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THEY ARE COMPELLED TO PUT BACK TWICE.

CHAP. meet oftentimes with many discouragements. For VIII. they had not sailed far, before Mr. Reynolds, the mas1620. ter of the lesser ship, complained that he found his ship so leaky, as he durst not put further to sea. On Aug. which they were forced to put in at Dartmouth, Mr. 13. Jones, the master of the biggest ship, likewise putting

in there with him; and the said lesser ship was searched, and mended, and judged sufficient for the Aug. voyage by the workmen that mended her. On which 21. both the said ships put to sea the second time. But

they had not sailed above a hundred leagues, ere the said Reynolds again complained of his ship being so leaky as that he feared he should founder in the sea if he held on; and then both ships bore up again, and went in at Plymouth.' But being there searched again, no great matter appeared, but it was judged to be the general weakness of the ship.

But the true reason of the retarding and delaying of matters was not as yet discerned. The one of them respecting the ship, (as afterwards was found,) was that she was overmasted; which when she came to her trim in that respect, she did well, and made divers profitable and successful voyages. But secondly, and more especially, by the deceit of the master and his company, who were hired to stay a whole

As this account of the voyage is substantially Bradford's, as appears from comparing it with the extracts from his MS. in Prince, and as Morton refers to his Memorial merely to save the labor of copying, and would undoubtedly have inserted it had he caused his uncle's History to be printed, I have deemed it proper to make it a part of the narrative; enclosing it, however, in brackets to distinguish

it from what is contained in the Church records.

1 Grahame, i. 190, errs in saying that "the emigrants were at first driven back by a storm, which destroyed one of their vessels;" and Gorges is wrong in stating that they sailed in three ships, "whereof two proved unserviceable, and so were left behind." See Mass. Hist. Coll. xxvi. 73.

THEY DISMISS ONE OF THEIR VESSELS.

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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
by merchants and seamen. -Smith
and Purchas say they discharge 20
of their passengers.

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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 hold their voyage.3 And so, after many boisterous storms, in which they

4

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

x., and Marshall, Life of Washington, i. 91, and again Hist. Amer. Col. p. 80, err in crowding the whole 120 into the ship. Oldmixon, i. 30, who generally outdoes all others in his blunders, magnifies the number to 150.

3

Prince, p. 161, reads this word wracked in Bradford's MS.

Prince, p. 161, quotes Bradford's MS. as saying, "a passenger having brought a great iron screw from Holland."

5" Nov. 6, dies at sea William Butten, a youth, and servant to Samuel Fuller, being the only passenger who dies on the voyage." Bradford, in Prince, p. 161. One child was born, and called Oceanus, the son of Stephen Hopkins. Bradford, in Prince, p. 172.

THEY FALL IN WITH CAPE COD.

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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 rot a 9, little joyful.

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2 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 seen 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.

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Nov

THEY STAND SOUTH FOR HUDSON'S RIVER.

CHAP. 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

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