A third expedition, therefore, was agreed upon; and though the weather was unfavorable, and some difficulty was experienced in clearing Billingsgate Point, they reached the weather shore, and there "had better sailing." Yet bitter was the cold, and the spray, as it froze on them, gave them the appearance of being encased in glittering mail. At night their rendezvous was near Great Meadow Creek; and early in the morning, after an encounter with the Indians, in which no one was wounded, their journey was resumed, their destination being the harbor which Coppin had described to them, and which he assured them could be reached in a few hours' sailing. Through rain and snow they steered their course; but by the middle of the afternoon a fearful storm raged; the hinges of their rudder were broken; the mast was split, the sail was rent, and the inmates of the shallop were in imminent peril; yet, by God's mercy, they survived the first shock, and, favored by a flood tide, steered into the harbor. A glance satisfied the pilot that it was not the place he sought; and in an agony of despair he exclaimed: "Lord be merciful to us! My eyes never saw this place before!" In his frenzy he would have run the boat ashore among the breakers; but an intrepid seaman resolutely shouted, "About with her, or we are lost!" And instantly obeying, with hard rowing, dark as it was, with the wind howling fiercely, and the rain dashing furiously, they shot under the lee of an island and moored until morning.
The next day the island was explored—now known as Clarke's Island—and the clothing of the adventurers was carefully dried; but, excusable as it might have been under the circumstances in which they were placed to have immediately resumed their researches, the Sabbath was devoutly and sacredly observed.
On Monday, December 11th, O. S., a landing was effected upon Forefather's Rock. The site of this stone was preserved by tradition, and a venerable contemporary of several of the Pilgrims, whose head was silvered with the frost of ninety-five winters, settled the question of its identity in 1741. Borne in his arm-chair by a grateful populace, Elder Faunce took his last look at the spot so endeared to his memory, and, bedewing it with tears, he bade it farewell. In 1774 this precious boulder, as if seized with the spirit of that bustling age, was raised from its bed to be consecrated to Liberty, and in the act of its elevation it split in twain—an occurrence regarded by many as ominous of the separation of the colonies from England, and the lower part being left in the spot where it still lies, the upper part, weighing several tons, was conveyed, amid the heartiest rejoicings, to Liberty-pole Square, and adorned with a flag bearing the imperishable motto, "Liberty or Death." On July 4, 1834, the natal day of the freedom of the colonies, this part of the rock was removed to the ground in front of Pilgrim Hall, and there it rests, encircled with a railing, ornamented with heraldic wreaths, bearing the names of the forty-one signers of the compact in the Mayflower. Fragments of this rock are relics in the cabinets of hundreds of our citizens, and are sought with avidity even by strangers as memorials of a pilgrimage to the birthplace of New England.
On the day of landing the harbor was sounded and the land explored; and, the place inviting settlement, the adventurers returned with tidings of their success; the Mayflower weighed anchor to proceed to the spot; and ere another Sabbath dawned she was safely moored in the desired haven. Monday and Tuesday were spent in exploring tours; and on Wednesday, the 20th, the settlement at Plymouth was commenced—twenty persons remaining ashore for the night. On the following Saturday the first timber was felled; on Monday their storehouse was commenced; on Thursday preparations were made for the erection of a fort; and allotments of land were made to the families; and on the following Sunday religious worship was performed for the first time in their storehouse.
For a month the colonists were busily employed. The distance of the vessel—which lay more than a mile from the shore—was a great hinderance to their work; frequent storms interrupted their operations; and by accident their storehouse was destroyed by fire, and their hospital narrowly escaped destruction. The houses were arranged in two rows, on Leyden street, each man building his own. The storehouse was twenty feet square; the size of the private dwellings we have no means of determining. All were constructed of logs, with the interstices filled with sticks and clay; the roofs were covered with thatch; the chimneys were of fragments of wood, plastered with clay; and oiled paper served as a substitute for glass for the inlet of light.
The whole of this first winter was a period of unprecedented hardship and suffering. Mild as was the weather, it was far more severe than that of the land of their birth; and the disease contracted on shipboard, aggravated by colds caught in their wanderings in quest of a home, caused a great and distressing mortality to prevail. In December six died; in January, eight; in February, seventeen; and in March, thirteen; a total of forty-four in four months—of whom twenty-one were signers of the compact. It is remarkable that the leaders of the colony were spared. The survivors were unwearied in their attentions to their companions; but affection could not avert the arrows of the Destroyer. The first burial-place was on Cole's Hill; and as an affecting proof of the miserable condition of the sufferers it is said that, knowing they were surrounded by warlike savages, and fearing their losses might be discovered and advantage be taken of their weakness to attack and exterminate them, the sad mounds formed by rude coffins hidden beneath the earth were carefully levelled and sowed with grain!
However rapidly we have sketched, in the preceding pages, the history of the Pilgrims from their settlement in Holland to their removal to America, no one can fail to have been deeply impressed with the inspiring lessons which that history teaches. As has been well said: "Their banishment to Holland was fortunate; the decline of their little company in the strange land was fortunate; the difficulties which they experienced in getting the royal consent to banish themselves to this wilderness was fortunate; all the tears and heartbreakings of that ever-memorable parting at Delfthaven had the happiest influence on the rising destinies of New England. All this purified the rank of the settlers. These rough touches of fortune brushed off the light, uncertain, selfish spirits. They made it a grave, solemn, self-denying expedition, and required of those who were engaged in it to be so too."
Touching also is the story of the "long, cold, dreary autumnal passage" in that "one solitary, adventurous vessel, the Mayflower, of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a future state and bound across the unknown sea." We behold it "pursuing with a thousand misgivings the uncertain, the tedious voyage. Suns rise and set, and winter surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the sight of the wished-for shore. The awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging. The laboring masts seem straining from their base; the dismal sound of the pumps is heard; the ship leaps, as it were, madly from billow to billow; the ocean breaks, and settles with engulfing floods over the floating deck, and beats with deadening, shivering weight against the staggering vessel."
Escaped from these perils, after a passage of sixty-six days, and subsequent journeyings until the middle of December, they land on the ice-clad rocks of Plymouth, worn out with suffering, weak and weary from the fatigues of the voyage, poorly armed, scantily provisioned, surrounded by barbarians, without prospect of human succor, without the help or favor of their king, with a useless patent, without assurance of liberty in religion, without shelter, and without means!
Yet resolute men are there: Carver, Bradford, Brewster, Standish, Winslow, Alden, Warren, Hopkins, and others. Female fortitude and resignation are there. Wives and mothers, with dauntless courage and unexampled heroism, have braved all these dangers, shared all these trials, borne all these sorrows, submitted to all these privations. And there, too, is "chilled and shivering childhood, houseless but for a mother's arms, couchless but for a mother's breast."