Edmund Clarence Stedman.
CHAPTER V
THE SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND
The Northern or Plymouth Branch of the Virginia Company, which had been chartered by James I in 1606, did, to some extent, for the north what the sister company did for the south. Sir Ferdinando Gorges was its Raleigh, and sent out a number of exploring ships, one of which made what is now reckoned the first permanent settlement in New England. Captain George Popham was in command, and in August, 1607, three months after the planting of Jamestown, built Fort Popham, or Fort St. George, at the mouth of the Kennebec. But it is not this settlement which has been celebrated in song and story. It is that made at New Plymouth in the winter of 1620 by a shipload of Separatists from the Church of England, who have come down through history as the "Pilgrim Fathers."
Driven from England by religious persecution, the Separatist congregation from the little town of Scrooby, about a hundred in number, had fled to Amsterdam, and finally, in 1609, to Leyden. But they were not in sympathy with the Dutch, and their thoughts turned to America. The Plymouth company was approached, but could not guarantee religious freedom. It gave the suppliants to understand, however, that there was little likelihood they would be interfered with, and after long debate and hesitation, they decided to take the risk.
THE WORD OF GOD TO LEYDEN CAME
[August 15 (N. S.), 1620]
The word of God to Leyden came,
Dutch town by Zuyder Zee:
Rise up, my children of no name,
My kings and priests to be.
There is an empire in the West,
Which I will soon unfold;
A thousand harvests in her breast,
Rocks ribbed with iron and gold.
Rise up, my children, time is ripe!
Old things are passed away.
Bishops and kings from earth I wipe;
Too long they've had their day.
A little ship have I prepared
To bear you o'er the seas;
And in your souls my will declared
Shall grow by slow degrees.
Beneath my throne the martyrs cry;
I hear their voice, How long?
It mingles with their praises high,
And with their victor song.
The thing they longed and waited for,
But died without the sight;
So, this shall be! I wrong abhor,
The world I'll now set right.