While these things were going on in America the migration of the Puritans from England to Holland had taken place. These non-conforming Independents left their homes in England, in 1609, not from any disloyalty to their native land, but because their religious views forbade them to bend to what they considered were the unbiblical Church requirements of James I. To his ritual regulations they would not conform, so they removed themselves and their families to Holland. Strong in their English nationality they remained for ten years at Leyden, an isolated and unsettled colony in a foreign land. To England they could not return, no place in Europe was open to them for settlement without losing their language and changing their flag, and they must, therefore, leave Holland and seek the New World lands across the ocean. The Dutch offered them assistance and favourable arrangements for colonization in their Dutch possessions in America. They were also offered inducements by the London Company to settle on the Delaware, in their colony of Virginia. As it was considered that complications might arise if an English colony were to proceed across the seas under the Dutch flag, they declined the offer of Holland and accepted the English proposition, and the consent of King James was obtained to their repatriation in the English territory in America without conforming to the religious conditions to which they had so devotedly objected in the Old Land.
Thus they sought the new land, not as rebels, but as loyalists returning in gladness to their nation's flag.
Forming the "Pilgrim Company," in which they all took shares, a vessel named the Speedwell was purchased at Delft-Haven in Holland, and another named the Mayflower in London. The two parties joined at Southampton. After leaving the shores of England the Speedwell was found to be unseaworthy, and the two vessels, therefore, returned to England, when it was determined that the Mayflower should proceed alone. There not being sufficient accommodation on the one ship for the combined expeditions, a number were left behind. The Mayflower, a vessel of only 180 tons, sailed from Plymouth with about 100 of the "Pilgrims" crowded on board. On reaching the shores of America in November, 1620, after a voyage of two months and five days, they found that they were far to the north of the Virginia Colony to which they had been commissioned. Tired of the sea, but being hopeful that they would receive, as they subsequently did, a grant of land from the Plymouth Company, and being without a charter for the territory on which they were about to land, it became necessary to make a new agreement between themselves for the government of their colony. A "compact" was accordingly drawn up on board the Mayflower "off Cap-Codd," and signed by all the heads of families. In this document they described themselves as
" ... the loyall subjects of our dread Soveraigne Lord King James by the grace of God of Gt. Britaine, France and Ireland, King-defender of ye faith, &c., having undertaken for the glory of God, and advancement of ye Christian faith and honour of our King & Countrie a voyage to plant ye first colonie in ye Northerne parts of Virginia,"
and the date of the year is given as
"the eighteenth of 'Our Soveraigne Lord King James.'"[82]
As the Mayflower was an English ship she would carry the St. George cross flag on the foremast, and as they declared themselves to be loyal subjects of King James it is most probable that the "additional" Union Jack of James I. was also displayed at the main.
Such was the beginning of the migration of the Puritans from England, which, following this first colony, continued during the remainder of the century.
That the Pilgrims carried the English Jack is plainly shown by the controversies which arose from time to time in this "New England" district upon the subject of the use of the cross of St. George, not for want of any loyalty to it, but from their strict religious views.
John Endicott, and the Puritans who subsequently settled at Salem, objected to the cross in the flag as being an "idolatrous emblem," and, in 1634, "defaced the ensign by taking out one part of the red cross."[83]