The Romantic Story Of The Mayflower Pilgrims Part 2

We know what "Little-Ease" means well enough; and so did many a wretched occupant of these barbarous places. The Bishop of Lincoln, in the old persecuting days, had at his palace at Woburn "a cell in his prison called Little-Ease," so named because it was so small that those confined in it could neither stand upright nor lie at length. Other bishops possessed similar means of bodily correction and spiritual persuasion.

This was worse than the Guildhall cells, with all their gloomy horror; and if the magistrates entertained their unwilling guests at the town jail, we may rest satisfied they did not eat the bread of adversity and drink the water of affliction in Little-Ease, but in some more s.p.a.cious apartment. We have no evidence that they did so entertain them, and the traditional lodging-place of these intercepted Pilgrims is the Guildhall and nowhere else. It is probable, all the same, that a good part of their captivity was spent in the town prison.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a Drawing by the late William Brand, F. S. A._

OLD TOWN GAOL, MARKET-PLACE, BOSTON]

Although the magistrates, from Mayor John Mayson downward, felt for the sufferers and doubtless ameliorated their condition as far as they could, it was not until after a month's imprisonment that the greater part were dismissed and sent back, baffled, plundered, and heart-broken, to the places they had so lately left, there to endure the scoffs of their neighbours and the rigours of ecclesiastical discipline.

Seven of the princ.i.p.al men, treated as ring-leaders, were kept in prison and bound over to the a.s.sizes. Apparently nothing further was done with them. Brewster is said to have been the chief sufferer both in person and pocket. He had eluded a warrant by leaving for Boston, and we know this was in September, because on the fifteenth of that month the messenger charged to apprehend Brewster and another man, one Richard Jackson of Scrooby, certified to the Ecclesiastical Court at York "that he cannot find them, nor understand where they are." On the thirtieth of September also the first payment is recorded to Brewster's successor as postmaster at Scrooby.

How the imprisoned Separatists fared, there is nothing to show. No a.s.size record exists. The Privy Council Register, which could have thrown light on the matter, was destroyed in the Whitehall fire of 1618; and the Boston Corporation records, which doubtless contained some entry on the subject that would have been of the greatest interest now, are also disappointing, as the leaves for the period, the first of a volume, have disappeared.

Eventually the prisoners were all liberated. That dreary wait of many weeks was a weariness of the spirit and of the flesh. Patiently they bore the separation, and by and by they met to make more plans. Next spring they agreed with another Dutchman to take them on board at a lonely point on the northern coast of Lincolnshire, between Grimsby and Hull, "where was a large common, a good way distant from any town." This spot has been located as Immingham, the site of the new Grimsby docks.

The women, with the children and their goods, came to the Humber by boat down the Trent from Gainsborough; the men travelled forty miles across country from Scrooby. Both parties got to the rendezvous before the ship, and the boat was run into a creek. This was unfortunate, as when the captain came on the scene next morning the boat was high and dry, left on the mud by the fallen tide, and there was nothing for it but to wait for high water at midday.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Photograph by Bocklehurst, Gainsborough_

TRENTSIDE, GAINSBOROUGH]

Meanwhile the Dutchman set about taking the men on board in the ship's skiff, but when one boatload had been embarked he saw to his dismay, out on the hills in hot pursuit, "a great company, both horse and foot, with bills and guns and other weapons," for "the country was raised to take them." So the laconic historian says, "he swore his country's oath--Sacramente," and heaving up his anchor sailed straight away with the people he had got. Their feelings may be imagined; and their plight was aggravated by a violent storm, which drove them out of their course and tossed them about for a fortnight, until even the sailors gave up hope and abandoned themselves to despair. But the ship reached port, at last, and all were saved.

The scene ash.o.r.e meantime had been scarcely less distressing than that at sea. Some of the men left behind made good their escape; the rest tarried with the forsaken portion of the party. The women were broken-hearted. Some wept and cried for their husbands, carried away in the unkindly prudent Dutchman's ship. Some were distracted with apprehension; and others looked with tearful eyes into the faces of the helpless little ones that clung about them, crying with fear and quaking with cold.

The men with the bills and guns arrested them; but, though they hurried their prisoners from place to place, no Justice could be found to send women to gaol for no other crime than wanting to go with their husbands.

We know not what befell them. The most likely suggestion is that "they took divers ways, and were received into various houses by kind-hearted country folk." Yet this we do know. They rallied somewhere at a later day, and John Robinson and William Brewster, and other princ.i.p.al members of the devoted sect, including Richard Clyfton, "were of the last, and stayed to help the weakest over before them;" and Bradford tells us with a sigh of satisfaction that "notwithstanding all these storms of opposition, they all gatt over at length, some at one time and some at another, and some in one place and some in another, and mette togeather againe according to their desires, with no small rejoycing"--to take part in the wonderful movement, begun by the Pilgrims and continued by the Puritans, that gave to a new land a new nation. Thus, wrote Richard Monckton Milnes, in some verses dated "The Hall, Bawtry, May 30th, 1854"--

Thus, to men cast in that heroic mould Came Empire, such as Spaniard never knew-- Such Empire as beseems the just and true; And at the last, almost unsought, came gold.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Copyright, 1904, by A. S. Burbank, Plymouth_

ELDER WILLIAM BREWSTER]

III

LIFE IN LEYDEN--ADIEU TO PLYMOUTH--THE VOYAGE TO THE WEST

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Photograph by W. P. Demmenie, Leyden_

JOHN ROBINSON'S HOUSE, LEYDEN, WHERE THE PILGRIM FATHERS WORSHIPPED]

III

LIFE IN LEYDEN--ADIEU TO PLYMOUTH--THE VOYAGE TO THE WEST

_Then to the new-found World explored their way, That so a Church, unforced, uncalled to brook Ritual restraints, within some sheltering nook Her Lord might worship and His Word obey In Freedom._--WORDSWORTH.

The first stage of the pilgrimage from the Old England to the New was now accomplished. Before the end of 1608 the whole body of the fugitives had a.s.sembled at Amsterdam. Two Separatist communities were already there, one from London, of which Francis Johnson was pastor and Henry Ainsworth teacher, and the other from Gainsborough under John Smyth. But these brethren were torn with dissensions, and the Scrooby Pilgrims, seeking peace, moved on to Leyden, where, by permission of the authorities, they settled early in 1609. Here they embarked upon a prosperous period of church life, and after awhile purchased a large dwelling, standing near the belfry tower of St. Peter's Church, which in 1611 served as pastor's residence and meeting-house, while in the rear of it were built a score of cottages for the use of their poor.

Eleven quiet years were spent in Holland. Governor Bradford says they continued "in a comfortable condition, enjoying much sweet and delightful society and spiritual comfort," and that they "lived together in love and peace all their days," without any difference or disturbance "but such as was easily healed in love."

The conditions of life were stern and hard, but they bore all cheerfully. With patient industry they worked at various handicrafts, fighting poverty and gaining friends. William Bradford was a fustian worker when, in 1613, at the age of twenty-three, he married Dorothy May of Wisbech; the marriage register which thus describes him is preserved in the Puiboeken at Amsterdam. Brewster, who was chief elder to John Robinson, now sole pastor of the congregation since Richard Clyfton had remained behind at Amsterdam, at first earned a livelihood by giving lessons in English to the students at the University. Then, in conjunction with Thomas Brewer, a Puritan from Kent, he set up a printing press, and they produced books in defence of their principles, such as were banned in England. Similar literature, emanating from the Netherlands, had excited the wrath of King James, who still possessed sufficient influence with the States of Holland to enable him to reach offending authors there. This James attempted to do in the case of Elder Brewster through Sir Dudley Carleton, then English amba.s.sador at the Hague. The result was ludicrous failure.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. PETER'S CHURCH, LEYDEN]

Brewster quitted Leyden for a time and went to London, not as was thought to elude the vigilance of the Amba.s.sador, but to arrange with shipmasters for a voyage to the West, which the Pilgrims had begun to think about. While Brewster was being sought by the Bishop of London's pursuivants, Sir Dudley Carleton, unaware of the hunt proceeding in London, was actively searching for him at Leyden, and at last triumphantly informed Secretary Naunton that he had caught his man. But as it turned out, the bailiff charged with the arrest, "being a dull, drunken fellow," had seized Brewer instead of Brewster! The prisoner was nevertheless detained, and after some ado consented to submit himself for examination in England, on conditions which were observed. Nothing came of it however. Brewster returned free and unmolested and Brewer remained in Leyden for some years, when, venturing back to England, he was thrown into prison and kept there until released by the Long Parliament fourteen years later.

Events were meanwhile shaping the destiny of the little Pilgrim community. Holland, though a welcome temporary asylum, was no permanent place for these English exiles, and their thoughts turned before long towards a settlement in North America. By good fortune this was a country then being opened up, and it appeared as a veritable Land of Promise to these refugees in search of a new home.

The first attempt to found an English colony on the mainland of North America was made in 1584, when Sir Walter Raleigh took possession of the country and named it Virginia in honour of his Queen. Nothing came of this venture, but in 1607 a company of one hundred and five men from England, sailing in three small ships, had landed on the peninsula of Jamestown in Chesapeake Bay, and the first permanent settlement was established.

The chief of this Virginian enterprise was the redoubtable John Smith, a Lincolnshire man, the first of those sons of empire to go out from the East to the West. Strange that this pioneer in the wilderness, who gave to New England its name, should have come from a country which was to contribute so much to the peopling of the New England States. It is upon record that in 1619 Smith, who was then unemployed at home, volunteered to lead out the Pilgrims to North Virginia, but nothing came of the offer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Photograph by James, Louth_

BUST OF CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH

_Presented by General Baden-Powell to the Louth Grammar School_]

The Leyden brethren in their hour of need turned to the Virginia Company, and the negotiations for a settlement in the chartered territory were not altogether unsatisfactory. The obstacle was their religion. On the Council of the Company they had good friends; but its charter not only enforced conformity, but provided stringent measures of church government. Yet, though the Pilgrims could obtain no formal grant of freedom of worship, the presumption that they would not be disturbed was so strong that they accepted the conditions and were about to embark when the Merchant Adventurers in London with whom they were a.s.sociated secured powers from the Plymouth Company, and they decided to sail for New England instead of for Virginia.

Arrangements were not completed without "many quirimonies and complaints;" but the exiles were saddled with such substantial difficulties as want of capital and means of transport, and the bargaining was all in favour of the merchants who were to finance and equip the expedition. At length the compact was made and preparations for the voyage were pushed forward, and the eventful day arrived when the Pilgrims were to make the long, lone journey across the seas.

Pastor Robinson and a portion of his flock were to stay behind at Leyden until the first detachment had secured a lodgment on the American continent; and those about to sail, the majority of the little community, went on board the Speedwell, a vessel of sixty tons. The Pilgrims embarked included such stout-hearted pioneers as Brewster and Bradford, John Carver, Edward Winslow, Isaac Allerton, Samuel Fuller, and John Howland, all "pious and G.o.dly men;" also Captain Miles Standish, who, though not a member of the congregation then or afterwards, was a valiant soldier whose military experience and well-tried sword would, it was suspected, prove of service in a country where "salvages" were known to exist in large numbers and might have to be encountered with the arm of flesh.

That was a touching scene and one which stands out boldly in the history of the movement when, on a bright sunny morning in July, 1620, the Pilgrim Fathers knelt on the seash.o.r.e at Delfshaven and Mr. Robinson, his hands uplifted and his voice broken with emotion, gave them his blessing. Affecting also was the parting of the emigrants with those they were leaving behind. They had need of all their courage and patience.

They sailed with British cheers and a sounding volley fired as salute, and made a brave enough show on quitting land; but troubles dogged them on the waters. Delays and disappointments soon set in. The Speedwell brought them to Southampton, where, anch.o.r.ed off the West Key, they found the Mayflower of London, a bark of one hundred and eighty tons burden, Captain Thomas Jones, and several pa.s.sengers, some of them merchants' craftsmen.

Here some anxious days were spent in patching up the compact with the Adventurers, and while the vessels lay detained letters written by Robinson arrived from Leyden, one for John Carver conveying the pastoral promise--never, alas! redeemed--to join them later, and the other, full of wise counsel and encouragement, addressed to the whole company, to whom it was read aloud and "had good acceptance with all and after-fruit with many."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Photograph by A. S. Burbank, Plymouth_

_From the Painting by Weir_

THE EMBARKATION OF THE PILGRIMS]

With ninety people in the Mayflower and thirty in the Speedwell, and a governor and a.s.sistants appointed for each company, the two vessels dropped down Southampton water on August 15[3]; but they were scarcely in the Channel when the smaller craft began to leak, and they had to run into Dartmouth and overhaul her. The repairs occupied eight days. At the end of that time the ships again stood out to sea; but, when nearly three hundred miles past the Land's End, Reynolds, master of the Speedwell, reported that the pinnace was still leaking badly, and could only be kept afloat by the aid of the pumps. So there was nothing for it but to turn back a second time, and the vessels now put into Plymouth, the Pilgrims landing at the Old Barbican.

At Plymouth the Speedwell was abandoned and sent back to London to the Merchant Adventurers, and with her went eighteen persons who had turned faint-hearted, among them Robert Cushman, a chief promoter of the emigration, and his family. Finally, after much kindness and hospitality extended to them by the Plymouth people, of whom they carried a grateful remembrance across the Atlantic, the Pilgrim Fathers said adieu, and all crowded on board the Mayflower, which, with its load of pa.s.sengers, numbering one hundred and two souls, followed by many a cheering shout and fervent "G.o.d-speed" from the sh.o.r.e, set sail alone on September 16 on its dreary voyage to the West. The weighing of the anchor of that little ship changed the ultimate destiny of half the English-speaking race!

We have to remember that a trip like this in such a vessel as the Mayflower, crowded for the most part with helpless people, was a hazardous undertaking. The dangers of the deep were dreaded in those days for all-sufficient reasons, and here was a tiny craft, heavily submerged, making a winter voyage on a stormy ocean to a destination almost unknown. It must have required the strongest resolution, both of pa.s.sengers and crew, to face the perils of the venture; the step was a desperate one, but, urged on by circ.u.mstances and an indomitable spirit, they took it unfalteringly, having first done what they could to make the lumbering little ship seaworthy.