[496] The story of the manuscript and of its transmission to our times is given by the editor of the present volume, in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., vol. xix.,—a paper also issued separately (75 Copies).
[497] [They are also given in Steele’s Chief of the Pilgrims, p. 316; in Neill’s English Colonization, ch. vi.; in Poor’s Gorges; and in the English calendars, Colonial, i. 43.—Ed.]
[498] The Bibliographical Appendix to Dr. H. M. Dexter’s Congregationalism as seen in its Literature, mentions nine of these imprints, viz., nos. 459, 467, 470, 475, 476, 478, 481, 482, 495. Three or four others are also known. See the Brinley Catalogue, no. 530. [Brewster’s career has been made the subject of an extended memoir, Chief of the Pilgrims, Philadelphia, 1857, as it is somewhat unsatisfactorily called. It has merit in tracing the European existence of the Pilgrim Church, but is unfortunately disfigured (p. 350) in a minor part by some genealogical fabrications imposed upon the author, the Rev. Ashbel Steele. (Cf. Savage’s Genealogical Dictionary, sub “Brewster.”) Dr. Dexter, N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., 1864, p. 18, in examining the evidence for his birth, puts it in 1566-67; so that at his death, in 1644, he was seventy-seven, or possibly seventy-eight. See Mr. Neill, Hist. Mag., xvi. 69, and cf. Mr. Deane, Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., xii. 98; also Poole’s Index, p. 160.
The well-known trembling autograph of the Elder (given in fac-simile on an earlier page) is one of the sights in the Record Office at Plymouth, where it appears attached to a deed, as recorded,—a practice not uncommon in the days when the colony was small. This was long thought to be the only signature known, while it was a cause of some surprise that no one of the four hundred volumes of his library (given by title in his inventory,—Plymouth Wills, i. 53) had been identified by bearing his autograph. Three of these books, however, have since been found,—one a Latin Chrysostom, Basil, 1522, now in the Boston Athenæum, bears his autograph, with the motto, “Hebel est omnis Adam,” which is also found, as shown in the fac-simile in Steele’s Chief of the Pilgrims, in another volume, similarly inscribed, now at Yale College Library. The fact that the Athenæum volume bears evidence, in another inscription, of having belonged to Thomas Prince, the grandson of the Elder, and son of the governor of the colony of the same name, and of his receiving it in July, 1644, while the Elder died in the preceding April, would seem to indicate that the Pilgrim’s collection of books was distributed among his relatives. The Rev. Dr. Dexter, in his Congregationalism, gives a fac-simile of an autograph of Brewster written at an earlier period than the others; and this is found in a third volume belonging to Dr. Dexter, and numbered 211 in his Bibliography. Hunter, in his Founders of New Plymouth, p. 86, has shown how close a resemblance the autograph of James Brewster, the master of the hospital near Bawtry, and friend of Archbishop Sandys, bears to the Elder’s signature.—Ed.]
[499] [Dr. Punchard’s work was unfortunately left incomplete. See N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., 1880, p. 325, and Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., xviii. 3. The painstaking student will doubtless compare these works with Dr. Waddington’s Hidden Church and Cong. Hist., in which, however, Dr. Dexter seems to have little confidence. (Cf. his Congregationalism, pp. 70, 201, 211, 262, 322, and his article in the Cong. Quarterly, 1874.) The Hidden Church was published in 1864, with an Introduction by E. N. Kirk. (Cf. N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., 1864, p. 219; and 1881, p. 195.)
In the archives of the English Church at Amsterdam there is a document, signed by Ant. Walæus and Festus Hommius, theological professors at Leyden, dated May 25-26, 1628, testifying to Robinson’s exertions to remove the schisms between the various Brownist congregations in the Low Countries, and his resolution, upon discouragement, to remove “to the West Indies, where he did not doubt to effect this object.” A photo-lithographic copy of this paper has been issued (Muller’s Books on America, 1877, no. 2,780). The contemporary rejoinders to Robinson’s arguments can be seen in Samuel Rutherford’s Due Rights of Presbyteries, London, 1644.
The student will not neglect Hanbury’s Historical Memorials relating to the Independents, London, 1639-44; R. Baillie’s Anabaptism, London, 1647, and Catherine Chidley’s Justification of the Independent Churches (? 1650). The distinction between the Puritans and the Pilgrims is maintained in Dr. Waddington’s books; in Dr. I. N. Tarbox’s papers in the Congregational Quarterly, vol. xvii., and in the Old Colony Hist. Soc. Papers, 1878; in an appendix, p. 443, to Punchard, vol. iii.; in Benjamin Scott’s Lecture, London, 1866, reprinted in the Hist. Mag., May, 1867, from which is mostly derived a paper in Scribner’s Monthly, June, 1876. Scott also printed a lecture, “An Hour with the Pilgrim Fathers and their Precursors,” in 1869. (Cf. N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., 1871, p. 301; also, see Hist. Mag., May and November, 1867; October, 1869; Essex Institute Hist. Coll., vol. iv., by A. C. Goodell; besides Baylies, Palfrey, Barry, etc.) Dr. Dexter, Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., xvii. 64, has pointed out a curious instance of tampering with one of Robinson’s books. See further, Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., x. 393, and N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., 1859, p. 259.—Ed.]
[500] [This charge was first printed by Morton in his Memorial, and the earliest mention of it known is in some papers of the Record Office, London, printed in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., December, 1868, p. 385. Neill, in his English Colonization, p. 103, intimates that Jones may have purposely guided his vessel to Cape Cod from an understanding with Pierce and Gorges. Neill identifies the “Mayflower” captain with Jones of the “Discovery,” a vessel despatched to Virginia. (Cf. Young’s Chronicles, p. 102, and Palfrey’s New England, i. 163.) O’Callaghan, New Netherland, i. 80, rejects the bribe theory. The name of Jones is preserved in Jones River, shown on the map of Plymouth Bay on a previous page.—Ed.]
[501] [Our chief accounts of Bradford, other than from his own writings, are derived from Mather’s Magnalia, and from Hunter’s Founders of New Plymouth. Belknap, in his American Biography, gives a judicious summary of what was then known, and there is a brief one in Cheever. Besides what may be found in the general histories, the reader can find other accounts in Tyler’s American Literature, i. 116; by J. B. Moore in Amer. Quart. Reg. xiv. 155, and in his Governors of New Plymouth, etc.; by W. F. Rae in Good Words, xxi. 337; in the Congregational Monthly, ix. 337, 393. His will is in the N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., 1851, p. 385; and an account of his Bible in same, 1865, p. 12. For accounts of his descendants, see genealogy by G. M. Fessenden in Register, 1850, pp. 39, 233; also, 1855, pp. 127, 218; 1860, pp. 174, 195. Cf. also Durrie’s Index to American Genealogies, and Savage’s Genealogical Dictionary.
Bradford’s views on the Separatist movement, and on church government, are given in several “Dialogues between Old Men and Young Men;” one of which, written in 1648, and copied in the Records by Morton, is given by Dr. Young in his Chronicles, and another, probably written in 1652, was printed with comments by Charles Deane in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., October, 1870, vol. ix. p. 396. See also the Congregational Board’s edition of Morton’s Memorial. A letter of Bradford to Governor Winthrop on the early relations of the Plymouth Colony with the Bay, dated Feb. 6, 1631-32, is now in the possession of Judge Chamberlain, of the Boston Public Library; and, with its signatures of Bradford and his associates, it is the most precious autograph document of the Pilgrims in private hands. It is printed in N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., ii. 240, annotated by Charles Deane. Some verses by Bradford, illustrating in a slender way the colony’s early history, were referred to in his will, and were printed as a fragment in Mass. Hist. Coll., iii. 77, by Dr. Belknap. The original manuscript came with Belknap’s papers to the Society,—Proceedings, iii. 317. Other verses of a similar character were printed in 3 Collections, vii. 27; still others are edited by Mr. Deane in Proceedings, xi. 465.—Ed.]