[15]Presumably, Provincetown Harbor.
[16]to vomit and have diarrhea
[17]Members of the Leyden congregation were fearful of mutiny and other abuses by some of the many “Strangers” who had joined the group in England. The party had no patent for New England, so that they would have been a people outside the law as soon as they disembarked, and individual license could have posed a real threat.
[18]The following is the earliest known text of the famous “Mayflower Compact”, the original document has never been found. John Quincy Adams overstated the case when he said that “This is perhaps the only instance in human history of that positive social compact which speculative philosophers have imagined as the only legitimate source of government.” As evidenced in the signatures, the distinction between masters and servants remained, and women had no legal voice but were still chattel. Nevertheless, it is an unusual document in which the concept of self-government emerges so sharply during a time when the divine right of kings was assumed. It is clearly modelled on the “covenants” or “combinations” which characterized most Separatist congregations, and is presaged in Rev. Robinson’s farewell letter.
[19]The names of the signers were first printed in Nathaniel Morton’s New England’s Memorial (Cambridge, 1669). In alphabetical order, they are:
John Alden, Isaac Allerton, John Allerton, John Billington, William Bradford, William Brewster, Richard Britteridge, Peter Brown, John Carver, James Chilton, Richard Clark, Francis Cook, John Crackstone, Edward Doten, Francis Eaton, Thomas English, Moses Fletcher, Edward Fuller, Samuel Fuller, Richard Gardiner, John Goodman, Stephen Hopkins, John Howland, Edward Leister, Edmond Margeson, Christopher Martin, William Mullins, Digory Priest, John Ridgedale, Thomas Rogers, George Soule, Miles Standish, Edward Tilley, John Tilley, Thomas Tinker, John Turner, Richard Warren, William White, Thomas Williams, Edward Winslow, Gilbert Winslow.
[20]spade’s
[21]A large longboat which can be rowed, or fitted with a small mast and sails.
[22]An indication of the overcrowded conditions aboard the Mayflower is the fact that some passengers slept in the shallop, which had been partially disassembled for easier storage.
[23]The frequent mention of sassafras is understandable in view of the immense commercial value of that plant in the early seventeenth century; the root and bark were sold as medicines throughout the Old World.