<142>It would have seemed strange to any of those who had taken part in the stirring events of this session, and whose heads were full of questions about the Palatinate, or Parliamentary privilege, to be told that there was not one of these points from which the Englishman of future times would not readily turn aside in order to contemplate the fortunes of a little band of exiles who had lately made their way, unknown and unheeded, across the stormy waves of the Atlantic.
It was religious zeal which had driven them from their native land. Though, in many respects, their doctrines were those of the stricter English Puritans, The early Separatists.in one point they were peculiarly their own. Whilst the Puritan was anxious to reform, as far as possible, the existing Church, these men had made up their minds to break away from it altogether. Within its pale, they declared, was an unholy alliance between good and evil, which was utterly abhorrent to their minds. Their doctrine, indeed, was only a natural reaction against the systems of Whitgift and Bancroft. In every age there are found men who are discontented with the ordinary religious standard of the day, and who demand a society of their own, in which they may interchange their ideas and aspirations. To such the Mediæval Church offered the asylum of the cloister, or the active service of the mendicant orders. In the England of the nineteenth century, they would be at liberty to enter into any combination amongst themselves which the most <143>unrestrained fancy could dictate. Religious societies and religious sects would welcome their co-operation. But, in the first century of the Reformed Church of England, nothing of the kind was possible. The parish church, and nothing but the parish church, was open to all. There the Puritan, who mourned over the dulness or the entire absence of the sermon, and to whom the Book of Common Prayer was not long enough or flexible enough to give expression to the emotions with which his heart was bursting, was seated side by side with men who thought that the shortest service was already too long, and who were only driven to take part in it at all by the ever-present fear of a conviction for recusancy. If this had been all,— if, after having paid due obedience to the law, the Puritan had been left to himself,— if he had been permitted to meet with his fellows for prayer in the afternoon as freely as other men were permitted to dance on the green, or to shoot at the butts, he might perhaps have been, to some extent, satisfied with the arrangements provided for him. In his private intercourse with neighbours like-minded with himself he would have found that of which he was in search, and he might have come in time to regard with reverence the large-heartedness of a Church which refused to content herself with claiming as her children the pious and the devoted, but which announced, in the only way in which it was at that time possible to announce it, that the ignorant and the vicious, the publican and the harlot, were equally the object of her care with the wisest and best of her sons.
This, however, was not to be. Whitgift and Bancroft, Elizabeth and James, had set their faces against private associations; and Their opposition to the Church.the consequence was that men were found to declare that private associations were the only congregations to which they were justified in giving the name of churches. Feelings which might have formed a support to the general piety, were left to grow up in fierce opposition to the existing system. The Church, it was said, was, by the confession of the Articles themselves, ‘a congregation of faithful men.’ Such, at least, the Church of England was not. Her bishops and archdeacons, her <144>chancellors and ecclesiastical commissioners, existed mainly for the purpose of forcing the faithful and the unfaithful into an unnatural union. The time had come when all true Christians must separate themselves from this antichristian Babylon, and must unite in churches from which the unbelieving and the profane would be rigorously excluded.[209]
Towards the end of Elizabeth’s reign, it was calculated that there were in England some 20,000 persons who had thus renounced communion with the Church, and 1593.Their unpopularity.who were popularly known by the name of Brownists. Such men would find but little sympathy even amongst Puritans. To ordinary Englishmen they were the object of contempt mingled with abhorrence. It was all very well, it might be said, for those who cared for such matters to raise questions about rites and ceremonies. But what was to be said to men who asserted that none but those who came up to their own arbitrary standard were sufficiently holy to take part with themselves in the assemblies of the Church?
Everywhere, therefore, the Separatist congregations were suppressed. Their members were committed to prison, in days when Persecution.imprisonment was too often equivalent to the tortures of a lingering death; and they rotted away amongst the fevers which were rife in those infected abodes of misery. A few, by a cruel perversion of the law, were sent to the gallows. Some, who could not endure to remain at home and to wait for better times, made their way across the sea to a land where no bishops were to be found, <145>and cowered for refuge under the shelter afforded by the tolerant magistrates of Amsterdam.
The church thus planted did not prosper. It contained within itself many persons of piety and integrity; and one of its ministers, Henry Ainsworth, The congregation at Amsterdam.was distinguished no less by the suavity of his disposition than by the depth of his learning. There were, however, too many amongst his congregation whose temper was hasty and unwise. The very self-assertion and independence of character which had made them Separatists, not unfrequently degenerated into an opinionativeness which augured ill for the peace of the community. It was peculiarly difficult to train to habits of mutual concession men who had already thrown off all restraints of custom and organization at home.
Amongst such men causes of dispute were certain to arise. Francis Johnson, who was associated in the ministry with Ainsworth, had 1604.Internal disputes.since his arrival married the widow of a merchant. The lady, who had a little more money than the other members of the congregation, gave great offence by what in that straitlaced community was considered the magnificence of her dress. Whenever she made her appearance she was pointed at as a disgraceful example of female vanity. She had adopted the fashion of the day in wearing cork heels to her shoes, and in stiffening her bodice with whalebone. A deputation accordingly waited upon Johnson, to complain of the bad example set by his wife. The poor man did not know what to do. In a strait between his wife and his congregation, he tried to compromise the dispute. The lady pleaded that it was impossible for her to spoil her dress by making any alterations in its shape. But she promised that, as soon as it was worn out, her new clothes should be cut so as to give satisfaction to the complainants.[210] The congregation, however, was not to be bought off so cheaply as this, and this miserable dispute was only the commencement of a prolonged quarrel, of which glimpses are to be obtained from time to time in the fragmentary annals of the little community.
<146>Two years later fresh seeds of contention were sown. In 1606 the Amsterdam Church was joined by a congregation 1606.Emigration of the Gainsborough congregation.which had emigrated from Gainsborough, under the guidance of their minister, John Smith.[211] He appears to have been a man of ability and eloquence, but of a singular angularity of character. He had scarcely set foot in Amsterdam before he had quarrelled with the original emigrants. He finally adopted Baptist opinions, so far at least as to assert the necessity of the re-baptism of adults. Not being able, however, to satisfy himself as to the proper quarter in which to apply for the administration of the rite, he finally solved the difficulty by baptizing himself. He was not one in whose neighbourhood peace was likely to be found. The congregation which had followed him from England was infected by his spirit, and it speedily broke up, and came to nothing.[212]
These stories, which lost nothing when recounted by the champions of the English Church, did not promise well for the future of the Separatists. In truth, there was a fund of intolerance inextricably involved in these men’s opinions. The very principle upon which they had separated from the Church was calculated to foster a pharisaical spirit. Yet there were causes at work to draw them in an opposite direction. The theory that it was the duty of Christians to separate themselves from the profane and ungodly multitude led almost inevitably to the theory of the independence of each congregation so separated. The Roman Catholic, the Anglican, and the Presbyterian differed with respect to the principles upon which the Church ought to be organized; but they agreed in making that organization, whatever it might be, the central point of their system. To the Separatist, the one point of importance was, that a few faithful Christians had met together to strengthen one another with their mutual prayers and exhortations. He had, no doubt, a devout wish that others might be as pious as himself; but he was so far from entertaining a desire to compel them to join him against their will, that <147>he would have regarded anyone who proposed such a course with the utmost horror. He would, therefore, be the first to take a stand against the prevalent belief that it was the duty of a Government to enforce conformity by penal legislation.
That, not without occasional relapses, the better principle became predominant was mainly the work of a little group of men 1603.Clifton at Babworth.who had not yet made up their minds to forsake their native country, and of whom, as yet, the central figure was Richard Clifton, a man who is scarcely known to us, excepting by the influence which he exercised over others.[213] At the end of Elizabeth’s reign he was rector of Babworth, a village in the north-east corner of Nottinghamshire. He was devoted to his duties; and his earnestness attracted from the neighbouring villages all who were dissatisfied with the ministrations of their own parishes. Amongst these was William Bradford,[214] Bradford.at the time when James ascended the throne a mere boy of thirteen, whose early piety and precocious thoughtfulness seemed to mark him for future eminence. The walk over the fields to Babworth from his Yorkshire home at Austerfield was nine or ten miles, and this distance he regularly paced backwards and forwards whenever Clifton’s voice was to be heard in the pulpit. On his way he passed through the village of Scrooby, with its old manor-house, once a country seat of the Archbishops of York, but made over not long before by Archbishop Sandys, in a fit of nepotism, to his eldest son. It was now occupied by William Brewster, Brewster.the postmaster of the place, which was a station on the great road to Scotland and the North.[215] Brewster was a man of congenial temperament with Bradford, and doubtless took a kindly interest in the boy. He was not without experience of the world. He had been attached to the service of the Puritan Secretary, Davison, and had accompanied him when he visited the Netherlands in 1585, to receive the keys of the cautionary towns. Upon Davison’s disgrace, Brewster had returned to Scrooby, his native village, where he obtained the appointment, which he held by means of the <148>interest which he still retained at Court. He brought with him the strong Puritan opinions which he had imbibed in Davison’s household; but there is every reason to believe that as long as Clifton was still preaching, he continued to regard himself as a member of the Church of England, and that, like many others in the neighbourhood, he made his way from time to time across the fields to Babworth.
Evil days were in store for the non-conforming clergy. Elizabeth and Whitgift had chastised them with whips, James and Bancroft 1604.Clifton ejected.would chastise them with scorpions. The millenary petition was rejected. Its supporters were driven with contumely from Hampton Court. The Canons of 1604 passed through Convocation and received the Royal assent. Conformity — thorough and unhesitating conformity — was to be the unbending rule of the English Church.
Like so many others, Clifton, it would seem, refused to comply with the requirements of the new reign. He was accordingly deprived of his rectory, and the voice was silenced which had sounded like the messenger of God to so many pious souls.[216] To those to whom the parish church of Babworth had been as the gate of heaven, there was a void which nothing could replace. The system under which the preacher whom they loved had been driven from his pulpit, grew more odious to them every day. They saw in it faults which they had never seen before. A conviction, ripening as the weeks passed by, settled deeper and deeper in their minds, that the Church which counted amongst her children the formalist and the worldling, and which drove the Papist, under heavy penalties, to take a hypocritical part in her most solemn rites, but which could find no room for Clifton amongst her ministers, was already condemned of God.
<149>The blow which had fallen upon Clifton at Babworth, fell at Norwich upon a man of equal piety, but of far superior abilities. Robinson at Norwich.John Robinson had long striven to do his duty with such an amount of compliance with the Prayer Book as the Puritan clergy were accustomed to render. When he was dismissed from his post, his heart clung to the Church, as the heart of Wesley clung to it a century and a half later. He entreated the magistrates of the city to grant him the mastership of the hospital, or at least to assign to him the lease of some premises in which he might continue to render spiritual aid to such of his old congregation as might be inclined to seek his assistance. Even this was denied him, and with a heavy heart he turned his steps towards Gainsborough, his native town.[217]
For two years after Clifton’s expulsion, nothing is known of his proceedings, but it is certain that those who gathered round him grew 1606.The congregation at Scrooby.more and more estranged from the Church. The line of demarcation between the ejected and the ejectors was widening into an impassable gulf. It is by no means unlikely that Clifton and his friends placed themselves in communication with Smith and his Gainsborough congregation. At all events, when Smith emigrated in 1606, they determined to form themselves into a separate congregation. Brewster readily offered his house at Scrooby for their meetings, and Clifton was, as a matter of course, chosen to be the pastor of the little flock.[218] Robinson, who, as may safely be <150>conjectured, looked askance upon a man of Smith’s quarrelsome temper, had taken no part in the emigration of his fellow-townsmen, but consented at once to act as Clifton’s assistant at Scrooby. Brewster was to be the Elder, an office for which he was eminently fitted. His quiet unobtrusive goodness, as well as his position in the house in which the congregation met, enabled him, without the risk of giving offence, to speak words of kindly reproof, and to soften down those inevitable asperities which were working such mischief at Amsterdam. Bradford was, as yet, too young to take any prominent part in the community, but his more practical nature was likely to stand it in good stead when the time came for the exercise of the more energetic virtues.
The step which these men had taken was not without its dangers. Everyone who met at Brewster’s house knew that 1607.Determination to emigrate.he was acting in defiance of the law. There was no longer any peace for them in England. They were none of them rich men. For the most part, they were engaged in agriculture, the pursuit which, of all others, is the least suggestive of movement and change. Time out of mind, their forefathers had ploughed the same fields, and had been buried in the same green churchyards, under the shelter of the old familiar churches. Their English homes were very dear to them. To dwell in a foreign land was to be cut off from all intercourse with those they loved, to a degree which, in these days, we are hardly capable of comprehending. Yet all this, and more than this, they were resolved to face. They had made up their minds that it was their duty to go, and, in spite of the hardships which awaited them, there was no shrinking back.
If, however, it was illegal to hold their assemblies in England, it was no less illegal to leave the country without the Royal licence.[219] Difficulties in the way.It was therefore necessary to make their preparations in secret. At last all their difficulties seemed to be at an end. A vessel was hired to meet them <151>at Boston. On the appointed day they moved down cautiousiy towards the coast, and timed their journey so as to arrive at the water’s edge shortly after nightfall. They went on board at once, fancying they had nothing more to fear. Even then they were doomed to disappointment. The captain proved a rogue. He had already pocketed their passage money, and he wanted to be relieved from the fulfilment of his bargain. He accordingly gave notice to the magistrates, and just as the poor emigrants were watching for the weighing of the anchor, the officers came on board, and hurried them on shore. The unhappy men were stripped of everything which they possessed, and were brought up for examination on the following morning. The magistrates, as frequently proved the case, were disposed to be lenient to anything that bore the name of Protestantism, but they were hampered by the necessity of waiting for instructions from the Privy Council. In due time these instructions were received, and it was only after long imprisonment that the poor men were allowed to return to their homes. Brewster and six of his companions were detained still longer, and were only dismissed after having been bound over to answer for their conduct at the next assizes.
It is hard to stop resolute men. In the course of the following year, they all, in one way or another, succeeded in 1608.They escape to Amsterdam.effecting their escape. When, in the autumn of 1608, they met together once more at Amsterdam, there were few who had not some tale to tell of sufferings endured. But even at Amsterdam there was no rest possible for them. The little Church there was still distracted by disputes, and it was not from a love of theological polemics that they had left their homes. Smith and Johnson might quarrel as much as they pleased; but as for themselves, they had come to Holland in search of peace, and, if peace was not to be found at Amsterdam, it must be sought elsewhere. Accordingly, 1609.Their removal to Leyden.before they had been many months upon the Continent, they removed in a body to Leyden, leaving the theologians to fight out their battles amongst themselves. Clifton, worn out by the trials of his life, and <152>sinking into a premature old age, was unable or unwilling to accompany them, and his place was taken by Robinson.[220]
The years of residence at Leyden were, in every respect, beneficial to the exiles. Whatever intolerance might be lurking in their hearts was no longer influenced by the opposition of an intolerant Church. It was true that in Holland, as well as in England, they found themselves face to face with that world from which they had done their best to separate themselves. It was a world in which there was sin and error enough, and in which evil men and evil habits were to be met at every turn, but not one in which was to be found either a Bancroft or a James. In their own little circle, the emigrants might pray and preach as they pleased. There was no Court of High Commission to visit them with fines, no informer to dog their steps, no justice of the peace to send them to prison. Was it strange that, although their recollections were still full of bitterness towards the system under which they had suffered, their sentiments towards individual men grew more kindly, and that they were more ready to make allowances than they had been before? On the other hand, their position drove them to grasp more firmly than ever their theory of the separation between the spiritual and the temporal, upon which the principles of toleration rest. Strangers in a foreign land, the wildest fancy could not lead them to expect a time when they might hope to win over the magistrates of the Republic to their own peculiar views. They knew that as long as they remained in Holland, they must either be tolerated or oppressed. Their only safeguard lay in throwing their whole weight into the scale of toleration, and in restricting to the uttermost the right of the civil magistrate to interfere in spiritual questions. What Knox and Calvin had failed to comprehend, was reserved for these poor Separatists to teach.
At such a time, the presence of a man like Robinson was invaluable to them. If the Leyden congregation was to be Influence of Robinson.saved from the fate of the Church at Amsterdam, it could only be by the acceptance of some systematized belief, and the task of laying the foundations of such a <153>system was one for which Robinson was eminently fitted. It was by him that the opinions of his companions were welded into a coherent whole. Separation from sinners, resistance to a dominant clergy, the right of individual congregations to manage their own affairs, and the other peculiarities which the current of events had brought to the surface, all assumed their proper place in a theory so complete that those who accepted it were able to imagine that it contained all wisdom, human and Divine. Nor was it solely to his intellectual powers that Robinson owed the influence which he had acquired. Even amongst men who could measure gentleness of disposition by Brewster’s standard, he was noted for the kindness of his heart.
Yet the exiles were not at ease even at Leyden. Their sober industry kept them from want: but most of them had to struggle hard. 1617.Dissatisfaction with Leyden.Their fingers had been trained to handle the plough better than the loom, and it was with difficulty that they were able to compete with the skilled workmen by whom they were surrounded. From their lodgings amidst the close alleys of the town they looked back with sadness to the pure air and the pleasant hedgerows of their native England. Nor were other causes of discontent wanting. They had come to Holland in order to keep themselves separate from the world. Were they sure that they had succeeded? Their longing for a land in which tares never mingled with the wheat was still unsatisfied. Their children, as they grew up, were not always content with the hard life of their parents. Some of them had enlisted in the armies of the Republic; with what danger to their souls, who could tell? Some, still worse, had strayed into folly and vice. Even in that land of Calvinism, the Sabbath rest was not observed as they would fain have seen it. And so, again and again, the question was raised, whether the world did not afford some spot where the young might be preserved from contamination. Nor was it only for themselves and for their children that they were anxious. They knew that there were many still in England whose opinions coincided with their own, and they had fondly hoped that their little Church would prove the nucleus <154>round which a large number of emigrants would gather. But, as long as they remained where they were, nothing of the kind was to be hoped for. The spiritual advantages of becoming a member of Robinson’s congregation were of little weight with the hundreds who shrank from the drudgery of daily life at Leyden.[221]
All these considerations urged the exiles to seek another home. The ideal of the pure and sinless community which Determination to emigrate to America.they hoped to found was still floating before their eyes, and was drawing them on as it receded before them. Let us not stop to inquire whether such an ideal was attainable on earth. It is enough that in striving to realise it, they did that which the world will not willingly forget.
In what part of the globe was a home to be found for the new Christian commonwealth? Very tempting were the accounts borne across the Atlantic of the fertility of Guiana; but, even though Raleigh’s hopes had not yet been wrecked on the banks of the Orinoco, prudence forbade the exposure of their scanty and unwarlike numbers to the hostility of the whole Spanish monarchy. Harsh, too, as their treatment had been in England, their hearts were still English, and not only were they unwilling to settle themselves out of the dominions of the English Crown, but all their hopes of attracting additional emigrants lay in their finding some spot where there was nothing to aggravate the ordinary difficulties in the way of a free communication with the mother country. With these hopes before them, their choice was limited to the Atlantic coast of North America.
Even with this limitation they had a wide range before them. From the Spanish possessions in Florida to the French colony in Nova Scotia, Choice of a spot.the little settlement at Jamestown was, with the exception of a Dutch factory on the Hudson, the only spot where Europeans were to be found. The Plymouth Company, to which the northern part of the coast had been assigned, had accomplished nothing. At the <155>time when the sister company was sending out the last settlers to Virginia, an attempt had been made to establish a colony as far north as the mouth of the Kennebec. But the hardships of winter in such a latitude had been too much for the emigrants, and no Captain Smith had been found in their ranks. As soon as the summer weather enabled them to move, they made the best of their way back to England with diminished numbers. Fresh efforts were made by Smith, who, since his recall from Virginia had transferred his allegiance to the Plymouth Company, but from various causes all his attempts at colonisation had proved abortive. All that he had been able to do was to bring home a survey of the coast, and to give to the land which he had hoped to fill with happy English homes the now familiar name of New England.
Between the rival companies the exiles of Leyden hesitated long. On the one hand, they were repelled by the known severity of the northern climate. On the other hand, they feared the neighbourhood of the Jamestown colonists, and they fancied, not without reason, that the arrival of a body of nonconformists would hardly be regarded with friendly eyes by the Virginian adventurers.
At last they resolved upon a middle course. They would come as far south as they dared without approaching too near to Jamestown. Near the mouth of the Hudson, somewhere on the coast of the present State of New Jersey, they might find a spot which would be free from both dangers. It was just within the limits of the Southern Company, the officials of which had practical experience in colonisation, and which, as long as it counted Sir Edwin Sandys among its leading members, was likely to abstain from investigating too narrowly the theology of the settlers who placed themselves under its patronage.
Two messengers were accordingly despatched to England, to enter into negotiations with the Virginia Company of London. With 1618.Negotiations in England.the support of Sandys they had little difficulty in obtaining a favourable hearing for their project, but the King’s assent was less easily won. Yet even with James they did not meet the obstacles that might have <156>been expected. They hoped, they said, that he would allow them to enjoy liberty of conscience in America. In return they would extend his dominions and would spread the Gospel amongst the heathen. James inquired how they meant to live. “By fishing,” they said. “So God have my soul,” replied the King, “’tis an honest trade; ’twas the Apostles’ own calling.” Their case was referred to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, and they were finally told that, though they must not expect any public assurance of toleration, yet, as long as they behaved peaceably, their proceedings would be connived at. In accepting this offer, they probably thought that if they could only make good their footing in America, the King’s arm would hardly be long enough to reach them.
Further delay was caused by the dissensions with which the company was at this time agitated, and it was not till the summer of 1619 that 1619.Patent from the Virginia Company.they obtained a patent from it authorising them to establish a settlement near the mouth of the Hudson.[222] As soon as the patent arrived in Leyden, the first step of the congregation was to hold ‘a solemn meeting, and a day of humiliation to seek the Lord for his direction.’ In the midst of all their difficulties, Robinson’s presence was a tower of strength, and his words of loving encouragement lingered long in their memories. As soon as his sermon was ended, a consultation was held, in order that the enterprise might be put into a practical shape. About two hundred persons were present, and of this number nearly half were willing to take part in the undertaking. The rest, including Robinson himself, were prevented by various causes from leaving Holland, though there were few who did not express a wish that they might be able ultimately to find their way to America. Even with their numbers thus reduced they were forced to ask assistance, and to mortgage their future prospects in order to secure a passage across the Atlantic. With the necessity of borrowing came the necessity of yielding to the terms of those who were willing to lend. The firm and <157>steadfast step with which they had hitherto walked straight towards their goal was now to be exchanged for uncertainty and delay.
They had applied for money to Thomas Weston, a London merchant, who had visited them at Leyden. He assured them that The Adventurers.they should want for nothing. He would form a company to bear the risks of the undertaking, upon the security of a certain share of the profits.
With the company thus formed an agreement was duly signed, but difficulties in its interpretation were not slow to arise. Looking to the past history of colonisation, the shareholders may well have felt that they were taking part in a scheme of which the chances of failure were far greater than those of success. The Leyden congregation had determined that they would not fail, and the resolute purpose which was to ensure success made them impatient of the doubts of others. It was sadly against their will that they finally yielded to the stringent conditions on which alone the money was to be had.[223]
In these negotiations, time, always precious to the poor, was lost. The autumn and the winter of 1619 passed slowly away. 1620.The ‘Mayflower’ at Southampton.The spring of 1620 came, and there was yet a possibility that they might reach America before the summer was at an end. But the months were suffered to slip away, and it was not till July that the preparations were complete. At last, however, everything was ready. The ‘Mayflower,’ a little vessel of 180 tons, had been hired for the voyage, and was lying in Southampton Water. The ‘Speedwell,’ of sixty tons, had been purchased, and it was intended that she should be used as a fishing vessel on the other side of the Atlantic. She was now despatched to bring over the emigrants from Holland.
Many precious lives would have been saved if the time of departure could have been delayed Departure from Leyden.till a more favourable season; but money was running short, and the poor men could not afford to wait. The day was fixed, a day sad both for those who were to go and for those <158>who were to remain. Yet their sorrows were not unmixed with such hopes as befitted their devout and sober piety. “So, being ready to depart,” wrote one who had then set his face towards the wilderness, “they had a day of solemn humiliation, their pastor taking his text from Ezra viii. 21: ‘And there at the river by Ahava I proclaimed a fast, that we might humble ourselves before our God, and seek of Him a right way for us, and for our children, and for all our substance,’ upon which he spent a good part of the day very profitably and suitably to the present occasion. The rest of the time was spent in pouring out prayers to the Lord with great fervency, mixed with abundance of tears. And the time being come that they must depart, they were accompanied with most of their brethren out of the city unto a town sundry miles off, called Delft Haven, where the ship lay ready to receive them. So they left that goodly and pleasant city which had been their resting-place near twelve years; but they knew they were pilgrims and looked not much on those things, but lift up their eyes to the heavens, their dearest country, and quieted their spirits. When they came to the place, they found the ship and all things ready; and such of their friends as could not come with them followed after them; and sundry also came from Amsterdam to see them shipped and to take their leave of them. That night was spent with little sleep by the most, but with friendly entertainment and Christian discourse and other real expression of true Christian love. The next day, the wind being fair, they went aboard and their friends with them, where truly doleful was the sight of that sad and mournful parting, to see what sighs, what sobs and prayers did sound amongst them, what tears did gush from every eye, and pithy speeches pierced every heart; that sundry 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 clear and unfeigned love. But the tide, which stays for no man, calling them away that were thus loth to depart, their reverend pastor falling on 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 <159>many tears, they took their leaves one of another, which proved to be the last leave to many of them.”[224]
And so, lifting up their eyes to the heavens, their dearest country, they parted one from another. Of those who returned to Leyden, Passage to Southampton.there were some who were, in due time, to follow in the footsteps of the emigrants. There were others who, like Robinson himself, were to leave their bones in the city which had sheltered them so long. The ‘Speedwell,’ laden with its precious freight, bore the emigrants to Southampton, where they were joined by their companions who had been sent before to complete the preparations for the voyage, and to collect such recruits as were willing to join them.
About one hundred and twenty persons, men, women, and children, embarked as passengers on board the two vessels. Brewster and Bradford were there, to represent the old Scrooby congregation. Edward Winslow, a gentleman by birth, happening to pass through Leyden on his travels, had been attracted by Robinson’s preaching, and had thrown in his lot with the despised Separatists. More peculiar was the position of Miles Standish. He was not, nor did he ever become, a member of their Church; but he had willingly offered to share their exile, and he brought with him the military skill of which they were not unlikely to stand in need. He had, in all probability, served some years as a soldier in the garrison of one of the cautionary towns. He may have been actuated in his wish to join the exiles partly by a daring spirit and a love of adventure. But he was a man of sober worth, and he may well have clung to the society of those of whom the congregation was composed, even if he could not altogether adopt their tenets.
Precious time was again lost at Southampton in a vain attempt to obtain better terms from the company. After a delay of The two vessels leave Southampton.seven days, the two vessels dropped down past Calshot and the Needles into the Channel. It was soon discovered that the ‘Speedwell’ had sprung a leak, and the exiles were forced to put into Dartmouth for <160>repairs. Once more, as soon as the mischief had been remedied, they weighed anchor with renewed hope. This time they were out of sight of land before any complaint was heard; but the smaller vessel was overmasted, and the leak was soon as bad as ever. With heavy hearts they put back to Plymouth, where The ‘Speedwell’ left behind.it was resolved to leave the ‘Speedwell’ behind, and to get rid of those of their fellow-passengers who were already growing sick of the hardships of the voyage.
On September 6, just as the couriers were speeding to England with the news of Spinola’s attack upon the Palatinate, September.The voyage of the ‘Mayflower.’the emigrants bade farewell to that lovely harbour from which, three years before, Raleigh had started in pursuit of his phantom of the golden mine. Rame Head, and the Lizard, and the Land’s End, the cold grey bulwarks of unsympathizing England, one after another dropped out of sight. At last they were alone upon the Atlantic. Behind them, save in a few distant Leyden garrets, there were none to whom their failure or their success would furnish more than a few hours’ scornful gossip. Before them was the stormy sea, and in the Far West lay that wilderness which was only waiting for their approach to stiffen under its winter frosts. Yet there was no sign of blenching. If God were on their side, what mattered the coldness of the world, the jeers of the sailors, or the howling of the Atlantic storms?[225]
The voyage was chequered with few incidents; but there is one passage in the narrative in which Bradford has embalmed the story of those days of trial, too characteristic of the writer and his companions to be passed over in silence. “I may not,” he wrote, “omit here a special work of God’s providence. There was a proud and very profane young man, one of the seamen. He would alway be contemning the poor people in their sickness, or cursing them daily with grievous execrations, and did not let to tell them that he hoped to cast half of them overboard before they came to their <161>journey’s end, and to make merry with what they had; and, if he were by any quietly reproved, he would curse and swear most bitterly. But it pleased God before they came half seas over to smite this young man with a grievous disease, of which he died in a desperate manner, and so was himself the first that was thrown overboard. Thus his curses lighted on his own head, and it was an astonishment to all his fellows, for they noted it to be the hand of God upon him.”
On November 9 the emigrants caught sight of land. The low shore of Cape Cod stretched away for miles in front of them. Nov. 9.Arrival at Cape Cod.From the spot at which they had struck the coast, a short voyage of less than seventy miles would bring them to the place which they had marked out for their settlement. The ship’s course was accordingly altered in a southerly direction, and an attempt was made to reach the mouth of the Hudson. They had not gone far before they found themselves off Sandy Point, amongst shoals and breakers white with foam. The captain declared that the danger was too great to be faced, and altering the ship’s course once more he steered to the northward along the coast. On the 11th, the ‘Mayflower’ rounded the extreme point of the peninsula of Cape Cod, and dropped anchor in the smooth water inside. Of the emigrants, one had died during the passage, but their numbers were still the same as when they left Plymouth harbour, a child, Oceanus Hopkins, having been born on board. One hundred and two persons, of whom about fifty only were full-grown men, looked out under the bleak November sky upon the desolate shore, on which they were, with as little loss of time as possible, to search for a home.
Before anyone was allowed to leave the ship, a meeting was called, to take steps for the prevention of a danger which threatened Nov. 11.Agreement to form a Government.to sap the foundations of the infant colony. In one respect the breakers off Sandy Point had made a great alteration in their position. At the mouth of the Hudson they would have been within the limits of the Virginia Company’s authority. At Cape Cod those limits were passed, and the patent which had been obtained with so much difficulty had suddenly been rendered <162>useless. For many months it would be impossible to communicate with the northern company in whose territories they now were, and it would be hazardous to establish a colony without any recognised government to preserve order in its ranks; for already it had been discovered that among the recruits who had joined them at Southampton, there were some who were muttering that they might do as they pleased, since there was no longer any legal authority which could call them to account for their actions. It was to meet this difficulty that a document framed in the following terms was laid before the meeting for signature:—
“In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign, King James … The instrument of government.having undertaken, for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith, in honour of our King and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and one another, covenant to combine ourselves into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof, to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices from time to time as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.”
To this declaration not one of the emigrants refused to set his hand. The meeting Carver chosen governor.next proceeded to choose as their first governor, John Carver, who had taken an active part in the negotiations with the Company in England.[226]
<163>In all this there was nothing new. The election of administrative functionaries took place in every borough town in England. What was really new was that whilst in England each corporation was exposed to the action of the other forces of the social system, in America the new corporation was practically left to itself. It was as if Exeter or York had drifted away from the rest of England, and had been left to its own resources on the other side of the Atlantic. The accident which had deprived the colony for a time of all legal connexion with the Home Government, was only a foreshadowing of its future fortunes. Sooner or later the colonies would have a social and political history of their own, which would not be a repetition of the social and political history of England. When once the first difficulties were at an end, there would be a society in which no one was very poor, and no one was very rich, and it was evident that to such a society many of the provisions of the English constitution would be altogether inapplicable.
For the present, however, there was work before the emigrants which left no time for the discussion of political principles. Exploration of Cape Cod.Immediately after Carver’s election, fifteen or sixteen of their number, who had been sent on shore for wood, returned with a report that they had found soil of rich black earth behind the sandhills. Nov. 12.The next day they kept their Sabbath, the first Sabbath in the new world which was opening before them. On Monday morning Nov. 13.they were anxious to commence the exploration of the country, but the shallop which they had brought with them for that purpose, was found to have been injured on the voyage. Whilst it was being repaired, a party, under the command of Standish, was sent on shore to explore the immediate neighbourhood. They returned on Friday, bringing with them Nov. 17.some Indian corn, which they had found in a deserted native village. This little stock was invaluable to the settlers, as, by some extraordinary mismanagement, they had left all their seed corn behind them in England.
Standish had hoped to find the shallop ready on his return; <164>but the carpenter was lazy or careless, and contrived to consume fourteen days upon what should have been at most the work of six. Nov. 27.It was not till the 27th that the exploring party was able to start. The weather had now become very bad. Winter had come down upon them in all its rigour. The cold blasts pierced to the skin, and the snow fell thick upon the houseless wanderers. The water near the shore was so shallow that it was impossible to land, except by wading. Time and means to dry their dripping garments were alike wanting. Not a few owed their deaths to diseases the seeds of which were implanted in the constitution during these melancholy days. Yet they struggled on bravely. They made their way to the southward along the inner shore of the peninsula, sometimes in an open boat, sometimes on foot, over hills and valleys, wrapped in a deep covering of snow. On the evening of the 30th they returned on board, footsore and weary, and reported in favour of a spot near the mouth of the Pamet River, not far from the place where the Indian corn had been found.
Long and earnest was the consultation that evening on board the ‘Mayflower.’ Many reasons concurred in recommending Nov. 30.December.Exploration of the mainland.the spot which had been selected by the pioneers; but the coast was shallow, and there was no running stream of fresh water in the immediate neighbourhood. In the midst of the discussion, they were told by the pilot of the ship that he remembered that, when he was last on the coast, he had seen a good harbour on the mainland opposite. Upon this, they resolved not to come to a final resolution till a fresh exploring party had visited the spot.
Accordingly, on December 6, ten of the emigrants, accompanied by six of the crew, set out to face the hardships of another search. The weather had not improved. Their clothes stiffened under the freezing spray, till they were like coats of iron. Here and there as they coasted along, they stopped to examine the nature of the soil. On the morning of the third day, as they were rising from their bivouac, they were attacked by Indians. With difficulty they regained their boat; but they <165>had scarcely put off from the land when the wind rose to a hurricane. Fortunately it blew in the direction of their course; but, as they swept along amidst the blinding snow, they began to feel anxious lest they should be dashed against the coast, which, as they knew, was not far in front. A huge wave dashed over them, carrying away the rudder as it passed. As they were steadying the boat with the oars, the pilot, peering through the driving snow, caught sight of land, and cheered them by announcing that he recognised the harbour of which he had told them. He had scarcely uttered the words, when the mast was broken short off by a sudden gust, and the fallen sail, flapping as it lay against the side of the boat, so impeded their movements, that, but for the flood tide which was running strongly into the harbour, they would have been dashed to pieces amongst the breakers. Yet even then the danger was not over. The pilot fancied that he had mistaken the place, and lost his presence of mind. With a wild cry of “The Lord be merciful! my eyes never saw this place before,” he attempted to beach the boat amongst the tumbling surf. Happily, the other seamen interfered, and smooth water was gained at last. As the shadows of night closed in, the wanderers, wet to the skin, and faint with watching, stepped on shore.
At midnight the wind shifted, and the stars shone clearly out through the frosty air. When the morning dawned, the emigrants discovered that Dec. 11.The landing at Plymouth.they were on an island in the midst of the spacious and landlocked bay, to which Smith had given the name of Plymouth, a name which they gladly retained in memory of the last spot upon English soil on which their feet had trodden. Here they remained for two days to recruit their exhausted frames. On the morning of December 11, a day never to be forgotten in the annals of America, they made their way to the mainland. The granite boulder on which they stepped as they landed became an object of veneration to their descendants. Fragments of it were treasured up in the homes of New England, with a reverence scarcely less than that which in Catholic countries is bestowed upon the relics of the saints. The Pilgrim Fathers, as their children loved to call them, hold a place <166>in the annals of a mighty nation which can never be displaced. It is not merely because they were the founders of a great people that this tribute has been willingly offered to their memories. It is because they sought first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, that honour and reverence have been freely paid to them by descendants whose hearts have warmed to the tale of spiritual heroism, all the more, it may be, because their own life for a long time assumed, in its long struggle with physical difficulties, a less ideal character.
The honours which were to be paid them in future times were far from the thoughts of the exiles. With pleased eyes they Choice of a site.looked upon the clearings in the forest, and upon the blades of Indian corn, which gave tokens of human presence. They marked the rattling brooks which promised a perennial supply of water, very different from that which they had drunk from the ponds of Cape Cod; and they noted that the harbour was safe and deep. A hasty glance was sufficient to satisfy them, and they hurried back to bear the good tidings to their companions in the ‘Mayflower.’ To one at least of their number the day on which he rejoined his comrades must have been ever remembered as a day of bitter sorrow. As Bradford stepped on board, he was met by the news that his wife had fallen overboard, and had perished before help could reach her.
On December 16 the ‘Mayflower’ cast anchor in Plymouth Bay. Two or three days were spent in further exploration. December.Building of the village.On the 19th, ‘calling upon God for direction,’ the whole company decided in favour of the spot at which the pioneers had landed. It was no holiday employment which they had undertaken. On the 20th, they began to work. The next day it was blowing a hurricane. Those who were on shore were drenched to the skin, and those who had remained on board were unable to join their companions. For two days the storm raged without intermission. On the 23rd the weather moderated, and they were able to fell and carry timber. Then came the Sabbath rest, the day on which their trials were all forgotten — a rest which was this time to be disturbed by an alarm, happily false, of approaching <167>Indians. The next day was the 25th, Christmas-day in England. “That day,” says the journal of the exiles, with grim brevity, “we went on shore, some to fell timber, some to saw, some to rive, and some to carry. So no man rested all that day.” And so the narrative of their labours proceeds. The work was 1621.February.often interrupted by the terrible weather, but they struggled manfully on, and by the middle of February sixteen log huts were ready for the reception of the families of the builders.
It would have been well if these hardships had been the worst against which they had to contend. But fatigue and exposure Sickness amongst the settlers;had told heavily upon them. Before the summer came, fifty-one persons, a full half of their scanty number, had been struck down by disease. Yet it was in the very depth of their suffering that the power of Christian charity was seen. “In the time of most distress,” wrote one who passed through that gloomy winter, “there was 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, made them fires, dressed them 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 the dainty and queasy cannot endure to hear named — and all this willingly and cheerfully, without any grudging in the least, showing 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 sad condition.”
Nor was it only to one another that they were ready to show kindness. The sailors of the ‘Mayflower’ had been rude and scornful. and on board the ‘Mayflower.’When the disease was raging at Plymouth, the captain had refused to send on shore even a little beer for the sick. At last his own men were struck down, and, as he saw them dying around him, he repented of his harshness. The settlers, he now said, might <168>have as much beer as they wanted, if he had to drink water on his voyage home. A few of the passengers who were still on board devoted themselves to nursing the sick. One of the sailors was heard expressing his gratitude for the kindness he received. “You,” he said, “show your love like Christians indeed to one another; but we let one another lie and die like dogs.”[227]
At last the remnant of the emigrants was sufficiently established to dispense with the ‘Mayflower.’ On the 5th of April, April.Return of the ‘Mayflower.’the vessel which had been their home for so many months, sailed away for England. The blue waves of Plymouth Bay rolled in once more unbroken to the beach. The settlers were alone. Some twenty full-grown men remained to encounter, as best they might, the dangers of the wilderness. By their side were a few true-hearted women, with their tender little ones clinging round them. At the end of the short street were the graves of those they loved, who had fallen before the blasts of that terrible winter, and beyond was the illimitable forest with its unknown perils. Yet were they full of hope. One danger at least proved less than they had expected. From a few straggling Indians who found their way to the village, they learned that the whole country had recently been depopulated by an epidemic, and that they had only to deal with the shattered remnants of the populous and warlike tribes which had once been masters of the soil. As for themselves, a turn seemed to have taken place in the tide of their fortunes. The warm summer was coming on, and though deaths still occurred, the mortality was rapidly diminishing.
Amongst those who died after the departure of the ‘Mayflower,’ was Carver. The colonists instantly elected Bradford to Bradford elected governor.the vacant post of governor. So well did he perform the duties of the office, that he was chosen year after year with scarcely an interruption, till age unfitted him for further service. By his side, ever ready to support his authority, was Standish, now formally installed as military <169>commander, and Winslow, not as yet holding any official position, but recognised as the man whose tongue and pen could be reckoned on if ever the infant colony should be menaced with interference from the mother country. In the absence of a regular minister, the services of the Church were conducted under the presidency of Brewster.
For the present at least the exiles had gained the object of their double emigration. With the exception of a few of their number who had joined them at Southampton, they were, to all appearance, men who were likely to keep at bay the temptations of the world. Peaceful and God-fearing, they had sought to found a society from which evil should, as far as possible, be excluded. How their hopes were disappointed; how the world, attracted by their success, came pouring in upon the shores which they had marked as their own; how they rose above temptation, and showed that by sheer force of goodness they could win the submission of the very men who had wronged them most bitterly, as easily as they could resist with brave endurance the famine and its attendant miseries which burst in upon them once more through the ill-doing of the newcomers; this, and more than this, is written in the first pages of the history of New England. But from all this we are bound to turn away. It is enough for us to ask how England itself was likely to be affected by the principles which had conducted the emigrants across the Atlantic.
That a country like England, with its old social distinctions, and the many-sided life of its redundant population, should ever Prospects of toleration in England.permanently take the shape which commended itself to the devout hearts of the Separatists, was manifestly impossible; and, but for the extraordinary blunders of the Government in the next generation, it would have been no less impossible for men possessed by the spirit of Bradford and Brewster to have risen even temporarily to authority in the land. But it was no slight indication of the tendency of the age that, at a time when the Robinson and Selden.question of religious toleration lay at the root of so many difficulties, two men, so opposite in every respect as Robinson and Selden, should have arrived <170>independently at the conclusion that the clergy had no right to require the State to exercise coercive jurisdiction in support of their opinions.[228] No doubt this concurrence was brought about by arguments of a very different kind. Selden would have restricted the clergy to the use of moral suasion, because he dreaded their encroachments upon the rights of the laity. Robinson would have asked for the same change because he dreaded lest they should interfere with the free exercise of religious zeal. If Selden had had his way, there would have been very little religious zeal left to interfere with. To such a man the one-sidedness, the violence, the very excitement of theological partisanship were eminently distasteful. He looked upon the enthusiasm of Laud, and the enthusiasm of Robinson, as equal nuisances to society. He never forgot that strong feeling contains the germs of possible tyranny over the opinions of others, and, in his heart, he fixed his hopes upon a calm and philosophical religion in which, though there might be no fanaticism, there would be but little life. If Robinson, on the other hand, had had his way, the English Church would have been parcelled out into a number of independent congregations, the members of which would have treated the mass of their countrymen as unworthy of the very name of Christians. In spite of his own breadth of view, piety and devotion would have been found <171>accompanied in his followers by much narrowness of mind and intolerance of spirit.
Fortunately for England, men like Selden and men like Robinson were able to work together towards a common end. The liberal statesmen and the Puritans.In the great revolution which was approaching, it was Puritanism which was to play the part of the motive power. It was not enough that men should hold theories about liberty. What was needed was that there should be found those who were ready to dare anything and to suffer anything on behalf of Him whom they called their Lord; men who could confront kings, as being themselves the servants of the King of kings. When such had done their work, then would come the part of the calm philosophic statesmen, of the men whose minds were directed to the study of the natural creation, rather than to the contemplation of the perfections of the Creator, and who were quick to mark the moment at which the enthusiasm of their allies blinded them to the laws of nature, or hurried them on to demand the realisation of an ideal to which the world would be unwilling to submit.
[209] “If Mr. Johnson confess … the Church of England a true Church, he must be able to prove it established by separation in a separated body in the constitution. He, with the rest, has formally defined ‘a true visible Church, a company of people called and separated from the world by the Word of God,’ &c.; and proved the same by many Scriptures.
“And to conceive of a Church which is the body of Christ and household of God not separated from the profane world which lieth in wickedness, is to confound heaven and earth, and to agree Christ with Belial, and, in truth, the most profane and dangerous error, which, this day, prevails amongst them that fear God.”— Robinson. Of Religious Communion, Works iii. 129.
[210] Bradford’s Dialogue in Young’s Chronicles, 446.
[211] Hunter, Founders of Plymouth Colony, 32.
[212] Robinson, Works, iii. 168.
[213] Hunter, Founders of Plymouth, 40.
[214] Ibid. 99.
[215] Ibid. 66.
[216] There is no direct evidence of the date of Clifton’s ejectment. But Cotton (Magnalia Christi Americana, ii. 1, § 2) speaks of Bradford as reading the Scriptures at the age of twelve, and as subsequently attending Clifton’s ministry. Bradford was twelve in 1602, and during the two following years James had not yet broken with the Puritans. Nor is it likely that Clifton could have escaped the clean sweep in the autumn of 1604, especially as we find him an ejected minister so soon afterwards.
[217] Hunter, Founders of Plymouth, 92. Hall, “Apology against the Brownists,” Works, ix. 91. Ashton’s Life of Robinson, prefixed to the collected edition of his works.
[218] Morton (Memorial, 1) places the date of the formation of the Scrooby Church in 1602. But this is most improbable in itself, and is contradicted by the far better evidence of Bradford, who says:— “After they had continued together about a year, … they resolved to get over into Holland” (History of New England, i. 10). Mr. Palfrey, indeed (ibid. i. 135, note 1) observes, that Bradford perhaps reckoned from the time of Robinson’s joining the Church. But the more natural interpretation is corroborated by another passage. In speaking of Brewster’s death, in April, 1643, Bradford says (Hist. 468), that he “had borne his part with this poor persecuted Church above thirty-six years,” i.e. from the winter of 1606–7.
[219] By 13 Ric. II. stat. 1, cap. 20, persons not being soldiers or merchants might not leave the realm without licence, excepting at Dover or Plymouth.
[220] Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, 16.
[221] Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, 22. Winslow’s Brief Narrative, in Young’s Chronicle, 381.
[222] Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, 27–41. Winslow’s Brief Narrative, in Young’s Chronicle, 382. The patent itself has not been preserved.
[223] Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, 42–54.
[224] Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, 58. It is a pity that in the fresco which adorns the Houses of Parliament, the realities of this <160>scene should have been neglected for an imaginary parting on a beach which never existed.
[225] Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, 68–74.
[226] “After this,” writes Bradford, “they chose, or rather confirmed, Mr. John Carver for that year.”— History of Plymouth Plantation, 90. Mr. Deane, the editor of Bradford’s History, suggests that “or rather confirmed,” was written inadvertently. This is very unlikely. I have no doubt that Carver was named to the office in the lost patent from the Virginia Company. It will be remembered, that the first Council of Virginia was nominated in England. That it was intended that the New England colonists should elect their governor after the first year, appears from Robinson’s letter in Bradford’s History, 66.
[227] Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, 81–93. Mourt’s Relation, in Young’s Chronicles. The latter account is generally ascribed to Bradford and Winslow.
[228] Amongst the articles presented by the emigrants to the King before they obtained leave to sail, and signed by Robinson and Brewster, were some in which they agreed to respect and obey the bishops, but only on account of their position as officers of the Crown.
“We judge it lawful,” they say, “for his Majesty to appoint bishops, civil overseers, or officers in authority under him, in the several provinces, dioceses, congregations, or parishes, to oversee the churches and govern them civilly according to the laws of the land, unto whom they are in all things to give an account, and by them to be ordered according to godliness.
“The authority of the present bishops in the land we do acknowledge, so far forth as the same is indeed derived from his Majesty unto them, and as they proceed in his name, whom we will also therein honour in all things, and he in them.
“We believe that no synod, classes, convocation, or assembly of ecclesiastical officers hath any power or authority at all, but as the same by the magistrate is given unto them.”— S. P. Colonial, i. 43.