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LANDING OF THE FATHERS AT PLYMOUTH.

161

IX.

Dec.

And in the morning we marched about it, and found CHAP. no inhabitants at all; and here we made our rendezvous all that day, being Saturday, 10th of December. 1620. On the Sabbath day we rested; and on Monday we 9—11 sounded the harbour, and found it a very good harbour for our shipping. We marched also into the land,"

'This is an error. Saturday was the 9th; for on page 163 the next Saturday is called the 16th, and by Allestree's Almanac for 1620, I find that the 9th of December fell on a Saturday.

This is the ever-memorable day of the Landing of the Fathers at Plymouth. "The place of the landing is satisfactorily ascertaincd. Unquestionable tradition had declared that it was on a large rock at the foot of a cliff near the termination of the north street leading to the water. In the year 1774 an attempt was made to remove this rock (over which a wharf had been built) to a more central situation. The rock was split in the operation. The upper part, weighing several tons, was removed, and now stands in front of the Pilgrim Hall, enclosed by a very appropriate iron railing, of an elliptical form. It is regarded by the inhabitants and by visiters as a precious memorial of that interesting event, the arrival of the first planters of New England at their place of settlement. The 22d of December, corresponding to the 11th, old style, has long been observed at Plymouth in commemoration of the landing of the Fathers. It has there universally the familiar and endearing appellation of Forefathers' Day." See Morton's Memorial, p. 48, and Thacher's Plymouth, pp. 29, 199.

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President Dwight, of Yale College, says, Plymouth was the first town built in New England by civilized men; and those by whom it was built were inferior in worth to no body of men whose

names are recorded in history during the last 1700 years. A kind of venerableness, arising from these facts, attaches to this town, which may be termed a prejudice. Still, it has its foundation in the nature of man, and will never be eradicated either by philosophy or ridicule. No New Englander, who is willing to indulge his native feelings, can stand upon the rock where our ancestors set the first foot after their arrival on the American shore, without experiencing emotions very different from those which are excited by any common object of the same nature. No New Englander could be willing to have that rock buried and forgotten. Let him reason as much, as coldly, and as ingeniously as he pleases, he will still regard that spot with emotions wholly different from those which are excited by other places of equal or even superior importance." Travels through New England, ii. 110.

De Tocqueville, in the second chapter of his work on America, says, "Ce rocher est devenu un objet de vénération aux Etats Unis. J'en ai vu des fragmens conservés avec soin dans plusieurs villes de l'Union. Ceci ne montre-t-il pas bien clairement que la puissance et la grandeur de l'homme est tout entière dans son ame? Voici une pierre que les pieds de quelques misérables touchent un instant, et cette pierre devient célèbre; elle attire les regards d'un grand peuple; on en vénère les debris, on s'en partage au loin la poussière. Qu'est devenu le seuil de tant de palais? Qui s'en inquiète ?

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162

IX.

THE SHALLOP RETURNS TO CAPE COD.

CHAP. and found divers cornfields, and little running brooks, a place very good for situation. So we returned to 1620. our ship' again with good news to the rest of our 13. people, which did much comfort their hearts.

Dec.

"This rock has become an object
of veneration in the United States.
I have seen bits of it carefully pre-
served in several towns of the
Union. Does not this sufficiently
show that all human power and
greatness is in the soul of man?
Here is a stone which the feet of a
few outcasts pressed for an instant;
and this stone becomes famous; it
is treasured by a great nation; its
very dust is shared as a relic. And
what has become of the gateways
of a thousand palaces? Who cares
for them?"-Reeves's Trans.

1 They left the Mayflower in Cape Cod harbour, December 6, and were three days in getting to Plymouth. They probably started on their return to the ship on the 12th, and striking across the bay, a distance of 25 miles, reached her on the 13th. They found that the day after their leaving the vessel, December 7, Dorothy, the wife of William Bradford, who was one of the party in the shallop, fell overboard, and was drowned. See Prince, p. 165.

CHAPTER X.

OF THEIR LANDING AND SETTLING AT NEW PLYMOUTH.

X.

Dec.

15.

On the 15th day we weighed anchor to go to the CHAP. place we had discovered; and coming within two leagues of the land, we could not fetch the harbour, but 1620. were fain to put round1 again towards Cape Cod, our course lying west, and the wind was at northwest. But it pleased God that the next day, being Saturday the 16th day, the wind came fair, and we put to sea again, and came safely into a safe harbour; and within half an hour the wind changed, so as if we had been letted but a little, we had gone back to Cape Cod.

This harbour is a bay greater than Cape Cod, compassed with a goodly land; and in the bay two fine islands, uninhabited, wherein are nothing but woods,

In the original, roome; manifestly an error of the press.

* Clark's island is now the only island in Plymouth harbour. It has sometimes been supposed that a shoal, called Brown's island, which lies near the entrance of the harbour, about half a mile east by north of Beach point, was above water at the time the Pilgrims arrived. Gov. Winthrop, in his History of New England, i. 169, has the following record: October 6,

1635, two shallops going, laden
with goods, to Connecticut, were
taken with an easterly storm, and
cast away upon Brown's island,
near the Gurnet's Nose, and the
men all drowned." Dr. Freeman,
in his note on this place, considers
this passage as confirming the sup-
position. But Morton, in record-
ing the same event in his Memo-
rial, p. 182, says, the night being
dark and stormy, they ran upon
a skirt of a flat that lieth near

16.

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