CHAPTER II.
The Voyage.
The Departure from Southampton.—Hindrances.—Delay at Dartmouth and Plymouth.—Abandonment of the Speedwell.—Sketch of Miles Standish.—Death at Sea.—Perils and Threatened Mutiny.—Narrow Escape of John Howland.—Arrival at Cape Cod.—Testimony of Governor Bradford.—The Civil Contract.—John Carver Chosen Governor.—The First Exploring Tour.—The Sabbath.
On the 22d of July, 1620, the Speedwell, with its little band of Christian heroes, left the haven of Delft for England.
Rev. Mr. Robinson and his friends returned sadly to Leyden. A prosperous wind rapidly bore the vessel across the channel to the British coast, and they entered the port of Southampton. Here they found a party of English emigrants who had chartered a vessel, the Mayflower, of one hundred and twenty tons. They were awaiting the arrival of the Speedwell, intending to unite with the Leyden band and sail in its company for the organization of a Christian colony in the New World.
Here, disappointed in some of their financial plans, it was found that they needed four hundred dollars to pay up sundry bills, before they could sail. To raise this money they were compelled to sell some of their provisions, including many firkins of butter, which luxury they thought they could best spare.
At length, all things being ready, both vessels weighed anchor and put to sea, from Southampton, on the 5th of August. In the two vessels there were about one hundred and twenty passengers. They had gone but about one hundred miles when Captain Reynolds, of the Speedwell, announced that his ship had sprung a leak, and that he did not dare to continue the voyage without having her examined and repaired. Both vessels, therefore, put into Dartmouth, losing a fair wind, and time which, with the rapidly passing summer weather, was invaluable to them. They were detained for more than a week, searching out the leaks and mending them. One of their number, Mr. Cushman, wrote from Dartmouth a doleful letter, full of anticipations of evil.
“We put in here,” he wrote, “to trim our vessel; and I think, as do others, also, that if we had stayed at sea for three or four hours more she would have sunk right down. And, though she was twice trimmed at Southampton, yet now she is open and leaky as a sieve. We lay at Southampton seven days in fair weather waiting for her; and now we lie here in as fair a wind as can blow, and so have done these four days, and are like to do four days more; and by that time the wind will probably turn, as it did at Southampton. Our victuals will be half eaten up, I think, before we go from the coast of England. And if our voyage last long we shall not have a month’s victuals when we come into the country.
“If I should write to you all things which promiscuously forebode our ruin, I should overcharge my weak head and grieve your tender heart. Only this I pray you, prepare for evil tidings of us every day. I see not in reason how we shall escape even the gaspings of hunger-starved persons. But God can do much, and His will be done.”
Again the two vessels set sail, probably about the 21st of August.
They had been out but a day or two, having made about three hundred miles from Land’s End, keeping close company, when the commander of the Speedwell hung out a signal of distress. Both vessels hove to and it appeared that the Speedwell had sprung a leak, of so serious a character that, though diligently plying the pumps, they could scarcely keep her afloat.