“Death,” says Elliot, “had reaped a ripe, fat harvest, and of the one hundred scarce fifty remained. Six had died in December; eight in January; seventeen in February; thirteen in March.”[193] Yet the Pilgrims kissed the rod; and though “the searching sharpness of that pure climate had crept into the crevices of their crazed bodies, causing death,”[194] they said “the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
The dead were buried in a bank, at a little distance from Plymouth rock; and lest the Indians should learn the weakened condition of the colony, the graves were levelled, and sown with grass.[195] Over these the unflinching survivors locked hands, and wiping their eyes, looked up, firm, devout, hopeful as ever.
In April, 1621, Governor Carver died. “Whilst they were busy about their seed, he came out of the field very sick, it being a hot day. He complained greatly of his head, and lay down; within a few hours his senses failed, and he never spoke more. His death was much lamented, and caused great heaviness, as there was cause.”[196] Shortly after, William Bradford, the historian of the colony, was elected governor, “and being not yet recovered from a severe illness, in which he had been near the point of death, Isaac Allerton was chosen to be an assistant unto him.”[197]
On the very day of Carver’s death, the 5th of April, the “Mayflower” sailed for England.[198] Not a soul returned in her of that devoted band. It has been well said that the departure of the “Mayflower” surpasses in dignity, though not in desperation, the burning of his ships by Cortez. Through the struggles of the winter she had always been in sight, a place of refuge and relief in any desperate emergency. While the good ship lay moored in Plymouth harbor, they had a hold upon the outer world. But now, as grouped upon the shore they stood and watched her, as she slowly spread her sails and crept out of the bay and from their sight, they felt inexpressibly dreary and bereaved: when the sun set in the western forest, the “Mayflower” had disappeared in the distant blue.[199]
“Can ye scan the woe
That wrings their bosoms, as this last frail link
Binding to man and habitable earth
Is severed? Can ye tell what pangs were there,
What keen regrets, what sickness of the heart,
What yearning o’er their forfeit land of birth;