WITH THE MERCHANT ADVENTURERS. VI. 83 and boats for fishing upon the sea; employing the CHAP. rest in their several faculties upon the land, as building houses, tilling and planting the ground, and mak- 1620. ing such commodities as shall be most useful for the Colony. 5. That at the end of the seven years, the capital and the profits, viz. the houses, lands, goods, and chattels, be equally divided among the adventurers. If any debt or detriment concerning this adventure 1 6. Whosoever cometh to the Colony hereafter, or putteth any thing into the stock, shall at the end of the seven years be allowed proportionally to the time of his so doing. 7. He that shall carry his wife, or children, or servants, shall be allowed for every person, now aged sixteen years and upward, a single share in the division; or if he provide them necessaries, a double share; or if they be between ten years old and sixteen, then two of them to be reckoned for a person, both in transportation and division. 8. That such children that now go and are under the age of ten years, have no other share in the division than fifty acres of unmanured land. 9. That such persons as die before the seven years be expired, their executors to have their parts or share at the division, proportionably to the time of their life in the Colony. 10. That all such persons as are of the Colony are to have meat, drink, and apparel, and all provisions, out of the common stock and goods of the said Colony. 1 Here something seems to be wanting, of the nature of a new article or condition, which cannot now be supplied. This hiatus might, possibly, be filled up from 84 VI. THE PILGRIMS ACCEPT THE HARD CONDITIONS. CHAP. The difference between the conditions thus expressed and the former, before their alteration, stood 1620. in these two points; first, that the houses and lands improved, especially gardens and home-fields, should remain undivided, wholly to the planters, at the seven years' end; secondly, that the planters should have two days in the week for their own private employment, for the comfort of themselves and their families, especially such as had them to take care for.1 The altering of those two conditions was very afflictive to the minds of such as were concerned in the voyage. But Mr. Cushman, their principal agent, answered the complaints peremptorily, that unless they had so ordered the conditions, the whole design would have fallen to the ground; and necessity, they said, 1 Robertson says, 81. There is no foundation for this charge. The Plymouth people were not "misguided by their religious theories, nor influenced by an "imitation of the primitive Christians," in forming their joint stock company. They entered into this hard and disadvantageous engagement with the merchant adventurers not voluntarily, but of necessity, in order to obtain shipping for transporting themselves to America; and they put their own little property into a common fund in order to purchase provisions for the voyage. It was a partnership that was instituted, not a community of goods, as that phrase is commonly understood. They dissolved this partnership, and set up for themselves, as soon as they were able; as will be seen hereafter. A VESSEL AND PILOT ARE PROVIDED. VI. 85 having no law, they were constrained to be silent. CHAP. The poor planters met with much difficulty both before and after the expiring of the seven years, and 1620. found much trouble in making up accounts with the adventurers about the division; at which time, though those that adventured their money were no great gainers, yet those that adventured their lives in carrying on the business of the Plantation were by much the greatest sufferers.]1 1 4. [Mr. Robinson writes to Mr. Carver, and com- June plains of Mr. Weston's neglect in getting shipping in England; for want of which they are in a piteous case at Leyden. And S. F., E. W., W. B., and J. A.2 write from Leyden to Mr. Carver and Cushman, that 10. the coming of Mr. Nash and their pilot is a great encouragement to them. 3 4 Mr. Cushman, in a letter from London to Mr. Car- 10. ver at Southampton, says that Mr. Crabe, a minister, had promised to go, but is much opposed, and like to fail; and in a letter to the people at Leyden, that he had hired another pilot, one Mr. Clark, who went last year to Virginia; that he is getting a ship, hopes he shall make all ready at London in fourteen days, and would have Mr. Reynolds tarry in Holland, and bring the ship there to Southampton.] * 1 The passage within brackets is taken from Hubbard's History. It is impossible to say where he obtained it, except from Bradford's MS. It is to be found nowhere else, and is essential to the completeness of the History. I have taken care to collate Hubbard's MS. which is in the archives of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 2 These doubtless are the initials of Samuel Fuller, Edward Winslow, William Bradford, and Isaac Allerton. 6 3 The name of Thomas Nash is subscribed, with others, to a letter written at Leyden Nov. 30, 1625, addressed to Bradford and Brewster. See Mass. Hist. Coll. iii. 44. 4 Clark, as will be seen hereafter, was master's mate on board the Mayflower. 5 The small ship, called the Speedwell, of which Reynolds was captain. 6 These last two paragraphs are taken from Prince, p. 158, who copied them from Bradford's MS. CHAPTER VII. OF THEIR DEPARTURE FROM LEYDEN, AND EMBARKATION VII. CHAP. AFTER such travail and turmoils1 and debates which they went through, things were gotten ready for their 1620. departure from Leyden. A small ship was provided in Holland, of about sixty tons, which was intended, as to serve to transport some of them over the seas, so to stay in the country and to tend upon fishing and such other affairs as might be for the good and benefit of the whole, when they should come to the place intended." Another was hired at London, of burden about ninescore, and all other things got in a readiness. 1 "Much of their troubles respecting this matter is not expressed in this book." - Morton's Note. 2 This vessel was less than the average size of the fishing-smacks that go to the Grand Bank. This seems a frail bark in which to cross a stormy ocean of three thousand miles in extent. Yet it should be remembered, that two of the ships of Columbus on his first daring and perilous voyage of discovery were light vessels, without decks, little superior to the small craft that ply on our rivers and along our coasts. Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, the contemporary of Columbus, and the first writer who mentions the discovery of America, says "Ex regio fisco destinata sunt tria navigia; unum onerarium cavatum, alia duo levia mercatoria, sine caveis quæ ab Hispanis caravelæ vocantur." De Orbe Novo, dec. i. cap. i. (p. 2, ed. 1587.) "At the length three ships were appointed him at the king's charges; of the which one was a great carrack with decks, and the other two light merchant ships without decks, which the Spaniards call caravels." (Eden's trans. p. 8, ed. 1577.) Frobisher's fleet consisted of two barks of twenty-five tons each, and a pinnace of ten tons, when he sailed in 1576, to discover a north-west passage to the Indies. Sir Francis Drake, too, embarked on his voyage for circumnavigating the globe, in 1577, with five vessels, of which the largest was of one hundred, and the smallest of fifteen tons. THE PILGRIMS LEAVE LEYDEN. pro And 87 VII. So being ready to depart, they had a day of solemn CHAP. humiliation, their pastor taking his text from Ezra the viiith, 21. “And there, at the river, by Ahava, I 1620. claimed a fast, that we might humble ourselves before our God, and seek of him a right way for us, and for our children, and for all our substance." Upon which he spent a good part of the day very profitably, and suitably to their present occasion.1 The rest of the time was spent in pouring out prayers to the Lord with great fervency, mixed with abundance of tears. the time being come that they must depart, they were accompanied with the most of their brethren out July of the city unto a town sundry miles off, called Delft- 21. Haven,2 where the ship lay ready to receive them. So they left that goodly and pleasant city, which had been their resting-place near twelve years. But they knew they were PILGRIMS,3 and looked not much on those things, but lifted up their eyes to heaven, their dearest country, and quieted their spirits. The bark in which Sir Humphrey Gilbert perished was of ten tons only. The Little James, which the Company sent over to Plymouth in July 1623, was a pinnace of only forty-four tons. See Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, ii. p. 11, Doc. Diplom. 7; Irving's Life of Columbus, i. 113, iii. 303-306; Kippis's Biog. Britann. v. 345; Aikin's Gen. Biog. iii. 449, iv. 249; Prince, p. 220.- Mather, i. 47, is inaccurate in stating that the Speedwell was hired, in which error he is followed by the authors of the Mod. Univ. Hist. xxxix. 272. In a vessel of the same name, of fifty tons, Martin Pring had in 1603 coasted along the shores of New England. See Prince, p. 102; Belknap. ii. 124. 1 Edward Winslow, who was present, has preserved a portion of Robinson's farewell discourse. It 2 Delft-Haven is a commodious 3 "I think I may with singular propriety call their lives a pilgrimage. Most of them left England about the year 1609, after the truce with the Spaniards, young men between twenty and thirty years of age. They spent near twelve years, strangers among the Dutch, first at Amsterdam, afterwards at Leyden. After having arrived to the meridian of life, the declining part was to Heb. xi. 13. |