Young men.—Gentlemen, we humbly thank you for your pains with us and respect unto us, and do further crave that upon any fit occasions we may have access unto you for any further information, and herewith do humbly take our leave.
The Pilgrims’ Arrival at Cape Cod.
From Bradford’s History.
Being thus arived in a good harbor and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees & blessed ye God of heaven, who had brought them over ye vast & furious ocean, and delivered them from all ye periles & miseries thereof, againe to set their feete on ye firme and stable earth, their proper elemente. And no marvell if they were thus joyefull, seeing wise Seneca was so affected with sailing a few miles on ye coast of his owne Italy; as he affirmed, that he had rather remaine twentie years on his way by land, then pass by sea to any place in a short time; so tedious & dreadfull was ye same unto him.
But hear I cannot but stay and make a pause, and stand half amased at this poore peoples presente condition; and so I thinke will the reader too, when he well considers ye same. Being thus passed ye vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before in their preparation (as may be remembered by yt which wente before), they had now no freinds to wellcome them, nor inns to entertaine or refresh their weatherbeaten bodys, no houses or much less townes to repaire too, to seeke for succoure. It is recorded in scripture as a mercie to ye apostle & his shipwraked company, yt the barbarians shewed them no smale kindnes in refreshing them, but these savage barbarians, when they mette with them (as after will appeare) were readier to fill their sids full of arrows then otherwise. And for ye season it was winter, and they that know ye winters of yt cuntrie know them to be sharp & violent, & subjecte to cruell & feirce stormes, deangerous to travill to known places, much more to serch an unknown coast. Besids, what could they see but a hidious & desolate wildernes, full of wild beasts & willd men? and what multituds ther might be of them they knew not. Nether could they, as it were, goe up to ye tope of Pisgah, to vew from this willdernes a more goodly cuntrie to feed their hops; for which way soever they turned their eys (save upward to ye heavens) they could have litle solace or content in respecte of any outward objects. For sumer being done, all things stand upon them with a wetherbeaten face; and ye whole countrie, full of woods & thickets, represented a wild & savage heiw. If they looked behind them, ther was ye mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a maine barr & goulfe to seperate them from all ye civill parts of ye world. If it be said they had a ship to sucour them, it is trew; but what heard they daly from ye mr. & company? but yt with speede they should looke out a place with their shallop, wher they would be at some near distance; for ye season was shuch as he would not stirr from thence till a safe harbor was discovered by them wher they would be, and he might goe without danger; and that victells consumed apace, but he must & would keepe sufficient for them selves & their returne. Yea, it was muttered by some, that if they gott not a place in time, they would turne them & their goods ashore & leave them. Let it also be considred what weake hopes of supply & succoure they left behinde them, yt might bear up their minds in this sade condition and trialls they were under; and they could not but be very smale. It is true, indeed, ye affections & love of their brethren at Leyden was cordiall & entire towards them, but they had litle power to help them, or them selves; and how ye case stode betweene them & ye marchants at their coming away, hath allready been declared. What could now sustaine them but ye spirite of God & his grace? May not & ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: Our faithers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this willdernes; but they cried unto ye Lord, and he heard their voyce, and looked on their adversitie, &c. Let them therefore praise ye Lord, because he is good, & his mercies endure for ever. Yea, let them which have been redeemed of ye Lord, shew how he hath delivered them from ye hand of ye oppressour. When they wandered in ye deserte wildernes out of ye way, and found no citie to dwell in, both hungrie, & thirstie, their sowle was overwhelmed in them. Let them confess before ye Lord his loving kindnes, and his wonderfull works before ye sons of men.
William Bradford, the great governor of the Plymouth colony, was born at Austerfield, a little village in Yorkshire, in 1588, the same year (the year of the Spanish Armada) that John Winthrop, the great governor of the Massachusetts colony, was born at Groton, in Suffolk. While yet a youth, he became a member of Brewster’s little congregation at Scrooby, near by; and in 1608 he escaped with the others to Holland, and became a leading member of the church at Leyden, taking an active part in the removal to New England in 1620. Upon Carver’s death, in 1621, he was elected to succeed him as governor; and he continued to hold this office, with two slight breaks, to the time of his death, in 1657.
No other person understood so well the history of the Plymouth colony. It is therefore singularly fortunate that he became the colony’s historian,—as, similarly, Gov. Winthrop became the historian of the Massachusetts colony. His “History of the Plymouth Plantation” may properly be called our New England Old Testament,—the Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, and Judges of the Plymouth settlement. The remarkable story of the loss of the MS. from the Old South Meeting-house, where it was preserved in the Prince Library, at the time of the British Evacuation of Boston, and its discovery in the Bishop of London’s library at Fulham in 1855, has been told by Charles Deane in his introduction to the volume, published by the Massachusetts Historical Society, and in the Proceedings of the Society, 1855 and 1882; also, more fully, by Justin Winsor, in the Proceedings for 1882. It is an interesting fact that the third volume of Winthrop’s History, long lost, was found, in 1816, in the tower of the Old South Meeting-house, where, like Bradford’s History, it had been kept in Prince’s New England Library.
Bradford’s Letter Book, containing copies of important letters addressed to him, was lost, like his History. Fragments were rescued in a grocer’s shop in Halifax, and printed in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, iii., and in Young’s Chronicles. In vol. iii. of the Collections may be found his “Account of New England in Verse.” His “Word to Boston” and “Word to New England” appear in vol. xxvii. of the same: and two others of his poems in the Proceedings for 1870,—“Some Observations of God’s Merciful Dealings with us in this Wilderness,” and “A Word to New Plymouth.” A little piece called “Epitaphium Meum” was printed by Morton in his Memorial. Bradford’s letters to Winthrop are printed in the Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 4th series, vol. vi.