Transcriber’s Note: Cover created by Transcriber from the materials in the original book, and placed in the Public Domain.

BURIAL HILL, PLYMOUTH.

Miles Standish
THE
PURITAN CAPTAIN.

BY
JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.

NEW YORK:
DODD & MEAD, No. 762 BROADWAY.
1872.

AMERICAN PIONEERS AND PATRIOTS.

Miles Standish,
THE
PURITAN CAPTAIN.

BY JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.

ILLUSTRATED.

NEW YORK:
DODD & MEAD, No. 762 BROADWAY.
1872.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by
DODD & MEAD,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

Middleton & Co.,
Stereotypers,
Bridgeport, Conn.

Press of Lange, Little & Hillman.
108 Wooster St., N. Y.

TO THE DESCENDANTS OF
CAPTAIN MILES STANDISH,
NOW NUMBERING THOUSANDS,
THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED;
WITH THE HOPE THAT NO ONE OF THEM MAY EVER DIM
THE LUSTRE OF THAT NAME,
TO WHICH THE VIRTUES OF THEIR DISTINGUISHED ANCESTOR
HAVE ATTACHED IMPERISHABLE RENOWN.

JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.

PREFACE.

The adventures of our Pilgrim Fathers must ever be a theme of absorbing interest to all their descendants. Their persecutions in England, their flight to Holland, their passage across the stormy ocean, this new world, as they found it, swept by the storms of approaching winter, their struggles with the hardships of the wilderness, and conflicts with the ferocious savage,—all combine in forming a narrative replete with the elements of entertainment and instruction.

Fortunately, there can be no doubt in reference to the essential facts. All these events have occurred within the last three hundred years, a period fully covered by authentic historical documents. In giving occasional extracts from these documents, I have deemed it expedient to modernize the spelling, and occasionally to exchange an unintelligible, obsolete word for one now in use.

For a period of about forty years, Captain Miles Standish was intimately associated with the Pilgrims. His memory is inseparably connected with theirs. It has been a constant pleasure to the author to endeavor to rear a worthy tribute to the heroic captain and the noble man, who was one of the most illustrious of those who laid the foundations of this great Republic.

JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.

Fair Haven, Conn.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
The Pilgrims in Holland.

Elizabeth’s Act of Uniformity.—Oppressive Enactments.—King James and his Measures.—Persecution of the Non-Conformists.—Plans for Emigration.—The Unavailing Attempt.—The Disaster near Hull.—Cruel Treatment of the Captives.—The Exiles at Amsterdam.—Removal to Leyden.—Decision to Emigrate to America.—The reasons.—Elder Brewster Selected as Pastor.—The Departure from Leyden.—Scene at Delft Haven.—The Embarkation.

Elizabeth, the maiden queen of England, commenced her long and eventful reign by issuing in May, 1659 a law concerning religion entitled the “Act of Uniformity.” By this law all ministers were prohibited from conducting public worship otherwise than in accordance with minute directions for the Church of England, issued by Parliament. Any one who should violate this law was exposed to severe penalties, and upon a third offence to imprisonment for life.

England, having broken from the Church of Rome, and having established the Church of England, of which the queen was the head, Elizabeth and her counsellors were determined, at whatever cost, to enforce entire uniformity of doctrines and of modes of worship. In their new organization they retained many of the ceremonies and much of the imposing display of the Papal Church. There were very many of the clergy and of the laity who, displeased with the pageantry of the Roman Catholic Church, with its gilded robes and showy ceremonial, were resolved to cherish a more simple and pure worship. They earnestly appealed for the abolition of this oppressive act. Their petition was refused by a majority of but one in a vote of one hundred and seventeen in the House of Commons.

The queen was unrelenting, and demanded uniformity in the most peremptory terms. Thirty-seven out of the ninety-eight ministers of London were arrested for violating this law. They were all suspended from their ministerial functions, and fourteen of them were sent to jail.

There were now three ecclesiastical parties in England—the Papal or Roman Catholic, the Episcopal, or Church of England, and the Presbyterian or Puritan party. The sympathies of the queen and of her courtiers was much more with the Papists than with the Presbyterians, and it was greatly feared that they would go over to their side. The queen grew daily more and more determined to enforce the discipline of the English Church. The order was issued that all preachers should be silenced who had not been ordained by Episcopal hands, or who refused to read the whole service as contained in the Prayer book, or who neglected to wear the prescribed clerical robes. Under this law two hundred and thirty-three ministers, in six counties, were speedily deposed. A Court of High Commission was appointed invested with extraordinary powers to arrest and punish all delinquents.

Any private person who should absent himself from the Episcopal Church for a month, or who should dissuade others from attending that form of worship, or from receiving the communion from an Episcopal clergyman, or who should be present at any “conventicle or meeting under color or pretence of any exercise of religion,” should be punished with imprisonment and should be held there until he signed the “Declaration of Conformity.” Or in default of such declaration he was to be sent to perpetual exile under penalty of death if he were ever again found within the British realms.

Notwithstanding that many were banished, and some died in prison and several were hanged, the cause of dissent secretly gained ground. As they were deliberating in the House of Commons upon a more rigid law to compel all to adopt the same creed and the same modes of Worship, Sir Walter Raleigh said that he thought that there were then nearly twenty thousand dissenters in England. Many driven from their homes by this violent persecution emigrated to Holland where, under Protestant rule there was freedom of religious worship.

Upon the accession of James the Sixth of Scotland to the throne of England, eight hundred clergymen petitioned for redress. Among other things they prayed for the disuse of the cap and surplice in the pulpit, for an abridgement of the Liturgy, for the better observance of the Lord’s day, and for a dispensation of the observance of other holy days; that none but pious men should be admitted to the ministry, and that ministers should reside in their parishes and preach on the Lord’s day. To this appeal the king turned a deaf ear. In a conference which was held upon the subject, in Hampton court, the petitioners were received with contumely and insult. The king refused to pay any respect to private consciences, saying, “I will have one doctrine, one discipline, one religion. And I will make you conform or I will harry you out of this land or else worse.”

A book of Common Prayer was published as “the only public form established in this realm,” and all were required to conform to its ritual and discipline as the king’s resolutions were unchangeable. Ten of the petitioners for a redress of grievances were sent to jail. The king himself, a conceited pedant, drew up a Book of Canons consisting of one hundred and forty-one articles, expressed in the most arrogant style of pretensions to infallibility. The clergy and the laity were alike commanded to submit to them under penalty of excommunication, imprisonment and outlawry. The importation of all religious books from the Continent was prohibited. No religious book could be published in England unless approved by a court of Bishops. It is estimated that, at that time there were fifteen hundred Non-Conformist clergymen in England. Bishop Coverdale, with many others of the most prominent ecclesiastics of the Episcopal church, publicly announced their refusal to subscribe to the Liturgy or to adopt the ceremonies it enjoined. In their protest they declared that since “they could not have the Word freely preached, and the sacraments administered without idolatrous gear, they concluded to break off from the public churches and separate in private houses.”

The persecution of the Non-Conformists was continued with so much vigor, that the friends of religious reform became hopeless. Some sought refuge in concealment, while many fled from their country to Holland where, the principles of Protestantism prevailing, there was freedom of worship. In the county of Nottinghamshire, England, there was a small village called Scrooby, where there was a congregation of Non-Conformists, meeting secretly from house to house. This was about the year 1606. A recent traveller gives the following interesting description of the present appearance of the little hamlet, which more than two and a half centuries ago was rendered memorable by the sufferings of the Puritans:

“The nearest way from Austerfield to Scrooby is by a path through the fields. Unnoticed in our history as these places have been till within a few years, it is likely that when, towards sunset on the 15th of September 1856, I walked along that path, I was the first person, related to the American Plymouth, who had done so since Bradford trod it last before his exile. I slept in a farm-house at Scrooby and reconnoitered that village the next morning. Its old church is a beautiful structure. At the distance from it of a quarter of a mile the dyke, round the vanished manor house, may still be traced; and a farmer’s house is believed to be part of the ancient stables or dog kennels. In what was the garden is a mulberry tree so old that generations, before Brewster, may have regaled themselves with its fruit. The local tradition declares it to have been planted by Cardinal Wolsey, during his sojourn at the manor for some weeks after his fall from power.”

The little church of Non-Conformists at Scrooby had Richard Clifton for pastor and John Robinson for teacher. William Brewster, who subsequently attained to much distinction as pastor of the Puritan church in Plymouth, New England, was then a private member of the church. This little band of christians decided to emigrate in a body to Holland that they might there worship God in freedom.

It was a great trial to these christians to break away from their country, their homes, and their employments, to seek exile in a land of strangers. To add to their embarrassments cruel laws were passed forbidding the emigration of any of the Non-Conformists or Puritans as they began to be called. Bands of armed men vigilantly guarded all the seaports. Governor Bradford, who shared conspicuously in these sufferings, wrote:

“They could not long continue in any peaceable condition, but were hunted and persecuted on every side. Some were taken and clapped up in prison. Others had their houses beset and watched night and day, and hardly escaped capture. The most were fain to fly and leave their houses and habitations and the means of their livelihood. Yet seeing themselves thus molested, by a joint consent they resolved to go into the Low Countries where they heard was freedom of religion for all men; as also that sundry persons from London, and other parts of the land, had been exiled and persecuted for the same cause, and were gone thither, and lived at Amsterdam and other places of the land.

“Being thus constrained to leave their native soil and country, their lands and living, and all their friends and familiar acquaintance, it was much, and thought marvellous by many. But to go into a country they knew not except by hearsay, where they must learn a new language, and get their livings they knew not how, it being an expensive place and subject to the miseries of war, it was by many thought an adventure almost desperate, a case intolerable, and a misery worse than death. Especially seeing they were not acquainted with trades or traffic, by which the country doth subsist, but had been only used to a plain country life and the innocent trade of husbandry.

“But these things did not dismay them, though they did at times trouble them, for their desires were set on the ways of God and to enjoy his ordinances. But they rested on His providence and knew whom they had believed. Yet this was not all; for though they could not stay, yet were they not suffered to go; but the ports and havens were shut against them; so as they were fain to seek secret means of conveyance, and to bribe and fee the mariners, and give extraordinary rates for their passages. And yet they were often betrayed, many of them, and both they and their goods intercepted and surprised, and thereby put to great trouble.”

The company at Scrooby however secretly chartered a vessel, at Boston, in Lincolnshire, about fifty miles south-east from Scrooby, the nearest port for their purpose. The peril of the enterprise was so great that they had to practise the utmost caution and to pay exorbitant passage money. They travelled by land to the appointed rendezvous, where to their bitter disappointment, they found neither captain nor vessel. After a long delay and heavy expenses, for which they were quite unprepared, the vessel made its appearance and, in the night, all were received on board. Then this infamous captain, having previously agreed to do so for his “thirty pieces of silver,” betrayed them, and delivered them all up to the search officers.

Rudely they were seized, their trunks broken open, their clothing confiscated, and even the persons of their women searched with cruel indelicacy. Thus plundered and outraged they were placed in open boats and taken to the shore, where they were exhibited to the derisive gaze and the jeers of an ignorant and a brutal populace. A despatch was immediately sent to the Lords of the Council in London, and they were all committed to prison. After gloomy incarceration for a month, Mr. Brewster and six others of the most prominent men were bound over for trial, and the rest were released, woe-stricken, sick and impoverished, to find their way back, as best they could, to the Scrooby which they had left, and where they no longer had any homes. Oh man! what a fiend hast thou been in the treatment of thy brother man!

The next Spring a portion of these resolute men and women made another attempt to escape to Holland. They did not venture again to trust one of their own countrymen, but made a contract with a Dutch shipmaster, from Zealand. He agreed to have his vessel, at an appointed day, in a retired spot upon the river Humber, not far from the seaport of Hull. Arrangements were made for the women and children, with their few goods, to be floated down the Humber in a barque, while the men made the journey by land. This was all done under the protection of night.

The Humber here swells into a bay, a long and wide arm of the sea. The wind was high, and the little barque, plunging over the waves, made the women and children deadly sea sick. Having arrived near their point of destination, before the dawn of the morning and the vessel not yet having arrived, the boatmen put into a little creek to find still water. Here the receding tide left them aground. In the morning came the ship. The captain, seeing the barque containing the women and children aground, and the men, who had come by land walking near by upon the shore, sent his boat to bring the men on board, that they might be already there when the returning tide should float the barque. One crowded boat load had reached the ship when a body of armed men, horse and foot, was seen rapidly approaching. The captain was terrified. Fine, imprisonment, and perhaps a worse fate awaited him. Uttering an oath, he weighed anchor, spread his sails, and a fresh breeze soon carried him out to sea.

Dreadful indeed was the condition of those thus abandoned to the insults and outrages of a brutal soldiery. Husbands and wives, parents and children were separated. The anguish of those, thus torn from their families, on board the ship, was no less than the distress of the mothers and daughters left upon the shore.

A storm soon rose—a terrific storm. For seven days and nights the ship was at the mercy of the gale, without sight of sun or moon or stars. The ship was driven near to the coast of Norway; and more than once the mariners thought the ship sinking past all recovery. At length the gale abated and, fourteen days after they had weighed anchor, the vessel reached Amsterdam, where from the long voyage and the fury of the tempest, their friends had almost despaired of ever again seeing them.

But let us return to those who were left upon the banks of the Humber. They were all captured. Deplorable was the condition of these unhappy victims of religious intolerance, women and children weeping bitterly in their despair. Some of the men, who knew that the rigors of the law would fall upon them with the greatest severity, escaped. But most of those who had been left behind by the ship allowed themselves to be taken to share the fate of the destitute and helpless women and children, that they might if possible, assist them. The troops were very cruel in the treatment of their prisoners. They were roughly seized and hurried from one justice to another, the officers being much embarrassed to know what to do with them.

Governor Bradford, who witnessed these scenes, writes:—“Pitiful it was to see the heavy care of these poor women in this distress; what weeping and crying on every side; some for their husbands that were carried away in the ship; others not knowing what would become of them and their little ones; others melted in tears seeing their little ones hanging about them, crying for fear and quaking with cold.”

In view of their sufferings general sympathy was excited in their behalf. It seemed inhuman to imprison, in gloomy cells of stone and iron, women and innocent children, simply because they had intended to accompany their husbands and fathers to another land. It was of no use to fine them, for they had no means of paying a fine. Neither could they be sent to their former homes, for their houses and lands had already been sold, in preparation for their removal.

At last the poor creatures were turned adrift. No historic pen has recorded the details of their sufferings. Some undoubtedly perished of exposure. Some were kindly sheltered by the charitable, and some succeeded in various ways in crossing the sea to Amsterdam. There were similar persecutions in other parts of England. Quite a large company of pilgrims from various sections of England had succeeded, some in one way and some in another, in effecting their escape to Holland. They had nearly all taken up their residence in Amsterdam. This flourishing city was so called because it had sprung up around a dam which had been thrown across the mouth of the Amstel river. It was even then renowned for its stately buildings, its extended commerce and its opulence. Ships, from every clime, lined its wharfs; water craft of every variety and in almost countless numbers floated upon its canals, which took the place of streets. From many parts of Europe Protestants had fled to this city, bringing with them their arts, manufactures and skill in trade. The emigrants from Scrooby were nearly all farmers. They had no money to purchase lands, and they found it very difficult to obtain remunerative employment in the crowded streets of the commercial city. Governor Bradford writes, of his companions in affliction:

“They heard a strange and uncouth language and beheld the different manners and customs of the people with their strange fashions and attires; all so different from their plain country villages, wherein they were bred and had so long lived, as it seemed they were come into a new world. But these were not the things they much looked on, or which long took up their thoughts. For they had other work in hand and another kind of war to urge and maintain. For it was not long before they saw the grim and grisly face of poverty come on them, like an armed man, with whom they must buckle and encounter and from whom they could not fly.”

The new-comers did not find perfect harmony of agreement with those who had preceded them. After a few months tarry at Amsterdam they retired in a body to Leyden, a beautiful city of seventy thousand inhabitants, about forty miles distant. In allusion to this movement Governor Bradford writes:

“For these and some other reasons they removed to Leyden, a fair and beautiful city, and of a sweet situation; but made more famous by the university, wherewith it is adorned, in which of late had been so many learned men. But wanting that traffic by sea which Amsterdam enjoys, it was not so beneficial for their outward means of living. But being now established here, they fell to such trades and employments as they best could; valuing peace and their spiritual comfort above any other riches whatever.

“Being thus settled, after many difficulties, they continued many years in a comfortable condition, enjoying much sweet and delightful society, and spiritual comfort together in the ways of God, under the able ministry of Mr. John Robinson and Mr. William Brewster, who was an assistant unto him, in the place of an Elder, unto which he was now called and chosen by the church. So they grew in knowledge and other gifts and graces of God, and lived together in peace and love and holiness; and many came unto them from diverse parts of England so as they grew a great congregation.

“And if at any time any differences arose, or offenses broke out, as it cannot be but some time there will, even among the best of men, they were even so met with and nipped in the head betimes, or otherwise so well composed as still love, peace and communion were continued.”

The condition of the Pilgrims in Holland was a very hard one. They were foreigners; they found the language difficult to acquire. They were generally poor, and notwithstanding their honesty and frugality, could obtain but a scanty support. Their sons were strongly tempted to enlist as soldiers, or to wander away as sailors. The future of their families seemed very gloomy.

“Lastly,” writes Governor Bradford, “and which was not least, a great hope and inward zeal they had of laying some good foundation, or at least to make some way thereunto for propagating and advancing the kingdom of Christ, in those remote parts of the world,—yea, though they should be but the stepping stones unto others for the performing of so great a work.”

“Their numbers assembled at Leyden can only be conjectured. It may, when at the largest, have counted between two and three hundred persons. Rev. John Robinson was chosen their pastor, and William Brewster their assistant pastor.”

Thus gradually the Pilgrims came to the conviction that Holland was not a desirable place for their permanent home. Notwithstanding the oppression which they had endured from the British government, they were very unwilling to lose their native language or the name of Englishmen. They could not educate their children as they wished, and it was quite certain their descendants would become absorbed and lost in the Dutch nation. They therefore began to turn their thoughts to the New World, where every variety of clime invited them, and where boundless acres of the most fertile land, unoccupied, seemed to be waiting for the plough of the husbandman. “Hereby they thought they might more glorify God, do more good to their country, better provide for their posterity, and live to be more refreshed by their labors than ever they could do in Holland.”[1]

Unsuccessful attempts had already been made to establish colonies in Maine and Virginia. They had also received appalling reports of the ferocity of the savages. Deeply, solemnly, they pondered the all important question with many fastings and prayers. Bradford writes that,

“They considered that all great and honorable actions were accompanied with great difficulties, and must be both enterprised and overcome with answerable courages. The dangers were great, but not desperate; the difficulties were many, but not invincible. For, though there were many of them likely, yet they were not certain. It might be, sundry of the things feared might never befall; others, by provident care and the use of good means, might, in a great measure, be prevented. And all of them, through the help of God, by fortitude and patience, might either be borne or overcome. Their ends were good and honorable, and therefore they might expect the blessing of God in their proceeding.”[2]

The Dutch endeavored to induce them to join a feeble colony which they had established at the mouth of the Hudson river. Sir Walter Raleigh presented in glowing terms the claims of the valley of the Orinoco, in South America, which river he had recently explored for the second time.

“We passed,” writes the enthusiastic traveller, “the most beautiful country that my eyes ever beheld. I never saw a more beautiful country or more lively prospects. There is no country which yieldeth more pleasure to its inhabitants. For health, good air, pleasure, riches, I am resolved that it cannot be equalled by any region either in the east or west.”[3]

There was a small struggling English colony in Virginia which they were urged to join. But Bradford writes that they were afraid that they should be as much persecuted there for their religion as if they lived in England. After pondering for some time these questions and perplexities, they decided to establish a distinct colony for themselves, obtaining their lands from the Virginia Company in England. A delegation was sent to the king of England, soliciting from him a grant of freedom of worship. The Virginia Company gladly lent its co-operation to the emigrants. The king, however, was so unrelenting in his desire to promote religious uniformity throughout all his domains, that though the Secretary of State, and others high in authority, urged him to liberality, he could only be persuaded to give his reluctant assent to the assurance “that his majesty would connive at them, and not molest them, provided they carried themselves peaceably.”

The very important question now arose, Who should go. Manifestly all could not be in a condition to cross a wide and stormy sea, for a new world, never to return. As only a minority of the whole number could leave, it was decided that their pastor, Mr. Robinson, should remain with those left behind, while Elder Brewster should accompany the emigrants as their spiritual guide. For nearly twelve years they had resided in Leyden. The hour of their departure was a sad one for all. Many very grievous embarrassments were encountered, which we have not space here to record.

A small vessel of but sixty tons burden, called the Speedwell, was purchased, and was in the harbor at Delft Haven, twelve miles from Leyden, awaiting the arrival of the pilgrims. Their friends, who remained, gave them a parting feast. It was truly a religious festival.

DELFT-HAVEN.

“The feast,” writes Winslow, “was at the pastor’s house, which was large. Earnest were the prayers for each other, and mutual the pledges. With hymns, prayers, and the interchange of words of love and cheer, a few hours were passed.” The pilgrims, then, about one hundred and twenty in number, accompanied by many of their Leyden friends, repaired on board canal boats, and were speedily conveyed to Delft Haven. Here another parting scene took place. The description of it, as given by Bradford, in his “Brief Narration,” is worthy of record:

“The night before the embarkation was spent with little sleep by the most; but with friendly entertainment and Christian discourse, and other real expressions of true Christian love. The next day, the wind being fair, they went on board, and their friends with them, where truly doleful was the sight of that sad and mournful parting. To see what sighs and sobs did sound among them; what tears did gush from every eye, and pithy speeches pierced each heart; that sundry of the Dutch strangers that stood on the quay as spectators, could not refrain from tears. Yet comfortable and sweet it was to see such lively and true expressions of dear and unfeigned love. But the tide, which stays for no man, calling them away that were thus loath to part, their reverend pastor falling down upon his knees, and they all, with him, with watery cheeks, commended them, with most fervent prayers to the Lord and His blessing. And then, with mutual embraces and many tears, they took their leaves one of another.”

CHAPTER II.
The Voyage.

The Departure from Southampton.—Hindrances.—Delay at Dartmouth and Plymouth.—Abandonment of the Speedwell.—Sketch of Miles Standish.—Death at Sea.—Perils and Threatened Mutiny.—Narrow Escape of John Howland.—Arrival at Cape Cod.—Testimony of Governor Bradford.—The Civil Contract.—John Carver Chosen Governor.—The First Exploring Tour.—The Sabbath.

On the 22d of July, 1620, the Speedwell, with its little band of Christian heroes, left the haven of Delft for England.

Rev. Mr. Robinson and his friends returned sadly to Leyden. A prosperous wind rapidly bore the vessel across the channel to the British coast, and they entered the port of Southampton. Here they found a party of English emigrants who had chartered a vessel, the Mayflower, of one hundred and twenty tons. They were awaiting the arrival of the Speedwell, intending to unite with the Leyden band and sail in its company for the organization of a Christian colony in the New World.

Here, disappointed in some of their financial plans, it was found that they needed four hundred dollars to pay up sundry bills, before they could sail. To raise this money they were compelled to sell some of their provisions, including many firkins of butter, which luxury they thought they could best spare.

At length, all things being ready, both vessels weighed anchor and put to sea, from Southampton, on the 5th of August. In the two vessels there were about one hundred and twenty passengers. They had gone but about one hundred miles when Captain Reynolds, of the Speedwell, announced that his ship had sprung a leak, and that he did not dare to continue the voyage without having her examined and repaired. Both vessels, therefore, put into Dartmouth, losing a fair wind, and time which, with the rapidly passing summer weather, was invaluable to them. They were detained for more than a week, searching out the leaks and mending them. One of their number, Mr. Cushman, wrote from Dartmouth a doleful letter, full of anticipations of evil.

“We put in here,” he wrote, “to trim our vessel; and I think, as do others, also, that if we had stayed at sea for three or four hours more she would have sunk right down. And, though she was twice trimmed at Southampton, yet now she is open and leaky as a sieve. We lay at Southampton seven days in fair weather waiting for her; and now we lie here in as fair a wind as can blow, and so have done these four days, and are like to do four days more; and by that time the wind will probably turn, as it did at Southampton. Our victuals will be half eaten up, I think, before we go from the coast of England. And if our voyage last long we shall not have a month’s victuals when we come into the country.

“If I should write to you all things which promiscuously forebode our ruin, I should overcharge my weak head and grieve your tender heart. Only this I pray you, prepare for evil tidings of us every day. I see not in reason how we shall escape even the gaspings of hunger-starved persons. But God can do much, and His will be done.”

Again the two vessels set sail, probably about the 21st of August.

They had been out but a day or two, having made about three hundred miles from Land’s End, keeping close company, when the commander of the Speedwell hung out a signal of distress. Both vessels hove to and it appeared that the Speedwell had sprung a leak, of so serious a character that, though diligently plying the pumps, they could scarcely keep her afloat.

Nothing was to be done but to put back again to Plymouth, the nearest English port. Here the Speedwell was carefully examined, and pronounced to be, from general weakness, unseaworthy. The disappointment was very great. The vessel was abandoned; twenty passengers were left behind, who could not be received in the already crowded Mayflower.

“It was resolved,” writes Governor Bradford, “to dismiss the Speedwell and part of the company, and proceed with the other ship. The which, though it was grievous and caused great discouragement, was put in execution. So, after they had taken out such provisions as the other ship could well stow, and concluded what number and what persons to send back, they made another sad parting, the one ship going back to London, the other proceeding on her voyage. Those who went back were, for the most part, those who were willing so to do, either out of some discontent, or from fear they conceived of the ill success of the voyage, seeing so many crosses befal, and the time of the year so far spent. But others, in regard to their weakness and charge of many young children, were thought least useful, and most unfit to bear the brunt of this hard adventure; unto which work of God and judgment of their brethren they were contented to submit. And thus, like Gideon’s army, this small number was divided, as if the Lord, by this work of His providence, thought these few too many for the great work He had to do. But here, by the way, let me show, how afterwards it was found that the leakiness of this ship was partly caused by being overmasted and too much pressed with sails; for after she was sold and put into her old trim, she made many voyages and performed her service very sufficiently, to the great profit of her owners. But more especially by the cunning and deceit of the master and his company, who were hired to remain a whole year in America; and now, fancying dislike, and fearing want of victuals, they plotted this stratagem to free themselves, as afterwards was known, and by some of them confessed.”

Mr. Cushman, who wrote the doleful letter, was left behind at his own request. There was some excuse for his evil forebodings, for he was in a wretched state of health. He had written,

“Besides the imminent dangers of this voyage, which are no less than deadly, an infirmity of body hath seized me which will not, in all likelihood, leave me until death. What to call it I know not. But it is a bundle of lead, as it were, crushing my heart more and more these fourteen days; and, though I do the actions of a living man, yet I am but as dead.”

The whole number of persons who took their departure from Dartmouth, in the one solitary vessel, the Mayflower, for the New World, amounted to one hundred and two.

Among these passengers there was a marked man, to whom we have already alluded, Captain Miles Standish. He was a native of Lancashire, England, a gentleman born, and the legitimate heir to a large estate. He had been for some time an officer in one of the British regiments, which had garrisoned a town in the Netherlands. He was not a church member, and we know not what induced him to unite with the pilgrims in their perilous enterprise. Probably love of adventure, sympathy with them in their cruel persecution, and attachment to some of the emigrants, were the motives which influenced him. It is certain that he was very highly esteemed, and very cordially welcomed by the pilgrims. His military skill might prove of great value to the infant colony.

It is but little that we know of the early life of this remarkable man. He was born about the year 1584, and was, consequently, at this time, about thirty-six years of age. The family could boast of a long and illustrious line of ancestors. In the great controversy between the Catholics and the Protestants there was a division in the family, part adhering to the ancient faith, and part accepting the Protestant religion. Thus there arose, as it were, two families; the Catholics, who were of “Standish Hall,” and the Protestants, who were of “Duxbury Hall.” Both of these family seats are situated near the village of Chorley, in the county of Lancashire. The income of the whole property was large, being estimated at about five hundred thousand dollars a year.

It is probable that Miles Standish was the legal heir to all this property, and that, by gross injustice, he was defrauded of it. A few years ago the heirs of Miles Standish, in this country, sent out an agent, Mr. Bromley, to examine into the title. He thoroughly searched the records of the parish for more than a hundred years, embracing the period between 1549 and 1652. The result of this investigation was fully convincing, to the mind of Mr. Bromley, that Miles Standish was the rightful heir to the property, but that the legal evidence had been fraudulently destroyed. In reference to this investigation, Mr. Justin Winsor, in his History of Duxbury, writes:

“The records were all readily deciphered, with the exception of the years 1584 and 1585; the very dates about which time Standish is supposed to have been born. The parchment leaf, which contained the registers of the births of these years was wholly illegible; and their appearance was such that the conclusion was at once established that it had been purposely done with pumice stone, or otherwise, to destroy the legal evidence of the parentage of Standish, and his consequent title to the estates thereabout. The mutilation of these pages is supposed to have been accomplished when, about twenty years before, similar enquiries were made by the family in America.”

Young Miles was educated to the military profession. England was then in alliance with the Dutch, in one of those wars with which the continent of Europe has ever been desolated. Miles was sent to the Netherlands, commissioned as a lieutenant in Queen Elizabeth’s forces. After peace was declared he remained in the country and attached himself to the English exiles, who, in Leyden, had found refuge from ecclesiastical oppression. He joined the first company of Pilgrims for America, and by his bravery and sagacity, contributed greatly to the success of their heroic enterprise.

Nothing of special moment occurred during the voyage, which was tedious, occupying sixty-four days. One event is recorded by Bradford as a special providence. One of the seamen, a young man of vigorous health and lusty frame, was a very vile fellow. As he went swaggering about the decks he lost no opportunity to insult the Pilgrims, ever treating their religious faith with contempt. When he saw any suffering from the awful depression of sea sickness, he would openly curse them, and express the wish that he might have the pleasure of throwing their bodies overboard, before they should reach the end of the voyage. The slightest reproof would only cause him to curse and swear more bitterly. Why the captain of the Mayflower allowed this conduct, we are not informed. But there are other indications that he was not very cordially in sympathy with his persecuted, comparatively friendless, but illustrious passengers. When about half way across the Atlantic, the dissolute young man was seized with sudden and painful sickness. Several days of severe suffering passed, as his ribald songs and oaths were hushed in the languor of approaching death. He died miserably, and his body, wrapped in a tarred sheet, was cast into the sea. “Thus,” writes Bradford, “did his curses light upon his own head. And it was an astonishment to all his fellows, for they noted it to be the just hand of God upon him.”

Very rough storms were encountered, often with head winds, and the frail Mayflower was sorely strained and wrenched by gale and surge. The shrouds were broken, the sails were rent, and seams were opened, through the oaken ribs, which threatened the engulfing of the ship in the yawning waves. Almost a mutiny was excited, as some, deeming the shattered bark incapable of performing the voyage, urged the abandonment of the expedition, and a return. After a careful examination, by the captain and the officers, of the injury the vessel had received, it was decided that the hull of the ship, under water, was still strong; that, to tighten the seam opened by the main beam, they had on board an immense iron screw, which the passengers had brought from Holland, which would raise the beam to its place; and that, by carefully calking the decks and upper works, and by the cautious avoidance of spreading too much sail, they might still, in safety, brave the perils of a stormy sea.

But we are told that many gales arose so fierce, and the sea ran so high, that for days together they could not spread an inch of canvass, but, in nautical phrase, were compelled to scud under bare poles. In one of these terrific storms a young man, John Howland, who ventured upon deck, was, by the sudden lurching of the vessel and the breaking of a wave, swept into the sea. He seemed to have been carried down fathoms deep under the raging billows. But, providentially, he caught hold of the topsail halyards, which happened to hang overboard. Though they ran out to full length, still, with a death gripe, he kept his hold until he was drawn up to the surface of the water, when, with boat hooks and other means, he was rescued.

The first land they made was Cape Cod. But it had been their intention to seek a settlement somewhere near the mouth of Hudson river. They therefore tacked about and stood for the southward. But after sailing with a fair wind for half a day, they found themselves becalmed in the midst of dangerous shoals and wild breakers. Alarmed by the perils which surrounded them in such unknown seas, they resolved to make their way back and seek the protection of the cape. A gentle breeze rose in their favor, and swept them away from the shoals before night came on. The next morning they anchored their storm-shattered vessel in a safe harbor at the extremity of Cape Cod.

Governor Bradford writes feelingly: “Being thus arrived in a good harbor, and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of Heaven, who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof, again to set their feet on the firm and stable earth, their proper element.”

He continues in language which we slightly modernize: “But here I cannot but stay and make a pause, and stand half amazed at this poor people’s present condition. And so I think will the reader too, when he well considers the same. Being thus past the vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before in their preparation, they had now no friends to welcome them, nor inns to entertain or refresh their weather-beaten bodies,—no houses, or much less, towns to repair to, to seek for succor.

“It is recorded in Scripture, as a mercy to the apostle and his shipwrecked company, that the barbarians showed them no small kindness in refreshing them; but these savage barbarians, when they met with them, as after will appear, were readier to fill their sides full of arrows than otherwise. And for the season, it was winter; and they that know the winters of this country, know them to be sharp and violent, and subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search an unknown coast. Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men? And what multitudes there might be of them they knew not. Neither could they, as it were, go up to the top of Pisgah to view, from this wilderness, a more goodly country to feed their hopes.

“For, which way soever they turned their eyes, save upward to the heavens, they could have little solace or content in respect of any outward objects. For, summer being done, all things stand upon them with a weather-beaten face, and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, presented a wild and savage view. If they looked behind them there was the mighty ocean, which they had passed, and which was now as a main bar and gulf to separate them from all the civil parts of the world. If it be said they had a ship to succor them, it is true; but what heard they daily from the master and company, but that with speed they should look out a place with their shallop, where they would be at some near distance; for the season was such that he would not stir from thence till a safe harbor was discovered by them, where they would be left, and where he might go without danger; and that victuals consumed apace, but that he must and he would keep sufficient for the crew and their return. Yea, it was muttered by some, that if the Pilgrims got not a place soon, they would turn them and their goods ashore and leave them.”

It was in the morning of Saturday, November 11th, that the Mayflower, rounding the white sand cliffs of what is now Provincetown, on the extremity of Cape Cod, entered the bay on the western side of the Cape, where they cast anchor. Just before entering this harbor the Pilgrims had drawn up a brief constitution of civil government, upon the basis of republicanism, by which they mutually bound themselves to be governed. This was the germ of the American Constitution. John Carver they had unanimously chosen as their Governor for one year.

That afternoon a party of sixteen men, well armed, under Captain Miles Standish, was sent on shore to explore the country in their immediate vicinity. They returned in the early evening with rather a discouraging report. The land was sandy and poor, but covered with quite a dense forest of evergreens, dwarf oaks and other deciduous trees. They could find no fresh water, and met with no signs of inhabitants. The peninsula there seemed to be a mere sand bank, a tongue of barren land, about a mile in breadth. The water in the bay, however, abounded with fish and sea fowl. They brought on board much-needed fuel of the red cedar, which emitted, in burning, a grateful fragrance.

The next day was Sunday. These devout men, who had left their native land to encounter all the hardships and perils of the wilderness, that they might worship God freely, according to their own sense of duty, kept the day holy to the Lord. They had brought with them, as their pastor, as we have mentioned, the Rev. William Brewster. He was a gentleman by birth and in all his habits; a man of fervent piety and of highly cultivated mind, having graduated at Cambridge University, and having already filled several responsible stations in church and state. Mr. Brewster preached from the deck of the Mayflower. In their temple, whose majestic dome was the overarching skies, their hymns blended with the moan of the wintry wind, and the dash of the surge on the rock-bound shore.

“Amidst the storm they sang,
And the stars heard, and the sea,
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang,
To the anthems of the free.”

CHAPTER III.
Exploring the Coast.

Repairing the Shallop.—The Second Exploring Tour.—Interesting Discoveries.—Return to the Ship.—A Week of Labor.—The Third Exploring Tour.—More Corn Found.—Perplexity of the Pilgrims.—The Fourth Expedition.—The First Encounter.—Heroism of the Pilgrims.—Night of Tempest and Peril.—A Lee Shore Found.—Sabbath on the Island.

The next morning, refreshed by the repose of the Sabbath, the Pilgrims rose early to enter upon the arduous duties before them. The prospect of gloomy forests, barren sands and wild ocean, was any thing but cheerful. No alluring spot of grove or meadow or rivulet invited them to land. Weary as they were of their small and crowded bark, it was still preferable to any residence which the shore offered them. Still these heroic men indulged in no despondency. The martyr spirit of Elder Brewster animated his whole flock. Just before sailing for the New World, he had said to Sir Edward Sandys:

“It is not with us as with other men, whom small things can discourage, or small discontents cause to wish themselves home again. We believe and trust that the Lord is with us, unto whom and whose service we have given ourselves, and that he will graciously prosper our endeavors according to the simplicity of our hearts therein.”

The captain of the Mayflower was unwilling to leave the harbor at Cape Cod and peril his vessel by coasting about in those unknown seas in search for a suitable location for the colony. The Pilgrims had taken the precaution to bring with them a large shallop, whose framework, but partially put together, was stowed away in the hold of the vessel. They now got out these pieces, and their carpenter commenced vigorously the work of preparing the boat for service. It would require some days to put the shallop in order for a tour of exploration along the shore. There were twenty-eight females among the emigrants. Eighteen of these were married women, accompanying their husbands. These females, attended by a strong guard of armed men, were landed Monday morning to wash the soiled clothes which had accumulated through the long voyage. The weather was excessively cold, and the water so shoal that the boat could not come within several rods of the shore. The men were compelled to wade through the water, carrying the women in their arms; thus with many of them was laid the foundation of serious and fatal sickness.

In the meantime, while these labors were being performed, Captain Miles Standish, on Wednesday morning, the 15th of November, set out with a party of fifteen men, well armed and provisioned, for a more extended tour of exploration. It was deemed rather a hazardous enterprise, as they knew not but that the woods were filled with savages, lying in ambush. The Mayflower was anchored, it is supposed, about a furlong from the end of what is now called Long Point, and at that place the men were probably set on shore.

Mourt writes: “The willingness of the persons was liked, but the thing itself, in regard to the danger, was rather permitted than approved. And so, with cautious directions and instructions, sixteen men were set out, with every man his musket, sword and corslet, under the conduct of Captain Miles Standish, unto whom was adjoined, for counsel and advice, William Bradford, Stephen Hopkins and Edward Tilley.”

The exploring party followed along the coast for the distance of about a mile, when they saw six or seven Indians, with a dog, approaching them. As soon as the savages caught sight of the party of white men, they seemed to be much terrified, and fled precipitately into the woods. The Pilgrims hotly pursued, hoping to open with them amicable relations. The Indians, seeing themselves thus followed, turned again from the woods to the sea shore, where, upon the beach, their flight would be unobstructed by the bushes and branches, which impeded their flight in the forest. Their pursuers kept close after them, guided by the tracks of their feet in the sand.

Night now came on. The Pilgrims constructed a rude camp, with protecting ramparts of logs, built a rousing camp fire, for the night was cold as well as dark, and having established faithful sentinels, slept quietly until morning. The place of the bivouac, they supposed to be about ten miles from the vessel. The next morning, Thursday, November 16th, at the earliest dawn, the Pilgrims resumed their tour. They followed the track of the Indians from the shore into the woods. “We marched through boughs and bushes and under hills and valleys, which tore our very armor in pieces, and yet could meet with none of them, nor their houses, nor find any fresh water, which we greatly desired and stood in need of.”

About ten o’clock in the morning they entered a deep valley, where they perceived tracks of deer, and found, to their great joy, a spring, bubbling cool and fresh from its mossy bed. Having refreshed themselves with a beverage which they pronounced to be superior to any wine or beer which they had ever drank, they pressed on their way, pushing directly south, and soon found themselves again upon the sea shore, where they built a large fire, that its smoke, ascending through the silent air, might inform those on board the ship of the point which they had reached.

Then, continuing their journey, they soon entered another valley, where they found a fine clear pond of fresh water. This was undoubtedly the little lake which now gives name to the Pond Village in Truro. As they journeyed on they came to a plain of cleared land, consisting of about fifty acres, where the plough could be driven almost without obstruction. There were many indications that this land had formerly been planted with corn. Turning again into the interior, they came to several singular looking mounds, covered with old mats. Digging into one of these, they found decaying bows and arrows, and other indications that they were Indian graves. Reverently they replaced the weapons and again covered up the grave, as they would not have the Indians think that they would violate their sepulchres.

Further on they found an immense store of strawberries, large and very delicious. This seems very remarkable at that season of the year. Roger Williams writes: “This berry is the wonder of all fruits, growing naturally in those parts. In some places, where the natives have planted, I have many times seen as many as would fill a good ship within a few miles compass.” They found, also, abundance of walnuts and grape vines, with some very good grapes. Coming upon a deserted dwelling, they found, to their astonishment, a large iron kettle, which must have been taken from some ship, wrecked upon the coast. Upon examining the remains of the hut more carefully, they became satisfied that it must have been erected by some sailors from Europe, who probably had been cast away upon the coast.

Here they came upon another mound, newly made, so different from the others that they were induced to examine it. “In it we found a little old basket, full of fair Indian corn, and digged further and found a fine, great new basket, full of very fair corn of this year, with some six and thirty goodly ears of corn, some yellow and some red, and others mixed with blue, which was a very goodly sight. The basket was round and narrow at the top. It held about three or four bushels, which was as much as two of us could lift from the ground, and was very handsomely and cunningly made.”[4]

The Pilgrims had never seen corn before. Though they knew from its appearance that it must constitute an important article of food, they could have had no conception of the infinite value those golden kernels would contribute to the millions of inhabitants destined to throng this broad continent. These holes in the earth were the Indian barns. They were constructed so as to hold about a hogshead each. The corn having been husked and thoroughly dried in the sun, was placed in baskets surrounded with mats, which were woven or braided with flags. As the provisions of the Pilgrims were nearly expended, from their unexpectedly long voyage, the sight of the golden ears of corn was more grateful to them than so many doubloons would have been.

“We were in suspense,” writes one of these explorers, “what to do with it and the kettle. At length, after much consultation, we concluded to take the kettle and as much of the corn as we could carry away with us. And when our shallop came, if we could find any of the people, and come to parley with them, we would give them the kettle again, and satisfy them for their corn.”

About eight months after this, as we shall have occasion hereafter to mention, they met the Indians and paid them to their “full content.” The loose corn they put in the kettle, for two of the men to carry away on a staff. They also filled their pockets with the corn. The remainder they carefully buried again, “for we were so laden with armor that we could carry no more.” It is worthy of note that the Pilgrims were cased in armor. One of the grandsons of Miles Standish is said to have in his possession the coat of mail which his illustrious ancestor wore upon this occasion. The Pilgrim Society of Plymouth claims also to have the identical sword blade used by Miles Standish.

Not far from this place they found the remains of an old fort, which had doubtless been built by the same persons who erected the hut and owned the kettle. This was near a spot which they at first supposed to be a river, but which proved to be an arm of the sea, and which was doubtless the entrance of what is now called Parmet River. They found here a high cliff of sand, since called Old Tom’s Hill, after an Indian chief who had his wigwam upon its summit. They were, at this spot, about nine miles from Cape Cod harbor. Two birch bark canoes had been left here by the Indians, one on each bank of the creek. As the adventurers had received directions not to be absent more than two days, they had no time for extensive explorations. Returning to the fresh water pond, they established their rendezvous for the night. Building an immense fire, with the barricade to the windward, and establishing three sentinels, each man to take his turn as it came, they sought such sleep as could be found in a drenching rain, for the night proved dark and stormy.

In the morning they set out on their return home, and lost their way. As they wandered along they entered a well-trodden deer path in the entangled forest. Here they came upon a singular contrivance, apparently some sort of a trap, which they were carefully examining, when Mr. Bradford, subsequently Governor, found himself suddenly caught by the leg and snapped up into the air. As he experienced no serious injury, the incident afforded only occasion for merriment. It was a deer trap, ingeniously constructed by bending a strong sapling to the earth, with a rope and noose concealed under leaves covered with acorns.

“It was a very pretty device,” writes Mourt, “made with a rope of their own making, having a noose as artificially made as any roper in England can make.” These traps were so strong that a horse would be tossed up if he were caught in one of them. “An English mare,” writes Wood, “having strayed from her owner, and grown wild by her long sojourning in the woods, ranging up and down with the wild crew, stumbled into one of these traps, which stopped her speed, hanging her, like Mahomet’s coffin, betwixt earth and heaven.”

Toiling along through the wilderness, they saw three bucks and a flock of partridges, but could not get a shot at them. “As we came along by the creek we saw great flocks of wild geese and ducks, but they were very fearful of us, so we marched some while in the woods, some while on the sands, and other while in the water up to the knees, till at length we came near the ship, when we shot off our pieces, and the long boat came to fetch us.”[5] Those familiar with the locality can trace their route as they passed round the head of East Harbor Creek, and went down on the north side of it. They then waded through Stout’s Creek, near Gull Hill, and passed on to the end of Long Point, near which the ship was anchored.

It was Friday afternoon, November 17th, when the expedition returned, with rent clothes and blistered feet, and with a discouraging report; for they had found no place suitable for the location of their colony.

Another Sunday came, and this little band of exiles was again assembled, on the deck of the Mayflower, to attend to their accustomed worship. The whole of the ensuing week was employed in refitting the shallop, which required the labor of seventeen days, and in making preparation for another and more extensive tour along the coast.

On Monday of the next week, the 27th of November, twenty-four of the colonists and ten of the seamen, in the shallop, all under command of Captain Jones, of the Mayflower, again set out in search of a spot where they might commence their lonely settlement in the wilderness. It was a dreary winter’s day, with clouds, a rough sea, freezing winds and flurries of rain and sleet. The sand hills, whitened with snow, swept by the wind and covered with a stunted growth of oaks and pines, presented nothing alluring to the eye. As the day wore away and the storm increased in violence, they ran in towards the shore for security. Here the shallop cast anchor, under the lee of the sand hills, in comparatively smooth water. The crew passed the night in the boat, which probably afforded shelter for a few persons. A party landed, and following along the beach about six miles, encamped, with a glowing fire at their feet.

The next morning, the storm still continuing, the shallop reached them about eleven o’clock, and taking them on board, continued their voyage until they arrived at Pamet Creek, which the previous expedition had visited. Here they found a sheltered cove, which they called Cold Harbor. It afforded a safe refuge for boats, but was not a suitable harbor for ships, as it had a depth of but twelve feet of water at flood tide. The creek here separates into two streams, running back about three and a half miles into the country, and separated by the high cliff of which we have spoken, called Tom’s Hill.

A party landed at the foot of the cliff and marched into the interior, between the streams, four or five miles. The country was broken with steep hills and deep valleys, and there was six inches of snow upon the ground. As night darkened over them they entered a small grove of pine trees, where they built their camp and kindled their fire, and established their sentinels for the night. They supped luxuriously upon three fat geese and six ducks, which they had shot by the way.

It was their intention in the morning to follow up this creek to its head, supposing that they should there find emptying into it a river of fresh water. But in talking the matter over, it seemed to the majority that the region was very undesirable. It was rough, hilly, with poor soil, and a harbor fit only for boats. In the morning, consequently, the shallop returned to its anchorage at the mouth of the creek, while the party on land crossed over to the other stream to get the rest of the corn which they had left behind. Here they found one of the canoes, of which we have previously spoken, which was sufficiently capacious to carry seven or eight over at a time. Here they found several other depositories of corn, so that they obtained seven or eight bushels.

“And sure it was God’s good providence,” writes Mourt, “that we found this corn, for else we know not how we should have done; for we knew not how we should find or meet with any of the Indians, except it be to do us a mischief. Also we had never, in all likelihood, seen a grain of it if we had not made our first journey; for the ground was now covered with snow, and so hard frozen that we were fain, with our cutlasses and short swords, to hew and carve the ground a foot deep, and then wrest it up with levers, for we had forgot to bring other tools.”

Captain Jones, satisfied that there was no place here for the location of the colony, was quite discouraged and wished to return to the ship. Several others were quite sick from exposure and fatigue. They therefore returned to the shallop, while eighteen remained to continue their exploration until the next day, when the shallop was to come to take them. Several Indian trails were discovered, leading in various directions into the woods. One of these they followed five or six miles without finding any signs of inhabitants. Returning by another route, they came to a plain which had been cultivated, where they found several Indian graves, and among them manifestly the grave of a white man. In it they found fine yellow hair, some embalming powder, a knife, a pack-needle, and two or three iron instruments, bound up in a sailor’s canvas coat. It was supposed that the Indians had thus buried the man to honor him.

While thus ranging about, some of them came upon two deserted Indian huts. They were made round, like an arbor, of long saplings, each end being stuck into the ground. The door was about three feet high, protected by a mat. The chimney was a hole in the top. In the centre of them, one could easily stand upright. The fire was built in the centre, around which the inmates slept on mats. The sides and roof were warmly sheathed, as a protection from wind and rain, with thick mats. A few very mean articles of household furniture were found within, such as bowls, trays and earthen pots. There were also quite a variety of baskets, some of them quite curiously wrought. Some of these baskets were filled with parched acorns, which it subsequently appeared they often used instead of corn.

During the day the shallop arrived. The latter part of the afternoon they hastened on board, with their treasures, and, it is supposed, reached the Mayflower that evening. In Mourt’s narrative it is recorded: “We intended to have brought some beads and other things, to have left in the houses in sign of peace, and that we meant to truck with them. But it was not done, by means of our hasty coming away from Cape Cod.”

The question was then very earnestly and anxiously discussed, whether they should decide upon Cold Harbor for their settlement, or send out another expedition on an exploring tour. Those who were in favor of Cold Harbor for their settlement, wished to locate their dwellings upon the bluff, at the entrance of Pamet River, now called Old Tom’s Hill. The arguments they urged were, that there was there a convenient harbor for boats; convenient corn land ready to their hands; that Cape Cod would be a good place for fishing, as they daily saw great whales swimming about; that the place was healthy and defensible, and most important of all, that the heart of winter had come, and that they could not embark on more exploring tours without danger of losing both boat and men. The question, however, was settled in the negative, in view of the shallowness of the harbor, the barrenness of the land, and the inadequate supply of fresh water.

But very little was then known of Massachusetts Bay. But the second mate of the ship, Robert Coppin, had been in that region before. He said that upon the other side of the Bay, at a distance of about twenty-five miles, in a direct line west from Cape Cod, was a large navigable river with a good harbor. It was decided immediately to fit out another expedition to explore the whole coast of Massachusetts Bay, as far as the mouth of that fabulous river, but not to go beyond that point. A party of ten picked men, among whom were Governor Carver and William Bradford, set out in the shallop in the afternoon of the 6th of December, upon this all-important expedition, in which it seemed absolutely necessary that they should select some spot on which to establish their colony. They were well armed and provisioned, and it was certain that they would leave nothing untried which human energy could accomplish. It was a perilous enterprise in the dead of winter, in a comparatively open boat upon a storm-swept sea.

A cold wind ploughed the bay, raising such waves that many of the voyagers were deathly sick. It was late in the afternoon before they succeeded in clearing the harbor. The severity of the winter weather was such that the spray, dashing over them, was immediately frozen, covering them with coats of ice. They ran down the coast in a southerly direction, about twenty miles, when, doubling a point of land, they entered a small shallow cove, where they discovered twelve Indians on the beach, cutting up a grampus. As they turned their bow towards the land the Indians fled, and soon disappeared in the stunted growth behind the sand hills. The water in the little bay was so shallow that they found it difficult to approach the shore. At last they effected a landing about three miles from the point where they had seen the Indians, but even then they had to wade several yards through the water up to their knees. As the weather was intensely cold, this caused much suffering.

It was quite dark before they reached the land. With considerable difficulty they constructed a barricade of logs, to shelter them from the wind, and also to protect them from the arrows of the natives, should they be attacked. Sentinels were stationed to keep a vigilant guard, a roaring fire was built, and our weary exiles, wrapped in their cloaks and with their feet to the fire, soon forgot, for a few hours, all their troubles in the oblivion of sleep. During the night the sentinels could see, at the distance of but a few miles, the gleam of the camp fire of the Indians.

In the morning the company divided, a part to follow along the shore through the woods to see if they could find any suitable place for their settlement, while the rest sailed along slowly in the boat, noticing the depth of water and watching for harbors. Thus the day passed without any successful results. Those on the shore followed an Indian trail for some distance into the woods. They came to a large burying place, surrounded with a palisade and quite thickly filled with graves. As the sun of the short winter’s day was sinking, and the shades of another night were coming on, the boat put into a small creek, where its inmates were soon joined by the party from the woods. They met joyfully, for they had not seen one another since the morning, and some anxiety was felt for the safety of those upon the shore.

Governor Bradford, who was of the party, says that they made a barricade, as they were accustomed to do every night, of logs, stakes and thick pine boughs, the height of a man, leaving it open to the leeward, partly to shelter it from the cold and winds, making their fire in the middle and lying round about it, and partly to defend them from any assaults of the savages, if they should attack them. So, being very weary, they betook themselves to rest.

“But about midnight they heard a hideous and great cry, and their sentinel called ‘arm! arm!’ So they bestirred themselves and stood to their arms and shot off a couple of muskets, and then the noise ceased. They concluded that it was a company of wolves, or such like wild beasts; for one of the seamen told them that he had often heard such a noise in Newfoundland. So they rested till about five of the clock in the morning, for the tide and their purpose to go from thence made them bestirring betimes.

“After prayer they prepared for breakfast, and it being day-dawning, it was thought best to be carrying things down to the boat. But some said that it was not best to carry the arms down; others said they would be the readier, for they had wrapped them up in their coats, from the dew. But some three or four would not carry theirs until they went themselves; yet, as it fell out, those who took their arms to the boat, the water not being high enough for the boat to come to the shore, they laid them down upon the bank and came back to breakfast.

“But presently, all on the sudden, they heard a great and strange cry, which they knew to be the same voices which they heard in the night, though they varied their notes; and one of their company being abroad, came running in and cried, ‘Indians! Indians!’ Immediately a shower of arrows fell upon the encampment. Then men ran with all speed to recover their arms, as by the good providence of God they succeeded in doing.

“In the mean time, Captain Miles Standish, having a snaphance[6] ready, made a shot, and, after him, another. After they two had shot, other two were ready; but Captain Standish wished us not to shoot till we could take aim, for he knew not what need we should have. Then there were four only of us which had their arms there ready, and stood before the open side of our barricade which was first assaulted. They thought it best to defend it lest the enemy should take it and our stuff, and so have the more vantage against us.”

From the hideous yells of the Indians it seemed as though the woods were full of them. There might be ten or twenty Indians to one white man. It was greatly to be feared that they might, by a sudden rush, seize the shallop, and thus cut off all possibility of retreat. Captain Standish, therefore, immediately divided his little army of ten men, leaving five to defend the barricade and five to protect the boat. In the midst of the terrific turmoil and storm of Indian missiles, the two divisions, separated but by a distance of a few yards, cheered each other by encouraging words. Most of the guns were matchlocks. Those by the shallop called for a firebrand to light their matches. One seized from the fire a burning log and carried it to them. The Indians seemed to understand the act, for they redoubled the fury of their yells.

The thick winter garments of the Pilgrims and their coats of mail effectually protected a large portion of their bodies from the arrows of the natives. The arrows as, unlike bullets they could be seen in their flight, could also be dodged. There was one Indian, of gigantic stature, apparently more brave than the rest, who seemed to be the leader of the band. He was in advance of all the other Indians, and, standing behind a large tree, within half musket shot of the encampment, let fly his arrows with wonderful strength and accuracy of aim, while his voice, rising above the din of the conflict, animated them to courage and exertion. Three arrows which he shot were avoided by stooping. Three musket shots, which were aimed at him, struck the tree, causing the bark and splinters to fly about his ears, but he was unharmed. Captain Standish devoted his special attention to this chief. Watching his opportunity, when the arm of the savage was exposed, in the attempt to throw another shaft, he succeeded in striking it with a bullet. The shattered arm dropped helpless.[7] The savage gazed for a moment in apparent bewilderment and dismay, upon the mangled and bleeding limb, and then, as if conscious that he had fought his last battle, uttered a peculiar and distressing cry, which was probably the signal for retreat, and dodging from tree to tree, disappeared.

His warriors followed his example, and were speedily lost in the solitude and silence of the forest. Their flight was so instantaneous into the glooms which surrounded them, that scarcely one moment elapsed ere not an Indian was to be seen, and the demoniac clamor of war gave place to the sacred quietude of the untenanted wilderness. Captain Standish led his heroic little band, driving before them they knew not how many hundreds of Indians, nearly a quarter of a mile. Then they shot off two muskets and gave three loud cheers, “that they might see,” Governor Bradford writes, “that we were not afraid of them, nor discouraged. Then the English, who more thirsted for their conversion than their destruction, returned to their boat without receiving any damage.”

The first act of these devout men, upon returning to their encampment, was to give thanks to God for their great deliverance. There was a sublimity in this Te Deum, from the lips of these exiles, as in the twilight of the wintry morning, exposed to wind and rain, they bowed reverently around their camp fire, which never could have been surpassed by peals from choir and organ, resounding through the groined arches of the cathedrals of Saint Peter, Notre Dame or Saint Paul.

The escape of the Pilgrims, unharmed, from this shower of missiles, was indeed wonderful. The arrows of the Indians were thrown with great force, and being pointed with flint and bone, would, when hitting fairly, pierce the thickest clothing. Some of them were barbed with brass, probably obtained from some fisherman’s vessel. When striking any unprotected portion of the body, they would inflict a very dangerous and painful wound. But no one was hurt. Some overcoats which were hung up in the barricade were pierced through and through. Arrows were sticking in the logs, and many were found beneath the leaves. They collected quite a number of them, and sent them back to England as curiosities.

It is supposed that the scene of this conflict, was at what is now called Great Meadow Creek, in Eastham, about a mile northeast from Rock Harbor. The Pilgrims named the place The First Encounter.

It was indeed a gloomy morning of clouds and rain and chill wind which now opened before these stout-hearted wanderers. The surf dashed sullenly upon the shore. The gale, sweeping the ocean, and moaning through the sombre firs and pines, drove the sheeted mist, like spectral apparitions of ill omen, over the land and the sea. As the Pilgrims re-embarked the rain changed to sleet. A day of suffering and of great peril was manifestly before them. The gale rapidly increased in violence. The billows dashed so furiously upon the beach there was no possibility of again landing unless they should find some sheltered cove. The waves frequently broke into the boat. Their garments were drenched, and clothing and ropes were soon coated with ice. Anxiously, hour after hour, as they were buffeted by the storm, they searched the dim shore hoping to find some bay or river in which they could take refuge.

The short winter’s day was soon drawing to a close. Night was at hand,—night long, dark and stormy, in an unknown sea. They were numbed and nearly frozen with the cold. To many of them it seemed not improbable that before the morning they would all find a grave in the ocean. As twilight was darkening into night, a huge billow, chasing them with gigantic speed, broke into the boat, nearly filling it with water, at the same time unshipping and sweeping away their rudder. They immediately got out two oars, and with exceeding difficulty succeeded in steering their tempest-tossed bark. To add to their calamities, and apparently to take from them their last gleam of hope, just then a sudden flaw of wind snapped their mast into three pieces, dashing their sail into the foaming sea, and they were left at the mercy of the billows.

Their pilot, who had been upon the coast before, and who had thus far cheered them with the assurance that there was a harbor at hand, now lost all presence of mind, and throwing up his arms, exclaimed, “The Lord have mercy upon us. I was never in this place before. All that we can do is to run the boat ashore through the breakers.” It was insane counsel which, being followed, involved almost certain death.

Some one of their number, was it their gallant leader Miles Standish, remonstrated, shouting out in the darkness, “If ye be men, seize your oars or we are all cast away.” They did so, and, with lusty arms, on a flood tide, still guided their boat along the shore, which was dimly seen as the breakers dashed high over sand and rock. At last they discerned land directly before them. Whether it were an island or a promontory they knew not. By great exertions they succeeded—though it was very dark and the rain fell in torrents—in gaining the lee of the land. Here they cast anchor in comparatively still water. But they were afraid to leave the boat. The experience of the past night had taught them that the woods might be full of savages.

Their sufferings however from the cold, the wind and the rain, became unendurable. A few of their number, feeling that they should certainly perish in the open boat, ventured ashore, where after much difficulty they succeeded in building a fire. Though its blaze illumining the forest, might be a beacon to point them out to their savage foes, they piled upon it branches and logs and, forgetting their danger, rejoiced in the cheerful flame and the warmth. Those in the boat could not long resist the aspect of comfort which the fire presented. They soon also landed, and with their axes, speedily constructed a camp to shelter them from the rain, and a rampart of logs, behind which, with their guns, they could protect themselves from a large number of natives armed only with bows and javelins.

Thus ere long they found themselves in what might be deemed, under the circumstances, comfortable quarters. During the night the clouds were dispersed. The morning dawned, serene and bright, but cold. It was the morning of the Sabbath. And these remarkable men, notwithstanding the importance of improving every moment of time, decided, apparently without hesitation or thought of doing otherwise, to remain quietly in their encampment in the religious observance of the Lord’s day. Some may say that this was fanaticism; that a more enlightened judgment would have taught them that the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath; and that situated as they then were, it was a work of necessity and mercy to prosecute their tour without delay.

But these men believed it to be their duty to sanctify the Sabbath by resting from all but necessary labor. Thus believing, their decision could not but be pleasing in the sight of God. Captain Miles Standish, as we have mentioned, was the leader of this expedition. The decision must have been consequently in accordance with his views.

Governor Bradford, describing this painful and perilous adventure, writes: “And though it was very dark and rained sore, yet in the end they got under the lee of a small island and remained there all night in safety. But they knew not this to be an island till morning, but were divided in their minds. Some would keep the boat for fear they might be among the Indians. Others were so weak and cold, they could not endure, but got ashore and with much ado got a fire, all things being so wet, and the rest were glad to come to them; for after midnight the wind shifted to the northwest and it froze hard.

“But though this had been a day and night of much trouble and danger unto them, yet God gave them a morning of comfort and refreshing, as He usually does to His children; for the next day was a fair, sunshining day, and they found themselves to be on an island, secure from the Indians, where they might dry their stuff, fix their pieces and rest themselves, and give God thanks for his mercies in their manifold deliverances. And this being the last day of the week they prepared to keep the Sabbath.”

In their frail camp they spent the sacred hours of the Lord’s day, in thankgivings and supplications and in hymning the praises of God. They named this spot, where they had found brief refuge from the storm, Clark’s Island, in honor of the captain of the Mayflower.

CHAPTER IV.
The Landing.

The Voyage Resumed.—Enter an Unknown Harbor.—Aspect of the Land.—Choose it for their Settlement.—The Mayflower Enters the Harbor.—Sabbath on Shipboard.—Exploring the Region.—The Storm and Exposure.—The Landing.—View from the Hill.—Arduous Labors.—The Alarm.—Arrangement of the Village.—The Evident Hostility of the Indians.—Gloomy Prospects.—Expedition of Captain Standish.—Billington’s Sea.—Lost in the Woods.—Adventures of the Lost Men.—The Alarm of Fire.

The Pilgrims, having passed the Sabbath in rest and devotion upon the island, early the next morning repaired their shattered boat and spreading their sails again to the wintry winds continued their tour. Soon a large bay opened before them, partially protected by a long sand bar from the gales and the billows of the ocean. It was but a poor harbor at the best. The low and dreary sand bar broke the fury of the waves, but afforded no protection against the fierce gales which swept the seas.

Cautiously our adventurers sailed around the point of sand, every few moments dropping the lead that they might find a channel of sufficient depth of water to allow their vessel to enter the bay. Having found this passage, they steered for the shore and landed. They found here one or two streams of pure water, several corn fields which had evidently, in former times been cultivated by the Indians, in their rude style of agriculture, but which, for some reason they had abandoned. Eagerly they looked for some navigable river, but could find none. The soil, though not so rich as they could wish, seemed promising. The landscape was pleasingly diversified with hills and valleys, while the forest, in its mysterious gloom, spread far away to unknown regions in the west.

The location was by no means such as they had hoped to find. But it was far superior to any other which had as yet presented itself. As winter was approaching and time pressed they decided to look no further. A party of them, well armed, marched along the shore for a distance of eight miles, in search of a suitable spot for their village. They selected a spot, but saw no natives, no wigwams, and no signs that the region had recently been inhabited.

Having, in their own minds, settled the important question they spread their sails and, instead of returning by the long circuit of the shore, which they had traversed, pushed boldly across the bay, and in a few hours reached the ship with their report. Without loss of time the Mayflower weighed anchor on the 15th of December, and crossing the bay anchored on the 16th in the shallow water of the harbor about a mile and a half from the shore. The next day was the Sabbath. Strong as was the temptation to land, they all remained on board the vessel, and their hymns of thankfulness blended with the moan of the wintry gale as it swept through the icy shrouds.

Early Monday morning Miles Standish set out with a small but well armed party to explore that part of the country which immediately surrounded the harbor, to decide upon the spot where they should rear their little village of log huts. They traversed the coast for a distance of several miles. Several brooks of crystal water were found, but to their disappointment no navigable river rolling down its flood from the unknown interior. They scarcely knew whether to be glad or sorry that they found no Indians and no indications that the Indians then occupied the region. Several quite extended fields were found, where the heavily timbered forest had disappeared and where it was evident that the Indians, in former years, had raised their harvests of corn. At night the party returned to the ship not having fixed upon any spot for their settlement.

The next day, the 19th, another exploring party set out moving in an opposite direction. They divided into two companies, one to sail along the coast in the shallop, hoping to find the mouth of some large river. The other party landed and marched along the shore, examining the lay of the land, the streams, the soil, and the timber of the forests. At night they returned to the ship, still somewhat undecided. They had however found one spot where there was a small stream of very clear, sweet water, which seemed to be well stocked with fish, and a high hill, a little back from the shore, which could be easily fortified, and which commanded a very extensive view of the surrounding country and the ocean. “It had clay, sand and shells,” writes Bradford, “for bricks, mortar and pottery, and stone for wells and chimneys. The sea and beach promised abundance of fish and fowl, and four or five small running brooks brought a supply of very sweet, fresh water.”

The next morning, after earnest and united prayer for divine guidance, a still larger party of twenty was sent on shore, more carefully to examine the spot which had been suggested for their village. Though it was not all they could desire, it still presented many attractions. It was a cold December day. They climbed the hill, and gazed with pleasure upon a prospect which was sublime and beautiful even on that bleak and windy day, when the boughs of the trees were naked and when the withered leaves were borne like snow flakes on the wintry air. They tried to imagine its loveliness in the luxuriance and bloom of a June morning.

While they stood upon the hill, the clouds, which all the morning had been darkening the sky, began to increase in density and gather in blackness. The wind rose to a gale, and the windows of heaven seemed to be opened, as the rain fell upon them in torrents. All unsheltered they found themselves exposed to the fury of a New England northeast storm. Huge billows from the ocean swept the poorly protected harbor and broke in such surges upon the beach that it was impossible for them to return to the ship. They were totally unprepared for an emergency so unexpected. Night came, a long, dark, cold, stormy night. They sought shelter in the forest, constructed a rude camp which but poorly sheltered them from wind and rain, and building a large fire, found such comfort as they could in the imperfect warmth which it afforded. All the night of Wednesday and all day Thursday the northeast storm raged with fury unabated. Towards the evening of Thursday the 21st there was a lull in the tempest, so that the weary adventurers succeeded in working their way back to the ship.

The next day was the ever-memorable Friday, December 22d. A wintry storm, with its angry billows, still swept the bay. The day opened upon the Pilgrims cold, cloudy and dreary. The long and anxiously looked for hour had now come, when the Mayflower, the only material tie which bound them to the Old World, was to be abandoned, and these bold men were to be left three thousand miles from their native shores, to struggle with all the known and unknown perils and hardships of the wilderness. Familiar as are the graphic words of Mrs. Hemans, the first verse of her memorable hymn so truthfully describes the scene which that morning was presented to the Pilgrims, as to be worthy of transcript here:

“The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods against a stormy sky,
Their giant branches toss’d.”

At an early hour all the passengers of the Mayflower were assembled upon the deck of their little ship, bowed down by emotions not easily described. Men, women and children, all were there, oppressed by thoughts too deep for utterance. Elder Brewster conducted their morning devotions as the wintry gale breathed forth its requiem through the icy shrouds. Sublime as was the hour, not one of those men of martyr spirit could have had any true conception of its grandeur. They could not have been conscious that then and there they were laying the foundations of one of the mightiest empires upon which the sun has ever shone.

Their devotions being ended, boat load after boat load left the ship which, in consequence of the shallowness of the water, was anchored at the distance of a mile and a half from the shore. There was a large and jagged rock projecting into the sea, upon which a landing was with difficulty effected. Those who first were placed upon shore marked out a street from their point of landing directly westward to the hill, upon each side of which street their log huts were to be reared.

One of the first things, however, to be done, was to erect a log store-house, about twenty feet square, where they could deposit their effects, which were immediately to be landed from the ship, and where the women and the children could find a temporary shelter from wind and rain.

In the old style of computing time, the day of their landing was the 11th of December. For many years the 22d day of September, new style, has been observed as “Forefather’s Day.” It is said, however, that December 11th, O. S., corresponds with December 21st, N. S. But when the anniversary was instituted at Plymouth, in 1769, eleven days were added for difference of style, instead of ten, the true difference.

The common house, to which we have alluded, it is supposed was erected on the south side of what is now called Leyden street, near the declivity of the hill. All hands working energetically, this building was speedily put up, with a thatched roof.

Though the situation for their colony was not everything they could desire, yet, as they prosecuted their labors, they became better and better satisfied with the choice which they had made. One of their number wrote,

“There are here cleared lands, delicate springs, and a sweet brook running under the hill side, with fish in their season, where we may harbor our shallops and boats. On the further side is much corn ground. There is a high hill on which to plant our ordnance. Thence we may see into the bay, and far out at sea, and have a glimpse of the distant cape. Our greatest labor will be the bringing of wood. What people inhabit here we know not, as we have yet seen none.”

All the day of Saturday every able-bodied man of the Pilgrims was on the shore laboring with all possible diligence, felling trees, hewing them, and dragging them with their own hands to the building lots, for they had no horses or oxen. The women also were diligently at work cooking at camp fires and helping to stow away their goods as they were brought on shore.

The whole company was divided into nineteen families, each family to build its own log hut. For protection against the Indians it was needful that these huts should be clustered near together. The captain of the Mayflower brought all the energies of his crew into requisition in transporting the luggage to the shore, for his provisions were fast disappearing, and he was exceedingly anxious to set out on his return. The distance of the ship from the land caused much time to be lost in going and coming. For several days a portion of the Pilgrim band remained to lodge in the ship, while others were on the shore. The labors of all were rendered painful and much impeded by cold and stormy weather. Often the bay, swept by the wintry gale, was so rough that no boat could leave the ship, and there could be no communication between the two parties.

Sunday was again with them all a day of rest and devotion, though they were divided, some being still on board the ship, while others were in their frail shelters on the land. Those on shore assembled, for their devotions, in their partially finished store-house. Their harps must have been hung upon the willows, and pensive must have been the strains which were breathed from their lips as they endeavored to sing the Lord’s songs in a strange land. As with firm but saddened voices they sang, they were startled by the war-whoop of the Indians in the forest. They knew those fearful cries too well which many of them had heard at the First Encounter.

Their efficient military commander, Miles Standish, had everything arranged for such an emergency. Instantly every man seized his musket and was at his post. Behind their barricade of logs, they could, with their deadly fire arms, repel almost any number of savages approaching over the open fields with only bows and arrows. The Indians, who had been already taught to dread these weapons, after carefully reconnoitering the position of the Pilgrims, vented their rage in a few impotent yells, and, without any exposure of their persons to the bullet, retreated into the wilderness.

The next day was Christmas. With renewed diligence the Pilgrims plied their labors. “We went on shore,” writes Mourt, “some to fell timber, some to saw, some to rive, and some to carry. So no man rested all that day.”

As we have mentioned, there were nineteen families, but they differed considerably in size. The single men joined themselves to some of these families. The lots of land assigned to these families differed in size, according to the number of the household. To each individual person there was allotted about eight feet in breadth by fifty in length. This would make but about four hundred square feet for each one. Thus, a family of six persons would have a lot but forty-eight feet wide by fifty deep. This seems an incredibly small amount of land for each homestead, when the Pilgrims had the whole continent of North America before them. The explanation is probably to be found in the fact that it was necessary for them to place their houses as near together as possible; that, with neither horses, oxen, or any other beasts of burden, it was but a small portion of land which any one man could cultivate; and, again, if any one wished for more land, there were fields all around him, entirely free, and no one would dispute his title deed. The homestead lots were so arranged as to make the little cluster of huts a fortress, protected by their cannon, where their whole force could be instantly rallied for the public defense. Towards night of Christmas day, the yells of evidently unfriendly savages were heard in the depths of the forest. This caused every man to seize his musket and place himself in the attitude of defense. The wary savages, however, while uttering these impotent menaces, still kept themselves carefully concealed.

Tuesday, the 26th of December, ushered in such a storm of rain that those on shore could do no work, and the gale so roughened the bay that those on board the ship could not venture an attempt to land. The next day the storm abated, and every available man was at work. As it seemed very evident that the savages were hostile, and it was apprehended that they might be gathering for a general assault, it was deemed necessary, notwithstanding the pressing need of dwellings, that all should go to work upon the hill, in the construction of a rude fort and platform for their ordnance. The vestiges of this fortification are still visible on the Burial Hill, where the guns could sweep with grape shot the approaches to their village. It was hoped that the thunders of these formidable weapons of war, followed by the carnage they could inflict, should the savages approach in great numbers, would overwhelm them with terror.

The weather, during the remainder of the week, continued very unfavorable, it being cold, wet and stormy. Still the works on the land slowly advanced. The savages, without showing themselves, continued to hover around, and the smokes of great fires were seen, apparently at the distance of about six or seven miles, indicating that the Indians, in large numbers, were gathering around them.

The last day of the year 1620 came, sombre and sad. It was the Sabbath. Many were sick. All were dejected. Wintry dreariness frowned over earth and sea. Howling savages filled the forest. The provisions of the Pilgrims were very scanty. The Mayflower was soon to leave them, to contend, a feeble band, against apparently hostile elements, and against the far more formidable hostility of savage men. To meet these perils the Pilgrims could number but forty-one men. Sickness had already commenced its ravages, and of these men, within three months, twenty-one died. The chances that such a colony could long be preserved from extinction, must have seemed almost infinitely small. As usual, the Pilgrims rested from labor, and devoted the day, some on shore, some in the ship, to prayer and praise. On this day the Pilgrims solemnly named their little village Plymouth, in grateful remembrance of the kindness which they had received from the people of Plymouth, in England.

Monday morning, the first day of the new year, dawned propitiously upon these bold-hearted exiles. A cloudless sky and genial atmosphere invited them to labor. It was still necessary to be ever prepared for an attack from their unseen foes. With no little solicitude, while urging forward their work, they watched the moving columns of smoke, which day by day rose from the distant wilderness, and the gleam of the fires, which by night illumined the horizon, indicating the movement and position of the Indians. During Tuesday and Wednesday these fires seemed to increase in numbers. They were thus led to infer that the savages were collecting in large numbers from distant parts, and were making careful preparation for a general and simultaneous assault upon the feeble colony.

On Thursday morning, the 4th of January, Captain Miles Standish, who might be truly called the “bravest of the brave,” took with him four men, well armed, and boldly plunged into the forest, intending to find the Indians at their rendezvous, and if possible, to open friendly relations with them. Adopting every precaution to avoid falling into an ambuscade, he rapidly pushed forward several miles into the pathless wilderness, threading gloomy ravines, crossing rivulets, and traversing sublime forests. The wary Indians had undoubtedly their scouts stationed to give warning of any approach of the white men; for Captain Standish could not catch sight of a single one of the savages, though he found several of their deserted wigwams, and even the still glowing embers of their camp fires. The adventurers were also disappointed in finding that the woods seemed destitute of game. Upon their return, at the close of the afternoon, they shot one solitary eagle, whose flesh the Pilgrims, in their half famished state, pronounced to be “excellent meat, hardly to be discerned from mutton.”

Friday and Saturday passed away without any event of importance occurring, while all hands were diligently at work. Another Sabbath of rest, the 7th of January, dawned upon these toil-worn men and women. The sun, of Monday, the 8th, rose in a cloudless sky. All bent themselves eagerly to work. By some unaccountable oversight no small fishhooks had been brought with them. Thus, though the harbor and the brook apparently abounded with fishes, they could not be taken. The shallop, however, was sent out to explore the coast, ascertain where fishes could be found, and supplied with apparatus for taking seals, which were seen in large numbers. In the evening the boat returned, a gale having in the mean time arisen which greatly endangered its safety. The crew had taken three large seals, and in some way, perhaps by spearing, had got an excellent codfish.

One of their number, Francis Billington, had, a few days before, climbed a tree upon the top of a hill, whence he saw, about two miles southwest from the town, a large body of water, which was either a lake or an arm of the sea, he could not tell which. He started to-day, with a companion, to visit it, and found two large lakes of crystal water, nearly connected together. One was about six miles in circuit, embellished with a small, luxuriantly wooded island. The other they estimated to be about three miles in circumference. They both abounded with fish and water fowl, and apparently an unfailing stream of water, which is now called Town Brook, issued from one of the lakes and emptied into the harbor a little south of the rock upon which the Pilgrims landed. Several Indian houses, but all uninhabited, were found upon the margin of these sheets of water, which were essentially one lake.

“This beautiful pond, so accurately described, bears the appropriate name of Billington Sea. In the first century it was called Fresh Lake. It is about two miles southwest from the town, and in it are two small islands. It is now, as at first, embosomed in a wilderness of woods. The eagle still sails over it, and builds in the branches of the surrounding forest. Here the loon cries, and leaves her eggs on the shore of the smaller island. Here too, the beautiful wood-duck finds a sequestered retreat; and the fallow deer, mindful of their ancient haunts, still resort to it to drink and to browse on its margin.”[8]

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday all hands were busy in their out-door work. The store-house, or, as they called it, the Common House, was nearly finished and thatched. The cold, damp weather hindered them very much, so that they could seldom work more than half of the time. Friday morning dawned pleasantly, but about noon the clouds gathered, and the chill rain began to fall, and an increasing gale moaned through the tree tops. Four men had gone out into the woods in the morning to gather tall dry grass for thatching. In the afternoon two of them returned, and said that in some way they had lost sight of their companions. They had searched for them in vain; and though they had hallooed and shouted as loud as they could, they could hear nothing from them. Intense solicitude was felt for them, and a party of four or five men were immediately dispatched to search in the direction in which they were last seen. After an absence of a few hours they returned, at the close of the day, not having been able to discover any traces of the lost, though they found many indications that the Indians were lurking around. The long, stormy wintry night passed slowly away, and still there were no tidings of the wanderers. In the morning twelve men, well armed, probably under the leadership of Captain Miles Standish, set out for a more extended exploration. It was well known that Captain Standish would fail in nothing which mortal energy or courage could accomplish. The prayers of the sorrowing band accompanied them as they plunged into the forest. After a long and careful search, in which they could find no trace whatever of the lost men, they returned at night in deep dejection to their companions. All the Pilgrims gathered around them, men, women and children, to hear the account of their unsuccessful search.

While thus assembled they were startled by a shout in the distance, and looking up, to their inexpressible joy, saw the two men emerging from the forest. They ran to meet the wanderers, John Goodman and Peter Brown, whose apparition was as life from the dead. Their tattered garments and emaciate cheeks testified to the hardships which they had endured. The following was the account which they gave of their adventure:

As they were gathering some long grass, for thatching, about a mile from the village, probably on the banks of Town Brook, they saw a pond in the distance, perhaps Murdock’s Pond, and repaired to it. Upon the margin of the pond they found a deer drinking. Two dogs they had with them sprang after the deer, and pursued it eagerly into the forest. The men followed, hoping that the dogs would seize the deer, and that thus they might be able to capture so rich a prize. As, led by the baying of the hounds, they followed the deer in its windings and turnings, they became bewildered and lost in the pathless wilds which they had penetrated. All the afternoon they wandered in vain seeking some clew to lead them back to their home.

Night, dismal night, lowered over them with clouds, a rising gale, and snow mingled with rain. They had no axes with which to construct a shelter. They could find no cave or hollow tree in which to take refuge. Weary, footsore and starving, and with no weapon but a small sickle with which they had been cutting thatch, they heard the howling of wolves around them, and other strange cries from wild beasts, of they knew not what ferocity. Their only protection seemed to be to climb into a tree. They tried it. The keen wintry blast so pierced their thin clothing that they could not endure the cold. Death by freezing would be inevitable.

The blackness of Egyptian darkness was now around them. They also heard a fearful roaring of wild beasts, which was undoubtedly the howling of wolves, but which they supposed to be the roar of lions. They stood at the root of the trees all the night long, exercising as they could to keep themselves warm, ever ready to spring into the branches should danger approach. They were compelled to hold one of their dogs by the neck, he was so eager to rush in pursuit of the beasts whose cries excited him.

The long winter night at length gave way to the gloom of a stormy morning. Half frozen and starving, and expecting to perish in the wilderness, these lost men resumed their search for home. They waded through swamps, forded streams, encountered ponds, struggled through thickets which tore clothing and skin. At last they came to a hill. Climbing one of the tallest trees, they saw the ocean in the distance, and, to their inexpressible joy, recognized the harbor of Plymouth, by two little islands which dotted its surface. The sight reanimated their drooping minds and bodies. All day long, in the extreme of exhaustion, they tottered on their way, until just before nightfall they reached their home. The feet of one of these men, John Goodman, were so swollen that they were compelled to cut off his shoes.

The work of building had advanced slowly. The days were short, cold and stormy. Nearly all were enfeebled by toil and exposure, while some were seriously sick. Both Governor Carver and Mr. Bradford, his successor in office, were prostrate with fevers. They were on beds in the Common House, where cots had been arranged on the floor for the sick, as near one to another as they could be placed. Though many of the Pilgrims were still in the Mayflower, the majority lodged on shore.

The Common House was so far finished, nearly all of its roof being thatched, that it afforded protection from the snow and rain, while its thick walls of logs shut off the piercing wind, and a cheerful fire blazed upon the stone hearth.

On Sunday morning, January 14th, about six o’clock, the wind blowing almost a gale, they were appalled by the cry of “fire.” The thatch of grass, dry as tinder, touched by a spark, was in a blaze. All the ammunition and most of the arms had been brought on shore and deposited in the store-house. Its loss would expose them, defenceless, to the tomahawk of the Indian. Nearly all of their scanty supply of food was there. Without it starvation was inevitable. The people in the ship saw the smoke and the flame, but the tide was out, and they could not reach the shore. Soon, however, the tide came in, the gale abated, and a boat load cautiously advanced to the land, where they had all proposed to pass the Sabbath together, the majority of the company being then on shore. Upon landing they were cheered with the tidings that the lost men were found, and that the fire, which had been extinguished, was accidental.

CHAPTER V.
Life On Shore.

Days of Sunshine and Storm.—Ravages of Pestilence.—A Raging Storm.—New Alarm of Fire.—Twelve Indians Seen.—Two Indians Appear on the Hill.—Great Alarm in the Settlement.—Measures of Defense.—More Sunny Days.—Humanity and Self-Denial of Miles Standish and Others.—Conduct of the Ship’s Crew.—Excursion to Billington Sea.—The Visit of Samoset.—Treachery of Captain Hunt.—The Shipwrecked Frenchmen.—The Plague.—The Wampanoags.—More Indian Visitors.—Bad Conduct of the Billingtons.

Monday, the 15th of January, opened upon the way-worn exiles with another storm of wind and rain, so that those on shipboard could not leave the vessel, and those on shore could do no work. The next three days, however, were pleasant, each morning dawning upon them with rare loveliness. Their hearts were cheered, and they pressed forward in their labors with great vigor. The terrible fright which the fire caused taught them that they must place their store-house apart from the other buildings, and where there would be no exposure to conflagration. They, therefore, went immediately to work to put up a shed for this purpose, intending to reserve the building already erected as a common lodging house until the separate huts could be reared.

Friday opened pleasantly; but at noon it began to rain, which prevented any out-door work. Towards evening the storm abated, and John Goodman, whose feet had been sadly crippled by his exposure in the woods, hobbled out a little way from the village for exercise, accompanied by a small spaniel. Two half famished wolves came leaping from the forest in pursuit of his dog. The terrified animal ran between his master’s legs for protection. Mr. Goodman caught up a heavy stick, and for some time kept the ferocious beasts at bay. They kept at a little distance, just out of reach of his club, gnashing upon him with their sharp and glistening teeth in most dramatic style. But ere long the wolves, to Mr. Goodman’s intense relief, turned away and rushed howling into the woods.

The next day, Saturday the 20th of January, they completed their shed for a store-house, and nearly all of their company came to the land. On Sunday, 21st, there was a general assembling of the Pilgrims in the Common House, as their temple, where their revered and beloved pastor, Rev. Mr. Brewster, conducted divine worship. This was the first Sabbath on which the Pilgrims as a body had been able to meet together in their new home.

Monday, 22d, was a fair day, and during the whole week the weather continued propitious. All were busy, bringing boat loads of freight from the ship, and packing away their provisions and other goods in the store-house. Two boats were employed in bringing the luggage on shore, but it was slow work, in consequence of the distant anchorage of the Mayflower. As they had neither ox, mule nor horse, all the articles had to be carried by hand from the landing-place to their destination many rods distant from the shore.

The next week was ushered in by a storm of piercing wind and sleet. To add to its gloom, on its first day, Rose, the young and beautiful wife of Captain Standish, died. But care, sickness, death now came in such swift succession as to leave the survivors but little time to weep over the dead. The two succeeding days the weather was so inclement that no work could be done. Not very far from the ship’s place of anchorage there was a small island. On Wednesday morning those on board the ship saw two savages walking upon the island. What they were doing no one could tell. They were seen but for a few moments, when they retired out of sight in the forest.

On Sunday morning, February 4th, a fearful gale swept the bay. It was the most severe storm the Pilgrims had yet encountered. For some time great apprehensions were felt lest the ship should be torn from her moorings and dashed upon the shore. The huts, which they were erecting for their dwellings, were of unhewn logs, the interstices being filled with clay. The wind and the rain washed out this clay, causing very serious damage. Much of the thatching also, as yet but insecurely fastened, was whirled into the air by the tempest, like autumn leaves. During the whole of the week the weather continued so cold and stormy that but little work could be done.

In consequence of the increasing sickness, it had been found necessary to put up a small house for a hospital. On Friday, the 9th, the thatched roof of this building took fire from a spark. Fortunately the wet weather had so dampened the straw that the fire was extinguished without doing much damage. Where wood was the only fuel, ever throwing up a shower of sparks, a thatch of straw, often as dry as tinder, seemed to invite conflagration. Thus their little hamlet, of clustered log houses, was peculiarly exposed to the peril of fire. That afternoon five wild geese were shot, which afforded a very grateful repast to the sick people. A good fat deer was also found, which had just been killed by the Indians, and which, for some inexplicable reason they had left, having cut off its horns. It is possible that the wary savages, keeping a sharp look out, had seen some of the white men approaching, and had fled. A wolf had, however, anticipated the Pilgrims, and was daintily feeding upon the tender venison.

Another week came, with great discouragement of stormy weather, and with increasing sickness. The men worked to much disadvantage, everything having to be done with their own hands. The logs, generally about a foot in thickness and nearly twenty feet long, had often to be dragged from very inconvenient distances. This was labor which could not safely be performed with clothing drenched with rain and pierced with the wintry gale. Often whole days were lost in which no work could be done.

Friday, February 16th, was a fair day. It was, however, very cold, and the ground was frozen hard. In the afternoon one of the company took his gun and went into the woods a fowling. He had gone about a mile and a half from the plantation, and had concealed himself in some reeds, which fringed a creek, watching for wild geese or ducks, when, to his astonishment, twelve Indians appeared, walking towards the plantation, in single file and in perfect silence. Almost breathless he crouched down beneath his covert until they had disappeared, and then, with the utmost caution, hastened back to give the alarm.

The Indians, it would seem, were out upon a reconnoitering tour. They were very careful not to show themselves at the settlement, though they came sufficiently near to take some tools which Captain Standish and Francis Cooke, who had been at work in the woods, had left behind them, with no apprehension that there were any prowlers so near. The alarm caused the whole Pilgrim band immediately to rally under arms. There was, however, nothing more seen of the savages. But that night a large fire was discovered near the spot where the twelve Indians had made their appearance.

It was now deemed important to have a more perfect military organization, to meet the dangers impending from the manifestly unfriendly spirit of the Indians. The Pilgrims, in their weakened state, were but poorly prepared for any general assault. On Saturday morning, the 19th of February, they all assembled in council, and Captain Standish was invested with almost dictatorial powers as military commander. With characteristic sagacity and energy he undertook the responsible duties thus devolving upon him. While they were assembled in consultation, two Indians appeared upon a small eminence, then called Strawberry Hill, on the other side of Town Brook, about a quarter of a mile southwest from the village, and made signs to the Pilgrims to come to them.

It was not improbable that they were a decoy, and that hundreds of armed warriors were concealed in the forest behind, ready, at a concerted signal, to raise the terrible war-whoop and rush upon their victims with javelin and tomahawk. There were not a score of Pilgrims able to bear arms. What could they do to repel such an onset. It was an awful hour, in view of the possibilities which were before them. The women and children huddled together in terror. It seemed probable to them that the Indians had long been gathering and making preparations for this assault, and that within an hour their husbands and fathers would be slain, and that they would be at the mercy of the savages.

The perilous duty of advancing to meet the savages, and of thus being perhaps the first to fall into the ambush, Captain Standish took upon himself. Selecting Mr. Stephen Hopkins, one of the most illustrious of the Pilgrims, and a man alike distinguished for his prudence and his bravery, to accompany him, he advanced, entirely unarmed, in token of his friendly disposition, across the brook. Mr. Hopkins carried his gun. When they reached the foot of the eminence the gun was laid upon the ground, as an additional sign of peace, and they both moved forward to meet the tufted warriors. The conduct of the savages was often quite inexplicable. They were as capricious as children. On this occasion, as Captain Standish and Mr. Hopkins slowly ascended the hill, the two Indians upon the summit suddenly turned and fled precipitately down the other side of the hill into the dense forest.

It was a very bold act, it seems to us now a very imprudent one, for these two unarmed men, still to advance to the summit of the hill, thus exposing themselves to fall into an Indian ambush. They however cautiously moved on; when they reached the top of the hill not an Indian was in sight, but they heard the noise of a great multitude retreating through the forest. They were of course greatly perplexed to judge what all this senseless conduct could mean. One thing, however, was certain; the Indians were not disposed to establish friendly relations with the new comers.

Captain Standish made immediate and vigorous preparation for a war of defense. It was very evident to him that, though they might be surrounded by cruel, treacherous and inveterate foes, they had but little to fear from the intelligence or military ability of their enemies. He had immediately brought on shore, and mounted on the platform, which he had arranged for them on the hill, three guns. One was called a minion, with a bore three and a quarter inches in diameter. Another was a saker, about four inches in bore. The third, called a base, was but little larger than a musket, having a bore but one and a quarter inches in diameter. The heaviest gun weighed about a thousand pounds, and carried a ball about four pounds in weight. This important work was all accomplished by Wednesday, February 21st. It appears that the officers of the Mayflower assisted efficiently in the operation. The united company then dined luxuriously upon a very fat goose, a fat crane, a mallard,[9] and a dried neats tongue. And so we were kindly and friendly together.[10]

Sunday, the 3d of March, came. It was a lovely day. The severity of winter had passed. A dreadful winter to the Pilgrims, indeed it had been. During the month of February seventeen of their number had died. Eight had died during the month of January. In burying the dead it had been deemed necessary carefully to conceal their graves lest the Indians, in counting them, should ascertain how greatly they had been weakened. Governor Bradford, in recording these disastrous events, writes:

“After they had provided a place for their goods, or common store, which were long in unlading for want of boats, foulness of winter weather and sickness of divers, and begun some small cottages for their habitation, they met, as time would admit, and consulted of laws and orders, both for their civil and military government, as the necessities of their occasion did require.

“In these hard and difficult beginnings they found some discontents and murmurings arise among some, and mutinous speeches and carriage in others. But they were soon quelled and overcome by the wisdom, patience, and just and equal carriage of things, by the Governor and better part, which clave faithfully together in the main. But that which was most sad and lamentable was that, in two or three months’ time half of their company died; especially in January and February, being the depth of winter, and wanting houses and other comforts; being infected with scurvy and other diseases, which their long voyage and inaccommodate condition had brought upon them; so as there died sometimes two or three of a day, that of one hundred and odd persons, scarce fifty remained.[11]

“And of these, in the time of most distress, there were but six or seven sound persons who, to their great commendation be it spoken, spared no pains, night nor day, but with abundance of toil and hazard of their own health, fetched them wood and made them fires, dressed their meat, made their beds, washed their loathsome clothes, clothed and unclothed them; in a word, did all the homely and necessary offices for them which dainty and quesie stomachs cannot endure to hear named; and all this willingly and cheerfully, without any grudging in the least, shewing herein their true love unto their friends and brethren. A rare example, and worthy to be remembered.

“Two of these seven were Mr. William Brewster, their reverend Elder, and Miles Standish, their Captain and military commander, unto whom myself and many others were much beholden in our low and sick condition.

“And yet the Lord so upheld these persons as, in this general calamity, they were not at all infected with sickness or lameness. And what I have said of these I may say of many others who died in this general visitation, and others yet living, that whilst they had health, yea or any strength continuing, they were not wanting to any that had need of them. And I doubt not but that their recompense is with the Lord.

“But I may not here pass by another remarkable passage, never to be forgotten. As this calamity fell among the passengers that were to be left here to plant, and were hasted ashore and made to drink water, that the seamen might have the more beer. And one (Mr. Bradford) in his sickness desiring but a small can of beer, it was answered that if he were their own father he should have none. The disease began to fall amongst them also, so as almost half of their company died before they went away, and many of their officers and lustiest men, as the boatswain, gunner, three quartermasters, the cook and others. At which the Master was somewhat strucken, and sent to the sick, on shore, and told the Governor he would send beer for them that had need of it, though he drank water, homeward bound.

“But now amongst his company there was far another kind of carriage in this misery than among the passengers. For they that beforetime had been boon companions in drinking and jollity in the time of their health and welfare, began now to desert one another in this calamity, saying that they would not hazard their lives for them; they should be infected by coming to them in their cabins. And so, after they came to die by it, would do little or nothing for them, but if they died, let them die.

“But such of the passengers as were yet aboard shewed them what mercy they could, which made some of their hearts relent, as the boatswain, who was a proud young man, and would often curse and scoff at the passengers. But when he grew weak they had compassion on him and helped him. Then he confessed he did not deserve it at their hands; he had abused them in word and deed. ‘O,’ saith he, ‘you, I now see, show your love, like Christians indeed, one to another. But we let one another lie and die like dogs.’

“Another lay cursing his wife, saying if it had not been for her he had never come this unlucky voyage, and anon cursing his fellows, saying he had done this and that for some of them; he had spent so much and so much amongst them, and they were now weary of him, and did not help him having need. Another gave his companion all he had, if he died, to help him in his weakness. He went and got a little spice, and made him a mess of meat once or twice; and because he died not as soon as he expected, he went among his fellows and swore the rogue would cozen him; he would see him choked before he made him any more meat; and yet the poor fellow died before morning.”

As we have mentioned, the third of March dawned beautifully, sunny and mild, upon the weary Pilgrims. The birds sang sweetly, and everything indicated the speedy return of the much-longed-for summer weather. But towards noon the clouds gathered, the rain fell in torrents, and they were visited with one of the severest tempests, accompanied by the loudest thunder, any of them had ever witnessed.

On Wednesday, the 7th of March, a company of five, all well armed, accompanied Governor Carver to the great lakes, to which they had given the name of Billington Sea. These waters abounded with fish, and it would seem that by this time they had devised some plan by which to take them. They found the woods through which they passed filled with well-beaten deer tracks, indicating the presence of large numbers of that species of game, though they did not chance to meet with any. Many water fowl were also disporting upon the placid waters of the lake, some of very beautiful plumage. The weather was so warm and the season so advanced that some garden seeds were sown on this day.

Another week passed, during which their work proceeded very slowly in consequence of their enfeebled numbers and the claims of the sick on the services of the few who were well. Friday, the 16th, was a fair, warm day. Every one felt the situation of the colony to be perilous in the extreme. The sailors of the Mayflower were suffering alike with the Pilgrims on the land. There were but seven men who, in case of an attack, which was hourly anticipated, could present any efficient resistance. The onset of a hundred armed warriors (and a thousand might come) would sweep away their little village like an Alpine avalanche. The responsibility for the public defense thus resting upon Captain Standish, was very weighty. Every individual had his post of duty assigned him, that there should be no confused or embarrassed action in the alarm. Captain Standish had this morning assembled all who were capable of bearing arms in the northern part of their little street, to complete their military preparations, when, to their surprise, they saw a solitary savage approaching from the south.

Without the slightest indication of embarrassment or hesitation he strode along, entered the street, and advancing boldly to the rendezvous, saluted the Pilgrims with the words, “Welcome Englishmen.” His only clothing consisted of a leather belt around his waist, to which was attached a fringe, about ten inches long. He had a bow and two arrows. He was a powerful man, tall and straight, with very black hair, long behind, but cut short over the forehead. In broken English he told them that his name was Samoset, and that he came from the Island of Monhegan, between the Kennebec and Penobscot rivers, about twelve miles from the shore.

This island had for many years been a favorite resort for the English fishermen. From them he had learned a little English, and knew the names of many of the captains who annually visited those waters. Seeing the Mayflower in the harbor, he supposed it to be a fishing vessel, and thus, without any fear, approached the men.

Samoset affected to be very free and unembarrassed in his carriage. He declared himself to be one of the chiefs of the tribe, and assumed to be perfectly informed respecting the whole adjacent country, its tribes and their strength. He called for beer, and seemed disposed to make himself very much at home, entering the houses and spying out with an eagle eye all the works around him. Captain Standish was not disposed to have his weakness exposed to this perhaps wary and treacherous savage, who might have entered the village merely as a spy, in the interest of the Indian warriors who were lurking in the woods around. To make him a little more presentable to the families, a large horseman’s coat was placed upon him. Instead of being allowed to wander about at will, he was entrusted to the keeping of Mr. Hopkins, who took him to his hut and fed him with the utmost hospitality.

From Samoset they learned three very important facts. The first was that the Indians, all along the coast, were greatly and justly exasperated against the white men, by the treachery of one Captain Hunt. This infamous man, while trading with the Indians, had inveigled twenty-seven men on board his ship, and then, closing the hatches upon them, had carried them off where most of them had never been heard of more. The wretch took these poor kidnapped Indians to Spain, and sold them as slaves, for one hundred dollars each. The untutored savages who, before this, were friendly, being thus robbed of their kindred, knew no better than to wreak their vengeance upon any white man whom they might encounter.

Not long after this a French ship was wrecked on Cape Cod. The savages, burning with a desire for vengeance, massacred all but three or four of the crew, whom they reserved as prisoners. Everything that had been saved from the wreck they divided among themselves. Hence, perhaps, the iron kettle which the Pilgrims had found in one of their exploring tours. The captives were sent from one tribe to another, into the interior, that there might be no possibility of a rescue. One of these captives, probably a thoughtful, perhaps a religious man, learned their language, and told them that “God was angry with them, and in punishment would destroy them and give their country to another people.” They replied that “they were so numerous that God would not be able to destroy them.”

But it so happened that ere long a terrible plague, resembling the yellow fever, broke out among the Indians, sweeping them off by thousands. The whole country became nearly depopulated. In these disastrous days the Indians remembered the words of the Frenchman, and began to fear that the white man’s God was really taking vengeance upon them. When the Mayflower arrived they feared that another people had come to take possession of their lands. Hence the hostile attitude which had been assumed, and the attack at the First Encounter. Samoset seemed to know all about this attack, and said that it was made by a tribe on the Cape called Nausites.

It appears that the plague, above referred to, swept the whole seaboard, from the mouth of the Penobscot River to Narraganset Bay. Some tribes became nearly extinct. The Massachusetts tribe was reduced, it is said, from thirty thousand to three hundred fighting men. Captain Dermer, who visited the coast a year before the landing of the Pilgrims, writes:

“I passed along the coast where I found some ancient plantations, not long since populous, now utterly void. In other places a remnant remains, but not free of sickness. Their disease was the plague, for we might perceive the sores of some that had escaped, who described the spots of such as usually die.”

Morton writes in his New English Canaan: “Some few years before the English came to inhabit in New Plymouth, the hand of God fell heavily upon the natives, with such a mortal stroke that they died on heaps. In a place where many inhabited there hath been but one left alive to tell what became of the rest. And the bones and skulls upon the several places of their habitations made such a spectacle, after my coming into these parts, that as I travelled in that forest, near the Massachusetts, it seemed to me a new-found Golgotha.”

In view of these facts it was stated, in the Great Patent of New England, granted by King James, on the 3d of November, 1820, “We have been further given certainly to know, that within these late years there hath, by God’s visitation, reigned a wonderful plague amongst the savages there heretofore inhabiting, in a manner to the utter destruction, devastation and depopulation of that whole territory, so as there is not left, for many leagues together, in a manner, any that do claim or challenge any kind of interest therein. Whereby we, in our judgment, are persuaded and satisfied that the appointed time is come in which Almighty God, in his great goodness and bounty towards us and our people, hath thought fit and determined, that these large and goodly territories, deserted as it were by their natural inhabitants, should be possessed and enjoyed by such of our subjects and people as shall, by his mercy and favor, and by his powerful arm, be directed and conducted thither.”

All the afternoon was spent in earnest communication with Samoset. He told them that the Nausites, by whom they had been attacked, numbered about one hundred souls. There was a powerful tribe, called the Wampanoags, upon the shores of what is now called Bristol Bay. Their chief, Massasoit, was so powerful that he exercised a sort of supremacy over many of the tribes in the vicinity. There was another numerous tribe, not far from the Wampanoags, called the Narragansets. Samoset does not seem to have known, or if so, was not willing to tell the number of Indians lurking in the woods around the Pilgrim settlement. The mystery of their conduct was, however, in some degree revealed, when the Pilgrims were informed that the Indians, with their priests, had met in a dark swamp, in a general pow-wow, hoping by their curses and incantations to destroy the white men.

On the whole, the information communicated by Samoset was encouraging. It led them to hope that their foes were not so numerous as they feared, that they regarded, with superstitious dread, the God of the white man, and that they were rather disposed to rely upon witchcraft and incantations, in their warfare upon the new-comers, than upon more material and dangerous weapons. Had the Indians known what ravages death was making in the huts of the Pilgrims, they would have felt assured that their magic arts were signally successful.

As night approached, Captain Standish was quite anxious to get rid of his suspicious guest. But Samoset manifested no disposition to leave. He however consented to go on board the ship to pass the night. They went down to the shallop. But the wind was so high that it was not deemed prudent to encounter the high sea, and they returned to Mr. Stephen Hopkins’ house, where Samoset was lodged, and carefully though secretly watched.

The next day, Saturday, the 17th, early in the morning, Samoset withdrew, to go, as he said, to visit the great sagamore, Massasoit. He received a present of a knife, a bracelet and a ring, promising to return in a few days, bringing with him some of Massasoit’s people, and some beaver skins to sell.

Sunday, the 18th, was another mild and lovely day. As the colonists were assembling for the Sabbath devotions, Samoset again made his appearance, with five tall Indians in his train. They were all dressed in deer skins, fitting closely to the body. The most of them had also a panther’s skin, or some similar furs on his arm, for sale. As Captain Standish did not deem it safe to allow any armed savages to enter the town, he made a previous arrangement with Samoset, that whoever of the Indians he might bring with him, should leave their bows and arrows a quarter of a mile distant from this village. This arrangement was faithfully observed. Samoset also brought back the tools, which, it will be remembered, had been carried away by the Indians. Mourt, in his Relation, describes, in the following language, the appearance of these strange visitors:

“They had, most of them, long hosen (leggins) up to their groins, close made; and above their groins to the waist, another leather. They were altogether like the Irish trousers. They are of complexion like our English gipseys; no hair, or very little, on their faces; on their heads, long hair to their shoulders, only cut before; some trussed up before with a feather, broadwise like a fan; another a fox tail hanging out. Some of them had their faces painted black, from the forehead to the chin, four or five fingers broad; others after other fashions, as they liked.”

The Pilgrims, anxious to win the confidence and friendship of the natives, received these savages with the utmost kindness, and very hospitably entertained them. They seemed to relish very highly the food which was set before them, and manifested their satisfaction and friendship by singing hilariously, and performing the most grotesque antics in a dance. It was Sunday, and this was not pleasing to these devout exiles. They told Samoset that they could not enter into any traffic on that day; but that if he and his companions would withdraw and return upon the morrow, or any other day of the week, they would purchase, not only all the furs they had with them, but any others which they might bring. Each one was made happy with a present of some article which to him was of almost priceless value. They all retired except Samoset. He refused to go, asserting, and as the Pilgrims thought, feigning, that he was sick. He therefore remained until Wednesday. Each of these men carried his commissariat stores with him, consisting of a small bag of the meal of parched corn. Mr. Gookin, in an article in the Massachusetts Historical Collection, writes:

“The Indians make a certain sort of meal of parched maize, which they call nokake. It is so sweet, toothsome and hearty that an Indian will travel many days with no other food but this meal, which he eateth as he needs, and after it drinketh water. And for this end, when they travel a journey or go a hunting, they carry this nokake in a basket or bag, for their use.”

Roger Williams says, “Nokake, or parched meal, is a ready, very wholesome food, which they eat with a little water, hot or cold. I have travelled with near two hundred of them at once, near a hundred miles through the woods, every man carrying a little basket of this at his back, and sometimes in a hollow leather girdle about his middle, sufficient for a man three or four days. With this ready provision and their bows and arrows, they are ready for war or travel at an hour’s warning.”

The corn was usually parched in hot ashes, and then, after having the ashes carefully brushed off, was beat to powder. About a gill of this mixed with water, taken three times a day, gave them sufficient nourishment. With no other food than this, a man would often travel through the woods four or five days, carrying a very heavy burden upon his back.

When the Mayflower was leaving England, a man by the name of John Billington, uninvited, with two ungovernable boys, joined the company. He proved to be a very uncongenial companion. Governor Bradford, writing of him, said: This Billington was one of the profanest among us. He came from London, and I know not by what friends, was shuffled into our company.” Again, Governor Bradford wrote to Mr. Cushman, in June, 1625, “Billington still rails against you, and threatens to arrest you, I know not wherefore. He is a knave, and so will live and die.” In “Mourts’ Narrative,” under date of December 5th, he writes:

“This day, through God’s mercy, we escaped a great danger by the foolishness of a boy, one of Billington’s sons, who, in his father’s absence, had got gunpowder, and had shot off a piece or two and made squibs; and there being a fowling-piece charged in his father’s cabin, shot her off in the cabin.” There was half a keg of powder in the cabin, with many grains scattered over the floor; also flints and pieces of iron strowed about. It was a very narrow escape from an explosion which might have blown the Mayflower, with all its occupants, into the air. This John Billington, “a mischievous and troublesome fellow,” was dissatisfied with the authority with which Captain Standish was invested. He endeavored to undermine his influence by assailing him with insulting and opprobrious language. This was a very serious offense, since, in their perilous position, it was a matter of infinite moment that the orders of their military commander should be implicitly obeyed. The whole company was convened to try the culprit and pass sentence upon him. “He was adjudged to have his neck and heels tied together. But upon humbling himself and craving pardon, and it being the first offense, he was forgiven.”

CHAPTER VI
The Indians.

Two Savages on the Hill.—The Return of Samoset with Squantum.—The Story of Squantum.—The Visit of Massasoit and His Warriors.—Etiquette of the Barbarian and Pilgrim Courts.—The Treaty.—Return of the Mayflower to England.—A View of Plymouth.—Brighter Days.—Visit of Messrs. Winslow and Hopkins to the Seat of Massasoit.—Incidents of the Journey.

Several days passed, and the Indians, who had retired into the forest, did not return. The cottages of the Pilgrims, each man building his own, had now become habitable, and Monday and Tuesday, the weather being fair, they were busy digging the ground and sowing their garden seeds. On Wednesday morning, the 21st of March, Samoset was sent into the woods to ascertain why the Indians did not come back according to their promise. He had but just disappeared in the forest when two savages, in war costume and thoroughly armed, appeared upon the hill, on the other side of Town Brook—the same eminence upon which the two Indians had appeared on the 17th of February—and brandishing their weapons, with every demonstration of hostility, seemed to bid the new-comers defiance. This was probably one of the acts in their drama of incantation.

Captain Standish, who was ever prompt to assume any office of danger, took a companion with him and advanced to meet the challengers. They both took their muskets, but carefully avoided any attitude of menace. Two other Pilgrims followed, at a little distance, also with their muskets, to render aid should there be any rush of the Indians from an ambush. But before Captain Standish had arrived within arrow-shot of the natives they both turned, as before, and fled.

In consequence of sickness and the imperfect accommodations on the shore, several of the Pilgrim company had thus far remained on board the Mayflower. To-day, however, the shallop brought them all to the land, and their colonizing became complete. One-half of the crew of the ship had already died; and so many of the remainder were enfeebled by sickness that Captain Jones did not deem it safe to undertake his return voyage in so crippled a condition. A month passed before the sick and his diminished crew were so far recovered as to allow him to venture to set sail.

The sun of Thursday morning, with healing in its beams, rose bright and warm over the busy little village of the exiles. The dreary winter had manifestly passed. The sick were generally recovering, and there was presented a very cheering scene of peace, industry and happiness. At noon all the men had met upon some public business, when, in the midst of their deliberations, they saw Samoset returning, accompanied by three other Indians. The name of one was Squantum, and it was said that he was the only surviving member of the Patuxat tribe, who had formerly occupied the territory upon which the Pilgrims had now settled.

His story, undoubtedly truthful, was that he was one of the men whom Captain Hunt had so infamously kidnapped. He had been carried to Spain and sold there as a slave. A humane Englishman, whose name we love to perpetuate, Mr. John Slaney, chanced to meet the poor fugitive. He liberated him, took him to England, and treated him with that truly fraternal kindness which Christianity enjoins upon all men. At length he had an opportunity to send Squantum back to his native land.

Good deeds and bad deeds ever bear their corresponding fruit. As the treachery of the miserable Hunt caused the hostility of the Indians, the massacre of the shipwrecked Frenchmen, and the attack at the First Encounter, so did the brotherly kindness of good John Slaney secure for the Pilgrims, in their hour of need, a permanent and influential friend. Squantum, forgetting the outrage of the knave who had kidnapped him, remembered only the kindness of his benefactor. His residence in England had rendered him quite familiar with the English language, and he became invaluable to the Pilgrims as an interpreter. He attached himself cordially to them, and taught them many things of great value in their new life in the wilderness. And when, after many years, he died, the good old man was heard praying that God would take him to the heaven of the white men.

Squantum had joined the powerful tribe of the Wampanoags, his own tribe having become extinct. These Indians brought with them a few skins to sell, and some dried red herrings; and they also announced the rather startling intelligence that their great Sagamore, or King Massasoit, accompanied by his brother Quadequina and a retinue of sixty warriors, was near at hand to pay the Pilgrims a friendly visit.

After the lapse of an hour Massasoit appeared on the top of Watson’s Hill with his plumed warriors. From that eminence, distant about a quarter of a mile, they had a perfect view of the little village, and were conspicuously exposed to the view of the Pilgrims. Under the circumstances, knowing not what might be the treachery of the Indians, Captain Standish did not deem it safe to allow so powerful a band of armed savages to enter the village, or to allow any considerable band of his weak force to withdraw from behind the intrenchments which they had reared, and to go out to meet the royal retinue. Neither did Massasoit deem it prudent to place himself in the power of the white men, whom the treachery of Hunt had caused him to dread.

After several messages had passed to and fro between the two parties, through Squantum, their interpreter, Massasoit, who, though unlettered, proved himself to be a man of much sagacity, proposed that the Pilgrims should send one of their men to his encampment to communicate to him their designs in settling upon lands which had belonged to one of his vassal tribes. Mr. Edward Winslow consented to go upon this important and somewhat hazardous mission. He took, as a present to the barbarian monarch, two skins and a copper necklace, with a jewel attached to it. He also took to Quadequina a knife, an ear-ring, consisting of a pendent jewel, some biscuit and butter, and, we are sorry to add, a jug of rum; but those were the days of ignorance which God winked at.

Mr. Winslow, accompanied by Squantum, as his interpreter, crossed the brook, ascended Watson’s Hill, and presented himself before the Indian chief. “Our messenger,” writes Mourt, “made a speech unto him, that King James saluted him with words of love and peace, and did accept him as his friend and ally; and that our Governor desired to see him, and to truck with him, and to confirm a peace with him, as his next neighbor.”

Massasoit listened attentively to the speech, as communicated to him by the interpreter, and seemed much pleased with it. In token of amity, they had a little feast together. Massasoit seemed much impressed with the long and glittering sword which hung by the side of Mr. Winslow, and expressed a strong desire to purchase it; but Mr. Winslow could not consent to part with the weapon.

After a pleasant and very friendly interview, Massasoit, cautiously leaving Mr. Winslow as a hostage in the custody of his brother Quadequina, came down to the brook with twenty men, as his retinue, all unarmed. Six of them were sent into the village, as hostages in exchange for Mr. Winslow.

Then Captain Standish, with one companion, probably Mr. Thomas Williams, and followed by half a dozen musketeers, advanced to the brook to meet the royal guest and to escort him, with all due honor, to the presence of their Governor. A salute of six muskets was fired, and the monarch with his Indian band was led to an unfinished house which had been hastily decorated for their reception. It was deemed important to arrange something of an imposing pageant to impress the minds of their barbarian visitors. Two or three cushions were laid down, covered with a green carpet, as seats for the Indian chief and for the Governor in this important interview. As soon as Massasoit was seated the music of drums and of a trumpet was heard, and Governor Carver, with a suitable retinue, entered. Gracefully he took the hand of Massasoit and kissed it. In accordance with the mistaken views of hospitality in those days, ardent spirits were brought forward to regale the guests. This was probably the first time Massasoit had ever seen the accursed liquid, and he was entirely unacquainted with its fiery nature. The Indian chieftain, deeming it a part of politeness to partake generously of the entertainment provided for him, when the goblet was presented, “drunk a great draft which made him sweat all the while after.”

Massasoit was a remarkable man. He was of majestic stature, in the prime of life, of grave and stately demeanor, reserved in speech, and ever proving faithful to all his obligations. He wore a chain of white bone beads about his neck, and a little bag of tobacco, from which he smoked himself and presented to Governor Carver to smoke. His face was painted of a deep red color, and his hair and face so oiled as to present a very glossy appearance. His followers were also all painted, in various styles and of various colors. Some were partially clothed in skins, others were nearly naked. They were all tall, powerful men. After much friendly deliberation, the Governor and Massasoit entered into the following very simple, but comprehensive treaty of peace and alliance:

1. The Sagamore pledged himself that none of his men should do any harm to the Pilgrims; and that, if any harm were done, the offender should be sent to them that they might punish them.

2. That, if any property belonging to the white men should be taken away, it should be restored, Governor Carver agreeing to the same in reference to his party.

3. The Governor agreed that if any Indian tribe should wage an unjust war against Massasoit, he would help him; Massasoit agreeing in the same way to aid the Pilgrims, should they be assailed.

4. Massasoit pledged himself to send word to all his confederate tribes that he had entered into this alliance with the white men, and to enjoin its faithful observance upon them.

5. Finally, it was agreed that whenever any of the Indians visited the settlement of the white men, they should leave their arms behind them. The Pilgrims were also bound always to go unarmed whenever they should visit the residence of the Indian chief.

As evening approached, Massasoit and his followers withdrew. The Governor accompanied him to the brook, where they embraced and separated. The six Indian hostages were retained until Mr. Winslow should be returned. But soon word was brought that Quadequina wished to make them a short visit. He soon appeared, with quite a troop around him. He was a young man, tall, modest and gentlemanly. He was also conducted, with music of drum and fife, to the Governor. He seemed very much afraid of the muskets; and to calm his manifest fears they were laid aside. After a short interview he returned to the hill, and Mr. Winslow came back to the camp. The Indian hostages were also then released. The scenes of the day had inspired them with so much confidence in the Pilgrims that two of them wished to remain all night. But Captain Standish did not deem it prudent to grant their request.

Samoset and Squantum remained with the Pilgrims. Massasoit withdrew his party from the hill, about half a mile south into the forest, and there they encamped for the night. Their wives and children were with them there. During the night both parties kept up a vigilant watch, for neither had, as yet, full confidence in the other. In the morning several of the Indians came into the settlement, according to their agreement, unarmed. They said that in a few days they should come to the other side of the brook and plant corn, and remain there with their families all summer. The king sent an invitation to have some of the Pilgrims visit him.

“Captain Standish and Israel Alderton,” writes Mourt, “went venturously, who were welcomed of him after their manner. He gave them three or four ground nuts and some tobacco. We cannot yet conceive but that he is willing to have peace with us; for they have seen our people sometimes alone, two or three in the woods, at work and fowling, when they offered them no harm, as they might easily have done, and especially as he has a potent adversary in the Narragansets, that are at war with him, against whom he thinks we may be some strength to him, for our pieces are terrible unto them.”

The English visitors remained in the encampment of Massasoit until about eleven o’clock. Governor Carver sent by them to the chief a kettleful of peas, which the Indians seemed to regard as truly a princely gift. The next day, Friday, it was again pleasant. Squantum, who with Samoset, still remained with the Pilgrims, went to a neighboring creek, since appropriately called Eel River, and at night came home with as many eels as he could carry. “They were fat and sweet. He trod them out with his feet, and so caught them with his hands, without any other instrument.” In a comparatively recent history of Plymouth, it is stated that a hundred and fifty barrels of eels are annually taken from that creek. The Pilgrims on that day held a general meeting, to conclude some military arrangements, to enact certain needful laws, and to choose a Governor for the year. The choice fell, with apparently great unanimity, upon the then incumbent, Mr. John Carver.

In Young’s Chronicle of the Pilgrims we find a note containing the following statement: “It will be recollected that Carver had been chosen Governor on the 11th of November, the same day on which the Compact was signed. It was now the 23d of March, and the new year commencing on the 25th, according to the calendar then in use, Carver was re-elected for the ensuing year.”

Pleasant summer days now came, and glided rapidly away, with nothing occurring of essential importance. Friendly relations were established with the Indians, and the affairs of the colony seemed as prosperous as, under the circumstances, could be expected. On the 5th of April the Mayflower weighed anchor and set sail on her return voyage to England. She had but one-half of the crew with which she had sailed from Old Plymouth. The rest had fallen victims to the winter’s sickness. It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the hardships to which the Pilgrims were exposed, not one was disposed to abandon the enterprise and return in the ship. When the Mayflower left, there remained in the colony but fifty-five persons. Of these, nineteen only were men. The remaining thirty-six were women, children and servants.

Scarcely had the ship disappeared over the distant horizon, ere Governor Carver, “oppressed by his great care and pains for the common good,” on one hot April noon returned from the field, complaining of a severe pain in his head, probably caused by a sunstroke. He soon became delirious, and, in a few days, died. It was a severe loss to the colony, and they mourned over him with great lamentation and heaviness. He was buried with all the imposing ceremonies of sorrow which the feeble colony could arrange. His wife, overwhelmed with grief in view of her terrible loss, in a few weeks followed her husband to the grave. Soon after, Mr. William Bradford, who was then in a state of great debility from his recent sickness, was chosen his successor.

The settlers, having no animals to draw the plough, were laboriously opening the ground near their dwellings with the spade. Six acres they sowed with barley and peas. Fortunately they had ten bushels of corn for seed. With this they planted twenty acres, Squantum showing them how to plant and hill it. Berries were found in abundance in the woods, as the season advanced, and a very grateful supply of grapes.

Mr. Palfrey, in his admirable History of New England, writes very pleasantly, “A visitor to Plymouth during this summer, as he landed, on the southern side of a high bluff, would have seen, standing between it and a rapid little stream, a rude house of logs, twenty feet square, containing the common property of the plantation. Proceeding up a gentle declivity, between two rows of log cabins, nineteen in number, some of them, perhaps, vacant since the death of their first tenants, he would have come to a hill surmounted with a platform for cannon. He might have counted twenty men at work with hoes, in the enclosures about the huts, or fishing in the shallow harbor, or visiting the woods or beach for game; while six or eight women were busy in household affairs, and some twenty children, from infancy upwards, completed the domestic picture.”

All fears of famine seem now to have passed away. In addition to the stores which they brought with them they had an abundant supply of fish, wild fowls and native fruits. On the 18th of June two of the servants of Mr. Hopkins undertook to fight a duel with sword and dagger. Both were wounded. The Pilgrims met in a body to adjudge the penalty for so serious an offense. They were sentenced to be tied together, by their head and feet, and thus to lie twenty-four hours, without meat or drink. The punishment was begun to be inflicted, “But within an hour, because of their great pains, at their own and their master’s humble request, upon promise of better carriage, they are released by the Governor.”

Early in July, Governor Bradford decided to send a deputation to visit Massasoit. There were several objects he wished to accomplish by this mission. First, it was desirable to ascertain where he lived and what his strength was. He also wished to honor Massasoit by paying him a friendly visit. Another consideration of no little importance which influenced him was, that vagabond Indians were increasingly in the habit of coming with their wives and children, loitering about the village to the great annoyance of the settlers, and clamoring for food, which they devoured with the voracity of famished wolves.

Mr. Winslow and Mr. Hopkins, accompanied by Squantum as their interpreter, were appointed for this important mission. Mr. Winslow has transmitted to us a minute account of the interesting adventure. They left the village, probably on Tuesday morning, July 3d, bearing the following message to Massasoit, with the present of a brilliant horseman’s coat, of red cotton, gaudily laced.

“Inasmuch as your subjects come often and without fear, upon all occasions amongst us, so we are now come unto you. In witness of the love and good will the English bear you, our Governor has sent you a coat, desiring that the peace and amity between us may be continued; not that we fear you, but because we intend not to injure any one, desiring to live peaceably, as with all men, so especially with you our nearest neighbors.