Boughton.

CHAPTER VIII

THE PLYMOUTH PILGRIMS

Next to the fugitives whom Moses led out of Egypt, the little shipload of outcasts who landed at Plymouth. . . are destined to influence the future of mankind. -JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

If Columbus discovered a new continent, the Pilgrims discovered the New World.-GOLDWIN SMITH.

61. The Pilgrims in Holland. To all other sects the Separatists seemed the most dangerous of radicals, mere anarchists in religion. They had been persecuted savagely by Queen Elizabeth, and some of their societies had fled to Holland. In 1608, early in the reign of James, one of their few remaining churches a little congregation from the village of Scrooby managed to escape to that same land, "wher they heard was freedome of Religion for all men":

... a countrie wher they must learn a new language and get their livings they knew not how . . . not acquainted with trads or traffique, by which that countrie. doth subsist, but . . . used to a plaine countrie life and the inocente trade of husbandrey." 1

1 William Bradford, in his History of Plymouth Plantation. The quoted passages in the following paragraphs upon Plymouth are from this source when no other authority is mentioned.

They first settled in Amsterdam, but had no sooner begun to feel safe in some measure, through toil and industry, from “ the grime and grisly face of povertie coming upon them like an armed man," than it seemed needful to move again, this time to Leyden; and

"being now hear pitchet, they fell to such trads and imployments as they best could, valewing peace and their spirituall comforte above all other riches. . . injoyinge much sweete and delighteful! societie . . . in the wayes of God"... but subject to such "greate labor and hard fare" that "many that desired to be with them . . . and to injoye the libertie of the gospell . . . chose the prisons in England rather than this libertie in Holland."

62. After some twelve years in Holland, the Pilgrims decided to remove once more, to the wilds of North America. Bradford gives three motives for this: (1) an easier livelihood, especially for their children; (2) the removal of their children from what they considered the loose morals of easy-going Dutch society; and (3) the preservation of their religious principles.

"Old age beganne to steale on many of them (and their greate and continuall labours . . . hastened it before the time). And many of their children that were of the best dispositions and gracious inclinations, haveing learnde to bear the yoake in their youth, and willing to bear parte of their parents burdens, were often times so oppressed with heavie labours that... their bodies. . . became decreped in their early youth, the vigour of nature being consumed in the very budd, as it were.

"But that which was . of all sorrows most heavie to be borne, many of their children, by these occasions and the greate licentiousnes in that countrie, and the manifold temptations of the place, were drawn away. . . into extravagante and dangerous courses, tending to dissolutenes and the danger of their souls."

Winslow (another Pilgrim historian) puts emphasis on a fourth reason, a patriotic desire to establish themselves under the English flag, one of their chief griefs in Holland being that their children intermarried with the Dutch and were drawn away from their English tongue and manners.

Of these four motives, the religious one was beyond doubt the weightiest. In Holland, there was no growth for their

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MOTIVES

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Society. It would die out, as the older members passed off the scene; and with it would die their principles. But, if they es tablished themselves in a New World,

66 a greate hope and inward zeall they had of laying some good foundation for the propagating and advancing the gospell of the kingdome of Christ in those remote parts of the world; yea, though they should be but even as stepping-stones unto others for the performing of so greate a work."

63. From the London Company the Pilgrims secured a grant of land and a charter; and, by entering into partnership with another group of London merchants, they secured the necessary money.1

For many months, says Bradford, this opening business was "delayed by many rubbs; for the Virginia Counsell was so disturbed with factions as no bussines could goe forward" (cf. § 34 and Source Book, No. 49). But when Sandys and the Puritan faction got control in that Company, the matter was quickly arranged, the more quickly, perhaps, because Brewster, one of the Pilgrim leaders, had been a trusted steward of a manor belonging to the Sandys family.

The seventy "merchant adventurers" who furnished funds subscribed stock in £10 shares. Captain John Smith says that by 1623 they had advanced more than $200,000 in modern values. Each emigrant was counted as holding one share for "adventuring" himself. That is, the emigrant and the capital that brought him to America went into equal partnership. Each emigrant who furnished money or supplies was given more shares upon the same terms as the merchants. For seven years all wealth produced was to go into a common stock, but from that stock the colonists were to have "meate, drink, apparell, and

1 Influential friends of the enterprise urged King James to aid by granting to the proposed colony the privilege of its own form of worship. A formal promise of this kind was not secured; but James allowed it to be understood that "he would connive at them provided they carried themselves peaceably."

2 This is probably an overstatement. The articles of partnership may be found in the Source Book, No. 44.

all provissions." The partnership was then to be dissolved, each colonist and each merchant taking from the common property according to his shares of stock.

The arrangement was clumsy, because it involved a system of labor in common; but it was generous toward the settlers. Penniless immigrants to Virginia became "servants," as separate, helpless individuals, to work for seven years under overseers, and at the end of the time to receive merely their freedom and some wild land. The penniless Pilgrims were "servants" for a time, in a sense; but only as one large body, and to a company of which they themselves were part: and their persons were controlled, and their labors directed, only by officers chosen by themselves from their own number.

The settlers, it is true, felt aggrieved that the merchants did not grant them also for themselves one third of their time, together with the houses they might build and the land they might improve. But it is clear now that under such an arrangement the merchants would have lost their whole venture. As it was, they made nothing.

64. Two heart-breaking years dragged along in these negotiations with the Virginia Company and the London merchants; and the season of 1620 was far wasted when (September 16) the Mayflower at last set sail. Most of the congregation stayed at Leyden, with their aged pastor, John Robinson, to await the outcome of this first expedition, and only 102 of the more robust embarked for the venture.

They meant to settle "in the northern part of Virginia," somewhere south of the Hudson. But the little vessel was tossed by the autumn storms until the captain lost his reckoning; and they made land, after ten weeks, on the bleak shore of New England, already in the clutch of winter (November 21). The tempestuous season, and the dangerous shoals off Cape Cod, made it unwise to continue the voyage. For some weeks they explored the coast in small boats, and finally decided to make their home at a place which Smith's map (§ 58) had already christened Plymouth; but it was not till the fourth day of

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THE MAYFLOWER COMPACT

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January1 that they "peganne to erecte the first house, for commone use, to receive them and their goods."

3

65. Meantime, they had adopted the Mayflower Compact. The charter from the Virginia Company had provided that they should be governed by officers of their own choosing.2 The grant, however, had no force outside Virginia; and "some of the strangers among them let fall mutinous speeches," threatening to take advantage of this condition and "to use their own libertie." To prevent such anarchy, the Pilgrims, before landing, drew up and signed a "Compact," believing "that shuch an acte by them done . . . might be as firme as any patent."

This famous agreement has sometimes been called, carelessly, a written constitution of an independent state. This it is

1 These dates are New Style. Cf. § 37, note. Some common errors regarding the Pilgrim "landing" are criticized by Channing, I, 320.

2 The exact contents of the charter are not known; but Robinson's farewell letter to the emigrants, when they were leaving Europe, refers to them as having "become a body politik . . to have only for your gouvernors them which yourselves shall make choyse of " (Source Book, No. 45).

3 Part of the expedition had joined it in England, without previous connec tion with the Leyden congregation. They had also a few "servants."