ANNOUNCER
So the Mayflower brought up to anchor just inside Cape Cod, near the present village of Provincetown. The voyage had been long and arduous. There had been much sickness aboard, and Captain Jones knew that most of the passengers longed to set foot on solid ground and begin the task of building their homes. So he determined to create further dissatisfaction among them.
For our next scene we are going into Captain Jones's cabin just as one of the five men of the company, Peter Brown, has come into the cabin on the captain's invitation.
JONES
Sit you down, Master Brown, and find what comfort you can in my poor quarters.
PETER
Poor! If this cabin is poor, Captain, what do ye call what us folks has to put up with, all crowded into the common cabin like sheep er worse?
JONES
Aye, 'tis too bad the cabin is not a better place for your goodly company.
PETER
Aye, well, we'll soon be out of it.
JONES
I fear me, not so soon.
PETER
Indeed, why?
JONES
The ship must be repaired before we can go on.
PETER
How long will that take ye?
JONES
Mayhap two months or more, I know not.
PETER
Two months? Two months more in the cabin of this ship and half of our company will be dead.
JONES
Aye, belikes they will—and winter will be upon us hard and heavy. The winters in this country are worse than any you have ever seen in England or Holland.
PETER
Indeed!
JONES
The snow lies so deep it would cover a man's head—the land is blotted out, and even the sea freezes—
PETER
Then how could we get ashore?
JONES
I know not.
PETER
And once ashore, how could we find a fair place to build our homes?
JONES
'Tis not for me to say.
PETER
Why can't we land right here, Captain?
JONES
Because your Elder, Master Carver, says fix the ship and go on.
PETER
If Elder Carver says that, then there be naught that we kin do.
JONES
You'd stay packed in the ship's cabin, facing sickness and death, rather than rise up like men and tell the Elder what you will and what you won't do, eh?
PETER
Elder Carver and the twelve masters have the voice; we have naught to do but to obey.
JONES
Can it be that forty English freemen can't vote down twelve masters?
PETER
Under our charter the freemen have no voice.
JONES
Under the charter, eh?
PETER
Aye, so there's naught to do but what the masters say.
JONES
Have you never heard of mutiny?
PETER
Mutiny? Nay, we be lawful men, bound together in the love of Jehovah; we'll not mutiny! We must abide by our charter.
JONES
The charter, aye.
PETER
So there's naught to do—
JONES
Hold—have you thought on this—the charter binds you under the King's grant in Virginia Plantation—
PETER
Aye.
JONES
And you are not in Virginia—
PETER
Nay, not yet.
JONES
So you are not bound by the Virginia charter in these waters.
PETER
Forsooth, Captain, I'd not thought on that.
JONES
You have here all the rights of free-born Englishmen. And if you rise like men and demand that your Elders hearken to your voice, who shall gainsay you?
PETER
Aye—who—who, indeed? If we vote to land here, 'tis not mutiny.
JONES
Nay, 'tis but your right, if you want to land here.
PETER
We do—we do! Not a man in the company but would stay here if he had his way.
JONES
Then have your way—like Englishmen! Go to your cabin. Talk to the men of your company, tell them what I have told you.
PETER
Aye, Captain, I will! At once. [going]
JONES
Good! [sound of door closing] [to himself] Well, Elder Carver, we shall see whose voice is stronger—yours, or the voice of forty English freemen!