charter gave this company the absolute property and unlimited controul of the territory included between the fortieth and forty-eighth degrees of north latitude and the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. A glance at the map will show that this included the Canadas, all the Eastern and nearly all the Middle States, and a country of immense extent to the west. All this territory, with its commercial and internal resources, were placed under the absolute controul of some forty merchants and gentlemen, who composed the company, and resided in England. The extent of these powers, vested in the company, delayed emigration; and in the mean time, the first permanent colony in New England was established without regard to this charter, or even the knowledge of the company who had obtained it. A sect of puritans, distinguished by the democracy of its tenets respecting church government, and denominated Brownists, from the name of its founder, had sprung up in England, and after suffering much persecution from the government, had taken refuge at Leyden, in Holland. Here its members having formed a distinct society under the charge of their pastor, Mr. John Robinson, resided for some years in obscurity and safety; but not finding their situation congenial to their feelings as Englishmen, and fearful of losing their national identity, they had come to the determination of removing in a body to America. They accordingly sent two of their number, Robert Cushman and John Carver, to England, for the purpose of obtaining the consent of the London company to their emigration to Virginia. Permission was promised, and a formal application, signed by the greatest part of the congregation, was transmitted to the company. The language used on this occasion indicates the state of feeling which prompted the application. 'We are well weaned from the delicate milk of our mother country, and inured to the difficulties of a strange land; the people are industrious and frugal. We are knit together as a body in a most sacred covenant of the Lord, of the violation whereof we make great conscience, and by virtue whereof we hold ourselves straitly tied to all care of each other's good, and of the whole. It is not with us as with men whom small What was granted in their charter ? Why did they determine to leave To whom did they apply for permis 71 VOYAGE OF THE PILGRIMS. things can discourage.' Such was the character of the farrenowned Pilgrims of New England, as described by themselves. They were desirous that their enterprise should receive the formal approbation of the king. But James I was hostile to all the puritans; and the utmost that he would promise was neglect. A patent under the company's seal was, however, obtained through the influence of Sir Edwin Sandys, and a tract of land assigned them within the limits of the Virginia charter. The funds necessary for defraying the expenses of the expedition were obtained in London, on terms by no means favourable to the borrowers; but this circumstance could not deter men who were actuated by the spirit of the Pilgrims. Two vessels, the Speedwell, of sixty tons, and the Mayflower, of one hundred and eighty tons burthen, were hired in England. Only a part of the congregation could be accommodated in these; and Robinson was obliged to remain at Leyden, while Brewster, an elder, conducted the company. It was on the morning of the 22d of July, 1620, when Robinson, kneeling in prayer on the sea shore at Delfthaven, consecrated the embarkation of the Pilgrims. The beginning of their voyage was prosperous. They touched at Southampton, in England, and sailed thence on the fifth of August. Their prospect soon darkened; they were obliged to put back twice in order to repair the smaller of their vessels, and finally to abandon her with such of their company as were too cowardly to continue the voyage; so that it was not until the 6th of September, 1620, that they took their final departure from England in the Mayflower. 'Could,' says a celebrated orator of our own times, 'Could a common calculation of policy have dictated the terms of that settlement, no doubt our foundations would have been laid beneath the royal smile. Convoys and navies would have been solicited, to waft our fathers to the coast; armies to defend the infant communities; and the flattering patronage of princes and lords, to espouse their interests in the councils of the mother country. Happy, that our fathers enjoyed no such patronage; happy, that they fell into no such protecting hands; happy, that our foundations were silently and deeply cast in quiet insig What was done by James I? When did they leave Holland? What occasioned the abandonment of VOYAGE OF THE PILGRIMS. 75 nificance, beneath a charter of banishment, persecution, and contempt; so that when the royal arm was at length outstretched against us, instead of a submissive child, tied down by former graces, it found a youthful giant in the land, born amidst hardships, and nourished on the rocks, indebted for no favours, and owing no duty. 'From the dark portals of the star chamber, and in the stern texts of the acts of uniformity, the Pilgrims received a commission, more efficient than any that ever bore the royal seal. Their banishment to Holland was fortunate; the decline of their little company in the strange land was fortunate; the difficulties which they experienced, in getting the royal consent to banish themselves to this wilderness, were fortunate; all the tears and heart-breakings of that ever memorable parting at Delfthaven, had the happiest influence on the rising destinies of New England. All this purified the ranks of the settlers. These rough touches of fortune brushed off the light, uncertain, selfish spirits. They made it a grave, solemn, self-denying expedi tion, and required those who engaged in it to be so too. They cast a broad shadow of thought and seriousness over the cause, and if this sometimes deepened into melancholy and bitterness, can we find no apology for such a human weakness? " 'It is sad indeed to reflect on the disasters which the little band of pilgrims encountered. Sad to see a portion of them, the prey of unrelenting cupidity, treacherously embarked in an unsound, unseaworthy ship, which they are soon obliged to abandon, and crowd themselves into one vessel; one hundred persons, besides the ship's company, in a vessel of one hundred and sixty tons. One is touched at the story of the long, cold, and weary autumnal passage; of the landing on the inhospitable rocks at this dismal season; where they are deserted, before long, by the ship which had brought them, and which seemed their only hold upon the world of fellowmen, a prey to the elements and to want, and fearfully ignorant of the numbers, of the power, and the temper of the savage tribes that filled the unexplored continent upon whose verge they had ventured. But all this wrought together for good. These trials of wandering and exile of the ocean, the winter, the wilderness, and the savage foe, were the final assurance of success. It was these that put far away from our fathers' cause all patrician softness, all hereditary claims to pre-eminence. 'No effeminate nobility crowded into the dark and austere ranks of the Pilgrims. No Carr nor Villiers would lead on 76 VOYAGE OF THE PILGRIMS. the ill-provided band of despised Puritans. No well endowed clergy were on the alert, to quit their cathedrals, and set up a pompous hierarchy in the frozen wilderness. No craving governors were anxious to be sent over to our cheerless El Dorados of ice and of snow. · No, they could not say they had encouraged, patronised, or helped the Pilgrims; their own cares, their own labours, their own counsels, their own blood contrived all, achieved all, bore all, sealed all. They could not afterwards fairly pretend to reap where they had not strewn; and as our fathers reared this broad and solid fabric with pains and watchfulness, unaided, barely tolerated, it did not fall when the favour, which had always been withholden, was changed into wrath; when the arm, which had never supported, was raised to destroy. 'Methinks I see it now, that one solitary, adventurous vessel, the Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a future state, and bound across the unknown sea. I behold it pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the uncertain, the tedious voyage. Suns rise and set, and weeks and months pass, and winter surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the sight of the wished-for shore. 'I see them now, scantily supplied with provisions, crowded almost to suffocation in their ill-stored prison, delayed by calms, pursuing a circuitous route-and now driven in fury before the raging tempest, on the high and giddy waves. The awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging. The labouring masts seem straining from their base-the dismal sound of the pumps is heard the ship leaps, as it were, madly, from billow to billow-the ocean breaks, and settles with engulfing floods over the floating deck, and beats with deadening, shivering weight, against the staggered vessel. 'I see them, escaped from these perils, pursuing their all but desperate undertaking, and landed at last, after a five months' passage, on the ice clad rocks of Plymouth-weak and weary from the voyage-poorly armed, scantily provisioned, depending on the charity of their ship-master for a draught of beer on board, drinking nothing but water on shore-without shelter-without means-surrounded by hostile tribes. 'Shut now the volume of history, and tell me, on any principle of human probability, what shall be the fate of this handful of adventurers. Tell me, man of military science, in how many months were they all swept off by the thirty savage tribes, enumerated within the early limits of New England? Tell me, politician, how long did this shadow of a colony, on CONSTITUTION OF THE PILGRIMS. 77 which your conventions and treaties had not smiled, languish on the distant coast? 'Student of history, compare for me the baffled projects, the deserted settlements, the abandoned adventures of other times, and find the parallel of this. Was it the winter's storm, beating upon the houseless heads of women and children? Was it hard labour and spare meals-was it disease—was it the tomahawk-was it the deep malady of a blighted hope, a ruined enterprise, and a broken heart, aching in its last moments, at the recollection of the loved and left beyond the sea was it some or all of these united, that hurried this forsaken company to their melancholy fate? And is it possible that neither of these causes, that not all combined, were able to blast this bud of hope? Is it possible, that from a beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy, not so much of admiration as of pity, there has gone forth a progress so steady, a growth so wonderful, an expansion so ample, a reality so important, a promise, yet to be fulfilled, so glorious?" The destination of the Pilgrims was the mouth of the Hudson; but by the treachery of their captain, who is supposed. to have been bribed by the Dutch, interested in the colony of New Amsterdam, they were conducted to the inhospitable coast of Massachusetts. the ninth of November. They did not make the land till in the harbour of Cape Cod. Before landing, they adopted a solemn compact or constitution of government in the following words: In the name of God, amen; we, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign King James, having undertaken for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and 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 of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together, 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 conve nient for the general good of the colony. Unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.' What was the destination of the Pil- | Whither were they conducted? Why did they not land there? |