"RELATION OF Iournal of the beginning and proceedings of the English Plantation setled at Plimoth in NEW-ENGLAND, by certaine English Adventurers both Merchants and others. With their difficult passage, their safe arriuall, their ioyfull building of, and comfortable planting themselves in the now well defended Towne of NEW PLIMOTH. As also a Relation of foure seuerall discoueries since made by some of the same English Planters there resident. I. In a journey to Packanokick, the habitation of the Indians. greatest King Massasoyt; as also their message, the answer and entertainment they had of him. II. In a voyage made by ten of them to the Kingdome of Nawset, to seeke a boy that had lost himselfe in the woods: with such accidents as befell them in that voyage. III. In their journey to the Kingdome of Namaschet, in defence of their greatest King Massasoyt, against the Narrohiggonsets, and to reuenge the supposed death of their Interpreter Tisquantum. IIII. Their voyage to the Massachusets, and their entertainment there. With an answer to all such objections as are any way made against the lawfulnesse of English plantations in those parts. LONDON. Printed for Iohn Bellamie, and are to be sold at his shop at the two Greyhounds in Cornhill neere the Royall Exchange. 1622." sm. 4to. TO THE READER. COURTEOUS READER, BE entreated to make a favorable construction of my forwardness in publishing these ensuing discourses. The desire of carrying the Gospel of Christ into those foreign parts, amongst those people that as yet have had no knowledge nor taste of God, as also to procure unto themselves and others a quiet and comfortable habitation, were, amongst other things, the inducements unto these undertakers of the then hopeful, and now experimentally known good enterprise for plantation in New England, to set afoot and prosecute the same. And though it fared with them, as it is common to the most actions of this nature, that the first attempts prove difficult, as the sequel more at large expresseth, yet it hath pleased God, even beyond our expectation in so short a time, to give hope of letting some of them see (though some he hath taken out of this vale of tears)1 some grounds of hope of the accomplishment of both those ends by them at first propounded. 1 The writer studiously suppres- than half of the first Colonists had ses the discouraging fact that more already perished. 112 GEORGE MORTON'S PREFACE. And as myself then much desired, and shortly hope to effect, if the Lord will, the putting to of my shoulder in this hopeful business, and in the mean time these Relations coming to my hand from my both known and faithful friends, on whose writings I do much rely, I thought it not amiss to make them more general, hoping of a cheerful proceeding both of adventurers and planters; entreating that the example of the honorable Virginia and Bermudas1 Companies, encountering with so many disasters, and that for divers years together with an unwearied resolution, the good effects whereof are now eminent, may prevail as a spur of preparation also touching this no less hopeful country, though yet an infant, the extent and commodities whereof are as yet not fully known after time will unfold more. Such as desire to take knowledge of things, may inform themselves by this ensuing treatise, and, if they please also by such as have been there a first and second time. My hearty prayer to God is that the event of his and all other honorable and honest undertakings, may be for the furtherance of the kingdom of Christ, the enlarging of the bounds of our sovereign lord King James, and the 1 By the third patent of the Virginia Company, granted in 1612, the Bermudas, and all islands within three hundred leagues of the coast, were included within the limits of their jurisdiction. These islands they sold to 120 of their own members, who became a distinct corporation, under the name of the Somer Islands Company. See Stith's Virginia, p. 127, App. 24. * After the failure of Popham's colony at Sagadahoc in 1608, North good and profit of those Virginia or New England had been branded as "a cold, barren, mountainous, rocky desert," and had been abandoned as "uninhabitable by Englishmen." See Gorges in Mass. Hist. Coll. xxvi. 56; and Capt. John Smith in his Gen. Hist. ii. 174. 3 Cushman had just returned from Plymouth, and Clark and Coppin, the mates or pilots of the Mayflower, had been on the coast twice. the same. GEORGE MORTON'S PREFACE. who, either by purse or person or both, are agents in 1 Who was G. Mourt? From his Preface it is evident that he was a person in England interested in the success of the Plymouth Colony, identifying himself with it, as appears from the expression, "even beyond our expectation," having "much desired" to embark with the first colonists, and intending soon to go over and join them. It is also evident that he had familiar and friendly relations with some of them, ("these Relations coming to my hand from my both known and faithful friends,") and that he was one in whom they reposed such entire confidence as to send to him their first despatches of letters and journals. The only individual answering to this description that I can ascertain, is George Morton, who had married a sister of Gov. Bradford, and came over to Plymouth in July, 1623, in the first ship that sailed for the Colony after this Journal was printed. He is represented in the Memorial, p. 101, as very faithful in whatsoever public employment he was betrusted withal, and an 66 G. MOURT.1 unfeigned well-willer and promoter of the common good and growth of the plantation of New Plymouth." Mourt may have been written designedly for Morton, from a disinclination on his part to have his name appear publicly in print, or it may have been a mistake of the printer, the final letters, from some flourish of the pen or otherwise, not being distinctly legible. Several other typographical errors, more important and palpable than this, occur in the Journal. It will be seen hereafter that Carver's name was printed Leaver, and Williams, by a flourish of the pen, was converted into Williamson. Prince, p. 132, errs in saying that this Journal was published by Mourt; and his editor, p. 439, (ed. 1826,) errs in stating that Prince had only Purchas's abridgment of it. He had the entire work, on the title-page of which it is stated that it was printed for John Bellamy," who continued for at least twentyfive years from that time (1622,) to be the principal publisher of books relating to New England. 66 15 113 |