106

Nov.

THE PILGRIMS AT CAPE COD.

CHAP. from this wilderness a more goodly country1 to feed VIII. their hopes. For which way soever they turned their 1620. eyes (save upward to the heavens) they could have little solace or content in respect of any outward objects. For summer being done, all things stand for them to look upon with a weather-beaten face; and the whole country being full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and salvage hue. If they looked behind them, there was the mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a main bar and gulf to separate them from all the civil parts of the world. If it be said they had a ship to succour them, it is true; but what heard they daily from the master and company but that with speed they should look out a place with their shallop, where they would be at some near distance; for the season was such as he would not stir from thence until a safe harbour was discovered by them, where they would be and he might go without danger; and that victuals consumed apace, but he must and would keep sufficient for himself and company for their return. Yea, it was muttered by some, that if they got not a place in time, they would turn them and their goods on shore, and leave them. Let it be also considered what weak hopes of supply and succour they left behind them, that might bear up their minds in this sad condition and trials they were under, and they could not but be very small. It is true, indeed, the affections and love of their brethren at Leyden were cordial and entire; but they had little power to help them, or themselves; and how the case stood

In the MS. the word is company, manifestly an error of the pen. Morton, copying the same

passage into his Memorial, p. 35, reads it country, as in the text.

THE PILGRIMS AT CAPE COD.

107

VIII.

between them and the merchants at their coming CHAP. away, hath already been declared. What could now sustain them but the spirit of God and his grace?1

1620. Nov.

Deut.

xxvi.

5,7.

Psalm cvii. 1, 2,

May not and ought not the children of these fathers rightly say, "Our fathers were Englishmen, which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness. But they cried unto the Lord, and he heard their voice, and looked on their adversity." And let them therefore praise the Lord because he is good, and his mercies endure forever. Yea, let them 4,5,8 which have been thus redeemed of the Lord show how he hath delivered them from the hand of the oppressor. When they wandered in the desert wilderness, out of the way, and found no city to dwell in, both hungry and thirsty, their soul was overwhelmed in them. Let them confess before the Lord his loving kindness and his wonderful works before the children of men.2

1 "Divers attempts had been made to settle this rough and northern country; first by the French, who would fain account it a part of Canada; and then by the English; and both from mere secular views. But such a train of crosses accompanied the designs of both these nations, that they seem to give it over as not worth the planting: till a pious people of England, not allowed to worship their Maker according to his institutions only, without the mixture of human ceremonies, are spirited to attempt the settlement, that they might enjoy a worship purely scriptural, and leave the same to their posterity." Prince, p. 98.

"Whether Britain would have had any colonies in America, if religion had not been the grand inducement, is doubtful. One hundred and twenty years had passed,

from the discovery of the northern
continent by the Cabots, without
any successful attempt. After re-
peated attempts had failed, it seems
less probable that any should under-
take in such an affair, than it would
have been if no attempt had been
made." Hutchinson's Mass. i. 3.

2 Milton, in his treatise on Refor-
mation in England, written in 1641,
thus alludes to the persecution and
exile of our New England fathers.
"What numbers of faithful and
freeborn Englishmen and good
Christians, have been constrained
to forsake their dearest home, their
friends and kindred, whom nothing
but the wide ocean, and the savage
deserts of America, could hide and
shelter from the fury of the bishops.
O if we could but see the shape of
our dear mother England, as poets
are wont to give a personal form to
what they please, how would she

108

CHAP.

Nov.

THE MAYFLOWER AT CAPE COD.

Of the troubles that befell them after their arrival, VIII. with sundry other particulars concerning their transact1620. ings with the merchant adventurers, and many other passages not so pertinent to this present discourse, I shall refer the reader to New England's Memorial, and unto Mr. Bradford's book, where they are at large penned to his plentiful satisfaction.'

appear, think ye, but in a mourning
weed, with ashes upon her head,
and tears abundantly flowing from
her eyes, to behold so many of her
children exposed at once, and thrust
from things of dearest necessity,
because their conscience could not
assent to things which the bishops
thought indifferent? Let the astrol-
oger be dismayed at the portentous
blaze of comets, and impressions
in the air, as foretelling troubles
and changes to states; I shall be-
lieve there cannot be a more ill-
boding sign to a nation, (God turn
the omen from us!) than when the
inhabitants, to avoid insufferable

grievances at home, are enforced by heaps to forsake their native country." Works, i. 37, (Symmons's ed.)

1 Here we take leave of Morton's copy of Gov. Bradford's History. As the rest of it is lost, except the few scattered passages preserved by Prince and Hutchinson, and as we have a Journal of "the troubles that befell them after their arrival," written at the time, and chiefly, as I conceive, by Gov. Bradford, and much more copious and minute than the account in Morton's Memorial, the narrative will proceed in the words of that Journal.

BRADFORD'S AND WINSLOW'S

JOURNAL.

"Relation or Iournal of the beginning and proceedings of the English Plantation settled at Plimoth in NEW-ENGLAND, by certaine English Adventurers both Merchants and others.

With their difficult passage, their safe arrivall, their ioyfull building of, and comfortable planting themselves in the now well defended Towne of NEW PLIMOTH.

As also a Relation of Foure severall discoveries since made by some of the same English Planters there resident.

I. In a iourney to Packanokick, the habitation of the Indians greatest King Massasoyt; as also their message, the answer and entertainment they had of him.

II. In a voyage made by ten of them to the Kingdome of Nawset, to seeke a boy that had lost himselfe in the woods with such accidents as befell them in that voyage.

III. In their iourney to the Kingdome of Namaschet, in defence of their greatest King Massasoyt, against the Narrohiggansets, and to revenge the supposed death of their Interpreter Tisquantum. IIII. Their voyage to the Massachusetts, and their entertainment there.

With an answer to all such objections as are any way made against the lawfulnesse of English plantations in those parts.

LONDON. Printed for Iohn Bellamie, and are to be sold at his shop at the two Greyhounds in Cornhill neere the Royall Exchange. 1622."