The Pilgrims decide to emigrate to America
Of the motives which prompted the founding of New Plymouth, the search of the members of John Robinson’s little English congregation at Leyden for an assured religious freedom was certainly the foremost. If this had been their only prospect, it appears that they might have remained in Holland without persecution. They were dissatisfied, however, with their hard economic lot. The most diligent labor brought them little security even in the midst of the prosperous urban life of the Netherlands. There were “fair and beautiful cities flowing with abundance of all sorts of wealth.... Yet it was not long before they saw the grim and ugly face of poverty coming upon them like an armed man, with whom they must buckle and encounter....” The university town of Leyden proved to be “not so beneficial for their outward means of living and estate,” yet they “fell to such trades and employments as they best could,” until they attained “a competent and comfortable living ... with hard and continual labor.”
Most of those who emigrated from Leyden to Plymouth, like their friends who remained behind, were artisans; several performed some operation in clothmaking. William Bradford, for example, was a fustian weaver, Robert Cushman was a wool-comber, and Isaac Allerton, formerly from London, earned his bread as a tailor. Among the handicraftsmen were watchmakers, cabinetmakers, carpenters, and makers of tobacco pipes. Of all who took part in the Plymouth venture, less than a handful had either the experience or capital to be a merchant or, as one might call it, a capitalist. Edward Pickering, who did not take part in the exodus, George Morton, and John Carver, who died in the colony’s first year, were exceptions in having trading experience and some means. Two of the leaders with a special competence in theological learning, William Brewster and Edward Winslow, were printers.
As they went about their tasks, respected, yet earning only modest incomes, the members of the English congregation at Leyden worried about their children’s future prospects in a foreign country. The young men were “oppressed with their heavy labours” and attracted to soldiering and other occupations their parents considered full of worldly temptation. They also dreaded renewal of the Dutch war with Spain. Deeply aware that they were “men in exile and in a poor condition,” they dreamed of a more satisfying life in “those vast and unpeopled countries of America....” Some were eager to take up again the familiar tasks of husbandry and looked forward to acquiring their own houses and land. William Bradford, the historian of Plymouth, asserts that while religious ideals were always basic to the founding of their own community, an economic urge was also behind their fateful decision. Pastor Robinson, on the other hand, feared that in removing to America, his flock would “much prejudice both (their) ... arts and means.”[1]
They obtain a patent and seek financial backing
The future emigrants now had to make several decisions. First, in what part of the New World should they plant their colony; secondly, how would they defray the heavy costs of shipping stores of food and equipment required for a new settlement? By the time they sent two agents to London in 1617, they had plunged deep into these questions.
Very likely the inexpensive contemporary pamphlets which extolled the benefits of different parts of America helped the leaders at Leyden to fix upon a site. They probably read, for example, the descriptive brochures which the Virginia Company of London had issued in connection with drives to raise money. Robert Harcourt’s A Relation of a Voyage to Guiana (1614) may have seriously tempted them to put to the test the fruitful promise of tropical South America, but they were put off by its unhealthy climate. Captain John Smith’s tract on New England (1616), which Elder Brewster had in his library at the time of his death, was consulted. Later, the Captain attributed the hardships suffered at Plymouth to the settlers’ parsimony in using his “books and Maps ... better cheap” than employing him in person as a guide and counsellor. In the long discussions which preceded any action, it was objected that settling too near the colony at Jamestown ran the risk of Anglican religious persecution; on the other hand, it might be dangerous to be far from help in case the Spaniards, the persistent enemies of English expansion, attacked their infant colony. In the end, “the Lord was solemnly sought in the Congregation by fasting and prayer to direct us ...,” and it was decided to plant inside the bounds of Virginia.[2]
John Carver and Robert Cushman, trusted members of the group, were the agents selected to approach the political authorities and the Virginia Company in London. They had to negotiate first the delicate matter of how much religious toleration they would be allowed if they went to Virginia. They sought help from influential friends in the inner circle of the Company. Sir Edwin Sandys and Sir John Wolstenholme intervened with the King and Privy Council to secure approval of a statement of religious beliefs forwarded from Leyden to London. Sandys, a leading colonial promoter, was treasurer of the Company after 1619. As a wealthy merchant, whose financial interests included the colony in Virginia, Wolstenholme was often consulted by the government on commercial matters. Even the good offices of these important men were not enough to win the approval of the royal or ecclesiastical authorities. Not that the King himself, James I, was entirely unfriendly to their plans. In a conversation with his Secretary of State he is reported to have asked how the colony intended to support itself. At the reply, “By fishing,” he was said to have exclaimed; “So God have my soul, ’tis an honest trade, ’twas the apostles’ own calling.”[3]
In spite of rebuffs, the agents from Leyden kept trying to secure a patent for land from the Virginia Company. Crushing financial difficulties had recently forced this body to give up underwriting the Virginia colony by a single joint stock. Instead, small groups of associates or partners were authorized to invest in separate stocks for special purposes, such as selling supplies to the settlers. Several groups of partners were also applying to the Company for grants of land they meant to settle at their own expense. In fact, a few such financially independent “private plantations” had already sent over tenants and servants whom they were permitted to direct. It was probably on such terms that the Leyden group hoped to obtain land and to share in its control until the investors were paid off.
At the time of their first application to the Virginia Company the little band of emigrants were depending upon certain “merchants and friends” who had agreed to adventure with them, for the provision of shipping and means. Bradford’s obscure chronology makes it puzzling as to who these men were. Writing his History much later than the events he described, he seems to place in about February 1620 the offer of support by Thomas Weston they finally accepted, although Weston must have been associated with earlier plans. Several months before, the Virginia Company had already granted them a patent in the name of John Wincob, but the discouragement over the religious negotiations and the state of turmoil in the Virginia Company’s management had made some people withdraw their original promise to help. Meanwhile, two members of the Leyden congregation, William Brewster and Thomas Brewer, were in trouble with the English government for illegally publishing some religious tracts. The danger of their capture was disheartening, as was the news about Francis Blackwell, an elder of the English congregation at Amsterdam, who had conducted a group to settle in Virginia. Together with most of his shipmates Blackwell had perished in a vessel so crowded that the 180 passengers were “packed together like herrings.”[4]