first anchor at Cape Cod, but tacked and sailed southward for half a day, meaning to reach the Hudson River. Then she got among dangerous shoals and currents, the wind moreover being contrary; and the captain, anxious for his vessel, and in a hurry to land his passengers, put about again and made Cape Cod Harbor.

"But here I cannot but stay and make a pause," says the old writer who first describes this voyage, "and stand half amazed at these poor people's condition; and so I think will the reader too, when he well considers the same. For having passed through many troubles, both before and upon the voyage, as aforesaid, they had now no friends to welcome them, nor inns to entertain and refresh them, no houses, much less towns, to repair unto." Before them lay an unknown wilderness. The nearest English settlement was five hundred miles away. They had expected to arrive in September, and it was November; they had expected to reach the Hudson River, and it was Cape Cod. "Summer being done," says the same writer- Bradford-"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 savage hue. If they looked behind them there was the mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now a main bar and gulf to separate them from all the civil parts of the world." To be sure, they had still a ship; but the captain warned them daily that they must look out for a place to found their colony; that he could wait but little longer; that the provisions were diminishing. every day, and he must and would keep enough for himself and crew to use on their return. Some of the crew were even less friendly in what they said, for some of these were heard to threaten that unless the place for their new colony were soon found, "they would turn them and their goods on shore and leave them."

Such was the position of the Pilgrims when the Mayflower

lay at anchor in Cape Cod Harbor. The first thing to be done was to select a place for their settlement. This, however, could not be done till the shallop, or sail-boat, was ready; and it would take several days, as they found. So they went to work on this, and meanwhile, for the sake of a mutual understanding among themselves, this agreement was drawn up and signed by all the men on board.

"In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyall subiects of our dread soveraigne lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britaine, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, etc., having undertaken, for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith, and honour of our King and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northerne parts of Virginia, doe, by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civill body politike, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by vertue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such iust and equal lawes, ordinances, acts, constitutions, offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the generall good of the Colony; vnto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witnesse whereof we haue hereunto subscribed our names. Cape Cod, II of November, in the year of the raigne of our soveraigne lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland 18, and of Scotland 54. Anno

Domini 1620."

Here was the "social compact" in good earnest - a thing which philosophers have claimed to be implied in all human. government, but which has rarely been put in a shape so unequivocal. Robinson's letter of advice to the company had recognized before they left Holland that they were "to become a body-politic," using among themselves civil government, and choosing their own rulers. As with most persons who write important documents, their work seemed less imposing to themselves than it has since appeared to others. They thought of discipline rather than of philosophy; they had secured a good working organization, and it was not till long after that the act was discovered to have been "the birth of popular constitutional liberty." Such as it was, it was signed by forty-one men, mostly heads of families. Against

each name was placed the number represented by him, making a total of one hundred and one persons, though accurately revised estimates give one more.

This being signed, the people were eager to go on shore and examine the new country, even by venturing a little way. So a party landed for fuel, a portion of them being armed; they saw neither person nor house, but brought home a boatload of juniper boughs, "which smelled very sweet and strong," and which became a frequent fuel with them. Then the women went ashore under guard the next Monday to do their washing, and we may well suppose that some of the twentyeight children begged hard to go also, and offered much desultory aid in bringing water, while the men guarded and the women scrubbed. The more they knew of the land, the more they wished to know, and at last it was agreed that Captain Miles Standish and sixteen men, "with every man his musket, sword, and corselet," should be sent along the cape to explore. The muskets were matchlocks, and the corselet was a coat of mail, a heavy garment to be worn amid tangled woods and over weary sands.

The journal kept by this first party has been preserved. They found walnuts, strawberries, and vines, and came to some springs, where they sat down and drank their first New England water, as one of them says, "with as much delight as ever we drunk drink in all our lives." They saw no Indians, but found their houses and graves; they found also a basket holding three or four bushels of Indian corn of yellow, red, and blue, such as still grows in Cape Cod. This they took with them on their return, meaning to pay for it, which they afterwards did. Then they returned, and a few days after another party, twice as large, and including the captain of the Mayflower, set off in the shallop to make further explorations. All their adventures are preserved to us in the most graphic way by contemporary narratives. Then a third party of eight

een went out, including Carver, Standish, Bradford, and other leading men. They were attacked by Indians; they lost their rudder and their mast; they drifted at last on Clark's Island, kept the Sabbath there, and on the 11th December, Old Style -commonly reckoned, but not quite accurately, as corresponding to the 22d of December, New Style-they made their first landing on Plymouth Rock. This place being approved, they returned to the Mayflower, and the vessel came into harbor five days later.

There they spent the winter-their first experience of a New England winter! They were ill housed, ill fed; part of them remained for several months on board the ship; one-half of them died during the first winter of scurvy and other diseases. At times, according to the diary of the heroic Bradford, there were but six or seven sound persons who could tend upon the sick and dying, "fetched them wood, made them fires, dressed them meat, made their beds, washed their loathsome clothes, clothed and unclothed them," two of these nurses being their spiritual and military leaders, Elder Brewster and Captain Miles Standish. The New Plymouth Colony never grew to be a strong one; its later history is merged in that of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, to which it led; but its success may be said to have been the turning-point in the existence of Raleigh's "English nation." The situation is thus briefly stated by the ablest historian who wrote in this continent before the Revolution, Governor Hutchinson :

"These were the founders of the colony of Plymouth. The settlement of this colony occasioned the settlement of Massachusetts Bay, which was the source of all the other colonies of New England. Virginia was in a dying state, and seemed to revive and flourish from the example of New England. I am not preserving from oblivion the names of heroes whose chief merit is the overthrow of cities, provinces, and empires, but the names of the founders of a flourishing town and colony, if not of the whole British empire in America."

In September, 1628, there came sailing into the harbor of