Azel Ames

“ That he was at once hired by Weston and Cushman as a valuable man, as soon as found, was not strange.
He seems to have had the ability to impress men favorably and secure their confidence, and to have been a modest and reliable man. Although of both experience and capacity, he continued an under-officer for some years after the Pilgrim voyage, when, it is fair to suppose, he might have had command of a ship. He seems to have lacked confidence in himself, or else the breadth of education necessary to make him trust his ability as a navigator. ”

“ Everything favored the conspirators. The deflection north-ward from the normal course of the ship as she approached the coast, bound for the latitude of the Hudson, required only to be so trifling that the best sailor of the Pilgrim leaders would not be likely to note or criticise it, and it was by no means uncommon to make Cape Cod as the first landfall on Virginia voyages. ”

“ These careless utterances of one who is especially bound by his position, both as a writer and as a teacher of morals, to be jealous for the truth, might be partly condoned as attributable to mistake or haste, except for the facts that they seem to have been the fountain-head of an ever-widening stream of serious error, and that they are preceded on the very page that bears them by others as to the Pilgrim exodus equally unhappy. ”

“ Scores and perhaps hundreds of people have been led to believe Priscilla Mullens a French Protestant of the Leyden congregation, and themselves—as her descendants—“of Huguenot stock,” because of these absolutely groundless assertions of Dr. Baird. They lent themselves readily to Mrs. Austin’s fertile imagination and facile pen, and as “welcome lies” acquired a hold on the public mind, from which even the demonstrated truth will never wholly dislodge them. ”

“ To a very few time-worn and venerated relics—such as Brewster’s chair and one or more books, Myles Standish’s Plymouth sword, the Peregrine White cradle, Winslow’s pewter, and one or two of Bradford’s books—a strong probability attaches that they were in veritate, as traditionally avowed, part of the MAY-FLOWER’S freight, but of even these the fact cannot be proven beyond the possibility of a doubt. ”

“ It certainly cannot be accounted strange that infectious diseases, once started among them, should have run through their ranks like fire, taking both old and young. Nor is it strange that—though more inured to hardship and the conditions of sea life—with the extreme and unusual exposure of boat service on the New England coast in mid winter, often wading in the icy water and living aboard ship in a highly infected atmosphere, the seamen should have succumbed to disease in almost equal ratio with the colonists. ”

“ We know enough of the absolute unselfishness and devotion of all the Leyden leaders, whatever their birth or station,—so grandly proven in those terrible days of general sickness and death at New Plymouth,—to be certain that with them, under all circumstances, it was noblesse oblige, and that no self-seeking would actuate them here. It should be remembered that the MAY-FLOWER was primarily a passenger transport, her passengers being her principal freight and occupying the most of the ship, the heavier cargo being chiefly confined to the “hold.” ”

“ An equipment having so much of the character of a uniform—not to say “livery”—as that furnished by Higginson’s company to its people suggests the “hedger and ditcher” type of colonists (of whom there were very few among the Plymouth settlers) , rather than the scholar, publisher, tradesman, physician, hatter, smith, carpenter, “lay reader,” and soldier of the Pilgrims, and would certainly have been obnoxious to their finer sense of personal dignity and proportion. ”

“ The lateness of the arrival on the coast, and the difficulties ever attendant on doubling Cape Cod, properly turned to account, would increase the anxiety for almost any landing-place, and render it easy to retain the sea-worn colonists when once on shore. The grand advantage, however, over and above all else, was the entire ease and certainty with which the cooperation of the one man essential to the success of the undertaking could be secured, without need of the privity of any other, viz. the Master of the MAY-FLOWER, Captain Thomas Jones. ”

“ It seems proper to suggest that it is high time that all lovers of reliable history should stand firmly together against the flood of loose statement which is deluging the public; brand the false wherever found; and call for proof from of all new and important historical propositions put forth. Stephen Hopkins may possibly have had more than one wife before Elizabeth, who accompanied him to New England and was mother of the sea-born son Oceanus. Hopkins’s will indicates his affection for this latest wife, in unusual degree for wills of that day. ”

“ It is equally interesting to note that the inventory of the soldier Standish should name only one book on military science, “Bariffe’s Artillery,” though it includes abundant evidence to controvert, beyond reasonable doubt, the suggestion which has been made, that he was of the Romanist faith. Just which of the books left by the worthies named, and others whose inventories we possess, came with them in the Pilgrim ship, cannot be certainly determined, though, as before noted, some still in existence bear intrinsic testimony that they were of the number. ”

“ Once a friend of the Pilgrims and unmistakably the organizer of the Adventurers, he became a graceless ingrate and rascal. An instrument of good at first, he became a heartless and designing enemy of the Planters. He was a “citizen and merchant [ironmonger] of London.” It is altogether probable that he was originally a tool of Sir Ferdinando Gorges and was led by him to influence the Leyden brethren to break off negotiations with the Dutch. He died poor, at Bristol, England. Wright. Perhaps came to New Plimoth and married a daughter of the MAY-FLOWER Pilgrim, Francis Cooke. ”

“ The Merchant Adventurers—who were organized (but not incorporated) chiefly through the activity of Thomas Weston, a merchant of London, to “finance” the Pilgrim undertaking—were bound, as part of their engagement, to provide the necessary shipping,’ etc., for the voyage. The “joint-stock or partnership,” as it was called in the agreement of the Adventurers and Planters, was an equal partnership between but two parties, the Adventurers, as a body, being one of the co-partners; the Planter colonists, as a body, the other. ”

“ With the passengers of the MAY-FLOWER a far greater equality in rank, means, intelligence, capacity, and character was noticeable. This was due in part, doubtless, to the religious beliefs and training of the Leyden contingent, and had prompt illustration in their Compact, in which all stood at once on an equal footing. There was but little of the “paternal” nature in the form of their government (though something at times in their punishments) , and there was much personal dignity and independence of the individual. ”

“ Northerly wind continues, which continues the frost. Those from shore reported that one of the Planters, being out fowling and hidden in the reeds, about a mile and a half from the settlement, saw twelve Indians marching toward the plantation and heard many more. He hurried home with all speed and gave the alarm, so all the people in the woods at work returned and armed themselves, but saw nothing of the Indians. Captain Standish’s and Francis Cooke’s tools also stolen by Indians in woods. A great fire toward night seen from the ship, about where the Indians were discovered. ”

“ The fact seems rather to be, as noted, that age—not social status was the determining factor as to all otherwise eligible. It is evident too, that the fact was recognized by all parties (by none so clearly as by Master Jones) that they were about to plant themselves on territory not within the jurisdiction of their steadfast friends, the London Virginia Company, but under control of those formerly of the Second (Plymouth) Virginia Company, who (by the intelligence they received while at Southampton) they knew would be erected into the “Council for the Affairs of New England.” ”

“ They had apparently, therefore, little to hope for in the near future; certainly not enough to warrant expenditure and the risk of disgraceful exposure, in negotiations with a stranger—an obscure ship-master—to change his course and land his passengers in violation of the terms of his charter-party;—negotiations, moreover, in which neither of the parties could well have had any guaranty of the other’s good faith. ”

“ Dr. Samuel Fuller was, as is well known, one of the Leyden chiefs, connected by blood and marriage with many of the leading families of Robinson’s congregation. He was active in the preparations for the voyage the first signer of the joint-letter of May 31, and doubtless one of the negotiators for the SPEEDWELL. His wife and child were left behind, to follow later as they did. William Butten, the first of the Pilgrim party to die, was, in all probability, a student-“servant” of Doctor Fuller at Leyden, and doubtless embarked with him at Delfshaven. ”

“ Edward E. Cornwall in the “New England Magazine” for February, 1897—From the fact that Edward Thompson, Jasper More, and Master James Chilton died within a month of the arrival at Cape Cod (and while the ship lay in that harbor) , and following the axiom of vital statistics that “for each death two are constantly sick,” there must have been some little (though not to say general) sickness on the MAY-FLOWER when she arrived at Cape Cod. It would, in view of the hardship of the voyage, have been very remarkable if this had not been the case. ”

“ Spinning-wheels and hand-looms were such absolute necessities, and were so familiar and omnipresent features of the lives and labors of the Pilgrim housewives and their Dutch neighbors of Leyden, that we should be certain that they came with the Pilgrims, even if they did not find mention in the earliest Pilgrim inventories. Many ancient ones are exhibited in the “Old Colony,” but it is not known that it is claimed for any of them that they came in the first ship. ”

“ Francis Eaton was of Leyden, a carpenter, and, having a wife and child, was probably a young man about twenty five, perhaps a little younger. He married three times. Mrs. Sarah Eaton, wife of Francis, was evidently a young woman, with an infant, at the date of embarkation. Nothing more is known of her, except that she died the spring following the arrival at Plymouth. Samuel Eaton, the son of Francis and his wife, Sarah, Bradford calls “a sucking child:” He lived to marry. Gilbert Window was the third younger brother of Governor Edward Winslow, and is reputed to have been a carpenter. ”

“ John Howland was possibly of kin to Carver and had been apparently some years in his family. Bradford calls him a “man-servant,” but it is evident that “employee” would be the more correct term, and that he was much more than a “servant.” It is observable that Howland signed the Compact (by Morton’s List) before such men as Hopkins, the Tilleys, Cooke, Rogers, and Priest, which does not indicate much of the “servant” relation. His antecedents are not certainly known, but that he was of the Essex family of the name seems probable. ”

“ Davis, in his “Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth,” makes a singular error for so competent a writer, when he says: “The agents of the company in England had hired the SPEEDWELL, of sixty tons, and sent her to Delfthaven, to convey the colonists to Southampton.” In this, however, he but follows Mather and the “Modern Universal History,” though both are notably unreliable; but he lacks their excuse, for they were without his access to Bradford’s “Historie.” That the consort-pinnace was neither “hired” nor “sent to Delfthaven” duly appears. ”

“ It is evident from the statement of Bradford that every one of the sixteen men who went out (under command of Standish) on the “first exploration” at Cape Cod had his “musket, sword, and corslet;” that they relied much on their armor, and hence, doubtless, took all possible with them on the ship. They probably did not long retain its use. In the letter written to the Adventurers from Southampton, the leaders complain of “wanting many muskets, much armour, &c.” ”

“ It is to be feared from the conduct of such men as Weston, Pierce, Andrews, Shirley, Thornell, Greene, Pickering, Alden, and others, that profitable investment, rather than desire “to do good and to plant Religion,” was their chief interest. That the higher motives mentioned by Smith governed such tried and steadfast souls as Bass, Brewer, Collier, Fletcher, Goffe, Hatherly, Ling, Mullens, Pocock, Thomas, and a few others, there can be no doubt. ”

“ It is quite possible that some few sheep, rabbits, and poultry for immediate consumption (these requiring but little forage) may have been shipped, this being customary then as now. It is also probable that some household pets—cats and caged singing-birds, the latter always numerous in both England and Holland—were carried on board by their owners, though no direct evidence of the fact is found. There is ample proof that goats, swine, poultry, and dogs were landed with the colonists at New Plymouth, and it is equally certain that they had at first neither cattle, horses, nor sheep. ”