m
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 COMMODORE BYRON MCCANDLESS 
 
 L
 
 YOUNG PEOPLE'S HISTORY 
 OF THE PILGRIMS
 
 
 THE MAYFLOWER
 
 YOUNG PEOPLE'S HISTORY 
 OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS 
 
 AUTHOR OF "mighty ENGLAND! THE STORY OF THE ENGLISH PEOPLE"; 
 fXHE PILGRIMS INTHEIRTHREE HOMES*'; "tHE ROMANCE OF AMERICAN 
 
 colonization"; "brave little Holland," etc. 
 fVith Illustrations 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 The Riverside Press Cambridge 
 
 1920
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
 
 F 
 
 ^ 
 
 IN REVERENT MEMORY AND APPRECIATION 
 
 OF MY ENGLISH ANCESTORS 
 
 BOTH FREE AND STATE CHURCHMEN 
 
 AND WITH ESPECIAL HONOR 
 
 TO THOSE WHO APPLIED DEMOCRACY TO RELIGION 
 
 AFTER THE GREAT EXAMPLE OF THE 
 
 SYRIAN LOVER OF THE COMMON PEOPLE 
 
 5
 
 PREFACE 
 
 One of many correspondents complains that 
 " the trouble with Americans seems to be that 
 they consider that the Pilgrims are a unique 
 creation of their own and that they had 'cor- 
 nered' the market of the world on them — • like 
 the American Indians. It is somewhat hard for 
 them to realize that these Puritans were bona- 
 fide, every-day Englishmen." 
 
 Too true! 
 
 I have tried to avoid this Yankee tendency, 
 to sketch rather the historical backgrounds, to 
 remember the meanings of words as used in 
 former days, and, in picturing the past, to un- 
 shackle our minds from the present. 
 
 To learn about the Pilgrims I made seven 
 journeys over the ground and in the archives 
 of England, Holland, and America, and, in the 
 years from 1886 to 1919, have had controversy, 
 correspondence, or conversation with the Dex- 
 ters, father and son, John Fiske, Oliver Wen- 
 dell Holmes, W. E. Davis, Edward A. Freeman, 
 Herbert Adams, John Brown of Bedford, Azel 
 Ames, Thomas W. Higginson, R. S. Storrs, Ezra 
 [ vii]
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Hoyt Byington, Daniel Van Pelt, George H. 
 Bough ton, Edwin D. Mead, Henry C. Murphy, 
 Edwin Arber, Henry Codman Potter, Willis- 
 ton Walker, Charles W. Eliot, Edward J. Car- 
 penter, Alexander MacKennal, Champlin Bur- 
 rage, J. Rendall Harris, and various librarians 
 and archivists; to all of whom my warm thanks 
 are due. 
 
 Yet, while confessing a large debt to many 
 friends and helpers, and still more to relics, 
 records, and documents, I account the knowl- 
 edge and insight gained while living four 
 years under feudal and Imperial Japan of fifty 
 years ago, to be of even more value for under- 
 standing the history of European countries, at 
 a time when they were just emerging from 
 medicevalism. For a true interpretation of the 
 whole Pilgrim story, I should not be willing to 
 exchange erudition for living experience under 
 an ancient civilization; believing, as I do, that 
 human nature and its response to conditions 
 are the same everywhere and in all times, and 
 that race prejudice is a relic of barbarism, if not 
 of cave life. 
 
 In writing for, but not down to, young people, 
 
 I have dwelt rather upon what was visible to, 
 
 or interested, the Pilgrim boys and girls. Yet 
 
 I have endeavored, also, to make clear the 
 
 [ viii ]
 
 PREFACE 
 
 formative principles and Impelling motives, as 
 well as conditions and events; and this without 
 any special interest in genealogy. 
 
 Though claiming to have no "corner" on the 
 story of the Pilgrims, it is well for us Americans 
 to know how much both they and we owe to 
 the federal republic whose striped flag — the 
 prototype of our own — was that of a true na- 
 tion, and to realize how nobly the Separatists 
 responded to their opportunities, in both Hol- 
 land and America. No less than Jerusalem, 
 Athens, and Rome do Scrooby, Leyden, and 
 Plymouth stand in history for great and im- 
 perishable ideas. The Pilgrim story shows that 
 when democracy is conditioned by high reli- 
 gious motives, it is at its best. The Pilgrims be- 
 lieved, as do many of us to-day, that, for the 
 building and regulating of a church, we may 
 rely solely upon the Gospel, and that all true 
 democracy is but the teaching of Jesus — as 
 illuminated by his life — put into practice. 
 
 I have given my view of English history in 
 another book: Mighty England: The Story of 
 the English People. Nor, because I tell, more 
 than most authors, of the mighty reinforce- 
 ment in a republic of a body of loyal English- 
 men, cast out of the mother country in Tudor 
 and Stuart times, would I hinder for a moment 
 [ix]
 
 PREFACE 
 
 the deeper unity and closer cooperation, for the 
 world's good, of all those English-speaking peo- 
 ple, who, in 1920, join in celebrating the ter- 
 centenary of the sailing of the Mayflower. 
 
 W. E. G. 
 
 Ithaca, N.Y. 
 January, 1920
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. How THE World Looked Long Ago i 
 
 IL A Mirror of English History 17 
 
 HL England's Most Wonderful Century 27 
 
 IV. Fun and Play in the Old Home 38 
 
 V. A Girl's Life in Merrie England 50 
 
 VL Puritan, Independent, Separatist, 
 
 and Pilgrim 63 
 
 VIL Middelburg: The Lone Star of 
 
 Freedom 76 
 
 VIIL Martyrs for a Free Church 88 
 
 IX. Brewster: The Boy Traveler ioi 
 
 X. Bradford: Boy Hero and Typical 
 
 Pilgrim 115 
 
 XL Scrooby: A Battle-Ground of Prin- 
 ciples 124 
 
 XII. Tudor England casts out her Chil- 
 dren 136 
 
 XIIL Under the Flag of Seven Stripes 148 
 
 XIV. Leyden and American History 161 
 
 XV. John Robinson: Prophet and Leader 174 
 
 [xi]
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 XVI. The Decision to Emigrate and Why 187 
 
 XVII. The Speedwell: Old England Again 199 
 
 XVIII. The Voyage of the Mayflower 211 
 
 XIX. The Compact and the Passenger List 222 
 
 XX. The Glorious Wash 237 
 
 XXI. The New World: America 247 
 
 XXII. Captain Miles Standish and his 
 
 Little Army 261 
 
 XXIII. The First Winter and the Great 
 
 Sickness 274 
 
 XXIV. The Pilgrim Republic 284 
 
 XXV. Prosperity and Expansion 301 
 
 XXVI. Cosmopolitan Elements in the Pil- 
 grim Company 310 
 
 XXVII. The Pilgrim Inheritance 322 
 
 Chronological Framework of the 
 Story of a Free Church in a Free 
 State 333 
 
 Index 343
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 The Mayflower Frontispiece 
 
 The Village of Scrooby from the Manor 
 Grounds 46 
 
 Brewster's Room in the Old Manor House, 
 Scrooby 102 
 
 The Old Monk's Mill, Scrooby 126 
 
 Two OF the Cells in the Town Hall of Bos- 
 ton, England, where some of the Pilgrims 
 were Incarcerated 130 
 
 View of Delfshaven from the River in the 
 Seventeenth Century 200 
 
 From an old Dutch print 
 
 The Spot in Southampton Water where the 
 Mayflower and the Speedwell are sup- 
 posed TO HAVE TAKEN ON PASSENGERS 2O4 
 
 From an engraving 
 
 The Pilgrim Exiles 282 
 
 From a painting by George H. Boughton, by permission 
 of Messrs. M. Knoedler & Co., New York
 
 YOUNG PEOPLE^S HISTORY 
 OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 • 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 HOW THE WORLD LOOKED LONG AGO 
 
 When in 191 8 two million of our American 
 boys crossed the ocean, many of them saw old 
 England, most of these for the first time. They 
 were greatly surprised. They missed much that 
 was in daily use at home. The people spoke 
 the same language, but the general aspect was 
 quite different. Some things the Americans 
 wanted the English did not have. No ice-water, 
 no ice-cream, no peanuts, no soda-water foun- 
 tains, no pie, no cobs of corn, no fried chicken, 
 no waffles ! Tea, not coif ee, even for breakfast, 
 was the common drink, and almost everybody, 
 from lord and lady to laborer and shopgirl, 
 took a cup in the afternoon. The people on the 
 pavements and the horses in the streets turned 
 to the left, instead of to the right. Only a few 
 streets ran straight, or kept the same name all 
 the way along. The buildings were low and no 
 skyscrapers were seen. There were few street- 
 car lines or subways. 
 
 [ I ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 On the railroads the little four-wheeled 
 freight cars and the passenger coaches seemed 
 more like toys or big boxes on wheels. The 
 steam locomotives were astonishingly small, 
 without cabs for the engineers, and the whole 
 system, including arrangements for baggage, 
 which they called "luggage," appeared to be 
 very old-fashioned. Shops and stores, markets 
 and fairs, roads and coins were different. Even 
 the holy places had queer names, for Church 
 and State were united. 
 
 Yet our men liked sight-seeing and studied 
 their relations. One American infantryman, of 
 whom General Pershing tells, was especially 
 bent on seeing "The Church of England." 
 Many things furnished fun for our boys, even 
 while they met with warm hearts and open 
 hands. England is an old, not a new country 
 like ours, and in some things her people excel 
 us. They cling to many customs which our 
 fathers gave up long ago, and love them be- 
 cause they are old. 
 
 While the language was much the same, the 
 accent and pronunciation, especially of the 
 plainer people and country folk, were different, 
 and often puzzled our boys, or made them 
 laugh. To hear of a " goods " instead of a freight 
 train, a "jug" instead of a pitcher, and of 
 
 [2]
 
 HOW THE WORLD LOOKED 
 
 "butcher's meat" and of "corn" — meaning 
 any kind of grain except on the cob — seemed 
 strange. The cockneys and railway porters in 
 London pronounce ai as if it were long i. They 
 talk of the "mine" line for "main" line, and 
 "lidy" for "lady." When a military secretary 
 asked a Yankee soldier, who wished to visit his 
 English relatives, whether he wished to "go to 
 die," it required a third party to explain the 
 solecism, translate cockney into American, and 
 prove that the question related to time and not 
 to eternity. "To die" meant "to-day," and 
 had no reference to the cemetery. 
 
 In other words, the English language and 
 Ideas, methods, and ways of looking and doing 
 things are not the same on both sides of the 
 Atlantic, though ever increasingly more alike. 
 This is not merely because we Americans are 
 made up of many nations. Even the Canadians 
 and Australians found things and thoughts 
 different from those in their own homes, though 
 not so much as did "the Yanks." People 
 whose fathers had grown up in a wild country, 
 with new landscapes, animals, and articles of 
 food, where the climate and weather were pe- 
 culiar, and who passed through many expe- 
 riences unknown to their fathers, must talk and 
 think differently from those left behind in the 
 
 [3]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 old country. Moreover, people living on an 
 island, not much more than one twentieth part 
 as large as the United States, find it a little 
 hard wholly to understand us or our ge- 
 ography; while our boys must learn a good 
 deal to know why "the Yanks" and "the 
 Tommies," though good allies and comrades, 
 are not wholly alike. Even American jokes 
 come by slow freight into the minds of for- 
 eigners, while much of their fun is lost on us. 
 
 Still more, those soldier lads (if they re- 
 mained long enough in the country to read 
 history, to learn English ways, and to think and 
 to compare) wondered at finding that some 
 things connected with the government were 
 mixed with religion in a very repulsive way. 
 In death their comrades might not be allowed 
 burial in what is called "consecrated" ground 
 — for sectarianism, when backed by corpo- 
 rations, either religious or political, carries its 
 edicts even into the grave. Their English 
 friends, on receiving a bill of burial charges, 
 might find printed on the top the headline, 
 " unconsecrated ground." 
 
 Yet these old customs "established by law" 
 offended millions of Englishmen, not to say 
 Americans. The New Yorker or Texan found 
 that, if he wanted to marry an English girl, 
 
 [4]
 
 HOW THE WORLD LOOKED 
 
 it must be done at a certain hour of the day 
 and before some agent of the "church estab- 
 lished by law." In a word, here were State and 
 Church in union. He found in the Upper House 
 of Parliament church rulers also, sitting as 
 members, to make the laws. He learned that 
 one sort of Christians had special advantages 
 over the others, and the people in general 
 actually had to pay taxes to support sectarian 
 schools. 
 
 So the thinking American came to the con- 
 clusion that those laws, customs, and things 
 most truly American had come to us, not from 
 England, but from a republic, and from other 
 lands than dear old England. He also found 
 that very few English people understood our 
 form of federal government — a sort which 
 they had never tried; while others of our po- 
 litical features they envied^ as indeed we ad- 
 mired some of theirs. In a word, mutual benefit 
 followed on this contact of ideas. 
 
 Yet even in England, people and things are 
 now almost as different from those of, say, 
 1500 A.D., as we and our ways are from them 
 and theirs. Certainwords and expressions, which 
 not over-educated Englishmen call "American- 
 isms" — of which Shakespeare's plays are full 
 — are only what our ancestors brought with 
 
 Is]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 them oversea. Many a soldier from Kentucky, 
 or New Jersey, was able to prove this, by quot- 
 ing from the bard of Avon, or from the Bible. 
 
 Whatever is alive grows, and growth means 
 change. Even the English landscape is not the 
 same. The old forests are gone. Hundreds of 
 square miles of drained marshes have become 
 fertile fields. Whole species of birds and beasts 
 once common are extinct, while new plants 
 abound. The lepers, the horrible plagues, and 
 the epidemics that swept off tens of thousands 
 at a time occur no more. The modern English- 
 man is clean and loves soap and water, and 
 soap-makers sit in Parliament; but in 1600 the 
 old Roman baths were still forgotten under the 
 rubbish of centuries, and personal cleanliness 
 was not the shining virtue of England. To 
 show the change in industry, there are millions 
 of tall chimneys, where five centuries ago none 
 was visible. 
 
 At the date of America's discovery, no Eng- 
 lish folk could understand the language spoken 
 to-day. Even northern and southern men had 
 hard work in conversation, for there were 
 many dialects. Nor could a Welshman, or a 
 Highlander, know what an Englishman was 
 saying. Scotland and Wales were as foreign 
 countries, as indeed many counties were to 
 [6]
 
 HOW THE WORLD LOOKED 
 
 each other. Except the castles, monasteries, 
 cathedrals, church buildings, and tithe-barns, 
 there were very few imposing edifices, or very- 
 fine or even comfortable homes. Nine tenths 
 of the dwellings were but one-story thatched 
 cottages. In the two-storied wooden buildings, 
 there was one room up and one room down- 
 stairs, the upper floor being reached by a rude 
 ladder or an outside stairway. Beds, in the 
 country, were of rushes. Ninety-nine heads out 
 of every hundred were laid, for their night 
 sleep, on logs of wood for pillow or bolster. All 
 lights and fires had to be out by nine o'clock. 
 There were no carpets or matting, but only 
 rushes, even on palace floors. Only a few people 
 of the higher ranks knew by experience what 
 linen, or underclothing, or bed-tick mattress, 
 or pillows were. Such things as water pipes 
 or bathtubs in a dwelling-house, or the regular 
 cleaning, paving, or lighting of streets at night, 
 were known only in a few places. Bricks had 
 not been made since Roman times, but stone 
 for the castles and cathedrals, wood and ce- 
 ment, or lath and clay, for the dwellings were 
 the rule. There were no post-offices or postage 
 .stamps, no splendid public roads as to-day, 
 and only a few great thoroughfares leading to 
 the four points of the compass; that is, to 
 
 [7]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 Scotland, France, Ireland, and the Nether- 
 lands. 
 
 Of the population, thin and scattered, the 
 majority lived in the country. London had 
 only a hundred thousand inhabitants, and in 
 very few towns or cities were there over live 
 thousand souls. Banks or factories were un- 
 known and few were the shops or stores. Me- 
 chanics worked at home, and people sold their 
 goods in stalls in the towns; but especially at 
 county fairs, held regularly, and along with the 
 pigs, cattle, and country produce. 
 
 In religion no one could worship, assemble 
 in companies for prayer or song In the English 
 language, or have a church of any kind, except 
 according to the one particular form — the 
 church services being almost wholly In Latin. 
 There were very few books and no libraries; 
 for, as a rule, only the monks or priests could 
 read. As for the knights, they scorned learning 
 and were even proud to be Illiterate. 
 
 Indeed, the world Into which an English boy 
 or girl was born, even as late as the Common- 
 wealth, was a very different one from that of 
 which either an English or an American child 
 of to-day learns to know. As our young people 
 pass, step by step, from the cradle, the nursery, 
 the school, the college, out Into a trade or busi- 
 [8]
 
 HOW THE WORLD LOOKED 
 
 ness, and the more they learn of history, the 
 more easily can they understand that English 
 life in the time of the Tudors was like living in 
 another world. 
 
 The uneducated, or those who in our country 
 get their notions only from novels, pageants, 
 the theater, and the "movies," know little of 
 the reality; for these methods of amusement, 
 as a rule, dwell upon whatever is pretty, ro- 
 mantic, or exciting, but not upon every-day 
 life. It is usually only the dramatic side of his- 
 tory that attracts attention. Apart from other 
 reasons, this means more money at the gate 
 and ticket office. 
 
 In this book some other phases of English 
 life and history shall be illustrated, more es- 
 pecially in telling of the boys and girls, whose 
 fathers and mothers suffered as well as en- 
 joyed. 
 
 In England, the very men who fought, and 
 pleaded, and even died for law and freedom, 
 were true forefathers of the American Republic. 
 They uttered much the same words and pro- 
 fessed the identical principles, while, better yet, 
 living to make them real, as those which we 
 have learned from the lips and lives of Wash- 
 ington, Lincoln, Grant, Roosevelt, Taft, and 
 Wilson. Therefore, every American boy and 
 
 [9]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 girl, we are sure, will enjoy knowing the full 
 story of the Pilgrims — the story not only of 
 the fathers and mothers, but of the young folks, 
 scores of whom, before their lives ended, had 
 had three homes. These were in dear old Eng- 
 land, in brave little Holland, and in glorious 
 America. 
 
 Across the North Sea, among the Dutch, 
 however, the young American soldier of 191 8, 
 with his eyes and ears open, especially if he 
 could speak and understand what was the prin- 
 cipal language spoken in New York State un- 
 til after the Revolution, would feel equally 
 at home. He would recognize many familiar 
 names, words, and things, the church and 
 house architecture, the interior decoration and 
 table service, manners and customs that were 
 the same in the United States, and many of 
 them exactly like those in colonial days. In a 
 word, he would recognize the originals of that 
 middle region, in which are New York, New Jer- 
 sey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, that forms 
 distinctive America. People and vehicles turned 
 to the right, not to the left. In the city ordi- 
 nances and signs one could read, as could be 
 read in old Philadelphia, "Turn to the right, as 
 the law directs." On the breakfast table would 
 be coffee, rather than tea; besides crullers, waf- 
 
 [10 J
 
 HOW THE WORLD LOOKED 
 
 fles, and cookies — all of them Dutch words 
 — sandwiches, turtle soup, and other things 
 American that came first from Holland. 
 
 He would learn where Santa Claas lived and 
 got his name, and where PInxter, the old May- 
 Day festival, and Thanksgiving Day, and New 
 Year's Day calls originated. In Black Pete, serv- 
 ant of Santa Claas, or Saint Nicholas, he would 
 recognize the darky servant-boy, typical of Man- 
 hattan in New Amsterdam days. He would 
 find that a "boss" is the honorable title of a 
 foreman. The word for a town hall, Stad Huys, 
 would sound very much like a "state house." 
 He might hear a song about Paul Jones on the 
 streets. In the museums and literature he would 
 discover a wonderful wealth of relics of the 
 American Revolution, when the Dutch helped 
 us to win our independence, lent us ships, offi- 
 cers, and solid money, which, when paid back 
 in 1808, amounted to ^14,000,000. 
 
 In the cemeteries and on the door-plates he 
 would recognize the family names of two of our 
 Presidents, Van Buren and Roosevelt, to say 
 nothing of our great men of finance, business, 
 and government. Over the shop signs he would 
 recognize hundreds of names of his own ances- 
 tors, or of those common In our city directories. 
 Added to these would be hundreds more of peo- 
 
 [ II]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 pie of Scottish, Welsh, and Irish descent, now 
 blended with the Dutch people. He might no- 
 tice that the names of John Adams, Benjamin 
 Franklin, and George Washington were as fa- 
 miliar in Holland as are those of Edison and 
 Hoover. If he could read the records in the ar- 
 chives, in several cities, he would find more doc- 
 uments about the Pilgrim Fathers than could 
 be assembled in all England. There he would see 
 the autographs of the Pilgrims — lovers, swains, 
 wives and husbands — ■ who began the State of 
 Massachusetts. Here are numerous entries of 
 betrothals, marriages, burials, tax-payings, and 
 matriculations of students into the universities, 
 who became famous in both British and Ameri- 
 can history. Before his eyes in the old paintings 
 made in the days of the Dutch Republic, would 
 be revealed the origin of the red and white 
 stripes in our flag. He would learn that the first 
 foreign salute fired in honor of the American 
 flag, even before it had its blue field of stars, 
 was that ordered by the Dutch governor at 
 Saint Eustatius, in the West Indies, on No- 
 vember 17, 1776, from which island our fathers 
 received nearly one half of all the cannon, 
 powder, and supplies needed in our War for 
 Independence. 
 
 Our soldier boy would be surprised to learn 
 
 [12]
 
 HOW THE WORLD LOOKED 
 
 that many of our army and ship terms are pure 
 Dutch, and that the " camel" that carried Com- 
 modore Perry's fleet over the bar in Lake Erie, 
 in 1813, was invented in Holland. He would 
 recognize on the map the names of hundreds of 
 places in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylva- 
 nia, Delaware, and the Northwestern States of 
 Iowa, Michigan, and Wisconsin. 
 
 With Dutch money the American would have 
 little trouble, quickly discerning that the deci- 
 mal system, on which ours is founded, was in 
 use, and that "mint," "dimes," "dollars," and 
 "cents" are all Dutch words. He could read 
 street names and places, telling of English and 
 Americans — ■ the " Brownists," " Pilgrims," and 
 "Puritans." If he knew Dutch history — so 
 shamefully neglected in American schools and 
 colleges — he would find that our ancestors, 
 who signed the Declaration of Independence, 
 who made the Constitution, and who founded 
 our government, borrowed more, especially in 
 the federal idea, the Senate, and the Supreme 
 Court, from the Dutch Republic than from 
 the English monarchy; because in colonial and 
 nation-making days, the Dutch Republic, with 
 all its defects and advantages, was a living 
 model. He would note that this people, in 1579, 
 throwing off the yoke of Spain, formed, with a 
 
 [13]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 written constitution, a federal union of seven 
 states, all represented in the red and white 
 stripes of the flag, and issued their Declaration 
 of Independence in 1581; that John Adams de- 
 clared that the originals of the two republics 
 were as one transcript from the same page; 
 while Franklin wrote that, in love of liberty 
 and bravery in the defense of it, Holland was 
 "our great example." 
 
 If "the Yank" looked further Into files of 
 Dutch newspapers, from 1770 to 1783, he would 
 find that the intellectuals of the Dutch Repub- 
 lic were our constant friends, and that to this 
 day vital questions are decided in the courts of 
 the greatest of our States according to Dutch, 
 and not British, law. If he talked much or often 
 with the people in their native language, or in 
 English, which most educated Dutch folk use, 
 he would discover that the average person in 
 Holland knows and understands much more 
 about our system of government than does the 
 average Britisher. 
 
 Still further, if the American youth In khaki 
 were a student equally of American, Nether- 
 landish, and British history, of the story of 
 France, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, as well 
 as of England, he would be convinced that the 
 United States Is more of a New Europe than 
 
 [14]
 
 HOW THE WORLD LOOKED 
 
 a New England. The Flemings and Walloons 
 of Belgium, the Dutch and the Germans, the 
 Scotch-Irish and Welsh, who before 1770 settled 
 the Middle States, brought many things, ideas, 
 and customs, from the Continent, that have 
 gone into American life. On the other hand, the 
 Pilgrims and Puritans also imported into the 
 Eastern States not a few things purely Dutch; 
 while Lord Baltimore, the descendant of a Neth- 
 erlander, did the same in Maryland. By all 
 these enriching ideas and institutions we Amer- 
 icans have profited, while yet grateful to Eng- 
 land, the home of our fathers. 
 
 In short, in a majority of the things most 
 characteristically American, and which so sur- 
 prise the Englishman whose historical reading 
 is defective, we are, in our inheritances, as much 
 Dutch and Continental as we are English. The 
 Separatists, or Pilgrims, from 1590 to 1625, and 
 the Puritans from 1580 to 1640, learned so much 
 in the Dutch Republic, that he who does not 
 know this vital fact has not read much history, 
 while to ignore it makes a caricature of the tri- 
 ple story, (i) of the Pilgrims and the Puritans; 
 (2) how the British Whigs and Liberals fed 
 their souls in Holland until, in 1830, England 
 had a parliament representing men, and not 
 land only; and (3) how we all, on this side of the 
 
 [ IS]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 Atlantic, from many nations and countries, be- 
 came Americans. 
 
 In the Dutch archives famlHarlty with the 
 autographs. Items, and records about the Pil- 
 grims makes their history very real. In a word, 
 Holland was one of their homes, and the Dutch 
 republican army was the school in which the 
 pioneers and early captains of New England 
 were trained. 
 
 Let all this melt Into "the infinite azure of 
 the past," with charity and love, though not 
 into oblivion; for If the Tudor and Stuart kings 
 and prelates of England had been as good and 
 kind. In giving welcome then, to the Pilgrims, as 
 the English people are now to us — in large 
 measure their descendants — we might never 
 have had the glorious Independent American 
 commonwealth, and never have " hated " the 
 England of to-day, champion of freedom and 
 the mother of nations. Equally true is it 
 that the facts and the proofs demand that we 
 must hail Holland as one of the three homes of 
 the Pilgrims and one of the fatherlands of the 
 American Nation. And this. If we are large- 
 minded, we can do without abating one jot or 
 tittle of our love to the land of our sires, beauti- 
 ful, mighty, glorious, and invincible England.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 A MIRROR OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 Englishmen of to-day can hardly believe that, 
 altogether, thousands of people in England 
 were once burned for their religion, or for what 
 was called witchcraft; or were hanged, by tens of 
 thousands, for trivial offenses — such as steal- 
 ing a sheep or shooting a deer. There were over 
 two hundred kinds of wrongdoing for which 
 death by sword, axe, or rope was the penalty. 
 For political offenses the legal custom was to 
 chop up the dead man's body into quarters and 
 distribute these over the country, hanging the 
 flesh and bones over the city gateways. It was 
 thought by thus exposing the human carrion — 
 "to poison half mankind," as Pope says, and to 
 furnish food for dogs and birds of prey — that 
 other persons would be deterred from crime. 
 During the reign of Henry VIII seventy-two 
 thousand persons were hanged or beheaded in 
 England. The laws were frightfully "religious" 
 in form, but not in spirit. The "high displeas- 
 ure of God" was a common phrase on the 
 statute books. The priests and those in power 
 seemed to be so busy in saving souls and looking 
 
 [ 17]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 to the next world that they spared little time 
 to improve this one, or to better their own or 
 the people's morals. 
 
 Now it was like living in Tudor England to 
 dwell, as I did, from 1870 to 1874, in the inte- 
 rior of a country in which laws, manners, and 
 customs were much the same as in Queen Eliza- 
 beth's time. There was no such thing as govern- 
 ment of the people, for the people, or by the 
 people. At the top was a ruler, who claimed to 
 represent God on earth and to be his special 
 favorite. Under him were nobles, who lived 
 finely in silk, with plenty of good food and with 
 many servants. Next were the knights, who 
 paid no taxes, but wore armor in war, and in 
 peace the daily costume of gentlemen. As mark 
 of their rank they carried swords. They had a 
 system of heraldry, coats of arms and family 
 crests, which were embroidered on their own and 
 their servants' coats. In fact, one could tell, 
 from his costume, in what class any person be- 
 longed. 
 
 There were also thousands of monks and 
 priests — ten times more than were necessary 
 — and most of them very lazy. All these, with 
 the nuns, nobles, gentry, and "religious" peo- 
 ple, numbering in all over a tenth of the popu- 
 lation, did not work with their hands, but they 
 
 [18]
 
 A MIRROR OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 owned the land and lived off the people, who 
 dwelt In small houses and under rigid sump- 
 tuary laws. The only large buildings were castles, 
 monasteries, and temples; but along the roads 
 were thousands of little shrines, with images, 
 candles, and incense, where people prayed and 
 told their beads. There were no streets lighted 
 at night, and every traveler must carry a lan- 
 tern. Most of the larger towns or cities were 
 walled. Beside much that was horrible, there 
 was more that was picturesque. 
 
 Below the privileged classes was the great 
 mass of farmers, traders, peasants, and working- 
 people of all sorts. Below these, again, were 
 actors, jugglers, strolling players, beggars, and 
 outcasts. Of the four grades of common folk, 
 the farmer ranked the highest. The merchant 
 and shopkeeper were lower in the scale, for trade 
 was not in honor and commerce by land or sea 
 was just beginning. Most business was done at 
 fairs. 
 
 These common folk, no matter how rich some 
 of them might be — though few of these there 
 were — • were not allowed to ride on horses, or 
 to wear any but very cheap clothes. They could 
 not spend their cash as they might wish to do. 
 When their children married, no one was al- 
 lowed to make a wedding present worth over a 
 
 [19]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 few cents. They paid all the taxes and worked 
 hard, the whole year round, to support their 
 superiors. A farmer could not buy, sell, or ex- 
 change land, or bequeath it by will to his chil- 
 dren. He was not allowed to think for himself, or 
 to worship, except in the way the Government 
 ordered or allowed. If he did, he might be im- 
 prisoned, beheaded, or burned alive. He must 
 do just as his lord or priest told him, for Church 
 and State were hand in hand. In fact, many 
 were told that if they did not leave their money 
 to the priests, their souls would not be saved. 
 There were some very sarcastic proverbs about 
 the part that money played in religion, and also 
 concerning the profits of the church corpora- 
 tions. 
 
 Except for a few general rules, the law was 
 secret and no one but the magistrates knew 
 what its details were. If arrested for crime, a 
 man was thrust into a horrible, cold prison, with 
 a crowd of convicts, and there he might starve 
 if not fed by his relatives. To obtain his con- 
 fession he might be tortured, by being beaten, 
 crushed, torn, branded, or burned. He had to 
 kneel before his judges at the trial. When his 
 head was cut off it was stuck on top of a pole, set 
 up beside the road, nailed up over the city gates, 
 or placed on a pillory. Such sights were very 
 
 [20]
 
 A MIRROR OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 common and in some places daily seen. After 
 imprisonment everybody shunned the criminal 
 and there were no plans for reforming him. In 
 some parts of the country they saved the ex- 
 pense of maintaining prisons, by trying the con- 
 demned man in the morning, cutting off his 
 head in the afternoon, and burying him before 
 sunset. There were different codes of law and 
 punishment for the knights and gentry and for 
 the plain people. In front of every magistrate's 
 office was the trio of defensive weapons to dis- 
 arm rough or drunken knights or armed men, 
 besides the "catchpole," of which we shall hear 
 further on. In a word, as compared with to-day, 
 neither Japanese in 1870 nor Englishmen in 
 1 590 had freedom of conscience, and little of 
 body. 
 
 There was no free general education for the 
 common people. Books were chiefly for priests, 
 clerks, monks, or the sons of nobles and gen- 
 tlemen. Even the universities were not much 
 above the grade of the grammar schools of our 
 time. The so-called "public" schools — that is, 
 outside the church or monastery — were not 
 public at all. Education paid for by general tax- 
 ation, and open and free to all, was unknown. 
 "Hospitals" were very rare and were far from 
 being the places of comfort we now know. There 
 
 [21]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 were few, indeed, where the very poor and 
 friendless could go. The dentist was usually a 
 blacksmith, or carpenter, and the barber a sur- 
 geon. A druggist's shop was a museum of curi- 
 osities and its drugs were often very repulsive. 
 Trained physicians were almost unknown, for 
 science was just beginning. In its place, super- 
 stition ruled men's minds everywhere, among 
 both the learned and the unlettered, the priests 
 being especially ignorant and hostile to any- 
 thing new, and using a dead language in their 
 rituals. 
 
 All the creatures of imagination, such as fair- 
 ies, imps, nixies, sprites, demons, and evil spir- 
 its of all sorts, were believed to be very real, 
 very busy, very active, and ever close at hand. 
 The priests, in the name of religion, were well 
 paid to keep off these imaginary beings, for the 
 people believed in their powers of evil. At al- 
 most every crossroad stood a shrine or image, 
 under which, or at the temple doors, beggars 
 and lepers — and there were a good many of 
 them — sat and pleaded for alms. The lunar 
 calendar was in vogue and New Year's Day 
 came in February, or March. The year was di- 
 vided up into seasons and festival days, with 
 names based on church rules or farmers' cus- 
 toms. 
 
 [22]
 
 A MIRROR OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 Nearly every child born was in terror, more 
 or less, and all his life, because he was taught 
 that malicious creatures were everywhere. The 
 devils lurked singly, in strange places, such as 
 woods, swamps, and heaths; or they roamed in 
 throngs or droves, especially on the night wind 
 and in storm and darkness. Children were told 
 that the sacred bells would drive them away, 
 and it was imagined that by making a certain 
 sign on their breasts, or repeating a formula of 
 words taught them, they would be protected 
 from harm. Boys and girls wore charms or amu- 
 lets around their necks to defend them from 
 disease or the devils. Hardly a house or a sta- 
 ble but had nailed above the door something 
 bought from the priests, to ward off evil. In 
 fact, being a priest was one of the best of money- 
 making trades. If a man were poor, his "reli- 
 gion" cost him a large part of his wages. 
 
 The center or focus of life in every village, 
 and one of the largest of buildings, was that in 
 which the people worshiped, said their prayers, 
 and heard sermons or the mass. These were all 
 in the possession of the priests, and were ruled 
 by them and not by the people; for the common 
 person was not allowed to think, but only to 
 obey. He must pay the priest or monk, throw 
 his coins in the box, and hold his tongue. It cost 
 
 [23]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 a good deal of money to be buried, for It was 
 taught that the use of bells and candles, cen- 
 sers and Incense, with the chanting of prayers, 
 and many other things, were necessary to scare 
 away the demons and open the gates of Para- 
 dise. Even these were not enough, for cash must 
 be paid for petitions to the many saints In be- 
 half of the dead person, to get his or her soul 
 out of the pains of the other world. There were 
 many "chantries" or chapels for this purpose. 
 
 Yet religion had Its sunny side also, for peo- 
 ple, whether Buddhist or Christian, are alike 
 In their nature. Feasting, pilgrimages — which, 
 when made In crowds, were much like picnics 
 or pleasure excursions — were common. Yet 
 the more there were of these merrymakings and 
 indulgences of the appetites, with gluttony and 
 coarse amusements allowed by the church, or 
 temple rulers, the more were the people kept In 
 Ignorance and obedience to their rulers. From 
 the time of Lao-Tsze, the Chinese philosopher, 
 to the present, the people are not Inclined to 
 think deeply when their stomachs are over-full. 
 
 In still another way the people among whom 
 I lived were like those of my forefathers In 
 Rouen, In France, at Hastings, In Nottingham, 
 in Switzerland, and In Wales; that Is, there were 
 a few men of earnest mind who protested against 
 
 [24]
 
 A MIRROR OF ENGLISH HISTORY 
 
 thus keeping the masses in ignorance. These 
 men insisted that the priests and men in power 
 built fences, as of barbed wire, to keep earnest 
 souls from seeking the truth. If these thinking 
 men, whether in Japan or in England, could 
 have had their own way, they would have 
 smashed the images, abolished monasteries and 
 monopolies, and stopped the dictation of for- 
 eigners living in a distant country. They would 
 have the people educated to read, to write, to 
 think, and to know history. For religion, they 
 would have good teachers, and church officers 
 elected by themselves, and be thus trained in 
 self-government. They believed that as religion 
 becomes purer and more spiritual, it drops the 
 sacrificial forms and becomes educational, ap- 
 pealing less to the senses, the body, and the 
 emotions, and more to the mind. These men 
 hated excess of symbols, all priestly oppression, 
 all state religion, and the interference of poli- 
 ticians with the conscience. They would have 
 the soul wholly free. These men knew that reli- 
 gions are many — as numerous as weeds — but 
 religion is one. 
 
 But what happened ? In the story of freedom 
 such men were treated exactly alike, whether 
 in old Japan or in old England, for human na- 
 ture — call it pagan. Christian, Anglo-Saxon, 
 
 , [ 25 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 or Chinese — Is always and everywhere the 
 same. Those men, bringers-In of a better time, 
 who, In our day are honored In bronze statues 
 and splendid monuments, were, In old days, 
 arrested, thrown Into prisons, their books and 
 writings burned or otherwise destroyed. Many 
 of them were put to death by fire, sword, or 
 the gallows. English history and Japanese are 
 astonishingly alike. Liberty of either thinking 
 or printing was not, at first, allowed by kings, 
 queens, or bishops, whether Buddhist or Chris- 
 tian. In a word, no Asiatic need be ashamed of 
 his country's history when compared with that 
 of Europe; for In both the evolution of liberty 
 of thought and conscience was slow.
 
 ' CHAPTER III 
 ENGLAND'S MOST WONDERFUL CENTURY 
 
 To every alert youth, in every generation, the 
 century in which he Hves must seem the great- 
 est, for he is part of it and is growing with its 
 growth. His interest in events and things visible 
 is keener and his opportunity is before him. 
 
 The England of the sixteenth century was 
 that of new horizons, of great sailors and ex- 
 plorers, and of Shakespeare. There were many 
 unusual happenings and mighty movements. 
 New people, fresh ideas, and astonishing inven- 
 tions so crowded the stage of history that this 
 era may perhaps be named as greatest of all; at 
 least for the "right little, tight little island." 
 These were indeed "spacious days." 
 
 After the Middle Ages all Europe had ex- 
 panded. Then followed the discovery of Amer- 
 ica, which pushed England out into the world, 
 made her look westward and gave her a new 
 point of view. Her people thereafter had many 
 and thrilling hopes and expectations, with new 
 interests. The ocean path opened in the direc- 
 tion of the setting sun and ever toward a new 
 morning. Its lure made England the successful 
 rival of Spain — then the dominating world 
 
 [27]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 power. Adventure and enterprise, besides re- 
 vealing the riches of the Orient, started Mother 
 England on her unique career of planting colo- 
 nies and building nations. Bold sailors carried 
 her flag around the globe. In a word, from being 
 insular and unimportant, England became Im- 
 perial. She created an empire greater than the 
 Roman. 
 
 Yet all these doings, while very wonderful, 
 were beyond her borders; England's most star- 
 tling achievement was the discovery of herself. 
 She found out that liberty is ever to be won 
 only by those who seek it. "Who would be free, 
 themselves must strike the blow." The people 
 learned to have faith, first in God, and then 
 in themselves through a more direct and vital 
 vision of truth. They found out, also, that their 
 fellow sinners, whether living under crowns or 
 in canonicals, could not monopolize the divine 
 favor. We of English descent do well to sing: 
 "Our fathers' God, to Thee, 
 Author of Liberty"; 
 
 for our English ancestors, by both faith and 
 works, proved the truth we sing. 
 
 Before Tudor times the conscience of Eng- 
 land had been ruled by a potentate, the head 
 of a religious corporation in Italy, a thousand 
 miles away. From the Greek title of this ruler, 
 
 [28]
 
 A WONDERFUL CENTURY 
 
 which means "father," we get our affectionate 
 terms, "papa" and "pop." About 1575 an Eng- 
 lish rhymester spoke of his "Enemie pretended, 
 but in hart a friend to the Papa." This corpora- 
 tion had Inherited the grand traditions of the 
 Roman Empire and its methods were those of 
 the Caesars. 
 
 Not satisfied with religion. It was even more 
 concerned with politics. It taught what we now 
 regard as the horrible heresy that political rul- 
 ers could Interfere with the conscience. In Eng- 
 land it wielded Instant power over all the af- 
 fairs of life and Its stern rules had to be obeyed. 
 Without Its permission, men could not be mar- 
 ried or burled. It overawed all, from the king 
 to the pauper. It was able to drive a monarch 
 from his throne, or set the mark of Cain upon 
 the common man. For slavery of conscience 
 and for political interference in another coun- 
 try's affairs there had been nothing exceeding 
 it in history. 
 
 Every time we sing our national anthem, 
 " My country, 't Is of thee," we ought to feel 
 thankful that our English ancestors first threw 
 off the yoke of this Italian corporation, and then 
 tamed their own tyrant kings to be their serv- 
 ants. Our debt to England can never be fully 
 repaid. 
 
 [29]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 How the world has changed! To-day, the 
 British king, instead of being above the law, a 
 tyrant and a terror to his subjects, is a gentle- 
 man beloved by all, a true friend and servant 
 of the people, respected throughout the earth. 
 The pope, in place of being constantly mixed 
 up in politics, alternately the master or the pup- 
 pet of kings and armies, is a Christian bishop, 
 honored among the nations as the spiritual 
 leader of millions whose bond is that of love 
 and reverence. Instead of an English bishop 
 being a feudal lord, liege-man of the king, and 
 an arbitrary magistrate, he is the honored over- 
 seer of a flock and often among the noblest and 
 most useful of men. More and more the prin- 
 ciple of the Master, "My Kingdom is not of 
 this world," prevails in, and because of, the 
 separation of Church and State — a principle 
 which lies at the foundation of the Pilgrim faith 
 and the American Republic. 
 
 Then, also for the first time, England, in Tu- 
 dor days, welcomed to her shores thousands of 
 Belgian fugitives, escaping from the same slav- 
 ery of conscience and from the Spanish yoke. 
 This influx, beginning in 1567, was like the hid- 
 ing of leaven in a lump, to work transformation; 
 for these people changed England's economic 
 life. Heretofore the chief English industry had 
 
 [30]
 
 A WONDERFUL CENTURY 
 
 been the keeping of sheep and the raising of 
 wool, which was sold in Flanders. "The sheep's 
 foot turns sands into gold," said the proverb. 
 This trade had been England's greatest source 
 of wealth, so that the crimson upholstery, on 
 which the speaker of the Upper House sits, is 
 called the "Woolsack," for, of old, his seat was 
 only a bag of wool. Yet besides this one export, 
 England, being a land of raw materials chiefly, 
 had hardly any foreign trade or commerce and 
 very few crafts, factories, banks, or printing 
 presses, with only the crudest sort of agricul- 
 ture. Thus, from one of the poorest, the Eng- 
 lish became one of the richest, of nations. Once 
 wholly agricultural, they developed into a man- 
 ufacturing people. 
 
 These Belgian and Dutch refugees for con- 
 science' sake were skilled farmers, workmen, 
 mechanics, weavers, dyers, artists, bankers, and 
 merchants. They were artificers in lace, tap- 
 estry, and cloth, men and women who made 
 things both fine and useful, such as only city 
 folk had ever seen. Their trades were so won- 
 derful that the English called them "mys- 
 teries." Within two generations garden vegeta- 
 bles, unknown before, and new and larger crops 
 of grain and grass, with improved farming, had 
 made a new landscape. England's wealth and 
 
 1 31]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 population doubled. So, when the seventeenth 
 century opened, the nation was strong enough 
 to defy all enemies and to hold its own in the 
 world. In the third generation thousands of the 
 sons of these refugees formed a large element 
 in the Parliamentary army. 
 
 The Italian potentate might excommunicate 
 her sovereigns, but verbal thunders hurt them 
 not. Never again would England allow the serv- 
 ants of a foreigner to meddle with her domes- 
 tic affairs, or to have any rule within her bor- 
 ders — not even under the pretext of religion. 
 
 How wonderful that sixteenth century was, 
 we have only to learn by presenting, in epitome, 
 its story. 
 
 After several foreign dynasties on the throne 
 of England, the Welshman had his turn, as the 
 Scotsman was later to have his. In the Wars 
 of the Roses — which consisted chiefly of skir- 
 mishes between nobles of rival families in which 
 the people had little interest — Henry Tudor, 
 that is, Henry Theodore, met his opponent 
 Richard on the battle-field. There he won vic- 
 tory and became king. 
 
 Tudor is only Welsh for Theodore. Nearly all 
 modern Welsh family names are taken from 
 Christian names with s added, which means 
 "son," as in Jefferson, Williams, etc.; or, from 
 
 [32]
 
 A WONDERFUL CENTURY 
 
 some feature in the landscape, as Penn, from 
 pen, a point, etc. 
 
 Meanwhile affairs at one end of the earth 
 affected England at the farthest west. That is 
 the world's history: the action of Asia — where 
 most things we enjoy and suffer originated — 
 upon Europe and America. It is because his- 
 torians ignore this fact that we get such narrow 
 notions about ourselves and "the Orientals," 
 and hear such rubbish as "never the twain 
 shall meet," the "unchanging East," etc. 
 
 The Turks, in 1453, had captured Constan- 
 tinople and driven the Greek scholars into west- 
 ern Europe. These men came west with ideas 
 that are as powerful as armies, besides words 
 that cut like swords, and, even better, give 
 light. They brought the New Testament in 
 their hands. This little library of biography and 
 letters, written, much of it, in prison or exile, by 
 men suffering for conscience' sake, who were 
 "pilgrims and strangers on the earth," proved 
 to be, to oppressors, worse than dynamite. It 
 was as the TNT explosive, used in the big war, 
 through which we have just passed ; because the 
 reading of this little book was bound to upset 
 the prevalent systems of Church and State, and 
 to bring to birth republics and democracies. To 
 allow it to be read by the people, in a true trans- 
 
 [33]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 latlon from the Greek, was almost certain to 
 tumble over both thrones and cathedral chairs. 
 Its translation and publication in common lan- 
 guage meant a moral earthquake. Plain folks 
 would quickly find out that kings were as great 
 sinners, and often as great fools, as commoners, 
 and as surely to be punished for both their folly 
 and their wickedness. 
 
 Worse yet, if "Hodge" — which is the nick- 
 name of the English farm laborer — should 
 learn to read, he might discover what both real 
 and original Christianity, and its counterfeit, 
 were. He would see, for example, that apart 
 from teachers, the only necessary executive 
 officers in the early Church were two, overseers 
 and servants; that is, bishops and deacons, as 
 Paul wrote to the first Christian Church in 
 Europe, at Philippi. Still more menacing, to 
 crowns and mitres and "princes of the Church," 
 was the New Testament record that the people 
 elected their own officers by votes, in a show of 
 lifted hands, as the Book of Acts tells us. It 
 might even dawn upon them that a "church" 
 was not a building, or a corporation with polit- 
 ical power over the souls of men, whether Chris- 
 tian or Hebrew. 
 
 The result, so dreadful to monks and prelates, 
 would be that religion would be transferred to 
 
 [34]
 
 A WONDERFUL CENTURY 
 
 the home and family, with its seat in the con- 
 science. Then a man's character would be 
 judged by his acts instead of by his words. This 
 would be disastrous for kings and church 
 princes, for Bible reading showed that in the 
 ancient Christian congregations neither kings 
 nor prelates had anything to do with the matter 
 of personal religion. 
 
 In the early days a bishop — • that Is, a super- 
 intendent, guardian, inspector, or overseer — • 
 was simply the pastor of one church, and he was 
 chosen by the church members. In open meet- 
 ing, by a show of hands. All the first churches 
 were "conventicles," such as Queen Elizabeth 
 denounced by "law"; that is, they were small 
 companies of believers who held meetings in 
 private houses; no such thing as an edifice, 
 called a "church" or a "cathedral" — that 
 is a chair-house — being known for three cen- 
 turies after the crucifixion. The very word 
 "church," now popularly used to mean a build- 
 ing, is a curious corruption of the original term, 
 meaning a company of people. 
 
 Moreover, the language of the first Chris- 
 tians and of the New Testament was Greek, not 
 Latin. Readers would find, too, that many of 
 the customs, fashionable in Christian churches 
 since the Middle Ages, had been borrowed from 
 
 [35]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 the heathen or introduced from Buddhism; 
 such as priestly uniforms or vestments, milH- 
 nery, lace coats or shirts, lights, incense, beads, 
 rosaries, prayers for the dead and to the saints, 
 angels having feathers and wings, and the use of 
 books to pray out of. When they saw that the 
 Saviour's memorial supper had been changed 
 from a social meal to a priestly function, made 
 into a passion play, set forth in the form of a 
 drama, and called "the mass," they were both 
 surprised and pained. Seeing this, together with 
 "consecrated ground" — from which all ex- 
 cept adherents to one form of ritual were re- 
 fused burial — besides a thousand other things 
 unknown in the New Testament, resulting in 
 corruption of the pure and primitive faith, they 
 would ask disagreeable questions which might 
 disturb the priests to answer. They might even 
 find out the true history of the Church; and, in 
 fact, they did find it out. They believed that the 
 Church could exist without the State, and reli- 
 gion flourish outside of politics. 
 
 To-day, in our free country, we have dropped 
 the Roman, the Tudor, and the Stuart idea, 
 that every one must think and believe alike. 
 So has England. We have substituted Nature's 
 method of variety in harmony. All these differ- 
 ent outward ways of worshiping God — Greek, 
 
 [36]
 
 A WONDERFUL CENTURY 
 
 Roman, Russian, Reformed, Episcopal, Quaker, 
 or what not — ■ are left to the conscience of the 
 individual, or to the vote of the congregation; 
 but to have any one method of belief or worship 
 forced upon us, on pain of torture, imprison- 
 ment, or death, seems barbarous, and is to be 
 resisted. 
 
 In what respect were these Europeans differ- 
 ent from Chinese or Japanese, who contempo- 
 raneously engaged in the same cruel business 
 of persecution ? Before they knew it, our Sep- 
 aratist ancestors were good Americans. 
 
 Let us understand at once the difference In 
 purpose and principle, between Pilgrim and 
 Puritan, between the ruling ideas of the Middle 
 Ages and of modern times. With the Anabap- 
 tists, the Dutch Republic, the Pilgrims, and the 
 United States of America, and now, with most 
 civilized nations, religion is a matter of the in- 
 dividual conscience; with the others, religion is 
 and was made an engine of government. In 
 none, as yet, however, is either perfection found 
 or absolute consistency exhibited.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 FUN AND PLAY IN THE OLD HOME 
 
 One of the best ways of understanding the Pil- 
 grim men and women is to study their Hves 
 when they were boys and girls. For permanent 
 impressions made and influences on character, 
 we must look to the working in early life of the 
 factors of environment. In later years the forces 
 of heredity have freer and often inexorable play. 
 In middle age men and women find the inherit- 
 ances from ancestors more powerful even than 
 their own wills. Yet to discern and appreciate 
 the normal adult as he is, when the faculties are 
 in balance, we must look to his childhood. 
 
 George Washington declared that the forces 
 of ability and experience are best blended be- 
 tween the ages of thirty-five and fifty-five. A 
 true representation of his boyhood gives a clear 
 insight into the life of our great leader. The 
 authentic anecdotes show that the boy was 
 father of the man. 
 
 In the case of those who left the church and 
 country of England, to seek a new environment, 
 in order to hand down a different sort of hered- 
 ity, a true picture of life and amusement in 
 the England of their time explains why they re- 
 
 [38]
 
 FUN AND PLAY IN THE OLD HOME 
 
 jected most of the popular sports and chose a 
 more serious Ufe. We shall see why, after turn- 
 ing their backs on their old home, they spoke 
 of it as "Egypt." Their experience was as the 
 nightmare of slavery appears to the freedmen 
 of America. These Non-Conformists read and 
 re-read the story of deliverance from Pharaoh, 
 and they sang of the "year of jubilee" as the 
 Conformists could not; for "They jest at scars 
 who never felt a wound." 
 
 We shall glance at those English sports, in 
 Tudor and Stuart times, to which a boy natu- 
 rally looked for enjoyment. To him they seemed 
 appropriate, because so popular, and yet those 
 most delighted in by all classes inflicted pain 
 and suffering upon the dumb brutes. 
 
 Closely allied in morals to Spanish bull-fights 
 was bear-baiting or the worrying of Bruin by 
 English mastiffs. This brutish enjoyment was 
 delighted in by all, from queens to scullions. 
 That "bright Occidental star," Queen Eliza- 
 beth, sat through the process of tormenting 
 thirteen bears in one day. She was the Diana of 
 English history, " hunting every other day until 
 six or seven o'clock in the afternoon," and bring- 
 ing down many a deer with her crossbow. Since 
 at times the theater might interfere with the 
 delectable sport of bear-baiting. Her Majesty 
 
 [39]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 had an edict issued in 1591 that on Thursday, 
 or bear-baiting day, no drama should be per- 
 formed. 
 
 In the "Paris," the most famous bear-garden 
 at Southwark, in London, were two animals re- 
 nowned for their claws and teeth; one named 
 Sackerson and the other Harry Huncks. These 
 could upset, tear, or drive oif the attacking 
 dogs ; but the bear "ward " or owner was careful 
 to see that his money-making pets were never 
 too much mauled by his canine rivals. These 
 bear-baiting shows were catchpenny affairs. An 
 admittance fee was charged, and Sunday was 
 the great day when the manager would " ring in 
 the brass"; the gate money being a halfpenny 
 for each person. To see the bear rear itself, 
 tumble, strike out, and claw, often bloody and 
 "slavering" while in the ring, delighted the 
 spectators. 
 
 Even the clergy were so fond of this brutal- 
 izing pastime that, like fashionable parsons at 
 our seaside or other bathing-places of old, they 
 would hurry or adjourn divine service in order 
 to be present and see the big game. In many 
 cases in England, as on the Continent, bears 
 were kept at the expense of the town, as at 
 Berne, or "Bear Town," in Switzerland. When 
 the animal thus kept for public amusement 
 
 [401
 
 FUN AND PLAY IN THE OLD HOME 
 
 died, the parish officers were, in some cases, 
 known to sell the Bible from the church desk in 
 order to buy a new brute. 
 
 Many are the veiled or open references in 
 Shakespeare to this pastime. In "Twelfth 
 Night," Sir Andrew Ague Cheek, who, when in 
 college, furnished an example too frequent, of 
 the student who never allows his studies to in- 
 terfere with his academic course, said, in later 
 life: "I would I had bestowed that time in 
 the tongues [languages] that I have in fencing, 
 dancing, and bear-baiting. O, had I but fol- 
 lowed the arts!" This is the wail of the derelict 
 and submerged ex-student In every age, and 
 most pathetic is the story of those quondam 
 spendthrifts of time, strength, and money, who 
 in after years attempt when too late to redeem 
 the wasted years. 
 
 Once in a while the bear broke loose, adding 
 an unexpected and undesirable item to the 
 programme. It was highly exciting when the 
 maddened brute turned upon its human tor- 
 mentors. Stories are told of big bites by Bruin 
 out of the calf of many a runaway on these 
 occasions. The Puritans kept this sport within 
 bounds, securing at first only regulation, rather 
 than prohibition; but during the Common- 
 wealth they abolished the cruel custom; which, 
 
 [41]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 however, was re-Introduced at the Restoration. 
 This degrading sport was not swept out of ex- 
 istence by law until 1835. 
 
 In his "History of England," Hume wrote 
 that "even bear-baiting was esteemed heathen- 
 ish and unchristian ; the sport of it, not the in- 
 humanity, gave offense." There is more fun 
 than fact in Macaulay's rhetoric, when he fol- 
 lowed Hume, telling us that " the Puritan hated 
 bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the 
 bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spec- 
 tators." Both of these witty statements are 
 more or less false. One old writer declared that 
 this sport "drew all the devils to one place" — 
 which might be the bear's opinion also. In this 
 matter British Christian society fell below the 
 moral standard and the general practice of 
 Buddhism. 
 
 Bull-baiting was also practiced for the pub- 
 lic amusement; four dogs being set at a bull. 
 "Cock-throwing" was another form of enjoy- 
 ment. A rooster was put in a box with its head 
 protruding, or was tied fast to a stick or rail. 
 Boys then threw stones or cudgels at the poor 
 prisoner, until It fell under a mortal stroke. 
 Or, If put into an earthen vessel, the lad who, 
 with a stone, hit the crockery and smashed It, 
 carried away the bird as his prize. 
 
 [42]
 
 FUN AND PLAY IN THE OLD HOME 
 
 There was no Society for the Prevention of 
 Cruelty to Animals in those days, and religious 
 bigotry added to the sufferings of the poor 
 creature with red comb and shining tail feathers. 
 Even the parsons enjoyed this sport, justifying 
 their weakness by calling the cock the "devil's 
 messenger," because it crowed thrice when 
 Peter denied his Master! Others beside cleri- 
 cals made this their excuse for their cruelty in 
 "cock-throwing." 
 
 How different was all this, as seen on the 
 Continent, where chanticleer was hailed as the 
 herald of the dawn and symbol of the resur- 
 rection, teaching the idea of the eternal day 
 after the night of death! Among the early 
 Christians the crowing cock was the emblem of 
 vigilance. On the lofty church spires, in both 
 old and New Netherland, this was the constant 
 lesson taught. It is true that In modern days 
 the significance of the chanticleer on the spire, 
 now a "weather" cock, has been popularly for- 
 gotten and associated with weather probabili- 
 ties. 
 
 Wrestling and archery were more manly 
 pastimes, the one being a test of strength, the 
 other of skill. With bow, arrow, and quiver 
 ladies also found pleasure in this fine outdoor 
 exercise with its social attractions as well as 
 
 [43]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 its physical benefit to eyesight and muscle. 
 In 1545 the great educator, Roger Ascham, 
 wrote his famous book entitled "Toxophilus" 
 — which means love of the bow — and this 
 quickly became very popular. He urged that 
 even children should early be taught under 
 good Instructors how to handle bows and ar- 
 rows, so as not In later life to have to unlearn 
 bad ways. For the little folks a "bird bolt" was 
 made. This, being short and blunt, could not 
 do as much harm when It went astray as If 
 pointed or barbed. Cupid was pictured with a 
 bow and one of these bird bolts. In the play, 
 Biron says to the French princess, 
 **Thou hast thumped him with thy bird-bolt arrow 
 of the boy Cupid." 
 
 The range of the shaft shot by a skilled bow- 
 man was tremendous, the Cornish standard for 
 a hit being 480 yards. "To clap the clout" was 
 to hit the white mark on the target or the 
 "bull's-eye." In battle a flight of arrows from 
 the English archers more than once won de- 
 cisive victory. These skilled targeteers were 
 considered England's first line of offense on 
 the battle-field, and the second for home de- 
 fense. In London, In 1583, a procession of 
 three thousand of these bowmen was seen, 
 many of them wearing gold chains on their 
 
 [441
 
 FUN AND PLAY IN THE OLD HOME 
 
 necks. The competition was held at Smithfield, 
 which afterwards became a famous place for 
 cremating Christians, called "heretics," by 
 order of the Church authorities. 
 
 As long as poor powder and the clumsy 
 and over-heavy cannon made slow and slight 
 progress in efficiency, the bow was the main 
 weapon relied upon by the British in war — • 
 for the Welshmen were the best and most 
 numerous in the corps of archers. When "small 
 arms" in the hands of the Netherlanders — 
 then the nation, especially under Maurice, 
 leading in military science — meant "snap- 
 hances," or "snapcock" guns, a musketeer 
 could fire without carrying along a heavy iron 
 prong for a rest. He could also take better aim 
 and pull from a trigger, instead of touching off 
 the powder in the pan with the lighted end of 
 his six or eight feet of rope, or "match." 
 
 Gradually the bow fell into disuse, for now 
 the soldier could be "cock-sure" of hitting 
 what he aimed at. The main reliance in bat- 
 tle then shifted from the wooden to "the 
 leaden arrow," and the bow, arquebus, or cross- 
 bow went out of army use, in the time of 
 Henry VHL From this era on, archery was, for 
 the most part, a pastime rather than a war 
 craft. Then also the allied industries of the 
 
 Usl
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 bow-maker, the fletcher or arrow-maker, the 
 whiffler or string man, with the ushers, pages, 
 and associates, sank into slight importance. 
 
 Other outdoor sports were hurHng, wrestling, 
 football, quoits, hunting, hawking, coursing, 
 and wild-duck shooting. These made England 
 a country, probably excelling all others, wherein 
 the men, dogs, and horses were well acquainted 
 with each other. Going out at night with 
 torches into the woods, swamps, and bushy 
 places and clubbing or catching birds when 
 they were half blinded by the glare, was a very 
 successful way of providing pot-pie. 
 
 Hare and rabbit hunting furnished fascinat- 
 ing sport. The cunning of these creatures, in 
 tlirowing dogs off the scent, by hiding in a 
 flock of sheep, was often noticed by writers. 
 Yet we must not mix the conies and the kings. 
 It is remarkable how many places in Eng- 
 land are called after "conies," as rabbits were 
 then called, or after warrens, or rabbit bur- 
 rows. The old word "konig," "koning," or 
 "koenig," meaning "king," was in sound much 
 like that for "Molly Cottontail." Hence one 
 must be careful in deciding upon derivations, 
 as in Cunningham, Warren, etc. 
 
 On visiting Scrooby, in harvest time, I no- 
 ticed that the American reaping machines 
 
 [461
 
 FUN AND PLAY IN THE OLD HOME 
 
 made a stubble and thus quickly laid open to 
 the light the covert of the long-eared, fluffy 
 creatures, driving them into a small square, 
 whence they were more easily caught. I was 
 impressed with their great numbers. From 
 very old days rabbit pie has been an autumn 
 staple on English dinner tables. Even in the 
 time of Julius Csesar one tribe of people on the 
 Continent was called "Caninefates," or "rab- 
 bit-catchers" or "eaters." 
 
 England's favorite saint furnished fun for 
 the boys of Tudor days who enjoyed the stories 
 about giants and dragons, very much as the 
 youngsters of to-day like to read about and, in 
 imagination, in tableaux, and in play, pose as 
 pirates, cowboys, stage-robbers, Indian killers, 
 and other strenuous characters. It was not 
 difficult for the Puritan fathers and mothers 
 to switch off the minds of their children to the 
 wonderful narratives in the books of Joshua, 
 Judges, Samuel, and Kings, which contain the 
 stories of adventure and action which boys 
 crave so constantly. 
 
 "Riding Saint George" was a play, or pag- 
 eant, at first encouraged and then enforced 
 by law, in which the guilds and soldiers took 
 part. Even more of a fad was the play called 
 "The Holy Martyrs of Saint George." Great 
 
 [47]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 preparations were made In advance for the 
 filling of stomachs, as well as for the delights 
 of the eye. At such a season all the inns would 
 overflow with guests who had come to see the 
 parade and the crowd. The living man chosen 
 to represent the dragon-killer was usually a 
 big, handsome fellow, who rode on the best 
 and most richly caparisoned horse in the shire. 
 
 The long and rather waddling dragon was a 
 compendium of ferocity and terribleness, but 
 most gloriously painted and gilded. With two 
 boys inside, to furnish legs and motive power, 
 the pasteboard monster moved, or swayed, in 
 more or less orderly fashion, though the front 
 and hind legs did not always keep step. Occa- 
 sionally the much elongated creature showed 
 signs of nervous prostration from some in- 
 ternal trouble. From far down his throat, and 
 sticking out a goodly length, was the famous 
 spear of Saint George, which, thrust in at the 
 right moment, finished the monster. 
 
 But a horrid dragon, without a lovely maiden 
 to devour, furnished only half the fun. So the 
 prettiest girl in the town was selected to be the 
 rescued princess. Decked out in tinsel, with 
 gorgeous bodice and spangled skirts, she was 
 poised on a raised platform fixed on wheels. 
 Altogether, this "moving mass of splendor" 
 
 [48I
 
 FUN AND PLAY IN THE OLD HOME 
 
 quite rivaled the modern circus, whether we 
 think of alluring advertisement or the reality 
 upon sawdust. 
 
 There was also a pet lamb, all garlanded, and 
 with the traditional Mary as its keeper, who 
 was all blushes and smiles, while her cheeks 
 resembled damask roses. Bells and horns made 
 the appropriate noises, so delighted in by the 
 small boy, and formed the proper appendix to 
 the general epidemic of rapture. 
 
 Thus it has come to pass that in the course 
 of centuries the English people, with their 
 country customs and rustic pageants, have de- 
 veloped a national folk art, well worthy of 
 study, and on which a charming volume has 
 been written.^ Few things so accurately mirror 
 the life of a people as their amusements. 
 
 1 English Pageantry. By R. Withington, Harvard Univer- 
 sity Press. 1919. .
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 A GIRL'S LIFE IN MERRIE ENGLAND 
 
 The girls born between 1590 and 1608, who 
 grew up to be the women in the Pilgrim party, 
 were, until their journey across the North Sea, 
 in all their ideas and inheritances thoroughly 
 English. Moreover, they were born and reared 
 in the country. Hence their thoughts, habits, 
 and association were rural. Not until reaching 
 Holland had most of them ever seen a city. As 
 mature women, mothers, and wives, they could 
 not lose either their race memory or their own 
 personal recollections. It is therefore good to 
 inquire into the background and atmosphere of 
 their education which began in their cradles. 
 No university ever built can equal the training 
 in the nursery and home. For girl or boy this is 
 as relatively rich in practical values as that 
 which in later life is measured in years. More- 
 over, the old mother's proverb — • coined before 
 the days of general scattering, in our days of 
 the American family, because of the West, the 
 new economics, the ease of travel, or the lure of 
 Europe or Asia — was then impressively true : 
 
 **My son's my son till he gets him a wife: 
 
 My daughter's my daughter all the years of her life." 
 
 [50]
 
 A GIRL IN MERRIE ENGLAND 
 
 Not then was a "spinster" an old maid, but 
 usually a very young and fresh one, or even a 
 sedate housewife. The modern artist paints 
 correctly the Pilgrim maiden, who is wisely 
 sought in marriage by a lover of the King Lem- 
 uel type of mind, as busy at the wheel. The 
 young woman of whom it could be said, " She 
 seeketh wool and flax and worketh willingly 
 with her hands," was likely to be wooed and 
 won by the swain who, delivered from the bond- 
 age of the present, looked also to the future. 
 
 Beside a daughter's accomplishments in the 
 fine arts of baking and brewing — so necessary 
 if a good mate was to be caught and held — 
 and the daily round of varied domestic duties 
 in house, farm, and garden, there were the fun 
 and frolic of games and sports, and the claims 
 of the church year, with its festivals and fasts. 
 There were also some things that came even 
 closer to the business and heart of the average 
 maiden. These were the mystical lore and meth- 
 ods by which, it was commonly believed, she 
 might learn about her future husband. As mar- 
 riageable age approached, these were by no 
 means secondary matters. The talismans and 
 secrets of the art lay chiefly in the vegetable 
 kingdom, as we shall see, and it was when Eng- 
 land's hedgerows turned into bouquets, and the 
 
 [51]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 procession of the flowers began, that girls were 
 happiest. 
 
 One of the prettiest and most attractive 
 parterres, or larger beds devoted to flower cul- 
 ture, in England, is the "herb-garden." Here 
 are grown the aromatic plants which few 
 Americans — • at least those dwellers in cities — 
 ever see, either cultivated or in their natural 
 environment. To most of us the chief place of 
 origin of these plants is in our mental associa- 
 tions, as furnished by the older poets, especially 
 Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, or Herrick; and 
 notably in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." 
 Here we distinguish mint, rue, cummin, cara- 
 way, rosemary, Saint- John's-wort, vervain 
 (verbena), orpine, anise, coriander, chicory, 
 amaranthine, love-in-idleness, thyme, musk- 
 rose, eglantine, and what not. To most of us 
 the literary savor prevails over practical ac- 
 quaintance or botanical classification. One of 
 the most attractive of the sentimental and ar- 
 tistic treasures of Central Park in New York 
 is, or was, the "Shakespeare Garden," opened 
 in 1917, and containing the flowers, over two 
 hundred in number, blooming perennially In 
 English classical poetry. Its originator named 
 it "The Garden of the Heart." 
 
 To the English maidens of Tudor times some 
 
 [52]
 
 A GIRL IN MERRIE ENGLAND 
 
 of these plants had significance and potencies 
 not discerned by the modern male. The girls of 
 1600 gathered them to put under their pillows 
 at night, hoping to conjure up dreams of their 
 mate-to-be. Especially elect plants were Saint- 
 John's-wort, vervain, orpine, and rue. A sprig 
 of orpine, set the day before in clay or on a bit 
 of slate, when looked at the next morning was 
 prophetic; for according as the stalk inclined to 
 the right or left, the maiden's lover would prove 
 true or false. This inquisition of the future was 
 generally made at the feast of the nativity of 
 John the Baptist, or Midsummer Night's Eve, 
 on June 24, just after the solstice. Hence the 
 pertinency of the title of Shakespeare's play of 
 that name. 
 
 In the sixteenth century the common flowers 
 in the meadows were violets, daisies, pansies, 
 the blue and white milkwort; and on the hills 
 the yellow gorse and pink heather — ■ for Scot- 
 land is not the only part of Britain in which 
 these heath blooms are plentiful. In the orchard 
 were pears, mulberries, apples — ■ though not 
 the splendid big ones of many varieties that 
 make New York State a great orchard. The 
 garden boundary walls were of clay, or mud, 
 and were usually thatched on top. 
 
 Household comforts were few. Windows, or 
 
 [53 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 the "wind-eyes" — tliat is, holes in tlie house 
 walls — were in most houses covered with 
 horn, skin, or greased paper. When glass came 
 into fashion it was at first known only among 
 the richer folk and treated ven,' much as per- 
 sonal baggage is with us. On removal to an- 
 other house, it was the custom to take out the 
 sashes and carr}' them into the new domicile. 
 
 As in old Anglo-Saxon days the fireplace was 
 usually in the center, but later was removed to 
 the reredos, or "back," of brick or iron. It was 
 supposed tliat the smoke not only hardened as 
 well as blackened the rafters and woodwork, 
 but made tlie house air healthy. For light there 
 were only candles and oil lamps. For cooking 
 and warmth wood or charcoal was the only 
 fuel, stone coal being unknown. When chim- 
 neys were first introduced — which was not 
 generally the case until Queen Elizabeth's 
 time — old folks laid the blame for the colds, 
 coughs, and "rheums," which seemed to be 
 unusually common, on these new-fangled in- 
 ventions. Few attributed "colds" to gluttony 
 and the attempts of nature to rid the human 
 machiner}- of its surplus nourishment and the 
 consequent cleansing of its clogged conditions 
 from over-eating. Perhaps a study of what hap- 
 pened to the children of Israel, from too much 
 
 l54l
 
 A GIRL IN MERRIE ENGLAND 
 
 quail when eaten for a whole month, as told in 
 Numbers 1 1 : 20, might have enlightened them. 
 
 Paper for the walls had not yet been intro- 
 duced from China and Japan, nor matting for 
 the floors. Flemish tapestry was affected by the 
 rich, but on the walls of the average house was 
 hung the "painted cloth," of which we so often 
 read in Shakespeare. 
 
 If for the head to rest upon at night a sack 
 of chaff took the place of the log of wood for a 
 bolster, it was considered as great a luxury as 
 when pewter plates came in to displace the or- 
 dinary wooden trenchers, or the larger dishes 
 of the same material called "chargers." "When 
 houses were of willow, Englishmen w^ere oaken; 
 when houses were of oak, Englishmen were 
 straw," growled the old fellows who did not 
 like the new fashions. "Charity died when 
 chimneys were built" was another growl. 
 
 It was Italy that taught the use of the fork. 
 When introduced into England, this eating tool 
 helped greatly to improve table manners, and 
 one chronicler tells us that the novelty meant 
 "a great sparing of napkins." Very few of the 
 common people ever saw white bread, for the 
 every-day loaf was not made of wheaten flour, 
 but of rye or oatmeal. Maize was unknown. 
 Home-made beer was the universal drink. For 
 
 [55]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 each family three hogsheads for each person 
 were brewed. 
 
 The general hour of rising, when men got up 
 from their rushes on the floor and dressed for 
 the day's work, was at four in summer and five 
 in the winter mornings. At nine o'clock at 
 night the bell sounded the curfew, as the signal 
 to cover the fires. Soon after that everybody 
 was supposed to be in bed. The streets were not 
 lighted at night, even in the cities, until well 
 into the eighteenth century. In place of public 
 illumination those who were outdoors after the 
 curfew hour must carry a torch, flambeau, or 
 lantern. Gradually there grew up in London 
 the trade of the link-boys, who were paid for 
 carrying the torches. Street lighting in cities is 
 not much over a century old. 
 
 How the girls and women of the sixteenth 
 century dressed would amuse their descendants 
 of to-day, who are apt to get totally wrong 
 ideas, if they think — as most readers of ro- 
 mances and attendants at theaters usually do 
 — ■ only of court ladies, queens, and princesses. 
 There were, as a rule, no hats or bonnets, no 
 stockings, and no laces or buttoned shoes. In 
 fact, everything was held with strings or straps. 
 Buttons, a French invention of later date, were 
 not in common use until the eighteenth cen- 
 
 [S6]
 
 A GIRL IN MERRIE ENGLAND 
 
 tury. Then they burst into bloom, like a May 
 orchard, or a hawthorn hedgerow. The work- 
 ing of buttonholes and the sewing-on of but- 
 tons, were not then standard female duties, nor 
 was keeping them on one of the carking cares of 
 one half of humanity. Ultimately buttons be- 
 came even more an article of decoration than 
 of use — row upon row having no buttonholes 
 to correspond. In a sense, buttons were a sub- 
 stitute, in dress equipment, for floral adorn- 
 ment. For shoes, the buckle and strap gradu- 
 ally became more common. For fastening the 
 bodice and dress, and holding up skirts and 
 trousers, laces, strings, and belts were relied 
 upon. Pins, of a much larger size than at pres- 
 ent, were used occasionally for dress fastening. 
 The modern small pins, with which we are so 
 well acquainted, came in much later than Pil- 
 grim days. The word "button," from the 
 French word "bouton," "blossom," in the next 
 century, made a man's dress a veritable garden 
 of metal blooms. 
 
 Among ladies of wealth or rank there were 
 various kinds of headdresses, and the styles of 
 wearing the hair changed often. In the smaller 
 towns and villages, and in the country, the fe- 
 male part of the population went bareheaded 
 most of the time, or with a snood, or close- 
 
 I 57]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 fitting cap, or kerchief tied on their heads. 
 Knitted stockings were not known or worn un- 
 til well into the seventeenth century. In the 
 voluminous wardrobe of Queen Elizabeth there 
 was, it is said, only one pair of stockings — • 
 which she did not wear. Nevertheless, she had a 
 mighty array of feminine paraphernalia. On one 
 of her visits to an interior city — a "progress," 
 it was called ■ — she took six hundred carts, for 
 there were no carriages as yet. These were nec- 
 essary to carry the "luggage" of the court la- 
 dies and their swains. 
 
 Shoes were made to pull on, and they held 
 their place on the foot much as leather slippers 
 do. Buckles came in fashion later. 
 
 Most children of well-to-do parents received 
 at their christening, through or from their par- 
 ents, the present of a silver spoon, called an 
 "apostle" spoon, according as the baby was 
 born on or near one of the days sacred to one of 
 the twelve. The wrought metal would have on 
 the top a figure of Saint Peter, John, Matthew, 
 James, or Andrew, as the case might be. Hence 
 the expression, which we still use about an in- 
 fant, "bom with a silver spoon in its mouth." 
 
 It was believed that fairies of the unlovely 
 sort would steal into the house at night and 
 take out of the cradle the human child and put 
 
 [58]
 
 A GIRL IN MERRIE ENGLAND 
 
 in place of it their own ugly, deformed, or dis- 
 eased offspring. Such an infant was called a 
 "changeling." In these early centuries many 
 an English child as it grew up was the victim of 
 neglect, cruelty, and untold suffering, because 
 suspected of being a fairy's brat. 
 
 No doubt the merry maidens had plenty of 
 fun over their alluring superstitions, for girls 
 laugh easily, and get more use of and make 
 more mirth with their tongues than do males. 
 They have far more pleasure, too, in talking 
 over an event after it has passed than the lads 
 or men. "Three women and a goose make a 
 market" was a proverb which mirrored the 
 truth that chat and gossip were deemed as im- 
 portant as barter and sale. No girl or woman 
 would miss a fair if she could help it. 
 
 In fact, the market and the fair furnished the 
 greatest of all stated gatherings for every class 
 of the people. Rare was the woman who will- 
 ingly missed this oasis of variety in the midst 
 of the otherwise year-long desert of monoto- 
 nous toil. Without newspapers and with very 
 few books, and with no popular postal system, 
 the tongue took the place of telegraph — print 
 and pen giving in those days vastly more than 
 the modern "windy satisfaction" of which the 
 cynical poet speaks. 
 
 [S9]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 Other notions and strictly personal treasures, 
 more or less harmless, like the American rab- 
 bit's foot, or horse chestnut kept in one's Inside 
 pocket — though likely to drop out on inoppor- 
 tune occasions — was the "coal" in the black 
 root of mugwort to which was attributed po- 
 tency in the popular magic. This sooty-look- 
 ing substance insured safety against carbuncles, 
 lightning, ague, incendiaries, etc. Fern seed had 
 the reputed power of rendering one as invisible 
 as the cloak in fairy tales. 
 
 In fact, the world was very populous with 
 the little people, the brownies, nixies, water 
 sprites, and fairies of every variety; for the 
 forces of nature were not yet caught and har- 
 nessed, and to every effect there must be as- 
 cribed an antecedent cause — usually one with 
 intelligence and a body of some sort. The mon- 
 sters and dragons, astonishing heroes, like Jack 
 the Giant Killer, of fame and power, and sun- 
 dry nimble princesses who outwitted the ogres, 
 were then much more believed In than in our 
 day. The classic melodies, later ascribed to 
 "Mother Goose," and the nursery rhymes, 
 jingles, and stories of horror or joy that never 
 die, though they travel from country to coun- 
 try and reappear age after age, were many and 
 thrilling. Like the Wandering Jew, or Rip Van 
 
 [60]
 
 A GIRL IN MERRIE ENGLAND 
 
 Winkle, that have some substance of fact or a 
 real person in history behind them, the ancient 
 ideas when clothed in English were always en- 
 joyed. "Once upon a time" was all the date 
 needed to start a story. 
 
 The marriage service, or "Form for the Sol- 
 emnization of Matrimony," now in the Book 
 of Common Prayer, is a composite made up 
 from four local English sources. It has appar- 
 ently become, with novelists and dramatists, 
 the standard of all weddings among English- 
 speaking peoples all over the world. Neither 
 the injunction of obedience nor the endowing 
 with "worldly goods," however, is so promi- 
 nent in most forms used in the Free Churches. 
 As matter of fact, the equality of man and 
 woman, as set forth in Genesis 1:27, is bet- 
 ter guaranteed in the British colonies and the 
 daughter nations of England than in her canon 
 or statute law. 
 
 The sixteenth-century English girl, espe- 
 cially if she lived in London, saw an amazing 
 number of new things, all wonderful, intro- 
 duced in her lifetime. Between 15 18 and 1578 
 the catalogue of novelties included bricks, beer 
 made from hops, starch, bedsteads, undercloth- 
 ing, carp, pippins, apricots, turkeys, hops, and 
 tobacco. Especially for women were masks, 
 
 [61]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 busks, muffs, ruffs, fans, periwigs, bodkins, 
 woven hosiery, spinning wheels, and many- 
 more things Continental, Oriental, or Ameri- 
 can. England ceased to be only or chiefly the 
 land of raw materials for export and took her 
 place as a producing country, soon, by the aid 
 of her ships and sailors, colonies, and daughter 
 nations, to lead the world; the Pilgrims being 
 the successful pioneers.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 PURITAN, INDEPENDENT, SEPARATIST 
 AND PILGRIM 
 
 In America, the story of the Pilgrims — only 
 extricated and made clear within the memory 
 of men now living — is a national heritage. The 
 grandest voyage of the Mayflower has been 
 made in our day. Traversing the oceans, bound- 
 aries, and sections, her name has come into 
 spacious havens once undreamed of. Well does 
 the seal of the Congregational Club of Chicago 
 picture this ship of promise, with her sails bent 
 for Fort Dearborn! In August, 1919, after the 
 march through London, and under the Stars 
 and Stripes, of twenty-seven thousand Ameri- 
 can soldiers, in celebration of peace and vic- 
 tory, the London "Times" thus made reminder 
 to its readers: "The descendants of the Pilgrim 
 Fathers came back to Europe to defend those 
 very principles and liberties for which Crom- 
 well fought." 
 
 Mighty England and her great daughter na- 
 tions, knitted together through inheritances, 
 ideals, and language, in a covenant of love and 
 mutual help, are now proud that the blood and 
 
 [63 J
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 tongue of the Separatists were theirs. Crossing 
 all lines of demarcation, the Pilgrims' bequest 
 of faith and courage Is shared among good men 
 and women of all names, creeds, and colors, 
 and on every continent. All now welcome "the 
 return of the Mayflower," even as its sailing 
 marked an era In the world's history. 
 
 We Americans can speak freely of things 
 done long ago In England; for nothing, either 
 in our praise or condemnation, can exceed the 
 criticism and procedure of the English people 
 themselves. They, like us, have grown, and 
 therefore changed. Instead of autocracy and 
 the arbitrary methods of Tudor and Stuart 
 days, they have. In orderly evolution, perse- 
 vered In the establishment of freedom. British 
 democracy rivals and In some respects excels 
 our own. Britons have dethroned sovereigns, 
 sent kings and bishops to the block, tamed 
 their princes. In both Church and State, to be 
 servants, and established a noble common- 
 wealth, with an hereditary head who Is the chief 
 umpire In the noble game of politics. Even 
 now, they are preparing to give back the land 
 to the people, harness the House of Lords to 
 the people's will, and, besides making conscience 
 wholly free, separate Church and State. 
 
 It therefore behooves us to make clear the 
 
 [64]
 
 PURITAN, SEPARATIST, PILGRIM 
 
 reasons why there were In succession Conform- 
 ists and Non-Conformists, NationaHsts and 
 State Churchmen, Reformers, Puritans, Sepa- 
 ratists, and Pilgrims. All who are not in the 
 Anglican Establishment are, in England, called 
 "Non-Conformists," by those who conform; 
 but by themselves they are known as "Free 
 Churchmen." 
 
 Although men's minds change slowly on the 
 subject of faith in the unseen, yet there is prog- 
 ress in religion. It took ages in the evolution of 
 humanity to separate Church and State, and in 
 religion to make clear the difference between 
 form and spirit and to distinguish the symbol 
 from the reality. 
 
 In every land and tongue on earth religion 
 makes progress when it turns from sacrificial 
 ideas and symbols and becomes educational. 
 Then the plain people can see for themselves 
 what are the original records upon which their 
 faith and hope are based. That is the reason 
 why, in the three countries of Great Britain, 
 the sermon displaced the mass. To the glory 
 and honor of England's rulers the Prayer-Book 
 and the Bible were given in a " language under- 
 standed of the people." In the time of the Pil- 
 grims two versions of the Bible were put into 
 the hands of the English people. One, made at 
 
 [65]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 Douay, in France, from the Vulgate Latin, was 
 a translation of a translation; the other, made 
 from the original Greek at Geneva, was the one 
 which the Pilgrim Fathers used. The continu- 
 ing labors of translation, ever progressing, was 
 notable in 1611, and again in the nineteenth 
 and twentieth centuries, until the American 
 Revised Version of 1901 crowns the work. 
 
 For over a thousand years the Bible had 
 been a book for the clergy and the church cor- 
 porations. The dispersion of the Greek scholars, 
 its renderings into the vernacular, with the 
 general use of the printing press, made it the 
 people's book. All these influences combined 
 to force the Reformation. Following this, the 
 movement for free churches, governed each by 
 the congregation, meant the march of democ- 
 racy and the higher evolution of the human 
 race. Out of the horde and flock man and 
 woman rose into a nobler and higher individ- 
 uality. Or, as the original Greek of the New 
 Testament, not as the Latin Vulgate, or as 
 King James's version of John I0:i6 has it, but 
 as the Saviour said, "that there may be [not 
 one fold, but] one flock, one shepherd." The 
 idea of the Free Churchmen was to award more 
 honor to the divine Shepherd, who led his 
 sheep which are not of one fold, or in one en- 
 [66]
 
 PURITAN, SEPARATIST, PILGRIM 
 
 closure, but of one flock, shepherded by the 
 One who is above all. The purpose of the Puri- 
 tan was to recognize the Shepherd, even more 
 than the particular enclosure, and to honor the 
 Master more than his ambitious disciples. Yet 
 the Puritans would keep Church and State 
 together. The Separatists, on the contrary, in- 
 sisted on keeping conscience and the rule of 
 magistrates apart. 
 
 The transfer of emphasis was from a build- 
 ing — however sacred, an edifice of wood, 
 brick, or stone — to the home. The Puritan 
 gloried in and made practice of the New Testa- 
 ment doctrine of the priesthood of believers. 
 The people in the Reformed churches were 
 more likely to be fathers and mothers, with 
 children to rear for God and society, than celi- 
 bate monks, nuns, priests, and prelates. The 
 old corporation had its grip on everything in 
 human lifcj from the cradle to the coffin. The 
 material building called a "church" had be- 
 come the fortress and citadel of priestcraft. 
 Marriages, christenings, funerals, confessional, 
 and worship must take place inside its walls. 
 The Puritan transferred these functions to the 
 home, giving them there the preference, and 
 equal validity with what was done in chantry, 
 chapel, "church," or cathedral. The father re- 
 
 [67]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 sumed his place as high priest in his family. He 
 read and taught his household out of the divine 
 Word, in their own living speech — ■ to the vast 
 moral improvement of society at large. Beauti- 
 ful in its word and exact as a transcript of real- 
 ity is Robert Burns's picture in verse of "The 
 Cotter's Saturday Night" — ^when the Puri- 
 tan Sabbath began — ■ and Whittier's "Flemish 
 picture of old days" in New Hampshire, in 
 "Snow-Bound." Nothing in the literature of 
 the old church can excel these as picturing fam- 
 ily life. 
 
 The Church said, "Believe and obey." The 
 corporation shut the mouth and bound the 
 brain of thinker, protester, or reformer. To the 
 men living under the Tudors it was but a 
 change in form, not in spirit, of autocracy and 
 of the ecclesiastical machinery of the realm. 
 One pope, even though English, and with a 
 crown instead of a tiara, proved to be no better 
 than another, and one act of uniformity was as 
 crushing and paralyzing as the other. Happily 
 for the freedom of the human spirit, the Puritan 
 unquailingly led the way; the Separatist, the 
 Baptist, the Quaker, the Methodist consum- 
 mated the evolution, and liberty became fixed 
 in law. The Commonwealth, the Revolution of 
 1688, the Parliamentary Reform of 1830, fol- 
 [68]
 
 PURITAN, SEPARATIST, PILGRIM 
 
 lowed each other in creating the spirit and 
 breaking the path for the world-struggle of 
 1914-18, in which autocracy has been improved 
 off the face of the earth, and democracy made 
 the law of humanity. 
 
 The Reformation shook the nations of Eu- 
 rope both east and west. Even before the flight 
 into Holland and England of the Walloons, 
 Flemings, Huguenots, persecuted Germans, 
 and Reformed Spaniards and Italians, there 
 began a great dispersion eastward of English- 
 men into the Netherlands, Switzerland, Ger- 
 many, France, and Italy. This was among the 
 most noteworthy of the various emigrations 
 and scatterings in British history. 
 
 Hitherto there had been many military ex- 
 peditions into France. Even down to late times 
 one of the titles of the English sovereign, 
 which seems to us ridiculous, was that of 
 "King of France." Yet legal fictions die hard 
 and forms linger after the life has died out. As 
 the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 
 1776, was made under the British flag in In- 
 dependence Hall, so, also, the Mayflower Com- 
 pact was in the name of James I, one of whose 
 titles was the "King of France." In reverse of 
 this, never before on a peaceful mission had so 
 many men of intellect and station left England 
 
 [69]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 as in Tudor times. These went as passionate 
 pilgrims for a threefold purpose — ■ the saving 
 of their lives; for what was best in the English 
 inheritances; and for fresh knowledge; espe- 
 cially that of the Holy Scriptures and of Ref- 
 ormation principles. 
 
 What these men abroad, who studied with 
 Calvin at Geneva, or learned from the Re- 
 formers, either in Germany or in the Nether- 
 lands or in Switzerland, from Luther, Calvin, 
 or Zwinglius, brought back, may be seen to-day 
 in the public common-school system of Scot- 
 land, and in the English Book of Common 
 Prayer, which is in daily use by millions who 
 speak the tongue in which its noble words 
 are expressed. Nevertheless, many of the out- 
 standing features, the shining sentences, and 
 the felicitous phrases in the Prayer-Book, are 
 to be found In the older German manuals of 
 devotion. Cranmer, one of its makers, had 
 studied in Germany and wedded a German 
 wife. Many other things of glory and of beauty 
 were thus brought to England; with Ideas, also, 
 that no fires, kindled by the craft of king, 
 churchman, or statesman, could reduce to 
 ashes. 
 
 In the evolution of the new life of England, 
 those who thought to reform the Church from 
 [70]
 
 PURITAN, SEPARATIST, PILGRIM 
 
 within, but to keep it still a State affair, mixing 
 together politics and religion, were the Puritans. 
 Those who would keep these apart, the affairs 
 of conscience and those of the State, were called 
 "Separatists," and later in England, "Inde- 
 pendents" or " Congregationalists " ; and, only 
 within our own lifetime were popularly spoken 
 of as "Pilgrims." 
 
 So far as known the earliest reference to the 
 Pilgrim Fathers under that title is found in the 
 "Columbian Centinel" for December 25, 1799. 
 In that issue, it appeared there in an "Ode" 
 by Samuel Davis, which in the final stanza has 
 the following words: "Hail, Pilgrim Fathers of 
 our race!" Bradford refers to himself and his 
 companions as pilgrims, in the religious sense, 
 but neither he nor his successors until 1779, 
 or about that time, used the exact expression 
 "Pilgrim Fathers." 
 
 England under "Bloody Mary," who was 
 born in 15 16 and reigned from 1553 to 1588, 
 had had a most un-English chapter of history 
 and one that reads more like a transcript from 
 Spanish annals; but it was thought Elizabeth 
 would be more tolerant. Yet this fierce na- 
 tionalist — "our most gratious Hester," as 
 one of her admirers called her, and "Europe's 
 Matchless Mirror," as another styled his queen 
 
 1 71 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 — was even more determined upon uniformity. 
 Moreover, she was goaded on by the clericals, 
 who were smarting under the stings of Martin 
 Marprelate, whose cryptic publications — like 
 "La Libre Belgique," or "Free Belgium," 
 during the German invasion of Belgium of 
 1914-18 — 'had so marred their reputation. 
 The sleuth hounds of the law now lay in wait 
 for the Separatists, who were leaders of the 
 "conventicles," as "the law" — ^ which was 
 chiefly the sovereign's will — called them. All 
 Christians who held to the simple, original 
 church polity of the first disciples of Jesus, 
 were outlawed. Nevertheless, the number kept 
 on increasing of those who, after reading care- 
 fully the New Testament, felt that their su- 
 preme loyalty was to their great Captain, Jesus, 
 founder of the Christian Church. These gath- 
 ered in private houses to hear the Gospel mes- 
 sage. They assembled in the remote gravel pits 
 at Islington, at times on the very spot where 
 the martyrs were burned under Queen Mary. 
 They were found in the different villages that 
 now are swallowed up in the great metropolis. 
 Many of these plain people, on their way to 
 Sabbath worship, looked up at Temple Bar — 
 now in the heart of throbbing London — and 
 saw human heads hanging, fresh and bleeding, 
 
 [72]
 
 PURITAN, SEPARATIST, PILGRIM 
 
 or old, rotting human flesh. Hungry dogs were 
 gathered to await a feast should the carrion 
 tumble from its hooks. What in our day we 
 have known as an architectural relic was once 
 a shambles. Though these inquirers after truth 
 realized what would be their fate and that of 
 their leaders, they moved on as bravely as ever 
 soldier charged in battle. They would not go 
 into the great cathedrals or parish " churches," 
 but wended their way to their secret "meeting- 
 houses" — often to "God's first temples," the 
 groves, or to the gravel pits outdoors — • there 
 to commune with the Eternal Father. They 
 sought fulfillment of the glorious promise that 
 where two or three were gathered together in 
 the name that is above every name, they would 
 find their Friend there. The ash-heaps of the 
 martyrs have proved to be good foundations 
 for many of the noble edifices of the Free 
 Churchmen of to-day. 
 
 From such secret conventicles in London 
 the leaders, with the rank and file, were seized 
 and dragged to prison, even as in the perse- 
 cuting days of Saul of Tarsus. I witnessed the 
 same procedure in government in old Japan, 
 where a like fate awaited all non-conformists, 
 and where the heads of decapitated criminals 
 were stuck on poles. Both rulers, European and 
 
 [73]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 Asiatic, thought they were doing Heaven serv- 
 ice. 
 
 The men who separated Church and State, 
 and conscience from politics, were called " Sep- 
 aratists," just as Abraham, Ezra, Paul, and 
 others who have advanced the human race 
 were called in their times. Yet from what did 
 the people, who were later called "Pilgrims," 
 separate.^ They detached themselves from big- 
 otry, intolerance, despotism, and the narrow- 
 ness of formalism. This they did in order to 
 fulfill the higher ideals of loyalty to Jesus and 
 obedience to God. They held their spirits to 
 still loftier account. They were God-iilled and 
 God-driven men. They were willing to test 
 their ideals. They chose affliction, poverty, and 
 exile, rather than ease and comfort in con- 
 formity. To-day the world honors the men 
 who took action and lived in accordance with 
 principles that are unchangeable and eternal. 
 
 There are arguments — not a few — in favor 
 of a national church that should include every 
 one; and these are ably and winsomely pre- 
 sented in English poetry, fiction, essay, drama, 
 and picture play, as well as in polemics and 
 argument, by able men and women of deep 
 convictions. Even Non-Conformist writings 
 and classics, like Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Prog- 
 
 [74]
 
 PURITAN, SEPARATIST, PILGRIM 
 
 ress," have been "medicated" by Anglicans. 
 Some passages on this theme of a national 
 church in De Quincey's writings are classic. In 
 America, however, and in a true democracy, 
 these lose most if not all of their force; for 
 with us such names as "Non-Conformist," " Sep- 
 aratist," "Independent," have little or no 
 meaning. We are devoutly thankful to those 
 prophets of spiritual freedom, Roger Williams, 
 William Penn, and Thomas Jefferson — all of 
 Welsh stock — and the fathers of the Republic 
 who, in civic life, at least, made religion a mat- 
 ter of conscience and conviction, but not of 
 political interference.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 MIDDELBURG: THE LONE STAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 In the story of the Pilgrim Fathers, of Free 
 Churchmen, and of the evolution of the United 
 States of America, other places seem as planets, 
 while Middelburg shines as a star. Here, first 
 in Europe, the voice of spiritual freedom was 
 heard from a magistrate. Here began the 
 divorce of religion from politics. Here ended 
 the unholy alliance of Caiaphas and Pilate. 
 Here began the literary history of the Free 
 Churchmen, Separatists, and Pilgrims. All 
 Americans who read their nation's history — 
 not an "official" report, as written by a sect, 
 a section, or a race, but discerned from all the 
 known facts in the case — will be able to see 
 this. 
 
 It is very hard for us to get into the mind 
 of the sixteenth century. Then the idea of re- 
 ligious liberty was unknown to governments 
 or rulers of either states or churches. It formed 
 no part of their ideal or programme, nor ever 
 entered the official mind. The mediaeval idea 
 of the State Church dominated all society and 
 politics. It was taught that there could be no 
 
 [76]
 
 MIDDELBURG 
 
 separation between the secular and the spirit- 
 ual allegiance of a man. Any difference of 
 opinion, therefore, or freedom of mind in re- 
 ligion, or attempt to form a new denomina- 
 tion of Christians, was treated as treason and 
 rebellion, to be put down by fire and sword. 
 A heretic was not looked upon as a person mis- 
 taken in his ideas, but as a felon and no better 
 than a murderer. 
 
 The Latin idea and motto, cujus regio, ejus 
 religio (" whose is the region, his is the religion ") 
 ruled all Europe. The Prince was expected, not 
 only to govern the people, but also to rule their 
 consciences. The magistrate decided what, and 
 only what, his subjects should think, in mat- 
 ters of faith. The Peace of Augsburg, in 1530, 
 was settled and signed for this purpose • — not 
 whether a state should or should not give 
 freedom of conscience, but that every subject 
 must be either Catholic or Protestant. In like 
 manner, in Russia, under the early czars, one 
 must be either a Hebrew or a Christian. In a 
 word, much the same ideas held by the Tartar, 
 the Turk, and the Yedo despotism ruled in 
 Europe. Catholic, Calvinist, Puritan, Lutheran 
 — all were "tarred with the same brush." 
 None was tolerant. In that age they held sen- 
 timents abhorrent to the Constitution of the 
 
 [771
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 United States, and which are now held, as a 
 rule, only by savage tribes or despotic govern- 
 ments. The less civilized, the more do despots 
 claim divine partnership, monopoly, and guid- 
 ance. It is foolish, therefore, and marks rather 
 the uneducated person, to stigmatize the pope, 
 or Calvin, or Luther, or Elizabeth, or Philip II, 
 as common murderers. On the contrary, these 
 rulers were highly conscientious persons. They 
 were all the more dangerous to liberty because 
 so honest and so deluded. A bigot is intellec- 
 tually a mule; that is, the affectionate offspring 
 of ignorance and obstinacy. 
 
 Yet, like the upspringing light in the eastern 
 sky, there appeared in this blackness of dark- 
 ness men of vision, to whom American and the 
 world's freedom owes much. 
 
 In Switzerland arose the people who called 
 themselves "Brethren," but whom their ene- 
 mies nicknamed the "Anabaptists," or " Re- 
 bap tizers"; because they did not accept the 
 rite of either the Roman Catholic or the State 
 Churches. They took the New Testament lit- 
 erally and Jesus seriously; and they put in 
 practice ideas that are now as ab cm our coun- 
 try. These people were not free from the usual 
 weaknesses of human nature. They found that 
 perfect government, in State or Church, can no 
 
 1 78]
 
 MIDDELBURG 
 
 more be expected than can a true republic, like 
 a mushroom out of a dead log, spring up over- 
 night. 
 
 In the Swiss Republic, Zwinglius (1484- 
 153 1), declaring himself free of papal control, 
 began, in 15 16, to preach the good news of 
 God. He held that neither pope nor church nor 
 council was necessary to make the Scriptures 
 plain, but only the Holy Spirit. He expounded 
 the Reformed, as distinct from the Lutheran, 
 or Romanist, interpretation of Christianity. In 
 his view the congregation, and not the hier- 
 archy, was the true representative of the 
 church. Zwinglius was a strong believer in rep- 
 resentative government and in a democracy. 
 
 By 1 521 the Anabaptists were active. Thou- 
 sands of them, driven out of middle Europe, 
 overflowed into other countries, only to be 
 put down by military force, in blood and fire, 
 as anarchists; for rare indeed was the ruler who 
 could catch even a gleam of the idea, now so 
 common, that conscience should be free. In the 
 main, the Anabaptists were only forerunners 
 of the Pilgrims and of the Americans of 1789; 
 for they held to the principles which are em- 
 bodied in that immortal document, the Con- 
 stitution of the United States. 
 
 The first clear public exposition in English 
 
 [79]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 of Separatist or Congregational principles — • 
 tliat is, of the Idea of "a free church In a free 
 state" — 'Was printed and published at Mld- 
 delburg In Zeeland, Here was the first un- 
 persecuted church, the initial literary cradle of 
 independency, and the birthplace of spiritual 
 freedom. 
 
 It was at Middelburg that the first voice of a 
 ruler spoke for full freedom of conscience. Like 
 an unheralded star of the first magnitude, there 
 suddenly appeared above the horizon of Europe 
 the harbinger of a new day whose light was to 
 spread over all the world. William of Orange- 
 Nassau (called, after his death, William the 
 Silent) stopped the persecution of men for 
 conscience' sake and rebuked their persecu- 
 tors. This he did In the face of friends who 
 turned against him for his liberality In matters 
 of religion. His charity they condemned as sin 
 against God. 
 
 The case was this. The thoroughly honest 
 city magistrates, with consciences educated in 
 the medieval way, were oppressing the Ana- 
 baptists. When William heard of it, he wrote, 
 under date of 1577, and in these words laid 
 the foundation of both the Dutch and the 
 American Republics, giving humanity a new 
 charter: 
 
 [80]
 
 MIDDELBURG 
 
 "We declare unto you that you have no right 
 to interfere with the conscience of any one, so 
 long as he has done nothing that works injury 
 to another, or a public scandal." 
 
 What is the life-story of this pioneer of spirit- 
 ual freedom whom the Dutch called the "Fa- 
 ther of his Country"? 
 
 William the Silent was born In a family 
 reared under the Roman obedience. As a child 
 he became a Lutheran when his parents did. 
 In mature life and out of deep personal convic- 
 tion he adopted, for the outward form of his 
 spiritual discipline, the doctrine and church or- 
 der taught by Calvin. Yet never, either as a 
 private individual or as a ruler, did he believe 
 in or practice either what those did, who In 
 England drove out Non-Conformists; or In 
 Germany approved of putting down the peas- 
 ant uprising by armed force; or In Spain gloried 
 In the burning of heretics — which even Calvin 
 In a single Instance allowed. 
 
 In fact, It was the puzzle of William's life to 
 learn why real Christians should want to injure 
 each other for opinion's sake. Christianity was 
 to him life, not theory or dogma ; It was applied 
 righteousness and the spirit of Christ In daily 
 life. In the free working of the Holy Spirit, he 
 was a hearty believer. He abhorred and resisted 
 [8i ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 the enforcement of church rules or doctrines by 
 poHtical or miHtary force. He would "make no 
 law establishing religion or prohibiting the free 
 exercise thereof." 
 
 In this school of thought and practice John 
 Robinson, William Bradford, Roger Williams, 
 William Penn, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham 
 Lincoln were pupils. The first amendment to 
 the Constitution of the United States is but a 
 commentary on the ideas of William of Orange 
 of 1577. 
 
 The Englishman who wrote and printed at 
 Middelburg, in the land where printing and re- 
 ligion were free, the first Congregational tract 
 was Robert Browne (1556-163 3). He had been 
 a minister in the State Episcopal Church at 
 Norwich, a city in which were hundreds of 
 Dutch Anabaptists. Here during Queen Mary's 
 reign firewood actually had once grown scarce 
 and so high-priced as to work discomfort to the 
 poor, because of the burning of men called here- 
 tics. In 1579, the year when the Dutch United 
 States was formed, Browne championed the 
 cause of these and other Separatists and went 
 over to Middelburg — not "Middleberg" as 
 many writers have it. Not satisfied with the 
 Puritan Cartwright's ideas about reformation, 
 Browne formed a church — not a building, but 
 
 [ 82 ]
 
 MIDDELBURG 
 
 a congregation — of Christians. These bound 
 themselves together by the sort of a covenant 
 which is still the heart and soul of a true Con- 
 gregational church, and of which the compact 
 at Cape Cod in 1620 was but a logical develop- 
 ment. In the year following the Dutch Declara- 
 tion of Independence, in 1581, Browne Issued 
 his famous work, "A Treatise of Reformation, 
 without Tarrying for Any." In this book he ad- 
 vocated separation from the political churches; 
 or, in other words, a free Church in a free State 
 — the principle established in the Constitution 
 of the United States and in every one of Great 
 Britain's colonies; that is, by three fourths of all 
 English-speaking people. In this work one may 
 find the foundation ideas and principles of the 
 Congregational churches of to-day. 
 
 This tract and Browne's other writings were 
 circulated in England, but the colporteurs were 
 promptly hanged as felons. Browne was the 
 first champion of the Congregational idea, even 
 though those who later in substance adopted 
 his principles, including Robinson and the Pil- 
 grim Fathers, did not care to be called "Brown- 
 ists" or to take their name after any man. They 
 were loyal Englishmen in politics, but in spirit- 
 ual matters they owned allegiance only to Jesus 
 Christ. For many years, however, the Puritans 
 [83 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 of Massachusetts persisted in calling the Ply- 
 mouth people by this name — "Brownists." 
 The local struggle between Pilgrims and Purl- 
 tans was much the same as in New York be- 
 tween the people and their English governors, 
 of democracy and aristocracy. 
 
 Yet who in this world lives up to the full 
 measure of his ideals? What company of mor- 
 tals do exactly as they say, or preach what they 
 practice, or, after only a few months' training, 
 succeed in doing the will of God on earth as it 
 is done In Heaven ? Browne's church broke up 
 within two years. 
 
 The original editions of Browne's books, 
 printed at Middelburg, are to-day worth their 
 weight, possibly, in diamonds. Only a very few 
 copies have survived fire, the hangman, the 
 gallows, and the lapse of years. "Towering o'er 
 the wrecks of time" they shine as lighthouses 
 on the pathway of the free peoples and the 
 American Commonwealth. 
 
 How close the connection of Browne and the 
 Middelburg pastors was with the people we call 
 the Pilgrims, may be a question for scholars; 
 but William Bradford, when in 1606 "tossed 
 with tempest, afflicted and not comforted," 
 landed at Middelburg, he had an experience 
 with Dutch freedom, law, and justice which 
 
 [84]
 
 MIDDELBURG 
 
 gave him a respect for the usages of this repub- 
 Hcan people which, throughout his long life, he 
 never lost. A busy-body, mischief-maker, and 
 tell-tale fellow passenger had informed on him 
 to the magistrates, as "having fled out of Eng- 
 land." Dutch justice, represented by the Schout 
 — predecessor of our American district attor- 
 ney — at once made examination and set him 
 free. 
 
 What a long procession, in American history, 
 westward, in forest, frontier, and prairie, does 
 this Dutch word, Englished as "scout," con- 
 note, from Lake George to California, and from 
 wood ranger to the Boy Scouts ! 
 
 In Middelburg, Janssen invented the tele- 
 scope which Galileo used and who won the 
 greater fame, besides being entangled in the 
 "Conflict Between Science and Dogmatic 
 Theology" — as my friend and neighbor. Presi- 
 dent A. D.White, of Cornell University, entitled 
 his book — ■ which attacks no creed, propagates 
 none, but nourishes religion. The rough tin pipe 
 with which Janssen explored the heavens con- 
 trasts amazingly with the splendid apparatus 
 and equipment of some modern throne rooms 
 of astronomy, such as the Naval Observatory 
 at Washington, or the observatory at Flagstaff 
 in Arizona or at Mount Hamilton in Califor- 
 
 [85]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 nia. In like manner, William of Orange and 
 Robert Browne, in the same city, were fellow 
 heralds of the new day. They swept the spirit- 
 ual heavens with their gaze, and the means and 
 equipment of both suggest the same contrasts 
 with the results of to-day as in science, both 
 real and so-called. 
 
 Not to be forgotten, as Browne's fellow stu- 
 dent at Cambridge and his bosom friend at 
 Norwich, was Robert Harrison, also a man of 
 light and leading among the Separatists. 
 
 Many times have we visited and rambled 
 around Middelburg and Veer, reverently exam- 
 ining the Scotch Church records, or meditating 
 in the clean, little Fish Market, overlooking 
 what was Browne's press and place of worship, 
 and in the glorious Town Hall, where William 
 Bradford stood. From this city, as from a foun- 
 tain, flowed influences that have shaped democ- 
 racy and American history. 
 
 Most pleasant of all occasions was the visit 
 of the author (an American member, also, of 
 the Zeeland Society of Sciences) on September 
 21, 1913. Then, in the Scotch Church — ^ an- 
 ciently a convent chapel — before the burgo- 
 master, the local magnates, and an audience of 
 Netherlanders, who spoke or taught English, 
 we stood in the quaint pulpit and unveiled a 
 [86]
 
 MIDDELBURG 
 
 memorial tablet, which, with inscription and 
 symbols, tells its own story. 
 
 The charter of liberties, of 1253, in the ver- 
 nacular, William the Silent, Robert Browne, 
 Janssen, Cartwright, Harrison, all starry names! 
 What a glorious record for Middelburg!
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 MARTYRS FOR A FREE CHURCH 
 
 In the history of the Free Churches of England, 
 the prophecy concerning the first Christian 
 witness-bearers, as described In the Revelation 
 of Saint John, was grandly fulfilled — "The 
 testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." 
 Not only did these martyrs in Tudor times 
 awaken the conscience of England, but they 
 made more converts to the Idea that religion 
 should be free. To-day, that body of Chris- 
 tians In England which holds to the principles 
 for which either the Puritan or the Separatist 
 martyrs died — • the Congregational — Is second 
 only to the State Church in numbers, wealth, 
 power, influence, and missionary and philan- 
 thropic activities. 
 
 Like the mother and her seven sons, men- 
 tioned in the second book of Maccabees, 11:7, 
 and made arguments for faith and endurance 
 in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the pioneers in 
 England — of their faith and ours — "were 
 tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they 
 might obtain a better resurrection." Between 
 the slow rot of filthy prisons, or the gallows, or 
 [88]
 
 MARTYRS FOR A FREE CHURCH 
 
 exile, there was little to choose. These people 
 were executed or imprisoned, often to death, 
 because they were Separatists, and they ac- 
 cepted the loss of their goods and bodies rather 
 than deny their faith. 
 
 The first martyrs in a cause are, or ought to 
 be, best remembered. William Dennis, of Thet- 
 ford, was the file leader of a glorious procession 
 of those who gave up their lives for liberty of 
 conscience. Ellas Thacker followed him on the 
 gallows. Both were bookbinders of the sheets 
 printed at Middelburg. 
 
 More famous than these was John Penry, the 
 Welshman, publisher of the Marprelate Tracts. 
 He was the initial "Pilgrim Father." It was he 
 who, first of all, advised his fellow Free Church- 
 men to leave intolerant, Tudor England to be- 
 come "pilgrims and strangers in the earth." He 
 dropped the seed which ripened Into the May- 
 flower venture and the Pilgrim Republic in 
 America. We shall look at his name and per- 
 sonality, but first glance at his fellow martyrs, 
 Barrowe and Greenwood, who were hanged for 
 being Free Churchmen. 
 
 The Separatists, or Free Churchmen, were 
 called "Barrowlsts" as well as "Brownists," 
 for what reason we shall see. 
 
 John Greenwood was, from 1577 to 1578, a 
 
 [89]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 student of Corpus Chrlsti College in Cam- 
 bridge, from which Robert Browne had gradu- 
 ated. He became first a Puritan and then a 
 Separatist, and in 1586 was arrested and thrown 
 into prison. There he was visited by Barrowe, 
 an old friend, probably a college chum. The 
 prison keeper at once seized Barrowe and hur- 
 ried him in a boat down the river to the arch- 
 bishop at Lambeth. The two prisoners had sev- 
 eral trials and inquisitions, but their minds 
 remained unchanged. On the contrary, they kept 
 their pens busy. Barrowe's idea of church polity 
 was rather on the Presbyterian model, which 
 gives the power, not directly to the people, the 
 members of the church, but to the elders. His 
 preeminence and the early date of his arrest and 
 writings soon made the name "Barrowists" 
 current. 
 
 Despite all difficulties — much like those 
 with which the radical gospeler, whose auto- 
 graph was "Paul the prisoner of Jesus Christ," 
 was surrounded, when Phoebe of Cenchrese from 
 Corinth "carried under her girdle to Rome the 
 whole future of Christian theology" — the ap- 
 peals to posterity went on. The Separatists had 
 more faith in humanity at large than in office- 
 holders. Types, printer's ink, and Dutch presses 
 kept up that battle of freedom which, "though 
 [90]
 
 MARTYRS FOR A FREE CHURCH 
 
 baffled oft, is ever won." In spite of the slander 
 and hate of the pohtical bishops, the truth was 
 dispersed abroad. Not only tracts, but bound 
 volumes in quarto appeared. They concerned 
 "certain conferences had in the Fleete, accord- 
 ing to the Bishops bloody mandate, with two 
 prisoners there," and they advocated "such a 
 true church as has separated itself from the un- 
 godly by a covenanting together of believers." 
 These were written on bits of paper, smuggled 
 out of prison and sent across seas to Dordrecht, 
 and printed by Dutch compositors and press- 
 men. As there was no chance for the author's 
 revision, comparison, or proof-reading, the won- 
 der is that they were so well done or that any 
 survived. 
 
 The deep gulf of difference between the State 
 and Free Churchmen is discerned in this, that 
 the hierarchy looked with a fear, that was ulti- 
 mately impotent, upon the people; declaring 
 that they "are too blind, seditious, and head- 
 strong to make it safe to trust them." In re- 
 verse, the Separatists put confidence in common 
 folk, when these humbly sought the aid of the 
 Holy Spirit and were loyal to their Master and 
 to the constitution of the primitive Church. 
 Barrowe insisted that the queen had no right 
 to make other laws than Christ hath made and 
 
 [91]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 left In his Testament for the government of his 
 Church. 
 
 Long after this, a statesman, named WIlHam 
 E. Gladstone, defined the Issue between two 
 poHtlcal parties as "trust In the people, tem- 
 pered by prudence," and "distrust of the 
 people, tempered by fear." The question in the 
 sixteenth and that In the twentieth century 
 were much the same. Most Americans persist 
 In discriminating the England of landlordism, 
 Toryism, and of feudalism, entrenched in the 
 Anglican establishment, and the England of 
 the people, which Is best interpreted In the 
 daughter nations, which will have neither state 
 church nor nobility. 
 
 At last, after urging the trumped-up charge 
 that the Free Churchmen were In league with 
 the Spaniards to assist In an invasion of Eng- 
 land, and after thwarting the will and vote 
 of the House of Commons, which had vetoed 
 the bishops' hasty legislation, the two victims 
 were hurried to execution. On April 6, as early 
 and as secretly as they well could in such case, 
 the bishops carried out their murderous pur- 
 pose. 
 
 The victims were carted to the gallows and 
 two aged widows carried their winding sheets 
 for decent robing at tlie burial. Let us hope, 
 
 [92]
 
 MARTYRS FOR A FREE CHURCH 
 
 even if it be against hope and In the face of the 
 execution of Penry, that the story told by John 
 Cotton, in his "Answer to Roger WiUiams," 
 that the queen was displeased when she heard 
 of what had been done, is true. Thus perished 
 the martyrs who died for soul freedom. 
 
 Yet nearly three centuries were to elapse be- 
 fore a Jew was enfranchised in England — ■ the 
 bishops ever opposing. 
 
 The next victim of prelacy was John Penry. 
 Let us see how he got his name. 
 
 As in Wales and the Cymric settlements in 
 the United States — 'notably in the Welsh 
 barony in Pennsylvania, and around Utica, 
 New York — 'the prefix "ap" meaning "son 
 of," was sooner or later joined to the family 
 name. The Ap Howells became Powells, and 
 many other similar changes are noted by gene- 
 alogists. So "John ap Henry," born at Ofu- 
 brith in Brecknockshire, in 1559, became 
 "John Penry." He studied at Cambridge, ma- 
 triculating at Peterhouse, December 3, 1580, 
 and was probably a chum with Greenwood. He 
 soon, by conviction, became a Puritan. He re- 
 ceived his degree of A.B., and on July 11, 1586, 
 entered as a commoner at Saint Alban's Hall, 
 Oxford. Later he took holy orders, preaching 
 at both Oxford and Cambridge, and was noted 
 
 [93]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 as an edifying preacher. Eager to have a vigor- 
 ous gospel dispensed in his native speech and 
 land, he printed at Oxford in 1587 a book to 
 that effect. For his exposure of reaHties in his 
 book in favor of Wales, he was censured. 
 
 During this time and, indeed, while publish- 
 ing the Marprelate Tracts, and even until his 
 return from Scotland, he was a Puritan, for he 
 believed that preachers should be sent out by 
 the prelates and receive their stipends from the 
 State. The Separatists would repudiate one 
 who held to this idea of the union of Church 
 and State, but when in London, with the Free 
 Churchmen, Penry became a Separatist. 
 
 When out of jail he married Helen Godly, of 
 Northampton. It was from her birthplace came 
 the people who settled in western Massachu- 
 setts, and thence went forth into northern New 
 York, and named their town after Pulaski, the 
 noble Pole who helped us in our struggle for 
 freedom. 
 
 After publishing, in 1587, the Martin Mar- 
 prelate Tracts, Penry fled into the land of John 
 Knox, still keeping his pen busy for the spread 
 of the truth as he saw it. That truth is what we 
 all sing to-day — "The church's one founda- 
 tion is Jesus Christ the Lord." He returned to 
 London in 1592, again becoming active with the 
 
 [94]
 
 MARTYRS FOR A FREE CHURCH 
 
 Free Churchmen. Seized and haled to the Poul- 
 try Prison, he was kept on bread and liquids; 
 nor, though in poor health, was he allowed to 
 have the nourishing food his wife would bring 
 him. 
 
 On the loth of April Penry was brought 
 before the inquisition. Popular feeling having 
 been aroused by the judicial murder of Barrowe 
 and Greenwood, the magistrates had to move 
 carefully. Nothing overt could be alleged 
 against Penry until they found some private 
 memorials of a petition he intended to com- 
 plete and send to the queen. Because of this 
 entry in his diary, and probably a portion of a 
 prayer to God for the sovereign — their very 
 existence known to no soul on earth but Penry 
 himself — two indictments were framed, or 
 perhaps we should say "framed up," by Lord 
 Coke. This legal worthy ransacked the law 
 books to find a death penalty that could be 
 made to apply. This State Churchman found 
 that which he sought in what Penry called a 
 "diary or daily observation of mine own sins 
 and corruptions and of the special requests 
 which I made unto the Lord." 
 
 There was on the statute books the reenact- 
 ment of a law passed during the reign of Bloody 
 Mary and her Spanish Philip — who stands in 
 
 [95]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 history as responsible for the death, by fire, 
 sword, rope, and torture, of scores of Enghsh- 
 men and thousands of Belgians and Dutchmen. 
 Behind Lord Coke and Lord Treasurer Burgh- 
 ley were the prelates eager for blood and urg- 
 ing on the judges. 
 
 In a letter, written the night before the jury 
 rendered Its verdict, "to be hanged without 
 delay," Penry wrote out a long paper, not for 
 life or reprieve, but only to demonstrate his 
 innocence and loyalty. Like our own Nathan 
 Hale, whose single regret was that he had but 
 one life to give for his country, Penry wrote: 
 "If my death can procure any quietness unto 
 the churches of God and unto the state of my 
 Prince and her kingdom, wherein I was born, 
 glad am I that I had a life to bestow In this 
 service." 
 
 He wrote further, "The Lord bless her High- 
 ness with a long and prosperous reign to his 
 glory," etc. His hope was " subscribed with that 
 heart and that hand which never devised or 
 wrote anything to the discredit or defamation 
 of our sovereign Queen Elizabeth." 
 
 One can readily see what kind of a govern- 
 ment England had that could send a man to 
 the gallows on such evidence. On the 29th, the 
 authorities, fearing the people and probably a 
 
 [96]
 
 MARTYRS FOR A FREE CHURCH 
 
 mob of rescue, the prisoner was led out, at 
 five o'clock in the afternoon, to the execution 
 ground on the Surrey side. By orders from the 
 prelates Penry was choked off from saying a 
 single word, and the only witnesses were sym- 
 pathizers on the watch for just such an atroc- 
 ity. 
 
 At thirty-four years of age Penry died a 
 Free Churchman, servant of Jesus Christ, and a 
 true Pilgrim Father, in that he urged his peo- 
 ple of like faith to leave England and emigrate 
 to the land "where religion was free for all 
 men" and conscience was safeguarded. There 
 was, indeed, need for flight. Fletcher, in his 
 "History of Independency," pictures the situa- 
 tion, as the prelates were "causing heavy de- 
 crees to come forth against us, that we should 
 foreswear our country and depart, or else be 
 slaves therein." 
 
 ' Penry advised the Separatists to go in a body 
 and keep together, hoping also that his widow 
 and four fatherless children might be taken 
 with them. His words, showing that he was to 
 the first emigration to the Dutch Republic 
 what Robinson was to the American venture — 
 its animating spirit — are worth quoting. We 
 should remember them, especially, as we enter 
 upon the fourth century of honor to the Pil- 
 
 [97]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 grlms. He desired that the communal spirit of 
 the first followers of Jesus should prevail. In a 
 word, neither Bradford, nor Brewster, nor Rob- 
 inson, great as they were, rose above Penry, in 
 voice or spirit — because such a thing was not 
 possible. What the Compact, made at Cape 
 Cod, was to the Pilgrim Republic in America, 
 Penry's Legacy was for the first refugees in 
 tlieir exodus to Holland. 
 
 Thus Penry wrote: "And my good brethren, 
 seeing banishment with loss of goods is likely 
 to betide you all, prepare yourselves for this 
 hard entreaty and rejoice that ye are made 
 worthy for Christ's sake to suffer and bear all 
 these things . . . that none of you look upon his 
 particular estate, but regard the general state 
 of the church of God, that the same may go 
 and be kept together whithersoever it shall 
 please God to send you . . . consult with the 
 whole church, yea, with the brethren of other 
 places, how the church may be kept together 
 and built wheresoever they go. Let not the 
 poor and friendless stay behind here and be 
 forced to break a good conscience, for want of 
 your support and kindness unto them, that 
 they may go with you," etc. 
 
 In these noble words is foreshadowed the 
 whole history of the Pilgrim movement and 
 
 [98]
 
 MARTYRS FOR A FREE CHURCH 
 
 that of the churches, In true apostoHcal succes- 
 sion, which, from being independent, became 
 Congregational in unbroken brotherhood. 
 
 Against the brutal epitaphs of the contem- 
 poraneous rhymesters we may place in con- 
 trast Lowell's hymn, now sung in both the 
 State and the Free Churches in England and 
 wherever in our English tongue his words are 
 lifted in thankful praise to God : 
 
 "Once to every man and nation 
 Comes the moment to decide." 
 
 That time had come for the Free Churchmen 
 to be pilgrims and to leave the old home. Again 
 we remember Lowell's words : 
 
 "Yet that scaffold sways the future." 
 
 In history's perspective of three centuries we 
 discern fulfillment. It was from Penry's scaf- 
 fold that the movement of the Pilgrim Fathers 
 began. "The future," swayed by that scaffold, 
 is now American history. 
 
 And to-day how glorious the difference be- 
 tween a bishop of Tudor days, able to imprison 
 and order to death, and one of the age we live 
 in! From England, in 191 8, is this voice from 
 the Committee appointed by the archbishops 
 of Canterbury and York, in preparation for the 
 World Conference on Faith and Order, which 
 
 [99]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 includes representatives of the Established and 
 Free Churches : 
 
 "The second fact which we agree to acknowl- 
 edge is that there are a number of Christian 
 Churches not accepting the Episcopal Order 
 which have been used by the Holy Spirit in His 
 work of enlightening the world, converting sin- 
 ners, and perfecting Saints. They came into 
 being through reaction from grave abuses in 
 the Church at the time of their origin, and were 
 led in response to fresh apprehensions of Di- 
 vine truth to give expression to certain types 
 of Christian experience, aspiration, and fellow- 
 ship, and to secure rights of the Christian peo- 
 ple which had been neglected or denied." 
 
 Under date of April 24, 1919, a venerable 
 American bishop writes from Saint Louis: 
 "The Church is the whole body of the faithful, 
 who believe in Jesus Christ as God the Son, and 
 want to love and serve Him. A portion of the 
 faithful body is known as the Protestant Epis- 
 copal Church in the United States." 
 
 Such words compel in us all, of every name, 
 "faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest 
 of these is love."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 BREWSTER: THE BOY TRAVELER 
 
 The Pilgrim story covers somewhat over a cen- 
 tury,, if we begin it with the birth of WilHam 
 Brewster, about 1567, and end it in 1690. 
 Within that space of time no figure stands out 
 more prominently. He lived to be eighty years 
 of age, and in 1647 had seen more of the world 
 than any one else in the Plymouth Company. 
 He was the traveled man of the party and their 
 pilot into the land "where religion was free for 
 all men." In Leyden he was the Pilgrim church 
 elder, printer, and publisher. At sea he led the 
 worship. In Plymouth he was guide, philoso- 
 pher, friend, and teacher, and the ancestor of 
 many families eminent in American history. 
 
 Brewster the boy lived when times were 
 lively. Most probably he read the Martin 
 Marprelate Tracts. England was beginning to 
 have something like a postal system. Born at 
 Scrooby, probably in 1567, the boy received 
 some education locally, and then went to Peter- 
 house College at Cambridge. It may have been 
 during a vacation that he met the queen's en- 
 voy, William Davison, traveling north to Scot- 
 [lOl]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 land, who stopped at Scrooby. Then, most 
 probably, the two made each other's acquaint- 
 ance. 
 
 In 1584 Queen Elizabeth sent Davison as her 
 ambassador across the sea to the Dutch Repub- 
 lic and Brewster went with him as page. This 
 Vv^as a wonderful experience for a wide-awake 
 lad in the Dutch United States. He at once no- 
 ticed how much alike, yet how different from 
 those at home, were the language, people, 
 houses, and manners. In many things the re- 
 publicans were not only "up to date," but were 
 often far ahead of the English of the Tudor era 
 in the comforts and victories of civilization. He 
 noted especially the freedom of the press and 
 the liberty of the types; for the Netherlands 
 was then the printing office of Europe. In 
 Brewster's country nothing could be put in 
 type or published without the consent of some 
 bishop, who made it his business to suppress 
 whatever did not please him. Hence in England 
 the common people could find out what was 
 going on only by holding secret meetings. Even 
 the Bible and other printed matter had to be 
 smuggled in under shiploads of grain or in bar- 
 rels of herring or flour. Nevertheless, the Eng- 
 lish people in the Free Churches made abun- 
 dant use of Dutch facilities for their long fight, 
 [ 102 ]
 
 -^^ 
 
 
 
 
 S: 
 
 
 
 
 1
 
 BREWSTER: THE BOY TRAVELER 
 
 which was one of reason against unreason 
 without resort to violence. It was at Dor- 
 drecht that the Enghsh Separatists printed 
 their first confession of faith, which was most 
 probably from the pens of Barrowe and Green- 
 wood. The 'work was entitled "A True De- 
 scription out of the Word of God of the Visible 
 Church." The pith of this democratic docu- 
 ment — the heart of Congregational Church 
 government — Is in the sentence, "Thus hath 
 every one of the people interest in the election 
 and ordination of their officers ... by the holy 
 and free elections of the Lord's holy and free 
 people." 
 
 Tyndale, the greatest of all the makers of the 
 English Bible, had been garroted and put to 
 death for translating the Holy Book. On the 
 contrary, In Holland, anybody could print any- 
 thing that was not false or libelous, or that did 
 not help the Republic's enemies, the Spaniards. 
 Books, as well as pictures, were much more 
 general among the Dutch than among the 
 English of this period. For many years, even 
 after Brewster was eighty years old, most of 
 the Bibles In English, read In the British Isles, 
 were printed in Amsterdam and thence Im- 
 ported into England by hundreds of thousands. 
 
 Another thing, which this bright English 
 [ 103 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 boy noticed, was the almost perfect freedom 
 of religion. Instead of shutting up people in 
 prison, or putting them to death for holding 
 religious meetings, every one, Catholic, Ana- 
 baptist, Protestant, Jew, or heretic of any sort, 
 could worship God in the way he chose and no 
 one hindered him. Even those people who had 
 odd Ideas about government, war, and prop- 
 erty were let alone, If they behaved themselves 
 and Injured no one. Let them enter their houses 
 and shut their doors, not making any public 
 show or street parade, and no one was allowed 
 to harm them. Already, as we have seen, the 
 great William the Silent had rebuked the mag- 
 istrates, who, having minds like those of Eng- 
 lish bishops, were inclined to persecute. All 
 this was very different from the state of things 
 in England. 
 
 Young Brewster noticed also that the refu- 
 gees of both races from Belgium, the southern- 
 ers, or Walloons, who spoke French, and the 
 northerners, or Flemings, who spoke Dutch, 
 were very numerous In the Republic, which had 
 been formed In the edifice called the "Old 
 Cradle of Liberty " (In which to-day Is a tablet 
 reared by Americans), at Utrecht in 1579. He 
 saw everywhere the orange, white, and blue 
 national flag; and on all the ships the seven red 
 ' [ 104 ]
 
 BREWSTER: THE BOY TRAVELER 
 
 and white stripes of the flag of the Federal 
 Union, in which every stripe stood for one 
 state, with one vote in the national congress. 
 
 In the English language the word "stripe," 
 meaning a color band, was not yet in use, so 
 that the Hebrew record, in Genesis, of Joseph's 
 " coat of many stripes," and of the Princess 
 Tamar's robe, in 2 Samuel 13:18, had to be 
 translated "of many colors." Later, during ten 
 years, Brewster lived as neighbor and friend 
 with many of these Belgian people. He sailed 
 away to Massachusetts, while the Walloons 
 settled in New York and New Jersey, as the 
 Pilgrim Fathers of our Middle States. 
 
 Another strong characteristic of the Dutch, 
 which this bright boy could not help noticing, 
 was their zeal for education. Their public 
 schools were open and free to every one — for 
 girls as well as boys. These schools were sus- 
 tained by general taxation and were already 
 an old institution, such as England did not 
 have until nearly three centuries afterward. 
 
 What seemed very remarkable was the great 
 number and cheapness of pictures and engrav- 
 ings, for woodcuts were general. The Dutch 
 loved fun and satire. They were great people 
 for making sarcastic sketches and caricatures 
 of persons and things. In place of kings, bishops, 
 
 [ 105]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 and courtiers they had pohtical parties and 
 tlieir pohtics were veiy Hvely. Young Brewster 
 was mightily taken with this idea of a free 
 press; for when in Holland again, some years 
 afterwards, he set up a printing press and be- 
 came a printer of books, thus hoping to convert 
 his countrymen to Free Church ideas. The 
 Pilgrim Press in Bell Alley had a famous his- 
 tory. Its effect in England on King James was 
 much like that of a bent pin laid point up- 
 ward on the royal chair, making the sitter 
 very angry. The royal Scot in London tried 
 hard to get his clutch on Brewster, but he 
 never caught the Pilgrim printer and founder 
 of the Pilgrim Press. 
 
 It was in August, 1584, that young Brewster 
 traveled through Holland. So he saw his first 
 foreign country at about the best time of the 
 year. The flowers and the birds were out, the 
 children were at play in the streets, and the 
 farm laborers busy in the fields. In spite of 
 the fact that it was war-time and soldiers were 
 everywhere, making things lively in town and 
 camp, the country seemed very prosperous, 
 for the Dutch knew what sea-power was. 
 Brewster noticed that they had more green 
 things and a greater variety of food on their 
 table than in his home land. The British sol- 
 [io6]
 
 BREWSTER: THE BOY TRAVELER 
 
 diers, six thousand of whom were in the Re- 
 public as allies, called Zeeland "Queen Eliz- 
 abeth's kitchen garden," because so many 
 succulent garden vegetables, then hardly known 
 in England, were raised here and exported to 
 London. 
 
 The towns, besides The Hague, of which 
 Brewster saw the most, were the great seaport 
 city of Flushing, on the river Scheldt, in Zee- 
 land; Brill, near Rotterdam, on the west coast; 
 and Rammekins, which was a small fortress 
 in the south. These "cautionary towns" were 
 held by British garrisons as security for the 
 payment of £100,000, which, as a true "liberty 
 loan," the London merchants had made to the 
 Dutch Republic. Bergen-op-Zoom was also a 
 famous place for British soldiers, and here an 
 English church existed for some years. The 
 British, or rather the English, flag was a very 
 familiar sight in Holland, from 1584 until 1648. 
 When most of the British troops returned home, 
 the Scotch Brigade of three regiments re- 
 mained in Holland, in the service and pay of 
 the States-General until 1795. In 1776, our 
 Dutch allies in the Revolution would not — • 
 despite pressure from King George III and Sir 
 Joseph Yorke, the British envoy at The Hague 
 — allow their splendid battalions to be used 
 
 [ 107 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 against us. A tablet In honor of this superb 
 body of soldiers was reared by grateful Amer- 
 icans upon the walls of the Scotch church in 
 Rotterdam and unveiled in 1913. 
 
 Davison, as we have seen, had lived a long 
 time in Antwerp, and had a good reputation 
 with the Dutch, who trusted him as they did 
 not trust Leicester. There was also a brilliant 
 young officer. Sir Philip Sidney, who, on hear- 
 ing of the Dutch fight for freedom, had crossed 
 the sea, like our Lafayette, to help the strug- 
 gling republic against overwhelming odds. In 
 one of the first skirmishes with the Spaniards 
 at Zutphen, he was struck in the leg with a 
 bullet; but, unlike our French altruist, who 
 was wounded at the battle of Brandywine, 
 Sidney did not recover. Yet, like the Ameri- 
 cans led by General Pershing, who, in 1917, laid 
 a wreath on the hero's grave at the Picpus 
 cemetery in Paris, the Dutch, who have always 
 felt gratitude to their noble deliverer, reared a 
 splendid monument at Zutphen, in 1910, in 
 honor of Sir Philip's memory. His name is un- 
 dying among us Americans also, for Sidney's 
 Latin, "Ense petit placidam sub libertate 
 quietem" is the motto of Massachusetts — 
 which in 19 18 might be that of the American 
 Commonwealth — "By the sword she seeks 
 [ 108 1
 
 BREWSTER: THE BOY TRAVELER 
 
 placid calm under liberty." In our days, Henty, 
 the boy's delight, has written the story, "By 
 Pike and Dyke; or, By England's Aid." It is 
 entirely true that Queen Elizabeth, with the 
 inspiration of her presence before her army at 
 Tilbury in noble language and with material 
 assistance, aided the Republic, sending thou- 
 sands of "help troops" to fight the Spaniards; 
 but it is equally true that Holland was fighting 
 England's battle — just as France, England, 
 and Italy were fighting for us in 1914-17 — 
 and that both were making the world safe for 
 the democracy which we enjoy. 
 
 Nor could young Brewster fail to notice that 
 Dutch family names were, as a rule, taken 
 from the places where they had lived, while 
 similar geographical terms in England were 
 mostly confined to nobles. Place-names in the 
 Netherlands, were not, as in Germany, mo- 
 nopolized by the junkers or nobles, but were 
 allowed to the common people. When plain 
 folk in England took family names — of which 
 there were few before the Reformation — • 
 these were almost wholly borrowed from trades 
 or occupations. The reasons for this are very 
 plain. Under feudalism the land is held chiefly 
 by nobles, the common folk being less ten- 
 ants than semi-serfs, or "villeins," as they are 
 [ 109 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 called in Magna Charta, or adscript! glebes, 
 in Latin, which means written as belonging to 
 the soil. This system of land-ownership held 
 on later in England than in the Netherlands; 
 where the people, especially the workmen in 
 organized industry, won their freedom and the 
 farmers became owners of the soil. As for the 
 Dutch cities they had charters, not in Latin, 
 but in the speech of the masses, and some of 
 them as old as Magna Charta. In fact, in some 
 parts of the Netherlands, such as Friesland, 
 where democracy was permanent, feudalism 
 was hardly known. 
 
 Naturally in England, when, under the new 
 economics, the feudal system faded away and 
 novel interests and occupations arose, the peo- 
 ple took their names from their trades, such as 
 Brewster, Fletcher, Webster, Smith, Wright, 
 Warner, Goldsmith, etc., writing them with a 
 capital. Nor is it anything wonderful that the 
 Smiths and Wrights are so numerous. The 
 organization of the guilds stimulated the tak- 
 ing by the craftsmen of family names from 
 their trades. In other cases the son's name 
 became the family name, such as Robinson, 
 Johnson, Williamson, Richardson, etc. Later 
 on, the town, or "ton," as in Washington, 
 Johnston, Clifton, etc., became more common. 
 
 [ no]
 
 BREWSTER: THE BOY TRAVELER 
 
 Still later, the plain people adopted the terms 
 "hurst," " thorpe," "by," etc., which are now 
 so general. 
 
 Even to this day, in Great Britain, which 
 awaits the same beneficent agrarian revolution 
 as has taken place in Holland, France, Japan, 
 and most civilized countries, there are rela- 
 tively very few owners of the soil, most of the 
 land being held by less than half a thousand 
 persons, instead of by tens of thousands of 
 peasant proprietors, as in the other countries 
 named. In a word, Brewster — • this potentially 
 future American — • found that things in a re- 
 public in the sixteenth century were at many 
 points in notable contrast and often far better 
 than in a monarchy. 
 
 Wars, besides rarely ever settling the ques- 
 tions for which they are fought, are always 
 costly and wasteful. The Dutch republicans 
 were hard-pressed to raise money enough to 
 keep an army in the field to drive back the 
 Spaniards. Beginning in 1567, according to 
 Father William's motto, "I will maintain," 
 they kept up the struggle, which was not ended 
 until 1648; that is, for eighty years. They had 
 to make repeated "drives" for " liberty loans." 
 Every one in the Republic, man, woman, girl, 
 and boy, had to "do his bit" in order that the 
 
 [III ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 soldiers of freedom should go "over the top" 
 in victory — which they had done long before 
 peace came officially. There was an armistice, 
 or truce, from 1609 to 1621, which was the 
 time of the Pilgrims' sojourn in Holland. 
 
 William the Silent had set the example, by 
 selling off, for the benefit of the fatherland, his 
 splendid outfit of "plate" — from the Spanish 
 word "plata," "silver" — consisting of cups, 
 goblets, dishes, and ornaments of all sorts. It 
 is no wonder the Dutch, during his lifetime, 
 called him the Father of his Country and still 
 do so; giving us in this a noble precedent; for 
 our Washington, as general, served without 
 pay. The people responded to Father William's 
 call, the women offering their jewels and the 
 men their coin. 
 
 So it came to pass than when Davison and 
 his page Brewster sailed on the return voyage 
 to England, they carried over £40,000 or 
 3200,000 worth of Dutch jewelry and plate. 
 This was part of the security, or collateral, for 
 the money loaned the Dutch. It was a true 
 "liberty loan" in aid of freedom, of which the 
 world, and especially we Americans, enjoy the 
 benefit to-day. 
 
 After Davison had returned to England he 
 was in daily attendance on the queen from 
 
 [ "2 ]
 
 BREWSTER: THE BOY TRAVELER 
 
 August, 1586, to February, 1587. He was even 
 made Clerk of the King's Bench. His being 
 high in office gave his page, young Brewster, 
 splendid opportunities of seeing court life and 
 the sights of London. This was when "the 
 City" and Westminster and the villages, now 
 swallowed in the great municipality, were dis- 
 tant and separate. 
 
 Who knows but the boy met Shakespeare or 
 saw and heard some of his plays .f* Most of the 
 great bard's comedies and dramas were written 
 more especially to please the young folks of 
 his time. The theaters were then of the rudest 
 sort, very far from being equal in comfort to 
 some of our Pennsylvania barns. Shakespeare 
 kept himself astonishingly aloof and free from 
 the great living questions of his time. Among 
 other people, whom the great plajAvright 
 heard and made fun of, were the "Brownists." 
 This tickled the audiences, that were then pas- 
 sive under the oppression of their kings and 
 prelates and far different in their sentiments 
 from those of to-day. 
 
 A mighty change was soon to take place in 
 young Brewster's life. Davison's ambitions and 
 high hopes, his fortunes and his public career 
 came suddenly to an end when the queen made 
 of him a cat's-paw for her alleged self-protec- 
 
 [113]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 tion. She signed the death warrant of Mary, 
 Queen of Scots, and then sought some one on 
 whom to throw the odium of the act. In this 
 those who think the sovereign of England was 
 a male find an argument! She certainly had a 
 genius for discovering scapegoats, which was 
 quite equal to that of our first ancestor, Adam.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 BRADFORD: BOY HERO AND TYPICAL PILGRIM 
 
 If William Brewster be thought the typical 
 Pilgrim, layman, church officer, man of the 
 world, and leader of the first flight beyond sea 
 of the Separatists, William Bradford stands 
 out as the practical, all-around, business man, 
 in the second and trans-Atlantic voyage. Like 
 that of our Washington, his was "a well- 
 balanced organization." To strive for perfec- 
 tion In man's threefold nature, body, soul, 
 and spirit, according to his Master's command 
 and Paul's prayer and Ideal, was Bradford's 
 life endeavor. 
 
 Less than two miles from Scrooby Is the 
 market town of Austerfield. In this village 
 lived a boy several years younger than Brew- 
 ster. Yet these two were to be lifelong com- 
 panions, and both of them were pioneers In all 
 the good ideas and actions that make the 
 United States, and the best Americans, what 
 they are. This boy was William Bradford. 
 Some of us have seen the record of his baptism 
 in the little Norman church at Austerfield 
 on the Austerfield church parchment. We re- 
 
 [ 115 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 member also the old font, or baptismal bowl, 
 before which he was christened ; though when, 
 in 1 891, we made examination, it lay upon the 
 ground and was used for chickens to drink out 
 of. It had become so old, dark, and crusted by 
 centuries of use, that it has been replaced by 
 a new one. Not long after the ancient font 
 was bought as a relic by some American. 
 
 Bradford's ancestors had been yeomen, who 
 formed the class next to the knights, some of 
 whom owned land and from whom in war- 
 time the infantry, or archers, spearmen or 
 swordsmen were recruited. They won deserved 
 fame for their steadiness in battle, their brav- 
 ery in the charge, and their accuracy as archers. 
 In using, as we still do, the phrase "yeomen's 
 service," we do but recall old traditions. 
 
 At the north end of Austerfield village, a 
 brick house is shown in which Bradford is 
 said to have been born. It is now divided into 
 tenements for two families. This tradition may 
 be true, for the Flemings had introduced the 
 making of bricks a century or more previous, 
 and such dwellings were then becoming com- 
 mon. There is also still standing, on the old 
 manor ground at Scrooby, a brick house, later 
 than the main edifice, which latter has long ago 
 been taken down. 
 
 [ ii6]
 
 BRADFORD: TYPICAL PILGRIM 
 
 Bradford's father and mother died early in 
 his life. Among other things bequeathed to him 
 by will were a "cupboard in the house," a 
 settee, a yoke of oxen, a corselet, or bit of body 
 armor, and an iron-bound wain, or wagon. In 
 old EngHsh the "house" meant the best inside 
 room, or parlor; because, indeed, before evolu- 
 tion into the modern form of the dwelling di- 
 vided into many apartments, this big room was 
 all there was of the house, whether in castle or 
 cottage. The "home" meant of old the seat of 
 domestic life, including both the dwelling and 
 the ground near by. 
 
 Bradford was a serious boy, and therefore, in 
 the long run, one of the happiest, and sure to 
 live the longer for being so; existence itself 
 meaning enjoyment. Quite early in life he fell 
 under the influence of a Puritan minister at 
 Babworth. This place is now about ten miles 
 from Scrooby; though when the high hedges, 
 which are now so general in England, were not 
 so common — for most of the land was then 
 used as sheep pasture and unenclosed — a good 
 walker could, by short cuts, shorten his route 
 a mile or two. 
 
 So Bradford as a boy had the delight of grow- 
 ing up to be a true Christian — ■ than which hap- 
 piness there can be no greater path of pleasure 
 
 [ 117]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 or one richer in the durable satisfactions of life. 
 His was the joy of following closely in the foot- 
 steps of Him "who left us an example that we 
 should follow in his steps." Whether we call 
 that towering figure in history, a Hebrew, the 
 Prophet of Nazareth, the Samurai of the Ages, 
 the World's First Gentleman, or "our Friend, 
 our Brother and our Lord," Bradford, by keep- 
 ing his commandments, knew him in all these 
 endearing relations. Bradford's attitude was 
 ever one of devoted loyalty to his Master. 
 Hence his unquailing courage throughout life. 
 
 View and appraise Jesus as we may, accord- 
 ing to our hereditary, family, or theological no- 
 tions or inheritances, adjudge Him from his 
 simple manliness, or as a unique character in 
 human annals, we shall appreciate Him all the 
 more if we also can enter into Bradford's expe- 
 riences. This eminently practical man, of deep 
 feelings and tender emotions, by ever closer 
 acquaintance with his Master, sweetened in 
 character and grew stronger with age. He sat 
 ever at the feet of the Teacher, who stands 
 higher than any dogma, tradition, ritual, or 
 organization that claims to represent him. 
 
 It was this typical Pilgrim w^ho gave his com- 
 pany their immortal name. As brave as Bun- 
 yan's ideal hero, Bradford was as certain, de- 
 [ ii8]
 
 BRADFORD: TYPICAL PILGRIM 
 
 spite life's varied obstacles, to reach that goal 
 of true success which stands the test of time 
 and of eternity. To the Pilgrim governor there 
 was no potency for the solving of problems 
 equal to that enfolded in the precepts of Jesus. 
 Bradford found that in common life the Sermon 
 on the Mount was workable, because his inter- 
 pretation of it came from a vital view and use of 
 its truths, quite apart from creeds, speculative 
 philosophy, or church policy. He saw that all 
 human actions have worth only as they are 
 freed from selfishness, and as the Father in 
 Heaven sees them. To him the Word of his 
 Master was ever as David's old sword — "none 
 like it." Bradford wrought always as in his 
 "Great Taskmaster's eye." 
 
 That Bradford was a happy boy needs no 
 proof or argument to any who, as a boy, has 
 known by rich experience that real religion 
 which is never outside, but always within and 
 very deep in the soul. To have hung or based his 
 life wholly on a corporation, a ritual, a creed, a 
 tradition formulated by somebody else, might 
 have meant sorrow or abridged his joy; but to 
 have found in his own soul the test of sonship 
 with God, with proof and assurance, and in his 
 daily life tokens of loyalty to his Master and 
 great Captain, meant perpetual cheer and un- 
 
 [ 119]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 diminished delight. In fact, his Christian ex- 
 perience was for him a deep, unfaihng well of 
 refreshment, from which he could hourly drink 
 and gain new strength, and this deepened with 
 his years. In old age his annotations or second 
 thoughts, expressed in his manuscript history, 
 are pseans of thanksgiving. Of certain old pil- 
 grims before him it was said that, "passing 
 through the valley of weeping, they made it a 
 place of springs." 
 
 So all his life Bradford found perpetual foun- 
 tains of cheer. He was the man to inspire others, 
 because he himself was so richly provided with 
 the elements of hope. Like the lone prisoner on 
 the Roman corn ship in the stormy Mediterra- 
 nean, when others were paralyzed by terror or 
 white with fear, he could stand unafraid on the 
 deck, be the real captain, and say, " Sirs, be of 
 good cheer." 
 
 Bradford's religion was that of the genuine 
 Puritan, which was and is as different from 
 the caricatures made of it by the average mod- 
 ern scribbler, on the stage, and in the novel, as 
 sunlight differs from the whale-oil lamp that 
 serves to make darkness visible. The life of God 
 in Bradford did not consist merely in attend- 
 ing meetings, going to church or conventicle, 
 on keeping the Sabbath — important as these 
 [ 120 ]
 
 BRADFORD: TYPICAL PILGRIM 
 
 might seem — but of daily, hourly gratitude to 
 God and willing service to man. 
 
 Bradford learned by bitter experience that 
 "the Church" so called, the State-propped or 
 supported corporation, whether universal or 
 local, whether "Holy Catholic" or "Holy 
 Christian," sectarian, or however named, is not 
 necessarily a patron or lover of either righteous- 
 ness or true holiness. Whether in his day or ours, 
 or in the centuries past, who can associate any 
 radical reforms with "the Church".'' Be it si- 
 mony, slavery, the slave trade, prohibition of 
 liquid poison in strong drink, the abolition of 
 flogging in school, army, or navy, prison reform, 
 rational medicine, proper treatment of the in- 
 sane, the enfranchisement of women, the white 
 slave traffic, oppression of the laboring man by 
 legally buttressed corporations, "the Church" 
 has in all these matters lagged behind, to 
 let individuals — "heretics" usually — do the 
 work and often in the very teeth of "the 
 Church's" opposition. The archives of the his- 
 tory of man's progress show that ecclesiastics 
 have thundered in opposition, attempting to 
 silence the protester, while the lightnings of 
 prelates have tried to transfix the reformers. 
 "The Church" went on defining dogma and 
 telling men what they ought to believe, while 
 [121 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 hanging, burning, or imprisoning men who tried 
 to make the world better through their preach- 
 ing that Christ's law in Church and State is 
 the only true democracy. 
 
 The whole life of William Bradford shows 
 that simply to label him with the name of any 
 sect or church, or to appraise his life and work 
 by calling him this or that sort of a Christian, 
 is to belittle him. He was a God-filled man, and 
 what God-filled and God-driven men have done, 
 without respect of name or creed, let Professor 
 J. H. Holmes tell us: 
 
 "Men God-driven are men unsatisfied. The 
 hope of the future lies in the rebellion of men 
 against circumstances, their splendid unwilling- 
 ness to leave things as they are. God-driven 
 men turned the cave into the house and the 
 house into a temple. They took the wild grains 
 and made wheat and corn. They took the crab- 
 bed, wild fruits, and gave us apple, grape, and 
 pear. They took the simple roadside weeds and 
 gave us the crimson rambler, and all the glory 
 of our household flowers. They took the rude 
 organization of the tribal clan and made the 
 nation. They took the despotism and made the 
 democracy, though this task is yet unfinished. 
 The unrest and longing in the heart of man is 
 the voice of God. It calls him from ease to 
 [ 122 ]
 
 BRADFORD: TYPICAL PILGRIM 
 
 effort, from the war of appetite to the greater 
 war of social development, from selfish grab- 
 bing at personal goods to creative life. So is the 
 word of God a sharp sunderer of men from 
 many things dear to them; so has it been a clar- 
 ion call leading them to new fields and new serv- 
 ice — • a bugle note stiffening the sinews and 
 summoning the blood for pioneer service in new 
 ways." 
 
 Bradford was always "up and doing, with a 
 heart for any fate." Job's words, "Though He 
 slay me, yet will I trust Him," interpret the 
 quality of Bradford's piety and faith in the Fa- 
 ther of Eternity. In his "History " he declares, 
 in effect, that the democracy for which one 
 would not dare to be imprisoned or die is not 
 the true metal acceptable to Him who sits "as 
 a refiner." Of Bradford, as of Joseph, it might 
 be written that he was ever ready to labor and to 
 wait "until the time that His word came; the 
 word of the Lord tried him," and he stood the 
 test.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 SCROOBY: A BATTLE-GROUND OF PRINCIPLES 
 
 One thing to keep in mind, while reading the 
 Pilgrim story, is to note carefully that there 
 were, in the England of 1600, two centers of 
 Separatism, Independency, or Free Churchism. 
 One was in the north, the other in the south. 
 Their persecutors also were, in each case, quite 
 different. In London the searchings-out, pun- 
 ishments, imprisonment, and hangings of the 
 Free Churchmen were done by the Government, 
 and the judicial proceedings were more or less 
 well known to the public in general. In one 
 sense it was a national affair, and the spirit and 
 legal procedure, if not the actual methods, were 
 closely akin to those of the Inquisition in Spain. 
 
 In the case of the northern Separatists, or 
 Independents, who became the "Pilgrim Fa- 
 thers," the matter was wholly different. At 
 Scrooby the troubles and vexations were for the 
 most part petty annoyances from their neigh- 
 bors. 
 
 Scrooby is only one of hundreds of places end- 
 ing in the Danish by; for this townlet lies in that 
 part of England long under "Danelaw" and 
 [ 124 ]
 
 SCROOBY 
 
 Danish kings. After the Norman Conquest all 
 the bishops of England were liegemen or feudal 
 retainers of William the Conqueror and his suc- 
 cessors. This sufficiently explains the political 
 and persecuting character of a bishop in Tudor 
 times. Scrooby, in Domesday Book, was simply 
 a "hamlet of Sudton, of Yorke manor." To this 
 day the rector of Scrooby is also in charge of the 
 Sutton church, which is but a few miles south. 
 
 Should one buy a railway ticket for Scrooby 
 he may be more fortunate than was the writer, 
 on one of his visits, when at the station, not 
 over thirty miles away, the young man who 
 "booked" you, or sold tickets, stoutly insisted 
 that there was no such place. He even made me 
 spell the name. In very few gazetteers or old 
 guide-books will this name, so long in obscur- 
 ity, be found. 
 
 Scrooby lies on the Great Northern road, as 
 we said in our chapter on Brewster, he being 
 the post agent there. The old Monk's Mill, 
 the church of Saint Wilfred, and a few build- 
 ings from Elizabethan days are still standing. 
 The Manor House or Summer Palace of the 
 Archbishop of York, a semi-fortified edifice 
 duly defended by a moat, is no more. It was 
 further equipped with fishponds, still traceable, 
 but nearly filled up, while the lumpy and irregu- 
 
 [ I2S]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 lar surface of the present pasture, in which the 
 cows graze, suggests that under the greenery 
 Hes much rubbish of old foundations, though 
 the edifice itself was of wood. 
 
 The antiquary, John Leland, who was chief 
 appraiser and confiscator for Henry VIII, thus 
 describes this ancient structure, the quondam 
 residence of the Archbishops of York — '"a 
 great manor place withyn a moat and builded 
 into courts, whereof the first is very ample, 
 and all builded of tymbre, saving the front of 
 brick." 
 
 The later addition to the main house is the 
 annex, which evidently served for servants' 
 quarters, built of brick and still in use. In its 
 rooms upstairs and down are the vestiges of 
 the old days when holy water, burning candles, 
 crucifixes, and other religious furniture were in 
 common use, being supposed to be necessary in 
 the worship of God. 
 
 In not a few places in Europe where old mon- 
 asteries have been, but are now gone, one can 
 find a relic of the past, perhaps in some gable 
 end of a farmhouse, or part of a wall, out of 
 which protrudes a knob of sculpture, a saint's 
 head, a bit of inscription, or the fragment of a 
 cherub, it maybe; but at Scrooby one must go 
 out into the cow-house. This was built much 
 
 [ 126]
 
 
 m h- 
 
 
 
 iiSf'^ 
 
 !■ 
 
 _]■](:
 
 SCROOBY 
 
 later. Here are the mouldings, wainscot, and 
 carved oaken beams of the old manor house. 
 These, made useful as rafters, have been duly 
 utilized by the spiders for their tapestry, ful- 
 filling the Scripture of Proverbs 30:28. Whether 
 the creature mentioned in the old or the new 
 version be the one intended, we saw it in both 
 forms. 
 
 In a word, where in 1600 things wore the face 
 and garb of their time in architecture and sur- 
 roundings, the scene and environment of to- 
 day is modern. What in 1600 was an affair of 
 walls, moats, gates, monastery, mill, fishponds, 
 and other things mediaeval, is now a plain farm- 
 er's house and home. An American mowing and 
 reaping machine added to the disenchantment 
 or the charm — ■ as one may nominate it. The 
 old pen-fold for stray cattle, and what was once 
 the timber of the stocks, the rabbits caught in 
 the mown wheat for pie, the absence of an inn 
 having lodging-rooms, and the "Flying Scotch- 
 man" dashing along on the steel rails to Edin- 
 burgh, break the dream of the past and open 
 the door of the present. 
 
 Informers and spies were very plentiful in 
 1606. When the Separatists met for simpler 
 forms of worship, Bible study, and real preach- 
 ing, the local authorities began to be very ac- 
 [ 127 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 tive In measures of suppression; yet these Free 
 Churchmen kept on. They were too eager in 
 their truth-seeking to quail at once before 
 danger, even when informers and spies were 
 numerous. 
 
 While no close relation between the southern 
 and the northern Separatists — ■ the former in 
 London and the latter at Norwich, Gainsbor- 
 ough, and Scrooby — is recorded, the martyr- 
 doms of several Free Churchmen, in the eastern 
 counties, must have been fully known to the 
 Scrooby people, for these judicial murders took 
 place in their neighborhood. Bradford tells us 
 that at least six Free Churchmen suffered 
 death, either in London or at Norfolk, Thet- 
 ford, or Saint Edmunds. Of the heroes of faith 
 who at Norwich were burned alive, not denying 
 their Lord, a poet, as true as the later Tenny- 
 son, of the charging troopers at Balaklava, 
 might have sung: 
 
 "Long shall their tale be told, 
 Yea, when our babes are old, 
 How they rode onward," 
 
 In their chariots of fire, as did Elijah. 
 
 At last, in 1608, having found by experience 
 
 that life was intolerable in England unless they 
 
 violated conscience and denied the supremacy 
 
 of Jesus, their Master, the Free Churchmen re- 
 
 [ 128 ]
 
 SCROOBY 
 
 solved to give up country, home, comfort, and 
 settled means of livelihood. They would cross 
 the seas, become foreigners in a strange land, 
 risk poverty, and find graves in alien soil. All 
 this because they refused to be cowards or rene- 
 gades, and had faith in God. How they sought 
 flight, first by way of Boston, only to be be- 
 trayed and driven back, has been often told. 
 
 Bradford introduces us to the catchpole, a 
 character famous in feudal days when men wore 
 armor and when swords were part of the daily 
 dress of men in the privileged classes, just as I 
 saw the men and the thing in Old Japan. 
 
 Catchpole was the name of a man and also of 
 a tool or human neck- trap. He was a sheriff's 
 ofiicer sent to arrest people who were in debt, 
 or had infringed in some way the laws of the 
 realm, especially those laws which, in late Tu- 
 dor and early Stuart times, forbade a man to 
 worship God as he saw fit. It was the business 
 of the shire-reeve, or sherifi"of the county, to see 
 that the laws were carried out. The minion who 
 obeyed the sheriff's orders was named after his 
 instrument. As this functionary might have to 
 deal with an accused person who owned a sword 
 and knew how to use it in resisting or defending 
 himself, the catchpole and his henchmen usu- 
 ally went together in a party. They had, for 
 [ 129 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 their chief dependence, a long pole with an iron 
 contrivance of two springs at the end, shaped 
 like the branches of the letter Y, set in front of 
 the letter O. The part to be pushed and clasped 
 around the neck worked on the springs; and 
 back of this was the circle. 
 
 This tool was a long-range instrument, so 
 that the holder, when expert, could keep himself 
 beyond the reach of a club or sword-blade and 
 thus save his own bacon. Whether by thrust in 
 frontal attack, or by sneaking up behind, the 
 catchpole would push his steel trap upon the 
 neck of his victim. Its jaws, once snapped to- 
 gether, held the man helpless and at a distance, 
 so that he could be easily disarmed and tied. 
 An assistant carrying a rope would bind the 
 person arrested and lead him off to jail. Brad- 
 ford tells us how these minions of the law, who 
 too often proved themselves grafters and official 
 thieves, caught the Separatists and dragged 
 them off to prison. It is easy to picture to our 
 minds the sheriff's posse at the door of the 
 humble cottages with rope, pole, and bill, haling 
 men, women, and children to jail. 
 
 At Boston Bradford says, "Being thus first, 
 by the catchpole officers, rifled and stripped of 
 their money, books and much other goods, they 
 were presented to the magistrates, and messen- 
 
 .[ 130 ]
 
 w w 
 
 U E 
 W ^ 
 
 X 
 
 O 
 
 o
 
 SCROOBY 
 
 gers sent to inform the Lords of the Council, 
 and so they were committed to ward." 
 
 For a month the Scrooby refugees were kept 
 in the Boston cells, and then, except seven of 
 the chief men — Brewster longer than any — 
 were dismissed to find their way home as best 
 they could; probably being obliged to beg their 
 food on the way. Like many other Americans 
 we have stood inside these cells with as much 
 admiration for the Puritan magistrates — who 
 dealt lightly with these Free Churchmen and 
 liberated them — as contempt for the grafters 
 who, in the name of the law, robbed these poor 
 people. In the Boston Congregational House, 
 on Beacon Street, among several relics from 
 Scrooby, one may see the old iron rails which 
 held in those who were prisoners for con- 
 science' sake. 
 
 When Tudor England cast out her children, 
 the exodus of the Scrooby company to Holland 
 proved to be the forlorn hope of the Free 
 Churchmen of the England of to-day and of the 
 spl"itual freedom now enjoyed by the English 
 people. The Separatists did not, for they could 
 not go at once as one body. They tried twice, 
 notably, In larger groups, by way of Boston In 
 the southeast, and from Grimsby or Hull, to the 
 northeast. They failed and were turned back, 
 
 [ 131 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 as has been often described. It was finally a 
 movement of parties, boat by boat, as it were, 
 from a sinking ship. Indeed, when, as Brad- 
 ford tells us, they were surrounded on all sides 
 by spies and some of their number had been 
 clapped into prison, while inquisition, bonds, 
 and death threatened the others, it was, by the 
 summer of 1608, more like leaving a vessel in 
 flames or foundering at sea. 
 
 "Women first," and the strong helping the 
 weak, is ship law, as it was New Testament 
 law always; and glorious are they who, even to 
 the yielding of their own lives, if necessary, 
 whether on the Titanic, or an army transport, 
 or on ordinary craft, uphold this law. The pas- 
 tors of the flock at Scrooby, Clifton and Rob- 
 inson, were the last to leave the craft, for "they 
 stayed to help the weakest before them." 
 
 This part of the story seems the real epic in 
 the career of the Pilgrims. They were like the 
 migrating bird, facing a storm while flying to 
 its nest — mounting, sinking, veering, riding 
 the billows of the air, driven back, yet again 
 attempting and ever pressing forw^ard, while 
 steadily nearing the goal. The Scrooby people, 
 finally, in small parties reached Amsterdam, 
 then the refuge of the oppressed of every land 
 and clime. 
 
 [ 132 ]
 
 SCROOBY 
 
 Scrooby stands In history as one of the 
 world's great battle-grounds of principle, where 
 the human soul is tried, noble ideals are put to 
 proof, and great principles illustrated. In their 
 flight these Separatists led the glorious soul- 
 liberty of to-day. After three centuries of the 
 testing of their lofty ideals and their practical 
 polity, the twofold demonstration is clear: that 
 pure religion has no necessary connection with 
 either man-made dogmas or with a centralized 
 religious corporation; and that separation of 
 politics from matters of conscience — the Pil- 
 grim and the American idea — is the law that 
 is peaceably dictating the customs of the whole 
 world. Instead of this form of church govern- 
 ment being "simply nowhere," it is rather, in 
 more or less close adherence to apostolical 
 methods and spirit, reaching out to the every- 
 where. Whenever men sincerely declare theirs 
 the motto. Nisi Dominus Frustra — the spirit 
 of the 127th Psalm — there will democracy in 
 the church be the rule. So the Pilgrims taught 
 and believed. 
 
 That which was the animating principle of 
 the Separatist movement and the fundamental 
 law of the Free Churches can be discerned at 
 Scrooby and Gainsborough. It was a battle of 
 forces. On the one hand was the dogma of an 
 
 [ 133 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 established church, enforcing its will by physi- 
 cal violence, prison, exile, and death, with feu- 
 dalism, autocracy, thrones, and kings behind it. 
 On the other were faith, preaching, teaching, 
 popular and higher education, free schools for 
 the people, the printing press, and the instru- 
 ments of reason and argument. The Separatist 
 and Free Church movement represented the 
 future and the now fulfilled prophetic vision. 
 Based on the law of God and the life and teach- 
 ings of Jesus, it was antipodal in spirit and ac- 
 tion to that which we have witnessed in Europe 
 and must face in America. 
 
 In the organization of each Free Church the 
 principle was that of brotherhood; the soul of 
 which is discerned in the covenant, without 
 which to-day no true Congregational church 
 can exist. Bradford, writing in the third per- 
 son, has thus recorded the covenant: "To walk 
 in all His ways, made known, or to be made 
 known unto them, according to their best en- 
 deavors, whatever it should cost them, the 
 Lord assisting them." 
 
 Of the London Free Churchmen it is re- 
 corded of the members in 1616: "Standing to- 
 gether they joined hands with each other and 
 solemnly covenanted with each other in the 
 presence of Almighty God to walk together in 
 
 [ 134]
 
 SCROOBY 
 
 all God's ways and ordinances, according as he 
 had already revealed, or should further make 
 known to them." 
 
 " In His written word only" was the Pilgrim's 
 slogan.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 TUDOR ENGLAND CASTS OUT HER CHILDREN 
 
 An English writer declares that the banishment 
 of the Independents marks the beginning of the 
 long estrangement between England and her 
 American colonies. 
 
 However this may be, it is well to note the 
 new environment of the exiles in Holland, and 
 to inquire how they were influenced during the 
 formative stage of their career. We ought to 
 realize what they saw and learned concerning 
 ideas and things which were not, at that time, 
 prevalent in England. In a word, we should in- 
 quire how, by dwelling in an alien country, and 
 to what extent thereby, they were fitted to be 
 makers of the American Commonwealth. 
 
 There are those who maintain that in the 
 Dutch Republic these wayfarers did little else 
 than "tarry for a night." The true and suffi- 
 cient answer to such a surmise, based on rather 
 narrow prejudice or willful ignorance, is found 
 in Bradford's history. On his pages are scores 
 of admiring references to Holland, with grate- 
 ful acknowledgment of both Dutch hospitality 
 and of Pilgrim indebtedness. Yet Bradford was 
 
 1 136 ]
 
 TUDOR ENGLAND 
 
 no exception, but rather the embodiment of 
 Pilgrim opinion and feeling. He represented the 
 consensus of the people of the Mayflower and 
 New Plymouth. 
 
 Still further, any one intimately familiar with 
 the life and customs, the law and literature of 
 the Dutch, besides the church, city, and na- 
 tional life, in the first half of the seventeenth 
 century, can but confirm what Bradford wrote. 
 Such a student discerns, in many of the deepest 
 things in American life which could not have 
 come from England, both the direct borrowings 
 and the abundant importations from the Re- 
 public. Among all those who were makers of 
 the American Commonwealth, none exceeded 
 the Pilgrims as purveyors; though the fact, so 
 apt to mislead, that they were mostly English 
 and spoke the English language, has made this 
 truth almost invisible in some sections of the 
 United States. In fact, it has camouflaged the 
 whole subject. In this twentieth century, when 
 the two greatest of English-speaking nations 
 are reafiirming ancient friendships, inheritances, 
 and ambitions, truth will help, not hinder, the 
 desired unity. 
 
 There were pilgrim fathers before those 
 which the Mayflower brought over; and besides 
 the Free Churchmen who were publicly de- 
 
 l 137 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 prlved of their lives, there was a "lost battal- 
 ion." Far more numerous were they who died 
 without notice in the London prisons. They 
 rotted to death in the damp and foul dungeons 
 of the Newgate and Fleet jails. By 1596 the 
 names of at least twenty-five of these victims — 
 twenty males and five females — were known. 
 They were true martyrs, because a mart}^r is 
 one who bears witness to the faith that is within 
 him. 
 
 The English Government, after attempting 
 by prison, fire, and the gallows, to arrest the 
 progress of the Reformation toward its logical 
 issues, tried official banishment and drove the 
 Dissenters into exile. On the two continents, 
 of America and Europe, the Free Churchmen 
 found refuge and surcease from persecution. 
 
 By the year 1597 the legal intellect presiding 
 over the English Government had reached a 
 lucid interval, and a policy for the colonization 
 instead of the imprisonment of Free Church- 
 men was decided on. Certain "Barrowists," 
 loyal and true subjects of Queen Elizabeth, 
 petitioned the council to be allowed to colonize 
 Rainea, one of the Magdalen Isles, which lie 
 north of Prince Edward's Island. Three English 
 merchants, who during a voyage of fishing and 
 discovery had found these, now hoped to make 
 
 [ 138]
 
 TUDOR ENGLAND 
 
 their fortune in colonizing them. Having two 
 ships ready they asked for leave to deport cer- 
 tain mechanics and "other persons that are 
 noted to be sectaries, whose minds are continu- 
 ally in an ecclesiastical ferment." The council 
 allowed the would-be planters to take out four 
 Barrowists from the London prisons to America. 
 Bonds had to be given that the four — • two in 
 each ship — should not return "unless they be 
 content to reform themselves and to live in 
 obedience to the laws ecclesiastical." 
 
 Thus casting out her children, even as Spain 
 had driven out the Moors and France was later 
 to banish the Huguenots, and Germany the 
 Salzburgers and Moravians, Tudor England 
 forbade the return of these Independents, lest 
 a worse fate than prison might await them, as 
 in the case of Greenwood, Barrowe, and Penry 
 — the martyrs of Congregationalism . 
 
 Let the names of tliose selected stand in 
 honor. If, as was often alleged, the prisons of 
 Europe were emptied for the settlement of 
 America, the character of the prisoners be- 
 tokened the fact that in many cases they were 
 incarcerated in bonds because of their deep 
 study of a certain book written mainly in prison 
 or by prisoners, and largely by one who was 
 proud to sign himself "the prisoner of Jesus 
 
 [ 139 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS ' 
 
 Christ." The four Londoners selected, as per- 
 haps the most dangerous to State Churchism, 
 and thereby, as we Americans think, honored, 
 were Francis Johnson, Daniel Studley, George 
 Johnson, and John Clark. The ships were the 
 Hopewell, of one hundred and twenty tons, and 
 the Chancewell, of seventy tons. The first was 
 sixty tons less in burthen than the Mayflower, 
 and the second ten tons larger than the Speed- 
 well, of later Pilgrim use and fame. 
 
 Possibly when the Clink prison doors opened 
 to let out these four, who were probably leaders, 
 the other Free Churchmen were dismissed also. 
 At any rate, it is known that there was soon 
 after this a love feast at the pastor's house 
 in London. For this sailing of four "Pilgrim 
 Fathers" to America, to win "freedom to wor- 
 ship God," the ships weighed anchor at Graves- 
 end, April 1 8, 1597. After lying at Falmouth, 
 because of contrary winds, they faced the ocean 
 on the 28th. An eight weeks' voyage ended, June 
 23, by the Chancewell running on the rocks. 
 Happily, on the 27th, the Hopewell hove in 
 sight. Yet, when all were crowded on the one 
 ship, equipped only with old and rotten sails 
 and cordage, and a limited stock of provisions, 
 the only alternative was to return, and by 
 September i they were back at Southampton. 
 [ 140 ]
 
 TUDOR ENGLAND 
 
 In naming these bleak bits of land after the 
 Magdalen, the first discoverers, or those who 
 had experienced life on them, must have had 
 in mind the "lost" nature suggested by the 
 name. 
 
 The four zealous Christians — ■ or dangerous 
 characters — were able to reach London and 
 hide for a fortnight, with the prospect of get- 
 ting a rope around their necks if caught; until, 
 from Gravesend, they took ship for Amsterdam, 
 their haven of safety. The church of the Sepa- 
 ratists there was made up largely of ex-convicts 
 — a company to which their Lord and Master 
 once belonged ■ — a convict by unjust human 
 law, but never a criminal. Of this true church 
 Francis Johnson was pastor, Henry Ainsworth 
 teacher, Daniel Studley, George Johnson, and 
 M. Slade elders, and Christopher Bowman 
 deacon. In the midst of exile, imprisonment, 
 or banishment, their faith had been born, and 
 now, on free soil, was again given to the world. 
 They were Free Churchmen in a free state — • 
 the Republic of the United Netherlands. It 
 was this " ancient church," to which the scat- 
 tered fragments of the Scrooby company upon 
 arriving in Amsterdam joined themselves. 
 
 Yet they were but one among seven English 
 Separatist congregations, and in a score or 
 
 [141 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 more groups of fugitives, Free Churchmen from 
 several lands. 
 
 Of these aliens in the city on the Y, the 
 greater number consisted of Walloons. These 
 French-speaking Belgians, arriving in Amster- 
 dam as early as 1574, are known to have 
 had, by the year 1578, a well-organized church, 
 with pastors and officers. After the fall of 
 Antwerp to the Spaniards, in 1585, this church 
 was greatly enlarged in numbers. It was but one 
 of nearly seventy Walloon or " French " churches 
 in the Netherlands, whose history is known. ^ 
 
 From the first, the relations of Robinson and 
 his people with the Walloons were close and 
 warm. By the "French" churches, so often re- 
 ferred to in the Pilgrim writings, are meant, in 
 almost every instance, the churches of the Bel- 
 gian Walloons. Of this septuagint of churches, 
 there are over a dozen still remaining and using 
 their own speech. Their history both in Europe 
 and in America has been, in most English and 
 American writers, virtually lost under the name 
 "Huguenot," with whose churches they were 
 affiliated in doctrine, for they held to the same 
 Reformed faith and their confessions were very 
 much alike. 
 
 ^ Histoire et Influence des Eglises Wallones dans les Pays 
 Bas. Par D. F. Poujol. Paris, 1902. 
 
 [ 142 ]
 
 TUDOR ENGLAND 
 
 Wherever the early EngHsh Separatists went 
 In any Dutch city they found Walloon con- 
 gregations, brethren in the faith; and not a few 
 marriages took place between the members of 
 both. There are thousands of English-speaking 
 people, especially Americans, who say and think 
 they are descended from the "Huguenots" of 
 France, when to the Walloons of Belgium be- 
 long the fact, and, let us hope, the honor, of 
 being their ancestors. 
 
 f The English refugees made their homes in 
 the poorer parts of the Dutch cities and sea- 
 ports, which are most closely connected with 
 Pilgrim history. These are Dordrecht, Middel- 
 burg, Amsterdam, Leyden, Delfshaven, Kam- 
 pen, and Naarden. In Amsterdam, new land 
 had been made by filling up old spaces once 
 under water, such being called "polders" or 
 drained land. In this new quarter clustered 
 the immigrants or foreigners, to whom the 
 Republic gave a home and shelter. The city 
 authorities, with their excellent system of re- 
 lief, helped these poor people with food and 
 money, "without distinction of nation or re- 
 ligion." Here were refugees from the four na- 
 tions of the British Isles, Brabanters from 
 Belgic land, Walloons and French, Westpha- 
 lian Germans, and others, whom the native 
 
 1 143 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 citizens lumped together under the name of 
 "the poor Hussites," or Reformed folk. The 
 Separatist congregations and the Pilgrims were 
 only samples of outcasts, including also the 
 Jews who had been driven from the Spanish 
 dominions, to find in the Republic shelter — 
 as the little bird from the cruel hawk. 
 
 Though the pastor of this church, Francis 
 Johnson, still lay in the Clink Prison in Lon- 
 don, their teacher, Henry Ainsworth, was active 
 in building up the congregation. His friend, 
 Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island, de- 
 clared that Ainsworth "had scarce his peer 
 among a thousand academicians for the scrip- 
 ture originals, and yet he scarce set foot within 
 a college." 
 
 Among his most popular translations was 
 one published in Amsterdam in 1612, entitled 
 "The Book of Psalms, Englished in both Prose 
 and Metre." This was the Pilgrims' Hymn- 
 Book. Longfellow, in his "Courtship of Miles 
 Standish," refers to this volume in the hands 
 of Priscilla. To illustrate the humorous side of 
 the Pilgrim story and to show how men's prej- 
 udices make them cross-eyed, one has but to 
 consult a French work of reference. La Grande 
 Dictionnaire Historique. This gives two bi- 
 ographies of one man, there imagined and 
 
 [ 144 ]
 
 TUDOR ENGLAND 
 
 alleged by the editor — a would-be Solomon 
 — to be separate personalities — a sort of Dr. 
 Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — • " the able commen- 
 tator of the Scriptures," and the arch-heretic, 
 "a Brownist in the reign of Queen Elizabeth." 
 The reader is, in this French book, warned 
 against "confounding the two men," though 
 the reality stands, in the fact of the two names 
 and the two personalities being blended in the 
 one son of the one mother. Both the heretic and 
 the scholar were latent, not in twins, but in 
 the one baby born at the one moment, Henry 
 Ainsworth, scholar, orthodox Christian, Sepa- 
 ratist, alleged heretic, and servant of man and 
 God. The "Brownist" and the scholar cannot 
 be separated. 
 
 What high honor It was. In 1891, to the 
 author of this little book about the Pilgrims, 
 while in Europe and after active attendance 
 upon the International Congregational Council, 
 when visiting Geneva, to be at first refused 
 lodging, because, though a tourist from Boston, 
 he was suspected of being an ^^ Anabaptiste''^ 
 by the lady-proprietor of the pension, who was 
 of the Roman obedience. This name, Congrega- 
 tlonalist, to the French boarding-housekeeper, 
 was something unspeakably dreadful. 
 
 Perhaps the most striking feature of life in 
 
 [ 145]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 the new country, to the Separatists of 1593, 
 and in the years between, even to 1609, was 
 the almost absolute freedom of religion. No one 
 was persecuted for his belief. On the streets of 
 Amsterdam one would meet Jews, Anabaptists, 
 Greek Catholics, Roman Catholics, Turks, 
 Moslems, Agnostics, and Protestants of all 
 sorts, including those just out from England, 
 and there considered by many as pestiferous 
 people; though now known as " Congregation- 
 alists." Amsterdam was, for generations, the 
 target of as much scorn and ridicule by State 
 Church wits and jesters, because of its toler- 
 ation and liberality, as was the United States, 
 by European autocrats and aristocrats, for a 
 century or more. Yet the men who, beyond sea, 
 fed the fountains of American freedom, were, 
 for the most part, educated in the Republic of 
 the United Netherlands. The Dutch Govern- 
 ment did not allow processions or parades of 
 people in church uniform, or the public carrying 
 of symbols, such as the crosses, or banners, like 
 those conmion in Spain, Italy, and Austria. Nor 
 were any other creeds and forms than those in 
 the Reformed Churches permitted public propa- 
 ganda; but, within his own house, a man could 
 think what he pleased and worship as he liked. 
 His conscience was free. The Roman Catholics 
 
 [ 146]
 
 TUDOR ENGLAND 
 
 had church edifices with plain brick fronts and 
 their services as of yore and were unmolested. 
 The refugees from Belgic land were as devout 
 and as earnest students of the Bible as were the 
 Separatists, and had made equally great sacri- 
 fices for faith and principle. Thus, all enjoyed 
 the atmosphere of soul liberty. 
 
 In the long war for freedom the Dutch had 
 beaten the Spaniards on land and crippled their 
 power at sea. Spain asked for an armistice. In 
 the winter of 1608 the Spanish envoys were 
 met at the southern frontier by polite Dutch 
 delegates, and the two parties in sleighs drove 
 to The Hague. After many sessions they agreed 
 upon a truce, which was to last twelve years, 
 from 1609 to 1621. It was during this peaceful 
 time that the Scrooby Separatists, the Pilgrim 
 Fathers, dwelt in the land "where religion was 
 free for all men." 
 
 In this capital city and on the site of the 
 house of John Adams — ■ the first legation of 
 the United States — • a bronze tablet commem- 
 orating three centuries of unbroken peace and 
 friendship between the Netherlands and [the 
 potential and actual] United States, was un- 
 veiled in presence of Queen Wilhelmina's rep- 
 resentatives and the curators of the Peace 
 Palace, on September 18, 191 3.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 UNDER THE FLAG OF SEVEN STRIPES 
 
 After noting the Genesis of the Pilgrim move- 
 ment, it is now time to consider their Exodus. 
 Until their arrival in Leyden we do not know 
 very much of their Leviticus or detailed law of 
 their organization, or much about their book 
 of Numbers until they began to be "mustered" 
 (as the Hebrew, which Bradford studied, has it) 
 in ships for their movement westward. The 
 analogy of their story with that of the Old Tes- 
 tament's Pilgrim's Progress, is very close. In 
 Amsterdam, in 1609, the company of Scrooby 
 people were exiles from home, strangers In a 
 strange land. Let us inquire what was their po- 
 litical status. 
 
 They were without the protection of their 
 government and sovereign. They were no lon- 
 ger under the crimson flag of England, then 
 bearing one white cross, and very different in 
 appearance from either the Royal Ensign or the 
 Union Jack of to-day. 
 
 Two flags in the Republic waved over them. 
 The first was the tricolor, orange, white, and 
 blue; from the arms of William, the Father of 
 
 [ 148 ]
 
 THE FLAG OF SEVEN STRIPES 
 
 his Country; while floating at every ship's miz- 
 zen, on the flagstaffs, and in the towns and 
 cities and on the church towers, was the seven- 
 striped flag of the Union — emblem of the Fed- 
 eral Government, the United States of the 
 Netherlands. This red and white striped flag, 
 prototype of that of our own union and federal 
 system — ■ Old Glory — • may be seen on almost 
 every naval picture of the historical painters 
 of old days. Proud of their federal republic of 
 seven states, in the senate of which each state, 
 large or small, had one vote, the Dutch, always 
 fond of brilliant colors and gay decoration, dis- 
 played their flags by the thousands. In fact, 
 this was the first time in history — feudalism 
 having passed away — ■ when there was a coun- 
 try without a king, and law and order without a 
 throne, that there was such a thing as a sover- 
 eign, national flag which did not belong to a 
 feudal or royal ruler, but was the popular ex- 
 pression of the nation at large, that is, the com- 
 monwealth. No flag like it had ever been seen 
 in Europe. 
 
 The Amsterdammers gloried in the arms of 
 their prosperous city, with its shield on which 
 were three silver crosses. They had driven out 
 the Spaniard and, because of this, they flaunted 
 the symbol of their victory all the more. In fact, 
 
 [ 149 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 we Americans have borrowed from the Dutch 
 the words "flag," "stripes," "union," "staff," 
 "bunting," and almost the whole vocabulary 
 relating to our national symbol; for these terms, 
 with their modern meaning, were in Dutch be- 
 fore they were in English. The words which we 
 employ in our every-day speech and in our cor- 
 rect diction were in general use among the 
 founders of the Middle States before they were 
 known or used in England. 
 
 Officially, peace had not yet come; but the 
 Twelve Years' Truce had been signed. It was 
 during this tranquil period, from 1609 to 1 621, 
 that the Pilgrims were to live in the Republic in 
 peace. They were free, on the one hand, from 
 both Tudor and Stuart kings and bishops; and, 
 on the other, from Spanish tyrants, bigots, and 
 inquisitors. 
 
 For the children and young folks the strange 
 land now entered was a veritable new world. 
 "Old heads on young shoulders" may be possi- 
 ble in caricature, but not in reality. The boys 
 and girls were not, could not be, interested, ex- 
 cept in a vague and remote way, in what filled 
 the souls of their elders. They were more influ- 
 enced by what was visible, audible, and tangi- 
 ble. They noticed the dikes and dams, storks 
 and windmills, wooden shoes, costumes rich in 
 
 [ ISO]
 
 THE FLAG OF SEVEN STRIPES 
 
 color, the metal headdresses of the women — 
 the glorified crown of thorns from early Chris- 
 tian days — and the splendid town halls. The 
 Stad Huys in Dutch became the "State 
 House" on American tongues, and this altered 
 pronunciation is but one specimen of scores of 
 Dutch names and words the Pilgrims brought 
 to our land. They heard the carillons in the 
 church towers, and listened to the psalm tunes 
 and song music of the chimes, and the bells that 
 struck also the hours and quarters. The curious 
 houses with their gables and crowsteps, the 
 bas-reliefs of Old Testament scenes in the Jews' 
 quarter — of Moses and Sinai, of Jacob dream- 
 ing, and the angel-ladder, of Elijah fed by the 
 ravens ■ — the tiled fireplaces, and all the won- 
 derful things which had already blossomed into 
 common life from contact with the Orient; 
 the games and sports of the men and women, 
 the skates and sleds, the golf, and the kermis 
 fun, were all of interest. 
 
 What they never saw or heard of were 
 "schnapps" — ■ a German word — or "Knick- 
 erbocker" — 2i name coined later in America 
 — • besides things, imaginary things, associated 
 with Holland only in English and American 
 vulgar tradition or in our Anglicized history. 
 With the goodies and cookies, the waffles and 
 
 [ 151 1
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 finger cakes, the stoves and manifold home 
 comforts, they were delighted, for against these 
 there was no Pilgrim law. 
 
 They found that people turned to the right 
 instead of to the left; and that the Dutch took 
 public and official care of their orphans, widows, 
 wounded soldiers, and aged couples, not leav- 
 ing these to private charity. 
 
 Bradford writes glowingly of the "many and 
 goodly and fortified cities strongly walled and 
 guarded with troops of armed men," and then 
 sets in striking contrast his own company of 
 poor people who were plain rustics and villagers. 
 All this power and so great prosperity In the 
 Low Countries were very Impressive to the ex- 
 iles, and perhaps Brewster was the only trav- 
 eled person among them. Thus does Bradford 
 himself tell the story In epitome: "For though 
 they saw fair and beautiful cities flowing with 
 abundance of all sorts of wealth and riches, yet 
 it was not long before they saw the grim and 
 ghastly face of poverty coming among them like 
 an armed man with whom they must buckle and 
 encounter and from whom they could not fly." 
 
 Nevertheless, with both grit and grace, 
 "armed with faith and patience and by God's 
 assistance, they prevailed and got the vic- 
 tory." 
 
 [ 152 ]
 
 THE FLAG OF SEVEN STRIPES 
 
 What was the political status of these Eng- 
 lish people, thus cast out from the country they 
 loved, and by the sovereign to whom they were 
 loyal? One might think them embittered by 
 their experiences. But no! On this point they 
 had taken early care to fortify themselves, a 
 dozen years before, when the first exiles reached 
 the country "where religion was free for all 
 men." Their place in history is clear. 
 
 In 1596 a little book dropped from the press 
 in Amsterdam. Its title-page ran thus: "A true 
 Confession of Faith and Humble Acknowledge- 
 ment of the Allegiance which we, her Majesties 
 Subjects, falsely called Brownists, doo hould 
 toward God and yeild to her Majestic and all 
 others that are over us in the Lord. . . . Pub- 
 lished for the cleering of ourselves from those 
 unchristian slanders of heresie, schisme, pryde, 
 obstinacie, disloyaltie, sedition, &c. which by 
 our adversaries are in all places given out 
 against us," etc. 
 
 In a word, it was not the Salem Puritans of 
 1630, only, who loved the country which had 
 cast them out. Those forced to become "pil- 
 grims and strangers upon the earth" loved their 
 country too. 
 
 Amsterdam was a world in itself, for here 
 Europe and Asia, the Orient and the Occident, 
 
 [153]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 had their point of meeting. No other city in 
 western Europe could show along its wharves 
 a greater number or more interesting variety of 
 ships sailing out to the Far East and away to 
 other strange countries. Every day there were 
 fresh arrivals in the harbor, bringing spices, 
 silks, drugs, perfumes, fruits, confectionery, and 
 all sorts of curious things from the tropics. 
 Quite early began the Dutch distinction be- 
 tween India on the mainland — almost a conti- 
 nent in itself — and Insulinde, or island India, 
 while the shops put out the sign, "Oriental 
 and Colonial wares." It was near the water- 
 front that Rembrandt and the later brilliant 
 array of Dutch artists found their most pictur- 
 esque themes. Turks, Arabs, Javanese, Japa- 
 nese, Chinese, South Sea Islanders, and the In- 
 dians of North and South America were found 
 here in their quaint costumes, curious dress 
 and weapons, and odd gestures and language. 
 One of the sights enjoyed by the children was 
 the curious round building, erected in 1482, and 
 still in use as the harbor-master's office. It 
 stands on the Prince Henry Quay, in Amster- 
 dam, and is still called the "Shriekers' Tower," 
 from the fact that here in old days gathered 
 the weeping wives and children, relatives and 
 friends of those who sailed away to America or 
 
 [ 154]
 
 THE FLAG OF SEVEN STRIPES 
 
 to the Far East. In our time the steam launches, 
 tugs, and steamers make the scene even more 
 impressively what it has always been — the 
 busiest place on the water-front of the world's 
 most hospitable city. 
 
 It was from this point that Henry Hudson, 
 in the Dutch ship Half Moon, had sailed away 
 only a few weeks before, on March 20, 1609. He 
 went out to "thread the needle," if possible, by 
 discovering the northeast passage to China; 
 but he turned back and sailed westward into 
 American history by locating New Netherland. 
 
 Among other things were the free public 
 schools in which both sexes were taught, the 
 girls receiving the same education as the boys. 
 This was not the case in England, and even 
 in Massachusetts girls were not admitted to 
 the public schools until after the Revolution. 
 In Holland, too, because the girls were thus 
 trained to other than the purely domestic du- 
 ties, the women took charge of the charities, 
 such as the hospitals, orphanages, and the 
 homes for old men and women and aged cou- 
 ples. The struggle for freedom and independ- 
 ence had greatly developed the spirit of the 
 women. Even in war they showed themselves 
 as brave as the men, notably at the siege of 
 Alkmaar, Haarlem, and Leyden. The statue of 
 
 [15s]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 Kenau van Hasselaer, in Rotterdam, who 
 drilled a company of women soldiers, tells its 
 own story. Her female warriors formed a "Bat- 
 talion of Death," like those in modern Russia 
 and Poland. The social condition of Dutch 
 women and their status in law were strikingly in 
 contrast to those given them in England, which 
 was unchanged until almost within our own 
 memories. 
 
 The American in Holland, who knows well 
 his old New York, Albany, Schenectady, 
 Kingston, and the towns along the Mohawk 
 and Raritan valleys, recognizes in these nu- 
 merous originals of things which, though now 
 American, were Dutch in old colonial days. 
 Certainly the delights of the antiquarian are 
 great. There are several streets, or alleys, in 
 Amsterdam, the names of which reveal the 
 former presence of the English Separatists, the 
 most notable being the Brownisten Gang, or 
 Little Street of the Brownists. 
 
 The Scrooby people, Robinson's congrega- 
 tion, stayed only a year in Amsterdam, because 
 of quarrels which broke out in "the ancient 
 church." The cause of this and other troubles 
 lay in the fact that, in breaking away from 
 priests and bishops, these Free Churchmen had 
 gone too far in the opposite direction of scruti- 
 
 [156]
 
 THE FLAG OF SEVEN STRIPES 
 
 nizing each other's faults and bringing them to 
 public inquisition. 
 
 Of the incident of the quarrel about a wo- 
 man's clothes and the fault found with the pas- 
 tor's wife because she dressed too fashionably 
 and slept in bed too long on Sunday morning, 
 we have told in "The Pilgrims in Their Three 
 Homes." This was not the cause, but it was the 
 occasion of Robinson's leaving Amsterdam. 
 The camel's back was already overloaded, and 
 the collision of the church crank — a brother 
 with "a crackt brain" was what some called 
 him — with Mrs. Johnson, who had been a 
 dressmaker in London, broke the back of the 
 camel; which, in this case, was the Scrooby 
 company. From the very first the real and un- 
 derlying reason was that those Independents, 
 or Separatists, who had come to Amsterdam 
 before Robinson and the Scrooby people ar- 
 rived, had formed a Barrowist, but not a true 
 Congregational church; that is, theirs was not 
 a church in which the seat of authority or 
 power was not in minister or teacher, elder or 
 officer of any kind, but in the congregation. 
 
 In this latter view and practice, all were 
 brethren. No church authority existed, save as 
 it was bestowed by the people who had taken 
 the covenant, their supreme allegiance being 
 
 [ 157]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 to Jesus the Christ. Everything In the real life 
 of the congregation was decided, not by the 
 vote of the "parish," but by the vote of the 
 members of the church; for it was as true then 
 as now, and as in New Testament days, with 
 those whom Christ had made free, 
 "The crowning fact, 
 
 The klngliest act, 
 
 Of freedom is the freeman's vote"; 
 
 and whether in Church or State, where intelli- 
 gent voters are educated to their duties, democ- 
 racy is the best rule; while even in republics 
 where autocracy has gained control, govern- 
 ment is parasitic and not from the roots of 
 New Testament religion. 
 
 The Amsterdam church was one rather on 
 the Presbyterian model, in which the elders had 
 more authority than the congregation. 
 
 For over a century the Separatists — always 
 called "Brownists" by the Reformed and State 
 Church people — remained in Amsterdam as a 
 distinct body. The Reverend John Canne, who 
 succeeded Ainsworth, was also a mighty stu- 
 dent of the Scriptures. He wrote Biblical com- 
 mentaries, and was the first scholar to add 
 those marginal references to the Bible which are 
 now so familiar and In general use. In 1662 their 
 meeting-house was destroyed by fire, but they 
 
 [ 158]
 
 THE FLAG OF SEVEN STRIPES 
 
 built another, with a parsonage. Bruinisten 
 Gang is the Dutch form for Brownists' Alley. 
 It runs between the canal and Brande Steeg 
 (Place of Burning), where the fanatical monks, 
 from 1522 to 1578, under Spanish rule, amused 
 themselves with the auto da //, then so com- 
 mon in Spain — the cremation of Anabap- 
 tists and other Bible-reading people. Here the 
 Separatists worshiped until 1701, when the sur- 
 vivors, a feeble remnant, were received into 
 the English Reformed Church in the Beguyn 
 Hof, or Court of the Beguyn nuns, which is just 
 off the Kalver Street. 
 
 In this historic edifice, in which American 
 and other English-speaking people delight to 
 gather and worship, there was unveiled in 
 1909, in celebration of the tercentenary of the 
 Pilgrims' arrival, by the Chicago Congrega- 
 tional Club, a bronze memorial tablet. It con- 
 tains the names of AInsworth, Johnson, Rob- 
 inson, Brewster, and Bradford, with the classic 
 quotation, "Freedom of religion for all men." 
 
 In 1915, after the old meeting-house and 
 parsonage In Brownlsts' Alley — ^ sold in 1714 
 and changed into a tenement house — had 
 served its varied purposes, it was torn down. 
 On its site was erected a building for the "Peo- 
 ple's Institution," by the Society for the Salva- 
 
 [ 159]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 tion of the People {Tot Heil des Folks). In the 
 debris several old relics, tiles, metal pieces, 
 etc., were found, recalling memories of the past. 
 Yet Amsterdam has many other memorials of 
 tliese exiles, which, however, it needs a cicerone 
 to point out. 
 
 Robinson's real purpose in leaving Amster- 
 dam was to form a true New Testament or 
 Congregational church, in which all authority 
 lay in the people who had taken the covenant. 
 To this resolve he was hastened and spurred on 
 by the petty matter of the "clothes question," 
 and the accusation against pastor Johnson's 
 wife. He feared lest, in a small controversy, the 
 greater blessing of soul-liberty might be lost, 
 and a mighty enterprise be wrecked on a little 
 snag, unworthy of even the name of rock.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 LEYDEN AND AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 Once settled down ia Leyden the Scrooby 
 party, of a hundred or so, were more or less sep- 
 arated for several years, but on May 5, 161 1, 
 a deed was signed giving them possession of a 
 fine lot of land in Belfry Alley, opposite Saint 
 Peter's great church. On this, Jepson, the car- 
 penter, built twenty-three little dwellings and 
 the larger pastor's house, and here abode the 
 chief single group of people in Robinson's 
 congregation. 
 
 The latter-day descendants of the Pilgrims, 
 in visiting the Dutch archives and looking at 
 the signatures of the betrothed and wedded 
 among their ancestors, may be amused and 
 perhaps disgusted at the quaint spelling of 
 the English names; as, for example, "Mayke 
 Botler,"for "Mary Butler." "Mayke" is the 
 Dutch pet name for "Mary" and perhaps when 
 in Holland she, or her lover gave that form to 
 the scribe. 
 
 But let us remember that neither blushing 
 maidens nor bold swains are noted for clear 
 enunciation when answering the questions of 
 
 [ 161 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 census takers or of city registration clerks, who 
 have their own troubles. Yet apart from the lin- 
 guistic or aural defects of the Dutch penman or 
 their apparent stupidity — people whose lan- 
 guage we do not speak or understand are usu- 
 ally, by natives, thought to be slow of intellect 
 — the uneducated person usually speaks louder, 
 as if that would help the poor "foreigner"! We 
 must not forget how the actual spoken English 
 sounded three centuries ago. Its vocables dif- 
 fered much from those which meet our ears to- 
 day, except as we may hear them from Hiber- 
 nian laborers or Irish friends or servant maids; 
 or even from the American highlanders, the 
 "mountain whites" of the Southern States. 
 
 It is easy enough to laugh at the so-called 
 blunders and misspelling of Dutch clerks, who 
 tried to catch the sound of English personal, 
 family, and geographical names that seemed so 
 odd and uncouth in their ears. Apart from 
 the fact that, under such circumstances, young 
 folks, who are lovers, are not usually experts 
 in audibility or enunciation, we must not for- 
 get that the English of these people was not 
 pronounced as it is in our day by cultivated 
 Londoners. Far from it. These immigrants were 
 country folk, and, since England lacked a gen- 
 eral system of elementary public schools, the 
 
 [ 162]
 
 LEYDEN AND AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 variation in the dialects spoken in Kent, York- 
 shire, and the midland counties was very great. 
 
 One must read Bradford to see how English 
 was pronounced in Queen Elizabeth's time, or, 
 better, listen to an Irishman talk. As spoken 
 three hundred years ago our vernacular was 
 very different in sound from that heard to-day. 
 Add to this the fact that, among the Separa- 
 tists, or those joined in marriage to them be- 
 fore 1620, were Scotch, Welsh, Irish, Flemings, 
 Dutch, and Walloons — • as the records show. 
 
 One easily understands the case who reads 
 Bradford critically and sees how he spells and 
 pronounces certain words, such as "viage" 
 (voyage), "foule" (fowl), "imbrases" (em- 
 braces), "tooke" (took, i.e., tuke), "'aire" (air), 
 "diate" (diet), "salvage" (savage), "firie" 
 (fiery), "shuch" (such), "wrasthng" (wres- 
 tling), "Henery " (Henry), etc. He quickly gets 
 a general idea of how some of these names — 
 sounding so uncouth in foreign ears — were ac- 
 tually pronounced three hundred years ago and 
 quite different from to-day. When to this is 
 added a Dutchman's difficulty of catching the 
 local or dialectic pronunciation of English 
 place-names, often so contrary to that of their 
 spelling, or as taught in our American schools, 
 or heard even in the conversation of educated 
 
 [ 163 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 people, we may have more sympathy with 
 those penmen who honestly tried to be accu- 
 rate. Possibly we may do this, even though the 
 laugh may be turned upon ourselves or our an- 
 cestors. 
 
 All American people ought to know about 
 Leyden, the second city-home of the Pilgrims, 
 and the only city in which these North Coun- 
 try people of England dwelt long and happily. 
 Here they consolidated their interests, scruti- 
 nized new-comers into their company, nour- 
 ished their strength, shaped their doctrines, 
 and fixed both their church and civic polity. 
 This latter was, perhaps, largely influenced 
 by Dutch municipal life, even as the initial 
 procedure of the early Christians was shaped 
 by the Greek city governments and society — • 
 as Dr. Edwin Hatch, in his Bampton Lectures, 
 has demonstrated. Here, more than in England 
 or anywhere else in the worlds are their earliest 
 autographs, their records, and their sleeping 
 dust. 
 
 No city In all Europe Is so closely connected 
 with American origins, or has had, through the 
 education here of many eminent men of both 
 Great Britain and America, a more vital Influ- 
 ence on the political development of those col- 
 onies which became the United States of Amer- 
 
 [ 164 1
 
 LEYDEN AND AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 lea. The first settlers of the Middle States, driven 
 out by Spanish autocracy, were in the same 
 brotherhood and community of faith as the 
 Pilgrims. In Leyden these Belgic Puritans, from 
 1567 — ■ that is, a generation or more previous 
 to the Pilgrims — • had dwelt and gathered 
 strength. From 1609 to 1620 the undivided Pil- 
 grim congregation lived, worked, and worshiped. 
 Here in 16 19 they saw, with their own eyes, the 
 fort built on the Broadway and garrisoned by 
 the local mercenaries of one of the two prov- 
 inces which, under Barneveldt, threatened dis- 
 union and secession. These they saw yield to 
 the might of the Union army, under the red 
 and white striped flag, and led by Maurice. 
 Dismantling and surrender to superior force 
 meant the triumph of union and the vindica- 
 tion of national supremacy. 
 
 The boys and girls could understand patriot- 
 ism and even partisanship, in both civic and 
 military matters, better than the points, even 
 the main ones, of controversial theology. When 
 Bradford tells us that Robinson "began to be 
 terrible to the Arminians," his reference is as 
 much to a political as to a theological party, 
 without allusion to anything cogitated since 
 John Wesley's time. 
 
 Rembrandt, the mighty painter of Puritan- 
 
 1 165]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 ism, who, out of light and shade, created a new 
 world of art, was born in Leyden in 1606; and 
 with him, it is quite possible, some of the Pil- 
 grim boys and girls played or were schoolmates. 
 
 Scores of the English Puritan leaders, also, 
 in Stuart times — ■ especially the founders of 
 Connecticut, refugees from Charles and Laud 
 — found haven and inspiration in the Repub- 
 lic. 
 
 As from a hive there swarmed off from 
 Leyden colony after colony in flight to the 
 American shores. After the Speedwell followed 
 the other Pilgrim ships, the Fortune and the 
 Handmaid, the Ann and Little James. Until 
 1629, when the last party left, the Separatists 
 voyaged oversea or left the Dutch city and 
 country for their old homes. 
 
 Perhaps in no one course of action were Sep- 
 aratists more nobly persistent and more truly 
 consistent than in refusing all favors in religion 
 from the civic authorities, whether English or 
 Dutch, or any aid from funds derived from 
 taxation. Thus they first solidly established 
 that principle which has become the settled 
 policy of the American people in every part of 
 the land — ■ no public money for the teaching 
 of sectarian religion. The Pilgrims not only did 
 not ask, but they would not have received, any 
 [ 166]
 
 LEYDEN AND AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 gift or material favor from city or state. "They 
 stood on their own legs," said a Leyden pro- 
 fessor to the writer. They paid their own rent, 
 thankful enough for the soul-liberty denied 
 them in their own land. In this, they fixed the 
 American policy, the law which is for all time — 
 the complete separation of Church and State, 
 and no division of the public money for the 
 teaching of the sectarian phases of religion. On 
 this question — more consistently followed in 
 the Middle States than in the Southern and 
 Eastern — the great statesmen, Fillmore and 
 Seward in 1840, parted, first in policy and then 
 in friendship. 
 
 By the year 1661 almost all of the once young 
 people of Robinson's congregation had gone 
 away, returned to England, had married into 
 Dutch families, had become old, or had died. 
 Thirty-five returned to England in 1629, and 
 sixty in 1630. By 1662 the last vestige of the 
 Separatists had disappeared from Leyden. One 
 notable Welsh family, the Montgomery s, re- 
 turned to Wales. In 1684 the twenty- three 
 little wooden houses of the Pilgrim Fathers in 
 Leyden, built by Jepson, the carpenter, were 
 taken down, and the present structure, the 
 Pesyn Hof, was erected. It was the gift of Jean 
 Pesyn, a Walloon. In the space within the Ao/, 
 
 [ 167]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 or court, are still the little brick houses in which 
 are the homes of aged married couples. There 
 are forty of such hojs in Leyden. 
 
 Meanwhile in this city, so famous for its cloth 
 manufacture, sundry English, Scottish, Welsh, 
 and Irish folk dwelt or traded. It is written by 
 the historian Stevens, "The English, who set- 
 tled in this town, were genteel families, whom 
 the superior advantages of education [in the 
 University] drew hither in considerable num- 
 bers ; and there were besides a few cloth manu- 
 facturers and other artizans." 
 
 Above all others the Scots had frequented 
 Leyden, even before the future founders of the 
 States of New York and Massachusetts dwelt in 
 this city. In 1609, at the joint expense of the 
 States of Holland and the City of Leyden, a 
 Scottish church was instituted and endowed, 
 and the Reverend Robert Durie was made pas- 
 tor. After his death, in 1616, other ministers 
 followed in course, among whom, in 1688, was 
 the Reverend William Carstairs, domestic chap- 
 lain and adviser of the Dutch king, William III. 
 This grandson of the greatest champion of free- 
 dom of conscience in modern times, William 
 the Silent, was that king of Great Britain under 
 whom the American colonists and English Free 
 Churchmen enjoyed unusual religious liberty. 
 
 [168]
 
 LEYDEN AND AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 In direct continuity of worship and service this 
 Scottish church in Leyden, except with an in- 
 terval during the French Revolution, continued 
 until 1805. 
 
 Remembering that the Pilgrims did not ask 
 and would not receive aid in religious matters 
 from the state or city, we note that the Dutch 
 authorities always provided liberally for the 
 other English-speaking people dwelling in Ley- 
 den. In the one edifice, though meeting at 
 different hours, the French and German Re- 
 formed people, who were in the city for busi- 
 ness or education, assembled for divine wor- 
 ship. 
 
 Brewster and others in the Pilgrim company 
 were able to eke out their scant incomes with 
 the fees gained by teaching the English lan- 
 guage to some of these fellow aliens, chiefly Dan- 
 ish and German. The different buildings thus 
 assigned the three sets of strangers in cosmo- 
 politan Leyden for religious use were the Saint 
 Catherine Gasthuis, from 1609 to 1622; the 
 Jerusalem Kirk, from 1622 to 1644; and the 
 Beguyn Chapel, from 1644 to 1805. By that 
 date there were few or no British people resi- 
 dent in the city. In 1822 the beautiful tower 
 of the Beguyn Chapel was pulled down, and in 
 the rebuilt and enlarged edifice were installed 
 
 [169]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS ' 
 
 the University's splendid Anatomical Museum 
 and Library. 
 
 Yet during all the time of the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries, as one may read in Eng- 
 lish history, plays, and novels, came many peo- 
 ple from the four nations in the British Isles. 
 They sent their sons thither for education in 
 Leyden, or they lived there while their children 
 were at school. The Whigs in politics, the Free 
 Churchmen, and the students who became Non- 
 Conformist ministers, were especially numer- 
 ous. Peacock's index of students, from 1572 to 
 1872, gives the names of several thousand of 
 these young men, to whom full freedom of con- 
 science was denied In Great Britain. 
 
 Shut out of the universities of England be- 
 cause of the triumph of sectarian and political 
 religion, or attracted by the fame in medicine 
 of the world-renowned Boerhave (whose statue 
 the tourist may recognize to-day soon after 
 leaving the railway station), or by the emi- 
 nence of professors in the legal world, the young 
 Britishers flocked Into the Netherlands, to Am- 
 sterdam, Leyden, Utrecht, or Groningen. Al- 
 most all of these were opposed to the autocracy 
 of the Stuarts and the German kings of Eng- 
 land. More especially the champions of the 
 American cause In Parliament had been edu- 
 [ 170 ]
 
 LEYDEN AND AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 cated in Holland. Sitting at the feet of great 
 teachers in the Dutch Republic they reinforced 
 the principles of British liberty. Thus, tem- 
 pered by Scotch, Dutch, and Welsh democracy, 
 as well as enriched by their common inherit- 
 ances from Anglo-Saxon freedom, these men of 
 intellect formed a noble line of Liberals, who 
 were our friends during the American Revolu- 
 tion. They fought peaceably for what were es- 
 sentially the same principles as those for which 
 Patrick Henry, George Washington, Alexander 
 Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson contended. 
 
 In later days came John Adams as American 
 envoy, who put his two sons, one of them John 
 Quincy Adams, as students in Leyden Univer- 
 sity. Here Benjamin Franklin, our first electri- 
 cian, learned about the Leyden jar. During 
 our struggle for independence Leyden was the 
 center of pro-American agitation and for the 
 creation of a Dutch public opinion through 
 Jean Luzac and his fellow friends of America 
 in our favor. The results were the prevention of 
 the use of the Scotch Brigade against us, the 
 reception of John Adams as an acceptable en- 
 voy, recognition of the United States as a sov- 
 ereign power, and a liberal Dutch loan to our 
 Continental Congress of money for the pay- 
 ment, before disbanding at Newburgh, New 
 
 [ 171 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 York, of Washington's army. When paid back 
 in 1808, principal and interest having amounted 
 to ^14,000,000, this sum was invested in the 
 purchase of four milhon acres of land and its 
 development in the Middle States. Of these 
 transactions the stone edifice of the Holland 
 Land Company at Batavia, New York, and a 
 rosary of Dutch names in central and western 
 New York are memorials. Even Buffalo, like 
 Manhattan, was laid out as New Amsterdam. 
 The Hague tablet of 19 13 shows that Americans 
 have not forgotten these facts. 
 
 In still later time the first memorials in 
 Europe erected in honor of the Pilgrims were 
 dedicated in this city. The site of John Rob- 
 inson's house, and the wall of great Saint 
 Peter's Church, opposite the ancient settle- 
 ment and enclosure of the Pilgrims during forty 
 years, were selected for the tablets, one of 
 bronze and one of stone. The Luzac tablet is at 
 112 Rapenburg. 
 
 Thus out of Leyden came three great strains 
 of blood and life, British, Walloon, and Dutch, 
 that have entered into the American compos- 
 ite; while in colonial. Revolutionary, and con- 
 stitution-making days the political theory of 
 the United States has been repeatedly rein- 
 forced by reference to the shining precedents 
 
 [ 172 ]
 
 LEYDEN AND AMERICAN HISTORY 
 
 drawn from the history of the Dutch Republic. 
 To-day the American visitor will read in his 
 home language the inscription reared by grate- 
 ful Americans to the Pilgrims, to Robinson, and 
 to Luzac. The most imposing of all, on the walls 
 of Saint Peter's Church, is the bronze memorial 
 of John Robinson, though without a hint or 
 word of Dutch hospitality, or the guarantee 
 from the Republic of "freedom to worship 
 God."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 JOHN ROBINSON: PROPHET AND LEADER 
 
 No one knows how John Robinson, the Pilgrim 
 pastor, looked, or about his height of figure, for 
 we have no authentic portrait, picture, or de- 
 scription of him. In fact, only one of the Pil- 
 grim company, Edward Winslow, is known to 
 have been painted or pictured. Eager editors 
 have more than once published what somebody 
 imagined to represent in ink, with light and 
 shade, Robinson's features and expression, but 
 no genuine counterfeit of the good man has yet 
 been found. We are sorry for this, for we all de- 
 sire to know how any one looked, in whom we 
 are much interested, just as we like to see the 
 face of the person who is speaking to us. 
 
 Yet what we aver of Robinson we must say 
 also of the other Pilgrim leaders of the May- 
 flower. Were we like some genealogy-mongers 
 and coveters of crests and coats of arms, we 
 should go to Europe and have a complete gal- 
 lery of our ancestors painted to order. Some 
 royal dynasties and not a few newly rich folks 
 have been illustrated in this way. We knew of 
 one wealthy lady who averred that she was 
 
 [ 174 ]
 
 JOHN ROBINSON 
 
 going to Europe "to have the portrait of her 
 daughter painted by the old masters." 
 
 We should not grieve too much over the facts 
 in the case when we think of some of the hid- 
 eous woodcuts and repulsive black-letter prints 
 that have come down to us. These often made a 
 child look like an imp of darkness, or a dear old 
 saint like a sooty devil. They have in them 
 more black than white. Do we not remember 
 what Hawthorne said of these fearful-looking 
 worthies, and the effect that their effigies have 
 upon us.^ When we think that Robinson, Brew- 
 ster, Bradford, Carver, Standish, and the men 
 who, we know by their lives, words, and works, 
 were good fellows, we ought to be rather glad 
 that their faces escaped a bath of ink. In fact, 
 some of us prefer to keep our own ideas of how 
 they may have appeared at different times. 
 Herein is the difference between caricaturist 
 and artist, truth and falsehood, and whether we 
 form our opinions of the Puritans and Pilgrims 
 from vile woodcuts and hostile tradition or 
 from exact record and true picture. 
 
 This we certainly know, that John Robinson 
 was one of the best men that ever lived; for 
 character is the greatest thing in man, and this 
 noble pastor had it in rich measure, with great 
 self-abnegation. 
 
 [ 175 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 From first to last this man, one of the great- 
 est of the makers of America, was pure, honest, 
 generous, cathoHc in spirit, helpful, tender, and 
 self-effacing. Above all, he was true to his con- 
 science when it cost him ease, comfort, and even 
 safety, to walk in the footsteps of his Master. 
 We have an idea that Pastor Robinson was, 
 In both character and appearance, the kind of a 
 man that all children, and most real boys and 
 genuine girls, would like to know and meet 
 often. We should enjoy hearing the stoiy of his 
 boyhood ; but when he lived there was not much 
 written to, or for, or about young people. Even 
 Dr. Watts had not yet been born. 
 
 If it had not been for that most wonderful 
 and interesting of all books in the whole world, 
 the Bible, the young folks of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury would have had little to read. No doubt 
 they found it hard to sit so long in church and 
 listen to the sermons which kept the delighted 
 attention of their elders. Yet attendance upon 
 their simple, reformed service, with a minister 
 beloved, teaching in their own language, could 
 not have been half so tiresome as to hear a 
 priest talk Latin, and go through a long string 
 of repetitions during the programme of mo- 
 tions — turnings round, going backwards and 
 forwards, kneeling and rising very often — • say- 
 
 [ 176 ]
 
 JOHN ROBINSON 
 
 ing the same prayers over and over again, and 
 making signs like a magician. Such monotony 
 and the "longsomeness," so often complained 
 of, made up the old form of church service. 
 
 Nor can we of to-day, deluged as we are with 
 newspapers, magazines, books, and stories, re- 
 alize how hungry the people, old and young, 
 were to learn. Moreover, the Bible in English 
 was then a new book and Its stories all fresh 
 and In a winsome form. They were willing to 
 listen for hours at a time to a vital message from 
 an earnest man. Indeed, even to-day, no form 
 of communication excels that of the living voice, 
 whether In speech, song, or drama. 
 
 It is a proof of the matchless worth and eter- 
 nal Importance of the theme, as well as of 
 the wisdom of the divinely appointed means, 
 that many a man, with whose voice, presence, 
 thought, and personality the auditors are fa- 
 miliar, can hold his audiences, year after year, 
 though speaking in the same place, and to the 
 same people, and on the same general subject. 
 
 In this method Robinson believed, and, ac- 
 cording to his faith, it was done unto him. Let 
 it not be forgotten that the Reformation was 
 in essence a fight for a free pulpit. It was a turn- 
 ing away. In the spirit of primitive Christianity, 
 and after the example and manner of Jesus the 
 
 [ 177 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 Christ, from the sacrificial to the teaching form 
 of rehgion. The soul of Puritanism is discov- 
 ered less in the Old Testament than in the Epis- 
 tle to the Hebrews. The appeal was not to the 
 Jewish kingdom, or autocracy, or to the people, 
 but to the spirit of primitive republicanism in 
 the Israelitish commonwealth and in the syna- 
 gogue. In place of the mass and an altar — • 
 often built of solid stone — 'in the middle front of 
 the house of worship, with a pulpit hung off on 
 one side, perhaps to a column, there now stood 
 in the center, as in the primitive meeting of 
 Christians, a pulpit. It is undoubtedly true that 
 the general order of procedure in the public 
 worship of the Reformed and Free Churches 
 followed those suggested in the book printed 
 at Geneva in 1556, entitled "The Forms of 
 Prayer and Ministrations of the Sacraments, 
 &:c," used in the English Congregation at Ge- 
 neva; which, in a sense, "standardized" the 
 Reformed Churches. Robinson taught from the 
 Holy Scriptures three times a week. The Lord's 
 Supper was celebrated every Sabbath, and bap- 
 tism as often as required. As it ever happens, 
 true progress was made by entering most pro- 
 foundly into the spirit of the past. Men said of 
 Robinson "that he had been with Jesus and 
 learned of Him." 
 
 [178]
 
 JOHN ROBINSON 
 
 In the celebration of the Lord's Supper, Rob- 
 inson and the Pilgrims held to the original idea 
 and custom, as initiated by the Founder of 
 Christianity. "All ye are brethren," was the 
 Master's word. When the disciples sat at the 
 table in the upper room in Jerusalem, they were 
 equals at a memorial meal. Nor is there any- 
 thing in the New Testament to suggest a hier- 
 archy, or the idea that only a person claiming 
 to be superior in rank could administer the 
 bread and wine, giving or withholding as he or 
 some corporation pleased. In applying democ- 
 racy to this sacred memorial, and in having me- 
 chanics and plain men assisting the pastor or 
 teaching-member of the church, the Pilgrims 
 believed they were more perfectly fulfilling the 
 Master's will, when He said to those who were 
 all equals, "Do this in remembrance of me." It 
 is not wonderful, therefore, that those who fol- 
 low the Pilgrims, as they followed Christ, still 
 enjoy receiving the elements and symbols — 
 bread and wine — • not from a priest, or a su- 
 perior, or at the hands of a man standing be- 
 tween them and an altar, but directly from 
 their fellows and peers, the laymen, called eld- 
 ers and deacons. Equally sinners and equally 
 redeemed, to these as brethren, they, the pas- 
 tors, gave honorfor Christ's sake; rather than 
 
 [ 179 1
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 to men who might imagine themselves of higher 
 name or rank in the church. 
 
 A symbol is only a sign, not a proof of reality. 
 It is sheath, husk, pod, but not food or suste- 
 nance. Hence, nothing in religion but the sub- 
 stance can satisfy the hungry soul that seeks 
 what is behind the screen or shadow. The study 
 of the Bible in Tudor days revealed to the stu- 
 dents of it what that reality was, which neither 
 Henry VIII nor Queen Elizabeth could give. A 
 milk ticket is the symbol for the nourishment 
 of human life at its beginning — • of the reality 
 which the cow can give. Yet a baby, on waking 
 and crying from hunger, could not be satisfied 
 with a bit of pasteboard, though the ticket be 
 endorsed even by a pope. A bank check is not 
 the money itself. To be worth anything, there 
 must be coin in the vault, and cash or collateral 
 to the credit of him who signs the bit of paper. 
 To a boy the ball is not the game. Jesus taught 
 that life is more than meat and the body than 
 raiment. In religion, people who cannot read, 
 who are unable to think hard and long, or who 
 have no time to inquire or power to decide, may 
 be satisfied with symbols only — candles, in- 
 cense, bowings and kneelings, pictures and im- 
 ages; and, in most religions, they are content 
 with these. All creeds, and even the Bible itself, 
 [ i8o]
 
 JOHN ROBINSON 
 
 are but symbols. Happily the Pilgrims were 
 nobly uncontent with these and pressed on to 
 the truth that made free. 
 
 Before the young and strong of his people 
 sailed for America, Robinson bade them all 
 shake off any sectarian name that might sug- 
 gest exclusive allegiance to any human leader 
 or slavish mental following of any teacher on 
 earth — not excepting their own pastor. Wins- 
 low thus reported his words : 
 
 "And if God should reveal anything to us 
 by any other instrument of his, to be as ready 
 to receive it as ever we were to receive any 
 truth by his ministry, for he [Robinson] was 
 very confident the Lord had more truth and 
 light yet to break forth out of his holy Word. 
 He took occasion also miserably to bewail the 
 state and condition of the Reformed Churches, 
 which were come to a period in religion and 
 would go no further than the instruments 
 of their reformation. . . . The Calvinists stick 
 where we left them." 
 
 These were the words of a true prophet. This 
 whole passage is well worth reading and pon- 
 dering. All the Pilgrim documents and their 
 subsequent utterances show that they believed 
 that their teacher referred not alone to church 
 polity, but to truth-seeking and waiting on 
 [i8i]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 God. Most movements in religion come to a 
 standstill because the springs fail. Followers 
 imitate too closely, even slavishly, the peculi- 
 arities of the human founder, instead of drink- 
 ing of the fountains and feeding at the origi- 
 nals which once gave their leader new life. They 
 follow him no further than that to which he 
 attained, instead of doing as Paul urged his 
 brothers in the faith to do — that is, to follow 
 him only so far as he followed Christ. In that 
 war in which there is no discharge, it is not to 
 the corporal, but to the colonel, that one must 
 look for his orders. 
 
 Another striking passage of Robinson's is 
 this universal truth, to which history in every 
 land and age bears witness : 
 
 "Religion is the best thing; and the corrup- 
 tion of it, the worst. Neither hath greater mis- 
 chief and villainy ever been found amongst 
 men — Jews, Gentiles or Christians — ■ than 
 that which hath marched under the flag of Re- 
 ligion; either [Religion] intended by the se- 
 duced, or pretended by the hypocrites." 
 
 As the earliest Christians were not, for hun- 
 dreds of years, allowed to have public edifices 
 for worship, so neither in the sixteenth century 
 were those of independent mind. They had to 
 assemble in private houses, or under the hedges, 
 [ 182]
 
 JOHN ROBINSON 
 
 or in secret places. When they did have church 
 buildings they put in benches and, later, pews. 
 In still later days that meant worship by fami- 
 lies and not merely in a crowd. 
 
 In the Pilgrim congregation, on Sundays, the 
 men sat on one side, the women on the other, 
 and the children by themselves. 
 
 Besides the four elders and three deacons 
 there was a dear old lady, a widow, who looked 
 after the little folks, to keep them in order. 
 Let us hear what Bradford, long afterwards, 
 when in America, in the sunset of life and from 
 pleasant memory, wrote about this pastor's as- 
 sistant: 
 
 She "did them service many years, though 
 she was sixty years when she was chosen [dea- 
 coness]. She honored her place and was an orna- 
 ment to the congregation. She usually sat in 
 a convenient place in the congregation with a 
 little birchen rod in her hand, and kept little 
 children in great awe from disturbing the con- 
 gregation. She did frequently visit the sick 
 and weak, especially women and, as there was 
 need, called out maids and young women to 
 watch and do them other helps, as their neces- 
 sity did require; and, if they were poor, she 
 would gather relief for them of those that were 
 able or acquaint the deacons, and she was 
 
 [ 183 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 obeyed as a mother in Israel and an officer of 
 Christ." 
 
 There you have it — a. "Hve wire" in the 
 church, a smart old lady who was a "blue tri- 
 angle," a whole Y.W.C.A. in herself! Only 
 honorable women are noted in the Pilgrim 
 documents, such as "Widow Reules," "Widow 
 Unwin," "Widow Ch." We are indeed thankful 
 to Bradford for giving us this fine pen picture of 
 at least one of them. 
 
 It is not on record as history, for the Pilgrim 
 mothers, most probably, wrote little — ■ if in- 
 deed many of them could write — ■ that they all 
 felt exactly alike; but their whole story, from 
 Penry's wife to the last survivor of the May- 
 flower company, is a living commentary on the 
 words of a woman at the Victoria Institute in 
 London in 1919. Her theme was "The Influ- 
 ence of Christianity on the Position of Women." 
 She said: 
 
 "Our supreme Inheritance Is the children, 
 the world of the Immediate future. The whole 
 of Immaturity lies in our hands, and first im- 
 pressions are strongest. The man makes the 
 aeroplane and discovers the bacteria of disease, 
 but we make the man who does these things: 
 we make him, body, mind and soul. The man 
 is the best General, Admiral, Legislator, Mag- 
 
 [ 184]
 
 JOHN ROBINSON 
 
 istrate, Lawyer, Explorer, Inventor and almost 
 all else. I feel no hesitation in saying he is far 
 the best; but the woman forms the principles on 
 which all these rulers respectively work. 'Man 
 rows^ but Woman steers^ Man gives the hard 
 work, and the whole round world is his heritage 
 to shape and govern, but woman moulds the 
 men who rule it, and is ever hoping that the 
 next generation will be wiser, nobler, better 
 than the present one. We may indeed say that 
 man has what is, but woman has what will 
 be. The whole story of her thoughts and hopes 
 lies always just beyond the blue horizon, out 
 in the unknown, and if the woman is a Chris- 
 tian, that means that she looks toward the 
 ideal of Christ to what ought to he rather than 
 to what isT 
 
 Whichever side we take In this open and 
 debatable question of the position of women, 
 this paragraph is worthy of remembrance. 
 
 In our day the memory of Robinson, the 
 teacher, as a prophet, leader, noble, self-effac- 
 ing pastor, and one of the nursing fathers of 
 the American Commonwealth, is honored in 
 poetry, letters, by historical tablets in bronze 
 and stone, and in the John Robinson Memorial 
 Church at Gainsborough. The meaning of his 
 prophetic words — "more light" Is too clear 
 
 [I8S]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 and too luminously Interpreted by the cove- 
 nants ever to be confined by application to 
 church polity only. They form the watchword 
 for every age. The unending duty of every 
 Christian is to wait upon God.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 THE DECISION TO EMIGRATE AND WHY 
 
 We come now to the Book of Numbers — the 
 fourth act and writing in the Pentateuch of the 
 Pilgrims' Progress to America and toward its 
 ideals. This is the penultimate; for the Deuter- 
 onomy, or Second Law — that is, the expan- 
 sion, revision, re-presentation, and epitome of 
 all the truth and life that had gone before — • 
 was to be written and acted beyond the sea. 
 The new Pilgrim Republic in America inter- 
 preted and fulfilled the past with all its hopes. 
 In A.D. 1920 three centuries In perspective 
 show this with ever-increasing clearness. 
 
 Bradford thus sums up the life of his fellow 
 Christians In Leyden and tells us how they 
 felt: "There they continued divers years In a 
 comfortable condition, enjoying much sweet 
 society and spiritual comfort In the ways of 
 God, living peaceably among themselves, and 
 being courteously entertained, and living re- 
 spected by the Dutch." 
 
 During these eleven years of life in Leyden, 
 more Free Church people from England and 
 other countries joined Robinson's congrega- 
 
 [ 187 1
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 tion; which in 1620 numbered about three 
 hundred. From tlie records membership in the 
 church has been proved for one hundred and 
 forty-three persons. Others, to the number of 
 sixty-nine, we may, with probabiHty, nomi- 
 nate to the same honor; besides those anony- 
 mous, to whom no Pilgrim document makes 
 reference. 
 
 The best commentaries on the Pilgrim Book 
 of Numbers and probably most useful for re- 
 searches in genealogy, are to be found in the 
 books by Dr. Azel Ames, in "The May-Flower 
 and her Log," and Dr. Roland Usher, in "The 
 Pilgrims and Their History," both remarkably 
 full and accurate. Among the numbers given 
 there were, in the Ley den congregation, eighty- 
 seven children. Of wives there were, or had 
 been, sixty-seven. 
 
 By 1619 it had come to pass that these 
 peaceable English people who kept Church 
 and State apart, were, whether they would or 
 no, involved in a national quarrel, wherein 
 Dutch politics and religion in their most par- 
 tisan forms were so entangled that they could 
 not be separated. These English Separatists 
 might possibly have stood aloof from the po- 
 litical contest, but it was part of their life to 
 join in the vindication of their religious ideas. 
 [ 188 ]
 
 THE DECISION TO EMIGRATE 
 
 The Dutch people and nation had struggled 
 for years, not only against Spanish autocracy 
 in the person of Philip II, but also against oli- 
 garchy at home; and, in addition, against what 
 was considered by many dangerous doctrines 
 in religion, and which also in their view upheld 
 these Spanish enemies to republicanism and to 
 orthodoxy. 
 
 It came to pass that Robinson, their leader, 
 became an intense partisan and champion of 
 the truth, as God gave him to see the truth. 
 
 Still further, though the Pilgrims in this con- 
 test were all on the Union and Calvinistic side, 
 against secession and false doctrine, they felt 
 that, even though well settled in Leyden, they 
 must give up their "comfortable condition" 
 and leave the hospitable land which had given 
 them welcome and shelter, cross the stormy 
 ocean, and begin life in the lonely wilderness 
 among savages. 
 
 How and why.? 
 
 It is a long story, which Motley has told only 
 in part and in a very partisan way, though 
 brilliantly. Nevertheless, Americans, who have 
 had their Calhoun, with a iifty-year discussion 
 of the slavery question besides; their Jefferson 
 Davis, Robert Lee, the Southern Confederacy, 
 and the Civil War of 1861-65, with — on the 
 [ 189]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 other side — Webster, Lincoln, Grant, and the 
 Union army, can understand the Dutch issue 
 of 1 6 19, as the Dutch, in 1861, understood us 
 when some other Europeans could not. So also 
 Americans, especially the veterans of Meade 
 and Lee in '63, on both sides, who at Gettys- 
 burg, in 1913, crossed the old battle-field and 
 shook hands, may further see clearly how, in 
 both the Dutch and American Republics, there 
 came forth, in each case, a reunited nation 
 stronger than before. 
 
 In 16 19, in the progress of humanity the 
 Dutch Republic had reached the point of tol- 
 eration, but not of full liberty of conscience. 
 Politics and religion. Church and State, were 
 still yoked together. Politically the question at 
 issue was between State Rights and the su- 
 premacy of the Central Government; that is, 
 the will of one or two states against that of the 
 Nation. Led by Maurice, the Unionists and 
 Calvinists believed also in American coloniza- 
 tion. Bameveldt and the Arminians did not. 
 On the one side were, as a rule, the Calvinists 
 and the plain people. "Religion," in their Con- 
 stitution of 1579, meant the form which the 
 Dutch had adopted at the Reformation — not 
 Romanism, Anabaptism, Lutheranism, or Ar- 
 minianism, but Calvinism. The Arminians, as 
 
 [ 190 ]
 
 THE DECISION TO EMIGRATE 
 
 a rule, were In the aristocratic classes. Down 
 under all, nationalism was the supreme issue. 
 
 The decision and result, happily, was the 
 triumph, most dramatically but bloodlessly at 
 Leyden, not of the State troops, but of the 
 Union army. In the National and Interna- 
 tional (not provincial) Synod, held at Dor- 
 drecht, in the Old Cradle of Liberty of 1579, 
 the Calvlnlstic theories were declared to be 
 orthodoxy. 
 
 Then followed a few political executions 
 which unfortunately stained the record of the 
 victors. Nevertheless, the triumph of the Union 
 cause meant "a new birth of freedom." The 
 "bloom of the Republic" in art, literature, 
 exploration, and the colonization of America 
 followed. Throughout, by pen and voice Robin- 
 son, as we have shown, was an eager upholder 
 of the doctrines and democratic theories of 
 Calvin and of the Union cause as against the 
 aristocracy, and what he considered heresy. 
 
 The seas and continents were now clear for 
 the enterprises of colonization and the creation 
 of the Dutch West India Company which was 
 to favor the settlement of New Netherland. 
 This took place soon after. 
 
 The debate on emigration beyond the At- 
 lantic now began in the Leyden congregation 
 
 [ 191 ] .
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 with earnestness, for action must soon be 
 taken. To use a Dutch word, then in common 
 and every-day use, they must hustle, so as to 
 be in America in good season. Soon the seas 
 would swarm with Dunkirk pirates. 
 
 Should they go to Guiana, with its warm 
 climate.'' Or into the North American wilder- 
 ness.'' Between Spaniards, with their Inquisi- 
 tion and the red savages, there was little to 
 choose. 
 
 From first to last, throughout all their busi- 
 ness negotiations their "friend at court," their 
 champion against both psuedo-Puritanism and 
 excessive covetousness in the London Com- 
 pany, was Sir Edwin Sandys (1561-1629), 
 friend of the great prose-writer Hooker and of 
 the founders of the colony of Virginia. Of the 
 Pilgrim enterprise he wrote to Pastor Robin- 
 son, in 1 61 7, of the planting of a colony in 
 America, "which I hope verily is the work of 
 God." 
 
 The business of chartering ships and of hir- 
 ing sailors, captains, and mates (or "pilots") 
 in London went on during the early summer. 
 Their negotiations were made with the London 
 Company. This was a very loosely organized 
 mercantile body, consisting of about seventy 
 members, of whom the names of forty-two, 
 
 [ 192 ]
 
 THE DECISION TO EMIGRATE 
 
 which are given by Dr. Azel Ames, are known. 
 They were to "ingage" the "Good ship May- 
 flower of Yarmouth of 9 score tuns burthen," 
 to make the "viage," as a colony transport, 
 " from the city of London ... to the neighbor- 
 hood of the mouth of Hudson's river in the 
 northern parts of Virginia . . . caUing at the 
 Port Southampton, outward bound, to com- 
 plete her lading ... to convey to and safely 
 deliver at such port or place ... as those in 
 authority of her passengers shall direct," etc. 
 
 Of course these London commercial ad- 
 venturers, whose chief object was to make 
 money, made pretext of their desire "to do 
 good and to plant Religion." All the subse- 
 quent history, however, showed that they were 
 far more solicitous about pounds, shillings, and 
 pence than eager for Gospel propaganda. We 
 pass over the story of the quarrels and mis- 
 understandings within and without the Com- 
 pany. It is certain that most of the members 
 were not in sympathy with the democratic 
 Christianity of the Pilgrims. 
 
 As the day of departure drew near, their 
 pastor, Robinson, gathered his flock together 
 and preached a sermon which was long remem- 
 bered, taking his text from Ezra 8:21. Two 
 thousand years before a band of pilgrims had 
 
 [ 193 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 gathered to make plans for a great overland 
 journey and Ezra wrote: 
 
 "Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river 
 Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before 
 our God, to seek of him a straight way, for us, 
 and for our little ones, and for all our substance." 
 
 Very appropriate was the text. For as Ezra 
 says he "was ashamed to ask of the King a 
 band of soldiers and horsemen to help us 
 against the enemy in the way," because he, 
 Ezra, had already declared that "the hand of 
 our God is upon all them that seek him for 
 good, but his power and his wrath is against all 
 them that forsake him"; so Robinson would 
 not ask, as in the case once before, for convoy 
 in the shape of a Dutch man-of-war. 
 
 In like manner the Pilgrims' Ezra was send- 
 ing forth his flock, without armed soldiers or 
 array of warships, either Dutch or English, 
 even though the Spanish Dunkirk pirates, in 
 war-time, lurked in the dunes of Belgium or 
 scoured the waters around Holland and Eng- 
 land, and- though savages in America might 
 destroy them. Yet they must get away before 
 the Truce was over! Only the little ship Speed- 
 well awaited them at Delfshaven, but, as Ezra 
 and Bradford alike wrote, God "was entreated 
 of them." 
 
 [ 194 ]
 
 THE DECISION TO EMIGRATE 
 
 However, after the fast and sermon they 
 had a farewell feast. The adventurers bade 
 good-bye to those left behind and soon the 
 boats were moving down the canal toward the 
 Maas River and the West. 
 
 All "lions in the way" having been duly 
 scanned, counted, armed and provided against, 
 faced and routed, preparations were made for 
 the triple journey by canal to Delfshaven by 
 a small vessel to England, and thence in the 
 Yarmouth ship over the Atlantic. Bradford 
 tells us: "The twelve years of truce were now 
 out and there was nothing but the beating of 
 drums and preparing for war." With these 
 Separatists it was a question of life or death — 
 between the possible crushing of the Republic, 
 through Spanish victories in the Netherlands, 
 or the facing of the ocean and wilderness. Their 
 faith overcame the world. 
 
 What to take with them beyond sea was a 
 capital and very personal question with each 
 of these modern Argonauts. Father and mother, 
 boy and girl, serving-man and servant-maid, 
 master and apprentice, had each his or her 
 view of the particular world he lived in and its 
 special needs. Ideas of what was or would be 
 wanted on ship and shore varied according to 
 personal tastes or inclinations. The situation 
 
 [195]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 was like that of soldiers about to break camp 
 and to start on a long campaign. Apart from 
 absolute necessities and the requirements of 
 the regulations, only a small margin of per- 
 sonal belongings was possible or permissible. 
 Some scanty hints are afforded us in Bradford's 
 text and in the Plymouth Museum. There were 
 pewter dishes for the meals and a few crocks of 
 earthenware — for neither faience nor porcelain 
 of China was yet more than barely known as 
 curiosities in northern Europe. Several cradles 
 and the comforts necessary for the babies, 
 whether in arms or considered as posterity, 
 must be provided. Some straight-backed chairs 
 
 — the American rocker not being yet invented 
 
 — a few simple remedies for illness or accident, 
 and such like necessities, were on hand. With- 
 out doubt dolls and toys filled the thoughts 
 of the young folks. Undisturbed by latter-day 
 notions or the super-heated theories of sex that 
 fill our novels, girl babies were then bom 
 that, without much oversight or prompting, 
 took early to the emblems and implements of 
 mothercraft. Boy babies, on the other hand, 
 as they developed, clave unto trumpets, drums, 
 weapons, and things of virility. We may be 
 sure the elders read the Book of Exodus to see 
 how the children of Israel prepared to leave 
 
 [196]
 
 THE DECISION TO EMIGRATE 
 
 Egypt and what they took with them. Yet we 
 may be sure also that they did not imitate the 
 chosen people in spoiling the Egyptians. 
 
 We do not read of live pets on the Pilgrim 
 ship, whether the Speedwell, the Mayflower, 
 the Fortune, or the Ann, as we do of puss on 
 the Half Moon. It is probable, however, that 
 some of the more diminutive of the youthful 
 Pilgrims took along with them some compan- 
 ions in the form of beast or bird. 
 
 The first sound of an animal heard by the 
 Pilgrims in the New World, even before a 
 human being was visible, was that of the wolf; 
 but the first beast seen was a dog. Yet this in- 
 digenous American creature was not from one 
 of the splendid breeds of England or Holland; 
 but a half-tamed, wolfish creature, likely at 
 any time to hear and heed the call of the wild 
 and yield to the forest's lure. In fact, when the 
 kind of dogs to which we are accustomed, and 
 which have been raised to their high estate 
 through the care of man, were first seen by the 
 Indians, they were more afraid of these crea- 
 tures with four legs than of those with but two. 
 Such notices as we have make it plain that 
 when the savages killed one, they usually shot 
 its carcass full of arrows, to show their idea of 
 something superior. More domestic pets, in 
 
 [ 197 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 the form of stable or barnyard animals, in fur 
 or feathers, came much later than one would 
 judge from the poems of Longfellow or the 
 pictures of Bough ton — the one a poet in verse 
 and tlie other in color — the latter exceeding 
 the former in reproducing the true atmosphere 
 while also accurate in detail.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 THE SPEEDWELL: OLD ENGLAND AGAIN 
 
 The Pilgrim congregation was now, and for the 
 next four months from July, 1620, to be the 
 Church of Sea and Land; for this advance 
 company were to live on deck and in cabin 
 until near Christmas Day. For the most part 
 only the youngest and strongest were to make 
 their home afloat. From the time they left 
 Leyden until they all touched the American 
 rock was about one hundred and thirty-three 
 days. 
 
 We have authentic pictures of the Dutch 
 boats in which people traveled inland, by water, 
 in those days. As other Separatists, friends, and 
 relatives from Amsterdam and various places, 
 besides their own minister and other Leyden 
 people, came down to Delfshaven to see them 
 off, it is quite possible there may have been 
 a flotilla of a dozen boats with a company of a 
 hundred or more. Dr. Azel Ames makes out a 
 list of sixty-eight passengers on the Speedwell. 
 
 The boat journey of twenty-four miles was 
 through the canals to the broad, open space 
 of water in front of the Reformed Church at 
 
 [ 199 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 Delfshaven, the port of Delft. This village, like 
 several others, once separate, has long since 
 become part of that great city of Rotterdam 
 which has been, since the Pilgrims set the prec- 
 edent, the greatest of all gateways for emi- 
 grants from Continental Europe sailing for 
 America. Yet Delfshaven had already, in 1620, 
 a name and history of possibly a thousand 
 years. On the town arms, In the center of the 
 shield, are alternate curved bands, six white 
 and six green, standing for living waters and 
 fertile fields of grain and pasture. These are 
 flanked, on the left side, by three herring, and 
 on the right, by three stalks of wheat — sym- 
 bols of food and wealth from sea and land. For 
 centuries the trade, fisheries, harvests, and ship- 
 ping of the place have been brisk. 
 
 Here in 1578 the famous admiral, Piet Heyn 
 — a name known to every boy in Holland — ■ 
 was born. In 1624 he was to capture the Span- 
 ish silver fleet of galleons loaded with the white 
 metal which enriched the Republic, and here his 
 statue, back of the church, stands to-day. At 
 Delfshaven, in 1573, they had cut the big dikes 
 by which the land was flooded, the Spaniards 
 driven out, and Leyden relieved. 
 
 During the Reformation the monasteries, 
 churches, and cloisters had passed over to the 
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 THE SPEEDWELL 
 
 Protestants. The little Reformed Church edi- 
 fice, so much visited nowadays by Americans 
 and British folk, was of old the chapel of Saint 
 Anthony. The church seal Is a most interesting 
 one, showing the town, canals, docks, church, 
 river, and even the East India Company's 
 warehouse, where the Pilgrims most probably 
 spent their last night on land. The motto on the 
 seal reads, "The harbor of salvation is alone 
 with the God of Zion." In a word, this seal holds 
 on its face an epitome of the Pilgrims' history 
 and faith. With them was the Christian's eter- 
 nal and verifiable truth, "Experience worketh 
 hope." 
 
 Things looked very differently, then, from the 
 scene of to-day, when one passes the town in 
 the splendid steamers of the Holland-Ameri- 
 ica Line as they move up or down the Maas 
 River, in front of the Pelgrim Kade, or Pil- 
 grims' Quay — • so officially named at the au- 
 thor's suggestion in 1895 — or when one reaches 
 the church by motor or trolley car from Rot- 
 terdam. The river front has changed and fash- 
 Ion has altered many buildings. The big island, 
 long called the Ruige Piatt, that had formed 
 gradually since 1620, has, with the town Itself, 
 been swallowed in the great city; but the cows 
 graze beyond, and the mighty river flows on as 
 [ 201 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 of yore. Our soldier boys In France and Bel- 
 gium, in 1918, knew it as "the Meuse." 
 
 It is not at all likely, as some people have 
 fondly imagined, that the Leyden party "held 
 their last prayer meeting" or spent the night in 
 tlie Reformed Church building; but, rather, 
 with songs and refreshments in the warerooms 
 of the East India Company. The next morn- 
 ing, July 22, men, women, and children walked, 
 and babies were carried down to the wharf or 
 "key," where a little ship, floating the flag of 
 England, the Speedwell, Captain Reynolds, 
 master, awaited them. It is more than prob- 
 able, not only that, as we know, some Delfs- 
 haven folk stood on the quay and watched with 
 emotion the sailing of these brave people to the 
 new land of mystery. New Netherland, but that 
 a Dutch artist, quite possibly one of the Cuyps 
 — painters of sunsets, Dutch golf, and genre — 
 was there, who, from sight and memory, after- 
 wards painted a picture of the historic em- 
 barkation. Of this painting on wood, the artist 
 George H. Boughton wrote to the author that 
 it had once belonged to the Duke of Marlbor- 
 ough, who had bought it in the Netherlands. 
 
 Assembling his flock on deck all fell on their 
 knees as their pastor, Robinson, in tearful 
 prayer, commended them to the Almighty's 
 [ 202 ]
 
 THE SPEEDWELL 
 
 care and protection. Some joyful noise, to wish 
 them safe voyage, in the hope that the ship 
 would live up to her name, was made by the 
 small cannon and snap-cock guns. Then the 
 anchor was lifted, the ropes were thrown off, 
 and the Speedwell moved with the tide down 
 the Maas to the North Sea. 
 
 Past the green fields — parallel with the river 
 and symbolized by the white and green bands 
 on the smokestacks of the Holland-America line 
 of steamers and on the arms of Rotterdam — 
 lying far below the top of the dikes, and spotted 
 here and there with grazing cattle, along the 
 front of the river towns, over the fisheries, and 
 almost in the shadows of high church towers 
 that served as flagstaffs while they relieved the 
 flatness of the country, the Speedwell sailed on. 
 The orange, white, and blue of the Union flag 
 flew over all, and these colors were last seen as 
 the Hook of Holland was passed and they sailed 
 toward the sunset and Old England. Instead of 
 the low steel cupola forts of to-day, they saw 
 only the sandy shores and wooden piles. No 
 danger yet in the last year of the Truce of the 
 Dunkirk pirates rushing out to capture them, 
 though from the next year, 162 1 to 1648, there 
 were written into all the contracts of America- 
 bound employees and passengers of the West 
 [ 203 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 India Company, certificates of insurance and 
 promise of ransom. 
 
 In four days they reached Southampton, 
 where the larger ship Mayflower, Captain 
 Jones, master, with the London Separatists on 
 board, had been waiting for them a week. 
 
 Yet now, though danger from pirates was 
 perhaps past — though any ship at sea without 
 proper papers of authorization is liable to cap- 
 ture as illegal — they were still in dire dread of 
 the bishops and other defenders of the faith, 
 even a royal one, and their spies and Informers. 
 In 1609 King James had even detained Henry 
 Hudson in England, though he had released the 
 Half Moon. They feared lest it should become 
 known at London who they were, and why they 
 — political and religious outcasts as they were 
 • — ■ should be going to America, and in what part. 
 Moreover, as Bradford notes, some remembered 
 their awful experiences at Boston and Grimsby 
 with official thieves and catchpoles. 
 
 Their fears and actual troubles were aggra- 
 vated when their principal men, and the agents 
 of the Company in London that was financing 
 the venture, quarreled about the agreements 
 already made in Holland or to be signed. The 
 upshot was that Weston, on whom they had de- 
 pended, went off angry, telling them to " stand 
 [ 204 ]
 
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 OLD ENGLAND AGAIN 
 
 on their own legs." This left upon the poor 
 Leyden emigrants the burden of paying the 
 harbor dues. To raise this sum, amounting to 
 what would be at least ^looo in the values of 
 to-day, they had to sell off eighty firkins of their 
 good butter. They got away, however, before 
 bishops, catchpoles, or other folk could hinder. 
 They "cut" the acquaintance of Captain John 
 Smith, who ventured to advise them ; but they 
 took on a fine young fellow, a cooper, named 
 John Alden, who proved himself to be one of 
 nature's noblemen. 
 
 When all was ready a letter was received 
 from Pastor Robinson and read to the whole 
 company. Then each person was assigned his 
 place, under a governor and assistants, in each 
 ship, and the arrrangements completed for 
 meals and service. On the 5th of August the two 
 vessels weighed anchor and got away. 
 
 It is not certain that Captain Reynolds of 
 the Speedwell was a scoundrel, when he now, 
 for the first time, and not before, declared that 
 his ship was leaking badly. Some supposed that 
 the leak was in courage, and that Reynolds and 
 his crew did not relish the idea of crossing the 
 ocean and staying a year in America as agreed 
 upon. 
 
 The real fear of captain and crew was most 
 [ 205 1
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 probably wholly inward. They dreaded the aw- 
 ful possibility of empty stomachs — ■ seeing that 
 the bulk of the provisions was on board of the 
 Mayflower. 
 
 Whatever be the facts in the case, the two 
 ships put in at Dartmouth, now a noted coal 
 town. Here they stayed from August 12 to 23, 
 eleven days. Here Henry Hudson, on Novem- 
 ber 9, 1609, had anchored his ship, the Half 
 Moon, after his return from America. The Pil- 
 grims were now bound to the country which he 
 had discovered, and to which England made a 
 claim that had little justification in law, fact, 
 or custom. 
 
 Here they mended the alleged defect, but 
 whether the cause was wholly a leak, or a sneak, 
 is still an open question. 
 
 Again, when out on deep water, beyond 
 Land's End, Reynolds made the same com- 
 plaint. So the two vessels put back. Stopping 
 nine days at Plymouth, from August 28 to Sep- 
 tember 6, the passengers went on land and 
 were welcomed by their fellow Free Churchmen 
 and treated to genuine Christian friendship and 
 sympathy. Of this the tradition was long main- 
 tained and has been verified, at and since the 
 great meeting of the International Congrega- 
 tional Council of 1 89 1, and the visit, with most 
 [ 206 ]
 
 OLD ENGLAND AGAIN 
 
 generous welcome and lavish hospitality, of the 
 American delegates to Plymouth. Now a tablet 
 on the Barbican or place of anchorage, stained- 
 glass windows in the Town Hall, and the ar- 
 rival, in August, 19 19, of the American aviators 
 in aeroplane from America and the Azores — 
 commanded by a descendant of the Pilgrims 
 of 1620 — ■ keep alive and in honor the old 
 story. 
 
 This putting back the second time was well- 
 nigh a heart-breaking disappointment to the 
 genuinely brave ones of these enterprising pio- 
 neers, besides the expense it Incurred and the 
 delay, which meant the facing of winter before 
 getting under shelter. Even then none realized 
 that it meant also failure to reach their desired 
 bourne. 
 
 Now came another "sad parting," as Brad- 
 ford says, who fitly makes comparison with a 
 certain ancient "Gedion's armie," from which 
 the fearful were weeded out, leaving only heroes. 
 Verily it was a sifting, and "they that trembled 
 at straws" were allowed to go back. It was de- 
 cided to send the Speedwell to London as being 
 unseaworthy, and to proceed with those willing 
 to go on. 
 
 So, although the division was like an ampu- 
 tation, weakening the body and changing minor 
 [ 207 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 plans, It was probably for the best. Already the 
 hearts of some had failed because there were so 
 many "lions in the way," and such fearful souls 
 were not fitted for the rough work beyond seas, 
 which required brave women as well as men. 
 The final company was, in the main, an elect 
 body. Yet, as we shall later see, some "unde- 
 sirables" were "shuffled in." 
 
 Was there not, under this behavior of Rey- 
 nolds, some political motive or a desire to curry 
 favor with the king that made the skipper 
 "sneak back to a safe harbor"? For months 
 James Stuart had been trying to get his son 
 married to a Spanish Infanta. With almost be- 
 sotted subservience to the King of Spain, say 
 the English historians, the royal Scot pursued 
 this object, and doubtless Reynolds knew it. 
 The Mayflower company was crossing the 
 ocean to settle upon what the Spanish king 
 claimed as his territory, and he looked on these 
 heretics as common burglars, who had escaped 
 out of Holland only to aid and abet the Dutch 
 and do him an injury. We are inclined to 
 think that this, more than any "overmasting," 
 "spoiled trim," or anything nautical, or relat- 
 ing to wood or water, was the cause of the 
 Speedwell's failure to sail into American his- 
 tory. The return of this ship and her arrival at 
 [ 208 ]
 
 OLD ENGLAND AGAIN 
 
 London, whether because of refitting or through 
 the same influence that had prevented Henry 
 Hudson from returning to his Dutch employers, 
 had a magical effect. Henceforth the Speedwell 
 was a ship of good fortune to her owners. 
 
 The Mayflower sailed again from Plymouth 
 on the 6th of September, and here, said the 
 elder Pitt in the next century, " the quarrel be- 
 tween Great Britain and her colonies started." 
 
 Yet far more serious than the overcrowding 
 on one ship, and the loss, to the Pilgrim com- 
 pany, of their trading and fishing vessel, on 
 which they had expected to depend for food and 
 gain, was the mixture of bad elements in an 
 elect company. The Gideon's band of Septem- 
 ber 6 sadly needed resifting, even before sight- 
 ing Cape Cod, and this alien contingent later 
 furnished the criminal list in the infant republic. 
 Here already was the prototype of the unamal- 
 gamated mass in the United States that are in, 
 but not of, the American Commonwealth. In 
 fact, the Mayflower company — if they failed 
 to reach New Netherland — • was to be literally 
 dumped on a sandy, infertile shore, and be as 
 roughly treated by nature and the sullen crew 
 as if landed by buccaneers, instead of Christian 
 men. With scarcely any butter, no oil, not a 
 sole of leather to mend a shoe, nor every man 
 [ 209 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 equipped with a sword, and wanting muskets 
 and armor, as Bradford dolefully mourns, they 
 had little to depend upon beyond their un- 
 daunted souls and "tlie might of Him who 
 walked the wave."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 THE VOYAGE OF THE MAYFLOWER 
 
 We can easily guess where the fathers and moth- 
 ers stood when the Mayflower was out on the 
 ocean beyond Land's End; and also at which 
 end of the vessel the boys and girls tried to get 
 — if the sailors would permit. It is pretty sure 
 that the young folks wanted to see and know 
 about every part of the craft on which they 
 were sailing, if they could. It was to be their 
 floating home for many weeks. 
 
 One thought possessed the souls of their eld- 
 ers. It was their leaving the home land and con- 
 tinent for what was unknown. Theirs was a 
 venture into times and places untried before. 
 To being away from their own country many of 
 the fathers and mothers had become accus- 
 tomed during eleven years' absence. Most of 
 the young people and all the little children re- 
 membered or knew nothing of any country ex- 
 cept Holland. If, therefore, they went ashore 
 at Southampton, or Dartmouth, as we know 
 they did at Plymouth, England was, except in 
 language, a strange country. Holland was the 
 home they had in memory. 
 
 [ 211 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 Yet even though long seasoned by previous 
 years of exile, and hardened through recent 
 delays and disappointments — too many to be 
 counted — the parents loved the dear England 
 that had cast them out. They stood long at the 
 stern, looking to their old home land, where 
 were childhood's memories and the graves of 
 their fathers. 
 
 The young people, we are sure, looked ahead. 
 When the shipmen permitted they ventured 
 often near the prow. Ships were built in those 
 days as if they were floating houses. The war 
 vessels were made to appear as though siege and 
 battle belonged to things afloat as well as to 
 what, "from turret to foundation stone," was 
 reared of masonry. Hence it was as two castles 
 close together. At the stern was a wooden fort 
 several stories high and the front part of the 
 ship was called the "fore castle." This was the 
 sailors' home, reserved to the tars, who called 
 it the "fo'cas'l." No doubt, at times, in fair 
 weather the children were allowed to play 
 there. 
 
 Such a thing as a jib boom, or large project- 
 ing spar set out of and beyond the bowsprit, and 
 on which long, triangular, or lateen canvas sails, 
 reaching high up to the foremast, were spread 
 to help in sailing the ship, was at that day un- 
 
 [ 212 ]
 
 THE VOYAGE OF THE MAYFLOWER 
 
 known. There was a projecting spar which was 
 set low in the deck, on which, when the wind 
 was dead astern, small square sails could be 
 spread. 
 
 Day after day the Mayflower ploughed her 
 way over "the blue plain of the sea." With 
 these land folk there was no previous expe- 
 rience of the boundless expanse of waters, 
 "wherein are things creeping innumerable." In 
 their era the life of the ocean was "multitu- 
 dinous" rather than discriminated. As with the 
 Bible translators, they talked of "creepers" 
 rather than swimmers, even in the waters. Nor 
 had the currents and phenomena of this mighty 
 mass of water been studied. Indeed the Atlantic, 
 named from the supposed lost continent of 
 Atlantis, had, but a short time previous, been 
 transformed, in the average mind, from a "sea 
 of darkness" to one holding the lure of wealth 
 in distant lands and containing the pathways 
 thither. As yet the idea of harvests of food to be 
 won from its depths was rather novel to English 
 folk. 
 
 Familiar as they were with the Bible narra- 
 tives, we have little doubt that they had read 
 and re-read the stories of voyages, of travel, and 
 of adventure told in that fascinating library of 
 inspiration collected during two thousand or 
 [ 213 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 more years. Here was the story of Noah; of 
 Jonah — with his return ticket — his voyage 
 ending in premature landfall and disembarka- 
 tion; and the wonderfully vivid account of 
 Paul's transit, by sea, to Rome. This descrip- 
 tion in Acts is said by scholars to be the most 
 detailed and informing, as to ancient sailors' 
 ways and nautical terms, in all ancient litera- 
 ture. Very probably the most comforting of all 
 the Bible narratives was the account of the 
 crossing of the Sea of Galilee and the rescue of 
 the sinking Peter. 
 
 Yet day after day, as the wastes of water 
 gave no sign of a land horizon, they doubtless 
 longed to free a raven, as did Noah, to get a 
 token — ■ that was then certainly "wireless" — 
 and, after the fashion of their own Norse an- 
 cestors, to try the experiment of this bird of 
 discovery that should go forth and bring happi- 
 ness by non-return — proving that land was 
 near. Still more did they wish to send forth the 
 dove that should bring a leaf in Its mouth, in 
 proof that normal life was soon to begin again 
 for them. 
 
 Between what was actually on board the 
 Mayflower and those things which some de- 
 scendants of her passengers believe, or could 
 wish, was part of her cargo, there yawns a gulf 
 [ 214 ]
 
 THE VOYAGE OF THE MAYFLOWER 
 
 as deep as between reality and stained glass; 
 or actual biography and tombstone eulogies; or 
 the Jesus of Syria and the phantasms of dogma 
 — when linked to revenue. In bulk, the con- 
 trast reminds one of the mouse and the moun- 
 tain. Abraham Lincoln, one of the noblest 
 pilgrims that ever trod the world's highway, 
 declared that the story of his people could be 
 told in a line — " the short and simple annals 
 of the poor." In truth, the same verse suggests 
 more precisely a true inventory of the ancestry 
 and material assets of the Mayflower com- 
 pany, than all the boasts of Mammon worship- 
 ers, or of purse-proud or Pharisaical descend- 
 ants ; or the flowery rhetoric of the after-dinner 
 speeches of orators, some of whom flauntingly 
 display the most woeful ignorance of history. 
 
 Here was a church of true believers, a body 
 politic of loyal Englishmen, with both loyalty 
 and patriotism tested in the fires of severe perse- 
 cution and long exile. Here were home-makers, 
 determined to cultivate the soil; true colonists, 
 not expecting to return, rich in grit and grace, 
 but with no other riches and in a state of clean 
 poverty that shames all false pride and ill- 
 gotten wealth. 
 
 The daily heaving of the log was always a 
 matter of interest, for it told the rate of the 
 
 [215]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 ship's movement through the water. It would 
 have been strange if none of the passengers 
 kept account of time and space traversed, for 
 all were eager to see land. The "pilot" — that 
 is, the navigator — after being able to tell 
 roughly how many miles the vessel had sailed 
 in a day, could calculate the number of leagues 
 they were from America. 
 
 The "log" was a triangular block of wood, 
 called by sailors the "log chip." This, with a 
 long cord called the "log line," was thrown out 
 behind the vessel. The record of the ship's voy- 
 age, as written down daily by the captain, was 
 called the "log-book." 
 
 It was because Bradford's manuscript "His- 
 tory of Plymouth Plantation" contained some 
 account of the voyage of the first of the coloniz- 
 ing ships of the Pilgrims, that it was absurdly 
 called, by many persons in England, "The Log 
 of the Mayflower." In fact, this is the title by 
 which it is specified in the decree of the Con- 
 sistorial Court in London from which, officially, 
 it came to Boston. Nevertheless, so far from 
 Bradford's narrative being a daily journal of 
 the voyage, the fact is that he gives no dates, 
 except September 6, the day of starting. Alto- 
 gether, there are only four or five pages, in one 
 of his chapters, devoted to this subject, among 
 
 [216]
 
 THE VOYAGE OF THE MAYFLOWER 
 
 the five hundred or more given to his annals. 
 Nor does he in this narrative even so much as 
 mention the name of the ship, which is not 
 given in any Pilgrim document until 1622. 
 The splendid record of the Mayflower's log has 
 been worked out In detail by an American, Dr. 
 Azel Ames. 
 
 In modern days the "log," used on a ship for 
 calculating speed and distance, consists of a 
 metal contrivance in the form of a cylinder 
 having a revolving wheel within. This measures 
 and also records distances and with far greater 
 accuracy than was possible in the old days. In 
 our time the location of the ship on the earth's 
 surface can be determined to within a few feet. 
 This is done by means of the reflection of a 
 star, or the sun, in a little mirror, set in a quad- 
 rant or sextant, and thus the degree of latitude 
 and of longitude may be worked out to the geo- 
 graphical minute and second. In 1620 the quar- 
 ter staff was the implement used. We see Its 
 shape depicted above the sailor, who stands, 
 with the Indian, on the seal of the City of New 
 York. 
 
 To a man of constantly active and fruitful 
 faith in the Unseen, as Bradford was, this guid- 
 ing of one's course over the trackless waters 
 through trust In what was Invisible, yet accord- 
 [ 217 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 ing to a plan which man's mind had projected, 
 was a cheering object lesson. No one ever saw, 
 on earth or sky, the lines of latitude or longi- 
 tude. These are the product of imagination — ■ 
 "science" or "faith" — according as one may 
 select the word as token of "the substance of 
 things hoped for, and the evidence of things 
 not seen." In due course, by trust in God and 
 in the imaginary lines which were yet actually 
 efficient for working, the ship was brought to 
 the coast of America, but not to her desired 
 haven. Bradford let "the light that never was 
 on sea or land" guide him. The feeling in the 
 breast of the leader, as in that of many an hum- 
 ble follower, was that of a later follower in the 
 same Pilgrim faith — "God guides me and the 
 bird." By faith they overcame. 
 
 Besides these aids to navigation, and such 
 others as might help the ship master to find his 
 bourne, there was little else. The knowledge of 
 currents, shoals, rocks, and of meteorology was 
 of the most vague and rudimentary descrip- 
 tion. There were then, on the eastern coast of 
 what is now the United States, no lighthouses, 
 light-ships, fog-horns, sirens, bell buoys, wireless 
 radio stations, or any of the apparatus calcu- 
 lated to facilitate communication, to answer 
 prayer, to insure safety, to give light, or to save 
 [218]
 
 THE VOYAGE OF THE MAYFLOWER 
 
 life. Most serious was the lack of charts which 
 to-day map out for the mariner the rocks, reefs, 
 rips, shoals, and dangerous currents. The elab- 
 orate system of pilots and pilot ships that now 
 meet the incoming steamers and sailing vessels 
 was not then in existence. 
 
 When at sea landsmen and passengers may 
 be nervous, but the ship men then realize their 
 comparative safety and enjoy it. It is the land 
 they fear and the dangers on the coast. In fact, 
 in the navigation of either the ocean or the air 
 the problem is the same — whether with aero- 
 planes or with ships. The landing is more beset 
 with dangers than is the medium through which 
 the machine moves, either with keel or wheels, 
 sails or wings. 
 
 It is no wonder that the Mayflower, which 
 was bound for the mouth of the Hudson River, 
 was unable to get there, but that, after much 
 effort and failing, she stuck in the sandy part 
 of the coast and in an infertile region. Let us 
 listen to Bradford and note how he tells the 
 story about the ship's adventures, probably at 
 what is known on the charts as Pollock Rip : 
 
 "After long beating at sea they fell with that 
 land which is called Cape Cod; the which being 
 made and certainly known to be it they were 
 not a little joyful. After some deliberation had 
 
 [ 219 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 amongst themselves and with the master of the 
 ship, they tacked about and resolved to stand 
 for the southward (the wind and weather being 
 fair) to find some place about Hudson's river 
 for their habitation. But after they had sailed 
 the course about half the day, they fell among 
 dangerous shoals and roaring breakers, and 
 they were so far entangled therewith as they 
 conceived themselves in great danger; and the 
 wind shrinking upon them withal, they resolved 
 to bear up again for the Cape and thought 
 themselves happy to get out of those dangers 
 before night overtook them, as by God's provi- 
 dence they did. And the next day they got into 
 the Cape harbor where they rode in safety.'* 
 
 The truth is that except in Holland, where 
 the word and the higher practice of the craft 
 originated, there were no pilots as we now un- 
 derstand this word. A "pilot" in Elizabethan 
 times was the captain's mate. A pilot now is a 
 man of skill who can bring the ship's prow to 
 the spot desired, so that the plumb line is as 
 straight up and down as a pijl, or pole; that 
 is, taut and vertical over the place aimed at, 
 and thus making a pijl lood, whence our word 
 "pilot." Such a man was Frans Naerebout, 
 born in 1729, to whom a superb memorial 
 statue was reared at Flushing, in Zeeland, 
 [ 220 ]
 
 THE VOYAGE OF THE MAYFLOWER 
 
 August 31, 1919. Had there been such a pilot 
 on the Mayflower, the ship would have found 
 her destined haven at the mouth of the Hud- 
 son River, where, on leaving Holland, they had 
 hoped to find a home. 
 
 Of such "pilots" — that is, steersmen or 
 mates — as were known and available, the 
 Leyden people secured Mr. Clarke, who had 
 navigated a cattle ship to Virginia the year 
 before, and Coppin, second mate on the May- 
 flower, who also had been once before in Amer- 
 ica. But with the captain, mates, and all put 
 together, they could not properly navigate the 
 ship to the place where the Pilgrims wanted to 
 go. " With too many captains the boat runs 
 ashore," says the Japanese proverb.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 THE COMPACT AND THE PASSENGER LIST 
 
 There Is always, perhaps inevitably, a great 
 difference in view and opinion between those 
 who study or know about a thing or event, 
 according to their method of approach — 
 whether beginning at origins or results. The 
 subject may be very much like a gun or a whip, 
 a baby or a microscope — people differ accord- 
 ing to which end they hold, or at which end 
 they begin. Those who in historical study or 
 in theology work forward, from the first begin- 
 nings, and they who commence at the present 
 and move backward, will probably come into 
 collision. They are like two locomotives moving 
 in opposite directions on the same track. 
 
 Much foolish oratory and ignorant eulogy 
 have been wasted on the famous Compact 
 made on the Mayflower at Cape Cod, as though 
 it were the beginning of all representative gov- 
 ernment, and even "the first written constitu- 
 tion in history." The Mayflower cabin has 
 been styled the "birthplace of liberty," the 
 "cradle of a nation," etc. Not a few windy 
 orators have looked upon this Compact as 
 [ 222 ]
 
 THE COMPACT 
 
 something suddenly born, "the germ of a na- 
 tion," an amazing novelty "without a parallel 
 in history," etc. 
 
 How many of those who signed the Compact 
 made their own signatures? How many were 
 able to read and write? How many gladly en- 
 joyed making and adhering to it? How many 
 felt all that it meant, or intended to keep its 
 provisions and live up to its spirit? To how 
 many was such a proceeding, as settling a form 
 of social order and frame of government, con- 
 genial and habitual as second nature? 
 
 We cannot answer precisely any of these 
 questions, but the previous history of the real 
 Pilgrims is known. To them, in their church 
 and social life, self-control was habitual. The 
 orderly government for which on shipboard 
 they voted had been a custom for years. None 
 could join the church unless he took the cove- 
 nant of mutual service and agreed to its forms 
 of order; yes, and to progress in the Christian 
 life. In a word. Christian democracy was their 
 vital air. The covenant at Cape Cod was simply 
 an outgrowth and expansion. It was an ex- 
 pression, suited to the new need of the church 
 covenant, voluntarily entered upon, and which 
 bound the conscience of each member. Its 
 essence was self-control, in the fear of God. It 
 [ 223 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 meant justice and protection to all men. It 
 called for an attitude of constant expectation 
 of greater blessing. In Leyden they had lived 
 in a little republic, and they would have, even 
 in the wilderness, none the less now. In a word, 
 the Compact was simply the Free Church 
 covenant "writ large." 
 
 The Mayflower Compact was not the be- 
 ginning of representative government in Amer- 
 ica. This had already been made and estab- 
 lished, on July 30, 1 6 19, in Virginia, and was 
 at this time over a year old. At Jamestown the 
 people of the colony on the Potomac had met 
 and framed a body of laws — "a written con- 
 stitution that created a government." Nor was 
 it in New England, but in Virginia, that on 
 May 27, 1776, the first bill of rights, guar- 
 anteeing perfect freedom of conscience to all, 
 was passed. The sixteenth article of the con- 
 vention declared that "all men are entitled to 
 the free exercise of religion according to the 
 dictates of conscience." 
 
 It was not Leyden church members that 
 wholly constituted the Mayflower company, 
 which was a rather miscellaneous body wherein 
 were serving-maids and men, more or less 
 ignorant, and other persons from London and 
 its neighborhood, of whose moral character, 
 [ 224 ]
 
 THE COMPACT 
 
 social standing, and education we have the 
 record that the original Pilgrims knew little, 
 while we of to-day know less. These formed the 
 unstable element in the little community. Al- 
 ready, on the ship, they had shown signs, not 
 only of moral weakness, but of a determination 
 to do as they pleased when ashore. Not being 
 persons of high faith and strong moral fiber, 
 nor disciplined and tempered by exile, suffer- 
 ing, and experiences that tested character, they 
 formed, altogether, a very uncertain if not dan- 
 gerous element in the little republic. Not hav- 
 ing had the testing, they had not the requi- 
 site spirit of endurance in the face of still 
 greater trials to be undergone. Hence it was 
 quite necessary to temper the mass, and the 
 Compact was as the fire and crucible. 
 
 The chief men of the Pilgrim enterprise saw 
 this clearly and they took precautions in time. 
 Bradford, who read men through and through, 
 tells much about the threats and mutterings of 
 this rougher element on the ship. He and other 
 leaders could talk Dutch together and thus 
 mature their plans, without those who were 
 likely to oppose being able to unite in their 
 opposition or to have power to hinder. 
 
 In any event, the Mayflower Compact was 
 nothing new to these people, nor was the minor- 
 [ 225 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 hy strong enough to mar their plans for order. 
 The framers, in their own church Hfe, had 
 Hved in the spirit and practice of self-govern- 
 ment. The threads of long practice had become 
 a cable strong enough to hold a state. 
 
 So the Compact was made, even though it 
 contained two funny legal fictions, namely, 
 that James was the "King of France" and the 
 "Defender" of their faith. It was signed, by 
 how many in autograph and how many by 
 marks, we do not know, but this much is cer- 
 tain that afloat the captain was master and 
 the ship and all persons were under his rule. 
 On land, the Pilgrim Republic was sovereign. 
 The would-be impudent, insolent, disobedient, 
 or lawbreakers soon found who was master and 
 what was the law. All honor to the men who 
 made and enforced the Compact! 
 
 Dr. Azel Ames, in his unique work on "The 
 May-Flower and her Log," ^ has gone into the 
 detail of this ship's life, lading, and personnel, 
 as has no other author. 
 
 Of the Mayflower passengers, there were, in 
 all, from start to finish, men, women, boys, 
 girls, babies, and servants, male and female, 
 to the number of one hundred and four. Of 
 
 ^ The May-Flower and her Log. Houghton Mifflin Com- 
 pany. Boston, 1901. 
 
 [ 226 ]
 
 THE COMPACT 
 
 these the wives, husbands, single adults, and 
 widowers are specified in the list, with their 
 (conjectural) occupations and ages. Every un- 
 married young person was under the care of 
 a married couple or family and thus joined 
 to it. 
 
 In his first list, Bradford names the men 
 whose wives and children had been left be- 
 hind in Leyden to come later to America. In the 
 second list, when writing under the shadow 
 of "the angel of the backward look," he makes 
 a survey of the dead, of those who came in later 
 ships, and essays a census of the survivors, of 
 those who had married, and of their children 
 and grandchildren, alive in 1650. 
 
 In the following list we name especially the 
 women and girls, who might have been in the 
 party on shore, to take part in America's first 
 laundry day. Bradford catalogues the May- 
 flower company, arranged in twenty-eight 
 groups. We leave out the names of the males. 
 
 In the Carver family, the Governor's, were 
 eight persons: Mrs. John (Katherine) Carver, 
 Desire Minter, and a maid servant; that is, 
 three females and five males. 
 
 In the Brewster group were six persons: Mrs. 
 William (Mary) Brewster, two sons, and two 
 boys named More. 
 
 [ 227 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 In the Winslow group of five were Mrs. Eliza 
 (Edward) Winslow and a little girl, Ellen More. 
 
 Mrs. Dorothy (William) Bradford. 
 
 Of the AUertons, six in number, there were 
 Mrs. Mary (Isaack) Allerton, her two daugh- 
 ters, Remember and Mary. May Allerton, who 
 grew up and married A/Ir. Cushman, was living 
 in 1698. She was perhaps the last survivor of 
 the Mayflower company. 
 
 Mrs. Rose (Miles) Standish. 
 
 Mrs. Christopher Martin. 
 
 In the MuUines, or Mullens party, five In all, 
 were Mrs. William Mullins and Priscilla, her 
 daughter, afterwards Mrs. John Alden. 
 
 Of the White party, six in all, was Mrs. 
 William White, with her baby son. Peregrine, 
 which means "Pilgrim," born on the ship and 
 but a few days old. 
 
 In the Hopkins group, eight in all, was an- 
 other son, born at sea and called "Oceanus." 
 Besides Mrs. Steven Hopkins there was a 
 daughter Constanta who made a record as we 
 shall see. 
 
 Mrs. John Billington. 
 
 Mrs. Ann (Edward) Tillie, and her cousin, a 
 girl named Humility Cooper. 
 
 Mrs. John Tillie and Elizabeth, her daughter. 
 
 Mrs. Thomas Tinker. 
 
 [ 228 ]
 
 THE COMPACT 
 
 Mrs. Alice (John) RIgdale. 
 
 Mrs. James Chilton and their daughter Mary. 
 Mary Chilton was long traditionally the first 
 person in the Pilgrim party to step ashore upon 
 the rock of immortal fame. 
 
 Mrs. Edward Fuller. 
 
 Mrs. Sarah (Francis) Eaton. 
 
 There were several nursing mothers In the 
 company, and at least two babies known by 
 name. Perhaps these were taken ashore for air, 
 and, possibly, the mothers worked, while the 
 girls took charge of the infants. 
 
 To the first list given, Bradford adds bio- 
 graphical notes in regard to many of these 
 pioneer young maids, some of them of much 
 interest. 
 
 Of Carver's household, Desire MInter, In 
 poor health, returned to her friends in England 
 and died there. The maidservant married and 
 died, within a year or two, at Plymouth. 
 
 Elizabeth Tillie married John Rowland. In 
 1650 they had ten children and five grand- 
 children. 
 
 Mrs. William White, left a widow, married 
 Mr. Edward WInslow, and of this union several 
 children were born, two of whom. In 1650, were 
 grown and of marriageable age. The little girl, 
 Ellen More, died soon after the ship's arrival. 
 [ 229 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 Dorothy May (Bradford) drowned. 
 
 Mrs. Mary (John) AUerton "died in the first 
 sickness," early in 1621. Her daughter, Remem- 
 ber, when Bradford wrote in 1650, was married 
 and with her four children lived in Salem. 
 
 Mrs. Rose (Miles) Standish "died in the first 
 sickness." 
 
 Mrs. Christopher Martin — "he and all his 
 died in the first infection not long after the 
 arrival." 
 
 All of the Mullines (first record) or Molenes 
 (second record) "dyed the first winter. Only 
 his daughter Priscilla the only survivor mar- 
 ried with John Alden, who are both living and 
 their oldest daughter is married and hath five 
 children." 
 
 The pioneer mother, Mrs. Elizabeth (Steven) 
 Hopkins, after twenty years of life in Plymouth, 
 died, after one son and four daughters had 
 been born to her there. The daughter Con- 
 stanta married and bore twelve children, all 
 living in 1650. 
 
 Mrs. Ellen (John) Billington. In 1650 there 
 were eight Billington children. 
 
 Both Mrs. Ann (Edward) Tillie and her 
 cousin, Humility Cooper, "died soon after their 
 arrival," and their cousin Humility "was sent 
 for into England and died there." 
 [ 230 ]
 
 THE COMPACT 
 
 Mrs. "John Tillie. She and her husband both 
 died a Httle after they came ashore." The 
 daughter, EHzabeth, as we have seen, married 
 John Rowland and reared a large family. 
 
 Mrs. (Thomas) Tinker. He "and his wife and 
 son all died in the first sickness." 
 
 Mrs. Alice (John) Rigdale. "And so did 
 Rigdale and his wife" die early in 1621. 
 
 The parents of Mary Chilton, who in legend 
 first stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock and 
 into the settlement, "died in the first infec- 
 tion," but Mary married and had, in 1646, nine 
 children. 
 
 Mrs. Edward Fuller, with her husband, 
 "died soon after they came ashore." 
 
 Mrs. Sarah (Francis) Eaton, a nursing 
 mother, "whose son came over a sucking child, 
 died in the general sickness." 
 
 No mention Is here made of the women and 
 girls who came later to Plymouth In other ships. 
 
 Thirty years after the beginnings, Bradford, 
 In revising the list, added items of interest con- 
 cerning the boys of 1620. 
 
 The little boy Jaspar Carver " died next year 
 of the common infection." 
 
 The boy William Latham, "after twenty 
 years or more in America went to England and 
 from thence to the Bahama Islands in the 
 
 [ 231 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 West Indies and there with some others was 
 starved for want of food." 
 
 Of Brewster's sons, " Wrastling died a young 
 man, unmarried; his son-in-law Hved till this 
 year 1650 and died and left four children now 
 living." Richard More's brother died the first 
 winter, but he, Richard, lived to marry and 
 have four or five children alive in 1 650. 
 
 Barthe, or Bartholomew AUerton went back 
 to England and married. 
 
 How old John Crakston was, in 1620, we do 
 not know, but his father "died in the first 
 mortality." The young man, about 1625 or 
 1626, "having lost himself in the woods, his 
 feet became frozen which put him into a fever, 
 of which he died." 
 
 Joseph Mullens, with father, mother, and 
 the servant, died the first winter, only his sister 
 Priscilla surviving. 
 
 The two sons of Mr. William White, one 
 Resolved, and the other, the ship-born baby, 
 Peregrine, grew up and married, the former 
 having five, and the latter two, children. 
 
 Giles Hopkins, in 1650, was married and had 
 four children. 
 
 Of the two Billingt'^r boys, John died before 
 his father, but Francis became a man, married, 
 and had eight children. 
 
 [ 232 ]
 
 THE COMPACT 
 
 Henry Samson, cousin of Mr. Edward Tillie, 
 was in 1650 a husband and the father of seven 
 children. We can see how his Christian name 
 was pronounced when Bradford writes his 
 name in three syllables, "Henery." Note also 
 how "Wrestling" was pronounced. 
 
 John Cooke, whose father Francis lived to be 
 a very old man, had in 1650 four children. 
 
 Joseph Rogers, son of Thomas, survived his 
 father, who "died in the first sickness." In 
 1650 Joseph had six children. 
 
 The son of Thomas Tinker, with his father 
 and mother, "died in the first sickness." 
 
 Samuel Fuller, son of Edward, had, in 1650, 
 four children. 
 
 The two sons of John Turner "died in the 
 first sickness." 
 
 Samuel Eaton, a little baby in 1620, grew up, 
 married, and in 1650 had a wife and child. 
 
 In 1679, when some later hand added to 
 Bradford's list, the only boys of 1620 then sur- 
 viving were Resolved White and John Cooke, 
 the last one being alive in 1698. 
 
 Bradford in 1650 said: "Of these 100 persons 
 which came over first in the first ship, together, 
 the greater half died in the general mortality; 
 and most of them in two or three months time. 
 ... Of those few remaining are sprung up above 
 [ 233 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 one hundred and sixty persons, in these thirty 
 years, and are now living in this present year, 
 1650. . . . And of the old stock . . . there are 
 yet living . . . near thirty persons." 
 
 At this date 1650 there were no widows. 
 
 A later hand has added: "Two persons living 
 that came over in the first ship, 1620, this pres- 
 ent year, 1650, Resolved White and Mary 
 Cushman. The daughter of Mr. Allerton and 
 Mary Cushman is still living this present year 
 1698." 
 
 In the list of the Mayflower's passengers as 
 set forth by Ames, there were of adult males, 44; 
 of adult females, 19; of male young people, 29; 
 of maidens and little girls, 10; or 102 in all. Of 
 the men, 26, and of the women, 18, were mar- 
 ried. There were 25 single male adults and one 
 unmarried woman — Mrs. Carver's servant. 
 Perhaps she deserves a memorial, as the first of 
 that noble army of "old maids" in New Eng- 
 land without whom one can hardly imagine how 
 the life of churches and charities could be main- 
 tained. 
 
 In the list of men whose occupations are 
 known, there were 2 carpenters, 2 tradesmen, 10 
 servants, 4 mariners, 2 printers. Other trades or 
 professions represented, each by one person, 
 were those of the cooper, silk dyer, wool carder, 
 . [ 234 ]
 
 THE COMPACT 
 
 hatter, merchant, physician, smith, soldier, and 
 tailor. Traditionally there was also a shoe- 
 maker. At different times the men had changed 
 their occupations and worked at other trades 
 and crafts, and it is probable that it was at Ply- 
 mouth that the "all-around Yankee" — so con- 
 spicuous in American tradition and so promi- 
 nent in reality throughout the whole of our 
 national history — here began his multitudinous 
 and varied career. Many a Pilgrim man was a 
 whole department store in himself, and well 
 fitted to do many and varied things. Their two 
 long experiences in earning a livelihood — one 
 of these being under the spur of poverty, in a 
 foreign land, and amid new and strange experi- 
 ences — ■ had trained these sturdy pioneers to 
 tackle new jobs and face unexpected obstacles. 
 There is no education, not even in a univer- 
 sity, equal to that of earning one's own living. 
 So, all things considered, probably there never 
 came to America a company of people better 
 fitted within and without, with grit and grace, 
 for endurance that meant final triumph. 
 
 To-day at Provincetown a superb tower, 
 after the model of the fam.ous one at Siena, 
 in Italy, and dedicated August 20, 1907, com- 
 memorating the Compact, serves as perpetual 
 memorial of the past and as a beacon to those 
 
 [ 23s ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 at sea. The corner-stone was laid by President 
 Roosevelt and the capstone celebrated by Pres- 
 ident Taft, The chief living educator of the 
 nation, Charles W. Eliot, made the address, 
 portraying the Pilgrims and pioneers in indus- 
 trial cooperation. Miss Barbara Hoyt, tenth in 
 generation from Elder William Brewster, un- 
 veiled the bronze tablet. The hymn, composed 
 by the author of this book, was sung, and Dr. 
 E. J. Carpenter, historian of the occasion, after- 
 wards wrote the book "The Pilgrims and Their 
 Monument." Honored representatives from 
 England and Holland made addresses. Memo- 
 rial stones, or bricks, from Austerfield, Leyden, 
 Delfshaven, and Siena are built into the grace- 
 ful monument, that stands like a white finger 
 pointing to that Heaven, from which the City 
 of God — to the men who look and wait for 
 her coming — is ever descending, in glory and 
 beauty, " like a bride adorned for her husband."
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 THE GLORIOUS WASH 
 
 Weary of the sea and its monotony, and of 
 ship life, with its trying discomforts, the cry of 
 "Land ho!" was heard joyfully. Entrancing 
 were the distant views of the evergreen trees 
 and the sight of forests and of land birds, and of 
 the shore, even if low and sandy as in Holland, 
 instead of with white cliffs as in southern Eng- 
 land. When announcement was made that, on 
 the day after Sabbath rest, all who wished could 
 go ashore for the washing of clothes, we imagine 
 there was a beating of pulses, clapping of hands, 
 and dancing of young feet. What fun for the 
 lads to gather wood and make a fire, to camp 
 out, to cook things, to eat in the open air, and 
 thus to return for a season to outdoor life. 
 Every boy, by nature, has a secret ambition to 
 be, dramatically at least, a pirate, or a savage, 
 or a scout, or a hunter; and here was a splen- 
 did opportunity to return to the primitive. The 
 girls, no less than the boys, yearned for new sen- 
 sations and for something to do, while all were 
 glad enough to stretch their limbs and tread 
 on grass and sand, even though there were no 
 
 [ 237 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 flowers to pick at this season of the year, when 
 drizzHng rain and fog, cold wind and colder 
 waters, made sneezes and coughs more general 
 tlian desirable. 
 
 This was the inauguration of our national 
 institution of a Monday wash. Nevertheless, 
 the first which has been recorded was less Eng- 
 lish than Dutch, as any one knows who is fa- 
 miliar with housekeeping in Holland, of which 
 most of the boys and girls were natives. In the 
 Low Countries is the original home of linen 
 for underwear as well as for lace and tapestry. 
 Muslin, or cotton cloth, was still unknown in 
 western Europe. Linen was the ordinary ma- 
 terial for underwear, whether for shirts, stock- 
 ings, or petticoats; all other garments being 
 woolen, hempen, or linsey-woolsey. The same 
 flaxen fabric, starched and bleached as white as 
 snow, and with the Puritans usually without 
 frills, fluting, or crimps, furnished the material 
 for collars, cuffs, and headkerchiefs. Hats and 
 bonnets for women were not seen among the 
 Separatists. In Professor Robert W. Weir's 
 painting, completed in 1845 and set in the ro- 
 tunda at Washington, one of the women on the 
 Speedwell is decked in a gorgeous gown, and 
 with a Gainsborough hat trimmed with a long 
 ostrich feather. But this picture was made in 
 
 [238]
 
 THE GLORIOUS WASH 
 
 days before the story of the Pilgrims, or plain 
 people, was disentangled from that of the Puri- 
 tans of Salem who were better off in worldly 
 goods. 
 
 By the year 1620 linen in the Low Countries 
 had become cheap and in general use for the 
 body, while bed sheets, ticking, mattresses, and 
 pillow-cases were common. Large quantities of 
 "Hollands" or Dutch linen were exported to 
 England, taking the place, for bedding, even in 
 huts and cottages, of the rushes on the floor, 
 with the log of wood for bolster and sack of 
 chaff for a headrest. In the Dutch houses, in 
 which most of the Pilgrims had lived, some of 
 them for a dozen years or more, and in which 
 they had reared their children, no housekeeper 
 that had an ordinary supply of linen ever 
 thought of having washday once a week. That 
 was a mark of poverty. Unless people were very 
 poor and had no store of linen, the usual custom 
 was to keep in a room by itself, generally in the 
 attic at the top of the house, the frequently 
 changed underclothes; that is, the white goods, 
 to be washed only once a month or less often. 
 This argued that the family had a linen closet 
 with ample fresh supplies, and were not obliged 
 to go into the laundry industry every seventh 
 day. A bride's dowry was often the rich store of 
 [ 239 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 linen which she brought to her husband's house 
 to make a home, and this custom, not unusual 
 with us, originated in the RepubHc. In fact, the 
 ordinary English word "Hollands" applied to 
 the best linen fabrics continued In use until 
 quite recently. 
 
 Snowy whiteness was the mark of the Puri- 
 tan maiden's costume, harmonizing subtly and 
 charmingly with her general carriage as a true 
 and appropriate symbol of her character. With 
 the Puritan, whether Huguenot, Dutch, Eng- 
 lish, or Scottish, cleanliness was next to godli- 
 ness. To this day a washerwoman in France is 
 called a "blanchisseuse," or whitener. In Hol- 
 land "bleeker" is only the original and older 
 spelling and pronunciation of the "bleacher," 
 who blanched fabrics. The famous Bleecker 
 Street, on Manhattan, is the witness of both a 
 trade and a family. 
 
 In the case of the Mayflower party, It had 
 been one hundred and thirty-three days since 
 they had left their Leyden home, with only an 
 occasional opportunity to live up to their stand- 
 ards of personal cleanliness, during what meant 
 really a half-dozen transshipments, or voyages, 
 longer or shorter. Hence their needs and desires. 
 At Cape Cod, next to their yearning for god- 
 liness, expressed in law and mutual compact, 
 [ 240 ]
 
 THE GLORIOUS WASH 
 
 came their desire for what was the next virtue, 
 love of cleanliness. 
 
 Surely there never was a happier washing 
 party. What provision, or in what quality or 
 quantity, of soap, lye, or cleaning substance 
 they had on the ship, is not known; but once 
 on land, fuel and soft water were as plentiful as 
 was the willingness of hands and hearts to make 
 use of them. In our minds we can draw a picture 
 of the strong men swinging their axes and hew- 
 ing down the red cedar trees. Doubtless they 
 cut the saplings and stripped them of their 
 branches for poles to support the clothes-lines, 
 while the boys gathered the brushwood for 
 quick kindling. Then on two forked supports 
 the cross-piece would be laid, the kettles filled 
 and hung, and the fire started to furnish hot 
 water for boiling the clothes. No lucifer matches 
 were then known, but flint, steel, and tinder, 
 aided perhaps with a little gunpowder, met in 
 sparks; and, presto, a lively blaze! A stream 
 of pure water, soft for suds and easy rubbing, 
 flowed from a spring near by, and sweet was the 
 smell of the burning juniper or red spruce. 
 
 We can imagine several hours spent over the 
 tubs. It must have been right good exercise for 
 feminine muscles — so long cramped in the 
 cabins. The clothes-lines were probably hung 
 
 [ 241 1
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 from tree to tree, unless poles were set in the 
 sand for the stretching of the drying lines. Quite 
 possibly some of the heavier garments may 
 have been spread out in the sunshine on the 
 clean sand. 
 
 Since the minds of the Pilgrims were ever 
 rich in reminders of Scripture precedents, some 
 may have thought of Gideon's fleece, laid out 
 on the ground, for a token of mercy and an 
 answer to prayer. Perhaps the men extempo- 
 rized rough timber frames, with poles for dry- 
 ing, in both wind and sun, and called them 
 "clothes-horses," after the analogy of the 
 Dutch word "easel," which means the "little 
 donkey," to hold the artist's canvas. 
 
 To-day, after three centuries, neither the 
 spring nor the red spruce can any more be 
 found. The one is covered by the salt sea, or 
 perhaps it has ceased to flow. The trees at the 
 water's edge have disappeared under the wood- 
 man's axe, though still plentiful on the distant 
 hills. Yet the fragrance of the juniper's coals on 
 that washday still starts pleasant memories. 
 The thought of it still lightens toil in many an 
 humble home, for those women were figures in 
 a great history. On Provincetown sands they 
 made sweet and clean the clothing of the men 
 and kept dainty their own bodies and garments. 
 [ 242 ]
 
 THE GLORIOUS WASH 
 
 That washday stands in history as an event 
 initiative to a grander history, in which toil was 
 honored. One cannot but think of George Her- 
 bert's verse, concerning the spirit which "makes 
 drudgery divine." Of ironing-day, when the 
 clothes, whether starched or not, were "man- 
 gled" or smoothed out, we are not told, but 
 probably the best that could be done, under the 
 circumstances, was done. 
 
 Yet, all unconsciously, this act of cleansing 
 was, for most of these maids and mothers, a 
 symbol of sorrow and the robing for even a 
 longer pilgrimage. It proved to be the anoint- 
 ing, as it were, for their own burial. Within a 
 few days, Dorothy May Bradford, falling over- 
 board, had found a grave in the waters. Of the 
 eighteen wives the bodies of fourteen, before 
 the winter was over, were under the sod. The 
 vernal equinox found the Pilgrim company re- 
 duced one half. 
 
 There had already been three burials be- 
 tween the casting and the weighing of the an- 
 chor. From their floating home when at sea a 
 sailor and William Butten, the servant boy, 
 died and found each an ocean grave. Bradford's 
 wife was drowned in the harbor. The angel of 
 life had come once during the voyage, the angel 
 of death twice. Of those who found " a vast and 
 
 [ 243 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 wandering grave" In the great deep, and of her 
 whose earthly hfe ended in calm water, and of 
 those who were given earth burial, one might 
 say, Including all: 
 
 "They sleep as well beneath the purple waves 
 As those whose graves are green," — 
 
 save that of those who died, whether on land or 
 water, one might also add that, of one and of all, 
 the places of sepulture were equally unseen; for, 
 lest the savages might count the losses of the 
 diminishing band and thus know their weakness, 
 no mounds were raised above the soil. The earth 
 was leveled to hide the mournful fact. Whether 
 on the solid earth or the restless sea, the fifteen 
 wives lay alike 
 
 "In the grave's democracy." 
 
 Nor can one think, even in Bryant's words, 
 of any one of these early martyrs : 
 
 "His part, amid the pomp that fills 
 The circuit of the summer hills, 
 Is that his grave is green"; 
 
 or find visible honors, even in the democratic 
 custom of the Moravians. Their cemeteries — 
 as, for example, at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 
 at Winston-Salem, North Carolina, or at Zeist 
 in the Netherlands — show no upreared monu- 
 ments nor any ostentation of grief or wealth. 
 [ 244 ]
 
 THE GLORIOUS WASH 
 
 Life's conflict over, it Is, as with our sons who 
 sleep where, 
 
 "On Flanders fields, the popples blow 
 Beneath the crosses row on row"; 
 
 for there is "no sepulchral stone to mark the 
 spot." The dead, whether dying In high office 
 or in obscurity, age or youth, bishop and babe 
 alike, are given equal honor — only a flat me- 
 morial slab resting on the grave's bosom. Yet 
 over them nature weaves a green carpet of love- 
 liness in grasses or wild flowers, which was de- 
 nied to the first Pilgrim mothers. 
 
 Nevertheless, in the equality of faith and hope 
 in Him who Is able to clothe mortality with 
 immortality according to the mighty "working 
 whereby he is able even to subdue all things 
 unto himself," those who slept In Him were laid 
 to rest. 
 
 Who were these Illustrious "wash-ladies" 
 who thus on Massachusetts soil made labor 
 honorable while adding to the aesthetics of life? 
 Let us scan Bradford's list, made a genera- 
 tion later, when the little girls of that historic 
 Monday morning had become brides, mothers, 
 grandmothers, and last survivors. We do not 
 usually begin at a washtub for genealogies, nor 
 need we swamp the narrative with names, but 
 rather briefly annotate the list. There were 
 
 [ 245 1
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 menservants and maidservants galore in the 
 company; but we rather think that, for the joy 
 of treading the soHd earth once more, all went 
 ashore who could, and took part, even to the 
 tubs, just for the fun of it, when activity in 
 the open air meant delight and health.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 THE NEW WORLD: AMERICA 
 
 Except at spots along the Atlantic coast, very 
 little of the new world of America was known 
 in the England of 1620. One hundred and 
 twenty-three years had passed away since the 
 ship from Bristol, commanded by the Cabots, 
 had sighted the New Found Land. The con- 
 tinent was not then popularly called America, 
 nor were Its limits known, its coasts mapped 
 out, or its parts articulated into a whole. It was 
 not until our day, in the twentieth century, that 
 its northern lands and waters were even fairly 
 well explored. 
 
 Very little, therefore, was known by any, 
 even experts, concerning the real character of 
 the soil, climate, or inhabitants, of what the 
 English, after 1609, called, with questionable 
 assertion, "the northern parts of Virginia." 
 There were few or no charts for the use of navi- 
 gators. It was because of this dearth of special 
 knowledge that "the first ship," as Bradford 
 always calls the Mayflower, was not to reach 
 her desired haven. 
 
 Learned ethnologists and acute students of 
 
 [ 247 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 civilization, with those who hold theories of its 
 rise and decay, declare tliat upon the glaciated 
 area of the earth the noblest human races in all 
 the earth have arisen. Be this false, or be it 
 wholly or only partly true, the largest concen- 
 tration of English-speaking people, mostly Pil- 
 grims and Puritans, settled in the region of the 
 glacier-scratched bed-rocks and of the melted 
 ice masses that had created soil and left boul- 
 ders plentifully on the landscape; from which 
 fact theorists may develop their doctrines. 
 
 So far from being unknown, this eastern 
 coast had already been often visited by the 
 adventurers and fishermen of France and the 
 other European countries fronting the Atlantic. 
 Cape Cod was a familiar point of land for the 
 sailor. Possibly the men on a hundred vessels 
 had seen It, before those of the Mayflower. 
 Dutch navigators had sighted and named it. 
 Gosnold in 1609 had given it its English name, 
 to which sailors clung even when others later 
 called it Cape James, after the king. The very 
 first findings of the Pilgrim explorers were 
 proofs of wreckage and of fortune, good and 
 bad, from the Old V^orld. Not only men, but 
 European women and children, had come to 
 these shores in the fishing boats, and some had 
 here found their graves. Even the color of the 
 [ 248 ]
 
 THE NEW WORLD: AMERICA 
 
 hair of the dead child found by the first explor- 
 ing party was recognized. The bay had been 
 surveyed and a very good map made of it, and 
 the place called Plymouth, by Captain John 
 Smith, who also first named "New England." 
 
 Nevertheless, the spot where the Pilgrims 
 landed and began life in the New World was 
 not the goal at which they had aimed, nor the 
 bourne where they had hoped to settle. Long 
 years afterwards Bradford mourned the strait- 
 ness and poverty of the place, from which so 
 many of the original comers emigrated farther 
 inland. Did Providence order it? 
 
 As to the native inhabitants it was better for 
 the Pilgrims that the first neighbors of the ex- 
 iles should be savages than to have had only the 
 loneliness of the land and the menace of the 
 wild beasts ever before them. The presence of 
 these Indians developed the manly virtues of 
 vigilance, circumspection, and courage in the 
 Pilgrims. Surrounded, as they were, with sav- 
 agely, human and natural, they were saved 
 from that softening of fiber which man must 
 ever avoid if he is to replenish and subdue the 
 earth and make nature, not his master, but his 
 servant. To grapple successfully with difficul- 
 ties and obey the divine command, these pio- 
 neers needed stimulus and even provocation. 
 
 [ 249 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 On the other hand, it was good to cultivate 
 friendship with the first owners of the soil. On 
 the whole, the mutual relations of these white 
 and red men were highly creditable. Perhaps 
 both lived up to their lights. 
 
 Who were these Algonquin Indians.? The 
 bounds of their habitation were east and 
 north of the Iroquois, who dominated most of 
 the tribes in eastern America. The frontiers 
 of the great Confederacy, called "The Long 
 House," were the Hudson River and Lake On- 
 tario. Very little was then known of the differ- 
 ences and varieties within the red man's world. 
 Now, with our knowledge of their languages, 
 traditions, traits, and history, we can clearly 
 discern the position and quality of the North 
 American Indians, with as much accuracy as 
 we distinguish between Italians and Swedes, 
 Hindoos and Arabs, Chinese and Japanese. 
 
 This much is certain, that the eastern In- 
 dians — • that is, of the coast or tidewater re- 
 gion — were of the Algonquin stock and mainly 
 hunters and fishermen. As on an island in a 
 great ocean, surrounding them on all sides, was 
 the forest federal republic of the Iroquois, com- 
 pared with whom the Algonquins were a much 
 inferior race of people. Yet in their long evolu- 
 tion and struggle with nature, these had won 
 [ 250]
 
 THE NEW WORLD: AMERICA 
 
 many victories and gained experiences which 
 they put at the service of their guests, the white 
 men. It is more than probable that in its pro- 
 longed fight with famine during the first year 
 or two, when constantly confronted with the 
 menace of starvation, the Pilgrim colony would 
 have failed and the people all died, except for 
 the kindly aid of their red neighbors. The In- 
 dians taught the white men how to go out on the 
 seashore at low tide, to tread out the sand and 
 mud, in order to get at the clams and other 
 shellfish for food. Many a time did a dish of 
 clams and cup of cold water form a Pilgrim din- 
 ner. For months at a time the exiles had no 
 grain ; for years no milk, butter, or edible deli- 
 cacies. Then, too, the immigrants were igno- 
 rant of the cultivation of maize. It was Squanto 
 who taught the white men how to plant the 
 chief of American grains. They were "not yet 
 well acquainted with the manner of Indian 
 corn," as Bradford tells us, even when they had 
 no other grain. Still further, the natives taught 
 them de utilitate stercorandi, which Cicero 
 writes about; that is, the use of home fertilizers 
 — how to plant a fish in a hill, along with the 
 seed kernel, thus providing both moisture and 
 the needed elements. Verily Squanto deserves 
 a memorial statue as the first American agricul- 
 
 [251 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 turist in New England, even though his later 
 record was tarnished with selfish intrigue — • an 
 infirmity common to all sinners. Besides this 
 rich food grain, the white man is indebted to 
 his red brother for tobacco, maple sugar, snow- 
 shoes, and wampum, or shell money, which for 
 the Pilgrims ushered in an era of prosperity. 
 
 Other local devices, habits, and accommoda- 
 tions to the climate enabled the Pilgrim to get 
 into harmony with his environment, make na- 
 ture his helper and friend, and thus to survive 
 and flourish. In these our days, when in ideal, 
 pictorial, plastic, monumental, and literary art, 
 the Indian is the choice of artists, when his fig- 
 ure is seen on our coins and State seals, when 
 also the first Americans themselves reproduce 
 in play and tableaux the very ancient and the 
 less ancient legends and traditions, as well as 
 Longfellow's idealizations of New England life, 
 when the Indian's poetic and sonorous names 
 cling to our mountains, rivers, and landmarks, 
 when tens of thousands of them are our Chris- 
 tian brothers, our fellow soldiers in the army, 
 our friends and acquaintances whom we honor, 
 and when we know them as statesmen, orators, 
 and philanthropists, men of ideals and charac- 
 ter, it is well to do justice and acknowledge fully 
 our debt to our predecessors on the continent. 
 [ 252 ]
 
 THE NEW WORLD: AMERICA 
 
 What was the temper of these early and local 
 sons of the soil ? What was their attitude toward 
 the new-comers? One nineteenth-century artist 
 in bronze, in depicting the initial Indians of 
 colonial days, shows us a veteran warrior and a 
 yoimg brave. The attitude is dual, as befits the 
 joy of youth and the sedateness of age. The one 
 rich in impulse has little knowledge; while the 
 other possesses the perspective and vigilance 
 born of long experience. The lad, delighted with 
 the novelty, waves the friendly branch of wel- 
 come and bids the stranger advance. The elder, 
 in austere pride and cold dignity, perhaps with 
 the feeling of a superior as lord of the soil, and 
 certainly that of an equal, awaits the meeting 
 with deliberation tempered with vigilance. 
 
 To these Indians of this northeastern coast 
 there had come already some bitter and discour- 
 aging experiences. The white strangers from 
 over the sea were slave-catchers; for this was 
 the golden age of the trader in human flesh. 
 The social conscience of the world had not yet 
 been awakened. Our Anglo-Saxon fathers were 
 not the least sinners in this cruelty of man to 
 man. In our language the very name for a 
 Russian — that of Slav, or Slave — reveals the 
 habits of our ancestors. For centuries even gov- 
 ernments, notably that of the British, made the 
 
 [ 253 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 basis of their treaty-making and diplomacy the 
 advantages to be gained in the slave trade. In 
 the original draft of the American Declaration 
 of Independence Jefferson had inserted a clause 
 indicting the King of England as a slave-catcher. 
 In the debate by Congress this was stricken 
 out, it being nearly a century ahead of the time 
 when the conscience, first of England and then 
 of America, awoke in protest against what John 
 Wesley branded as the "sum of all villainies." 
 
 It was not, therefore, to be expected that 
 these coast Indians should joyfully welcome, 
 with inviting gestures, open arms, and smiling 
 faces, a company of men of whom they knew 
 nothing and who came with arms in their hands. 
 To them, at first, the advent of the Mayflower 
 company seemed what might be merely a fresh 
 invasion of slave-catchers, cheats in trade, or 
 ruthless occupiers of land which the natives 
 may have held sacred, as containing the graves 
 of their fathers. 
 
 Happily for the Pilgrim party there were a 
 few natives who had had pleasant experiences 
 of trans-Atlantic humanity and one, at least, 
 who had even seen the white man's world be- 
 yond the great deep. Among these was Massa- 
 soit, who stands out as a truly noble character. 
 On the other hand, Squanto fell away from his 
 
 [ 254 ]
 
 THE NEW WORLD: AMERICA 
 
 initial reputation, and is seen to have been one 
 of the first great American grafters, trying to 
 profit selfishly at the expense of both white and 
 red men. Yet he repented and prayed that he 
 might go to the White Man's Heaven. 
 
 Nor need we blame these men from oversea, 
 of Puritan mould and unquailing courage, for 
 severity, at times, in their dealings with bad 
 Indians. It seems to be but the plain truth that 
 the Pilgrims, in their whole policy, were more 
 sinned against than sinning; for what dangers 
 and troubles they had with the natives fell to 
 them rather from the native intestine quarrels, 
 jealousies, and cruel ambitions — ever rampant 
 in savage life — ■ than from their own actions. 
 For the most part, the Pilgrim policy and ac- 
 tions show creditably their determination to do 
 justice and love mercy. 
 
 Indian heraldry and sign language, together 
 with tribal and family organization, their social 
 customs, superstitions, religion, and the mind 
 of the Indian, are well worthy of study — even 
 for the testing of our own ideals. It is certain 
 that the red man was in progressive evolution, 
 and that the white man at first interrupted 
 and hindered this development. Happily in our 
 time this is changed. 
 
 In one notable instance both parties under- 
 
 [255]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 stood each other without a word spoken or any 
 documents written with pen and ink. Alutual 
 sight and insight wrought peace. When hos- 
 tile savages sent their sign of war, a bundle 
 of arrows wrapped in a rattlesnake's skin, the 
 Pilgrim Governor returned the symbol stuffed 
 with powder and ball. The reading and under- 
 standing of both messages were instant. 
 
 Nevertheless, one may well ask the question 
 implied in Pastor Robinson's letter of 1621 — 
 who fired the first hostile shot on New England 
 soil.^ Why does not Massachusetts, like New 
 York, own a treasury of many wampum belts, 
 significant of treaties of peace and of mutual 
 agreement between red and white men? Why 
 no "Covenant of Corlaer".^ Why no memories 
 of a just man's name enshrined in Indian speech 
 and tradition as is that of Arendt Van Curler — 
 who was born in Nijkerk in the year of the 
 Pilgrims' voyage — and still applied as a title 
 to the British king.'* Why no pictured wam- 
 pum belt, like that showing William Penn and 
 a brother Indian hand in hand.'' Both were 
 founders of a peace policy with their red neigh- 
 bors. Why, unprovoked, did the Indians let fly 
 their arrows at the Pilgrim explorers ^ Why was 
 there a "first encounter" and an initial volley 
 from the white men of the Mayflower, against 
 
 [256]
 
 THE NEW WORLD: AMERICA 
 
 the ancient inhabitants of the soil? The new- 
 comers were trespassing on the aboriginal do- 
 main, which, however, they thought belonged 
 by right to "Christians." They recognized the 
 European doctrine of land tenure in pagan 
 regions, which was first taught by the Holy 
 See, that "the heathen" were the rightful in- 
 heritance of the "saints." The pope's bull of 
 May 3, 1493, had divided the world between 
 Spain and Portugal. In both papal, Tudor, and 
 Stuart law, it was proclaimed that all savage 
 lands belonged to "Christians." 
 
 No such doctrine of the divine right of Chris- 
 tians to seize the pagan inhabitants was held 
 in the Dutch Republic, or by the settlers of 
 New York or Pennsylvania. In their documents 
 the right of the aborigines to the soil was ex- 
 plicitly recognized, and with them formal trea- 
 ties of peace were at once made, the land being 
 bought from them before permanent occupa- 
 tion by the whites. 
 
 Nevertheless, no such agreements between 
 the red and the white men could have the moral 
 sanction or the binding force of treaties made 
 by men on the same levels of culture. What the 
 Indian meant was to allow the white men to 
 come as guests. The savages knew nothing of 
 transferable property in land, guaranteed by 
 
 [ 257 1
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 signed documents, or of sale and possession in 
 fee simple. They could and did Imagine nothing 
 else than joint occupation. In the Middle Re- 
 gion the first mutual approaches were equally 
 friendly; while In New England the contact of 
 races was one of mutual hostility and of almost 
 permanent misunderstanding. 
 
 Yet it was no fault of the Pilgrims that this 
 was so, and there are two explanations, both 
 valid. 
 
 When Mark Twain told the English that 
 they were " the only modern people mentioned 
 in the Bible," they laughed heartily — that is, 
 some time after they recognized that he was 
 joking. He quoted from the Beatitudes — ■ "The 
 meek shall inherit the earth." Claiming their 
 right to the North American continent, be- 
 cause of Cabot's peep, in the high latitudes, at 
 a small portion of it, the King of England called 
 America, north of Florida, his own and that of 
 his successors, heirs, and assigns. 
 
 The crown parceled out the land in charters 
 granted to various trading companies, very 
 much in the style of Norman feudalism — from 
 the vestiges of which England is not yet wholly 
 free. It was out of these charters that the col- 
 onies grew Into States and the Federal Govern- 
 ment of the United States had its evolution. 
 [ 258 ]
 
 THE NEW WORLD: AMERICA 
 
 Against this theory of land possession and 
 tenure, common to nations of southern Europe 
 and inherited from them, was that of the Dutch. 
 They declared the soil of the new countries to 
 be settled to belong so far to the natives that 
 their claims must be satisfied and titles ex- 
 tinguished before foreign ownership was or 
 could be claimed or colonization be made. 
 Hence in the charter of the Dutch West India 
 Company it was stipulated, not that the settlers 
 might, but that they must, buy the land of the 
 Indians; and this they did. The precedent in 
 North America fixed by the Walloon Governor, 
 Peter Minuit, in his purchase of Manhattan, 
 was the one followed regularly and often in 
 New Netherland, and again by William Penn, 
 who was half Welsh and half Dutch. To this 
 the local records and wampum belts still tes- 
 tify. In New England, not the pretext, but 
 the fundamental reason for the banishment of 
 Roger Williams from Massachusetts to Rhode 
 Island was a political one; namely, he vehe- 
 mently insisted that the English lacked a 
 valid title to the land, which belonged to the 
 Indians, and that the King of England had no 
 just right to the soil either to claim or to give 
 away. 
 
 There is perhaps still another valid reason for 
 
 [ 259 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 the necessity, laid upon the Plymouth men, to 
 shed blood in self-defense. There was, in eastern 
 America, outside of the Iroquois Confederacy, 
 no such political unity that implied moral and 
 personal responsibility laid upon individuals or 
 local bands of offenders who broke the peace. 
 Even the credit of Penn's treaty, "never sworn 
 to and never broken," as Voltaire boasted, was 
 probably due as much to the Iroquois as to the 
 Quakers. The Delawares, or Lenni-Lenape In- 
 dians, as vassals of the mighty Confederacy, 
 were held, under pressure of the Iroquois, to 
 the older and greater "Covenant of Corlaer." 
 Had the same unity of mind and responsibil- 
 ity of action been in working vitality with 
 the Massachusetts Indians, there would, in all 
 probability, have been no "first encounter" 
 with the white men. 
 
 Why, from the Indian's point of view, was a 
 flight of arrows their first greeting to men of 
 such noble character as the Pilgrims .f* They 
 came, not only as friends, but were of such 
 scrupulous honesty as to wish to pay even for 
 the corn found in the land. 
 
 It was no fault of the Mayflower men that 
 they were first attacked. We shall see how it 
 happened.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 CAPTAIN MILES STANDISH AND HIS LITTLE 
 ARMY 
 
 The word and name "Miles" means a soldier, 
 and the Pilgrim captain and hero had not only 
 physical valor, but what many a dashing war- 
 rior lacks • — moral courage. 
 
 Of the personal history of Standish (1584- 
 1656) previous to 1620 little is known. At the 
 end of Bell Alley, in Leyden, in which many of 
 the Pilgrim people lived with their pastor, and 
 the " church " — which, like those churches men- 
 tioned in the New Testament, was not a build- 
 ing of any kind, but a company of souls in, or 
 out of, a house — there was a "commandery" 
 or barracks, in which the British auxiliaries, 
 or "help troops," were quartered. Here, most 
 probably, both the Separatists and the men 
 who earned the king's or the queen's shilling 
 met and got acquainted with each other. Pas- 
 tor Robinson evidently knew Standish well. In 
 his letter to Bradford, dated December 19, 1623, 
 he mourns that any Indians were killed by his 
 people. "How happy a thing it had been if you 
 had converted some before you had killed any." 
 
 [261 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 Robinson lived in a country where prison 
 reform had already begun. He wrote suggest- 
 ing "the punishments to a few and the fear to 
 many." Then he adds, summing up the char- 
 acter of Standish, "Consider the disposition of 
 your captain, whom I love and am persuaded 
 the Lord in great mercy and for great good hath 
 sent you him, if you use him aright. He is a 
 man humble and meek amongst you and to- 
 ward all in ordinary course." 
 
 A splendid commendation surely! Robinson 
 had no anxiety about Standish, that he would 
 be cruel or bloodthirsty, but he feared that 
 weaker men might unjustly kill and then justify 
 themselves from the example set before them 
 by the captain, but misunderstood. 
 
 While on board the ship and pressed by 
 Captain Jones and the crew, as Bradford sev- 
 eral times mentions, to get off as soon as pos- 
 sible, and settle down — a party "tendered 
 themselves" to explore the land for a place of 
 settlement. Thinking that a river was in sight, 
 sixteen well-armed men, under Standish, faced 
 the possible dangers of exploration and set off 
 along the beach on the 15 th of November. Soon 
 they saw five or six human beings and a dog 
 approaching. These at once ran into the woods. 
 "The English followed them, partly to see if 
 [ 262 ]
 
 STANDISH AND HIS LITTLE ARMY 
 
 they could speake with them and partly to 
 discover if there might not be more of them 
 lying in ambush." The Indians continued to 
 retreat and the whites followed the trail left in 
 the sand. Darkness coming on, the squad, after 
 posting sentinels, went into camp for the night, 
 during which nothing happened. 
 
 In the explorations continued next morning, 
 they lighted upon a pond of fresh water. Here 
 they took their first American drink. They 
 found some cleared cornfields, in stubble, be- 
 sides the remnants of a habitation, with a 
 kettle and sawed plank. Their first sight of 
 maize or Indian corn gave them a surprise, as 
 they noted several colors upon the cob. They 
 could not decide fully as to the geography of 
 the place; but, fearing lest their families should 
 worry over their absence, they returned to the 
 ship, having found no real river or place to 
 settle upon. Possibly the children at this time 
 made their initial acquaintance with pop-corn. 
 
 The shallop having been repaired, the second 
 exploration was made in her and on the water. 
 This time, made cautious lest the Indians seen 
 should have given the alarm and come upon 
 them in numbers, thirty men went on the ven- 
 ture. It was soon made clear that there was no 
 ship harbor, but they found hoes and Indian 
 
 1 263]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 huts, with plenty of corn and beans. These 
 they brought away, for which six months later 
 they made payment. 
 
 This little voyage proved to be their salva- 
 tion from famine, and perhaps from the star- 
 vation which impended some months later; for 
 the corn found served them for seed and a new 
 crop in the spring. Thus, their first boat voyage 
 in American waters yielded an even balance of 
 disappointment and blessing. 
 
 Foul weather followed, for they were now in 
 a bleak land that promised speedily to weed 
 out the weak and spare only the strong. Start- 
 ing out again, on December 6, "intending to 
 circulate that deep bay of Cape Cod," they 
 took ten principal men and some sailors. The 
 ground was frozen hard and white with snow, 
 and the salt spray, freezing on their coats, 
 glazed them with ice. Arriving at the bottom 
 of the bay by dark, they saw ten or twelve 
 Indians busy at something. The shores being 
 "so full of flats" they had hard work to find a 
 landing-place. They built a barricade of logs 
 and boughs. Then posting a sentinel, they lay 
 down to rest, tired enough. The light of the 
 Indian fires was visible in the distance. 
 
 When morning came they divided into two 
 parties for the coast and the woods. They 
 
 [264]
 
 STANDISH AND HIS LITTLE ARMY 
 
 lighted upon the Indian camp of the night be- 
 fore, at which the red men had cut up a small 
 whale or grampus. On the beach lay also two 
 carcasses blown by the strong wind on to the 
 flats. No acceptable place for a town could be 
 found, and not till night did the two parties 
 meet. 
 
 This time a stronger barricade was built, 
 to the height of a man, the space being en- 
 closed on three sides in order to guard against 
 being surrounded by the savages. A fire was 
 made in the middle. Then they lay down for 
 rest, not knowing that at daylight there would 
 be a battle between men still in the stone age 
 and those of the iron age. 
 
 At midnight the watcher called out, "Arm! 
 Arm!" A hideous cry thought to be that of 
 wolves, but really an Indian war-whoop, was 
 heard. Standing to their guns they made ready, 
 but nothing happened. A couple of muskets, 
 promptly shot oif, possibly saved them from a 
 rush of Indians. So, wrapping their loaded 
 flintlocks with their coats, to keep their powder 
 dry, they rested until 5 a.m. Then, after prayer, 
 and while breakfast was being got ready, some 
 went to the shore. Finding the tide not suffi- 
 ciently high they came back for food. 
 
 Suddenly the same cry heard during the 
 
 f. 26s ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS ' 
 
 darkness, but with variant note, now rang in 
 their ears. One of the men nearest the woods 
 came flying into camp, shouting, "Men, In- 
 dians! Indians!" In a moment arrows flew all 
 around them. Without panic, after two guns 
 fired, Standish posted a couple of his men at 
 the entrance, ordering them not to shoot until 
 they had taken good aim. Some had run down 
 to the beach to get their guns. The others, 
 quickly donning their armor, and seeing that 
 the Indians were "wheeling about them," 
 grasped their cutlasses and were ready to rush 
 out and charge the foe. Securing their firearms 
 the men from the boat let fly at the red men, 
 who all ran, except one bold fellow, who stood 
 behind a tree. At short range he shot three 
 arrows. He stood his ground while three bullets 
 from excited men failed to hit him. At last, 
 after deliberate aim taken by a musketeer, one 
 ball came so close as to knock the bark and 
 splinters about his ears. Then, after a defiant 
 war-whoop, he fled. Most of the white men 
 started in pursuit, running a quarter of a mile 
 or so and firing two or three shots. Returning, 
 some of them found their coats, which had 
 been hung up, pierced with shafts, but no man 
 had been hit. Thereupon they gave thanks and 
 praise to God. Gathering up some of the arrows 
 [ 266 ]
 
 STANDISH AND HIS LITTLE ARMY 
 
 they sent them later to England as trophies 
 and curiosities. 
 
 Embarking once more and following the ad- 
 vice of their pilot, Coppin, they pointed the 
 prow of the shallop to the promised harbor. A 
 terrible storm arose which broke their rudder 
 and shivered their mast into three pieces. By 
 hard rowing and with intrepid spirit, though 
 barely escaping shipwreck and missing the 
 expected harbor, they finally got ashore on 
 an island (Clark's) and camped out, enjoying 
 mightily a big fire, while happy to be free from 
 Indians. 
 
 During the night the wind changed and it 
 froze hard, but the next day, Saturday, was 
 sunshiny. So they dried their clothes, put their 
 guns in order, and gave thanks to God. They 
 kept Sabbath conscientiously. It is this episode 
 that is illustrated in the granite, in high-relief, 
 in the facade of the Congregational House on 
 Beacon Street in Boston. The work was done by 
 a Spaniard during our war with Spain in 1898. 
 
 On Monday they were glad to find a har- 
 bor fit for shipping, with Indian cornfields and 
 fresh water in running brooks near by. Re- 
 turning to the Mayflower they told the good 
 news and all were happy at the thought of 
 soon living under a roof. 
 
 [267]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 During December 15 and 16 the ship beat 
 about and reached the desired haven. On the 
 25th, or Christmas Day, they "began to erect 
 the first house for common use to receive them 
 and their goods." Thus of necessity they re- 
 verted to the ancient plan of all living under 
 one roof, in a "house," without separate apart- 
 ments save as those were made by dividing 
 off the space by means of temporary curtains. 
 The story of the evolution of the modern dwell- 
 ing-house is one of fascinating interest. In the 
 case of the Pilgrims separate homes were to 
 come later, on Leyden Street, the first and 
 oldest in New England, named long afterwards. 
 
 Continuing the military history we note that 
 when the common house had been built it was 
 made at once a fort, a church, and a home. 
 Four cannon were landed and mounted in bat- 
 tery on the roof. These, we may be sure, had a 
 powerful moral effect upon the hostile Indians 
 who saw or heard the big guns fired. On Febru- 
 ary 27, 1 62 1, a military company was formed, 
 with officers, drummers, trumpeters, etc., and 
 Standish was given full military authority. 
 
 Not all the men liked discipline. One of the 
 
 captain's first acts was to function as provost 
 
 or chief of police. The rufiian Billlngton, besides 
 
 refusing to obey orders, had given impudence to 
 
 [ 268 ]
 
 STANDISH AND HIS LITTLE ARMY 
 
 his superior officer. So the captain had the mu- 
 tineer tied by the neck and heels and put in the 
 guardhouse for twenty-four hours. 
 
 A more agreeable task fell to Standish when 
 Massasolt, with twenty warriors, leaving their 
 knives, bows, and arrows behind them, entered 
 the settlement. The Governor and some men in 
 armor, with the captain, drummers, and trump- 
 eters, met their red brothers and a treaty of 
 peace was made, with due presents, potations, 
 and eatables. 
 
 On another occasion Standish was sent to 
 accomplish what is now often done by tele- 
 graph or telephone and the local police; that is, 
 to catch a thief. An Indian had stolen some 
 beads and a pair of scissors from the trading 
 shallop while it was lying in a creek. Standish 
 served notice on Aspinet, the chief, that he 
 must deliver up either the goods or the thief. 
 Then, refusing all gifts or courtesies, he went 
 away. The sachem, after flogging the culprit, 
 and making the women bake bread for the crew 
 of the boat, came to Plymouth next day to 
 make apologies. This he did in such form, by 
 kneeling and licking the hands of the great 
 white chief, as to produce more merriment than 
 solemnity. 
 
 Bastions and gateways were added to the fort 
 
 [269]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 in due time and the soldiers were trained to act 
 as a fire company. Of tliis they had need, profit- 
 ing by a recent experience of danger. Looking 
 from the ship, still in the harbor, the sailors 
 thought the Indians had made an attack and 
 set fire to the common house. It proved, how- 
 ever, to be only a blaze caused by a spark from 
 the hearth fire which had kindled the thatch on 
 the roof. Carver and Bradford had to rise from 
 their sick beds to put out the flames and thus 
 save the building from explosion and total loss. 
 
 In mid-winter, when the dangers of starva- 
 tion, like a gaunt wolf, faced them, Standish 
 took boat to Barnstable Harbor. There, ever 
 vigilant, he overawed all treachery and, in 
 trade, gained the needed corn. 
 
 After Winslow had been kind to Massasoit, 
 visiting and helping him In his sickness, the 
 sachem, in gratitude, revealed a plot of some of 
 his bad neighbors to attack and kill all the Ply- 
 mouth people. The aborigines hoped thus to 
 wipe out the settlement of the aliens, as had 
 been more than once done in other places, from 
 Raleigh's time to theirs. After a council of war 
 the captain and eight of his bravest men were 
 sent to the wigwam of the conspirators. In a 
 hand-to-hand fight seven Indians were slain, 
 and one was afterwards hanged. 
 [ 270 ]
 
 STANDISH AND HIS LITTLE ARMY 
 
 According to the custom of ages, in Europe 
 and Asia, these men of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury ''made an example." In the old countries 
 they — • that is, kings and judges — even dug 
 up corpses to cut off and stick up the heads. 
 They even hanged coffins with chains, in the 
 barbarous savagery of revenge. The head of the 
 ringleader, Wituwamut, was impaled on one of 
 the palisades of the Plymouth fort. These were 
 the days when, not the reformation of crimi- 
 nals, but only their punishment, was sought. 
 
 At another time, on the outside of the main 
 gate, according to the custom followed as a 
 deterrent in the old countries, the skull of a bad 
 Indian, duly executed, was nailed and remained 
 fixed for a long time. A pair of wrens made their 
 nest where a man's brains had been, using the 
 spine-hole as entrance and exit and seemed 
 happy enough. How the children must have 
 clapped their hands at this odd bird-box! 
 
 Standish figured in other adventures, less 
 romantic or amusing. One of these was a voy- 
 age to England on business for the Pilgrims. 
 Another was a naval expedition to Penobscot, 
 in which the two colonies "Old" and "New" 
 joined. A Frenchman had carried things with a 
 high hand and confiscated a trading station. 
 Again, in 1645, the captain made ready to lead 
 
 [ 271 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 a company of soldiers in the expedition against 
 hostile Indians, which was under the authority 
 of the New England Confederation. Standish 
 thus, in his lifetime, served under no fewer than 
 five sovereignties. 
 
 In later years, from 163 1, he, like Brewster, 
 made his home at Duxbury, where to-day stand 
 his house and an imposing memorial shaft 
 reared by his descendants and admirers. He was 
 one of the most important personages in the 
 seaside republic. His sword is said to be In- 
 cised with two inscriptions, one in Cuiic, and 
 the other with Arabic characters, which is in the 
 museum at Plymouth. It may have been forged 
 before the Christian era, and possibly used in 
 the crusades. Was it captured first from a Sara- 
 cen or a Moor, and again in the Netherlands 
 from some Spaniard, whose ancestor helped to 
 expel the Africans? In 1881 an Arabic scholar 
 professed to read the mediaeval Inscription 
 thus: "With peace God rules His creatures and 
 with the judgment of His arm He troubles the 
 might of the wicked." This seems to be the 
 Oriental view of the Divine; while the motto of 
 Massachusetts may be cited as the human view 
 of the case. 
 
 It verges on the ridiculous to picture Miles 
 Standish as either a typical Pilgrim or a Puri- 
 [ 272 ]
 
 STANDISH AND HIS LITTLE ARMY 
 
 tan, as does Lowell; while Longfellow's sketch 
 is pretty poetry, but not, in detail, historic fact. 
 He was a brave soldier, and, like Ulysses Grant, 
 will be remembered chiefly in this line of service 
 and duty. Whatever may have been his deepest 
 convictions, or at what spiritual fountains he 
 fed his soul, his conscience was clear and his sin- 
 cerity genuine. Right well does he deserve the 
 stately memorial shaft and the bronze statue 
 which, at Duxbury, serve to remind us of a true 
 hero and a loyal soul. 
 
 Seen in perspective there was no case In 
 which Captain Standish misused his power as 
 a military man. In every Instance he and his 
 force obeyed the orders of the civil magistrate. 
 The Pilgrim Republic gave the world a noble 
 example of self-government, of the people, for 
 the people, and by the people. This discipline 
 and subordination of the citizen soldiers to law 
 and order became the model for a nation.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 THE FIRST WINTER AND THE GREAT SICKNESS 
 
 So long as the people called Pilgrims followed 
 the ordinary routine of life on land, whether in 
 the north country of England or in the Nether- 
 lands, they enjoyed at least ordinarily good 
 health. When, however, they were transferred 
 to crowded quarters on a small ship, with 
 wretched accommodations, poor food, bad ven- 
 tilation, and few or no comforts, the seeds of 
 disease, even before they landed, were sown in 
 their bodies. What can now, in the way of 
 nourishment and safeguard, be foreseen and 
 furnished for a long ocean voyage, was not then 
 known. Cruises of three years or more, like 
 those of Nordenskjold, who found the north- 
 east passage to Japan, or of Amundsen, who 
 achieved the northwestern water path from the 
 Atlantic to the Pacific, can be taken without 
 fear of scurvy — ■ the ancient scourge of the 
 sailor. Now seamen long Imprisoned, even in 
 icy seas, come out in splendid health, what- 
 ever be the limit of time or space. Our own 
 Schley-Greely expedition, and Peary's triumph 
 at the North Pole, show of what the human 
 
 [ 274 ]
 
 THE FIRST WINTER 
 
 constitution is capable when the body is well 
 nourished. 
 
 Of old, naval enterprises were often ruined 
 and whole fleets frequently prostrated with the 
 scurvy. Within our time garden vegetables, es- 
 pecially the onion, with the citric fruits, have 
 almost wholly conquered this dread disease. In 
 some navies only the very old surgeons have 
 seen a case. Added to this is the knowledge of 
 preventive medicine that saves annually mil- 
 lions of lives and which has enabled man to con- 
 quer climates. Still further, the "leech-craft," 
 that reveals the power of insects as carriers of 
 infection, has armed the white man who must 
 live in the hot countries against tropical dis- 
 eases. What was for the individual as well as in 
 epidemics formerly classed as "mysterious" or 
 "the act of God" has been brought into the 
 light of science. "The pestilence that walketh 
 in darkness" is still with us, but we can arm 
 against its coming and shorten its stay among 
 us. 
 
 At home, or in Holland, these people fol- 
 lowed a regimen that, in its working in daily life, 
 is better than the whole apparatus of mod- 
 ern cure, with its serums, anaesthetics, tonics, 
 and sedatives, with the various and villainous 
 patent medicines or nostrums that sell chiefly 
 
 [ 275 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 because of lying advertisements. Better than 
 all these put together, with also the array of 
 hospitals, trained nurses, and the droves of 
 young men and women graduated from our 
 medical schools and equipped with the last new 
 theories — whether "still in the air" or thor- 
 oughly tested — the devices and the much- 
 heralded methods of therapeutics and surgery, 
 was and is a correct method of life. Theories 
 of medicine change with every generation; this, 
 never. Most of these modern things, excellent 
 though they be, are only able to cure. Gospel 
 precepts and common sense do not and did not 
 wait for a cure. They anticipated it. That rule 
 was and is prevention through cleanliness, plain 
 food, good sleep, purity of life, abstemiousness, 
 exercise, fasting, and whatever fortifies the con- 
 stitution against the assaults of disease from 
 within or from without. While warding oif or 
 neutralizing infection through external influ- 
 ences, right living also keeps the inner machin- 
 ery of body and mind in perfect condition 
 yielding a daily delight in life. Of the house we 
 live in we ought to be InteUIgent tenants. 
 
 With the Pilgrim mothers and maidens no 
 high heels on th.eir shoes tilted the bodily frame 
 out of the perpendicular, producing round 
 shoulders and in later life mysterious nervous 
 
 12761
 
 THE FIRST WINTER 
 
 and other disorders which are usually charged 
 to "Divine Providence." No gluttony, excess 
 of flesh food, luxury of pastry, confectionery, 
 sweet drinks, or other fat-producing excess of 
 nourishment spoiled the lovely figures of the 
 women or buried the normal female outlines 
 and proportions In masses of unlovely adipose. 
 As well as Boerhave of Leyden, or any professor 
 of modern science, they knew that "disease 
 enters by the mouth," and that women, prob- 
 ably as often as men, "dig their graves with 
 their teeth." The sum of the wisdom of Boer- 
 have, whose fame extended from China to Eng- 
 land, was condensed in his three rules, "Keep 
 the feet warm, the head cool, and the bowels 
 regular." 
 
 Nor is It at all likely that, since Queen Eliza- 
 beth had a narrow waist — which every Imitat- 
 ing courtier and dandy, whether male or fe- 
 male, tried, with more or less success, to imitate, 
 using the stays and lacings of the period — 
 many of the Puritan women followed that very 
 high and very bad example. Their poverty was 
 a blessing, even as their simple life was an ideal, 
 and they had daily an amount of exercise suffi- 
 cient for the maintenance of health. Their dress 
 was neat, wholesome, and attractive, while se- 
 curing good circulation and digestion. Except 
 
 [ 277 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 mention of hard and prolonged labors for a live- 
 lihood, we have in Bradford's History no refer- 
 ence to disease among them, while in their vari- 
 ous places of sojourn or even during their minor 
 voyages. 
 
 How changed was all this during the first two 
 months of their settling in America is recorded 
 by Bradford with a pathos born of experience. 
 Theirs was a chronicle of death rather than of 
 life. We read of no births, but of over fifty 
 deaths, leaving but one half of the company 
 alive. In Bradford's doleful and varied vocabu- 
 lary we read of the "infection," "the sickness," 
 and the "visitation," which fell alike on those 
 afloat and those on shore, "so as almost half of 
 their [ship's] company died before they went 
 away." Pale death, as the Roman poet pic- 
 tured, with equal footstep knocked at cabin 
 door and at the common house on land. 
 
 Is that the reason why "Horace" is such a 
 favorite name in New England families.'' 
 
 A recent writer tells us that, whereas the bot- 
 tom of the modern sea, from 1819 to 191 9, be- 
 tween the two continents facing the Atlantic, 
 might be traced by the ashes of the coal burned 
 in the furnaces — and soon to give way to cin- 
 derless oil fuel, that feeds the motors of steam- 
 ship or aeroplane — before this era of steam the 
 [ 278 ]
 
 THE GREAT SICKNESS 
 
 track under the waves, from 1600 to 1800, was 
 made by human bones. On the contrary, the 
 scores of burials of the Mayflower's crew and 
 passengers, whether sHd from the plank into 
 the deep or carried from the sick house, were 
 almost every one, indeed all except two, at the 
 end of the voyage. 
 
 Why and how? Such an episode of fatality 
 seems incredible to-day; but let us remember: 
 
 1. Their crowded quarters. Many an Erie 
 Canal boat is larger in cargo space than was 
 the Mayflower, of only 180 tons; which car- 
 ried the crew, 102 passengers, and stores and 
 food for both the outgoing and the return 
 voyage. 
 
 2. Of the Leyden party a majority had been 
 afloat over four months. Scurvy, or a tendency 
 to this disease, must have been prevalent. 
 
 3. Their limited accommodations meant 
 crowding beyond the possibilities of comfort, 
 to say nothing of health. 
 
 4. Their bill of fare was very limited and 
 their monotonous diet tended to scurvy. There 
 were no anti-scorbutic rations; nor, except 
 when at home on land, in practice of common 
 sense and the guidance and control of their 
 palates did they have a scientific conception of 
 the value of vegetables as preventives. Meal, 
 
 [ 279 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 salt meat, and beer made the routine, served 
 probably twice a day. 
 
 5. Excepting in a general way the dangers 
 from infection of the well by the sick, through 
 sneezing, coughing, expectoration, and the kiss- 
 ing, even of babies by their mothers, were not 
 known or suspected. 
 
 6. Although not an exceptionally cold winter 
 the lack of good boats fitted for landing facili- 
 ties and the necessity of the men, and possibly, 
 at times, the women and children, of wading 
 part of the way ashore in the icy waters, amid 
 sleet and spray, was the cause of their colds and 
 pulmonary troubles. Several times before they 
 landed the snow, several inches deep, had to be 
 shoveled from the ship's decks. 
 
 7. Before their separate dwellings could be 
 built they were huddled together in the one 
 common house. In the cold winter the atmos- 
 phere must have become charged with germs. 
 All the elements of infection were concentrated 
 for vigorous efficiency. 
 
 Every detail considered, it is no strange 
 thing that, when the flowers appeared on the 
 earth and the time of the singing of birds had 
 come, only one half of the party were able to 
 greet the fresh glories of nature in the long 
 bright days that followed the vernal equinox. 
 [ 280 ]
 
 THE GREAT SICKNESS 
 
 The close connection, now demonstrated, be- 
 tween cleanliness and health and between filth 
 and disease — ■ perhaps we might add between 
 routine and unsuspected impurities in food and 
 air — 'Was not as yet discovered. Preventive 
 medicine was next to unknown. The sick per- 
 son was expected to "take something." Quacks 
 and nostrums abounded then almost as much as 
 now when a gullible public is constantly fooled 
 by advertisements, and more people die yearly 
 of patent medicines than are killed in war. 
 
 If the health of the Pilgrims suffered from 
 lack of food there was at least one strong rea- 
 son. The English had not yet habitually taken 
 to supplying their wants out of the sea. When 
 they prayed, "Give us this day our daily bread," 
 they meant only grain and flesh. Even the Bible 
 word "meat" means food of any sort, and the 
 English say "butcher's meat" when they refer 
 to steaks and chops. While the Dutch and 
 Scotch had long before found the harvests in 
 the sea, the English held aloof and talked about 
 "the contemptible trade of fish." Captain John 
 Smith, In his tract on fishing, urged his coun- 
 trymen to imitate the Netherlanders and make 
 England rich. We read of French, Dutch, and 
 Scotch vessels coming to fish statedly on the 
 American coast before 1620, but it was only 
 [ 281 J
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 after the Mayflower's initial vdyage that the 
 English went into the fishing business on the 
 American coast. Only by degrees did the suc- 
 cess of the English come anywhere near that 
 of the Dutch in drawing wealth out of the ex- 
 haustless mines of the ocean and turning " the 
 abundance of the seas" to human sustenance. 
 The reputation of the Cape Cod and Gloucester 
 fishermen in the American north, the enterprise 
 of the whalers of New Bedford in the seas of 
 Asia, and the creation of a splendid preparatory 
 school for the United States Navy, as well as 
 of explorers and world-wide navigators, adding 
 untold wealth and annals of valor and fame to 
 our Nation, form a later story. 
 
 The first flower noticed by the Pilgrims in 
 their new home came to them as the harbinger 
 of spring and as nature's welcome. In a sense it 
 was a cheering symbol of their own life and 
 experience. Most probably the maidens who 
 first saw and gathered this dainty flower — a 
 thought of God — ■ recognized in its beauty and 
 perfume the emblem of their own difficulties and 
 triumphs. Down below the leaves of the dead 
 past this exquisite flower pushes its way up- 
 ward, and in the very face of the frost it opens 
 its petals. In an atmosphere chilly and discour- 
 aging it blooms in glory. 
 
 [ 282 ]
 
 
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 ■W,
 
 THE GREAT SICKNESS 
 
 So the Pilgrim movement in the secrecy of 
 dark repression, but rooted in the ages of faith, 
 began its life. Under the icy ban of king and 
 prelate it made its growth to strength and 
 beauty. Despite the chilly climate of disap- 
 proval and opposition it rose above all obstacles, 
 to become a thing of glory, perfuming the at- 
 mosphere around it. Precious is the symbol. 
 Eternal be its charm.
 
 CHAPTER XXW 
 
 THE PILGRIM REPUBLIC 
 
 Whole volumes have been written In descrip- 
 tion of the Pilgrim Republic. A rich library of 
 fiction and poetry portrays the life of the Pil- 
 grims, both real and imaginary. It is our pur- 
 pose only to glance at the growth of the enter- 
 prise as these pioneers turned their ideals into 
 realities. How far were they successful ? 
 
 The Pilgrims soon won self-support and eco- 
 nomic success. This impressed Europe because 
 it was quickly visible. It encouraged others to 
 dare and to do. It made enterprises of coloni- 
 zation seem reasonable. Nothing succeeds like 
 success. 
 
 Yet, as seen in the perspective of centuries, 
 the Pilgrim triumph was even greater, spiritu- 
 ally. The Pilgrims opened a new chapter in 
 Christianity and gave the precedent for the dis- 
 tinctive character of American religion as con- 
 trasted with that of Europe from which it dif- 
 fers; but in what.f* 
 
 The best answer is given in the words of 
 Philip Schaff : 
 
 "It is a free church in a free state, or a self- 
 [284]
 
 THE PILGRIM REPUBLIC 
 
 supporting and self-governing Christianity in 
 independent but friendly relation to the civil 
 government." 
 
 So it happened that the first vivid pen-picture 
 of the Pilgrims at Plymouth was of them at 
 worship, and by a Belgian. 
 
 Visitors came early to the seaside republic 
 begun in 1620 on the sandy shores of Massa- 
 chusetts. These have each left us their ac- 
 counts, in languages other than English, of a 
 pleasurable reception. Governor Peter Minu it, 
 himself a Walloon of Manhattan and New 
 Belgium, sent his secretary, a Belgian, Isaac de 
 Rasieres, who was also a church officer and 
 elder, to bear friendly greetings to Plymouth. 
 ■ Since dangers near at hand seemed more 
 dreadful than those from Dunkirk, Bradford's 
 previous warning to the prospective Manhat- 
 tan visitors was directed against the numerous 
 pirates and kidnapers on the American coast. 
 These man-stealers made no distinction of 
 black or white in selling slaves in Virginia or 
 the West Indies. It was probably in accordance 
 with such good advice that the Walloon envoy 
 made his journey overland. He trusted his life 
 to the native savages more willingly than to 
 such "Christians" as then made the Atlantic 
 coast a terror, thus taking less risk. 
 
 [285]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 To be captured and chained for life to the 
 oar on a Spanish or a French galley, or to faint 
 under the hot sun or the lash, in the tobacco 
 country, farther south, what odds? Even in 
 1664, at the British conquest of New Nether- 
 land, Plockhoy's socialistic Christian colony on 
 the Delaware was ruthlessly destroyed by Sir 
 Edwin Carr, and the white men sold into slav- 
 ery in Virginia. Until the early nineteenth cen- 
 tury both governments and private persons 
 competed furiously with each other to catch 
 and sell slaves and amass wealth by trading in 
 human flesh. As late as 1772 John Wesley an- 
 gered "practical politicians" by branding this 
 traflic as "the sum of all villainies." 
 
 The correspondence from both Plymouth and 
 Manhattan was in Dutch; Bradford, Winslow, 
 and others being fluent in the use of this noble 
 language of freedom. Bradford adds that the 
 Dutch were "full of complimental titles." 
 
 This was true. The Dutch republicans be- 
 lieved that any man, if worthy, ought to be 
 saluted with a politeness equal to that used in 
 dealing with lords and ladies, and, especially, if 
 the men thus honored were allies. Their States- 
 General, or Congress, was a body of "Their 
 High Mightinesses," and they demanded and 
 they received the same respect as did kings. 
 [ 286 ]
 
 THE PILGRIM REPUBLIC 
 
 They were like us Americans, who expect our 
 presidents or ex-presidents, when in Europe 
 — Fillmore being the first — to be accorded the 
 same honors as are paid to crowned heads. 
 
 The mutual salutations of March 9, 1627, 
 were both to their fellow Christians and to 
 their comrades in arms in the cause of freedom 
 against autocracy, even against that King of 
 Spain who, Bradford said, sought nothing less 
 than to "obtain and possess his pretended mon- 
 archy over all Christendom." 
 
 There was a reason why the Dutch addressed 
 the Pilgrims as brave men worthy of noblemen's 
 titles, for they honored those with character, 
 but without titles, equally with those possess- 
 ing patents of nobility. They did no more to the 
 Plymouth people than they were accustomed to 
 do to and for themselves. 
 
 Governor Bradford's answer, in Dutch, was 
 couched in an equally friendly spirit. A trade 
 began that continued with mutual benefit dur- 
 ing several years, until the competition of Vir- 
 ginia, amounting almost to a monopoly, drew 
 off the business. Bradford's reference to the 
 recently renewed alliance of the two nations — 
 for the eighty years' war of independence was 
 to continue until 1648 — and the details of 
 trade concerning beaver and other skins, to- 
 [287 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 bacco, fish, corn, and various commodities, are 
 interesting, but most of all are these words, 
 which no American or any descendant of the 
 Pilgrims ought ever to forget: "Now, forasmuch 
 as this is sufficiente to unite us togeather in love 
 and good neighbourhood, in all our dealings, 
 yet are many of us further obliged, by the good 
 and curteous entreaty which we have found in 
 your countrie; haveing lived ther many years, 
 with freedome, and good contente, as also 
 many of our freinds doe to this day; for which 
 we, and our children after us, are bound to be 
 thankfull to your Nation, and shall never for- 
 gett y^ same, but shall hartily desire your good 
 & prosperity, as our owne, for ever." 
 
 A large part of the permanent prosperity of 
 the Pilgrims came from their later trade in the 
 Connecticut River Valley, which the Dutch, 
 who called it the Fresh River, had early made 
 known to them. "They [the Dutch] seeing 
 them [the Pilgrims] seated in a barren quarter, 
 told them of a river called by them the Fresh 
 River, which they often commended unto them 
 for a good place, both for plantation and trade, 
 and wished them to make use of it; but their 
 hands being full, they let them pass." After- 
 wards Indians induced them to come and they 
 went. 
 
 [ 288 ]
 
 THE PILGRIM REPUBLIC 
 
 In this era the Dutch led the world In the 
 enterprises of trade, commercial progress, and 
 the mechanism of finance. Not until 1694 were 
 there banks in England, though these had been 
 established in Holland. Hitherto the Pilgrims, 
 being without coin, had done all their "truck- 
 ing " for furs, fish, etc., by barter. Now, strange 
 as it seemed, America, and not Europe, furnished 
 the needed money. In the Iroquois forest re- 
 public, shell money had long been the accepted 
 currency. The settlers in the Hudson and fur- 
 traders in the Mohawk Valley quickly found 
 out this medium of exchange and made use of 
 it. De Rasieres told Bradford about it and the 
 Pilgrim Governor at once took the hint and 
 bought "about fifty pounds worth." At first 
 this new money "stuck," going off slowly, until 
 "the inland people [Indians] knew of it and 
 afterwards they could scarce ever get enough for 
 them for many years together." Wampum gave 
 a wonderful impulse to the economic history of 
 New England. 
 
 On Sundays at Plymouth, as De Rasieres 
 tells us, at beat of drum the men formed in front 
 of Captain Standish's house, each with his gun 
 in hand. 
 
 Then they marched three abreast to the 
 meeting-house, the sergeant leading and the 
 [289]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 eererwachtj or honor guard, following. Next 
 came the three chief men, governor, preacher, 
 and commandant. Like all English military 
 officers, in times old or new, and even to this 
 day — as we see In London on the streets and 
 even on the bronze statue of "Chinese" Gor- 
 don in Trafalgar Square and In Canada — their 
 jaunty captain carried in his hand or under his 
 arm a little cane or " swagger stick." Each adult 
 male, ever vigilant, took his gun Inside the 
 meeting-house, thus Initiating also the custom 
 of sitting at the end of the pew, so as to be 
 ready for an attack, whether by white or red 
 men. 
 
 My friend George H. Boughton, the artist, 
 from the Walloon's description, though with 
 artistic license, has made a spirited picture of 
 this processional over the wintry white ground 
 to divine worship. 
 
 We may now look at another sort of visitors 
 and denizens and see how they were treated 
 In the Pilgrim Republic. 
 
 While those of the Leyden company were 
 people of good stock and handsomely Illus- 
 trated the old saw, "blood will tell," there 
 were In the second generation at Plymouth 
 many strangers, with some disorderly charac- 
 ters and degenerates from among those who 
 [ 290 ]
 
 THE PILGRIM REPUBLIC 
 
 had been of the lot "shuffled in" from London: 
 These persons had Httle of the tolerant spirit 
 of the original company, who were the best of 
 Catholics in the true sense of that noble word. 
 In fact, the real Pilgrims were "sufficiently 
 liberal to tolerate illiberality." With such odd 
 characters as the young man, Roger Williams, 
 of 1630 — by no means the same in spirit as 
 the sedate Governor of Rhode Island in 1660 
 — • and with such clerical scamps as Lyford and 
 the lunatic Rogers, they were patient, forbear- 
 ing, and friendly. Even when convicted of mis- 
 behavior the culprits from among this riffraff 
 of cranks and obnoxious folk were only mildly 
 punished. The original founders of the colony 
 were opposed to the enactment of too severe 
 laws, even against the unruly elements and 
 wild fanatics, who, having come in from abroad, 
 had also lowered the tone of the community. 
 The punishments, which were only occasional, 
 were rather for offenses against decency than 
 for religious opinions. 
 
 In studying a man's life we must judge him, 
 not according to tradition or common report, 
 or because of his reputation, or the acts of a 
 particular day or year, but in the light of the 
 ruling ideas and public opinion of his own age, 
 and also of his time of life as well as of his 
 [ 291 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 whole career. We must know the circumstances 
 which helped to make him either great and 
 noble or petty and contemptible. 
 
 The young Roger Williams whom the Pil- 
 grims knew was a mixture of most disagree- 
 able traits and elements, blended with rare 
 and noble qualities. He was, In fact, a can- 
 tankerous saint, who seemed to have a passion 
 for Insulting the Intelligence and trying the pa- 
 tience of his friends. Years afterwards, with a 
 grand and ripened character, the mellow Chris- 
 tian who ruled Rhode Island won the hearts of 
 the red men and became the prophet of re- 
 ligious freedom, to be honored to the end of 
 time. The Immortal fame of this figure In our 
 colonial history rests not on his early oddities, 
 but on his steadfast character In mature life, 
 when he had forsaken most of the follies of his 
 youth and was pressing on to Ideal manhood. 
 Rhode Island has done well to crown her cap- 
 Itol dome with a golden statue. It Is not of 
 Roger Williams, but of the ideally perfect man, 
 who has reached "the measure of the stature 
 of the fullness of Christ." 
 
 Of sad necessity was the execution of the 
 
 murderer Billington, who was "one of life's 
 
 fools, whom only death would treat as 'the 
 
 equal of other men." It was "In the grave's 
 
 [ 292 ]
 
 THE PILGRIM REPUBLIC 
 
 democracy" that he won his highest honors. 
 He was that sort of a hero which dime novel- 
 ists and cheap picture shows Hke to get hold 
 of, thus stimulating to crime the weak and the 
 degenerate. Bradford's record, exact, save the 
 spelling, as that of the most careful court 
 stenographers of to-day, reveals the story of 
 this first American gunman. "He way-laid a 
 young man, one John New Comin (about a 
 former quarell) and shote him with a gune, 
 whereof he dyed." 
 
 The execution of Billington did not take 
 place until "They used all due means about 
 his trial and took the advice of Mr. Winthrop 
 and other [of] the ablest gentlemen in the Bay 
 of the Massachusetts. . . . [Billington] and some 
 of his had often been punished for miscarriage 
 before." Hubbard tells us that "the murderer 
 expected that, either for want of power to ex- 
 ecute for capital offenses, or for want of people 
 to increase the plantation, he should have his 
 life spared; but justice otherwise determined 
 and rewarded him, the first murderer of his 
 neighbor there with the deserved punishment 
 of death, for a warning to others." In a word, 
 the murderer was a brutal coward as well as a 
 hardened transgressor. 
 
 The Pilgrim Republic adopted many a 
 
 [ 293 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 "laudable custom of Holland," as our National 
 Government did later. One was the early pro- 
 vision made for maimed or crippled soldiers. 
 The first law in favor of pensioning ex-soldiers 
 was passed at Plymouth in 1636. Any "re- 
 turned" or maimed soldier was maintained all 
 the rest of his life at the public expense. Eight 
 years later Virginia also passed a similar law. 
 
 While the survivals from our primeval brute 
 nature persist in human beings, force is neces- 
 sary to secure the enforcement of law. Every 
 good government must have at its call a cer- 
 tain amount of organized power to carry out 
 its mandates. The fact that a small but well- 
 disciplined army existed at Plymouth was the 
 means of restraining wicked men, red and 
 white, all along the coast. This made it easier 
 and safer for the decent people in the ten or a 
 dozen settlements already attempted in New 
 England, and for the Puritans who came later. 
 Among the scoundrels in the "bad lot" that 
 kept augmenting was one Thomas Morton, 
 who made himself a true "lord of misrule," 
 as Bradford calls him. He "maintained (as it 
 were) a school of atheism." Certainly his de- 
 liberate purpose seemed to be to bring back 
 paganism in its most licentious form. He had 
 heard "the call of the wild" and joyfully 
 
 [ 294 ]
 
 THE PILGRIM REPUBLIC 
 
 obeyed It even to beastliness. His headquarters 
 were at Mount Wollaston, which he named 
 "Merry Mount." With Indian squaws and de- 
 generate white men he made this place a hell 
 on earth. Among the settlements where lived 
 respectable people and also weak-minded folk, 
 there was danger of moral infection. To his 
 retreat this cave-man attracted the worst ele- 
 ments in savage and European life — even 
 degenerate savages and "heathenish Chris- 
 tians." 
 
 Here then at its very beginning was a menace 
 to the civilization of New England imperiling all 
 decent social life. Of the real danger of an epi- 
 demic of immorality, there was already a fright- 
 ful example in Canada. The French homes 
 suffered terribly from a moral plague. Hundreds 
 of coureurs de bois, or wood-rangers, deserted 
 their households, wives, children, and the de- 
 cencies of life to dwell in the forests. The re- 
 straints of religion, of propriety, and of industry 
 were thrown off, and these men reverted to 
 savagery. Taking squaws for companions and 
 living among the Indians, they became, to all 
 intents and purposes, like them. This "call of 
 the wild" threatened to overturn New France. 
 Ultimately, this, more than any other single 
 cause, led to its fall. 
 
 [ 295 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 Anglo-Saxon pluck was against all this sort 
 of tiling, and among the Pilgrims a determi- 
 nation to resist it was formed. Just here the 
 value of a disciplined military force was made 
 evident and availed of by the community. 
 
 "So sundry of the chief of the straggling 
 plantations meeting together agreed by mu- 
 tual consent to solicit those of Plymouth (who 
 were then of more strength than them all) to 
 join with them to prevent the further growth 
 of this mischief and suppress A/[orton and his 
 consorts before they grew to further head and 
 strength." 
 
 Several friendly letters and warnings, which 
 were sent first to Morton, met only with im- 
 pudent defiance. "So there was no way but 
 to take him by force." Standish and his men 
 were ordered to march on Morton's fortified 
 house. 
 
 To defend himself and his harem the liber- 
 tine, first of all, loaded himself and his garrison 
 with strong liquor. Then he tried to make a 
 machine gun of his carbine by ramming in a 
 variety of ammunition until the barrel was 
 about half full. Then he set "diverse dishes of 
 powder and bullets ready on the table" for 
 quick firing. When summoned to surrender and 
 the leader having answered in defiance, the 
 
 [296]
 
 THE PILGRIM REPUBLIC 
 
 drunken crew came out to shoot. Before It had 
 percolated into Morton's boozy brain what was 
 the matter, the alert Standish had knocked his 
 blunderbuss aside and made the big lout his 
 prisoner. 
 
 In this battle nobody was hurt. The only 
 blood shed was in the form of a few drops from 
 one stupid fellow's face. He was so drunk that 
 he ran his own nose upon the point of a sword 
 held by another man as he was entering the 
 house. "Had they not been over-armed with 
 drink, more hurt might have been done." So 
 wrote the witty Bradford, who, with his keen 
 sense also of humor, could always see the comic 
 side of such incidents. No doubt he had a 
 hearty laugh when Standish delivered his of- 
 ficial report of what a fool had made so funny. 
 For a joke it would be hard, even in comic 
 opera, to beat this actual performance, which 
 Bradford staged for posterity. Motley, with 
 his 'prentice hand, tried to make of this episode 
 a novel, upon which, however, as his biographer, 
 Dr. O. W. Holmes, says, there fell a "merciful 
 oblivion." 
 
 The Puritan Sabbath, when established as a 
 national English custom, proved to be one of 
 the nation's strongest moral bulwarks and one 
 of its greatest economic blessings, in building 
 
 I 297 1
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 a sure foundation of material prosperity; for 
 nothing so conserved the physical energies and 
 the virile temper of this great people. After 
 nearly tliree centuries of trial it is seen to be 
 perhaps the greatest possible preserver of na- 
 tional vigor. It was the Puritan Sabbath that 
 from the stored-up vigor of generations formed 
 in 19 14 a large element of success in enabling 
 Kitchener's "contemptible little army" — ■ so 
 stigmatized by the Huns — to withstand the 
 onrush of the Germans. From one point of view 
 we may say that the Sabbath-keeping nations 
 turned the scale In, saving civilization. 
 
 In its freshness the Puritan Sabbath was 
 something notably, or at least perceptibly, 
 different from either the later Puritanical dilu- 
 tion or the modern caricature of It. In many 
 ways the Puritan movement In Its origin was a 
 turning away from mediaeval degeneration to 
 primitive purity and the freshness of antiquity. 
 With the Puritans, who entered so largely into 
 the Old Testament Inheritances, following the 
 model there set forth, the Sabbath, or Rest 
 Day, began on Saturday at the setting of the 
 sun and ended at sundown on Sunday evening. 
 Hence the Puritans and Pilgrims " kept Satur- 
 day night." Unmatched in descriptive poetry 
 is the picture of the home as made clean, beau- 
 [298]
 
 THE PILGRIM REPUBLIC 
 
 tiful, and radiant with the spirit of the Puri- 
 tan, such as "The Cotter's Saturday Night" 
 of Robert Burns, who declared that "from 
 scenes hke these, old Scotia's grandeur springs." 
 This lover of the good things of life, this "il- 
 legitimate child of Calvinism," knew and bore 
 witness to the truth. It is the Scottish Puritan 
 Sabbath tliat explains much of the inexhaust- 
 ible vigor of the Scottish people, unwasted 
 along the centuries and ever manifested afresh 
 throughout the earth and in every line of hu- 
 man endeavor when the call to duty sounds 
 forth. In Puritan homes and cities Sunday 
 night was a time of mental relaxation and clean 
 amusement so that the "long" and "monot- 
 onous" and "dismal" Sunday, upon which 
 modern caricaturists of the Puritan and Pil- 
 grim, with their thick-laid tints of soot and 
 tar, descant, is largely an imaginary one. Upon 
 this institution as a target they spend their 
 shafts of wit in vain, for all who love the work- 
 ing-man and his beast strive to maintain the 
 divine ordinance, while those who encourage 
 the profiteer and the oppressor of the poor are 
 apt to denounce the Lord's Day as a gloomy 
 relic of the worthless past. 
 
 There was nothing either of the "goody- 
 goody" spirit or modern "revival" temper or 
 
 [ 299 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS ' 
 
 method, with the Pilgrims, nor any of the vul- 
 gar machinery, stage carpentry, and noise- 
 making of the sawdust trail, nor were there 
 among them the manners of the baseball dia- 
 mond or grandstand. Nor was their stern re- 
 solve " like the crackling of thorns under a pot." 
 No sputter, jet, or rocket fire with them, nor 
 any sequence of quickly cold ashes or burnt 
 stick ! The flame in their souls was rather as the 
 glow of anthracite. As with earth's ages, so 
 with their inheritance of the Christian cen- 
 turies — • the sunbeams of aeons of truth had 
 changed their form, but not their potency. Not 
 for them novelty and delusion, but the rock of 
 eternal truth as God gave them to see the 
 truth!
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 PROSPERITY AND EXPANSION 
 
 What the race of man in its evolution — or its 
 divinely guided education — would be without 
 the aid of our friends and servants, the dumb 
 brutes, gives food for thought. In the air, the 
 waters, and on land these creatures preserve 
 the balance of nature, so that no one of their 
 species dominates the earth. As helpers, guard- 
 ians, burden-bearers, fellow workers, producers 
 of manifold things of necessity and ornament, 
 and as comrades of man in the subduing and 
 replenishing of the earth and helping to gain 
 dominion over all elements and forces, the 
 birds, beasts, and fishes are the allies of man. 
 It is the domestic animals, however, that are 
 very near to him, and even at times as those of 
 his own household. 
 
 Defoe might have been prompted to write 
 his story of Robinson Crusoe, less from Alex- 
 ander Selkirk, and possibly also the author of 
 "The Swiss Family Robinson" from other 
 hints than from the Mayflower company, vir- 
 tually marooned on the sandy and almost bar- 
 ren shores of Massachusetts. It is a curious 
 
 [ 301 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 fact that the family name of him "at whose 
 prompting the Pilgrim Fathers went forth to 
 settle New England" — 'as the Leyden tablet 
 declares — 'has been borrowed for the heroes 
 of both of these popular books for boys which 
 have gone through three hundred editions. 
 
 Though there were dogs, pigs, and chickens 
 in Plymouth before 1624, there were no cattle 
 until that date. Longfellow puts Priscilla Mul- 
 lens, the bride of John Alden, on a white heifer 
 for a bridal tour before the cow's daughter had 
 arrived. In 1627 there were twelve of these 
 food-giving animals — one for each thirteen 
 persons. 
 
 It is not our purpose, even if space permitted, 
 to tell in detail about the finances of the Ply- 
 mouth Colony. This has been done in a manner 
 so comxplete, and so far surpassing all former 
 efforts, that we refer the reader to the latest 
 book on this subject.^ By 1627 the Pilgrims had 
 won economic independence, paid their debts, 
 owned the land they lived on, and were free 
 from all bondage to the men or companies that 
 had financed their venture. Many colonists had 
 preceded the Pilgrims in attempts at settlement 
 in the New World. These, for the most part, 
 
 ^ The Pilgrims and Their History, By Roland G. Usher. 
 1918. 
 
 [ 302 ]
 
 PROSPERITY AND EXPANSION 
 
 gave precedents of failure. The Pilgrims fur- 
 nished the precedent of success. 
 
 Further events that but slightly affected 
 either the young people or the American de- 
 velopment were union, in 1643, with the other 
 colonies in the New England Confederation 
 and the absorption of the Plymouth or "Old" 
 Colony with others in the one large royal prov- 
 ince. The former, never very satisfactory in its 
 work, lasted until 1686, when both the king and 
 his servant. Sir Edmund Andros, were defied, 
 because they were law and covenant breakers. 
 
 In 1692 the story of New Plymouth, which 
 had seventeen towns and thirteen thousand 
 inhabitants, ended ; for in that year it became 
 an integral part of the British Province of 
 Massachusetts. This included what is now Can- 
 ada — ■ which our fathers, during 1774 ^^^ I775> 
 eagerly hoped would cast in her lot with the 
 thirteen colonies. In this they were sadly dis- 
 appointed, and when the flag of the United 
 Colonies was raised at Cambridge, January i, 
 1776, it had not fourteen stripes thereon, but 
 only thirteen. For as of old in the flag of 
 the Federal Republic, in which the Pilgrims 
 had nourished their strength, each stripe, until 
 July 4, 1776, represented a colony, and after 
 that a State in the Union which had become the 
 
 [ 303 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 United States of America. Federal government 
 is not well understood even to-day as yet by the 
 British people at home, and many a Briton is 
 puzzled at our system of government, though 
 Australians and Canadians understand it more 
 easily. 
 
 To those living In the times of the Pilgrims 
 their economic success in pounds, shillings, and 
 pence. In land, food, cattle, and fish, In ability 
 to hold their own, and In power to Increase 
 and offer attractions of worldly success to set- 
 tlers, were what most powerfully Impressed the 
 world. To the seventeenth-century European 
 it was something before his eyes. To us. It Is 
 a priceless inheritance. Their moral stamina, 
 their unquailing faith, their sublime courage, 
 their demonstration of the soundness of the 
 American idea of self-government, are what 
 Impress and Inspire us. The secret of the Pilgrim 
 power and glory lies In the homes they made 
 and the families they reared. 
 
 The Pilgrims brought up their own children 
 in the best of all schools — • a Christian home — ■ 
 and under the eyes of parents. With these fa- 
 thers and mothers there was no deputy or sub- 
 stitute. Nor has any university yet been found 
 superior to maternal love. The most decisive, 
 formative, and Important period In human life 
 
 [ 304 ]
 
 PROSPERITY AND EXPANSION 
 
 is comprised within its first two years. It is this 
 era of infancy that differentiates man from the 
 brute. Within those twenty-four months the 
 infant acquires more, relatively, than during 
 any other two years of its life. No horse or 
 dog born on earth has ever learned more or 
 exceeded in potency of intellect the two-years 
 child. So say the psychologists, and they speak 
 with science. 
 
 No sad sight, such as that possible in an 
 alleged higher civilization, and which is often 
 seen, of the banishment of little boys and girls 
 from home by parents, too indolent or too self- 
 ish to rear their own children, into distant 
 schools, to be cared for by strangers, was then 
 in practice, even if the Separatists had been 
 rich enough to indulge in this luxury. Nor had 
 the extreme theories of Plato, though old and 
 well known to the Pilgrim scholars, as well as to 
 modern dreamers, any power over the minds of 
 these people, who lived in brotherhood and put 
 many good communal ideas into practice, while 
 avoiding communism. 
 
 How early the settlers of New England were 
 called "Yankees," or how the term originated, 
 no one knows with certainty, for no one has yet 
 proved his pet derivation to the entire satisfac- 
 tion of all. My own idea is that "Yankees" is 
 
 [ 30s 1
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 the form which a Dutch word took, after being 
 spoken by the Indians of New York, who passed 
 it on to tlie white men "down east." In Holland 
 it Is an old term, still current, when men are 
 ready to quarrel. Hans is apt to call Pete a 
 "cheese head"; or. In his vernacular, Jan Kaas, 
 which, as a Dutchman pronounces It, Is "Yan- 
 kase," sounding very much like "Yankees." 
 What looks like the singular of a noun — that 
 is, "Yankee" — ■ and later in time than the ap- 
 parently plural or noun form, was at first em- 
 ployed only as an adjective. Yet, as used by the 
 Indians and adopted by the white men, It did 
 not connote disdain or reproach; but rather, in 
 time, from being neutrally descriptive It came 
 to mean whatever was notable or excellent; just 
 as the phrase, "the Bostons," was later among 
 the Iroquois descriptive of those who had taken 
 up arms against King George III. In our day 
 the "Yanks" in Europe and the spread and 
 prevalence of national ideas and sentiments 
 over those born only of localities and States 
 have made our hundred million people accept 
 gleefully the name of "this glorious Yankee 
 nation." "The Yanks are coming" was, in 
 1917, a song that thrilled and helped to save 
 Europe. 
 
 The initial Pilgrim success and, with our later 
 
 1 306]
 
 PROSPERITY AND EXPANSION 
 
 generations, the Pilgrim glory, made England 
 only too ready to recognize and to welcome 
 back her once outcast children. This success 
 heartened not only the Free Churchmen, but 
 the whole body of the people of the British 
 Isles. None saw so clearly the meaning of the 
 struggle of '6 1 as the Lancashire operatives. In 
 Edinburgh, first, and then in Manchester, stands 
 the statue of Abraham Lincoln, as well as, in 
 London, that of Washington. It was our Eng- 
 lish friends, who, even before the Americans, 
 saw in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address the ele- 
 ments of immortality. Happily for the coming 
 union of all the English-speaking peoples, the 
 revision of our schoolbooks by scholars will en- 
 able our American people to see that the cause 
 for which the Whigs in Parliament, from 1770 
 to 1836, labored, was the same as that for which 
 Washington and the Continentals fought. The 
 victory of 1783 was followed by bloodless tri- 
 umph in 1830. 
 
 With the rise of the High Church party and 
 the dominance of Anglicanism in religion as its 
 sequel, under the Tudor and Stuart dynasties, 
 began the England of two differing ideals, be- 
 tween which most thinking Americans sharply 
 discriminate. They exist and are potent in the 
 mind of every thoughtful American who is criti- 
 
 [ 307 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 cally familiar with British history. Of his men- 
 tal images of the two Englands, one is that rep- 
 resented in the union of Church and State, of 
 politics and religion, with its citadel in the 
 Established Church, which is looked upon, by 
 those aspiring to be fashionable, as a social 
 clearing-house. This is the England of the 
 Stuart kings, of Laud, of old Toryism and the 
 House of Lords, of rotten boroughs, of the 
 German King George, of privilege, of titles of 
 nobility, of hereditary parasitism, of aristoc- 
 racy and of snobbery. 
 
 The other England is that of the Puritans and 
 the Pilgrims, of Cromwell and the Common- 
 wealth, of the Free Churches, of Pitt and Burke, 
 of Wilkes and Barre, of Gladstone and Lloyd 
 George. The England of law that is older than 
 kings — compacted of the forces that produced 
 the Whigs, who, from 1763 to 1830 were fight- 
 ing the same battle and were in the ranks 
 of freedom with Washington, Hamilton, and 
 Jefferson, and of the spirit of democracy, mani- 
 fested, for example, by John Bright and the 
 Lancashire operatives, who saw into the mean- 
 ing of the American struggle of '61 — that is 
 the England admired by the overwhelming ma- 
 jority of Americans. There was no such England 
 when the Pilgrims were driven out to be fugi- 
 [ 308 ]
 
 PROSPERITY AND EXPANSION 
 
 tives and exiles in the Dutch Republic. The 
 England of privilege, aristocracy and peerages, 
 of traditional and law-enforced religion, with 
 the junkerism and snobbery directly bred there- 
 from, and of mediaeval custom and ceremonial 
 emptied of meaning, is the England admired by 
 a small American minority, and those not of the 
 most desirable class. With either view neither 
 religious opinion nor practical godliness has any 
 necessary connection.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 COSMOPOLITAN ELEMENTS IN THE 
 PILGRIM COMPANY 
 
 Those who, on the one hand, are familiar with 
 the original records and autographs of the Sep- 
 aratists in Leyden, and those who, on the other, 
 get their information from and listen only to 
 the after-dinner speeches and the rhetorical 
 transfiguration of the Pilgrims, have very differ- 
 ent ideas and even conflicting emotions. 
 
 To the first set, who are students, the impres- 
 sion is that of a very cosmopolitan company. 
 To those who are auditors only, the notion is 
 born and foolishly persists that the people who 
 came over in the Pilgrim ships were of unmixed 
 English origin. This nourishes also the fancy 
 that the United States is a New England, and 
 the American people a sort of annex to Great 
 Britain, or one of her daughter nations, like 
 those of Canada, Australia, or New Zealand. 
 In fact, our popular historiography, having 
 been produced in larger measure in one section 
 only of the country, has been so far Anglicized 
 that this idea, so opposed to facts and records, 
 is further expanded to the detriment of truth 
 
 [ 310 ]
 
 COSMOPOLITAN ELEMENTS 
 
 and to vast confusion In both Europe and the 
 United States. 
 
 Those who Imagine that the settlers of Ply- 
 mouth were all of English stock and ideas, or 
 exclusively of one religious sect, or that they all 
 held exactly the same opinions on all subjects, 
 or on any one of them, are seriously mistaken. 
 Even when Robinson's company were In Hol- 
 land there was much variety in blood, lan- 
 guage, opinion, and Ideas. In reality the Pilgrim 
 mothers and fathers were, altogether, from no 
 fewer than seven nations. This is the testimony 
 of the records in Holland, as Kist, Swalue, 
 de Hoop Schaeffer, and others have published 
 them, and as we have seen and read them. 
 At least three languages, English, Dutch, and 
 French, were spoken among the people of the 
 Leyden congregation. 
 
 Probably all the children born between 1609 
 and 1 62 1 could talk Dutch and some of them 
 French; while probably a dozen or more could 
 also read and write the two languages of the 
 Netherlands. In a word, from the time when 
 both the Southern and the Northern Separa- 
 tists left England, they took into their com- 
 pany enough people of Continental and of non- 
 English British stock to form a true type of our 
 American Republic, which cannot accurately 
 
 [311]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 be called a New England, but rather a new 
 Europe. 
 
 Those also who imagine that either Robin- 
 son's company or the Plymouth settlers were 
 all of one way of thinking, or were of one sect or 
 creed — • that is, like the New England Congre- 
 gationalists of the eighteenth and early nine- 
 teenth centuries, with their rigid rules and 
 creeds — are "off" in their notions. In the 
 latter case those who were to join the church 
 were first "propounded" to the congregation, 
 voted on, and then received into fellowship. But 
 they must first assent by voice or subscribe 
 with pen and ink to a creed, which was com- 
 posed often of many articles and was a minia- 
 ture system of theology. All this was very dif- 
 ferent from the church life of their predecessors 
 in Holland. 
 
 Roughly speaking, the Pilgrim Fathers had 
 no formal creed; that is, no rigid dogmatic 
 statement of opinion or theory of religion to 
 which they must first subscribe and then be 
 held accountable. They were Christians, and 
 cared little for any other name. In place of this 
 credal form, which in other churches was laid 
 on the consciences of those either baptized in 
 infancy (christened) or admitted in mature 
 years, the Separatists made a covenant which 
 
 [ 312 ]
 
 COSMOPOLITAN ELEMENTS 
 
 was a sufficient bond to hold them In vital 
 union. In fact, they detested and left the 
 Church of England, chiefly because they were 
 required to subscribe to rigid forms of creed 
 and to a routine of ritual and ceremony. By 
 them this Anglican Establishment was usually 
 spoken of as "Egypt." 
 
 Parents bringing their children for baptism 
 were not obliged to assent to the formulae of the 
 Roman, Anglican, or Dutch churches, though 
 publicly covenanting to have them educated in 
 Christian doctrine, according to the Augustin- 
 ian or Calvlnlstic theories. 
 
 In the membership of Robinson's church, in 
 Amsterdam, at Leyden, and in the congrega- 
 tion at Plymouth, were at least seven na- 
 tions represented, and members who had been 
 brought up in the Welsh, Anglican, Scottish, 
 Walloon, French, and Dutch churches. In fact, 
 Robinson received into fellowship, or invited 
 to the communion table, members of all these 
 churches. Theirs was a true Catholic, or Union 
 church. Robinson did not like any of the cur- 
 rent names, whether "Brownlst," "Separa- 
 tist," "Anabaptist," or "Independent." We do 
 not know that he would have cared even for the 
 name " Congregatlonalist." The term " Pilgrim " 
 is one only of late growth and local usage, based 
 
 [ 313 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 entirely upon a sentence in Bradford's History 
 — which was not written until some years after 
 the landing of the Mayflower. The word, as now 
 applied, was unknown, probably, until coined 
 in America, Its first use was in 1798, and that 
 of "Pilgrim Fathers" in 1799. 
 
 John Bastwick, one of his members and a stu- 
 dent at Leyden, quoted Robinson as saying that 
 he would never have separated from the Church 
 of England if he could have enjoyed the liberty 
 of his ministry there and not have been obliged 
 to follow its ceremonies and to do that against 
 which his conscience revolted as an insult to 
 his Master — subscribe to a hard-and-fast creed 
 and to the compulsory use of a ritual. 
 
 In the Pilgrim narrative the famous historical 
 figures appear not all at once, but from time 
 to time. Robert Browne and the author of the 
 Martin Marp relate tracts were pioneers; but 
 Penry, as being the first Pilgrim Father, led the 
 procession that still moves toward the City of 
 God. 
 
 Miles Standlsh, so far as known, was not a 
 member of the Scrooby, the Leyden, or the 
 Plymouth church. Bradford makes no men- 
 tion of him until the Mayflower anchored at 
 Cape Cod. Then he stands forth as the leader 
 of the volunteers who were ready to dare and 
 
 [314]
 
 COSMOPOLITAN ELEMENTS 
 
 do, facing the wild beast or the savage in ex- 
 ploration of the unknown wilderness. 
 
 Nor was John Alden, the cooper, met with 
 until the Speedwell reached Southampton. 
 Whether the first-named, the soldier, held to 
 the mediaeval or to the Reformed faith, and 
 whether the second, the cooper, first opened 
 his eyes in Ireland or in England, as claimed, 
 are still unsolved questions. Both were typi- 
 cal men of high honor, conscience, vision, and 
 enthusiasm, just the men to found a state. 
 Standish, besides being courageous as a grizzly 
 bear, was both a scholar in military literature 
 and a master of the art of war. If John Alden 
 had not Irish blood in his veins there was in 
 him that Celtic dash and fire without which 
 both English literature and history would lose 
 half their charm. 
 
 The additional immigrants from Leyden who 
 arrived later on the Pilgrim fleet were well- 
 seasoned people of Christian character. These 
 church members and useful citizens had been 
 already tested in the trials of the Pilgrim 
 fellowship. Yet besides these were scores of 
 people of very uncertain ability or character, 
 who, from time to time, were shipped over by 
 the same company that kept back Robinson. 
 Added to these were scores more of shady 
 
 [315]
 
 ■ HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 reputation who came of their own accord or 
 venture; or, as Bradford says, "at their own 
 particular." They were the grunters, groaners, 
 fault-finders, grouchers, pessimists, and the gen- 
 erally dissatisfied, who want something else and 
 are always looking for a scapegoat. Not a 
 few of these worthies gave up trying in their 
 own way to make the wilderness blossom as the 
 rose. Returning to England — in most cases 
 to be probably more or less of a burden to 
 others — they circulated all sorts of stories, 
 mostly falsehoods, as to the badness of the soil 
 and the people. In any land, climate, or situa- 
 tion such people would relate the same tale of 
 woe. As was told to "dear Brutus," they were 
 "underlings" without blame to the stars. 
 
 A yellow streak was found even in the minis- 
 ters which the Plymouth Company in England 
 unloaded in America. Among the several cleri- 
 cal gentlemen of the wrong kind who were sent 
 over to try the Pilgrim soul was one John Ly- 
 ford, a Puritan preacher in the State Church 
 in England. Lyford's appointment was made 
 against the protest of Winslow and Cushman 
 who were present at the Company's meeting 
 in London. With his wife and four children he 
 came to Plymouth. 
 
 This clerical person was soon hand in glove 
 
 [316]
 
 COSMOPOLITAN ELEMENTS 
 
 with John Oldham, the ringleader of the mal- 
 contents in the little republic, and especially 
 of the "Particulars" who were "separatists" 
 from the Pilgrim ideal and order. Oldham be- 
 gan active operations of mutiny by refusing to 
 take his turn at guard duty. He reviled Cap- 
 tain Standish, called him outrageous names, 
 and even drew a knife upon him. Thereupon 
 Oldham was promptly taught what military dis- 
 cipline meant. He was clapped into the guard- 
 house and kept there until his choler cooled. 
 
 Lyford, without asking leave of any one, held 
 meetings on Sunday and carried things with 
 such haughty manners and a high hand that 
 Bradford called a town meeting. The whole 
 gang of the "Particulars" was summoned to 
 answer the charge of plotting to ruin the Pil- 
 grim Colony. At the trial Oldham called on his 
 dupes to sustain him, but they were dumb ; for 
 Bradford showed them, in court, the letters of 
 the accused, which as a magistrate he had in- 
 tercepted. After the trial and conviction of the 
 two culprits Lyford confessed his perfidy and 
 was exiled. 
 
 Oldham, having been deported, came back 
 again as impudent as ever. After rearrest and 
 the cooling of his temper in the guardhouse, he 
 was brought out and made to run the gantlet 
 
 [ 317 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 down to the boat, each musketeer giving him 
 a thump on the buttocks as he passed. After- 
 wards he lost botli his temper and his hfe in a 
 quarrel with Indians, who used the tomahawk. 
 
 One need not subscribe to Palfrey's dictum 
 that of the Pilgrims only "eleven are favor- 
 ably known. The rest are either known unfavor- 
 ably, or else only by name. " There seems to be 
 here in this summary the animus of both the 
 hostile Puritan and the pronounced churchman. 
 To use tlie localisms in use in a small portion of 
 the United States, it seems the stricture of a 
 "Liberal" upon the "Orthodox." 
 
 In the main, as rank and file, the Pilgrims 
 were of the plain English people and mostly 
 countryfolk; but, led by four or five mighty 
 men of vision and ability who would adorn any 
 age, they achieved wonders. Robinson, Brew- 
 ster, Bradford, Winslow, Carver, and Stan- 
 dish, representing rich culture, theology, law, 
 diplomacy, military science, and executive abil- 
 ity, were the leaders, but all were infused with 
 one spirit which animated the whole. Every one 
 of these varied talents was called into play and 
 used oftener than once. Of the morally pro- 
 tective influence of Standish and his little army 
 in behalf of the colony, there can be no two 
 opinions. 
 
 [318I
 
 COSMOPOLITAN ELEMENTS 
 
 As to the ethnic origin or ancestry of the Pil- 
 grim Fathers born in England, Dr. M. E. Au- 
 brey, of Cambridge, England, tells us, in 1919, 
 that six of them came from Yorkshire, nine 
 from Nottinghamshire, two from Lincoln- 
 shire, seventeen from London, seventeen from 
 Kent, eleven from Essex, and thirty-two from 
 Norfolk. 
 
 But what of those bearing French, Dutch, 
 Belgian, Welsh, Scottish, or Irish names ? For the 
 origin of such as Sowle (Soule), Mullens, Alden, 
 Tilley, Prower, Holbeck, Minter, Dotey, Barnes 
 (Barentz), Houghton (van Houten), Timmer- 
 man. Hanks, Hanson, Hoffman, Jennings, Jor- 
 dan, Kern, Freyer, Gerry, Hamel, Knapp, 
 Fiske, Bates, Gibbs, Dwight, Danvers, Pack- 
 ard, Trevore, Walker, Potwin, Rogers, Bertram, 
 Best, and others, which we have met with 
 in the archives or documents, we must look to 
 other lands than England, even though those 
 who bore them may have first opened their 
 eyes on English soil. From the twelfth century 
 there had been a steady stream of emigration 
 from France, Flanders, and Walloon Belgium 
 into England. This after 1567 swelled into a 
 flood. Within a few generations most of these 
 names in their original form had disappeared, 
 because they had become anglicized. In most 
 
 [ 319 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 names beginning with de, van, and other pre- 
 fixes, the initial syllable was dropped or coa- 
 lesced with the stem. 
 
 Even if genealogy-hunters, who shudder at 
 the idea of a non-English pedigree, can prove 
 that the parent or grandparents, or even the 
 several generations, of this or that person were 
 "English," one can still, with reasonable prob- 
 ability and often with demonstration, show the 
 origin of the family name in one of the countries 
 of the Continent, or in Wales, Scotland, Ire- 
 land, or Scandinavia. One who has read much 
 in the lists of Walloon, Fleming, Dutch, or non- 
 English British names, especially in the east- 
 ern or southern counties, sees and knows how 
 mixed is the so-called English stock, and, mani- 
 fold more, the American. It is even probable 
 that at least one fourth of the twenty thousand 
 or more of the people who came into New Eng- 
 land before 1645 were Welsh, Irish, Scottish, 
 or of Continental origin. Of this fact the true 
 American, who is a real student of ethnology 
 and racial traits, is proud. 
 
 In a word, the "Pilgrim Fathers" — that Is, 
 the Scrooby pioneers, the Leyden congregation, 
 the Mayflower company, and the immigrants 
 brought over in the later Pilgrim ships, to the 
 Plymouth Colony — formed a true type of the 
 [ 320 ]
 
 COSMOPOLITAN ELEMENTS 
 
 people of the United States. Predominantly 
 English, reinforced from the three other na- 
 tions in the British Isles, and enlarged in their 
 ideas as well as in their numbers from Conti- 
 nental Europe by men and women who were 
 mostly of French and Netherlandish descent, 
 they made the best sort of a mixed company, 
 and prototypes of the true modern Americans.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 THE PILGRIM INHERITANCE 
 
 The Separatist movement to Holland, aided 
 powerfully — like the pebble which in the 
 brook at its source diverts the course of the 
 stream — to turn the current of English his- 
 tory. 
 
 This exile In a foreign land involved toil of 
 both body and spirit. It was analogous to the 
 labor of breaking up the century-matted soil 
 of a prairie, but the plough was driven beam 
 deep into the crusted, insular soil of English 
 conservatism. 
 
 The influence of Separatism, reinforced by 
 Puritanism, made inevitable the civil war 
 which, led by Cromwell and inspired by Milton, 
 broke out a generation later. Without it Eng- 
 land, long drifting to despotism, would have 
 become as Spain or Germany. The English- 
 man, Arber, in saying that without that politi- 
 cal thunderstorm the regeneration of British 
 society and the constitution would have been 
 impossible, voices what is now the convic- 
 tion of a majority of English-speaking people. 
 Green, the State Churchman and historian, 
 [ 322 ]
 
 THE PILGRIM INHERITANCE 
 
 proves that most of the moral forces that have 
 made the England of our time — so vast a 
 blessing to the world, so pleasant to dwell in, 
 so rich in the motherhood of self-governing na- 
 tions, and of which the American descendant 
 is so proud — came from the Puritans; and of 
 these the Pilgrims were the best and most con- 
 sistent representatives. 
 
 The whole story, from first to last, of the Pil- 
 grim spirit and polity, as against those of ex- 
 treme Puritanism, showed that the Leyden and 
 Plymouth men sought out, embodied consist- 
 ently, and allowed to others a noble and un- 
 selfish individualism. This, when safeguarded 
 and restrained by an enlightened conscience, 
 is the most effective preventive of autocracy 
 and despotism. Yet this spirit — at the antip- 
 odes of lawlessness, which declares that "prop- 
 erty is robbery" — reaches its best expression 
 in brotherhood. When thus blended, it resists 
 alike the soulless corporation and the ultra- 
 egotistic ruler. No other principle has been 
 so deeply inwrought into American life, or is 
 yet so potent for local and national good, as this 
 vital element in the Pilgrim polity. Over and 
 over again has this been demonstrated, while it 
 has won also the most generous acknowledg- 
 ment in the world at large, especially since the 
 
 [ 323 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 Great War and victory of 191 8. "Under God 
 the people live." 
 
 Some illustrations, arising out of personal 
 experience, have made clearer the particular 
 work given by Providence to the Separatists 
 to do. 
 
 Theirs was the glacial age in English politi- 
 cal and religious development. The Pilgrim 
 movement was that flower ever blooming out 
 of the human heart — the yearning after God 
 — which survived darkness, gloom, and cold. 
 The Pilgrim story reminds one of the little pink 
 blossom of the Primula Mistassinica, now 
 rarely found in the Empire State, and only on 
 the shady side of the ravines and rocky sides of 
 streams that were scooped out ages ago by the 
 grinding ice mass. The story of this pre-glacial 
 flower, the oldest in the Commonwealth, is one 
 of vigor, tenacity, perseverance, antiquity, and 
 beauty sempiternal. Labrador, in July, reveals 
 vast areas of its pink glory. The more south- 
 ern glens boast its beauty in May. 
 
 So America, even in time before the mother 
 country, appreciated this superb product of 
 her own soil, and entered into the full inher- 
 itance and blessing of the Pilgrim glory, with 
 its ever-abiding fragrance. In this, our age, 
 England is glad enough to recognize and ap- 
 
 [ 324 ]
 
 THE PILGRIM INHERITANCE 
 
 predate what is peculiarly American and what 
 lies at the roots of our national democracy, 
 while we are happy to reciprocate. 
 
 It is well also to study the Pilgrim inher- 
 itance, as visible in other parts of the United 
 States, distant from the threshold rock. In the 
 tenth generation, throwing the light of inter- 
 pretation on both Dutch and English traits, I 
 found this opportunity in a place where the 
 successors of both Pilgrims and Holland for- 
 bears had long dwelt and intermarried. These 
 strains of blood, equally interesting, showed 
 some characteristics as distinctive as are the 
 streams of Arve and Arveiron, in the land of 
 the Swiss ; but in the main, virtues and defects 
 were balanced in each and both. In other neigh- 
 borhoods also there seemed to be the noblest 
 of rivalries without clash and of much emu- 
 lation with little envy. Such a place of In- 
 dian name, in which I dwelt nine years, was 
 Schenectady, where names famous in Pilgrim, 
 Puritan, Walloon, Dutch, and Huguenot his- 
 tory, were as notable as their bearers were 
 friendly and neighborly. 
 
 In Boston, which did not become a city until 
 1834, during seven joyous years, and at Ithaca, 
 New York, which bears, in its speech and local 
 peculiarities, the earmarks of the Midland and 
 
 [ 32s ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 Eastern English counties, I noted traits of 
 character and pccuHarities of speech which still 
 linger in the three places. These enable one to 
 interpret the life of our ancestors and to picture 
 again to the imagination the "old lands our 
 fathers held so dear." 
 
 Yet I find myself unable to award praise to 
 one sort of American more than another' — • 
 Easterner or Westerner, Northerner or South- 
 erner, Yankee or cosmopolitan. In traveling 
 through different parts of our country, ever 
 with hearts and homes open to my enjoyment, 
 it is a constant surprise to me that the people 
 in one part of our country should, for any 
 profound reason, think themselves any better 
 than those in the other parts. 
 
 The conclusion arrived at was, rather, that 
 the virtues and inheritances from the cosmo- 
 politan Pilgrim pioneers and those like them 
 in spirit had been widely disseminated. We 
 Americans all, like the Separatists, have had 
 to outgrow some of our less pleasing inherit- 
 ances. 
 
 In the three hundred years that have elapsed 
 the various churches have learned much by 
 experience under conditions different from 
 those in the Old World, and even more from 
 each other, to their mutual and general ad- 
 
 [326]
 
 THE PILGRIM INHERITANCE 
 
 vantage. What is manifestly true of the re- 
 ligious is equally and demonstrably true also 
 in our social and political life. Because of the 
 sisterhood of States the advantages of one sec- 
 tion have or may become the blessing of the 
 National Commonwealth. 
 
 The life course of the State and of civiliza- 
 tion is like that of the human body, which is 
 continually changing. Our physical organiza- 
 tion casts out the old and incorporates new 
 elements, so that the entire substance, in limbs 
 and trunk, is renewed every five years. Before 
 forty years have passed a man has used up the 
 substance of eight bodies, while still in pos- 
 session of the one body in which he lives. 
 
 In the study of history it is ever the duty of 
 the student to learn what in the past is effete 
 and out, and what is permanent, new, and in 
 fresh vigor. It is like the difference between 
 fact, which is something dead and done; and 
 truth, which is ever living and eternal. No one 
 has more clearly stated this law of life than 
 Paul, the cosmopolitan Christian, who tells us 
 that " though our outward man perish, the in- 
 ward man is renewed day by day." 
 
 This principle of ever-renewing life explains 
 also what is so often seen in history. A certain 
 body of people starts out with grand ideas and 
 
 [ 327 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS ' 
 
 noble principles; but after several generations 
 they settle down into stupid unprogressive- 
 ness and even become reactionary. They are 
 fossils, rather than living, and therefore grow- 
 ing, organisms. These same people keep the 
 name, while the reality of the original spirit in 
 the founders has passed away. Be it Buddhism 
 or Christianity, or let the battle-cry, motto, 
 or place of habitation be what it may, this is 
 the law of decay. The springs dry up. They 
 harden in mannerisms and barren tradition, 
 but are dead. The Council of Nice stands for 
 one specimen in the museum of history; and 
 the Council of Trent for another. The petty 
 sects, now dead, but once vigorously alive, 
 suggest infusorial earth. 
 
 Renewal of life in religion as in society and 
 government comes only from those in whom 
 are the inner workings of aspiration after a 
 higher life. Men that are acute enough to 
 pierce the veil of their old traditional life, 
 which to them is the rotting shroud of a dead 
 past, would make progress and keep the race 
 from stagnation; but in one way or another 
 such men are usually sent by their fellows to 
 join the glorious army of martyrs. Those who 
 want things to continue as they are, men iden- 
 tified with vested interests, In love with their 
 [328]
 
 THE PILGRIM INHERITANCE 
 
 own mental indolence, or sodden in lust of 
 lucre and steeped in worldly ambitions, use the 
 name "heretic." They raise the cry of "crucify," 
 preliminary to the action of Church and State 
 when Caiaphas and Pilate join hands in plant- 
 ing the cross. From this spirit the Separatists 
 suffered. 
 
 The Pilgrims took the risk, had their ideals 
 tested, proved their threefold devotion at 
 home, in a foreign land, and beyond the sea in 
 the wilderness. They won a glory that cen- 
 turies have not dimmed. It is ours to live up 
 to those ideals. 
 
 Whatever be the faults and failings of the 
 Pilgrims, when judged at the bar of history 
 theirs was an honest, earnest attempt to ap- 
 ply the law of Christ to Church and State — ■ 
 the only true democracy. They survived ithe 
 crucible and acid tests of persecution, both 
 petty and grand, in banishment, poverty, hun- 
 ger, loneliness, and ecclesiastical nagging. This 
 spiritual valor, this human greatness, displayed 
 by people in humble and lowly life, is surely 
 equal to that of the mighty and famous. "All 
 service ranks the same with God." The Pil- 
 grim heroism has been, and will continue to be, 
 the inspiration to art and literature, in ever 
 fresh interpretations and in church- and state- 
 
 [ 329 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 craft in new applications. The creations of true 
 genius "for glory and for beauty" will be to 
 the enduring splendor of both the underlying 
 facts and simple truth. The prophecy of Pas- 
 tor Robinson will ever continue in course of 
 glorious fulfillment. 
 
 Applying the prism of the Bible to analyze 
 and discriminate the colors in the variant 
 spectrum of the Puritans and the Pilgrims, it 
 may be said that, while both were rich in 
 Hebraic culture and spirit, the former were 
 more like men of the Old Testament type, as 
 Moses, Samuel, or Ezra; while the latter, per- 
 haps more immediately familiar with the Scrip- 
 tures of the New Covenant, remind one more 
 of Paul, John, and James. Besides the ancient 
 Hebraic cast of mind both were rich in the 
 spiritual culture suited to the saints of the 
 synagogue. Yet it is manifest, from both the 
 higher and the lower criticism of their writings 
 and a survey of their respective histories, that 
 the Pilgrims, besides being the more assiduous 
 students of the New rather than of the Old 
 Testament, tried the more earnestly to em- 
 body its spirit and teaching in their dealings 
 with men. 
 
 Very few of the infirmities and errors rightly 
 ascribed to tlie Puritans, especially in the line 
 
 [ 330 ]
 
 THE PILGRIM INHERITANCE 
 
 of the witchcraft delusion and the persecutions 
 of men and women of differing creeds and forms 
 of faith, can be told of the Pilgrims. This is 
 the case despite the fact that vulgar tradition 
 makes little or no discrimination. It is true, 
 even though speakers and writers, from whom 
 we expect better things, are, on this theme, 
 continually mixed in their rhetoric and after- 
 dinner talks. We Americans are steadily rising 
 as a people above the Puritans and entering 
 into the nobler Pilgrim ideals. 
 
 Those who can find no intrinsic necessity or 
 warrant of permanency from Jesus Christ for 
 the artificial distinction between "lay" and 
 "clerical" will behold in the whole Pilgrim 
 story nothing disruptive or divisive, but rather 
 a principle of sound construction. Hid in its 
 three measures of meal the Pilgrim leaven has 
 wrought mightily; not in a trio of countries 
 only, but measurably in all the earth. Whether 
 among the sixscore millions in the homelands 
 of English speech or in the mission fields of six 
 continents, the Pilgrim model of life and gov- 
 ernment is followed more or less closely. 
 
 The Pilgrim Church still lives in the eighty- 
 five thousands of living descendants of the 
 Pilgrim Company and in the hearts of all who 
 are blessed with the children of the world's first 
 
 [ 331 ]
 
 HISTORY OF THE PILGRIMS 
 
 great pilgrim, faithful Abraham. Between the 
 two poles of independence and fellowship, 
 poised upon the New Testament, the needle of 
 her choice and duty swings tremblingly ever 
 to her Lord and Master, Christ Jesus the reve- 
 lation of the Father. 
 
 It behooves all not to sit idly at the fountains 
 of the past, neither to glory in pedigree so much 
 as in divine power freshly given day by day. 
 To live up to the ideals of the fathers, to enter 
 more fully into the true spirit of the originals, 
 by having sound minds and bodies, and by 
 feeding our spirits as they fed theirs — that is 
 tlie true Pilgrim inheritance. 
 
 Nisi Dominus frustra.
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK OF THE 
 
 STORY OF A FREE CHURCH IN 
 
 A FREE STATE
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK OF THE 
 
 STORY OF A FREE CHURCH IN 
 
 A FREE STATE 
 
 A.D. 
 
 1 1 65. The weavers of Worcester claim rights of con- 
 science. Punished as heretics. 
 1270. William of Occam asserts the supremacy of the 
 Scriptures. 
 I324-1384. John Wycliffe, the Lollards, and the Bible in 
 English. 
 1380. Act passed for burning heretics in England. 
 I483-1540. Luther in Germany. 
 1484-153 1. Zwinglius, Independent, in Switzerland. 
 1485-1603. House of Tudor, Henry VII to Elizabeth. 
 
 1487. Star Chamber established. 
 1491-1547. Henry VIII. 1541. "Defender of the Faith." 
 
 1503. Margaret tarried in Scrooby, on her way to 
 marry James IV of Scotland. 
 1509-1564. Calvin in France and Switzerland. 
 
 1516. The Greek New Testament. Erasmus. 
 1521. The Anabaptist Movement. Champions of a 
 free church in a free state. Democracy applied 
 to religion. 
 1526. Tyndale's version of the Bible. 
 
 1528. First Protestant martyr burned in England. 
 
 1529. Fall of Wolsey. 
 
 1530. Spinning-wheel introduced from Germany. 
 1534. England breaks with Rome. 
 
 1540-1567. Guido de Bray and the Belgic Confession. 
 
 1549. First Prayer-Book in English. 
 
 1550. The Huguenots in France. 
 
 1550-1633. Robert Browne, Reformer and Free Churchman. 
 
 1552. Flight of English Puritans to the Continent. 
 1553-1558. "Bloody Mary," Queen of England. 
 
 [ 335 ]
 
 CHRONOLOGY 
 
 1556-1644. William Brewster, Elder in the Plymouth 
 
 Church. 
 1558-1603, Elizabeth, Queen of England, Defender of the 
 Faith. 
 1560. Geneva Version of the Bible. In constant use by 
 
 the Pilgrims in their three homes. 
 1564. Death of John Calvin. Shakespeare born. The 
 
 Huguenots in Florida. 
 1567. Flight of the Protestant Walloons and Flemings 
 
 from Belgium. 
 1567. Alva invades the Netherlands. Flight of the Wal- 
 loons and Flemings to England and Holland. 
 Mary, Queen of Scots, dethroned. 
 1571-1622. Henry Ainsworth, Pastor and Hebrew scholar. 
 1576-1625. John Robinson, Prophet and Leader. 
 
 1577. William the Silent proclaims liberty of con- 
 science. "Religion free for all men." 
 1579-1581. The Dutch Republic and Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence. Religion, in the house, free for all. 
 1582. At Middelburg, Robert Browne's book on "A 
 Free Church in a Free State." 
 
 1586. Six thousand British soldiers sent to aid the 
 Dutch. 
 
 1587. Mary, Queen of Scots, executed. Davison im- 
 prisoned. Brewster at Scrooby. 
 
 1587-1588. Little gatherings of Independents in London. 
 
 1588. Martin Marprelate tracts. 
 
 1589. Dordrecht a center of printing Free Church 
 publications. 
 
 1590. John Penry, martyr and first Pilgrim Father. 
 1590-1657. William Bradford, Historian of the Pilgrim Com- 
 pany and Governor of Plymouth Colony. 
 
 1591. Francis Johnson, book-burner at Middelburg, 
 converted. 
 
 1592. First known Congregational Church formed in 
 London. 
 
 1593. Earliest modern Congregational Creed. 
 1593. Martyrs of Independency. 
 
 1 336]
 
 CHRONOLOGY 
 
 1593-1595. Flight of the London Free Churchmen to Am- 
 sterdam. 
 1597. Attempt to settle Rainea, in Newfoundland. 
 
 Controversy in Amsterdam as to clothes. 
 1602. The church at Gainsborough. The Covenant, 
 heart of a Congregational Church. 
 
 1603-1625. James I of England. 
 
 1604. Scrooby congregation formed. John Calvin, 
 having displaced the sway of Augustine over the 
 mind of Europe, trained the leaders of the Re- 
 formed Church, applied representative govern- 
 ment to religion, and laid the ethical foundations 
 of modern civilization, dies at Geneva. 
 
 1606-1669. Rembrandt, born at Leyden, the painter of 
 Puritanism. 
 
 1607. Flight of the Scrooby Church to Holland. 
 
 1608. The year in Amsterdam — Refugees and Sepa- 
 ratist churches. 
 
 1609. The Great Truce in the war with Spain. Henry 
 Hudson, in the Half Moon, enters the Delaware 
 and Hudson rivers. Robinson and the Scrooby 
 company remove to Leyden. Growth and con- 
 solidation. Peace and prosperity. 
 
 1612. "Pilgrim" Settlement. House in Leyden bought. 
 
 New Netherland and New England receive their 
 
 names. 
 1609-1619. Maurice and Barneveldt. Testing of the Dutch 
 
 Republic. Secession and coercion. The Union 
 
 triumphant. Federal government vindicated, 
 1616-1619. Brewster's printing-press in Bell Alley. 
 
 1619. The Great Synod of Dort. Robinson champion 
 of Calvinism. 
 
 1620. Debate on emigration. The Mayflower leaves 
 London, July 15. Sailing of the Speedwell, 
 July 23. Arrival at Southampton, July 27. The 
 Mayflower and Speedwell sail from Southamp- 
 ton, August 5. At Dartmouth, August 12-23. 
 At Plymouth, August 28-September 6. Voyage 
 
 I 337 1
 
 CHRONOLOGY 
 
 of the Mayflower, September 6-November II. 
 
 Exploration and adventure, November 27- 
 Dcccmber 20. 
 
 1621. The Common House, Fort, and Church. The 
 Great Sickness. Return of the Mayflower. 
 Standish appointed Captain. The ship Fortune 
 arrives. Thirty-five immigrants. 
 
 1622. First marriage in the colony. The ships Charity 
 and Swan arrive with immigrants. 
 
 1623. The ships Ann and Little James arrive, with 
 one hundred immigrants. 
 
 1624. Edward Winslow writes the book, "Good News 
 from New England." 
 
 1625. First cattle imported. 
 1625-1649. Charles I of England. 
 
 1627. Isaac de Rasieres visits Plymouth. Tells of wam- 
 pum or Indian money. His picture of Pilgrim 
 life. The Pilgrims are free. Attain economic inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 1630. First capital punishment. The great Puritan 
 immigration. Boston founded. 
 
 1635. Connecticut settled. 
 
 1637. Jepson dies. The Leyden real estate of the Pil- 
 grims sold. 
 
 1638. First house of worship erected at Plymouth. 
 
 1642. Civil war in England. Emigration to America 
 suspended. 
 
 1643. Brick watch tower at Plymouth. 
 1643-1684. The New England Confederation. 
 1649-1658. The English Commonwealth. 
 
 1650. Puritan notions in Church and State influence 
 legislation and modify Pilgrim ideals. 
 
 1657. Bradford dies, having written the "Historic of 
 Plimouth Plantation." 
 
 1658. Last traces of the Pilgrims in Leyden. 
 1660-1685. Charles II of England. 
 
 1664. Treacherous conquest of New Netherland. 
 1676. Second fort built, with palisades ten feet high. 
 
 [338]
 
 CHRONOLOGY 
 
 1683. Second house of worship at Plymouth. 
 1685-1688. James II of England. 
 
 1686. Cross and pine tree flag. Sir Edmund Andros 
 arrives. 
 
 1688. The English Revolution. King William III. The 
 colonies north of New York made into one prov- 
 ince. 
 1690-1850. New Plymouth, with seventeen towns and 
 thirteen thousand people, ceases to exist. The 
 story of the Pilgrims lost in that of the Puri- 
 tans. 
 
 1741. Plymouth Rock reidentified by Elder Thomas 
 Faunce. First celebration at Plymouth in honor 
 of the Pilgrim Fathers. 
 
 1774- Bradford's manuscript disappears. 
 
 1775. Plymouth Rock split in half, while removing the 
 liberty pole, inscribed with "Liberty or Death." 
 The upper portion remained in the town square 
 until 1834, and separated for one hundred and 
 five years. 
 
 1799. First use of the phrase "The Pilgrim Fathers." 
 
 1817. Edwin White's painting of the "Signing of the 
 Compact." 
 
 1 8 19. Old Colony Pilgrim Society formed. 
 
 1820. Daniel Webster's famous oration on the Pil- 
 grims. 
 
 1823. Leyden Street: original name First; later Broad; 
 renamed at Plymouth, Massachusetts. 
 
 1824. Pilgrim Hall erected at Plymouth, Massachu- 
 setts, by the Pilgrim Society. 
 
 1834. The upper part of Plymouth Rock again re- 
 moved to an enclosed spot near Pilgrim Hall. 
 Painting of "The Landing of the Pilgrims," by 
 Henry Sargent, of Boston. 
 
 1845. Charles West Cope's fresco painting in the cor- 
 ridor of the House of Parliament, first entitled 
 "A Puritan Family Embarking for America." 
 Several years later, after repeated protests, the 
 
 [ 339 ]
 
 CHRONOLOGY 
 
 title was changed to "Embarkation of the Pil- 
 grim Fathers in the Mayflower." 
 
 1845. Robert W. Weir's painting of "The Embarka- 
 tion of the Pilgrim Fathers," at Delfshaven, in 
 the Rotunda at Washington. 
 
 1848. Dr. C. N, Kist, of Leyden, recovers the names 
 of the Pilgrims in the Dutch archives. 
 
 1853. W. H. Bartlett, English artist, writes the book 
 "The Pilgrim Fathers." 
 1855-1856. Bradford's manuscript found at Fulham Li- 
 brary. Printed. 
 
 1859. Corner-stone of the National Monument at 
 Plymouth laid. 
 
 i860. Schwartze's historic painting of " The First 
 Sabbath of the Pilgrims at Plymouth." 
 1865-1904. George H. Boughton's interpretive pictures of 
 Pilgrim life. 
 
 1872. Charles Lucy's painting, "Embarkation of the 
 Pilgrims," in the new State House in Boston. 
 
 1880. The two separated parts of Plymouth Rock re- 
 united in its old place of 1620. Granite canopy 
 erected. 
 
 1885. Statue of the Pilgrim, by J. Q. Adams Ward, 
 Central Park, New York. 
 
 1889. The National Monument at Plymouth in honor 
 of the Pilgrims completed and dedicated. 
 
 1891. "International Council of the Congregational 
 Churches of the World" held in London. Bronze 
 tablet in honor of John Robinson unveiled at 
 Leyden. Memorial windows and commemora- 
 tive exercises in the Town Hall and granite slab 
 in honor of the Pilgrims set in the Barbican, 
 at Plymouth, England. 
 
 1897. Bradford's manuscript received in Boston. 
 
 1898. Two bas-reliefs in honor of the Pilgrims on 
 facade of the Congregational House in Boston. 
 
 1902. The International Social Club, "The Pilgrims," 
 formed in England. 
 
 [ 340 ]
 
 CHRONOLOGY 
 
 1904. The General Society of the Mayflower Descend- 
 ants formed, with the periodical "The May- 
 flower Descendant." 
 
 1906. Bronze tablet in honor of the Pilgrims unveiled 
 at Delfshaven. 
 
 1907. Corner-stone of Memorial Tower at Province- 
 town, Massachusetts, laid, 
 
 1909. Bronze tablet in honor of the Pilgrims un- 
 veiled at Amsterdam. John Robinson Memorial 
 Church dedicated at Gainsborough, England. 
 
 1910. Memorial Tower at Provincetown, Massachu- 
 setts, dedicated. 
 
 1913. Bronze tablet in honor of Robert Browne and 
 the Separatists unveiled at Middelburg. Me- 
 morial shaft and effigy of the Mayflower un- 
 veiled at Southampton, England. Sumptuous 
 annotated edition of Bradford's " Historic " 
 issued by the Massachusetts Historical Society. 
 
 1919. International Memorial at Geneva, one panel 
 depicting " The Compact." Arrival at Plymouth, 
 England, near the spot whence the Mayflower 
 sailed, of the American aeroplane, N.C.-4. 
 Committees formed in several countries for 
 celebration in England, Holland, America, and 
 colonies, of the tercentenary anniversary of the 
 Pilgrims' landing at Plymouth.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Actors, 19. 
 
 Adams, John, 12, 14, 147, 171. 
 
 Adams, John Quincy, 171. 
 
 Aeroplanes, 207, 341. 
 
 Ainsworth, Henry, 141, 144, I45. 
 
 336. 
 Alden, John, 205, 230, 302, 315, 319. 
 Algonquins, 250-55, 260. 
 AUerton family, 228, 230, 232. 
 Altars, 178, 179. 
 Alva, 336. 
 
 America, 27, 339, 341. 
 American food, i, 251, 252, 263, 302. 
 American history, 259, 260, 306, 307, 
 
 325-28. 
 American ideas, 133, 134, 323. 
 American origins, 3, 156, 164, 170- 
 
 73. 325, 326. 
 American Revolution, 9, 10, 11, 171, 
 
 339- 
 Americanism, 5, 224, 284, 320, 325, 
 
 326. 
 Americans in England, i-io, 63. 
 Ames, Azel, 188, 193, 199, 226, 234. 
 Amsterdam, 132, 140, 142-44, 146, 
 
 149, 153, 154- 
 Amusements, 9, 38-49, 50-55, 176, 
 
 183. 
 Anabaptists, 78, 79, 82, 145, 146, 
 
 159, 335- 
 Ancestry, 320. 
 Andros, Edmund, 303, 339. 
 Angels, 36. 
 
 Anglicanism, 307, 313. 
 Anglicized history, 137, 310. 
 Anglo-Saxon freedom, 171. 
 Ann, the ship, 166, 197, 338. 
 "Ansterfield," 115, 117. 
 Antwerp, 108, 142. 
 Atlantic coast, 247. 
 Arabic, 272.^ 
 
 Arber, Edward, 322. 
 
 Arbutus, 282. 
 
 Archery, 43, 45, 116. 
 
 Architecture, 7, 73, 127, 267. 
 
 Archives, 16, 161, 340. 
 
 Arminians, 190. 
 
 Armistice, 147. 
 
 Armor, 269. 
 
 Arms of Amsterdam, 149. 
 
 Arms of D elf shaven, 200. 
 
 Arms of Ley den, 318. 
 
 Army, i, 16, 261, 273. 
 
 Arrows, 45, 197, 260, 266. 
 
 Art, Dutch, 12, 154, 190, 191, 252. 
 
 Artillery, 45, 268. 
 
 Artists, 51, 339, 340. 
 
 Asia, 33. 
 
 Aspinet, 269. 
 
 Atlantic, 213, 214-21. 
 
 Aubrey, M. E., 319. 
 
 Augustine, 248, 278, 279, 313, 337, 
 
 Austerfield, 11 5-1 7, 236. 
 
 Australians, 3. 
 
 Auto-da-fe, 159. 
 
 Autographs, 223, 226. 
 
 Babies, 229, 231, 232, 280. 
 Babworth, 117. 
 Baltimore, Lord, 15. 
 Baptism, 116, 178, 313, 
 Barbican, 207, 340. 
 Barnes, 319. 
 
 Barneveldt, 165, 190, 337. 
 Barrowe, Henry, 89-93, I03- 
 Barrowists, 89, 138-41, 157. 
 Barter, 59, 289. 
 Bartlett, W. H., 340. 
 Bastwick, John, 313. 
 Bas-reliefs, 267, 340. 
 Batavia, N.Y., 172. 
 Bates, 319. 
 
 [ 343 ]
 
 INDEX 
 
 Baths, 6, 7. 
 
 Bears, 40, 41. 
 
 Beds, 7, 56, 239. 
 
 Beggars, 22. 
 
 Beguyn chapel, 169. 
 
 Beguyn Hof, 159. 
 
 Belgian refugees, 31, 165, 285. 
 
 Belgic Confessors, 335. 
 
 Bell Alley, 106, 161, 261, 337. 
 
 Bells, 23, 151. 
 
 Bertram, 319. 
 
 Best, 319. 
 
 Bethlehem, Pa., 244. 
 
 Bible, 35, 47, SI, 56, 66, 102, 103, 
 
 158, 176, 177, 214, 281, 335, 336. 
 Bigots, 78. 
 Billington family, 228, 230, 232, 268, 
 
 292, 293. 
 Birds, 6, 46, 132, 151, 214, 237, 261, 
 
 301. 
 Bishops, 35, 64, 92, 99, 125, 205. 
 Bleaching, 240. 
 Boerhave, 170, 277. 
 Book of Common Prayer, 61, 65, 70. 
 Books, 8, 21, 59, 83, 84, 90, 91, 103, 
 
 125, 153. 176-78. 
 Book-burning, 26, 336. 
 Borrowings from Holland, 13, 14, 
 
 15, 56, 137. 151. 238, 294. 
 Boss, II. 
 
 Boston in England, 130, 131. 
 Boston in Massachusetts, 145, 267, 
 
 325. 338. 
 "Bostons, The," 306. 
 Boughton, George H., 198, 202, 290, 
 
 340. 
 Boys, 8, 47, 237. 
 
 Bradford, Dorothy, 228, 230, 243. 
 Bradford's History, 71, 120, 163, 216, 
 
 219, 293. 338, 339. 340, 341- 
 Bradford, William, 82, 84, 115-23. 
 . 134, 136, 159. 187, 204, 249, 268, 
 
 286-90, 297, 317, 336, 338, 340. 
 Brewster family, 227, 232, 236. 
 Brewster, William, 101-14, 152, 169, 
 
 236, 318, 336. 
 Bricks, 7, 126, 127, 237. 
 Brides, 239. 
 
 Bright, John, 308. 
 
 Bristol, 247. 
 
 British in Holland, 107-09, 170-72, 
 
 261, 336. 
 Browne, Robert, 82-85, 145, 314. 
 
 336,341- 
 Browning, quoted, 330. 
 Brownisten Gang, 156, 159. 
 Brownists, 83, 84, 89, 113, I4S. 153- 
 
 156, 158. 
 Bryant, 244. 
 Buddhism, 36. 
 Bull-baiting, 42. 
 Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, 75. 
 Burghley, 96. 
 Burials, 4, 243-45, 279. 
 Burns, Robert, 68, 299. 
 Butler, Mary, 161. 
 Butten, William, 243. 
 Butter, 205, 209, 251. 
 Buttons, 56, 57. 
 
 Cabots, 247, 256. 
 
 Calendar, 22. 
 
 Calvin, 70, 77, 81, 191, 335, 336, 337. 
 
 Calvinism, 299, 313, 337. 
 
 Calvinists, 181, 190. 
 
 Cambridge, 90, loi, 318. 
 
 Canada, 295, 303, 304, 31O. 
 
 Canals, 199. 
 
 Canne, John, 158. 
 
 Cannon, 268. 
 
 Cape Cod, 83, 219, 223, 237, 248, 
 
 264. 
 Caricatures, 299, 316. 
 Carillons, 151. 
 Carpenter, E. J., 236. 
 Carr, Sir Edwin, 286. 
 Carstairs, William, 168. 
 Cartwright, 82. 
 Carver family, 227, 231. 
 Carver, John, 175, 268, 318. 
 Catchpole, 129-31, 204-05. 
 Catholic, 313. 
 Catholics, 291. 
 Cats, 197. 
 
 Cattle, 127, 301, 302, 338. 
 Cautionary Towns, 107. 
 
 [ 344 ]
 
 INDEX 
 
 Cedar, 241. 
 
 Celebrations, 339, 340. 
 
 Celtic strain, 315. 
 
 Central Park, 52, 340. 
 
 Ceremonies, 314. 
 
 Chancewell, The, 140. 
 
 Changelings, 58. 
 
 Chantry, 24. 
 
 Charity, 143, 144, 152, ISS, 234. 
 
 Charity, the ship, 338. 
 
 Charles I, 338. 
 
 Charles II, 338. 
 
 Charters, no. 
 
 Cheese, 306. 
 
 Chicago, 63, 159. 
 
 Children, 130, 176, 184, 188, 304, 
 
 30s, 311- 
 Chilton family, 229, 231. 
 Chimneys, 54. 
 China, 24, 26, 155. 
 Christmas Day, 268. 
 Chronology, 335-41- 
 Church, 35, 66, 67, 121, 215, 261. 
 Church and State, 19-21, 34-37, 65, 
 
 67, 68, 71, 76-78, 166, 167, 190, 
 
 308, 329. 
 Church edifices, 166, 167, 169, 183, 
 
 261. 
 Church in the Netherlands, 142, 178, 
 
 189, 190. 
 Church of England, 2, 308. 
 Church polity, 34, 72, 83, 91, lOO, 
 
 133. 181. 
 Church services, 176. 
 Church, the Christian, 34, 100, 121, 
 
 261. 
 Civilization, 15, 16, 295, 301, 305, 
 
 337- 
 Clams, 251. 
 Clark, John, 140. 
 Clark's island, 267. 
 Cleanliness, 6, 239, 240, 265. 
 Clifton, Richard, 132. 
 Climate, 267, 274, 280, 282. 
 Clothes controversy, 157, 160, 337. 
 Clothing, 238. 
 Coasts, 218, 247, 248, 285. 
 Cockney English, 3. 
 
 Cocks, 42, 43. 
 
 Coke, Lord, 96. 
 
 Colonies of England, 61, 83, 92, 192, 
 
 302, 303. 
 Colonization, 190-94, 215, 235, 249, 
 
 284, 302, 303. 
 Commandery, 261. 
 Common House, 268, 270, 271, 280, 
 
 338. 
 Commonwealth of England, 338. 
 Communal spirit, 305, 323. 
 Compact, The, 69, 83, 98, 222-26, 
 
 235.339,341. 
 Confederation, New England, 272, 
 
 302, 338. 
 Conformists, 39, 83. 
 Congregation, 66, 79. 
 Congregational churches, 82, 88, 99, 
 
 133, 134. 157. 336. 
 Congregational clubs, 63. 
 Congregational House, 267, 340. 
 Congregationalists, 71, 82, 103, 145, 
 
 146, 312. 
 Connecticut, 288. 
 Consecrated ground, 4, 36. 
 Constantinople, 33. 
 Constitution of the Dutch, 1579, 190, 
 
 191. 
 Constitution of the United States, 
 
 79, 82, 83. 
 Constitutions of the English Col- 
 onies, 83. 
 Conventicles, 72, 73. 
 Cooke family, 233. 
 Cooper, Humility, 228, 230. 
 Cope, Charles West, 339. 
 Coppin, 221, 267. 
 Corlaer, 256, 260. 
 Corn, I, 263, 264, 270. 
 Cornell University, 85. 
 Cosmopolitan elements, 1$, 310-21, 
 Costume, 56, 58, 150, 277, 278. 
 Council, International, 340. 
 Council of Nice, 328. 
 Council of Trent, 328. 
 Covenant, 83, 91, 134, 157, 186, 
 
 223-26, 337. 
 Covenant of Corlaer, 256, 260. 
 
 [ 345 ]
 
 INDEX 
 
 Cows, i8o, 302. 
 Cradle of Liberty, 104. 
 Cradles, 196. 
 Crakston family, 232. 
 Cranks, 157, 291. 
 Cranmer, 70. 
 Creeds, 312, 313, 336. 
 Cromwell, 63, 322. 
 Crown of Thorns, 151. 
 Curfew, 7, 56. 
 Cushman, 228, 234, 316. 
 Cuyps, 202. 
 
 Danes, 124, 125, 169. 
 
 Danvers, 319. 
 
 Dartmouth, 206, 211, 337. 
 
 Dates. See Chronological Framework, 
 
 335-41- 
 Daughters, 50, 51. 
 Davison, William, loi, 102, 1 12-14, 
 
 336. 
 Deaconess, 183-184. 
 Decapitation, 17, 20, 72, 73, 271. 
 Declaration of American Independ- 
 ence, 254. 
 Declaration of Dutch Independence, 
 
 83, 336. 
 Deer, 17. 
 Defoe, 301. 
 
 Delaware Indians, 260. 
 Delfshaven, 195, 200-03, 236, 340. 
 Delusions, 60. 
 Democracy in the church, 25, 82-84, 
 
 122, 133, 157, 179, 329, 335. 
 Democracy in the world, 86, 122, 171, 
 
 191, 308. 
 Dennis, William, 89. 
 Deportation, 317. 
 De Rasieres, 285, 289, 338. 
 Descendants, 331, 340. 
 Deuteronomy, 187. 
 Dialects (English) 162, 163. 
 Dictionnaire Eistorique, La Grande, 
 
 144. 
 Diet, 275-77, 279. 
 Dikes, 109, 150, 200. 
 District attorney, 85. 
 Dogs, 17, 46, 197, 262, 302. 
 
 Domesday Book, 125. 
 
 Dordrecht, 91, 143, 179, 191, 336, 
 
 337- 
 Dotey, 319. 
 Dragons, 48. 
 Dreams, 53. 
 Dress, 56, 277, 278. 
 Drink, i, 251, 263, 277. 
 Drums, 195, 196, 289. 
 Dunkirk pirates, 192, 194, 203, 285. 
 Durie, Robert, 168. 
 Dutch art, 12, 154, 179. 
 Dutch housekeeping, 238-40. 
 Dutch language, 205, 286. 
 Dutch law, 14, 294. 
 Dutch navigators, 248. 
 Dutch Republic, 14, 82, 97, 102-08, 
 
 109, 137, 190-95, 251, 286. 
 Dutch, the, 10, 12, 238, 325. 
 Dutch words, 150, 306. 
 Duxbury, 273. 
 D wight, 319. 
 
 Easel, 242. 
 
 East India Company (Dutch), 201, 
 
 202. 
 Eaton family, 229, 231, 233. 
 Economics, 62, 193, 284, 286-89, 302, 
 
 304, 338. 
 Education in England, 105, 235. 
 Education in Holland, 105. 
 Elders, 141, 157, 339. 
 Elections, 103, 158. 
 Eliot, Charles W., 236. 
 Elizabethan era, 27, 28, 58, 96. 
 Elizabeth, Queen, 35, 39, 71, 72, 95, 
 
 109. 277, 335, 336. 
 Emigrations, 69, 319. 
 England and America, 1-16, 136. 
 Englands, the two, 92, 307, 309. 
 English history, 64, 68, 69, 308, 322. 
 English language (1620), 161-63. 
 English-speaking peoples, 307. 
 English stock, 320. 
 Episcopal Church, 100. 
 Erasmus, 335. 
 Essex, 319. 
 EstabUshed Chtirch, 5, 307. 
 
 [346I
 
 INDEX 
 
 Eugenics, 290. 
 Evil spirits, 60. 
 Executions, 20, 64. 
 Exodus, 148, 196. 
 Exploration, 261-68, 338 
 Ezra, 74, 194- 
 
 Fairies, 22, 23, 59, 60. 
 
 Fairs, 8, 59. 
 
 Fairy-lore, 22, 23. 
 
 Family religion, 35, 67, 68, 304. 
 
 Faunce, Thomas, 339. 
 
 Federal government, 5, 13, 189, 190, 
 
 303. 337- 
 Female costume, 56-58, 157. 
 Fertilizers, 251. 
 Festivals, 24, 51. 
 Feudalism, 92, 109, no, 129, 149, 
 
 258. 
 Fights, 266, 271. 
 Fillmore, 167, 287. 
 Finances, 11, 171, 192, 193, 205, 302. 
 Firearms, 45, 203, 210, 265-67, 293, 
 
 296, 297. 
 Fires, 54, 82, 270. 
 First encounter, 256, 260, 264-67. 
 Fish, 125, 251, 301. 
 Fishing, 248, 281, 282. 
 Fiske, 319. 
 
 Flags, American, 12, 150, 303, 339. 
 Flags, British, 69. 
 Flags, Dutch, 12, 104, 148, 149, 150, 
 
 165, 203, 303. 
 Flags, English, 148, 202. 
 Flanders, 245, 319. 
 Flemings, 30-32, 55. 69, 116, 336. 
 Florida, 336. 
 Flowers, 52, 53, 105, 122, 280, 282, 
 
 324- 
 Folk art, 49. 
 
 Food, American, i, 251, 263. 
 Food, Dutch, 9, 10, 106, 107, 153. 
 Food, English, 281. 
 Food, Mayflower, 274, 277, 279. 
 Food, Plymouth, 264, 270, 279, 281. 
 Forests, 6, 197, 232, 237, 266. 
 Forks, 55. 
 Fort, the, 268, 269, 271, 338. 
 
 Forts, 203, 338: 
 
 Fortune, the ship, 166, 338 
 
 France, 69, 226, 319. 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin, 171. 
 
 Free Churches, 61, 65, 66, 88, 97, 
 
 141, 177, 178, 307, 335- 
 Freedom of conscience, 80, 146, 
 
 153, 168, 173, 224. 
 French, 143. 3 n. 313- 
 French churches, 142. 
 Freyer, 319. 
 Fuel, 54. 
 
 Fuller family, 229, 231, 233, 
 Fun, 47-49, 51, 151. 
 
 Gainesborough, 128, 133, 185, 337, 
 
 341. 
 Gallows, 92, 99, 138. 
 Games, 51, 151. 
 Gardens, 51-55. 
 Gantlet, 317. 
 Genealogy, 174, 290, 320. 
 Genesis, 148. 
 
 Geneva, 66, 70, 145, 178, 376. 
 Geneva discipline, 178. 
 George, Lloyd, 308. 
 George, Saint, 48. 
 George III, 107, 306, 308. 
 Germans, 143, 169. 
 German words, 151. 
 Germany, 69, 70, 81, 109, 322. 
 Gerry, 319. 
 Gettysburg, 190, 307. 
 Gibbs, 319. 
 Gideon, 207, 242. 
 Girls in America, 155, 229, 231, 234, 
 
 245- 
 Girls in England, 8, 48, 49, 50-62, 
 
 155- 
 Girls in Holland, 105, 155, 196. 
 Glaciated areas, 248. 
 Glaciers, 248, 324. 
 Gladstone, W. E., 92, 308. 
 Glass, 54. 
 
 God-filled men, 122. 
 Godly, Helen, 94. 
 Gosnold, Bartholomew, 248. 
 Grafters, 130, 255. 
 
 [ 347
 
 INDEX 
 
 Grant, General, 273. 
 
 Gravcsend, 141. 
 
 Graves of the Pilgrims, 243-45. 
 
 Greek language, 35, 66. 
 
 Greek scholars, 33. 
 
 Green, J. R., 322, 323. 
 
 Greenwood, John, 89-93. 
 
 Grimsby, 131. 
 
 Guide de Bray, 335. 
 
 Guns, 45, 264-67, 290, 293, 296. 
 
 Haarlem, 155. 
 
 Hale, Nathan, 96. 
 
 Half Moon, the ship, 155, 197, 204, 
 
 206, 337. 
 Hague, The, 107, 147. 
 Hamel, 319. 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander, 308. 
 Hanks, 319. 
 Hanson, 319. 
 Harrison, Robert, 86. 
 Hatch, Edwin, 164. 
 Hawthorne, 175. 
 Health, 274-79. 
 Hebraic culture, 144, 145, 178. 
 Hebraic inheritances, 148. 
 Hebrew language, 144, 145. 
 Henry VHI, 17, 126, 180, 335. 
 Henty, 109. 
 Heraldry, 255. 
 Herbs, 52. 
 
 Heredity, 38, 320, 325, 326. 
 Heresy, 77, 121. 
 Heretics, 45, 135, 191, 329. 
 History, 9, 14, 26, 151. 
 Hoffman, 319. 
 Holbeck, 319. 
 
 Holland-American Line, 201, 203. 
 Holland, country, 14, 16. 
 Holland, province, 191. 
 Holmes, J. H., 122. 
 Holmes, O. W., 297. 
 Holy water, 126. 
 Homes, 304, 305. 
 Hooker, Richard, 192. 
 Hopewell, the, 140. 
 Hopkins family, 230, 232. 
 Horace, 278. 
 
 Houghton, 319. 
 
 House, 117, 268. 
 
 House of Commons, gi. 
 
 House of Lords, 6, 64. 
 
 Houses, 7, 161, 268. 
 
 Howland, John, 229, 231. 
 
 Hoyt, Barbara, 236. 
 
 Hudson, Henry, 155, 204, 206, 209, 
 
 337- 
 Hudson River, 219, 220. 
 Huguenots, 142, 143, 335, 336. 
 Hume, 42. 
 Hussites, 144. 
 
 Hygiene, 21, 22, 54, 55, 275-78. 
 Hymns, 99, 144, 236. 
 
 Independents, 124, 336. 
 
 India, 154. 
 
 Indian corn, i, 251, 263. 
 
 Indians, 249-60, 288, 295. ' 
 
 Individualism, 323. 
 
 Infancy, 196, 305. 
 
 Inquisition, 192. 
 
 Insulinde, 154. 
 
 International Council, 340. 
 
 International Memorial, 34. 
 
 International Social Club, 340. 
 
 Interpretations, 78, 83, 186. 
 
 Inventions, 13. 
 
 Irish, 162, 163, 168, 315. 
 
 Iroquois Confederacy, 250, 260, 289. 
 
 Islington, 72. 
 
 Italy, 28, 29, 32. 
 
 Ithaca, 325. 
 
 Jails. See Prisons. 
 
 James I, 69, 106, 208, 226, 248, 337. 
 
 James II, 339. 
 
 Jamestown, 224. 
 
 Jan Kaas, 306. 
 
 Janssen, 85. 
 
 Japan, 18. 
 
 Japanese, 37, 154. 
 
 Japanese, history of, 17-26, 37. 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, 75, 82, 254, 308. 
 
 Jennings, 319. 
 
 Jepson, carpenter, 161, 167, 338. 
 
 Jesus, 72, 74, 118, 128, 178, 215, 332. 
 
 [348]
 
 INDEX 
 
 Jews, 144, 151- 
 
 Johnson, Frands, 140, 141, 144, 157, 
 
 160, 336. 
 Johnson, George, 140, 157. 
 Jones, Captain, 204, 262. 
 Jordan, 319. 
 Juniper, 241, 242. 
 
 Kampen, 143, 
 Kent, 319. 
 Kern, 319. 
 Kings, 30, 64, 308. 
 Kist, N.C., 311, 340. 
 Klog Steeg. See Bell Alley. 
 Knapp, 319. 
 Knickerbocker, 151. 
 Knights, 17. 
 
 t-afayette, 108. 
 
 Lambeth, 90. 
 
 Lancashire, 307, 308. 
 
 Land tenure, 64, no, 250, 257-61. 
 
 Language, 2, 35, 162, 311. 
 
 Latham, William, 231. 
 
 Latin, 8, 66, 108, 176. 
 
 Latin ideas, 77, 176. 
 
 Latitude and longitude, 218. 
 
 Laws of England, 21-35, 72, 95-98. 
 
 Laws of Holland, 14, 81, 82, 85, 
 
 149. 
 Laws of the Pilgrim Republic, 291, 
 
 294, 307, 308. 
 Lee, Robert, 189, 190. 
 Left and right, i, 152. 
 Legends, 60. 
 Leland, John, 126. 
 Letters, 205, 256, 285-87, 317. 
 Leviticus, 148. 
 Leyden, lOi, 143, 162-64, 166-73, 
 
 187-92, 224, 227, 236, 268, 279, 
 
 337. 338. 
 Leyden jar, 171. 
 Leyden Street, 268, 339. 
 Liberty loans, 107, in, 112. 
 Lights, 19, 56. 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, 9, 82, 214, 307. 
 Lincolnshire, 319. 
 Linen, 238, 239. 
 
 Livelihoods, 31, 234, 235. 
 
 Log, 216, 217. 
 
 London, 1-3, 40, 56, 63, I13, 124, 
 
 134, 138, 290, 319, 336. 
 London Company, 192, 193. 
 Longfellow, 144, 198, 252, 273, 302. 
 Lord's Supper, 36, 80, 179. 
 Low Countries, 152. 
 Lowell, J. R., 99, 273. 
 Lucy, Charles, 340. 
 Luggage, 2, 58. 
 Luther, 77, 78, 335. 
 Luzac, Jean, 171. 
 Lyford, John, 316. 
 
 Maas River, 201, 203. 
 Macaulay, 42. 
 Magdalen Isles, 138-41. 
 Maiden's love, 51-53- 
 Maidservants, 224, 229, 234. 
 Maize, 251, 263. 
 Manhattan, 172, 240, 285. 
 Margaret, Queen of Scotland, 335. 1 
 Marginal references, 158. 
 Markets, 59. 
 Mark Twain, 158. 
 Marprelate Tracts, 72, 89, 94, lOI, 
 
 314, 336. 
 Marriage. See Weddings. 
 Marriage service, 61, 67. 
 Martin family, 230. 
 Martin Marprelate. Set Marprelate 
 
 tracts. 
 Martyrs, 21, 22, 72, 73, 88-100, 128, 
 
 138, 139, 328, 335, 336. 
 Mary, 49. 
 
 Mary, Queen, 71, 72, 82, 335. 
 Mary, Queen of Scots, 114, 336. 
 Maryland, 15. 
 
 Mass, the, 36, 178, 195, 203. 
 Massachusetts, 108, 155, 256, 301, 
 
 303. 
 Massasoit, 254, 269, 270. 
 Maurice, 165, 337. 
 May, Dorothy, 230, 243. 
 Mayflower, the, 63, 64, 140, 188, 
 
 193, 204-27, 247, 248, 279, 337, 
 
 338, 339. 340. 
 
 [ 349 1
 
 INDEX 
 
 Mayflower Company, 207-10, 220- 
 
 35, 240, 243, 254, 337- 
 Mayflower Descendants, 331, 340. 
 Meade, 190. 
 Meat, 281. 
 Medicine, 275, 276. 
 Mediaeval ideas, 29, 35, 66, 67, 68. 
 Meeting houses, 73, 268, 338, 339. 
 Memorials, 86, 87, 172, 173, 207, 
 
 234. 235. 236, 267, 273, 340, 341. 
 Merr>-mount, 295-97. 
 Methodists, 68. 
 Meuse, 202. 
 
 Middleburg, 76-87, 89, 143, 336, 341. 
 Middle States, 10, 13, 15, 105, 150, 
 
 167, 172. 
 Midsummer Eve, 52, 53. 
 Military, American, 63, 189, 190, 
 
 294. 
 Military, Dutch, 191, 195. 
 Military, English, 45, 261, 298. 
 Militar>', Pilgrim, 261-73, 317. 
 Milton, John, 322. 
 Minter, Desire, 227, 229, 319. 
 Minuit, Peter, 259, 285. 
 Money, 13, 289. 
 Monks, 18, 67. 
 Monk's Mill, 125. 
 Montgomerys, 167. 
 Monuments, 340. 
 Moravians, 244. 
 More, Ellen, 228, 229. 
 More, Richard, 232. 
 Morton, Thomas, 294-97. 
 Motherhood, 184, 185. 
 Motley, J. L., 189, 297. 
 Mugwort, 60. 
 Mullens, Priscilla, 144, 228, 230, 232, 
 
 302. 
 Mullens family, 228, 230, 232, 319. 
 Museum, 11, 170, 196, 197. 
 Music, 60, 144. 
 Muslin, 238. 
 
 Naarden, 143. 
 
 Name of Mayflower, 217, 233, 247. 
 
 Names of Christians, 313. 
 
 Names of persons, 32, 109, no, 319. 
 
 Names of places, 13, 156, 252. 
 
 Napkins, 55. 
 
 National Churches, 74. 
 
 Navigation, 215-221. 
 
 New Amsterdam, 11. 
 
 New Bedford, 282. 
 
 New England, 249, 310, 320, 327. 
 
 New England Confederation, 272, 
 
 338. 
 New France, 295. 
 New Nethedand, 43, 155, 156, 191, 
 
 202, 209, 259, 286, 337, 338. 
 Newspapers, 14. 
 New Testament, 33, 72, 78, 158, 179, 
 
 261, 330. 
 New York, 217, 256, 257. 
 New York Histoo', 256, 257. 
 Non-Conformists, 65, 73. 
 Non-English elements, 313-20. 
 Nordenskjold, 274. 
 Norfolk, 319. 
 Norwich, 82, 128. 
 Nottinghamshire, 319. 
 Numbers, 187. 
 
 Occupations, 234. 
 
 Ocean, 27, 28, 212-20. 
 
 Oceanus, 228. 
 
 Old Colony Pilgrim Society, 339. 
 
 Old Glory, 149. 
 
 Oldham, John, 317. 
 
 Old Testament, 151, 178, 298, 330. 
 
 Oligarchy, 18-20. 
 
 Orient, the, 151. 
 
 Orientals, 26, 33, 151, 153. 
 
 Oxford, 93, 94. 
 
 Packard, 319. 
 
 Pageantry, 49. 
 
 Paintings, 12, 149, 238, 253, 339, 340. 
 
 Palfrey, J. G., 318. 
 
 Paper, 55. 
 
 Parliament, 5, 92, 339. 
 
 Paul, Saint, 73, 120. 
 
 Peace policy, 256. 
 
 Peacock's Index, 170. 
 
 Pennsylvania, 257. 
 
 Penn, William, 75, 82, 259, 260. 
 
 [ 350 ]
 
 INDEX 
 
 Penobscot, 271. 
 
 Penry, John, 89, 93-99. 3i4, 336. 
 
 People, the, 18, 91, 92, 96. 
 
 Peregrine White, 228, 232. 
 
 Persecutions, 124, 138-41. 
 
 Pershing, General, 2, 108. 
 
 Pestilence, 275. 
 
 Pesyn Hof, 167, 338. 
 
 Pets, 197. 
 
 Pews, 290. 
 
 Piet Heyn, 200. 
 
 Philadelphia, 10. 
 
 Philip II of Spain, 95, 96, 189. 
 
 Pictures, 103, 105, 175, 180, 202, 
 
 290. 
 Pigs, 302. 
 Pilgrimages, 24. 
 Pilgrim Father country, lor, 115, 
 
 125, 128. 
 Pilgrim Fathers, 12, 63, 79, 84, 89, 
 
 97, 124, 133, 140, 147, 150, 235, 
 
 339- 
 Pilgrim Hall, 339. 
 Pilgrim movement, 134, 282, 324. 
 Pilgrim Press, 106, 337. 
 Pilgrim Republic, 226, 273, 284-300, 
 
 337- 
 Pilgrim ships, 166. 
 Pilgrims, 38, 62, 74, 188, 228, 283, 
 
 298-308, 310-16, 318, 321, 323, 
 
 326-32, 339, 340. 
 Pilgrims, first public use of name, 
 
 7i> 89- 
 Pilgrims' Quay, 201. 
 Pillows, 239. 
 Pilots, 192, 219-21. 
 Pins, 57, 106. 
 Pitt, William, 209, 308. 
 Plants, 52, 53. 
 Plato, 305. 
 Plockhoy, 286. 
 Plymouth in America, 249, 303, 
 
 339- 
 Plymouth in England, 206-09, 337> 
 
 340,341- 
 Plymouth, name, 249. 
 Plymouth Rock, 229, 339. 
 Polders, 143. 
 
 Political status, 153. 
 
 Pollock Rip, 219. 
 
 Pope, the, 29, 68, 257. 
 
 Population, 8. 
 
 Portraits, 174, 175. 
 
 Post, the, 7, loi. 
 
 Potwin, 319. 
 
 Poujol, D. F., 142. 
 
 Poverty, 152. 
 
 Prayer-book, 61, 65, 335. 
 
 Prayers, 21, 95, 96, 202. 
 
 Preaching, 177. 
 
 Primula Mistassinica, 324. 
 
 Prince Edward's Island, 138. 
 
 Printing in England, 26, 102. 
 Printing in the Netherlands, 82, 90, 
 
 loi, 102, 103, 106, 153, 337. 
 Priscilla. See Mullens, Priscilla. 
 Prisoners, 20, 90, 91, 94, 139. 
 Prisons, the, 90, 95, 130, 131, 138, 
 
 139, 261. 
 Pronunciation, 3, 162, 163. 
 Provincetown, 235, 242, 243, 340. 
 Prower, 319. 
 Psalms, 144. 
 Public schools, 21, 105. 
 Pulpit, 177, 178. 
 Punishments, 17, 21, 291, 338. 
 Puritan dress, 238, 240. 
 Puritan family, 298, 299. 
 Puritan poUtics, 338. 
 Puritan refugees, 335. 
 Puritans, 120, 175, 298-309, 330, 
 
 338. 
 Puritans in America, 84, 153, 316, 
 
 318, 338. 
 Puritans in England, 42, 47, 67, 131, 
 178, 323, 339- 
 
 Quakers, 68. 
 
 Rabbits, 46, 47, 127. 
 Railways, 2. 
 
 Rainea, 138, 140, 141, 337. 
 Rattlesnake skin, 256. 
 Records, 12, 161. 
 
 Reformed churches, 146, 169, 178, 
 201, 202, 259, 337- 
 
 [351]
 
 INDEX 
 
 Reformers, 25, 26, 121, 122. 
 Refugees, 31, 32, 69, 143, 147, 335, 
 
 336, 337- 
 Relics, II, 131, 195, 214. 
 Religion, 8, 25, 37, 65, 81, 84, 133, 
 
 177. 178, 182, 191, 327-29. 330, 
 
 332. 
 Rembrandt, 154, 165, 166, 337. 
 Republic, American, 286, 311, 312. 
 Republic, Dutch, 149, 184, 286, 337. 
 Republic, Pilgrim, 187, 284-97. 
 Republic, Swiss, 79. 
 Reynolds, Captain, 202, 205, 206. 
 Rhode Island, 292. 
 Rigdale family, 229, 231. 
 Ritual, 176, 177, 314. 
 Roads, 1, 7. 
 Robinson, John, 132, 157, 161, 172, 
 
 173, 174-82, 189, 202, 205, 256, 
 
 261, 302, 312, 313, 315, 318, 330, 
 
 336, 337, 340. 
 Rock, Plymouth, 229. 
 Rogers family, 233, 319. 
 Rome, 29, 335. 
 
 Roosevelt, Theodore, 9, 11, 236. 
 Rotterdam, 107, 202. 
 Rule of the road, i, 152. 
 
 Sabbath, the, 237, 267, 289, 290, 297, 
 
 298. 
 Sacraments, 178. 
 Saint Eustatius, 12. 
 Saint George, 47-50. 
 Saint Peter's Church, 161, 171, 173. 
 Salem, Mass., 153, 230, 239. 
 Salvation, 201. 
 Samson, Henry, 233. 
 Sandys, Edwin, 192. 
 Santa Claas, 11, 12, 
 Sargent, Henry, 339. 
 Saturday Night, 298, 299. 
 Scaffolds, 199. 
 Schaeffer, de Hoop, 311. 
 Schenectady, 325. 
 Schnapps, 151. 
 Schools, 105, i6i, 304. 
 Schwartze, 340. 
 Scotch Brigade, 107, 171. 
 
 [ 35 
 
 Scotch church, 86, 168. 
 
 Scotland, 94. 
 
 Scots at Leyden, 168-71, 313. 
 
 Scottish church, 86, 159, 168, 169. 
 
 Scottish people, 320. 
 
 Scout, 84, 85. 
 
 Scriptures quoted, 30, 66, 88, 100, 
 105, 120, 123, 127, 178, 179, 194, 
 201, 236, 258, 275, 300, 327, 329. 
 
 Scrooby, 46, 47, 115, 116, 124-35, 
 148,157.161-69,311,337. 
 
 Scrooby people, 275, 279, 337. 
 
 Scurvy, 274. 
 
 Sea, 191, 273, 
 
 Sea bottom, 213. j 
 
 Sea food, 213. 
 
 Seals, 201, 217, 252. 
 
 Second generation, 290. 
 
 Separatist hterature, 76. 
 
 Separatists, 67, 74, 76, 89, 133, 322, 
 
 337- 
 Sermon, 65. 
 Seward, 167. 
 
 Shakespeare, 41, 52, 113, 336. < 
 Shakespeare quoted, 41, 52, 55. 
 Shallop, 263-67. 
 Sheep, 17, 49, 117. 
 Shell money. See Wampum. 
 Sheriffs, 129, 130. 
 Ships, 140, 166, 212, 315. ' 
 Ships of 1620, 140, 212, 216. 
 Shoemaker, 235. 
 Shoes, 56, 57, 150, 209. 
 Shriekers' Tower, 154. 
 Sickness, 275-78. 
 Sidney, Sir Philip, 108. 
 Siena, 235, 236. 
 Signatures, 223. 
 Slave trade, 253, 254, 285, 286. 
 Smith, John, 205, 249, 281. 
 Snow, 280, 290. 
 Socialism, Christian, 323. 
 Socialists, 286. 
 Soldiers, 261, 266, 268, 294. 
 Soule, 319. 
 Southampton, 193, 204, 205, 211, 
 
 337.341- 
 Spain, 95, 147, 189, 208, 257, 287. 
 
 2]
 
 INDEX 
 
 Spaniards, 2, 267. 
 
 Speedwell, 166, 194, 199, 202-04, 
 
 205-09, 337. 
 Spelling, 161. 
 Spinning, 51. 
 Spinning wheels, 62, 335. 
 Spinster, 51. 
 
 Spirit of the Pilgrims, 152, 298-300. 
 Spoons, 58. 
 Sports, 39-49- 
 Squanto, 254. 
 Standish, Miles, 144, 175, 228, 261- 
 
 73, 314, 317, 318, 338. 
 Standish, Rose, 228, 230. 
 Starch, 236, 243. 
 Stars and Stripes, 150. 
 State Church idea, 76-78. 
 State House, 11, 151, 340. 
 States General, 286. 
 Statues, 307, 340. 
 Stevens family, 230. 
 Stories, 60, 61, 177. 
 Streets, 7, 268, 339. 
 Stripes, 105, 303. 
 Stuart kings, 307. ^ 
 
 Students, British, 41, 170. 
 Studley, Daniel, 140. 
 Sugar, 252. 
 
 Superstitions, 22, 23, 60. J 
 Sutton, 125. 
 Swalue, 311. 
 Swan, the ship, 338. 
 Smss Family Robinson, 30. 
 Switzerland, 78, 79, 325. 
 Swords, 108, 129, 130, 146, 210, 266, 
 
 272. 
 Symbols, 25, 65, 181, 256. 
 Synod of Dort, 191, 337- 
 
 Tablets, 86, 87, 104, 147, IS9. 172, 
 
 173. 18s, 207,302,340. 
 Taft, President, 236. 
 Talismans, 52. 
 Tea, I. 
 
 Temple Bar, 72. 
 Tercentenary, 159, 341. 
 Thacker, Elias, 89. 
 Theaters, 56, 113. 
 
 Theology, 85, 90, 312. 
 
 Tillie family, 228, 229, 230, 231, 233, 
 
 319- 
 Timmerman, 319. 
 Tin hats, 286, 287. 
 Tinker family, 228, 229, 231, 233. 
 Titles, 286, 287. 
 Tobacco, 61, 252, 288. 
 Toleration, 104, 146, 291. 
 Toryism, 92. 
 Town meeting, 317. 
 Trade and occupations, 234, 235. 
 Translations, 33-35. 65, 66, 103, 335. 
 Traps, 130. 
 Treaties, 257. 
 Trevore, 319. 
 Truce, 147. iSO, 337- 
 Trumpeters, 268, 269. 
 Tudor England, 18-20, 30, 136-40, 
 
 180. 
 Tudors, 9, 32, 54, 68, 102, 180, 307, 
 
 335- 
 Turks, 33, 146. 
 Turner family, 233. 
 Twain, Mark, 258. 
 Twelve Years' Truce, 147, 150, 194. 
 Twins, 145. 
 Tyndale, 103, 335. 
 
 Undesirables, 207, 208. 
 
 Union and secession, 165, 189-91. 
 
 Union church, Leyden, 313. 
 
 Union Jack, 148. 
 
 Union of states, 149, 190. 
 
 United States of America, 80, 137, 
 
 146, 164, 172, 258. 
 United States of the Netherlands, 
 
 80, 149, 165, 189-91. 
 Universities in England, 21, 90, lOl, 
 
 170. 
 Universities in Holland, 12, 170. 
 University, 304. 
 Usher, Roland, 188, 302. 
 Utrecht, 104, 170. 
 
 Van Buren, Martin, 11. 
 Van Curler, Arendt, 256. 
 Vegetables, 53, 106, 107, 275. 
 
 [ 353 ]
 
 INDEX 
 
 Veer, 86. 
 
 Virginia, 192, 193, 221, 224, 247, 285, 
 
 294. 
 V'isitors in Plymouth, 254, 269, 285, 
 
 290. 
 Voltaire, 260. 
 Votes, 158. 
 
 Wales, 6, 75, 93, 167, 171, 259, 313. 
 
 Walker, 319. 
 
 Walloons in America, 105, 259, 285, 
 
 313. 
 Walloons in Amsterdam, 142, 143. 
 Walloons in England, 319, 336. 
 Walloons in Holland, 105, 142, 143, 
 
 167, 313, 336. 
 Walloons in Leyden, 167, 171, 336. 
 Wall-paper, 55, 59. 
 Wampum, 252, 256, 259, 289, 338. 
 Ward, J. Q. A., 340. 
 Washday, 238-43. 
 Washington, D.C., 340. 
 Washington, George, 9, 12, 38, 112, 
 
 115, 172,307. 
 Watch Tower, 338. 
 Watts, Dr., 176. 
 Webster, Daniel, 339. 
 Weddings, 4, 51, 67, 143, 302, 338. 
 Weir, Robert W., 238, 340. 
 Welsh, 32, 75, 93, 167, i68, 171, 313- 
 Welsh names, 32. 
 Wesley, John, 254, 286. 
 West India Company (Dutch), 191, 
 
 204, 259. 
 West Indies, 232, 285. 
 Weston, 204. 
 Whales, 265, 282. 
 Whigs, 170, 307, 308. 
 White, A. D., 85. 
 White, Edwin, 339. 
 
 White family, 228, 229, 232, 233, 
 
 234- 
 Whittier, 68, 158. 
 Widows, 184, 234. 
 Wilhelmina, Queen, 147. 
 William III, 168, 339. 
 William the Silent, 80, no, I12, 148, 
 
 336. 
 Williams, Roger, 75, 93, 144, 259, 
 
 291, 292. 
 Wilson, Woodrow, 9. 
 Windmills, 150. 
 Windows, 54. 
 Winslow, Edward, 174, 181, 229, 
 
 316, 318, 338. 
 Winslow family, 228. 
 Winston-Salem, N.C., 244. 
 Winthrop, Governor, 293. 
 Wituwamut, 271. 
 Wollaston, 294-97. 
 Wolsey, Archbishop, 335. 
 Women, Dutch, 155, 156. 
 Women, Pilgrim, 61, 132, 183-85, 
 
 188, 227-31, 234, 276-78, 280. 
 Wool, 31. 
 Woolsack, 31. 
 Worship, 67, 177. 
 Writing, 184, 223. 
 Wycliffe, 335. 
 
 Yankees, 1-3, 235, 305, 306. 
 
 Yanks, 306. 
 
 Yarmouth, 193. 
 
 Yeomen, 116. 
 
 York, Archbishop of, 125. 
 
 Yorkshire, 319. 
 
 Zeist, 244. 
 Zutphen, 108. 
 Zwinglius, 70, 79, 335.
 
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