Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

THEY DISMISS ONE OF THEIR VESSELS.

99

VIII.

year in the country; but now fancying dislike, and CHAP. fearing want of victuals, they plotted this stratagem to free themselves, as afterwards was known, and by 1620. Aug. some of them confessed. For they apprehended that the greater ship being of force, and in whom most of the provisions were bestowed, that she should retain enough for herself, whatsoever became of them and the passengers. But so strong was self-love and deceit in this man, as he forgot all duty and former kindness, and dealt thus falsely with them.

These things thus falling out, it was resolved by the whole to dismiss the lesser ship and part of the company with her, and that the other part of the company should proceed in the bigger ship.' Which when they had ordered matters in reference thereunto, they made. another sad parting, the one ship, viz. the lesser, going

'Neal, in his History of New England, i. 86, says, "Mr. Cushman and his family, with some others that were more fearful, went ashore, and did not proceed on the voyage." Baylies, too, in his Memoir of Plymouth, i. 25, says, "about twenty of the passengers were discouraged, and would not reimbark." There is no ground for such an imputation on the courage or perseverance of any of the emigrants; and it is a matter of regret that Mr. Bancroft should have lent to it the sanction of his authority. He says, i. 307, "the timid and the hesitating were all freely allowed to abandon the expedition. Having thus winnowed their numbers of the cowardly and the disaffect ed," &c. Yet Robert Cushman, one of the most energetic and resolute of the Pilgrims, "who was as their right hand," and who came over in the next ship, the Fortune, in Nov. 1621, was among those thus "winnowed." The dismissal of a part

was a matter of necessity, as the
Mayflower could not carry the
whole. Bradford, as quoted by
Prince, p. 161, says,
"they agree
to dismiss her, (the Speedwell,) and
those who are willing, to return to
London, though this was very
grievous and discouraging; Mr.
Cushman and family returning
with them." In the text, too,
which is virtually Bradford's, we
are told, "it was resolved by the
whole to dismiss the lesser ship and
part of the company with her."
It was the captain and crew of the
Speedwell that were unwilling to
go, not his passengers; and the
error seems to have arisen from
considering the word company, in
the passage "by the deceit of the
master and his company," as mean-
ing the emigrants instead of the
sailors; in which latter sense it is
constantly used at the present day
Smith
by merchants and seamen.-
and Purchas say they discharge 20
of their passengers.

100

VIII.

THEIR LONG AND BOISTEROUS VOYAGE.

CHAP. back for London, and the other, viz. the MAYFLOWER,' Mr. Jones being master, proceeding on in the intended 1620. voyage.

These troubles being blown over, and now all being Sept. compact together in one ship, they put to sea again 6. with a prosperous wind. But after they had enjoyed

fair winds for a season, they met with many contrary
winds and fierce storms, with which their ship was
shrewdly shaken, and her upper works made very
leaky; and one of the main beams of the mid-ships
was bowed and cracked, which put them to some fear
that she would not be able to perform the voyage; on
which the principal of the seamen and passengers had
serious consultation what to do, whether to return or
hold on. But the ship proving strong under water, by
a screw the said beam was brought into his place
again; which being done, and well secured by the
carpenter, they resolved to
their voyage.
to hold
And so, after many boisterous storms, in which they

[ocr errors]

The Mayflower is a ship of renown in the history of the colonization of New England. She was one of the five vessels which in 1629 conveyed Higginson's company to Salem, and also one of the fleet which in 1630 brought over Winthrop and his Colony to Massachusetts Bay. See Savage's Winthrop, i. 2; Hutchinson's Collection of Papers, p. 33; Hazard, i.

278.

With 100 persons, besides the crew of the vessel, according to Smith and Purchas-which corresponds exactly to the number that arrived at Cape Cod, according to Gov. Bradford's list, preserved by Prince, p. 172. Neal, Hist. N. E. i. 87, Douglass, i. 370, Robertson, History of America, book

5

[blocks in formation]

THEY FALL IN WITH CAPE COD.

2

101

VIII.

1620.

could bear no sail, but were forced to lie at hull many CHAP. days together,' after long beating at sea, they fell in with the land called CAPE COD; the which being made, and certainly known to be it, they were not a little joyful.

'On Nov. 3, about a week before their arrival at Cape Cod, King James had signed the patent for the incorporation of the adventurers to the Northern Colony of Virginia, or New England. The Pilgrims, however, did not hear of this till the arrival of the next ship, the Fortune, in Nov. 1621. See Note on page 80, and Prince, p. 180.

CAPE COD, the most remarkable feature in the configuration of the New England coast, and the first spot in it ever pressed by the footsteps of Englishmen, was discovered May 15, 1602, by Bartholomew Gosnold, who gave it the name on account of the abundance of cod which he caught in its neigh bourhood. John Brereton, who was one of the companions of Gosnold, and wrote a Journal of the voyage, says, they first made land May 14, in lat. 43°, and "about three of the clock the same day in the afternoon we weighed, and standing southerly off into the sea the rest of that day and the night following, with a fresh gale of wind, in the morning we found ourselves embayed with a mighty headland. At length we perceived this headland to be parcel of the main. In five or six hours we pestered our ship so with codfish, that we threw numbers of them overboard again. We sailed round about this headland almost all the points of the compass, the shore very bold, the land somewhat low, full of goodly woods, but in some places plain." Henry Hudson, Aug. 3, 1609, saw land in 41° 43', and sailing north, anchored at the north end of this headland. Five of his men went on shore and "found

goodly grapes and rose trees, and brought them aboard with them." Supposing it to be an island, and that he was its first discoverer, he called it New Holland. In a Dutch map, printed at Amsterdam in 1659, by Nicholas John Vischer, the whole Cape is called Nieuw Hollant, and the northern extremity is called Staaten Hoeck, State Point, or Witte Hoeck, White Point, probably from the white sand hills. The French called it, for the same reason, Cap Blanc. Capt. John Smith, who surveyed the coast in 1614, says, "Cape Cod is a headland of high hills of sand, overgrown with shrubby pines, hurts, and such trash, but an excellent harbour for all weathers. This Cape is made by the main sea, on the one side, and a great bay on the other, in form of a sickle. On it doth inhabit the people of Pawmet." Charles, Prince of Wales, altered its name to Cape James, in honor of his father. But the original name could not be so easily supplanted; "a name," says Cotton Mather, "which I suppose it will never lose till shoals of codfish be scen swimming on its highest hills." See Purchas's Pilgrims, iv. 1647; iii. 587; De Laet, India Occidentalis Descriptio, p. 70; Moulton's N. Y. p. 206; N. Y. Hist. Coll. i. 121; Mass. Hist. Coll. xxvi. 119; Mather's Magnalia, i. 43. For the use of Brereton's Journal I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Aspinwall, U. S. Consul at London, who, at my request, sent over a copy of this very rare work to the Mass. Hist. Society. It will appear in the next volume of their Collections.

Nov. 9.

102

СНАР.
VIII.

Nov.

THEY STAND SOUTH FOR HUDSON'S RIVER.

After some little deliberation had amongst themselves with the master of the ship, they tacked about 1620. to stand to the southward to find some place about Hudson's river (according to their first intentions) for their habitations.' But they had not sailed that course above half a day, before they fell amongst perilous

9.

There can be no doubt that the Pilgrims intended to settle in the neighbourhood of Hudson's river. This is evident from the early narratives written by Bradford and Winslow. As their patent from the Virginia Company did not authorize them to plant themselves north of the 40th degree, they probably designed to settle south of the Hudson, somewhere in New Jersey. But head winds, the shoals and breakers of Cape Cod, and the lateness of the season, conspired to prevent their original purpose. As Belknap says, ii. 188, having been so long at sea, the sight of any land was welcome to women and children; the new danger was formidable; and the eagerness of the passengers to be set on shore was irresistible."

Morton, in his Memorial, gives another account of the matter. He says, p. 34, "Their putting into this place, (Cape Cod harbour,) was partly by reason of a storm, by which they were forced in, but more especially by the fraudulency and contrivance of Mr. Jones, the master of the ship; for their intention, as is before noted, and his engagement, was to Hudson's river. But some of the Dutch having notice of their intentions, and having thoughts about the same time of erecting a plantation there likewise, they fraudulently hired the said Jones, by delays while they were in England, and now under pretence of the danger of the shoals, &c. to disappoint them in their going thither." He adds, in a note, "Of this plot betwixt the Dutch and Mr. Jones I have had late and certain intelligence." But the contemporary

narratives, written by Bradford and Winslow, say not a word about this treachery of the captain; nor does Bradford's History, as quoted by Prince, p. 162, who is therefore obliged to derive this statement from Morton. Morton is the first to mention it, and he does it in a book printed in 1669, half a century after the event is said to have occurred. He says, it is true, that he "had late and certain intelligence of this plot." If it had been early intelligence, it would have been more certain. But Morton was only eleven years old when he came over with his father to Plymouth in 1623; and in 1669, when he published his book, all the first comers were dead, who could have furnished credible information on this point. They had died, and "given no sign"-not even lisped a syllable of complaint against the master of the Mayflower. It was too late then to get certain intelligence of a fact that had slumbered for fifty years, and which, if well founded, would from the first landing have been notorious, and had a place in every account that was written of the Colony. The silence of Bradford and Winslow seems conclusive on the point. Yet this story has been repeated from Morton in an endless series by Hubbard, Mather, Prince, Neal, Hutchinson, Belknap, Holmes, Baylies, and Grahame, down to the present time. Moulton, in his unfinished but valuable History of New York, p. 355, was the first to question it. Bancroft, i. 309, relieves the captain from the charge of "treachery," but subjects him to another charge of "ignorance and self-will," for

THEY PUT BACK TO CAPE COD HARBOUR.

103

VIII.

shoals and breakers,' and they were so far entangled CHAP. therewith as they conceived themselves in great danger; and the wind shrinking upon them withal, they 1620. resolved to bear up again for the Cape aforesaid. The next day, by God's providence, they got into the Cape Nov. harbour.] 2

Being now passed the vast ocean and a sea of troubles, before their preparation unto further proceedings, as to seek out a place for habitation, &c. they fell down upon their knees and blessed the Lord, the God of

which there seems as little ground as for the other. I know not why Oldmixon, i. 29, and Grahame, i. 190, call Jones a Dutchman.

The Mayflower probably made the Cape towards its northern extremity. The perilous shoals and breakers, among which she became entangled after sailing above half a day south, (or south-south-west, as the contemporary account states, in Bradford's Journal,) were undoubtedly those which lie off the southeastern extremity of the Cape, near Monatnoy Point. The Pollock Rip, the most considerable of these, corresponds to the "roaring " shoals mentioned by Bradford, in Prince, p. 162. She may also have encountered the Great and Little Round Shoals. It is not likely that she sailed far enough south to fall in with the Bass Rip or the Great Rip. Before she could reach these, the current and the flood tide probably drove her in between Monamoy Point and Nantucket. Had the wind permitted her to pursue a southern course, she might, in a few hours, have found an opening, and passed safely to the westward.

Gabriel Archer, in his Relation of Gosnold's voyage, in Purchas, iv. 1648, says, "We trended the coast southerly; twelve leagues from Cape Cod (Provincetown) we descried a point, with some breach (breaker) a good distance off, and

keeping our luff to double it, we
came on the sudden into shoal
water; yet well quitted ourselves
thereof. This breach we called
Tucker's Terror, upon his express-
ed fear. The point we named
Point Care." Tucker's Terror is
no doubt the Pollock Rip, and
Point Care is Monamoy Point.
Robert Juet, Hudson's mate, in his
account of their voyage, after
stating that they first made the
land at the south-eastern point of
the Cape, says, "We found a flood
come from the south-east, and an
ebb from the north-west, with a
very strong stream, and a great
hurling and noises." This too was
the Pollock Rip.
Smith says,
"Towards the south and south-
west of this Cape is found a long
and dangerous shoal of sands and
rocks; but so far as I encircled it,
I found thirty fathom water aboard
the shore, which makes me think
there is a channel about this shoal."
This also must have been the Pol-
lock Rip. See Purchas, iii. 587;
N. Y. Hist. Coll. i. 121; Mass.
Hist. Coll. xxvi. 119.

"Let us go up in imagination.
to yonder hill, and look out upon
the November scene. That single
dark speck, just discernible through
the perspective glass, on the waste
of waters, is the fated vessel. The
storm moans through her tattered
canvass, as she creeps, almost sink-

11.

« ElőzőTovább »