See, yonder, leaning with graceful negligence against the wainscot of the cabin, lounges a pale, thoughtful, intellectual young man, with a fine head and a face whose expression is that of lovable seriousness. This is Isaac Johnson, the wealthiest of the Pilgrims, a land-owner in three counties.[669] But profoundly impressed with the importance of emigration, and aware of the necessity of an example, he has risen from the lap of artificial and patrician life and flung away the softness of a luxurious home to battle with the rigors of a wilderness. Like Humphrey, who now approaches to shake hands with him, he is a son-in-law of the earl of Lincoln, the head in that day of the now ducal house of Newcastle,[670] and also, like his relative, he has been the familiar companion of the patriotic nobles.[671]
Johnson now goes out as one of Winthrop’s assistants, as does also Sir Richard Saltonstall, of Halifax, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, a bountiful contributor to the finances of the emigration.[672] This little man, whose keen, searching eyes take in every thing without an effort, as he sits quietly on the left side of the table, is Theophilus Eaton, an eminent London merchant, but accustomed to courts, as he had resided at Copenhagen as English minister to Denmark.[673] That grave, sedate gentleman, directly opposite Eaton, is Lucien Bradstreet, son of a dissenting minister in Lincolnshire, and grandson of a “Suffolk gentleman of fine estate,” and was graduated at Emanuel College, Cambridge. By his side sits William Vassall, an opulent West India proprietor.[674] These, and some others known to fame, now stood clustered in the cabin of the “Arbella”—a little ship of three hundred and fifty tons burden[675]—forming one of the grandest collections of friends on any historic canvas.
Nor were they alone. Many of the settlers had their families with them.[676] The enterprise was still further hallowed by the unshrinking devotion of unselfish women. These, inspired by piety and love, gave up all that is most dear and most essential to their lives, “security and the comfort of homes in England, to brave the stormy, frightful sea, to land on these bleak, wild shores, to front the miseries and trials of pioneer life, and to sink into untimely graves, as so many did. These were the martyrs who laid down their lives for freedom and for us; to them, therefore, let us uncover our heads.”[677]
“By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a Pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair
To dwell, a weeping hermit there.”