Part 4 (1/2)

This done, Brewster and Bradford and Miles Standish, with a little band, sent out as an advance guard, set sail from the Dutch port of Delft Haven in July, 1620, in the s.h.i.+p _Speedwell_. The first run was to Southampton, England, where some friends from London joined them in the _Mayflower_, and whence, August 5, they sailed for America. But the _Speedwell_ proved so unseaworthy that the two s.h.i.+ps put back to Plymouth, where twenty people gave up the voyage. September 6, 1620, such as remained steadfast, just 102 in number, reembarked on the _Mayflower_ and began the most memorable of voyages. The weather was so foul, and the wind and sea so boisterous, that nine weeks pa.s.sed before they beheld the sandy sh.o.r.es of Cape Cod. Having no right to settle there, as the cape lay far to the northward of the lands owned by the London Company, they turned their s.h.i.+p southward and attempted to go on.

But head winds drove them back and forced them to seek shelter in Provincetown harbor, at the end of Cape Cod.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Mayflower[1]]

[Footnote 1: From the model in the National Museum, Was.h.i.+ngton.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE Ma.s.sACHUSETTS COAST (map)]

%33. The Mayflower Compact%.--Since it was then the 11th of November, the Pilgrims, as they are now called, decided to get permission from the Plymouth Company to remain permanently. But certain members of the party, when they heard this, became unruly, and declared that as they were not to land in Virginia, they were no longer bound by the contracts they had made in England regarding their emigration to Virginia. To put an end to this, a meeting was held, November 21, 1620, in the cabin of the _Mayflower_, and a compact was drawn up and signed.[1] It declared

1. That they were loyal subjects of the King.

2. That they had undertaken to found a colony in the northern parts of Virginia, and now bound themselves to form a ”civil body politic.”

3. That they would frame such just and equal laws, from time to time, as might be for the general good.

4. And to these laws they promised ”all due submission and obedience.”

[Footnote 1: The compact is in Poore's _Charters and Const.i.tutions_, p.

931, and in Preston's _Doc.u.ments Ill.u.s.trative of American History_, pp.

29-31. Read, by all means, Webster's _Plymouth Oration_.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plymouth Rock]

%34. The Founding of Plymouth%.--The selection of a site for their home was now necessary, and five weeks were pa.s.sed in exploring the coast before Captain Standish with a boatload of men entered the harbor which John Smith had noted on his map and named Plymouth. On the sandy sh.o.r.e of that harbor, close to the water's edge, was a little granite bowlder, and on this, according to tradition, the Pilgrims stepped as they came ash.o.r.e, December 21, 1620. To this harbor the _Mayflower_ was brought, and the work of founding Plymouth was begun. The winter was a dreadful one, and before spring fifty-one of the colonists had died.[1]

But the Pilgrims stood fast, and in 1621 obtained a grant of land[2]

from the Council for New England, which had just succeeded the Plymouth Company, under a charter giving it control between lat.i.tudes 40 and 48, from sea to sea.[3] It was from the same Council that for fifteen years to come all other settlers in New England obtained their rights to the soil.

[Footnote 1: In the trying times which followed, William Bradford was chosen governor and many times reelected. He wrote the so-called ”Log of the Mayflower,”--really a ma.n.u.script _History of the Plymouth Plantation_ from 1602 to 1647,--a fragment of which is reproduced on the opposite page.]

[Footnote 2: This grant had no boundary. Each settler might have 100 acres. Fifteen hundred acres were set aside for public buildings.]

[Footnote 3: Fiske's _Beginnings of New England_, pp. 80-87; Palfrey's _New England_, Vol. I, pp. 176-232; Thatcher's _History of the Town of Plymouth_.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fragment of _History of the Plymouth Plantation_.]

%35. A Puritan Colony proposed.%--Among those who obtained such rights was a company of Dorchester merchants who planted a town on Cape Ann. The enterprise failed, and the colonists went off and settled at a place they called Naumkeag. But there was one man in Dorchester who was not discouraged by failure. He was John White, a Puritan rector. What had been done by the Separatists in a small way might be done, it seemed to White, on a great scale by an a.s.sociation of wealthy and influential Puritans. The matter was discussed by them in London, and in 1628 an a.s.sociation was formed, and a tract of land was bought from the Council for New England.

%36. The ”Sea to Sea” Grant%.--Concerning the interior of our continent absolutely nothing was known. n.o.body supposed it was more than half as wide as it really is. The grant to the a.s.sociation, therefore, stretched from three miles north of the Merrimac River to three miles south of the Charles River, along these rivers to their sources, and then westward across the continent from sea to sea.[1]

[Footnote 1: You will notice that when this grant was made in 1628 the Dutch had discovered the Hudson, and had begun to settle Albany. To this region (the Hudson and Mohawk valleys) the English had no just claim.]

As soon as the grant was obtained, John Endicott came out with a company of sixty persons, and took up his abode at Naumkeag, which, being an Indian and therefore a pagan name, he changed to Salem, the Hebrew word for ”peace.”

%37. The Ma.s.sachusetts Charter, 1629%.--The next step was to obtain the right of self-government, which was secured by a royal charter creating a corporation known as the Governor and Company of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay in New England. Over the affairs of the company were to preside a governor, deputy governor, and a council of eighteen to be elected annually by the members of the company.[2]

[Footnote 2: The charter is printed in Poore's _Charters and Const.i.tutions_, pp. 932-942, and in Preston's _Doc.u.ments_, pp. 36-61.]

Six s.h.i.+ps were now fitted out, and in them 406 men, women, and children, with 140 head of cattle, set sail for Ma.s.sachusetts. They reached Salem in safety and made it the largest colony in New England.