Part 3

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 30/Sept. 9 At anchor in Plymouth roadstead off the Barbican. Transferring passengers and lading from consort, lying near by. Weather fine.

THURSDAY, Aug. 31/Sept. 10 At anchor in Plymouth roadstead. Transferring cargo from SPEEDWELL.

FRIDAY, Sept. 1/Sept. 11 At anchor in Plymouth roadstead. Transferring passengers and freight to and from consort. Master Cushman and family, Master Blossom and son, William Ring, and others with children, going back to London in SPEEDWELL. All Of SPEEDWELL'S passengers who are to make the voyage now aboard. New "governour" of ship and assistants chosen. Master Carver "governour."

SATURDAY, Sept. 2/Sept. 12 At anchor, Plymouth roadstead. Some of principal passengers entertained ashore by friends of their faith. SPEEDWELL sailed for London. Quarters assigned, etc.

SUNDAY, Sept. 3/Sept. 13 At anchor in Plymouth roadstead.

MONDAY, Sept. 4/Sept. 14 At anchor in Plymouth roadstead. Some Of company ashore.

TUESDAY, Sept. 5/Sept. 15 At anchor in Plymouth roadstead. Ready for sea.

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 6/Sept. 16 Weighed anchor. Wind E.N.E., a fine gale. Laid course W.S.W. for northern coasts of Virginia.

THURSDAY, Sept. 7/Sept. 17 Comes in with wind E.N.E. Light gale continues. Made all sail on ship.

FRIDAY, Sept. 8/Sept. 18 Comes in with wind E.N.E. Gale continues. All sails full.

SATURDAY, Sept. 9/Sept. 19 Comes in with wind E.N E. Gale holds. Ship well off the land.

SUNDAY, Sept. 10/Sept. 20 Comes in with wind E.N.E. Gale holds. Distance lost, when ship bore up for Plymouth, more than regained.

MONDAY, Sept. 11/Sept. 21 Same; and so without material change, the daily record of wind, weather, and the ship's general course--the repetition of which would be both useless and wearisome-- continued through the month and until the vessel was near half the seas over. Fine warm weather and the "harvest-moon." The usual equinoctial weather deferred.

SATURDAY, Sept. 23/Oct. 3 One of the seamen, some time sick with a grievous disease, died in a desperate manner. The first death and burial at sea of the voyage.

Dr. Griffis (The Pilgrims in their Three Homes, p. 176) says "The Puritans [does this mean Pilgrims ?] cared next to nothing about ceremonies over a corpse, whether at wave or grave." This will hardly bear examination, though Bradford's phraseology in this case would seem to support it, as he speaks of the body as "thrown overboard;" yet it is not to be supposed that it was treated quite so indecorously as the words would imply. It was but a few years after, certainly, that we find both Pilgrim and Puritan making much ceremony at burials. We find considerable ceremony at Carver's burial only a few months later. Choate, in his masterly oration at New York, December 22, 1863, pictures Brewster's service at the open grave of one of the Pilgrims in March, 1621.]

A sharp change. Equinoctial weather, followed by stormy westerly gales; encountered cross winds and continued fierce storms. Ship shrewdly shaken and her upper works made very leaky. One of the main beams in the midships was bowed and cracked. Some fear that the ship could not be able to perform the voyage. The chief of the company perceiving the mariners to fear the sufficiency of the ship (as appeared by their mutterings) they entered into serious consultation with the Master and other officers of the ship, to consider, in time, of the danger, and rather to return than to cast themselves into a desperate and inevitable peril.

There was great distraction and difference of opinion amongst the mariners themselves. Fain would they do what would be done for their wages' sake, being now near half the seas over; on the other hand, they were loath to hazard their lives too desperately. In examining of all opinions, the Master and others affirmed they knew the ship to be strong and firm under water, and for the buckling bending or bowing of the main beam, there was a great iron scrue the passengers brought out of Holland which would raise the beam into its place. The which being done, the carpenter and Master affirmed that a post put under it, set firm in the lower deck, and otherwise bound, would make it sufficient. As for the decks and upper works, they would caulk them as well as they could; and though with the working of the ship they would not long keep staunch, yet there would otherwise be no great danger if they did not overpress her with sails. So they resolved to proceed.

In sundry of these stormes, the winds were so fierce and the seas so high, as the ship could not bear a knot of sail, but was forced to hull drift under bare poles for divers days together. A succession of strong westerly gales. In one of the heaviest storms, while lying at hull, [hove to D.W.] a lusty young man, one of the passengers, John Howland by name, coming upon some occasion above the gratings latticed covers to the hatches, was with the seel of the ship thrown into the sea, but caught hold of the topsail halliards, which hung overboard and ran out at length; yet he held his hold, though he was sundry fathoms under water, till he was hauled up by the same rope to the brim of the water, and then with a boathook and other means got into the ship again and his life saved. He was something ill with it.

The equinoctial disturbances over and the strong October gales, the milder, warmer weather of late October followed.

Mistress Elizabeth Hopkins, wife of Master Stephen Hopkins, of Billericay, in Essex, was delivered of a son, who, on account of the circumstances of his birth, was named Oceanus, the first birth aboard the ship during the voyage.

A succession of fine days, with favoring winds.

MONDAY Nov. 6/16 William Butten; a youth, servant to Doctor Samuel Fuller, died. The first of the passengers to die on this voyage.

MONDAY Nov. 7/17 The body of William Butten committed to the deep. The first burial at sea of a passenger, on this voyage.

MONDAY Nov. 8/18 Signs of land.

MONDAY Nov. 9/19 Closing in with the land at nightfall. Sighted land at daybreak. The landfall made out to be Cape Cod the bluffs [in what is now the town of Truro, Mass.]. After a conference between the Master of the ship and the chief colonists, tacked about and stood for the southward. Wind and weather fair. Made our course S.S.W., continued proposing to go to a river ten leagues south of the Cape Hudson's River. After had sailed that course about half the day fell amongst dangerous shoals and foaming breakers [the shoals off Monomoy] got out of them before night and the wind being contrary put round again for the Bay of Cape Cod. Abandoned efforts to go further south and so announced to passengers.

SATURDAY Nov. 11/21 Comes in with light, fair wind. On course for Cape Cod harbor, along the coast. Some hints of disaffection among colonists, on account of abandonment of location

The fact seems rather to be, as noted, that age--not social status was the determining factor as to all otherwise eligible. It is evident too, that the fact was recognized by all parties (by none so clearly as by Master Jones) that they were about to plant themselves on territory not within the jurisdiction of their steadfast friends, the London Virginia Company, but under control of those formerly of the Second (Plymouth) Virginia Company, who (by the intelligence they received while at Southampton) they knew would be erected into the "Council for the Affairs of New England." Goodwin is in error in saying (Pilgrim Republic, p. 62), "Neither did any other body exercise authority there;" for the Second Virginia Company under Sir Ferdinando Gorges, as noted, had been since 1606 in control of this region, and only a week before the Pilgrims landed at Cape Cod (i.e. on November 3) King James had signed the patent of the Council for New England, giving them full authority over all territory north of the forty-first parallel of north latitude, as successors to the Second Virginia Company. If the intention to land south of the forty-first parallel had been persisted in, there would, of course, have been no occasion for the Compact, as the patent to John Pierce (in their interest) from the London Virginia Company would have been in force. The Compact became a necessity, therefore, only when they turned northward to make settlement above 41 deg. north latitude. Hence it is plain that as no opportunity for "faction"--and so no occasion for any "Association and Agreement"--existed till the MAY- FLOWER turned northward, late in the afternoon of Friday, November to, the Compact was not drawn and presented for signature until the morning of Saturday, November 11. Bradford's language, "This day, before we came into harbour," leaves no room for doubt that it was rather hurriedly drafted--and also signed--before noon of the 11th. That they had time on this winter Saturday--hardly three weeks from the shortest day in the year--to reach and encircle the harbor; secure anchorage; get out boats; arm, equip, and land two companies of men; make a considerable march into the land; cut firewood; and get all aboard again before dark, indicates that they must have made the harbor not far from noon. These facts serve also to correct another error of traditional Pilgrim history, which has been commonly current, and into which Davis falls (Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth, p. 60), viz. that the Compact was signed "in the harbor of Cape Cod." It is noticeable that the instrument itself simply says, "Cape Cod," not "Cape Cod harbour," as later they were wont to say. The leaders clearly did not mean to get to port till there was a form of law and authority.]

for settlement on territory under the protection of the patent granted in their interest to John Pierce, by the London Virginia Company.