Nothing of special moment occurred during the voyage, which was tedious, occupying sixty-four days. One event is recorded by Bradford as a special providence. One of the seamen, a young man of vigorous health and lusty frame, was a very vile fellow. As he went swaggering about the decks he lost no opportunity to insult the Pilgrims, ever treating their religious faith with contempt. When he saw any suffering from the awful depression of sea sickness, he would openly curse them, and express the wish that he might have the pleasure of throwing their bodies overboard, before they should reach the end of the voyage. The slightest reproof would only cause him to curse and swear more bitterly. Why the captain of the Mayflower allowed this conduct, we are not informed. But there are other indications that he was not very cordially in sympathy with his persecuted, comparatively friendless, but illustrious passengers. When about half way across the Atlantic, the dissolute young man was seized with sudden and painful sickness. Several days of severe suffering passed, as his ribald songs and oaths were hushed in the languor of approaching death. He died miserably, and his body, wrapped in a tarred sheet, was cast into the sea. “Thus,” writes Bradford, “did his curses light upon his own head. And it was an astonishment to all his fellows, for they noted it to be the just hand of God upon him.”
Very rough storms were encountered, often with head winds, and the frail Mayflower was sorely strained and wrenched by gale and surge. The shrouds were broken, the sails were rent, and seams were opened, through the oaken ribs, which threatened the engulfing of the ship in the yawning waves. Almost a mutiny was excited, as some, deeming the shattered bark incapable of performing the voyage, urged the abandonment of the expedition, and a return. After a careful examination, by the captain and the officers, of the injury the vessel had received, it was decided that the hull of the ship, under water, was still strong; that, to tighten the seam opened by the main beam, they had on board an immense iron screw, which the passengers had brought from Holland, which would raise the beam to its place; and that, by carefully calking the decks and upper works, and by the cautious avoidance of spreading too much sail, they might still, in safety, brave the perils of a stormy sea.
But we are told that many gales arose so fierce, and the sea ran so high, that for days together they could not spread an inch of canvass, but, in nautical phrase, were compelled to scud under bare poles. In one of these terrific storms a young man, John Howland, who ventured upon deck, was, by the sudden lurching of the vessel and the breaking of a wave, swept into the sea. He seemed to have been carried down fathoms deep under the raging billows. But, providentially, he caught hold of the topsail halyards, which happened to hang overboard. Though they ran out to full length, still, with a death gripe, he kept his hold until he was drawn up to the surface of the water, when, with boat hooks and other means, he was rescued.
The first land they made was Cape Cod. But it had been their intention to seek a settlement somewhere near the mouth of Hudson river. They therefore tacked about and stood for the southward. But after sailing with a fair wind for half a day, they found themselves becalmed in the midst of dangerous shoals and wild breakers. Alarmed by the perils which surrounded them in such unknown seas, they resolved to make their way back and seek the protection of the cape. A gentle breeze rose in their favor, and swept them away from the shoals before night came on. The next morning they anchored their storm-shattered vessel in a safe harbor at the extremity of Cape Cod.
Governor Bradford writes feelingly: “Being thus arrived in a good harbor, and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of Heaven, who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof, again to set their feet on the firm and stable earth, their proper element.”
He continues in language which we slightly modernize: “But here I cannot but stay and make a pause, and stand half amazed at this poor people’s present condition. And so I think will the reader too, when he well considers the same. Being thus past the vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before in their preparation, they had now no friends to welcome them, nor inns to entertain or refresh their weather-beaten bodies,—no houses, or much less, towns to repair to, to seek for succor.
“It is recorded in Scripture, as a mercy to the apostle and his shipwrecked company, that the barbarians showed them no small kindness in refreshing them; but these savage barbarians, when they met with them, as after will appear, were readier to fill their sides full of arrows than otherwise. And for the season, it was winter; and they that know the winters of this country, know them to be sharp and violent, and subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search an unknown coast. Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men? And what multitudes there might be of them they knew not. Neither could they, as it were, go up to the top of Pisgah to view, from this wilderness, a more goodly country to feed their hopes.
“For, which way soever they turned their eyes, save upward to the heavens, they could have little solace or content in respect of any outward objects. For, summer being done, all things stand upon them with a weather-beaten face, and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, presented a wild and savage view. If they looked behind them there was the mighty ocean, which they had passed, and which was now as a main bar and gulf to separate them from all the civil parts of the world. If it be said they had a ship to succor them, it is true; but what heard they daily from the master and company, but that with speed they should look out a place with their shallop, where they would be at some near distance; for the season was such that he would not stir from thence till a safe harbor was discovered by them, where they would be left, and where he might go without danger; and that victuals consumed apace, but that he must and he would keep sufficient for the crew and their return. Yea, it was muttered by some, that if the Pilgrims got not a place soon, they would turn them and their goods ashore and leave them.”
It was in the morning of Saturday, November 11th, that the Mayflower, rounding the white sand cliffs of what is now Provincetown, on the extremity of Cape Cod, entered the bay on the western side of the Cape, where they cast anchor. Just before entering this harbor the Pilgrims had drawn up a brief constitution of civil government, upon the basis of republicanism, by which they mutually bound themselves to be governed. This was the germ of the American Constitution. John Carver they had unanimously chosen as their Governor for one year.
That afternoon a party of sixteen men, well armed, under Captain Miles Standish, was sent on shore to explore the country in their immediate vicinity. They returned in the early evening with rather a discouraging report. The land was sandy and poor, but covered with quite a dense forest of evergreens, dwarf oaks and other deciduous trees. They could find no fresh water, and met with no signs of inhabitants. The peninsula there seemed to be a mere sand bank, a tongue of barren land, about a mile in breadth. The water in the bay, however, abounded with fish and sea fowl. They brought on board much-needed fuel of the red cedar, which emitted, in burning, a grateful fragrance.