The Mayflower and Her Log; July 15, 1620-May 6, 1621 — Complete

by Azel Ames

The Dutch trading-companies, who were the only parties in the Low Countries who could possibly have had any motive for such a conspiracy, were at this time themselves without charters, and the overtures of the principal company, made to the government in behalf of themselves and the Leyden brethren, had recently, as we have seen, been twice rejected. They had apparently, therefore, little to hope for in the near future; certainly not enough to warrant expenditure and the risk of disgraceful exposure, in negotiations with a stranger—an obscure ship-master—to change his course and land his passengers in violation of the terms of his charter-party;—negotiations, moreover, in which neither of the parties could well have had any guaranty of the other’s good faith.

But, as previously asserted, there was a party—to whom such knavery was an ordinary affair—who had ample motive, and of whom Master Thomas Jones was already the very willing and subservient ally and tool, and had been such for years. Singularly enough, the motive governing this party was exactly the reverse of that attributed—though illogically and without reason—to the Dutch. In the case of the latter, the alleged animus was a desire to keep the Pilgrim planters away from their “Hudson’s River” domain. In the case of the real conspirators, the purpose was to secure these planters as colonists for, and bring them to, the more northern territory owned by them. It is well known that Sir Ferdinando Gorges was the leading spirit of the “Second Virginia Company,” as he also became (with the Earl of Warwick a close second) of “The Council for the Affairs of New England,” of which both men were made “Governors,” in November of 1620, when the Council practically superseded the “Second Virginia Company.” The Great Charter for “The Council of Affairs of New England,” commonly known as “The Council for New England,” issued Tuesday, November 3/13, 1620, and it held in force till Sunday, June 7/17, 1635.

Although not its official head, and ranked at its board by dukes and earls, Sir Ferdinando Gorges was—as he had been in the old Plymouth (or Second) Virginia Company—the leading man. This was largely from his superior acquaintance with, and long and varied experience in, New England affairs. The “Council” was composed of forty patentees, and Baxter truly states, that “Sir Ferdinando Gorges, at this time [1621] stood at the head of the Council for New England, so far as influence went; in fact, his hand shaped its affairs.” This company, holding—by the division of territory made under the original charter-grants—a strip of territory one hundred miles wide, on the North American coast, between the parallels of 41 deg. and 45 deg. N. latitude, had not prospered, and its efforts at colonization (on what is now the Maine coast), in 1607 and later, had proved abortive, largely through the character of its “settlers,” who had been, in good degree, a somewhat notable mixture of two of the worst elements of society,—convicts and broken-down “gentlemen.”

“In 1607,” says Goodwin, “Gorges and the cruel Judge Popham planted a colony at Phillipsburg (or Sagadahoc, as is supposed), by the mouth of the Kennebec. Two ships came, ‘THE GIFT OF GOD’ and the ‘MARY AND JOHN,’ bringing a hundred persons. Through August they found all delightful, but when the ships went back in December, fifty five of the number returned to England, weary of their experience and fearful of the cold .... With spring the ships returned from England; “but by this time the remainder were ready to leave,” so every soul returned with Gilbert [the Admiral] . . . . For thirty years Gorges continued to push exploration and emigration to that region, but his ambition and liberality ever resulted in disappointment and loss.” The annals of the time show that not a few of the Sagadahoc colonists were convicts, released from the English jails to people this colony.

Hakluyt says: “In 1607 [this should read 1608], disheartened by the death of Popham, they all embarked in a ship from Exeter and in the new pynnace, the ‘VIRGINIA,’ built in the colony, and sett sail for England, and this was the end of that northern colony upon the river Sachadehoc [Kennebec].”

No one knew better than the shrewd Gorges the value of such a colony as that of the Leyden brethren would be, to plant, populate, and develop his Company’s great demesne. None were more facile than himself and the buccaneering Earl of Warwick, to plan and execute the bold, but—as it proved—easy coup, by which the Pilgrim colony was to be stolen bodily; for the benefit of the “Second Virginia Company” and its successor, “the Council for New England,” from the “First (or London) Company,” under whose patent (to John Pierce) and patronage they sailed. They apparently did not take their patent with them,—it would have been worthless if they had,—and they were destined to have no small trouble with Pierce, before they were established in their rights under the new patent granted him (in the interest of the Adventurers and themselves), by the “Council for New England.” Master John Wincob’s early and silent withdrawal from his apparently active connection with the Pilgrim movement, and the evident cancellation of the first patent issued to him in its interest, by the (London) Virginia Company, have never been satisfactorily explained. Wincob (or Wincop), we are told, “was a religious Gentleman, then belonging to the household of the Countess of Lincoln, who intended to go with them [the Pilgrims] but God so disposed as he never went, nor they ever made use of this Patent, which had cost them so much labor and charge.” Wincob, it appears by the minutes of the (London) Virginia Company of Wednesday, May 26/June 5, 1619, was commended to the Company, for the patent he sought, by the fourth Earl of Lincoln, and it was doubtless through his influence that it was granted and sealed, June 9/19, 1619. But while Wincob was a member of the household of the Dowager Countess of Lincoln, mother of the fourth Earl of Lincoln; John, the eldest son of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, had married the Earl’s daughter (sister ?), and hence Gorges stood in a much nearer relation to the Earl than did his mother’s friend and dependant (as Wincob evidently was), as well as on a much more equal social footing. By the minutes of the (London) Virginia Company of Wednesday, February 2/ 12, 1619/20, it appears that a patent was “allowed and sealed to John Pierce and his associates, heirs and assigns,” for practically the same territory for which the patent to Wincob had been given but eight months before. No explanation was offered, and none appears of record, but the logical conclusion is, that the first patent had been cancelled, that Master Wincob’s personal interest in the Pilgrim exodus had ceased, and that the Lincoln patronage had been withdrawn. It is a rational conjecture that Sir Ferdinando Gorges, through the relationship he sustained to the Earl, procured the withdrawal of Wincob and his patent, knowing that the success of his (Gorges’s) plot would render the Wincob patent worthless, and that the theft of the colony, in his own interest, would be likely to breed “unpleasantness” between himself and Wincob’s sponsors and friends among the Adventurers, many of whom were friends of the Earl of Lincoln.

The Earl of Warwick, the man of highest social and political rank in the First (or London) Virginia Company, was, at about the same time, induced by Gorges to abandon his (the London) Company and unite with himself in securing from the Crown the charter of the “Council of Affairs for New England.” The only inducements he could offer for the change must apparently have resided in the promised large results of plottings disclosed by him (Gorges), but he needed the influential and unscrupulous Earl for the promotion of his schemes, and won him, by some means, to an active partnership, which was doubtless congenial to both. The “fine Italian hand” of Sir Ferdinando hence appears at every stage, and in every phase, of the Leyden movement, from the mission of Weston to Holland, to the landing at Cape Cod, and every movement clearly indicates the crafty cunning, the skilful and brilliant manipulation, and the dogged determination of the man.

That Weston was a most pliant and efficient tool in the hands of Gorges, “from start to finish” of this undertaking, is certainly apparent. Whether he was, from the outset, made fully aware of the sinister designs of the chief conspirator, and a party to them, admits of some doubt, though the conviction strengthens with study, that he was, from the beginning, ‘particeps criminis’. If he was ever single-minded for the welfare of the Leyden brethren and the Adventurers, it must have been for a very brief time at the inception of the enterprise; and circumstances seem to forbid crediting him with honesty of purpose, even then. The weight of evidence indicates that he both knew, and was fully enlisted in, the entire plot of Gorges from the outset. In all its early stages he was its most efficient promoter, and seems to have given ample proof of his compliant zeal in its execution. His visit to the Leyden brethren in Holland was, apparently, wholly instigated by Gorges, as the latter complacently claims and collateral evidence proves. In his endeavor to induce the leaders to “break off with the Dutch,” their pending negotiations for settlement at “Hudson’s River,” he evidently made capital of, and traded upon, his former kindness to some of them when they were in straits,—a most contemptible thing in itself, yet characteristic of the man. He led the Pilgrims to “break off” their dealings with the Dutch by the largest and most positive promises of greater advantages through him, few of which he ever voluntarily kept (as we see by John Robinson’s sharp arraignment of him), his whole object being apparently to get the Leyden party into his control and that of his friends,—the most subtle and able of whom was Gorges. Bradford recites that Weston not only urged the Leyden leaders “not to meddle with ye Dutch,” but also,—“not too much to depend on ye Virginia [London] Company,” but to rely on himself and his friends. This strongly suggests active cooperation with Gorges, on Weston’s part, at the outset, with the intent (if he could win them by any means, from allegiance to the First (London) Virginia Company), to lead the Leyden party, if possible, into Gorges’s hands and under the control and patronage of the Second (or Plymouth) Virginia Company. Whatever the date may have been, at which (as Bradford states) the Leyden people “heard, both by Mr. Weston and others, yt sundrie Honble: Lords had obtained a large grante from ye king for ye more northerly parts of that countrie, derived out of ye Virginia patents, and wholly secluded from theire Governmente, and to be called by another name, viz. New England, unto which Mr. Weston and the chiefe of them begane to incline;” Bradford leaves us in no doubt as to Weston’s attitude toward the matter itself. It is certain that the governor, writing from memory, long afterward, fixed the time at which the Honble: Lords had obtained “their large grante” much earlier than it could possibly have occurred, as we know the exact date of the patent for the, “Council for New England,” and that the order for its issue was not given till just as the Pilgrims left Leyden; so that they could not have known of the actual “grante” till they reached Southampton. The essential fact, stated on this best of authority, is, that “Mr. Weston and the chiefe of them [their sponsors, i.e. Weston and Lord Warwick, both in league with Gorges] begane to incline to Gorges’s new Council for New England.” Such an attitude (evidently taken insidiously) meant, on Weston’s part, of necessity, no less than treachery to his associates of the Adventurers; to the (London) Virginia Company, and to the Leyden company and their allied English colonists, in the interest of Sir Ferdinando Gorges and his schemes and of the new “Council” that Gorges was organizing. Weston’s refusal to advance “a penny” to clear the departing Pilgrims from their port charges at Southampton; his almost immediate severance of connection with both the colonists and the Adventurers; and his early association with Gorges,—in open and disgraceful violation of all the formers’ rights in New England,—to say nothing of his exhibition of a malevolence rarely exercised except toward those one has deeply wronged, all point to a complete and positive surrender of himself and his energies to the plot of Gorges, as a full participant, from its inception. In his review of the Anniversary Address of Hon. Charles Francis Adams (of July 4, 1892, at Quincy), Daniel W. Baker, Esq., of Boston, says: “The Pilgrim Fathers were influenced in their decision to come to New England by Weston, who, if not the agent of Gorges in this particular matter, was such in other matters and held intimate relations with him.”

The known facts favor the belief that Gorges’s cogitations on colonial matters—especially as stimulated by his plottings in relation to the Leyden people—led to his project of the grant—and charter for the new “Council for New England,” designed and constituted to supplant, or override, all others. It is highly probable that this grand scheme —duly embellished by the crafty Gorges,—being unfolded to Weston, with suggestions of great opportunities for Weston himself therein, warmed and drew him, and brought him to full and zealous cooperation in all Gorges’s plans, and that from this time, as Bradford states, he “begane to incline” toward, and to suggest to the Pilgrims, association with Gorges and the new “Council.” Not daring openly to declare his change of allegiance and his perfidy, he undertook, apparently, at first, by suggestions, e.g. “not to place too much dependence on the London Company, but to rely on himself and friends;” that “the fishing of New England was good,” etc.; and making thus no headway, then, by a policy of delay, fault finding, etc., to breed dissatisfaction, on the Pilgrims’ part, with the Adventurers, the patent of Wincob, etc., with the hope of bringing about “a new deal” in the Gorges interest. The same “delays” in sailing, that have been adduced as proof of Jones’s complicity with the Dutch, would have been of equal advantage to these noble schemers, and if he had any hand in them-which does not appear—it would have been far more likely in the interest of his long-time patron, the Earl of Warwick, and of his friends, than of any Dutch conspirators.

Once the colonists were landed upon the American soil, especially if late in the season, they would not be likely, it doubtless was argued, to remove; while by a liberal policy on the part of the “Council for New England” toward them—when they discovered that they were upon its territory—they could probably be retained. That just such a policy was, at once and eagerly, adopted toward them, as soon as occasion permitted, is good proof that the scheme was thoroughly matured from the start. The record of the action of the “Council for New England”—which had become the successor of the Second Virginia Company before intelligence was received that the Pilgrims had landed on its domain—is not at hand, but it appears by the record of the London Company, under date of Monday, July 16/26, 1621, that the “Council for New England” had promptly made itself agreeable to the colonists. The record reads: “It was moved, seeing that Master John Pierce had taken a Patent of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and thereupon seated his Company [the Pilgrims] within the limits of the Northern Plantations, as by some was supposed,”’ etc. From this it is plain that, on receipt by Pierce of the news that the colony was landed within the limits of the “Council for New England,” he had, as instructed, applied for, and been given (June 1, 1621), the (first) “Council” patent for the colony. For confirmation hereof one should see also the minutes of the “Council for New England” of March 25/April 4., 1623, and the fulsome letter of Robert Cushman returning thanks in behalf of the Planters (through John Pierce), to Gorges, for his prompt response to their request for a patent and for his general complacency toward them Hon. James Phinney Baxter, Gorges’s able and faithful biographer, says: “We can imagine with what alacrity he [Sir Ferdinando] hastened to give to Pierce a patent in their behalf.” The same biographer, clearly unconscious of the well-laid plot of Gorges and Warwick (as all other writers but Neill and Davis have been), bears testimony (all the stronger because the witness is unwitting of the intrigue), to the ardent interest Gorges had in its success. He says: “The warm desire of Sir Ferdinando Gorges to see a permanent colony founded within the domain of the Plymouth [or Second] Virginia Company was to be realized in a manner of which he had never dreamed [sic!] and by a people with whom he had but little sympathized, although we know that he favored their settlement within the territorial limits of the Plymouth [Second] Company.” He had indeed “favored their settlement,” by all the craft of which he was master, and greeted their expected and duly arranged advent with all the jubilant open-handedness with which the hunter treats the wild horse he has entrapped, and hopes to domesticate and turn to account. Everything favored the conspirators. The deflection north-ward from the normal course of the ship as she approached the coast, bound for the latitude of the Hudson, required only to be so trifling that the best sailor of the Pilgrim leaders would not be likely to note or criticise it, and it was by no means uncommon to make Cape Cod as the first landfall on Virginia voyages. The lateness of the arrival on the coast, and the difficulties ever attendant on doubling Cape Cod, properly turned to account, would increase the anxiety for almost any landing-place, and render it easy to retain the sea-worn colonists when once on shore. The grand advantage, however, over and above all else, was the entire ease and certainty with which the cooperation of the one man essential to the success of the undertaking could be secured, without need of the privity of any other, viz. the Master of the MAY-FLOWER, Captain Thomas Jones.