The Pilgrims’ Start
Delftshaven, July 25.
This is the town from which the Pilgrims sailed on the trip which was to make Plymouth Rock famous. Nearly a hundred of the congregation of Rev. John Robinson at Leyden came to this little suburb of Rotterdam, and embarked on the Speedwell. The night before the start was spent by the congregation in exhortation and prayer in a little church which still stands, and has the fact recorded on a big tablet. The Pilgrims went to Southampton, discovered the Speedwell was not seaworthy, and transferred to the Mayflower.
Those English Puritans who had emigrated from their own country to Holland were considered “religious cranks” even in those days when fighting and killing for religion was regarded the proper occupation of a Christian. The Puritans in England were strong in numbers, and while Queen Elizabeth had frowned upon them as dissenters from the church of which she was the head, she was politician enough to restrain the persecution of them, for they were useful citizens and loved to die fighting Spaniards. But a few extremists who persisted in preaching in public places were sentenced to jail, and some of these skipped to Holland. Queen Elizabeth died and James became the King of England, and he was a pinhead. He hated non-conformists as much as Catholics. So, more of the Puritans who could not pretend to conform went to Holland, and in Leyden and Amsterdam they founded little settlements. Holland was a land of liberty, and the Puritans wanted the right to disagree, non-conform, argue and debate over disputed questions. There were several congregations of them, and they did not agree on important doctrines, such as whether John the Baptist’s hair was parted on the side or in the middle. Public debates were held and great enjoyment therefrom resulted, although there is no record of anyone having his opinion changed by the arguments, and the side whose story you are reading always overcame the other.
The Puritans did not mix much with the Dutch, and naturally grew lonesome in their exile. They conceived the plan of emigrating to the New World and there establishing the right to worship God in accord with their own conscience. Influential Puritans in England who had not been so cranky as to leave home, helped with the king, and finally they secured permission from James to settle in America and to own the land they should develop. James remarked at the time he would prefer that they go to Hell, where they belonged, but he was needing a loan from the English Puritans, so he gave the permit. The Puritans in old England also provided a good part of the money with which to fit out the expedition. At the time there was a general movement among the Puritans in England for a big migration to the New World. This was to be a sort of experiment station. At the time, James was king, and Charles, a dissolute prince, was to follow. The Puritans were sick at heart and ready to leave their native land. But soon after the Pilgrims had made their settlement in New England, the Puritans at home developed leaders who put them into the fight for Old England. Then along came Cromwell, and for many years English Puritans were running the government, and the necessity for a safe place across the sea and an asylum for religious liberty disappeared so far as they were concerned, though their interest in the Colonists was maintained. The sons of these Puritans who crossed the ocean rather than go to the established church, refused to pay a tax on tea, about 150 years later, and formed a new country with a new flag. That was part of the result of the sailing of the little company from Rev. Mr. Robinson’s flock after a night spent in prayer in this town of Delftshaven, just about this time of the year in 1620.
The stay of the Puritans in Holland had no effect on the Dutch. They let the Puritans shoot their mouths any way they pleased, and the Puritan only prospers and proselytes on opposition. But the Dutch of the present day are getting good returns for that investment of long ago. There are a dozen places in Holland, here and at Amsterdam and Leyden, visited by Americans every year because they are historic spots in connection with the Pilgrims. At each and every place the contribution-box is in sight, and the Dutch church or town which owns the property gets a handsome revenue. New England churches give liberally to the fixing up of the Dutch churches which can show a record of having been just once the place where some Puritan preached.