CHAPTER VI
Miles Standish
and
the Pilgrims
[1584-1656]
Only thirteen years after Jamestown was settled, a colony of Englishmen, very different in character from the gold hunters of Virginia, landed on the Massachusetts coast. These men came not to seek fortunes but rather to establish a community with high ideals of political and religious life. With them they brought their wives and children, and a determination to build for themselves permanent homes in the new world. Before tracing their fortunes in America, let us glance backward a few years and see them as they were in their English homes.
At the present time people can choose their own church and worship as they please, but it was not always so, even in England. In that country, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, there was much religious disturbance, and many people were punished because they would not worship as the law required. There were Englishmen who, while loving the English Church, wished to make its services more simple or, as they said, purify its forms and ceremonies. These people were for this reason called Puritans. Others disliked the ceremonial and doctrines of the Church so much that they wished to form a separate body and worship after their own ideas. These were called Separatists, or Independents.
The Separatists met for service on the Lord's Day in the home of William Brewster, one of their chief men, in the little village of Scrooby. For a year they tried to keep together and worship as an independent body. But as the laws of England required that all should worship in the Established Church, they found they could not do this without being hunted down, thrown into prison, and sometimes beaten and even hanged.
They endured these persecutions as long as they could, and then some of them decided to leave their own land and seek a home in Holland, where they would be free to worship God as they pleased. James I, then King of England, being unwilling that they should go, they had much difficulty in carrying out their plan, but in 1608 they escaped and went to Amsterdam. From Amsterdam they went to Leyden, and finally from Leyden to America, by way of England. By reason of their wanderings they became known later as Pilgrims.
Since they were poor people, the Pilgrims were obliged to accept any work that would enable them to make a living. In Leyden many found employment in the manufacture of woollen goods. Here they were prosperous enough and enjoyed freedom of worship, but were unwilling to remain with the Dutch, fearing that their children would forget English. For, although England had been unkind to them, they cherished their native language, customs, and habits of life.
They had heard much about the English colony in Virginia, and the association of their own people in a free land appealed strongly to their English hearts. To Virginia therefore they decided to go, believing that there they could worship in peace and harmony and bring up their children in sturdy English thought and feeling.
But it is often easier to plan than to accomplish, and so it was with these home-yearning Pilgrims. Having decided to leave Holland, they found practical difficulties to be overcome, the most serious of which were King James's opposition to their going to America and lack of funds for the long and expensive journey. He permitted them to sail, however, and agreed not to disturb them in America so long as they pleased him. After getting the king's consent and borrowing money on hard terms, these earnest men and women made ready to sail for their new home in the forest wilds of America.
They embarked in the Speedwell, at Delft Haven, a port twelve miles from Leyden, and sailed for Southampton, on the south coast of England. Here they joined some friends who had made ready another vessel, the now historic Mayflower. But a brief delay was occasioned by lack of money. In order to secure the necessary amount, about four hundred dollars, it was necessary to sell some of their provisions, including much of the butter. Funds being secured, the two vessels at last put to sea, but twice returned on account of a leak in the Speedwell. Finally, deeming that vessel unseaworthy, one hundred and two Pilgrims, including men, women, children, and servants, took passage in the Mayflower, sailing from Plymouth, September 16, 1620.