That a considerable “stock of trading goods” was included in the MAY-FLOWER’S lading is mentioned by at least one writer, and that this was a fact is confirmed by the records of the colonists’ dealings with the Indians, and the enumeration of not a few of the goods which could have had, for the most part, no other use or value. They consisted largely of knives, bracelets (bead and metal), rings, scissors, copper-chains, beads, “blue and red trading cloth,” cheap (glass) jewels (“for the ears,” etc.), small mirrors, clothing (e. g. “red-cotton horseman’s coats—laced,” jerkins, blankets, etc.), shoes, “strong waters,” pipes, tobacco, tools and hard ware (hatchets, nails, hoes, fish-hooks, etc.), rugs, twine, nets, etc., etc. A fragment of one of the heavy hoes of the ancient pattern—“found on the site of the Pilgrim trading house at Manomet”—is owned by the Pilgrim Society, and speaks volumes of the labor performed by the Pilgrims, before they had ploughs and draught-cattle, in the raising of their wonderful crops of corn. Such was the MAY-FLOWER’S burden, animate and inanimate, whe —the last passenger and the last piece of freight transferred from the SPEEDWELL—her anchor “hove short,” she swung with the tide in Plymouth roadstead, ready to depart at last for “the Virginia plantations.”
CHAPTER IX
THE JOURNAL OF THE SHIP MAY-FLOWER
Thomas Jones, Master, from London, England, towards “Hudson’s River” in Virginia
[The voyage of the MAY-FLOWER began at London, as her consort’s did
at Delfshaven, and though, as incident to the tatter’s brief career,
we have been obliged to take note of some of the happenings to the
larger ship and her company (at Southampton, etc.), out of due
course and time, they have been recited only because of their
insuperable relation to the consort and her company, and not as part
of the MAY-FLOWER’S own proper record]
SATURDAY, July 15/25, 1620
Gravesend. Finished lading. Got
passengers aboard and got under way for
Southampton. Dropped down the Thames to
Gravesend with the tide.
[Vessels leaving the port of London always, in that day, “dropped
down with the tide,” tug-boats being unknown, and sail-headway
against the tide being difficult in the narrow river.]
Masters Cushman and Martin, agents of the
chartering—party, came aboard at London.
SUNDAY, July 16/26
Gravesend. Channel pilot aboard. Favoring
wind.
MONDAY, July 17/27
In Channel. Course D.W. by W. Favoring
wind.
TUESDAY, July 18/28
In Channel. Southampton Water.