Chapter VII

Setting sail towards a little-known land

The Mayflower starts across the ocean, but 'to most
of these essentially plain farm folk, their real transport
was more their faith in God than their vessel.'

Prayer--an appeal for God's guidance--came first into the minds of the Pilgrims upon receipt of the news that their migration to the New World was finally to get under way.

"They had a solemn meeting and a day of humiliation [fasting], to seek the Lord for his direction," said Bradford. Their pastor, Rev. Robinson, preached a sermon recounting the biblical story of how "David asked counsel of the Lord." The clergyman then spoke comforting words, "strengthening them against their fears and perplexities; and encouraging them in their resolutions."

Even if the Pilgrims were all ready to go together, however, they lacked the "means to have transported them." They decided that if a majority were to have their affairs in order, and thus be able to leave, Rev. Robinson would accompany them as their pastor; if not, they desired that Brewster should go as their elder.

Those going would "be an absolute church of themselves, as well as those that stayed: seeing, in such a dangerous voyage and a removal to such a distance, it might come to pass they should, for the body of them, never meet again in this world." Still, all would continue as members of the faith, whether in Holland or the New World, "without any further dismission (dismissal) or testimonial."

Winslow told of two other major decisions made by the congregation at this time: "They that went should freely offer themselves" and "the youngest and strongest part" should go first.

Another day of solemn humiliation was held when notice came from Delftshaven--a port near Rotterdam on the River Maas that was a little more than 20 miles to the southwest by canal--that the Speedwell with its new masts and sails, was ready.

Rev. Robinson, the beloved pastor, preached his final sermon for the departing Pilgrims. He read a lesson from the Bible that to seek God was "a right way for us and for our children. He spent a good part of the day very profitable and suitable to their present condition," said Bradford, and there were fervent prayers "mixed with abundance of tears."

Winslow later recalled some of the clergyman's words: "Whether the Lord had appointed it or not, he charged us before God and His blessed angels, to follow him no further than he followed Christ."

The broad-minded pastor exhorted them that "if God should reveal anything to us by any other instrument of His, to be as ready to receive it as ever we were to receive any truth of his (Rev. Robinson's) ministry; for he was very confident the Lord had more truth and light yet to break forth out of His holy word.

"Another thing he commended to us, was that we should use all means to avoid and shake off the name of Brownist, being a mere nickname and brand to make religion odious...and to that end, said he, I should be glad if some godly minister would go over with you before my coming."

The clergyman, who would be frustrated from ever going to the New World, told them, "Be not loath to take another pastor or teacher...for that flock that hath two shepherds is not endangered but secured by it." The Pilgrims would hope for years that Rev. Robinson would rejoin them, but in vain. Meanwhile, his robe as teacher would be filled by Elder Brewster.

Next day most of this close-knit fellowship made the canal passage together, moving through Delft, the Dutch capital and burial place of the martyred champion of religious freedom, William the Silent, and on to Delftshaven.

In a final remark on their departure from Leyden, Bradford gave them the name by which they would generations later become known to history:

"They know they were Pilgrims," he said, "and they looked not much back on the pleasant city that had sheltered them, but lift up their eyes to the heavens, their dearest country, and quieted their spirits." Their final hours with their friends--for most would never again see one another on earth--were poignantly described by Bradford:

"When they came to the place (Delftshaven), they found the ship and all things ready; and such of their friends as could not come (to the New World) with them, followed after them; and sundry also came from Amsterdam to see them shipped, and to take their leave of them.

"That night was spent with little sleep by the most; but with friendly entertainment, and Christian discourse, and other real expressions of true Christian love.

"The next day, the wind being fair, they went aboard and their friends with them; when truly doleful was the sight of that sad and mournful parting. To see what sighs and sobs and prayers did sound amongst them; what tears did gush from every eye, and pithy speeches pierced each heart: that sundry of the Dutch strangers that stood on the quay as spectator, could not refrain from tears.

"But the tide, which stays for no man, calling them away that were thus loath to depart: there reverend Pastor, falling down on his knees, and they all with him, with watery cheeks, commended them, with most fervent prayer, to the Lord and his blessing. And then, with mutual embraces and many tears, they took their leaves one of another; which proved to be the last leave to many of them."

A martial touch--for all ships, in fear of pirates, traveled armed in those days--was recalled by Winslow:

"We gave them a volley of small shot (musket fire) and of three pieces of ordnance. And so lifting up our hands to each other; and our hearts for each other to the Lord our God, we departed--and found His presence with us, in the midst of our manifold straits that He carried us through."

It was Saturday, July 22, 1620. The Speedwell went past the Hook of Holland" at the mouth of the Maas, and across the North Sea to the English Channel. They had a "prosperous wind" and in a short time the small ship entered the great harbor of Southampton, where the Pilgrims found the Mayflower from London already berthed, and the Strangers who would make up the rest of their company.

There was "a joyful welcome and mutual congratulations," said Bradord, "with other friendly entertainments..."

There were familiar faces: Carver and Cushman, so long away on months of negotiation and preparation; and most of all there was their elder, Brewster--though he was constrained to some disguise until distance should give him a feeling of security from sudden arrest.

This was the first meeting of the Pilgrims and the Strangers--men, women and children recruited mostly in and about London, East Anglia and the southeastern section of England.

For most of the Strangers, though they would become known as Pilgrim forefathers, the attractions offered by the adventurers were chiefly economic--a chance to own land, and to escape the poverty being spread in England by inflation and by farmers being forced from their land for the more profitable raising of sheep.

If all the hired hands and servants were excluded, the Strangers would come close to outnumbering the Pilgrims.

One of the Strangers was Capt. Myles Standish--in his mid 30s, a short man with a florid countenance, a man who had served with the English volunteers fighting in Holland to aid the Dutch, and who would become the Pilgrims' celebrated military right arm in the New World. Two other Strangers would become assistant governors: Stephen Hopkins, who had already made one trip to the New World and had been shipwrecked in Bermuda; and Richard Warren, a London merchant.

The Strangers brought problems, too--in the form of the profane John Billington of London, whom the Pilgrims would have to hang a decade later for murder; and of two of Hopkins young servants, who would fight a duel.

There were five hired hands: a cooper and four sailors. The cooper, a 21-year-old blond man from East Anglia, was John Alden. Alden would settle in the New World and marry the daughter of a Stranger, Priscilla Mullins, who would utter the legendary words to her hesitant lover, "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?"

The lean purse of the Pilgrims and the tightfisted behavior of the adventurers underscored money problems at Southampton. These were compounded by differences that arose among the three men who had obtained the provisions--at three different places, a fact that had evoked the disapproval of Thomas Weston.

Especially disturbing to Cushman, who played the impossible role of diplomat, was the attitude of Christopher Martin, named a purchasing agent to represent the Strangers, had been chosen treasurer by the adventurers.

A stubborn man, Martin purchased freely, without consulting the Pilgrim agents, and drove the Pilgrims' financing into a muddle that years of effort would fail to clarify or correct.

Cushman said that nearly 700 pounds had been spent at Southampton, "upon what I know not." Martin, Cushman protested, "saith, he neither can, nor will, give any account of it. And if he is called upon for accounts, he crieth out of unthankfulness for his pains and care, that we are suspicious of him: and flings away...Who will go and lay out money so rashly and lavishly as he did, and never know how he comes by it?"

Ominously the Speedwell, which had shown some sailing quirks on the passage from Holland, cut into the Pilgrims' skimpy funds. It had to be "twice trimmed at Southampton."

The worst moments at Southampton, though, came with the arrival of Thomas Weston, and with his efforts to get the emigrants to agree to the altered terms demanded by some of the adventurers in the seven-year contract. On this, the irascible Martin felt like the people from Leyden: The adventureres, Martin told Cushman, "were bloodsuckers!" (Martin must have meant this for all the others, for he had ventured 50 pounds himself.)

CAPT. JOHN SMITH, IN HIS GENERALL HISTORIE wrote that the adventurers were about 70 in number--"some gentlemen, some merchants, some handycrafts men, some adventuring great sums, some small, as their estates and affection served." They were a voluntary combination, not a corporation, and "dwelt mostly about London."

The adventurers well knew, Smith said, that establishing a plantation could not be done "without charge, loss and crosses." Many would "adventure no more," because the general stock had already cost 7000 pounds.

Weston, clearly not an entirely free agent, was "much offended when the Pilgrims told him that he knew right well the original terms, and that their agents had been enjoined when they left Leyden not to agree to any new terms "without the consent of the rest that were behind." And when they told him that the enterprise needed "well near 100 pounds" to clear Southampton, Weston told them that he would not dispense another penny. He promptly headed back to London, telling the Pilgrims angrily that they could now "stand on their own legs."

After a discussion, the conscientious Pilgrims wrote a letter to the merchants and adventurers making a new offer.

They expressed their sorrow that "any difference at all be conceived between us." They said that the possibility of owning their own houses and lands "was one special motive, amongst many others, to provoke us to go," and that they had never given Cushman assent to make the change designating such property part of the company's stock. Still, they offered, "that if large profits should not arise within the seven years, that we will continue together longer with you, if the Lord give a blessing."

They understood, they said, that three-fourths of the adventurers were not insisting on the harsher terms; and as for their own plight:

"We are in such strait at present as we are forced to sell away 60 pounds worth of our provisions, to clear the haven (the port); and withal put ourselves upon great extremities; scarce having any butter, no oil, not a sole to mend a shoe, nor every man a sword to his side; wanting (lacking) many muskets, much armor, etc. And yet we are willing to expose ourselves to such eminent dangers as are like to ensue, and trust to the good Providence of God..."

Capt. Smith, a tireless promoter of plantations in New England, later put in perspective what the Pilgrims were about to do. Since his explorations of New England in 1614, Smith wrote, the region's fame had grown so "that 30, 40 or 50 sail went yearly only to trade and fish.

"But nothing would be done for a plantation till about some 100 of your Brownists of England, Amsterdam and Leyden, went to New Plymouth: whose humorous ignorances caused them, for more than a year, to endure a wonderful deal of misery with an infinite patience; saying my book and maps were much better cheap to teach them than myself."

Smith had offered his services to the Pilgrims and had been turned down. After all, they did not think they were headed for New England; and Weston and Cushman had already hired pilots who had been to America. Anyway, they did indeed have Smith's book and maps.

Departure this time included no farewells from friends.

A governor, with two or three assistants, was chosen for both of the vessels "to order the people...and to see to the disposing of provisions and such like affairs." All this was agreeable to the skippers of the ships. Martin was chosen for the Mayflower, Cushman for the Speedwell.

About the only ceremony was a calling together of all the company to hear a letter that had arrived from Rev. Robinson. He wished he could be with them. He had final words of advice, especially that, since they were about to govern their own affairs, they choose people who "do entirely love and will promote the common good...yielding unto them all due honor and obedience in their lawful administrations..."

The two vessels sailed Aug. 5--belatedly, but not yet disastrously late if all would soon go well. [1st try]

But they had not gone far before Master Reynolds found the Speedwell so leaky that "he durst not put further to sea till she was mended." He signaled Christopher Jones of the Mayflower, and came aboard the larger vessel to confer, and they decided to put into the port of Dartmouth for repairs. Reynolds had abundant grounds for concern.

Cushman, feeling ill, was deeply disturbed about trying to justify his actions accepting the oppressive seven-year contract, and further upset by Martin's high-handed treatment of the Pilgrims and sailors aboard the Mayflower. He wrote of his troubles to a friend in London, and also told about the Speedwell's shocking condition:

"She is as open and leaky as a sieve; and there was a board two feet long, a man might have pulled off with his fingers, where the water came in as at a mole hole...If we had stayed at sea but three or four hours more she would have sunk right down."

Earlier, the need to trim Speedwell twice at Southampton had consumed an extra week of fair weather. "Now we lie here waiting for her in as fair a wind as can blow...Our victuals will be half eaten up, I think, before we go from the coast of England, and if our voyage last long, we shall not have a mouth's victuals when we come in the country."

Bradford said that the Speedwell was "thoroughly searched from stem to stern, some leaks were found and mended, and now it was conceived by the workmen and all, that she was sufficient, and they might proceed without either fear or danger." They set out again on Aug. 23 "with good hopes." [2nd try.]

But all was not well. By the time they were more than 100 leagues (roughly 300 miles) at sea--well into the Atlantic and far beyond Land's End--Master Reynolds again signaled for a conference. Frantic pumping could "barely keep up with the leaks" in the Speedwell. Reynolds said he must "bear up or sink at sea." So they turned back and put into the nearest big port. Plymouth Harbor, where they were certain to obtain expert help.

This harbor, in the western part of England and the English Channel, had long been famous in England's wars, seafaring and worldwide exploration. The governor of both the fort and port was a man of ancient English lineage, Sir Fernando Gorges, one of the foremost champions of plantations in the New World.

Gorges, now in his mid-50s, was a soldier--knighted by the earl of Essex on the battlefield--and a courtier with considerable influence with King James. At the very moment the Pilgrims arrived in the port, Gorges had pending before the Privy Council his request for a new charter to convert the old Virginia Company of Plymouth into the Council for New England.

No one would be happier than Gorges at the sight of these two vessels entering his harbor--vessels intending to voyage to the New World to begin a plantation. This was something Gorges had been trying to achieve since the beginning of the century, when a returning explorer, George Wymouth, presented him with some Indians--an event that aroused Gorges' hopes of using the Indians as interpreters and guides in founding colonies.

Gorges, who would become know as the "Father of Maine" though he would not personally ever set foot in America, had steadfastly persisted in his efforts despite repeated and costly failures. Right now, he was being forwarded reports from the explorer-trader-agent, Capt. Thomas Dermer, whom he had sent to the Plymouth area marked on Capt. Smith's map--the identical area where these Pilgrims would by chance [where God is involved, rabbi's say the word coincidence (or chance) is not a Kosher word] establish New England's first permanent English plantation.

The Pilgrims were well-received by Gorges' people and by the townspeople while Speedwell was examined once again. The finding, though, was not good.

"No special leak could be found," said Bradford, "but it was judged to be the general weakness of the ship, and that she would not prove sufficient for the voyage. Upon which it was resolved to dismiss her and part of the company, and proceed with the other ship. The which, though it was grievous and caused great discouragement, was put in execution."

Provisions and supplies had to be transferred from the Speedwell's hold to the Mayflower. The worst wrench was that the number of passengers had to be reduced by 20. Still, Bradford observed, "those that went back were for the most part such as were willing to do so, either out of some discontent or fear they conceived of the ill success of the voyage..."

Among them was Cushman, still ill, and feeling the unmerited harassment that he was bearing "like a bundle of lead...crushing my heart." Bradford in his journals quoted Cushman, in a letter to a friend in London, as seeing "the dangers of this voyage [as]...no less deadly...If ever we make a plantation, God works a miracle!" Such, said Bradford, were Cushman's fears at Dartmouth; and, he added, "They must needs be much stronger now..."

This was severe on Cushman. Bradford was equally severe on Master Reynolds. Bradford agreed that overmasting--putting excessively large masts into the reconditioned Speedwell--had naturally opened its seams when the ship was under heavy sail. But he suspected that Reynolds had done this deliberately when supplies seemed to be falling low, so that he and the crew, signed on for a year, could get out of their contract. In after years, Bradford noted, once the Speedwell was refitted she "made many voyages...to the great profit of her owner..."

Overall, the Speedwell venture had turned out ruinously in loss of time; and this loss, protracting the Pilgrims' passage into the raging autumnal storms of the Atlantic, would contribute to exacting a dreadful toll in lives of the brave men and women and children--and tragically as well in those of the crew.

Already it was some 45 days since they had left Holland--sufficient time to have completed a normal crossing of the Atlantic--and the Pilgrims only now saw the sails raised and the vessel about to depart from Plymouth Harbor.

It was Sept. 6. [3rd try, final departure.]

They had, said Bradford, "a prosperous wind which continued divers days together" as their passage resumed. Many, though, were shortly "afflicted with seasickness."

Soon they again passed Land's End and the Isles of Scilly. They were beyond the English Channel. Ahead of them--the only thing between them and the New World--was the Atlantic Ocean, a vast, awesome expanse.

To most of those essentially plain farm folks, their real transport was more their faith in God than their vessel.

And of this faraway land they hoped to reach, their future home, what was known to these Pilgrims in the year 1620? What had been discovered?

IN HIS DIARIES, BRADFORD TOLD OF EXPLORATIONS in future New England, in particular mentioning explorers Bartholomew Gosnold, who in 1602 christened Cape Cod--where the Pilgrims would make their first New World landfall--and Thomas Dermer, who visited the future Plymouth at Gorges' behest "but four months" before the Pilgrims would arrive there. [If this wasn't a Providential setup, I'll eat my hat!]

One explorer, 23-year-old Martin Pring, began voyaging to America in 1603. He made landfall in present Maine, then came down the coast to future Plymouth, which the Patuxet Indians called Accomack. Unlike the Pilgrims, he found no dearth of Indians. They came, he said in a later account, "sometimes 10, 20, 40 or threescore, and at one time 120 at once..."

By the time the next major English explorer, Capt. Smith, came to the same harbor in 1614, England had its first colony in North America, struggling and suffering Jamestown. Smith had been part of that colony, serving as its governor and, later, as its historian.

Now, however, he was on an expedition of two ships, financed by four London merchants, with orders "to take whales and make trials of a mine of gold and copper." They chased, but could catch no whales. There were no mines, either, so they turned to fish and furs. While thirty-seven of his crew fished off Maine's Monhegan Island, Smith and eight or nine of his sailors ranged the coast, trading for beaver, marten and otter skins.

On his famous exploration of the coast from the Penobscot River in Maine to the tip of Cape Cod, Smith found the Indians were friendly in general: and even after a scrap at future Plymouth, all again "became friends." In his search he found, he said: "Not one Christian in all the land."

Smith's records have told us of "a vile act" that occurred after he started back to England. The captain of the other ship in the expedition, Thomas Hunt, tried slaving on his own. He took seven Nauset Indians and twenty Patuxets, the latter at future Plymouth, and sold them as slaves in Spain. (Monks at Malaga later purchased the Indians their freedom.)

Although he was blacklisted from future employment in England, Hunt's slaving brought retaliatory misery to later seafarers coming to the New England coast. For the Pilgrims six years later, it would bring difficulty and anxiety.

Ironically, though, Hunt's despicable behavior preserved the life of an Indian vital to the Pilgrims, Squanto, later described by Bradford as "a special instrument sent by God" to help the new inhabitants. Squanto, also known as Tisquantum, was among the Patuxets kidnaped by Hunt--and thus was saved from the plague that would destroy all other members of his tribe.

[The Divine setup continues, full force now.] In 1617 Capt. Dermer, who had been on several voyages to the New World, was in Newfoundland as Gorges' agent when he encountered Squanto, who was trying to get back to his kin at Accomack (Plymouth). Dermer at once saw an opportunity to help colonization. With consenting Squanto, he headed back across the Atlantic to Plymouth, England, to consult Gorges. [Had Squanto made it back to Accomack at this time, he probably would have died with the rest of his tribe in that plague.]

As Bradford would at a later date, Gorges saw Squanto as help from Heaven. "It pleased God so to work for our encouragement again," said Gorges, "as he sent into our hands Tisquantum...formerly betrayed by this unworthy Hunt." Thus, said Gorges, "there was hope conceived to work a peace between us and his friends, they being the principal inhabitants of that coast..."

Gorges accordingly dispatched Dermer in 1619, along with Squanto, to join others of Gorges' ships in New England. While most of his men and boys fished off Monhegan Island, Dermer set off on May 19 in a five-ton pinnace to explore the coast. He took five or six crewmen with him, and Squanto as his guide.

"I passed alongst the coast where I found some ancient plantations, not long since populous, now utterly void; in other places a remnant remains, but not free of sickness. Their disease: the plague, for we might perceive the sores of some that had escaped, who described the spots of such as usually die," Dermer wrote to England.

Smith, telling of Dermer's experience and of the reports had received--presumably from some of Dermer's crew--saw the effect of the mysterious plague as an advantage to prospective planters. "God," said Smith, "had laid this country open to us, and slain most part of the inhabitants by cruel wars and a mortal disease; for where I had seen 100 or 200 people there is scarce 10 to be found.

For Squanto, there were to be no kin to give him a homecoming. When he and Dermer arrived at the seat of the Patuxet tribe, where the Pilgrims would finally find asylum, they found "all dead." Their cleared land, untended lands at the head of Plymouth Harbor, as Smith suggested, awaited newcomers.

Of this place Dermer--who after wintering in Southern Virginia made a second trip to future Plymouth just a few weeks before Pilgrims left Delftshaven--wrote to Gorges: "I would that the first plantation might here be seated."

Below: A map of sailing routes