The next year they arranged with a Dutch ship to meet them at a port near Grimsby at the mouth of the Humber, but the cautious skipper got scared and after taking a few of the women and children aboard, cast off, leaving the husbands and a majority to be seized by the sheriff and his men. Following this, there was no mass effort to cross to Holland, but, with much difficulty and by departing one or two at a time, all got over. After a short stay in Amsterdam they made their way to Leyden. Here they were joined by other refugees from England, until there were more than a thousand. The Pilgrims remained in Leyden for eleven years (1609 to 1620). Brewster became a printer, Robinson entered the University, and all found work in different occupations. They labored hard and continuously. They found in Holland peace and the religious freedom they had left their English homes for, but there were other factors which made them, after a decade, seriously consider leaving Holland. They wished the protection of the English flag; they were losing the English language, and their children were marrying among the Dutch. After careful consideration they decided that the Virginia Colony, extending from Florida to New York, offered the best opportunity. Because of their separation from the Established Church, the King would not guarantee them protection, but agreed not to molest them, and under this agreement they obtained a patent from the London Company to settle on the New Jersey Coast.
It was necessary to secure financial aid, and this they obtained from a group of London merchants, known as the Adventurers. The contract was an oppressive one and became more so as the colonists built their houses; but it cannot be called unfair, considering the financial risk involved. It provided that for seven years the income of the colony should go into a common fund and from this the colonists would get their living. At the end of the period the investment and profits, real and personal, should be equally divided between the Adventurers and the Planters in accordance with the number of shares each held. Its effect was to establish a community life which, long before the seven years were up, resulted in embarrassment and open disaffection, and a compromise between the parties was effected by which the Adventurers were to be paid the sum of eighteen hundred pounds sterling 26 November 1626. Here was Communism pure and simple, and it was a monumental failure and was given up after three years. If Communism cannot succeed under these conditions, with the type of people the Pilgrims were, speaking the same language, governed by the same laws, with common history, tradition, and memories, how could Communism possibly prove a success under far less favorable circumstances today?
The conditions upon which the Pilgrims secured their transportation to America indicate the exhausted state of their finances, and they probably never would have given their assent to the conditions imposed, if not absolutely forced to do so. The famous Captain John Smith wrote in 1624 that the Adventurers who raised the money to begin and supply the Plymouth plantation were about seventy in number, some merchants, some handicraftsmen, some risking great sums, some small, as their affection served. They dwelt mostly about London, knit together by a voluntary combination in a society, without constraint or penalty, aiming to do good and plant religion. The sad intelligence conveyed by the Mayflower on her return to London of the sufferings, sickness, and death, produced a disheartening effect in the most zealous friends, and the necessary supplies required by the infant colony were refused, though they had been promised.
After the Pilgrims had secured financial aid the little band (July 1620) left Leyden and sailed from Delfts-haven in Holland in the Speedwell, which they had bought for the purpose, to Southampton where the Mayflower was awaiting them with friends. Two weeks later the Mayflower and the Speedwell left Southampton for America. The Mayflower of one hundred and eighty tons burden (the Queen Mary of today is over eighty-three thousand tons) had been chartered to transport a part of the Leyden congregation to America.
Before they were out of the English Channel the Speedwell began leaking badly and they ran into Dartmouth for repairs. 2 September they made a second start, but trouble developed and they returned this time to Plymouth. Here they reorganized the expedition. The Speedwell was left behind, some of her passengers were taken on the Mayflower and the others left in England. On 16 September 1620 the Mayflower sailed again and ten weeks later, after a voyage filled with hardships and peril, having been driven far off her course, came to anchor in Cape Cod Harbor. When the Cape was sighted it was decided to sail south for a permanent home, but before the day was over they found themselves in dangerous shoals and roaring breakers and turned back to settle beyond the limits of their patent.
Only about one half of the passengers on the Mayflower were members of the Leyden congregation. Other motives, without thought of religious dissent or separation from the Established Church of England, had added many strangers to the company, and there arose mutterings of discontent among them.
It became evident, therefore, that some means should be devised to maintain law and order as they were out of the jurisdiction of their patent. To accomplish this the members of the Pilgrim Company met in the cabin of the Mayflower off the shores of Cape Cod on 21 November 1620 and banded themselves together by the now famous document known as the Mayflower Compact.
The [Mayflower Compact] is a great contribution to civil liberty and democracy; it ranks with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. Our democracy was based on it from the landing of the Pilgrims. The Pilgrims established what they planned. The Plymouth settlement was the start of religious freedom. We owe them a great debt of gratitude. They were unimportant people, and their departure attracted little or no attention. Some were educated, others were not; some had means, most little or nothing, but all had character and courage. We call them ordinary people, but their accomplishment made history. When they wrote and signed the Compact they gave the world a new political idea for government by the people, and when, under the Compact, they organized the government of Plymouth, they laid the foundation of political liberty for this nation.
Students of governmental history the world over, as well as statesmen, now know of the Mayflower Compact and discuss it. It cannot receive too much publicity, and there is no better place to reprint it than here in this story of the “House of Edward Winslow” where it can be easily and frequently perused.
In no part of the world up to then did there exist a government of just and equal laws. It is the first incident where a government was formed by the governed, by their consent in writing at one time. One hundred and fifty years later its principles really framed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, and our laws today are interwoven with the ideals of this band of Pilgrims.