1618-1620.] THE PILGRIMS IN HOLLAND. 147 care of each other's good, and of the whole. It is not as with men whom small things can dis with us courage." The messengers of the Pilgrims, sure of the friendship of the Virginia company, sought also the favor of the king. But in vain did they transmit an account of their peaceful principles. Nothing could be obtained for the wilds of America, beyond an informal promise of neglect. The bigotry of the English hierarchy was a great discouragement to the church at Leyden. The dissensions in the Virginia corporation occasioned further delay; but, in 1619, through the influence of Sir Edwin Sandys, the friend of the Puritans, a patent was granted to the Pilgrims under the company's seal. It was taken in the name of one who failed to accompany the expedition, and was never of the least service. One more negotiation remained to be completed. As the Pilgrims were not possessed of sufficient capital for the execution of their schemes, the agents from Leyden formed a connection between their employers and men of business in London. The whole company constituted a numerous partnership; the services of each emigrant were rated as a capital of ten pounds, and belonged to the company; all profits were to be reserved till the end of seven years, when the whole amount, and all houses and land, gardens and fields, were to be divided among the shareholders according to their respective interests. The London merchant, who risked one hundred pounds, would receive for his money tenfold more than the penniless emigrant for his entire services. This arrangement threatened a seven years' check to the pecuniary prosperity of the community; yet, as it did not interfere with civil rights, or religion, it did not intimidate the Pilgrims. And now, in 1620, the English at Leyden, trusting in God and in themselves, made ready for their departure. The Speedwell, a ship of sixty tons, was purchased in London; the Mayflower, a vessel of one 148 THE PILGRIMS LEAVE HOLLAND. [1620. hundred and eighty tons, was hired in England. These could hold but a minority of the congregation; and Robinson was therefore detained at Leyden, while Brewster, the teaching elder, conducted the emigrants. Every enterprise of the Pilgrims began from God. A solemn fast was held. "Let us seek of God," said they, a right way for us, and for our little ones, and for all our substance." Anticipating their high destiny, and the sublime doctrines of liberty that would grow out of the principles on which their religious tenets were established, Robinson gave them a farewell, breathing a freedom of opinion, and an independence of authority, such as then were hardly known in the world : : 66 "I charge you, before God and his blessed angels, that you follow me no farther than you have seen me follow the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of his holy word. I cannot sufficiently bewail the condition of the reformed churches, who are come to a period in religion, and will go at present no farther than the instruments of their reformation. Luther and Calvin were great and shining lights in their times, yet they penetrated not into the whole counsel of God. -I beseech you, remember it, 'tis an article of your church covenant, that you be ready to receive whatever truth shall be made known to you from the written word of God." The Pilgrims were accompanied by most of the brethren from Leyden to Delft-Haven, where the night of the twenty-first of July was passed "in friendly and Christian converse." As morning dawned, Carver, Bradford, and Winslow, Brewster, the ruling elder, Allerton, and the brave and faithful Standish, with their equal associates, a feeble band for a perilous enterprise, bade farewell to Holland; while Robinson, kneeling in prayer by the sea-side, gave to their embarkation the sanctity of a religious rite. A prosperous wind soon wafts the vessel to Southampton, and, in a 1620.] THE PILGRIMS EMBARK FOR AMERICA. 66 149 fortnight, the Mayflower and the Speedwell, freighted with the first colony for New England, leave Southampton for America. But they had not gone far upon the Atlantic before the smaller vessel was found to need repairs; and they entered the port of Dartmouth. After the lapse of eight precious days, they again weigh anchor; the coast of England recedes; already they are unfurling their sails on the broad ocean, when the captain of the Speedwell, with his company, dismayed at the dangers of the enterprise, once more pretends that his ship is too weak for the service. They put back to Plymouth, to dismiss their treacherous companions, though the loss of the vessel was very grievous and discouraging." The timid and the hesitating were all freely allowed to abandon the expedition. Having thus winnowed their numbers of the cowardly and the disaffected, the little band, not of resolute men only, but wives, some far gone in pregnancy, children, infants, a floating village, yet, in all, but one hundred and one souls, - went on board the single ship, which was hired only to convey them across the Atlantic; and, on the sixth day of September, 1620, thirteen years after the first colonization of Virginia, two months before the concession of the grand charter of Plymouth, without any warrant from the sovereign of England, without any useful charter from a corporate body, the passengers in the Mayflower set sail for a new world, where the past could offer no favorable auguries. Had New England been colonized immediately on the discovery of the American continent, the old English institutions would have been planted under the powerful influence of the Roman Catholic religion; had the settlement been made under Elizabeth, it would have been before activity of the popular mind in religion had conducted to a corresponding activity of mind in politics. The Pilgrims were Englishmen, Protestants, exiles for religion; men disciplined by misfortune, cultivated by opportunities of extensive observation, equal 150 THE PILGRIMS AT CAPE COD. [1620. in rank as in rights, and bound by no code, but that which was imposed by religion, or might be created by the public will. The eastern coast of the United States abounds in beautiful and convenient harbors, in majestic bays and rivers: the first Virginia colony, sailing along the shores of North Carolina, was, by a favoring storm, driven into the magnificent Bay of the Chesapeake; the Pilgrims, having selected as the place for their settlement the mouth of the Hudson, the best position on the whole coast, were, by the ignorance and self-will of their captain, conducted to the most barren and inhospitable part of Massachusetts. After a long and boisterous voyage of sixty-three days, during which one person had died, they espied land, and, in two days more, on the ninth of November, were safely moored in the harbor of Cape Cod. Yet, before they landed, the manner in which their government should be constituted, was debated; and they formed themselves into a body politic by a solemn voluntary compact: "In the name of God, amen; we, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign King James, having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do, by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and, by virtue hereof, to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most convenient for the general good of the colony. Unto which we promise all due submission and obedience." This instrument was signed by the whole body of men, forty-one in number, who, with their families, constituted the one hundred and one, the whole colony, 1620.] THE PILGRIMS AT CAPE COD. 151 "the proper democracy," that arrived in New England. Here was the birth of popular constitutional liberty. The middle age had been familiar with charters and constitutions; but they had been merely compacts for immunities, partial enfranchisements, patents of nobility, concessions of municipal privileges, or limitations of the sovereign power in favor of feudal institutions. In the cabin of the Mayflower, humanity recovered its rights, and instituted government on the basis of " equal laws" for "the general good." John Carver was immediately and unanimously chosen governor for the year. Men who emigrate, even in well-inhabited districts, pray that their journey may not be in winter. Wasted by the rough and wearisome voyage, ill supplied with provisions, the English fugitives found themselves, at the opening of winter, on a barren and bleak coast, in a severe climate, with the ocean on one side, and the wilderness on the other. There were none to show them kindness or bid them welcome. The nearest French settlement was at Port Royal; it was five hundred miles to the English plantation in Virginia. As they attempted to disembark, the water was found so shallow, that they were forced to wade; and, in the freezing weather, the very act of getting on land sowed the seeds of consumption and inflammatory colds. The bitterness of mortal disease was their welcome to the inhospitable shore. The season was already fast bringing winter, and the spot for the settlement remained to be chosen. Standish and Bradford, and others, impatient of the delay, determined to explore the country by land. But what discoveries could be made by wading through the deep sands that divide Provincetown from Truro? The first expedition in the shallop was likewise unsuccessful; some of the people, that died that winter, took the original of their death in the enterprise; "for it snowed and did blow all the day and night, and froze withal." The men who were set on shore "were tired with marching up and 66 |