Deciding to leave Holland, the Pilgrims are beset
by many problems as they seek financing and
official approval for their emigration
The prospect that the Pilgrims must once again uproot themselves,
despite its subjecting them again to heartache and hazards, had
become increasingly clear as far back as the fall of 1617.
It was not
"any newfangledness or other such giddy humor" that impelled them.
Their leaders, Rev. Robinson and Brewster, and "the sagest members
began both deeply to apprehend their present dangers and wisely
to foresee the future and think of timely remedy." They were becoming
deeply distressed and felt that there were "weighty and solid
reasons" that they must leave Holland.
The reasons did not in the least slight the benevolent reception
they had received from the Dutch people. The Pilgrims prized their
neighbors high esteem. But they had come to realize that their
economic future was basically insecure and that their English
way of life--still loved by these religious exiles--was doomed
if they remained in Holland.
"The grave mistress of experience...taught them many things," said
Bradford of their years in that country. Bradford another future
governor, Edward Winslow, having carefully marshaled those experiences
in their later writings, cited them as the reasons that would
eventually convince the Pilgrims that they should emigrate to
the New World.
Earning a living in handicrafts was hard--so hard that some who
had come to join the Pilgrims had departed from Holland, and others
who would like to have joined them "preferred and chose the prisons
in England rather than this liberty in Holland." The Pilgrims
were coming to feel convinced that "if a better and easier place
of living could be had, it would draw many and take away these
discouragements...[and many were drawn--to New England--hundreds
of thousands of Puritans in the end.]
"The people generally bore all these difficulties very cheerfully...yet
old age began to steal on many of them; and their great continual
labours, with other crosses and sorrows, hastened it before the
time. It was not only probably thought, but apparently seen, that
within a few years more they would be in danger to scatter, by
necessities pressing them, or sink under their burdens, or both...
"Many of their children...were oftentimes so oppressed with their
heavy labours that though their minds were free and willing, yet
their bodies bowed under the weight of the same, and became decrepit
in their early youth, the vigor of nature being consumed in the
very bud as it were.
"But that that was more lamentable, and of all sorrows most heavy
to bear, was that many of their children, by...the great licentiousness
of youth in that country, and the manifold temptations of the
place, were drawn away by evil examples into extravagant and dangerous
courses, getting the reins off their necks and departing from
their parents.
"Some became soldiers, others took upon them far voyages by sea,
and some worse courses tending to dissoluteness and the danger
of their souls, to the great grief of their parents and dishonor
of God. So that they saw their posterity would be in danger to
degenerate and be corrrupted.
"Lastly, and which was not least, a great hope and inward
zeal they had of laying some good foundation, or at least to make
some way thereunto, for the propagating and advancing the gospel
of the kingdom 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 great a work." [i.e. These courageous
Pilgrims, religious exiles, were into evangelism, both national
and international. Now we in these United States of America have
at our disposal the tools to accomplish this dream they so longed
to bring to pass. Be sure to look up that section "What is Evangelism?" and
then click on the article "Evangelism: national and international".
If they were the
"stepping-stones", then it is we that must do the stepping.
And Jesus prophecied that indeed we would do the stepping in
Matthew 24:14. He said, "And this gospel of the kingdom will
be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations,
and then the end will come."]
Winslow had additional reasons. Public education had long been
a tradition in Holland, but the Pilgrims felt that they could
not give "such education to our children as we ourselves had received."
The Dutch, as pictured in their happy genre paintings, treated
Sunday as a day for pleasure and merrymaking. Brewster felt the
stricter Pilgrims were not likely to succeed "in reforming the
Sabbath."
Another worry: How likely we were to lose our language and our
name, of English."
His last concern was prophetic. Only about a third of
the Leyden congregation would eventually leave for the New World;
and those remaining would, in little more than a generation, be
completely assimilated into the Dutch melting pot. [200 people,
now Dutch with no trace of their past ancestry.]
The Pilgrims discussed every aspect of what they should do. They
fasted and prayed for the Lord "to direct us." They were
well aware of New World explorations and the "ill success and
lamentable miseries befallen others: Sir Walter Raleigh's lost
colony of Roanoke, the failure of the Popham colony of Maine.
They also knew of Raleigh's latest--and futile--efforts in Guianna,
Henry Hudson's discoveries in future New York, and his friend
Capt. John Smith's exploration of a region he christened "New
England." And they knew of the current difficulties of the Virginia
colony in Jamestown, then the only English plantation in all North
America.
They talked of New World dangers from savage people and they discussed
the paucity of funds "to fit them with necessaries." Yet they
felt that, with God's help, "the dangers were great, but
not desperate; the difficulties were many, but not invincible."
There was yet another concern. Holland's 12-year truce with Spain,
made in 1609, was drawing to a close. There was religious strife
in Bohemia that would lead to the shocking desolation of the Thirty
Years War. Already in their daily lives:
"There was nothing but beating of drums and preparing for war;
the events thereof are always uncertain. The Spaniard might prove
as cruel as the savages of America; and the famine and pestilence
as sore here as there; and their liberty less to look out for
remedy."
There was division for a time among them. Some favored going to
the "perpetual Spring" of Raleigh's Guiana. Others feared its
hot, unfamiliar climate and the danger of Spanish attack. Some
were for Southern Virginia and the Jamestown region. But others
feared that they would again encounter the religious persecution
that had driven them from England. So the majority determined
to try "to live as a distinct body by themselves" in Northern
Virginia (an area that encompassed modernday New England.)
Optimistically, they resolved to attempt, with the help of friends,
to beseech King James "that he would be pleased to grant them
Freedom of Religion." Unknown to them, their negotiations would
drag wearisomely over a period of about three years.
First they sought permission, in the form of a patent, from the
Virginia Company of London, sponsors of the Jamestown plantation.
Through Brewster they had some influential friends, especially
Sir Edwin Sandys. Sandys was a son of the late Archbishop Sandys
of York, who had been a friend of Brewster's father and was Brewster's
landlord at Scrooby Manor.
Rev. Robinson and Brewster, to aid the quest for a patent drafted "Seven
Articles" briefly stating the Pilgrims' views on the faith and
form of the state church. Their adroit wording wisely showed submission
to King James, and assented to the bishops' right to
"govern the civilly." Their religious differences in that way
were diplomatically minimized.
In late 1617, two Pilgrim deacons, John Carver, 51, merchant and
brother-in-law of Rev. Robinson, and Robert Cushman, 39, wool
comber, were sent to London to seek a patent.
Sandys was soon--on Nov. 12, 1617--writing back to Rev. Robinson
and Brewster that the two deacons had conducted themselves with "good
discretion." The Seven Articles had given "good degree of satisfaction" to
the gentlemen of the Council for the Virginia Company who had
been approached by Carver and Cushman. The deacons had headed
back to Leyden for more consultation with the petition seemingly
in "all forwardness."
Rev. Robinson and Brewster wrote back their thanks to Sandys and
told him that "under God, above all persons and things in the
world, we rely upon you; expecting the care of your love, counsel
your wisdom, and the help and countenance of your authority." They
sent him additional information about the Pilgrims that he might
care to "impart to other [of] our worshipful friends of the Council
for Virginia."
The Pilgrims, they wrote,
"believe and trust the Lord is with us. We are well weaned from
the delicate milk of our mother country and inured to the difficulties
of a strange and hard land. The people are...[as] industrious
and frugal, we think we may safely say, as any company of people
in the world.
"We are knit together, as a body, in a most strict bond and covenant
of the Lord...we do hold ourselves straitly tied to all care of
each other's good, and of the whole, by every one; and so mutually.
It is not with us as with other men whom small things can discourage
or small discontentments cause to wish themselves home again.
"If we should be driven to return (from the New World), we should
not hope to recover our present helps and comforts: neither indeed
look ever, for ourselves, to attain unto the like in any other
place, during our lives; which are now drawing toward their periods
(ends)." They certainly appeared to be, as they would prove, reliable
colonists.
Sandys procured the help of a most highly place friend, Sir Robert
Naunton, King James' secretary of state--the very official who
would in less than two years be involved in the king's unrelenting
efforts to track down Brewster as the suspected publisher of Perth
Assembly.
According to Winslow, Naunton urged the king "to give way to such
people, who could not so comfortably live under the government
of another state, to enjoy their liberty of conscience under his
gracious protection in America: where they would endeavor the
advancement of His Majesty's dominions and the enlargement (spread)
of the Gospel..."
King James thought this "a good and honest motion" and asked Naunton
how these people hoped to make profits in North Virginia. "Fishing," replied
Naunton.
"So God have my soul! 'tis an honest trade! It was the Apostles'
own calling!" responded the king.
Prospects for a patent and the Pilgrims' request for "liberty
in religion...confirmed under the kings' broad seal"
looked surprisingly favorable. The Pilgrims were told as much.
Indeed, to help meet some lingering questions in the Privy Coucil,
Rev. Robinson and Brewster wrote additional descriptions of their
church practices so another highly placed friend, London merchant,
could use them to help the cause. The merchant gave the young
messenger who brought their letter "very good news, for both the
King's Majesty and the bishops have consented."
But the merchant was mistaken, and even Sir Edwin Sandys, was
too; for Sandys told the messenger to be at the next court (meeting)
of the Virginia Company. But it turned out that the king had afterwards
told Naunton that the Pilgrims "should confer with the Bishops
of Canterbury and London."
The final advice of the Pilgrims' friends was to avoid that. Instead,
the Pilgrims were urged to go ahead with their plans in the hope
that the king would leave them alone.
"In sounding His Majesty's mind," their friends reported, they
had found "that he would conive at (quietly go along with) them,
and not molest them; provided they carried themselves peaceably:
but to allow, or tolerate, them by his public authority, under
his seal, they found would not be."
CARVER AND CUSHMAN BORE THIS REPORT back
to Leyden and it immediately "made a damp in the business." Again
there was soul-searching and lengthy debate. Those intending to
sell their property feared the implied promise of the king might
prove a "sandy foundation" on which to build their hopes. Others
argued that even had they gotten the king's seal, it could have
been revoked.
The Pilgrims finally came to a decision bespeaking their faith:
"They must rest herein on God's Providence as they had done in
other things." They would persevere.
Some began to sell their property. Bradford sold his house by
the back canal. This time Brewster and Cushman were sent to London,
with instructions
"upon what conditions they should proceed with them (the Virginia
Company); or else to conclude nothing without further advice." [I
am beginning to believe that William Brewster possessed a courage
and fearlessness not found in ordinary men. Major-General Curtis
LeMay, George Patton and Joseph W. Tkach Sr. come to mind for
me. You can count the number of men like this on one hand. Just
to be back in England put this man in peril for his life. First
he remains to the end in England to help the women and children
get over to Holland, then he returns once after that, and now
a third time to ensure the arrangements are properly made. And
he printed whatever was necessary to promote the gospel, fearlessly.
We could learn a lesson from William Brewster it seems.]
It was the spring of 1619 when Brewster and Cushman arrived in
England. They were to find unexpected tribulation. The political
cleavage that would later lead to civil war in England--and to
the heavy migration of the Puritans who would make up the Massachusetts
Bay colony--had now split the Virginia Company into two bitter
factions, basically pro-king and royal prerogative as against
pro-people and Parliament.
In April Sir Thomas Smith, the ardent royalist who had headed
the East India and Moscovy trading companies as well as the Virginia
Company, decided to cut down on his responsibilities, until he
discovered that Sandys was seeking to replace him as governor
and treasurer of the company.
Smith strenuously opposed Sandys. Yet though the king himself
vehemently declared, "Choose the devil, if you will, but not Sir
Edwin Sandys,"
Sandys won the treasurer's post. And the struggle continued for
several years, with King James' Privy Council ordering house arrests,
with threatened duels nipped at the eleventh hour, with a royal
inquiry into the government of Virginia, and, eventually, with
the king's annulling the charter and taking over the Virginia
colony.
Little wonder that Cushman wrote dolefully back to Leyden on May
8, 1619, that he was withdrawing to his old home grounds of Canterbury
to wait, for the "dissensions and factions were so extreme no
business could...be dispatched."
Cushman had two other pieces of news for Leyden. One was that "Master
B is not well at this time. Whether he will come back to you or
go into the north, I yet know not." Cushman's "Master B"
was, of course Brewster, avoiding arrest. Copies of Perth Assembly
were being uncovered in Scotland by the authorities. Brewster's
going underground was therefore eminently prudent.
Cushman's other information was "heavy news." Word had just reached
London from the west of England that Francis Blackwell had died,
along with 130 of the 180 passengers "packed together like herrings" into
a vessel headed for Jamestown. Blackwell, well-known to the Pilgrims,
was ruling elder of a dissident remnant of the Ancient Church
in Amsterdam.
Blackwell was blamed for packing so many into the ship when it
left Gravesend, at the mouth of the Thames River, toward the beginning
of winter. The ship was driven far off course by storms, and its
passengers lacked water and food, and were plagued by dysentery.
The survivors barely made port in March after the death of the
ship's captain and six mariners.
Cushman, in breaking this tragic news about the perils of voyaging
to the New World, wrote in his letter, "I would be glad to hear
how far it will discourage you. I see none here discouraged much,
but rather desire to learn...It doth often trouble me to think
that, in this business, we are all to learn, and none to teach:
but better so, than to depend upon such teachers as Master Blackwell
was."
The Leyden faithful were not discouraged.
On May 26, 1619, the Pilgrims' petition for a patent was referred
to Sandys committee of the Virginia Company, meeting at his house
in London. On their friends' advice, the patent was requested
in the name of a stranger to the Pilgrims, Rev. John Wincop, chaplain
to the earl of Lincoln. The Puritan leanings of Sandys were self-evident.
The earl's household was also Puritan and would in the coming
decade be intimately connected with the Puritan migration to Massachusetts
Bay. In the household lived a future Bay colony governor, Thomas
Dudley, the earl's steward [I know his descedants]; and a visitor
was another future governor, John Winthrop.
The Wincop patent received the official seal June 9, 1619. But
the long, agonizing ordeal for the Pilgrims was far from over.
The Virginia Company for some time had been eager to make tracts
of land available to settlers. Jamestown had thus far failed as
an investment, and bankruptcy for the company was just five years
away. But securing a patent, of course, provided none of the financial
help, supplies and shipping that the Pilgrims so desperately required.
Meantime the threat of war grew. In August King James' son-in-law,
Frederick, elector of the Rhineland-Paletinate and leader of the
Calvinist Reformation forces, was offered and accepted the crown
of Bohemia--an action that would set in motion against Frederick
the mighty armies of the Holy Roman Emperor.
Wealthy Dutch merchants now learned of considerable needs of the
Pilgrim residents, and they made tempting proposals to Rev. Robinson
when he informed these merchants that he was ready to induce more
than 400 families, both of Holland and England, to live in the
New Netherland region of the Hudson River. The merchants even
offered free shipping and free cattle for each family.
The imminence of war prompted the Pilgrims to inquire if Holland
would also give them the protection of two warships. To get the
ships, the directors of the New Netherland trading company on
Feb. 2, 1620, petitioned Prince Maurice of Orange, son and successor
to the assassinated William the Silent.
The Pilgrims emphasized the advantages to Holland. The Dutch had
been trading for furs for several years on the Hudson River but
had no plantation as yet, "only factors (agents) there, continually
resident, trading with the savages." The Pilgrims could be the
first settlers and hold New Netherland for Holland!
Prince Maurice, already drilling for war, was hardly in a position
to spare two warships. But before he made his decision--and it
would be to reject the directors' petition--there came, providentially,
a most lively visitor to Leyden.
The visitor, Thomas Weston, an ironmaker of London, was a highly
compelling character, chock-full with the high spirit of the Elizabethan
Age; a promoter and a speculator. Weston for some time had been
leader and treasurer of a group of men of the London scene--merchant
adventurers, holders of stock in money-making pursuits from fishing
to the trading of shipments of wool to the Low Countries. (The
latter adventure, when they ran afoul of the licensing monopoly
of a different group of London merchants, fetched Weston's group
a rebuke from the Privy Council.)
Without Weston's appearance at this time it is highly
doubtful the Pilgrims would have been on their way to America
in 1620.
Weston, though, did have some shortcomings. He was an overpromising,
overoptimistic enthusiast. His most profound motivation was strictly
making money, and the writings and propagandizing of Capt. John
Smith had convinced him there was money to be made in the New
World.
It so happened that Weston had an interest in a patent that an
associate of his, John Peirce, a London cloth entrepreneur, obtained
on Feb. 2, 1620, from the Virginia Company of London [I know Peirce's
descendents as well]. It is likely that this Peirce patent was
more liberal than the Wincop patent--a moot matter, for both have
disappeared.
Weston advised the Pilgrims to use the Peirce patent, which included,
as part of Northern Virginia, the Hudson River area. He also asked
them to draw up a contract of terms, not especially for him, but
for his fellow adventurers. Articles of agreement were thereupon
drafted, and Weston promptly approved them.
There was to be a joint-stock arrangement with the adventurers,
ten pounds value to the share. This could be in cash paid in;
or every colonist going who was over 16 years of age would represent
a share, and any colonist defraying the cost of his own provisions
would rate a share, and every child under 10 would rate "50 acres
of unmanured land." All profits and benefits from the plantation
would go into a common holding, to be divided proportionally at
the end of seven years.
Deacons Carver and Cushman were dispatched to England "to receive
the monies and make provision both for shipping and other things
for the voyage: with this charge, not to exceed their commission
(instructions) but to proceed according to the...Articles of Agreement." A
committee was chosen at Leyden to do the same thing. More Pilgrims
sold belongings, and those few who were able put money into shares
of the common stock.
About this time the Pilgrims in Leyden learned from Weston and
others that the old Virginia Company of Plymouth, in the west
of England, was being reorganized and was about to get a royal
charter to the area in Northern Virginia now being called New
England. Further word came that Weston leaned toward having the
Pilgrims locate their plantation in New England.
This proposal revived division and debate. Some once again pressed
the idea of going to Guiana, others to Southern Virginia. Some "merchants
and friends that had offered to adventure their monies, withdrew;
and pretended many excuses."
Far worse news was that the adventurers in England had demanded
changes in the contract. Weston, on his return to London, found
some of his associates unwilling to venture their money unless
the Pilgrims agreed that the common stock should include even
their private dwellings and improved lands, and that they should
work seven rather than five days a week for the common holding.
Rev. Robinson, on learning of this harsh development, said that
including private houses, gardens and house lots in the common
stock would represent a "trifle" to the adventurers but would
be "a great discouragement" to the emigrants, who would have "borrowed
hours from their sleep" to make the houses comfortable. He felt
the other demand was shortsighted, too--"a new apprenticeship
of seven years and not a day's freedom from task!"
IN LONDON CUSHMAN, CONFRONTED WITH THE possibility
that the bottom would fall out of the whole project if he rejected
Weston's new demands, gave his approval. This would produce sharp
division between Pilgrims and the adventurers that impaired and
even threatened to destroy their cooperation, and would bring
Cushman's independent action under Pilgrim criticism that was
not entirely just.
Cushman, sorely upset, wrote to Leyden that he knew of the "great
discontents and dislikes of my proceedings," for "making conditions
fitter for thieves and bondslaves than honest men." He said he
was so busy "I cannot be absent one day, except I should hazard
all the voyage." But, he added, when they would next get together, "I
shall satisfy any reasonable man." And he pleaded:
"Only let us have quietness and no more of these clamors."
Suspicions now arose about Weston. The committee in Leyden, which
included Bradford and Winslow, wrote Cushman, "Salute Master Weston
from us, in who we hope we are not deceived." Even Rev. Robinson
felt doubts. In a letter in mid-June 1620, the clergyman said
the fact that Weston did not have "shipping ready before this
time...cannot in my conscience be excused."
Weston, as his group's treasurer, was plainly having trouble raising
money. He had undoubtedly grasped at the idea of a New England
colony because a fishing monopoly might go with it. This could
mean quick profits. But when that possibility eluded him he likely
embraced the harsher terms to retain and attract investors. Several
times he told Cushman that "save for his promise he would not
meddle at all with the business any more."
Like Rev. Robinson, Weston was worried about the passage of time.
Quite properly, he objected that provisions for the voyage were
being assembled in three different places: by Cushman in London,
by Carver in Southhampton, and in Kent by a newcomer, headstrong
Christopher Martin of Essex, who had been appointed to the task
to represent the many
"Strangers" (nonmembers of the Pilgrim congregation) recruited
by the adventurers in London to go on the voyage.
Cushman said that Weston complained, "We will, with going up and
down, and wrangling and expostulating pass over the summer before
we go." The eventual loss of good sailing time would be dangerously
far worse.
The Leyden committee had acquired a 60-ton vessel and had had
it refitted, in particular with new masts. It was called the Speedwell.
Rev. Robinson said that Weston had made "himself merry with our
endeavors about buying a ship."
Weston, of course, had had far more experience with ships than
had the Leyden ex-farmers. But acquiring the ill-fated Speedwell
did seem a sound idea. It could potentially provide the Pilgrims
with a consort across the vast ocean and, once in America, could
be used for fishing and trading (or "trucking," as they called
it) and for "such other affairs as might be for their good and
benefit of the colony when they came there."
"Pitiful" feelings were now replaced by hope when Cushman sent
word to Leyden that a pilot he had sent over, Master Reynolds,
should stand by to bring the Speedwell and its passengers to Southhampton
and that another pilot had been hired, Master John Clarke, "who
went last year to Virginia with a ship of kine (cattle) from Ireland."
Then, still in June, and moving at the last minute so as to save
expenses, Weston and Cushman hired a 180-ton vessel owned and
berthed at Rotherhithe, a very active port on the south side of
the Thames River two miles east of London Bridge. This ship was
the Mayflower.