligence of search and observation is now known,
as was then and there in vogue, nor is the machin
ery of the law so perfect for the discovery of
wrong-doing in social matters. Indeed, consider
ing the abundance and minuteness of the writings

CUSTOMS AND SUPER.STITIONS 281
concerning the Plymouth men and wonien and
the consequent publicity for all time, their record
of general morality is a noble one.
Some of the court proceedings show that both
men and women used their tongues in a lively
sort of way, calling each other vile names very
freely. The magistrates, believing that the tongue
being a world of iniquity was sometimes set on
fire of Gehenna, punished misuse of this member
very severely. When men, by living a vagrant
life in the woods, did not treat or support their
wives properly, — a disorder very common on the
frontier, and one from which the French settle
ments in Canada suffered mortally, — they were
heavily fined. Masters for not instructing their
apprentices properly, and any persons for telling
lies, were also punished by fines. One man who
averred that he had seen a whale when none else
had, was fined twenty shilUngs. Evidently the
sea serpent that swims in the newspapers had not
then been invented, though even then, on most
European maps, aU sorts of mythical monsters
disported themselves. Another man who told a
fib, the size or quality of which is not stated, was
fined ten shillings ; but the ¦wiie of another named
George who lied not perniciously, but only " un
advisedly," was discharged.
The records seem to show that at Plymouth, as
elsewhere, men not unfrequently tried to make
public justice an instrument of private revenge.

282 CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS
We find a number of cases of fines for card-play
ing ; but although there were laws against " the
devil's picture-books," with the penalty of corpo
ral punishments, yet we do not learn that they
were executed. No doubt a good deal of idle
play with colored pasteboard was had privately,
in barns and garrets, during which probably very
little gambling was done. Stolen water was
sweet and bread eaten in secret pleasant then, as
in pre-ancient and raodern tiraes. A prohibition
and " thou shalt not " are always challenges. A
positive command to do something good is always
the best way of making the Everlasting Kingdom
come, and the founders of Plymouth knew and
believed in Christ's way. It is not so certain that
their immediate successors did, at least in equal
measure. Society in New Plymouth in 1665 was less
under the dominion of enlightened Christian gen
tlemen than it had been in 1625, and was more
under the control of a clerical caste. In a word,
Plymouth Christianity was then more like that in
a state church, and under the politics of paternal
ism. After 1650 we find several cases of men
fined and set in the stocks for staying away from
worship and preaching, or for not speaking with
sufficient respect of the preachers, who probably
were both scholastic and prosy. Dr. Matthew
Fuller opposed the new law which laid a compul
sory tax for the support of the clergy. For this

CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS 283
he was fined fifty shillings. Christians who were
Christ-like in their conduct toward the Friends
were prosecuted before the courts and fined by
those who were bitter against the " Quakers," —
the charge being that they were absent from
church when they ought to have been there.
When sickness and poor crops troubled the super
stitious, they held a fast to avert " the Lord's
wrath" as shown in his not having made raore
effectual their brutal and devilish treatment of
the Quakers ; aU of which seems wonderfully like
the Israelitish worship of Jehovah through Mo
loch. Other persons were arrested for not paying
the clergy tax. Men were whipped for reviling
the parson. In the suits which ministers brought
against free-speaking people they were very apt
to win their case. All this helped to bring Brad
ford's gray hairs in sorrow to the grave.
The superstitions of the Plymouth men are
worth studying. Bradford and the leaders of the
Leyden church were for their age, and as men
inheriting the relics of Norse or Germanic pagan
ism, remarkably free from gross notions generated
from ignorance. Indeed, throughout his life and
in his writings, Bradford shows that he was a
devout and a scientific man. He did not make
his whims or his ignorance pass for religion. He
kept his Christianity free from degrading super
stition, which is so much and so often associated
with piety and so much nourished or winked at by
the clergy for the sake of power over the vulgar.

284 CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS
Eleven years in Holland under the training of
Eobinson, and a decade in a university town, had
greatly clarified and purified the minds of the
Plymouth leaders from superstition ; but many of
the second generation in the wilderness were vic
tims to the fear of earthquake, lightning, comets,
and signs in the heaven and earth. In this they
were just like pagans, uncivilized raen, and weak
Christians, who suppose that ignorance and fear
which it breeds are parts of religion. A comet
was usually supposed to portend calamities, like
war, smaUpox, or the plague. In a great tail of
gas, they saw the Almighty's sword of vengeance.
Altogether, the contrast between the compara
tive freedom from superstition of the Plymouth
old comers, who were mostly from HoUand, and
those of the Puritans, who came directly from
England, is remarkable. There was a constant
habit among the latter, though not wholly confined
to them, of attributing current events to direct
supernatural intervention. Often the record of
the writer's subjective fancies is coraical. For
example, Winthrop, who did not like the English
prayer-book, tells us that his son in Connecticut
had the Greek Testament, the Psalms, and the
prayer-book bound in one volume, and this with
others was kept in a roora where their corn was
stored. The mice, neglecting the other books,
gnawed entirely through the prayer-book, and left
everything else in the volume untouched. What
intelligent mice !

CHAPTER XXIII
THE NEW ENGLAND CONFEDERATION
Scarcely seventeen summers had passed away
in New Plymouth before the wise men of the
settlement began to feel the need of union with
the other colonies.
The quarrels of the Old had been transported
to the New World. It was a very uncertain ques
tion as to who should possess North America, —
French, Spanish, Dutch, or English. The Indian
problem was serious. Little help could be looked
for from the home-land, with such sovereigns as
the Stuarts on the throne. All Great Britain was
in commotion on account of the approaching Scot
tish and civil wars.
The Plymouth men had seen the advantages
of union and federal government in their second
home. The motto of the Dutch republic, " Een-
dracht maagt macht " (unity raakes strength),
was to them a household word. In the Congress
of the United States which met at the Hague, the
watchword, in sight of all, was " By concord, little
things become great." Their life as Pilgrims
had also proved the truth of the 133d Psalm.
They also knew the perils and the limitations of
federal government.

286 THE NEW ENGLAND CONFEDERATION
In the annual synod in Boston in 1637, a civil
league was proposed. The Plymouth men began
six years of discussion with the three other colo
nies, one in Massachusetts and two in Connecti
cut. The result was that in 1643 "The New
England Confederation " was formed. It in
cluded the four colonies, Massachusetts Bay and
Plymouth, Hartford and New Haven. Maine,
New Hampshire, and Ehode Island were left out,
for Plymouth claimed the territory first settled
by Eoger Williams, and Massachusetts persisted,
in spite of the Gorges faraily, in reckoning
Maine and New Hampshire, notwithstanding
Mason's claim, as within the limits of her patent.
Two raen, church members, delegates from
each colony in the confederation, met annuaUy in
September, and in each of the colonies in turn.
This little legislature of eight had charge of war
and peace, Indian affairs, the rendition of crimi
nals and of runaway servants, the making of
roads and communications, the assessment of ex
penses, and the settieraent of boundary disputes.
In education and religion, the little congress had
only advisory power. Each colony was to man
age its own local affairs.
In a word, here was the Dutch federal union
in miniature. Connecticut, which borrowed so
rauch and so closely from the republic in which
its leaders Hooker and Davenport, like the Pil
grims, had for years found refuge, wanted, like

THE NEW ENGLAND CONFEDERATION 287
the Dutch states and cities, to have a veto power.
She even refused at first to join the league unless
she could have it ; but the victorious Dutch, having
humbled giant Spain, seemed to be expanding in
New Netherland and pressing on her borders,
while civil war, whose issue no man could fore
tell, had broken out in England. So Connecticut
withdrew her opposition, the union was perfected,
and the little congress began its sessions. As in
the Dutch States-General, a majority or three
fourths vote was necessary for action.
In form the confederation lasted half a cen
tury, but its real life covered only about twenty
years. It suffered from the same diseases which
had troubled the Dutch republic. Massachusetts
was its Holland, rich, aristocratic, dictatorial,
wanting to use power instead of giving advice,
too little inclined to union and helpful coopera
tion, and too much given to assertion of state-
right. No federal government can get along well
with such a disproportionately powerful state as
Holland in a republic, or with such a large colony
as Massachusetts in a little colonial confederation.
The disturbance of the system is too great. In
1675, of the 43,000 people in the confederation,
about one half were in Massachusetts Bay, with
7000 in Plymouth Colony and 14,000 in Connect
icut. Holland, both in guilders and in souls, was
nearly equal to all the other six Dutch states, and
so also Massachusetts, equal in money and num-

288 THE NEW ENGLAND CONFEDERATION
bers to the others, was the controller of the
"United Colonies of New England." Within
a decade advisory power, in education and reli
gion, had become something very much like au
thority, and Puritan bigotry was undermining
the Christian tolerance, freedom and simplicity
of Plymouth.
In joint stock companies the man who has a
majority of shares can " control the stock."
Plymouth in the New England Confederation
found itself in the condition of the cony that had
invited the hedgehog " in its burrow." Brad
ford's fable was once more illustrated.
Even before the end of the first ten years,
Massachusetts began to get HoUandish, and
seemed unwiUing to submit to the authority of
the Union. In 1650, Connecticut, by permission
of the congress, having levied taxes to support
a fort at the raouth of the Connecticut Eiver,
Massachusetts, without authority, laid duties on
the commerce of the other colonies, the pretext
being to pay for the fort in Boston harbor. This
unauthorized assertion of state-right or of nullifi
cation destroyed the Union. Thereafter it had
only a nominal existence.
In 1653, when the English were fighting a com
mercial war with the Dutch to get the carrying
trade of the ocean, Connecticut wanted the colo
nies to invade New Netherland, and the congress
passed a majority vote for war ; but Massachusetts,

THE NEW ENGLAND CONFEDERATION 289
contrary to the Constitution, demanded unanimous
consent for offensive action. After 1663 the ses
sions of the congress became triennial. In 1667
Plyraouth Colony made a strong protest against
the behavior of the predominant colony and its
unjust emphasis laid on its " state-right." Be
sides wanting the capital, or the sessions of the
congress, to be at Boston and its president a
Massachusetts man, the largest of the colonies
objected to the vital principle of federal govern
ment — the equal representation of the colonies.
This was the soul of the Dutch republic, and is
still the fimdamental principle in the Senate of
the United States of America.
When the English commonwealth gave way to
the Eestoration, Charles II. paid little or no atten
tion to the confederation. In 1686 under James
II. the congress of the colonies adopted a flag that
must have pleased this royal person, if indeed he
did not order its design. It was a huge red cross
set upright on a white ground, with the king's
monogram and crown in gold in the centre. For
ships, the flag was red, with a white cross resting
on a white union of the crosses of St. Andrew and
St. George, in the upper left-hand corner of which
was a pine-tree.
The last triennial session of the little federal
congress was held in Hartford in 1684. Two
years later. Sir William Andros, the tool of that
royal law-breaker, James IL, blotted out the

290 THE NEW ENGLAND CONFEDERATION
Union and trampled on aU law. In 1691 Gov
ernor Phips arrived. He was arraed with au
thority from the Dutch king, William IIL, of
Great Britain and Ireland. The charter which
Phips bore combined Nova Scotia, Maine, the
Vineyard Archipelago, and the colonies on Massa^
chusetts Bay into the one British province of
Massachusetts. New Plymouth, with her seven
teen towns and 13,000 people, ceased to exist,
except as a glorious memory and a noble name.
The poetic and heroic era of the Pilgrim story
ended with the New England Confederation.
" From this period, but not alone from this cause,
Plyraouth history ceases to be of continuous in
terest." Of the heroes and leaders, as well as most of
the rank and file, we raay write as the conclusion
of our story : —
" These all died in faith, not having received
the promises, but having seen them and greeted
them from afar, and having confessed that they
were strangers and pilgrims on the earth."
DEUS FECIT

INDEX

Adahs, John, 3, 131.
Ainsworth, Henry, 73, 78.
Alden, Jolm, 170, 219, 252, 276, 277,
Aldfrid, 23.
Allerton, Isaac, 114, 205, 236, 248, 255.
Allerton, Mary, 109.
Alliance with Scotland, 48, 54.
Americanisms, 44, 268.
Amsterdam, 72, 83.
Anabaptists, 45, 50, 52, 66-68, 138.
Andros, Sir William, 230, 291.
Angles, 91.
Anglo-Saxons, 91.
Anne, the, 226.
Antwerp, 49, 72.
Arber, Professor, 134, 159.
Arminians, 1ST, 138, 141, 143.
Arminius, James, 140.
Aspinet, 223.
Atlantic Ocean, 172-176.
Augusta, 236, 248.
Austerfield, 20, 22, 24, 60.
Austerfield, Synod of, 22-24.
Axelhohne, 16, 64.
Babworth, 61, 63.
Bank, 74.
Baptist, 81.
Barker, Elizabeth, 109.
Barnde-Steeg, 76.
Barneveldt, 49, 142, 145, 147, 149.
Barneveldt's teeth, 144.
Barnstable Harbor, 224.
Basset, William, 99.
Basset Law, 36, 37.
Bawtry, 20, 24, 40, 47.
Bayard, Thomas Francis, 4.
Beaver, 220.
Beer, 170, 264.
Bekker, Balthazar, 214.
Bell Alley, 93, 126-132.
BeUs, 29, 51.
Bernard, Rev. Eichard, 63, 64.
Bewitchment sickness, 212-214.
Billington, Francis, 192, 193, 255.

BUlington, John, Jr., 208.
Billington Sea, 198.
Binnenhof, 146.
Blanchard, William, 69.
Block, Adrian, 177.
Blommaert, Herr, 246.
Blood Street, 76.
Blue HiUs, 209.
Blythe, 24.
Books, 5, 66, 134, 227.
Boston Harbor, 179.
Bradford, William, 25, 60, 74, 78, 85,
103, 114, 118, 123, 152, 158, 188,
190, 200, 212, 216-218, 221, 226, 232,
242, 250, 279, 284.
Brewer, Thomas, 124, 133, 134.
Brewster, Maria, 109.
Brewster, WiUiam, 45, 49, 50, 56, 57,
85, 134, 138, 161, 166, 169, 252.
Bricks, 61.
BriU, 49, 53.
Broad Street, 126.
Brown, Peter, 279.
Brownisten Gang, 75.
Brownists, 66-68, 134, 233, 252, 266,
280.
Bump, 100.
Bunyan, John, 15.
Burcher, Edward, 110.
Burg, the, 91-93.
Burr, Zachariah, 108.
BusU (BuiUi), John de, 24.
Butler, Mary, 99.
Butler, Samuel, 106.
Butten, WiUiam, 175, 210.
Cabot, 44.
Calderwood, 134.
Calendar, 112.
Calvinism, 147, 273, 274.
Calvinists, 53, 137, 138, 141, 149.
Cambridge, 45-47.
Canal, 84.
Canonicus, 220.
Canons, 145.
Cape Cod, 177, 181, 196, 202.

292

INDEX

Cape Cod Compact, 183.
Cards, 282.
Carey, Sarah, 106.
Carleton, Sir Dudley, 134.
Carpenter, Thomas, 104.
Carriages, 21.
Carver, John, 107, 156, 200, 206, 212,
227, 264.
Castle Garden, 226.
Cattle, 235, 238, 277.
Champlain, Samuel, 177.
Chandler, Eoger, 106.
Chapel of St. Helen, 24.
Charity, 222, 231, 232, 235.
Charles I., 137.
Charter, 247.
Chicago, 33.
Chilton, Mary, 200.
Christmas, 122.
Church, idea of, 129-132.
Church, Presbyterian, 73.
City Hall, 126, 143, 199.
Clark's Island, 195.
Clifton, Eev. Eichard, 61, 63-65.
Coal, 37.
Codfish, 217.
Codmore, John, 109.
Coffin, C. C, 30.
Collins, Henry, 105.
Common house, 200.
Common lands, 28.
Congregational ordination, 69.
Conies, 34.
Connecticut, 288-290.
Consumption, 211.
Cooke, Hester, 110.
Coopers, 170.
Coppin, 67, 179, 192.
Corn, 267.
Cornellison, Gisbert, 120.
Cotton, 272.
Cows, 238.
Cradle of Liberty, 136.
Cromwell, Oliver, 111.
CruUins, Henry, 103.
Currency, 243-245.
Cushman, Eobert, 108, 166, 157, 171.
Cuthbertson, Cuthbert, 100.
Dam, 72.
Dance Book, 36.
Danes, 17-20.
Dart Eiver, 171.
Dates, 112.
Davenport, 288.
Davison, WilUam, 48, 49, 53, 54, 138.
De Forest, Jesse, 149, 160, 239.
Delano, 100.
Delfshaven, 121, 162, 169.
DeUt, 162, 173, 263.
Dermer, Captain, 202.

De.wson, 100.
Dexter, Dr. Henry Martin, 80.
Diet, 263-267.
Dikes, 163.
Dinbay, William, 106.
Dinbay, Sarah, 106.
Divorce, 280.
Dix, Anthony, 110.
Domesday Book, 33.
Dr.ainage operations, 15.
Dress, 269, 271.
Dudley, Sir Eobert, 53, 142,
Dunster, Leonard, 110.
Durie, Rev. Eobert, 114, 124, 128.
Dutch, 139.
Dutch blood, 107.
Dutch ideas, 116.
Dutch language, 118, 240.
Dutch names, 100.
Dutch Eepublic, 133-148, 287.
Eastern counties, 6, 14, 46.
East Harbor, 189.
Eaton, Francis, 279.
Echizen, 40.
Egfrid, 23.
Eggleston, Dr. Edward, 156.
EUzabeth, 39, 41, 54, 68.
EUzabethan England, 11, 19, 38.
Ely, 14.
Embden, 49.
Emmius, Ubbo, Professor, 108.
England, 4^13, 169-173.
English Bible, 50.
English church in Leyden, 128.
Episcopius, 147.
Epworth, 64.
Erasmus, 63, 118.
Evans, Maria, 106.
Excommunication, 23.
Byres, 13, 70.
Fens, 14, 15.
Festus, 147-153.
FUley, EUzabeth, 279.
Fletcher, Henry, 60.
Fletcher, Moses, 105.
Flushing, 49, 60.
Ford, 219.
Forefathers' Day, 182, 196.
Forks, 265.
Fortune, the, 219.
Frankfort, 49.
Franklin, Benjamin, 179.
Friar Tuck, 35.
Friesland, 22.
Frisians, 91.
Fukui, 7, 40.
Fuller, Dr. Matthew, 283.
Fuller, Samuel, 104, 106, 219.
FuUer, WUliam, 175.

INDEX

293

Gainsborough, 17.
Gauntlet, 233.
Generals, 22S, 237.
Geneva, 50.
George, Saint, 24.
Germans, 139.
German clocks, 27.
German language, 118.
Goodwin, 255.
Gorges family, 288.
Gorges, Robert, 231.
Government, 228.
Gracht, 84.
Graef, Jucosar de, 107.
Gray's Elegy, 31.
Great Northern Road, 19, 22, 57.
Great screw, 174.
Greenwood, John, 111.
Gringley-on-the-Hill, 12.
Grindon, Prudence, 111.
Grotius, 118.
Gulf Stream, 178.
Haarlem Lake, 86.
Hall Moon, 77, 164.
Hamden, John, 224.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 2, 269.
Helder, 73.
Henry the Eighth, 38-40.
Heyn, Piet, 184.
Hinckley, Thomas, 230.
Hobomok, 224.
Hodge-podge, 95.
Hofs, 128, 132.
HoUand, 48, 51.
Home, 130.
Hommius, 147, 153.
Hooker, 288.
Hooper, Sarah, 109.
Hopkins, Stephen, 188-207.
Hot drinks, 263-265.
Houses, 130, 263.
Howland, John, 175, 279, 280.
Hudson, Henry, 77, 154.
Hudson Eiver, 108.
Hundred, 37.
Hunt, AbigaU, 106, 204.
Hunter, Rev. John, 5.
Hutch-putch, 120.
Idle Eiver, 20.
Indians, 194.
Ingelow, Jean, 15.
Irish, 42, 52, 54.
Irishmen, 44, 97.
Iroquois, 243.
Isle Dieu, 220.
Ivanhoe, 35.
Jackscrew, 173.
Jacobson, John, 242.

Jamesto^vn, 152.
Japan, 7-12, 225.
Jennings, John, 106.
Jepson, Edmund, 106.
Jepson, William, 106, 107, 126, 129,
131.
Jews, 62.
Johnson, Francis, 65, 78.
Jones, Captain, 179, 180, 190, 201.
Juniper, 187.
Kampen, 73.
Kermiss, 121.
Keys, 49.
King James I., 36, 68, 144, 164, 184.
King Philip, 225.
Kist, N. C, 5.
Laing, John de La, 127, 128.
Lecht, Cecil (?), 09.
Leicester (town), 34.
Leicester {see Dudley, Sir Eobert).
Leicester, Countess of, 64.
Leland, John, 27.
Leper window, 29.
Leslie, WUliam, 104.
Leyden, 3, 81, 84-96, 117-148, 197,
210.
Leyden Street, 82, 197, 256.
Leyden University, 124, 137, 140.
Liberty, 115, 133.
Lincolnshire, 15, 16, 64, 65.
Little James, 228.
Little John, 35.
Log of the Mayflower, 3.
LongfeUow, 2, 276.
Low Countries, 42, 115.
Lutherans, 34, 139.
Lyford, John, 232.
Lysle, WilUam, 114.
Maid Marian, 35.
Maine, 222.
Maize, or com, 189-191, 206.
Manhattan, 240, 247.
Manor House, 26, 31.
Margaret, Queen of Scotland, 47.
Marshfield, 252.
Mary, Queen of Scots, 56.
Mason, 288.
Massachusetts, 289.
Massasoit, 203, 205, 208, 216, 224.
Mather, Cotton, 61.
Matthews, Tobias, 69.
Maurice, 136, 142-145, 149, 153, 23.';.
May, Dorothy, 103-105.
Mayflower, 160, 171, 180, 200, 202.
Mayflower Company, 183.
Maypole, 122.
McDonald, Eonald, 12.
Meeting-house, 129.

294

INDEX

Mekancke, Jacob, 104.
Memorials in art, 227.
Mennonites, 6, 81, 139.
Merchant Adventurers, 157, 233, 236.
Merrymount, 249.
Methodists, 64, 147.
MichaeUus, J., 247.
Middelburg, 49, 50, 67, 138.
Middleboro, 223.
Milton, 38.
Minther, Sarah, 107-109.
Minther, WUliam, 109.
Monasteries, 38.
Monuments, 2.
MorreU, WiUiam, 231.
Morton, Nathaniel, 160.
Morton, Thomas, 104, 249-251.
Mother Goose's Melodies, 21.
Motley, John Lothrop, 250.
Mullins, PrisciUa, 276, 277, 279.
MuUins family, 110.
Naarden, 73.
Namaschet, 209.
Names of famUies, 68, 99-102.
Names of places, 16.
Nauset, 195, 222.
Netherlanders, 41, 42.
Netherlands, British in, 42.
NeveU, Gervaise, 20, 68, 69, 70.
Newark, 20.
New England, 181, 198.
New England Confederation, 288, 292.
New Netherland Company, 153.
New Netherland, 78, 290.
New Plymouth, 292.
New Tear's Day, 63, 122.
Normans, 18.
Norsemen, 17, 18.
Northern England, 43.
Norumbega, 179.
Norwich, 41, 66.
Nottinghamshire, 35-42.
Oceanus, 176.
Old Comers, 161.
Oldham, 232, 233.
Oldham, Margaret, 98.
Old Stock, 161.
Orlers, Jan, 81, 88, 92.
Ostorius, 22.
Ouse, 20.
Oxford, 45.
Pantes, WilUam, 98.
Particulars, 228, 231, 232, 237.
Pastorius, 2.
Patent, 248.
Patuxet, 203.
Pecksuwot, 225.
Pemaquid, 202.

Penn, WiUiam, 131, 245.
Perth Assembly, 134.
Peterhouse College, 47.
Pettenger, EUzabeth, 103.
Philips, Thomas, 111.
Pigeons, 121.
Pilgrimage of Grace, 10, 39, 40, 43.
Pilgrim Avenue, 165.
Pilgrim Company, 58, 124-132.
PUgrim district, 19, 20.
Pilgrim Fathers, 161.
Pilgrim fleet, 161, 226.
Pilgrim EepubUc, 254.
Pilgrims, departure of, 166.
Pilot, 177.
Piscataqua, 236, 251.
Plymouth, 12, 67, 172, 196.
Plymouth Colony, 51, 291.
Plymouth monument, 2.
Plymouth Eock, 2, 200.
Poe, Edgar A., 17.
Polyander, Professor, 147.
Pope, 23.
Posts, 57.
Prence, Thomas, 230, 280.
Priest, Degory, i04, 114.
Priest, Sarah, 104.
Primogeniture, 246.
Prince, 4.
Printing, 89, 108, 133.
Proverbs, 230, 276, 290.
Public schools, 117.
Puritanism, 36, 123.
Puritans, 258.
Quadequina, 205.
Quakers, 262, 284.
Ealeigh, Sir Walter, 44, 158.
Eammekens, 49.
Eapenburg, 126.
Eas, Anna, 103.
Easieres, Isaac de, 240, 243, 246, 247.
Eattlesnakes, 218-221.
Ravens, 17, 18, 24.
Rembrandt, 95, 96.
Reynolds, John, 109, 171.
Robin Hood, 35, 43.
Eobinson, Bridget, 104, 111.
Eobinson, John, 64, 66-68, 78, 84,
124-126, 146, 162, 166, 167, 232, 234,
235, 286.
Roman CathoUcs, 38, 62.
Roman days, 19.
Romans, 90, 94.
Ruige Piatt, 165.
Ryton, 20.
Sabbath, 196, 204, 208.
Saffron, 266.
Sagadahoc, 236.

INDEX

295

Saint Nicholas, 122.
Saint Peter's church, 87, 92.
Saint Wilfrid's church, 24, 29, 30, 92.
Salem, 213.
Samoset, 202, 203.
Saudy Hook, 179.
Sandys, Archbishop, 30, 69.
Sandys, Sir Samuel, 155.
Sandys, Sir Edwin, 165, 182.
Sandwich, 223.
SanU Claus, 122.
Savage, James, 5.
Saxons, 91.
Scarlet Letter, 259.
Scheffer, J. G. De Hoop, 6, 80, 113,
138.
Schenectady, 244.
Schie, 162.
Scotchmen, 97.
Scotland, 48.
Scott, Sir Walter, 35.
Scrooby, 13, 26-34, 36, 47, 57, 88,
155.
SewaU, WiUiam, 83.
Shakespeare, quoted, 27, 66.
Sharp Resolve, 142.
Sheriff, 69.
Sherwood Forest, 20, 35.
ShiUito, David, 32.
Ships, 243.
Shirley, 255.
Shriekers' Tower, 76.
Sidney, Sir PhiUp, 48, 53, 55.
Siers, Susannah, 111.
SUvester, Rev. Mr., 61.
Simons, Eoger, 109.
Singleton, Mary, 108.
Smith, John, 109, 158, 177, 196.
Smyth, John, 65, 78, 81.
Snaphances, 188.
Southampton, 169, 171, 210.
Southworth, Edward, 103, 104.
Southworth, Mrs. AUce, 279.
Spaarn Eiver, 85.
SpeedweU, 158-161, 171, 172.
SpeUing, 101.
Spinning-wheel, 271.
Squanto, 202, 204, 206, 207.
Standish, Courtship of Miles, 276.
Standish, Miles, 38, 48, 127, 146, 188,
194, 201, 206, 216, 222-226,232-234,
250-252, 279.
Starch, 6, 80, 269.
Starter, John, 113.
State-right, 141.
Steen, Jan, 122.
Stocks, 30, 268, 283.
Stuart, James, 3, 134.
Stubbes, 6, 28.
Swan, 222.
Swiss democracies, 229.

Swiss Eepublic, 139.
Switzerland, 139.
Synod of Dort, 144, 145.
Tablets, 32, 132.
Terry, Samuel, 110.
Texel, 73.
Thacker, 67.
Thanksgiving Day, 121, 215.
Thompson, David, 226, 235.
Tickens, Eandolph, 126.
Tilly, Edward, 188.
Tobacco, 47, 243, 264.
Toleration, 52.
Towns, 262.
Tracy, Mrs., 110.
Tracy, Stephen, 110.
Trades, 108.
Trent, 20.
Trouw Book, 98.
Undertakers, 236, 237.
Uprising of the North, 10, 39, 43.
Utrecht, Union of, 136.
Verrazzano, 178.
Virginia, 152.
Virginia Company, 155, 181.
VUet, or Fleet, 91.
Vondel, 118.
Wagons, 21, 60.
Walaens, Prof. A., 153.
Walcheren, 49.
WaUoons, 149.
Walsingham, 54.
Wampum, 244, 245.
Warrens, 34.
Washday Monday, 187.
Waterlander, 81.
Wedding, 275.
Weepers' Tower, 168.
WeUfleet, 186.
Wesley, John, 15, 147.
Westem counties, 43.
West India Company, 149.
Weston, Thomas, 156, 169.
Weymouth, 158, 222, 231.
Whale, 282.
Whipping-post, 261.
White, Peregrine, 176, 192, 275.
White, Susanna, 275.
Whittier, 2, 227.
Wier, John, 214.
WUfrid, 22-24.
William IIL, 51.
Williams, Eoger, 103, 138.
WiUiam the Silent, 61, 138.
Willmcks, EUzabeth, 107.
WUson, Heraut, 107.
WUson, Eoger, 107, 114.

296

INDEX

WindmUls, 166.
Winkler's, Johan, book (ancestral
names), 68.
Winslow, Edward, 109, 118, 146, 206,
207, 224, 227, 230, 275.
Winslow, Josiah, 230.
Witchcraft, 9, 213.
Wituwamut, 224, 225.
ToUaston, 249.
Wolsey, Cardinal, 34.
Wood, Henry, 126.

Woolen manufactures, 88.
Worksop, 13, 20.
Written ballot, 109.
Wynken de Worde, 36.
York, 14, 26.
York, Archbishop of, 24, 61
Yorkshire, 4.
Zealand, 67, 151.
Zuyder Zee, 73, 86.

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