Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

50

THE OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

CHAP. Within them, and make the weak to quake and tremIV. ble. It was further objected, that it would require 1617. greater sums of money to furnish such a voyage and

to fit them with necessaries, than their estates would amount to. And yet they must all as well look to be seconded with supplies, as presently to be transported. Also, the like precedents of ill success and lamentable miseries befallen others in the like designs,' were easy to be found, and not forgotten to be alleged; besides their own experience in their former troubles and hardships in their removal into Holland, and how hard a thing it was for them to live in that strange place, although it was a neighbour country, and a civil and rich commonwealth.

It was answered, that all great and honorable actions were accompanied with great difficulties, and must be both enterprised and overcome with answerable courages. It was granted the dangers were great, but not desperate, and the difficulties were many, but not invincible; for although there were many of them likely, yet they were not certain. It might be that some of the things feared might never befall them; others, by providence, care, and the use of good means, might in a great measure be prevented; and all of them through the help of God, by fortitude and patience, might either be borne or overcome. True it was that such attempts were not to be made and undertaken but upon good ground and reason, not rashly or lightly, as many have done for curiosity or

The entire failure of the plantation at Sagadahoc, near the mouth of the Kennebec, in 1607, which was abandoned in less than a year, and the slow progress of the Virginia settlements, might well

serve to discourage them from emigrating to America. See Gorges's Brief Narrative, in Mass. Hist. Coll. xxvi. 54-56, and Williamson's History of Maine, i. 197 203.

REASONS AGAINST REMOVAL.

IV.

49

sought to divert from it, alleging many things, and CHAP. those neither unreasonable nor unprobable; as that it was a great design, and subject to many inconceivable 1617. perils and dangers; as, besides the casualties of the seas, (which none can be freed from,) the length of the voyage was such as the weak bodies of men and women and such other persons, worn out with age and travail, (as many of them werc,) could never be able to endure; and yet if they should, the miseries of the land which they should be exposed unto would be too hard to be borne, and likely, some or all of them, to consume and utterly to ruinate them. For there they should be liable to famine, and nakedness, and the want, in a manner, of all things. The changing of the air, diet, and drinking of water would infect their bodies with sore sicknesses; and all those which should escape or overcome these difficulties should yet be in continual danger of the salvage people, who are cruel, barbarous, and treacherous, being most furious in their rage and merciless where they overcome, not being content only to kill and take away life, but delight to torment men in most bloody manner that may be, flaying men alive with the shells of fishes, cutting off the joints and members of others by piecemeals, and broiling them on the coals, and causing men to eat the collops of their flesh in their sight whilst they live; with other cruelties horrible to be related. And surely it could not be thought but the hearing of these things could not but move the bowels of men to grate

"Immensus ultrà, utque sic dixerim, adversus oceanus raris ab orbe nostro navibus aditur? Quis porro, præter periculum horridi et ignoti maris, Ásià, aut Africâ aut

Italiâ relictâ, Germaniam peteret,
informem terris, asperam cœlo, tris-
tem cultu aspectuque, nisi si patria
sit?" Tacitus, Germania, ii.

50

THE OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.

CHAP. Within them, and make the weak to quake and tremIV. ble. It was further objected, that it would require 1617. greater sums of money to furnish such a voyage and

to fit them with necessaries, than their estates would amount to. And yet they must all as well look to be seconded with supplies, as presently to be transported. Also, the like precedents of ill success and lamentable miseries befallen others in the like designs,' were easy to be found, and not forgotten to be alleged; besides their own experience in their former troubles and hardships in their removal into Holland, and how hard a thing it was for them to live in that strange place, although it was a neighbour country, and a civil and rich commonwealth.

It was answered, that all great and honorable actions were accompanied with great difficulties, and must be both enterprised and overcome with answerable courages. It was granted the dangers were great, but not desperate, and the difficulties were many, but not invincible; for although there were many of them likely, yet they were not certain. It might be that some of the things feared might never befall them; others, by providence, care, and the use of good means, might in a great measure be prevented; and all of them through the help of God, by fortitude and patience, might either be borne or overcome. True it was that such attempts were not to be made and undertaken but upon good ground and reason, not rashly or lightly, as many have done for curiosity or

The entire failure of the plantation at Sagadahoc, near the mouth of the Kennebec, in 1607, which was abandoned in less than a year, and the slow progress of the Virginia settlements, might well

serve to discourage them from emigrating to America. See Gorges's Brief Narrative, in Mass. Hist. Coll. xxvi. 54-56, and Williamson's History of Maine, i. 197203.

THE PILGRIMS RESOLVE TO EMIGRATE.

51

IV.

hope of gain, &c. But their condition was not ordi- CHAP. nary. Their ends were good and honorable, their calling lawful and urgent, and therefore they might 1617. expect a blessing of God in their proceeding; yea, although they should lose their lives in this action, yet they might have comfort in the same; and their endeavours would be honorable. They lived here but

as men in exile and in a poor condition; and as great miseries might possibly befall them in this place; for the twelve years of truce were now out,' and there was nothing but beating of drums and preparing for war, the events whereof are always uncertain. The Spaniard might prove as cruel as the salvages of America, and the famine and pestilence are sore here as there, and liberty less to look out for remedy. After many other particular things answered and alleged on both sides, it was fully concluded by the major part to put this design in execution, and to prosecute it by the best means they could.

The twelve years' truce, concluded April 9, 1609, expired in

1621, when the war was renewed.
See Note on page 44.

CHAPTER V.

SHOWING WHAT MEANS THEY USED FOR PREPARATION TO
THIS WEIGHTY VOYAGE.

CHAP.

V.

AND first, after their humble prayers unto God for his direction and assistance, and a general conference 1617. held thereabouts, they consulted what particular place to pitch upon and prepare for. Some, and none of the meanest, had thoughts and were earnest for Guiana,' or some of those fertile places in those hot cli

Sir Walter Raleigh published in 1596 his " Discovery of Guiana,” which he calls a mighty, rich and beautiful empire, directly east from Peru, towards the sea, lying under the equinoctial line. Its capital was "that great and golden city which the Spaniards call El Dorado, and the natives Manoa, and for greatness, riches, and excellent seat it far exceedeth any of the world." Having, in 1595, sailed up the Orinoco 400 miles in quest of it, he says, "On both sides of this river we passed the most beautiful country that ever mine eyes beheld; plains of twenty miles in length, the grass short and green, and in divers parts groves of trees by themselves, as if they had been by all the art and labor of the world so made of pur pose; and still as we rowed, the deer came down feeding by the

-

water's side, as if they had been used to a keeper's call. I never saw a more beautiful country, nor more lively prospects, hills so raised here and there over the valleys, the river winding into divers branches, the plains adjoining without bush or stubble, all fair green grass, the deer crossing in every path, the birds towards the evening singing on every tree with a thousand several tunes, the air fresh, with a gentle easterly wind; and every stone that we stopped to take up promised either gold or silver by his complexion. - For health, good air, pleasure, and riches, I am resolved it cannot be equalled by any region either in the east or west. See Raleigh's Works, viii. 381, 398, 427, 442, 462. (Oxford ed.)

Chapman, too, the translator of

« ElőzőTovább »