ILLUSTRATED BY THE DONALDSONS
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK LONDON
1920
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
DEDICATED
TO
YOU, MY DEAR
WHO SO WELL KNOW WHY
PREFACE
This story is like those we hear of our neighbours to-day: it is a mixture of fact and fancy.
The aim in telling it has been to present Plymouth Colony as it was in its first three years of existence; to keep to possibilities, even while inventing incidents.
Actual events have been transferred from a later to an earlier year when they could be made useful, to bring them within the story's compass, and to develop it.
For instance, John Billington was lost for five days and died early, but not as early as in the story. Stephen Hopkins was fined for allowing his servants to play shovelboard, but this did not happen till some time later than 1622. Stephen Hopkins was twice married; records show that there was dissension; that the second wife tried to get an inheritance for her own children, to the injury of the son and daughter of the first wife. Facts of this sort are used, enlarged upon, construed to cause, or altered to suit, certain results.
But there is fidelity to the general trend of events, above all to the spirit of Plymouth in its beginnings. As far as may be, the people who have been transferred into the story act in accordance with what is known of the actual bearers of these names.