leave the country: I. In Holland, though they were with a friendly people, yet they were among those whose language and customs were not English. 2. As their children grew up, they would naturally marry into the Dutch families, and in a few generations their descendants would become Dutch. 3. Finally, they desired to build up a community on soil belonging to England, where they and those who came after them might enjoy both political and religious liberty, according to the Pilgrim standard of what was just and right.

72. Where they proposed going; how they got Assistance to go. The only English settlement then in America was that at Jamestown, Virginia. The Pilgrims could not go to that part of the country, for no worship but that of the Church of England was permitted there. They eventually determined to establish themselves at some place near the Hudson River. They had first to get the consent of King James of England. He would not openly favor their going, but finally "consented to wink at their departure" for America. As most of the Pilgrims were poor men, they were obliged to get assistance for their passage. A company of English merchants and speculators agreed to help them on these hard conditions: 1. The Pilgrims were to work for seven years without a single day to themselves except Sunday. 2. At the end of that time all that they had accumulated was to be divided equally between them and the company. On these terms a settler would not even own the whole of his house and garden after seven years' incessant toil. But the emigrants could not do better, and the agreement was signed, though it made a number of men past the prime of life simply "apprentices and servants" to the company.

1" To find some place about Hudson's river for their habitation.” FORD'S History of Plymouth, 1607-1646.

BRAD

The Pilgrims thought at one time of going to New Amsterdam (New York) and settling among the Dutch, but that was given up.

THE PILGRIMS SAIL.

77

73. The Pilgrims sail; Myles Standish. On September 16, 1620, the Mayflower sailed from Plymouth, England, carrying the second English colony that was to make a permanent home in the new world. There were only 102 of the emigrants, all told, and of these, less than ninety could be called Pilgrims. The others were persons who had joined them, or were servants or sailors hired by them.

Among those who were not members of the Pilgrim congregation, but who chose to cast their lot in with them, was Captain Myles Standish.2 He was a man with the heart of a lion in battle, and the hand of a woman for the sick and wounded. Without his counsel and his sword it is doubtful if the colony could have succeeded.

On a

74. The Pilgrims reach Cape Cod; the Compact. morning late in November the storm-tossed Pilgrims sighted Cape Cod. They tried to go south of it, but the weather was against them, and two days later (Nov. 21st) the Mayflower finally came to anchor in what is now Provincetown Harbor, at the extreme end of the Cape.

They had no authority to settle in New England, but they decided to do so. Some of the servants had threatened that if they stopped there, they would be their own masters and obey no one. To preserve order, the Pilgrims gathered in the cabin of the Mayflower and there drew up and signed a compact or agreement. By that agreement they declared themselves "loyal subjects" of the king, and at the same time they affirmed their purpose of making whatever laws were needful for the "general good of the

1 The Pilgrims sailed from Delftshaven, the port of Leyden, Holland (see Map, page 76), the last of July, 1620, in the Speedwell, for Southampton, England, where the Mayflower was waiting. August 5 both ships sailed for America with about 120 passengers. Twice the Speedwell put back in a leaky condition. Finally, on September 16 (New Style), the Mayflower sailed alone from Plymouth on her ever-memorable voyage.

2 One branch of the Standish family in England has always been Catholic; the other is Protestant. It is not certainly known to which Myles Standish belonged; but probably to the latter the family of Duxbury Hall, Lancashire.

colony." They elected John Carver for their first governor. Thus the new Commonwealth began: they were but a few score people, but they had the strength that belongs to those who fear God and respect themselves.

75. They explore the Coast, and land; Plymouth Rock; the First Winter. While the Mayflower remained at anchor, Captain Standish with a boatload of men went out to explore. On December 21 they reached the harbor which Captain John Smith had called Plymouth on the map made by him, in 1614. On the shore of that harbor lies a granite bowlder. It is said to be the only one directly on the water's edge for several miles. According to tradition they landed on that bowlder. It is not a large one, only a few feet square, but it fills a greater place in American history than any other rock on the continent; for Plymouth Rock is the stepping-stone of New England.

Plymouth Rock.

A few days later, the Mayflower sailed into that harbor, the men all went ashore, and the work of building a log hut for the general use began. Later, another cabin was erected, but it had to be used for a hospital instead of a settler's home. Such were the hardships of that winter that by spring just half of the colony were in their graves. But when the Mayflower went back, not one of the Pilgrims returned in her. They had

come to stay.