“A golden treasure is the tried friend;But who may gold from counterfeits defend?Trust not too soon, nor yet too soon mistrust;Who twines betwixt, and steers the golden mean,Nor rashly loveth, nor mistrusts in vain.”Mirror for Magistrates.
“A golden treasure is the tried friend;But who may gold from counterfeits defend?Trust not too soon, nor yet too soon mistrust;Who twines betwixt, and steers the golden mean,Nor rashly loveth, nor mistrusts in vain.”Mirror for Magistrates.
“A golden treasure is the tried friend;
But who may gold from counterfeits defend?
Trust not too soon, nor yet too soon mistrust;
Who twines betwixt, and steers the golden mean,
Nor rashly loveth, nor mistrusts in vain.”
Mirror for Magistrates.
On the morning of the 9th of November, 1621, after morning prayer—for the Pilgrims commenced each fresh day by the solemn invocation of God’s blessing on its labors, and at evening sealed the record by devout thanksgiving—when the thrifty settlers had separated each to his respective task, an Indian runner came breathless into the settlement, and announced that a vessel might be seen off Cape Cod, apparently crowding sail for Plymouth harbor.[272]
As no friends were expected at that season, this intelligence caused great excitement. A rush for the neighboring heights was made. There, indeed, spotting the dim horizon, a strange ship might be discerned. Endless were the speculations as to her character and objects. Was she manned by the inimical Frenchman? Was she a buccaneer, bent on murderous pillage? Could she be a friend? The Pilgrims were cautious and provident men. In thewilderness the common law maxim was reversed—all were necessarily held to be guilty until proved innocent. So now preparation was made to repel intruders, should they come with hostile intent. The governor ordered a cannon to be fired to summon the scattered pioneers home. All were armed; then, in painful suspense, the colonists waited the approach of the stranger craft. Nearer she drew and yet nearer. Intently was her every motion viewed. Her architecture was studied; her rigging was observed; and all eyes were directed towards the peak where should flap her flag: it was not there. But, suddenly, it was run up, and, lo, it was the English jack!
The colonists were delirious with joy, for that flag meant friends at hand and news from “home;” so their welcoming shouts went echoing across the water to their incoming reinforcers.
Soon the ship anchored; then the boats passing to and fro bore the friends to each other’s arms; and amid kindly greetings and warm welcomings the news was asked and told.
It was the “Fortune” which had just arrived. She brought Cushman and thirty-five others to reinforce the infant colony.[273]Among this company were several who had embarked in the “Speedwell,” balked of a passage then, but now safely arrived.[274]The meeting was not untinged with sadness. “Death had been busy; Carver was gone, and more thanhalf of those to whom Cushman had bidden God-speed in the “Mayflower” rested under the sod, the grass growing on their levelled graves.”[275]
But as was their wont, the Pilgrims looked on the bright side of the picture; and all thanked God that some remained to welcome the new-comers.
When the home budget was opened it was found to contain several items of moment to the colony. The patent of the London company under which the emigrants had expected to possess their American homes, was made to cover Virginia alone, and this was rendered nugatory by the debarkation in New England.[276]
The London company was now under a cloud. The active prominence of its chiefs as popular leaders of the Parliamentary reformers against the royal prerogative, had provoked the pique of James; and his hostility was increased by the cunning of the Spanish court, with which he was then on friendly terms, and which desired to repel English neighbors from the Spanish settlement in Florida.[277]
James exhibited his resentment by favoring the interests of a rival company of which Gorges, and Sheffield, and Hamilton, were the leaders. To them a new incorporation was granted, and assuming the title of the “Plymouth Company,” they were empowered “to order and govern New England in America.”[278]
Upon the domain of the new corporation the Pilgrims had settled without leave; they were therefore liable to a summary ejectment.[279]The company of Merchant-adventurers, under whose auspices they had sailed, informed of their position by the return of the “Mayflower,” immediately applied to the Plymouth company for a patent which should cover the soil now colonized.[280]It was granted “to John Pierce and his associates,” and was in trust for the benefit of the colony.[281]
Thomas Weston, the agent of the Merchant-adventurers, sent a copy of this charter to the Plymouth colonists, accompanying it with a letter in which, after complaining of the long detention of the “Mayflower” in America, and of her return without a cargo, he said that “the future life of the business depended on the lading of the ‘Fortune,’” which being done, he promised never to desert the Pilgrims, even if all the other merchants should do so;[282]adding, “I pray you write instantly for Mr. Robinson to come to you; and send us a fair engrossment of the contract betwixt yourselves and us, subscribed with the names of the principal planters.”[283]
While the “Fortune” lay moored in Plymouth harbor, Bradford penned a weighty and dignifiedreply to Weston’s animadversions. After reciting the incidents which had checkered the twelvemonth of their settlement, including the death of Carver, to whom the agent of the Merchant-adventurers had directed his missive, he said, with an unconscious touch of pathos, “If the company has suffered, on the side of the settlers there have been disappointments far more serious. The loss of many honest and industrious men’s lives cannot be valued at any price. It pleased God to visit us with death daily, and with so general a disease that the living were scarce able to bury the dead, and the well not in any measure sufficient to tend the sick. And now to be so greatly blamed for not freighting the ship, doth indeed go near us, and much discourage us.”[284]
Preëminently conscientious, and earnestly desirous to give the Merchant-adventurers no just cause of complaint, the Pilgrim colonists made every effort to secure a speedy and profitable cargo for the “Fortune’s” homeward voyage. The ship was a small one of but fifty-five tons burden;[285]but she was at once “laden with good clapboards, as full as she could stow, two hogsheads of beaver and other skins, with a few other trifling commodities,” in all to the value of five hundred pounds.[286]Barely fourteen days elapsed between her arrival and her readiness to depart.[287]
Just before the “Fortune” sailed, the colonists were busy in preparing epistles for their friends in England and for the dear Leyden congregation. These were intrusted to Robert Cushman, who was to return to London and make a report of the situation of the Plymouth colony.[288]He himself, just on the eve of his return, delivered a memorial discourse in the block-citadel on Fort hill—which was at once church and castle—in which he recited vividly the cause of the emigration, the incidents attending it, the spirit of the actors, and the auguries of the future; and this was printed at London in 1622.[289]
In the dedicatory epistle to this sermon—whose object was to draw the attention of Puritans at home to the advantages of the Plymouth settlement as a residence where the virtues of religion might be more than ordinarily exemplified, as is proved by the fact that it was so speedily published in England—Cushman says: “If there be any who are content to lay out their estates, spend their time, labor, and endeavors for the benefit of those who shall come after, and who desire to further the gospel among the poor heathen, quietly contenting themselves with such hardships as by God’s providence shall fall upon them, such men I should advise and encourage to go to New England, for in that wilderness their ends cannot fail them. And whoso rightly considereth what manner of entrance,abiding, and proceeding we have had among the savages since we came, will easily think that God hath some great work in store for us. By reason of one Squanto, who lives amongst us, who can speak English, we can have daily commerce with the Indian kings; and acquaint them with our causes and purposes, both human and religious.”[290]
Three things, according to Winslow, are the bane and overthrow of plantations: The vain expectation of instantaneous profit, without work; ambition; and the lawlessness of settlers.[291]These rocks long wrecked the prosperity of the American colonies outside of New England. Cushman bade emigrants beware of entertaining the too common error of supposing that the wilderness was an actual Eldorado, as the Spanish had taught, and as the Virginia colonists had imagined.[292]“No,” he said, “neither is there any land or possession now like unto that which the Jews had in Canaan, being legally holy, and appropriated unto holy people, the seed of Abraham, in which they dwelt securely, and had their days prolonged, it being by an immediate voice said, that the Lord gave it to them as a land of rest after their weary travels, and as a type of eternal rest in heaven. But now there is no land of that sanctity, no land so appropriated, none typical,much less any that can be said to be given of God to any one people, as Canaan was, which they and theirs must dwell in till God sendeth upon them sword and captivity. Now we are all, in all places, strangers and pilgrims, travellers and sojourners. Having no dwelling but in this earthly tabernacle, no residence but a wandering, no abiding but a fleeting,”[293]where work makes a home, and labor keeps it.
In a private letter addressed by Edward Winslow to a friend in London, and which helped to swell the budget which went out by the “Fortune,” that stout old worthy says: “We have found the Indians very faithful to their covenant of peace with us, very loving and ready to pleasure us. We often go to them, and they come to us. Some of us have been fifty miles by land into the interior with them, the occasions and relation whereof you shall understand by our general and more full declaration of such things as are worth noting. Yea, it hath pleased God so to possess the Indians with fear of us, and love unto us, that not only the greatest king amongst them, called Massasoit, but also all the princes and tribes round about us have sent their messengers to us to make suit for peace, so that there is now great peace amongst the Indians themselves, which was not formerly, neither would have been but for us; and we, for our part, walk as peaceably and safely in the wood as in the highways in England. We entertain them pleasantly and familiarlyin our cabins, and they as friendly bestow their venison on us. They are a people without any religion, yet trusty, quick of apprehension, ripe—withal just.”[294]
By this same opportunity William Hilton, who had come out in the “Fortune,” thus sums up an account to his “loving cousin” of the natural wealth and prospects of the country on whose soil he had recently set foot: “Better grain cannot be than the Indian corn, if we will plant it upon as good ground as a man may desire. We are all freeholders; the rent-day doth not trouble us; and of all the blessings we have, which and what we list we may take in season. Our company are, for the most part, very honest, religious people. The word of God is sincerely taught us every Sabbath; so that I know not any thing a contented, earnest mind can here want. I desire your friendly care to send my wife and children to me when occasion serves, where I wish all the friends I have in England.”[295]
Winslow gives us some significant hints of the social life and wants of the colony by describing to his friends the stores most needful to send out for their use; and we get no little insight into the hardships and very homely accommodations of the forefathers through the glass of his request that the next ship may “bring paper and linseed oil for the windows, with cotton yarn for the lamps.”[296]
And now, on the 14th of December, 1621, all being ready and leave-taking said, the little “Fortune,” crammed with the “first fruits” of the Pilgrim enterprise, set sail for England. But alas, just as she had almost reached the English coast, she was clutched by a French privateer, robbed of her precious freight, and sent into the Thames an empty hull, to the bitter chagrin of the company of Merchant-adventurers, and the sad disappointment of the Plymouth colonists, when, at a later day, they learned of the misfortune.[297]