The labors of Sumner and Murphy in Holland have been supplemented by the diligent researches of Dr. H. M. Dexter, whose work at Scrooby was mentioned above. In the Congregational Quarterly for January, 1862 (vol. iv.), he gave an account of the recent additions to our knowledge; and in the notes to his invaluable addition of Mourt’s Relation, in 1865, he traced the personal history of the Pilgrims, so far as an exhaustive examination of the Leyden records made that possible. In 1866, in company with Professor George E. Day, of Yale College, who had shared in the previous investigations, Dr. Dexter superintended the erection of a marble tablet, with appropriate inscription, on the front of the Home for Aged Walloons, which now occupies the site of Robinson’s house. In the Sabbath at Home for April, 1867, he published a graphic account of the “Footprints of the Pilgrims in Holland,” and in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc. for January, 1872 (xii. 184), suggested some valuable corrections of Mr. Sumner’s Memoirs, respecting Robinson’s death and burial. The Leyden pastor’s influence and doctrinal position may be best studied in Dr. Dexter’s Congregationalism as seen in its Literature (1880), and in vol. iii. of the Rev. George Punchard’s History of Congregationalism (2d ed. 1867).[499]
For various contributions to fuller knowledge than Bradford affords of the negotiations in London, after removal to America had been decided on, great credit is due to the researches of the Rev. Edward D. Neill, especially in his History of the Virginia Company (1869) and his English Colonization of America (1871). Cf. Hist. Mag., xiii. 278. The same writer has investigated the personal history of Captain Thomas Jones, master of the “Mayflower,” in the Historical Magazine (January, 1869), xv. 31-33, and in the N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg. (1874), xxviii. 314-17. The charge that Jones was bribed by the Dutch in 1620, is considered by Mr. William Brigham in the volume of lectures published by the Massachusetts Historical Society on the Early History of Massachusetts, and in the Society’s Proceedings for December, 1868.[500]
For the colony’s affairs from the sailing of the “Mayflower” to 1646, the prime source of knowledge is Bradford’s History. At the time of emigrating, the author was in his thirty-first year, and his book was written at various dates, from 1630 to 1650, when he was from forty to sixty years of age. Less than four months after landing he became Governor, and for the remaining quarter-century covered by his History he held the same office, except during five years, when excused at his own urgent request. The foremost man in the colony for this long period, nature and opportunity equally fitted him to be its chronicler from the beginning. No one could speak with more authority than he of the inner motives and guiding policy of the original colonists,—fortunately, also, no one could exemplify more clearly in written words the ideal Pilgrim than does Bradford, with his grave, homely, earnest style, not unsuggestive of the English of the Bible. Between his style and that of Winthrop, the contemporary historian of the Bay, there is something of the same difference that existed between the two emigrations; and yet Bradford’s simple story, standing as it does as the earliest piece of American historical composition, possesses a peculiar charm which the broader, more philosophic page of Winthrop cannot rival.[501]
BRADFORD’S WRITING,—FROM HIS “HISTORY.”
The special contributions by others to the history of Bradford’s period began in 1622 with the publication of Mourt’s Relation, a daily journal of the first twelve months (Sept. 1620, to Dec. 11, 1621), so called from the name, “G. Mourt,” subscribed to the preface, but doubtless written by Bradford and Winslow. The standard edition is that of 1865, with notes by Dr. H. M. Dexter.[502] A few facts may also be gleaned from a Sermon (by Robert Cushman) preached at Plymouth, Dec. 9, 1621,[503] and from the second edition of Captain John Smith’s New England’s Trials,—both published in London in 1622. Winslow’s Good News from New England appeared in 1624, continuing the narrative of events from November, 1621, to September 10, 1623.[504] Next came, after a long interval, New England’s Memorial, by Nathaniel Morton, printed at Cambridge in 1669, which professed to give the annals of New England to 1668; beyond the part supplied from Bradford and Winslow, however, there was little of value. Judge John Davis’s[505] edition of 1826 is still the best.[506]
To these materials the next sensible addition was in the “Summary of the Affairs of the Colony of New-Plimouth,” appended, in 1767, to vol. ii. of Governor Hutchinson’s History of Massachusetts Bay, and containing some personal items not before collected. In 1794 a fragment of a letter-book, preserving copies of important letters written and received by Governor Bradford from 1624 to 1630, having lately been found in Nova Scotia, was printed in the Massachusetts Historical Collections, vol. iii.[507] In 1798 Dr. Jeremy Belknap included in vol. ii. of his American Biography sketches of the leading Pilgrims (Robinson, Carver, Bradford, Brewster, Cushman, Winslow, and Standish), which put in admirable form all then known of early Plymouth history.