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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Miles Standish, the Puritan Captain," John S. C. Abbott delves into the life of one of the most pivotal figures in early American history. The book weaves a rich narrative that artfully combines biographical details with vivid historical context, capturing the essence of the Puritan spirit and the challenges faced by settlers in the New World. Abbott employs a straightforward yet engaging literary style, appealing to both young readers and adults alike while providing a thorough examination of Standish's leadership and valor during the establishment of Plymouth Colony. Through meticulously researched accounts, the reader gains insight into the moral dilemmas and societal structures of the time, alongside an appreciation of the complexities of early colonial life. As a prominent historian and biographer of the 19th century, John S. C. Abbott was profoundly influenced by the transcendentalist movement and the burgeoning American identity. His keen interest in American history and dedication to preserving its narratives led him to illuminate figures like Miles Standish, whose contributions to American heritage offer vital lessons on perseverance, faith, and camaraderie among settlers. Abbott's nuanced perspective on early American life reflects his belief in the importance of honoring foundational heroes. "Miles Standish, the Puritan Captain" is highly recommended for anyone interested in the intersections of history, culture, and biography. Abbott's engaging prose not only educates but also inspires, making this work essential for historians, educators, and readers seeking to understand the complexities of America's beginnings. Join Abbott in exploring the life of a hero whose legacy continues to resonate in the American narrative. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - An Author Biography reveals milestones in the author's life, illuminating the personal insights behind the text. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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Miles Standish, the Puritan Captain
Table of Contents
Introduction
This is a story about how conviction, discipline, and fragile hope are marshaled to build a community at the edge of a new world. John S. C. Abbott’s Miles Standish, the Puritan Captain presents a focused portrait of the soldier who became a symbol of Plymouth’s hard-won order. Rather than treating Standish as a mere footnote to colonial beginnings, Abbott frames him as a lens on the Puritan project: a figure whose duty-bound leadership illuminates the settlers’ precarious experiment. The result is a narrative that balances personal character with communal stakes, inviting readers to consider how resolve and restraint shape a fledgling society.
The book is a popular historical biography, written in the nineteenth century by an author known for accessible narrative histories. It is set chiefly in early seventeenth-century New England, among the Plymouth colonists and their fragile settlement. Abbott’s treatment belongs to a tradition that sought to make formative episodes of American history vivid for general and younger readers, and this volume is associated with his series on American pioneers. Within that context, Miles Standish appears not simply as a military functionary but as a central actor whose choices, temperament, and faith reflect the Puritan ethos and the broader cultural ambitions of the colony.
Readers encounter a swift, scene-driven account of Standish’s emergence as the colony’s principal military organizer, the practical demands of fortifying a settlement, and the negotiations entailed in living beside unfamiliar peoples in a demanding landscape. Abbott structures the biography to foreground decisions under pressure, moments of counsel among leaders, and the daily labor that underwrote survival. The experience is designed to be clear and instructive rather than archival or argumentative, emphasizing narrative momentum and moral meaning. Without delving into exhaustive documentation, the book offers an approachable overview that situates a single figure within the fragile architecture of Plymouth’s early years.
Several themes anchor the work: duty as a public ethic; faith as a wellspring of endurance; authority exercised with a mixture of sternness and care; and the persistent tension between ideal purpose and harsh necessity. Abbott draws attention to the costs of leadership—its loneliness, its burdens, and its compromises—while depicting a community learning to define law, security, and neighborliness under scarcity. The frontier amplifies ethical dilemmas: when to defend, how to negotiate, whom to trust. In tracing these questions through a Puritan captain, the narrative refracts broader issues of conscience and responsibility that remain recognizable in civic life today.
Abbott’s voice is that of a nineteenth-century moral historian: earnest, fluent, and comfortable shaping episodes into illustrative lessons. The tone is sober and confident, privileging clarity over ambiguity and character over controversy. The style favors crisp summaries, firm judgments, and a steady cadence that moves readers briskly from scene to scene. Readers should expect an emphasis on providence, prudence, and exemplary conduct, hallmarks of popular historical writing of the period. The mood is ultimately edifying—sympathetic to its subject, attuned to peril, and attentive to the satisfactions of order secured and obligations met in a landscape of uncertainty.
Because the biography arose in a different scholarly era, it also provides a window onto nineteenth-century ways of remembering the colonial past. The narrative tends to center the settlers’ perspective and to interpret events through the moral framework of its time, an aspect that invites reflective reading. Contemporary audiences may find value in considering how such portrayals shape national memory and how they align—or clash—with current approaches to the same history. Read critically, the book can spark useful questions about leadership, community formation, cultural encounter, and the uses and limits of exemplary biography in making sense of contested beginnings.
For readers interested in early American history, leadership under duress, or the evolution of historical storytelling, Miles Standish, the Puritan Captain offers a concise, dramatic introduction to a consequential figure and a formative moment. It promises not exhaustive documentation but narrative coherence and moral focus, conveying atmosphere and stakes without overwhelming detail. Approached as both a story and a historical artifact, it rewards attention to tone, choices of emphasis, and the values it elevates. Abbott’s portrait stands as an accessible entry point—one that can orient newcomers and provoke seasoned readers to reexamine how conviction and command are remembered at the nation’s beginnings.
Synopsis
John S. C. Abbott's Miles Standish, the Puritan Captain presents a chronological narrative of the soldier who became the military leader of Plymouth Colony. Written for general readers, the book blends biography with early colonial history, following Standish from his probable English origins and service in the Netherlands to his association with the Separatists in Leiden. Abbott sets the scene by outlining the religious pressures that sent the Pilgrims into exile, the practical challenges of arranging a transatlantic venture, and the reasons Standish was invited to join. The opening establishes his character as disciplined and pragmatic, and frames the colony's precarious beginnings.
Abbott recounts the negotiations with London merchants, the selection of leaders, and the meticulous preparations for the voyage. He traces the movement from Leiden to England, the provisioning problems, and the decision to sail on the Mayflower alongside the Speedwell's failure. Standish's responsibilities centered on organizing arms and training, advising on security, and preparing for unknown conditions. The author describes the mixed company aboard, including Saints and Strangers, and the compact forged by necessity among them. The groundwork emphasizes both religious aims and economic obligations, situating Standish at the intersection of piety, commerce, and practical defense.
The transatlantic passage is portrayed with attention to storms, cramped quarters, and the growing need for agreed governance. Abbott summarizes the signing of the Mayflower Compact and notes Standish's role within the emergent leadership. Upon reaching Cape Cod, reconnaissance parties probed the coastline for a suitable settlement. The narrative follows Standish on these sorties, his caution in unfamiliar terrain, and the first tense encounters with Native inhabitants. After exploring harbors, springs, and cleared fields, the colonists chose a defensible site. Abbott highlights the balance between haste and deliberation as winter advanced and the settlers began building under constant strain.
The first winter receives detailed treatment: scant shelters, exposure, and disease that thinned the colony. Abbott reports the mortality, including the death of Standish's wife, and the measures taken to protect the vulnerable settlement. Standish organized watch rotations, positioned ordnance, and maintained discipline during labor. The account of the skirmish known as the First Encounter illustrates the colonists' defensive posture and the uncertainty on both sides. As the common house rose and graves were concealed to disguise weakness, the group endured privation. The chapter underscores the colony's survival as contingent on vigilance, cooperation, and steady leadership.
With spring, relations shifted toward diplomacy. Abbott narrates the visits of Samoset and Squanto, the negotiation of a mutual defense treaty with Massasoit, and the roles intermediaries played in communication and subsistence. Standish appears both as guard and envoy, accompanying embassies, mapping surroundings, and assessing risks. Planting, fishing, and trade fostered a cautious equilibrium that made the first harvest possible. The book describes explorations to nearby bays and villages, the exchange of gifts, and the protocols of meeting sachems. This middle phase emphasizes practical coexistence while retaining a readiness for conflict if alliances faltered or rumors spread.
Abbott devotes significant attention to the disorder at the nearby Wessagusset settlement, whose mismanagement strained local resources and trust. Reports of a conspiracy against English settlers prompted Plymouth to act preemptively. Standish led a small force to stabilize the situation, resulting in a brief but lethal confrontation with hostile leaders. The episode is presented as a turning point that deterred immediate threats yet complicated regional relations. After evacuating the weakened colony, Plymouth absorbed new burdens of aid and oversight. The narrative maintains focus on Standish's methods, the colony's precarious security, and the difficult choices posed by frontier conditions.
As Plymouth matured, Abbott outlines changes in land allotment, private labor incentives, and coastal trade, including the Kennebec post. Financial obligations to the Adventurers required new arrangements, leading a few colonists, Standish among them, to assume the debt as Undertakers. He traveled to England seeking supplies and favorable terms amid war and plague, encountering delays and limited success. Back home, renewed harvests eased scarcity, and Standish remarried, establishing a homestead at Duxbury. The book traces his civil roles as assistant or magistrate, deputy, and surveyor, depicting a gradual shift from emergency measures to routine administration and local township development.
Later chapters recount disputes that touched Plymouth's interests, including efforts to recover the Penobscot trading post after a French seizure and the arrest of Thomas Morton at Merrymount to curb disorderly trade. Standish appears as the colony's reliable agent in difficult missions, whether or not results matched intentions. As neighboring colonies grew, intercolonial councils and agreements multiplied, creating a broader New England framework. Abbott sketches Standish's declining health, ongoing advisory presence, and the dispersal of settlers into satellite communities. The tone remains documentary, marking the transition from precarious outpost to a more stable, interconnected colonial society.
The book closes by summarizing Standish's death and legacy in 1656, his family, lands, and the martial structure he established for Plymouth. Abbott underscores the continuity between the colony's earliest improvisations and later institutions of self-governance and defense. The concluding reflections attribute survival to a blend of religious purpose, communal discipline, and practical leadership. Without romanticizing, the narrative aims to preserve the memory of a soldier-administrator who served a small settlement through changing times. The overall message presents the Pilgrim enterprise as a case study in endurance under pressure, with Standish's career illustrating its defensive backbone.
Historical Context
The narrative is set in the first decades of the seventeenth century, chiefly in Plymouth Colony on the shore of Cape Cod Bay, between 1620 and the mid‑1650s. The region had recently been ravaged by epidemics (1616–1619) that depopulated parts of Wampanoag and Massachusett territories, altering power balances before English arrival. Winters were severe, arable land limited, and the Atlantic supply line unreliable, making subsistence and defense the governing concerns. Politically, the area was a frontier beyond effective royal administration, where chartered companies and congregations improvised institutions. That liminal setting—between English law and Native sovereignty, church covenant and civil compact—frames the actions of Captain Myles Standish as military protector and civic officer.
The book grounds Standish in the matrix of English Reformation politics and Separatist dissent under James I. Separatists from Scrooby and surrounding parishes fled to the Dutch Republic in 1608–1609, settling in Leiden under Pastor John Robinson, seeking liberty of worship yet fearing cultural dissolution and economic precarity. The Virginia Company’s patents offered a transatlantic solution. Standish, a professional soldier with experience in the Netherlands wars, attached himself to the Leiden congregation as their military adviser. Abbott presents these European origins—Leiden contracts, loans from London Merchant Adventurers, and royal licenses in 1619–1620—as the immediate prelude to the voyage, illustrating how religious dissent and imperial charter policy converged.
In 1620, 102 passengers embarked from Plymouth, England, in Mayflower after the unseaworthy Speedwell was abandoned. Landfall at Cape Cod in November lay north of their Virginia patent, prompting the Mayflower Compact (11 November 1620, Old Style), a self-governing civil covenant signed by 41 men. Standish was elected military captain and led December reconnaissance across Cape Cod, including the First Encounter skirmish near today’s Eastham. The settlers chose Patuxet—renamed Plymouth—for its harbor and cleared fields. The winter of 1620–1621 killed roughly half the colony. Abbott recounts these dates and decisions to portray how constitutional improvisation and martial leadership under Standish secured the settlement’s survival.
Diplomacy with Native nations defined early Plymouth. In March 1621, Samoset and then Tisquantum (Squanto) brokered contact with Ousamequin, known as Massasoit, sachem of the Wampanoag. The treaty of mutual defense and fair restitution stabilized relations for decades. In 1622, Narragansett leader Canonicus sent a snake-skin bundle of arrows as a challenge; Standish returned it filled with powder and shot, while the town built a hilltop fort and palisade. Militia drills and watch rotations became routine. Abbott emphasizes Standish’s role in the treaty’s enforcement and in fortification, presenting martial readiness and cautious alliance as twin pillars of Plymouth’s security and the captain’s enduring legacy.
The most controversial episode is the 1623 Wessagusset crisis. Thomas Weston’s trading settlement at Wessagusset (present-day Weymouth, Massachusetts) collapsed into hunger and theft, provoking conflict with Massachusett leaders including Pecksuot and Wituwamat. Bradford dispatched Standish with a small force to preempt an alleged plot against both colonies. In a sudden assault inside a house, Standish killed Pecksuot with his own knife and executed Wituwamat, later displaying the latter’s head at Plymouth as a deterrent. The action shattered nearby alliances and spread fear. Abbott narrates the raid as grim necessity, using it to explore early colonial rules of engagement, proportionality, and the fragility of frontier justice.
Plymouth’s survival also hinged on economics and governance. After communal fields faltered, the 1623 land allotments assigned family plots, improving yields. Relations with London’s Merchant Adventurers remained strained until 1627, when eight leading colonists—the Undertakers, among them William Bradford, Edward Winslow, Isaac Allerton, John Howland, John Alden, and Myles Standish—assumed the colony’s debt in exchange for trading monopolies. Standish undertook procurement voyages to England in the mid‑1620s and helped secure the Kennebec trading patent, where beaver pelts financed obligations. In 1628 he led the seizure of Thomas Morton at Merrymount for selling firearms to Natives, curbing a destabilizing trade. Abbott links these measures to portray Standish as soldier‑merchant and guardian of civic order.
The wider New England context reshaped Plymouth. The Great Migration of Puritans to Massachusetts Bay after 1630 created stronger neighboring colonies and new intercolonial politics. The Pequot War (1636–1638), fought mainly by Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut with Narragansett and Mohegan allies, ended with the destruction of the Pequot as a polity; Plymouth contributed men and counsel, and heightened militarization followed. In 1643 the United Colonies of New England formed for mutual defense and extradition. Standish, by then resident in Duxbury (founded 1637), served as militia leader, assistant, treasurer, and surveyor until ill health. Abbott uses these developments to trace the maturation of Puritan governance and security networks.
Through biography, the work interrogates the politics of founding. It casts the Mayflower Compact as a republican answer to jurisdictional vacuum, criticizing distant chartered authority while valorizing community consent and accountability. The Wessagusset and Merrymount episodes expose social fissures between disciplined congregational settlers and profit‑driven or disorderly neighbors, critiquing lawlessness, arms trafficking, and the moral hazards of speculative capitalism. By detailing treaties, forts, and militia, Abbott also confronts the ethics of coercion on a contested frontier, illuminating how fear bred preemption and collective punishment. The narrative invites reflection on debt, class, and governance, using Standish’s offices to weigh security against justice in the early colony.
Miles Standish, the Puritan Captain
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.
CHAPTER I.The Pilgrims in Holland.
Elizabeth’s Act of Uniformity[1].—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[2], 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.[1q] 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.
“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.”
