| Chapter VI
Searching for a haven in the New World
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.
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