From this body of Puritan Episcopalians sprang that company who landed at Salem and settled at Boston in 1630, not the Pilgrims who settled at Plymouth in 1620. The latter, the “Separatists,” renounced the Church of England, and separated from it. They were likewise socially from the humbler walks of life. Some of their number, it is true, were persons of education, culture and refinement, but as has been said, the great bulk were from among the common people, without means, power or influence. Indeed, they sustained about the same relation to other classes and denominations that the Methodists, in their beginning, did to other religious denominations. In short, they were persecuted by the Church of England by the Puritans and by the Roman Catholics.
The Separatists, one and all, suffered every indignity, privation and want, while many, among them Barrow, Greenwood, Dennis and Penry, were hung. Others still were thrown into prison, and died from neglect, hunger and cold. Others were permitted to leave the country, but were informed that if they returned, their lives would be the forfeit. Later on, this was even denied them, and their departure from the country was forbidden. For these reasons, the Separatist congregations fled secretly to Holland, and even in Holland the Dutch shunned them, for they were afraid of offending King James, whose good will and help they wanted. These “Separatists,” or Pilgrims, therefore gradually disappeared from English soil, and from the English mind, and in 1607, there remained in the kingdom only one organized congregation of this kind, which was within the limits of the little town of Scrooby. Here their pastors were Richard Clifton and John Robinson, the latter a somewhat rash and inconsiderate young man, but they depended chiefly for material aid and favors, as well as sympathy and encouragement, on William Brewster, afterwards their “venerated elder.” He was postmaster, and his duties included the charge of public travel, which necessitated a house of large dimensions, and in this building he permitted the “Separatists” to worship weekly, lodging and entertaining them. About this time there appeared another person, a mere lad, who became interested in, and identified himself with, the Pilgrims, and who subsequently occupied a useful and prominent position in their history.
This was William Bradford, who came from a very respectable family in a neighboring village. They were not long, however, to remain here in peace and unmolested quiet. Their retreat was sought out and persecutions anew visited upon them, and there remained only two alternatives, the one to yield a hypocritical conformity and submission, or to become exiles from their native land, from “the graves in which their fathers slept.” They accordingly gathered themselves together, and under the leadership of the youthful and brave Bradford, fled to Amsterdam—Brewster, Robinson and Clifton remaining behind, like the marshal of Napoleon’s grand army, to guard the rear, when, having seen all safely on their journey and beyond the reach of the “King’s hirelings,” they followed on and soon joined those who had gone before. They were disappointed however, and failed to find peace and quiet and rest, for at Amsterdam there were two societies or congregations of English worshipers who had fled their country, but they were in continual dissensions with each other, and rendered the situation of the little band of “Separatists,” uncomfortable and unpleasant. There remained therefore, nothing for the latter to do but to “move on,” which they did, forty miles distant to the “goodly and pleasant city” of Leyden. Here at last they found peace and quiet and freedom of worship, but were not without perplexities and disadvantages.
They had to depend upon manual labor for subsistence, which employment they sought from the Dutch, of whose language they understood not a word. In their own land they had been chiefly agriculturists, but many of them now became manufacturers and mechanics of various kinds. Thus were they, by the force of circumstances, fortunate in learning trades which were useful to the community in after years in their home beyond the sea. Bradford engaged in the silk dyeing business and Brewster set up a printing office. It could not be expected that this condition of affairs, even, although a great improvement, would long satisfy the spiritual and intellectual longings and demands of such men as the Pilgrims. Their life, on the whole, was far from satisfactory. True their numbers had more than doubled, grown from one to over two hundred, yet their lot here seemed to have been cast in a hard place. Their children were losing English habits, character and language. Sunday, as was generally the case in European countries, was a day of recreation and was given up to merry-making and the playing of games. Influences, associations and examples were unfortunate, and all these things caused serious apprehensions in the minds of the Pilgrims. The old adage, too, that “a rolling stone gathers no moss,” was strikingly illustrated in their case. Years and life were passing rapidly away.
They had, many of them, become physically weakened from the hardships they had endured and were nearing old age, Brewster being sixty at the time of the landing, and they had the very natural feeling and desire to “lay up something for a rainy day.” After much thoughtful and prayerful consideration, in view of all these facts and circumstances, they decided to emigrate to America.
At this period in their lives, from their wanderings, misfortunes and persecutions, nearly every member of the Separatist-Pilgrim Company had become reduced to the direst straits. Indeed, this had been the common lot and experience of a large majority of them from their youth up, and when it was determined to seek homes in the new world, they were without means to secure their passage.
To obtain this, they made the best terms and conditions that they could with the London merchants.
The conditions were hard, but they were in the power of the merchants and there was no alternative. Concerning this Mr. Cushman who, acted as agent in the matter, says: “Although they (the proposals) were very afflictive to the minds of such as were concerned in the voyage, and hard enough for the poor people that were to adventure their persons as well as their estates,” they had to be accepted. Had they not done so, Mr. Cushman adds, “the whole design would have fallen to the ground.”
At the end of the seven years all the original and acquired assets of the colony, were to be equally divided between the merchants and the Pilgrims. So practically, it cost the Pilgrims seven years of severe labor to get from England to America. Nor was this all. There had been disaffection among the merchants and some had withdrawn from the co-partnership, leaving an accumulation of indebtedness. Those remaining friendly to the Pilgrims, wrote the latter: “As there has been a faction among us more than two years, so now there is an utter breach and sequestration. The company’s debts are no less than 1400 pounds, and we hope you will do your best to free them. We are still persuaded that you are the people that must make a plantation in those remote places where all others fail. We have sent some cattle, clothes, hoes, shoes, leather etc., for Allerton and Winslow to sell as our factors.”
And these goods the Pilgrims were to purchase at an advance of seventy per cent. Thus matters went from bad to worse, until the Pilgrims, seeing no way of “making out” of the difficulty became convinced that the best thing they could do was to break up the co-partnership and wind up its affairs. With this in view, they sent Miles Standish to London to “oblige them to come to a composition.” He took up 150 pounds of the indebtedness at the rate of fifty per cent.