If a

should freely offer themselves for the purpose. majority of the Church should elect to depart, the pastor should go with them, but if only a minority, then their tried and trusted friend Elder Brewster should be the Great Heart of their pilgrimage. It was further agreed that if the enterprise turned out a failure, those remaining behind should welcome back the returning voyagers to heart and home; but if it were successful, those going forth should afterwards endeavour to help over such as were poor and ancient and willing to go. These were the decisions arrived at. Night had already closed in upon that short February day ere those prayers and conferences had reached their end. The stars were shining serenely over Leyden city as the brethren left their place of meeting in the Klok-stecg. A new world was opening before them; new hopes and new fears were stirring within them. 'And He brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and He said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the Lord; and He counted it to him for righteousness.'

VII.

THE SAILING OF THE MAYFLOWER.

THE decision of the Leyden brethren to seek a home in the Far West was arrived at in the face of a series of discouragements. To begin with, at the very time they were debating the matter tidings reached them of the disastrous ending of a project similar to their own. In 1618 Francis Blackwell, an elder of the Amsterdam Church, had, with a party under his leadership, set sail for Virginia. Their means being limited their arrangements were defective. A hundred and eighty were stowed away in a vessel far too small for their number. Even before they left Gravesend the streets rang with complaints at the miserable arrangements made for them. Ill-starred from the first, nothing but disaster attended the expedition. Northwest winds drove them out of their course to the south; their fresh water failed; crowded unhealthily together, disease broke out among them, carrying off the captain and six of the crew; having no one left capable of managing the vessel, they drifted aimlessly to and fro, so that it was March, 1619, before they reached Virginia ; when they did arrive Blackwell was dead as well as the captain, and altogether, out of one hundred and eighty who set out, one hundred and thirty perished by the way. Tidings of all this reached Leyden in the early summer, and were not inspiriting to intending emigrants.

Then, too, at the same time a serious crisis had arisen within the Virginia Company itself, which was divided into two hostile factions. The leaders on the one side, who

supported Sir Thomas Smith, who had been treasurer of the company for the last twelve years, were the Earl of Warwick, Sir Nathaniel Rich, and Alderman Johnson; o1. the other side were the Earl of Southampton, Lord Cavendish, and Sir Edward Sackville, who succeeded in making Sir Edwin Sandys treasurer, and displacing Sir Thomas Smith. While this intestine war was raging in the board, nothing, of course, was done to further the Leyden expedition to the West. Meantime, while matters were thus at a standstill in one direction, negotiations were commenced in another. The Dutch traders to Manhattan proposed to Robinson to transport the entire congregation to this trading-post, afterwards known as New York, providing cattle and furnishing protection as long as needed, and leaving the colony to self-government in all its internal affairs. On February 12, 1620, application was made to the Stadtholder, stating the conditions on which 'this English preacher at Leyden' and his people would consent to colonise that country. Their main stipulation was that they should be assured of the protection of the United Provinces; the Amsterdam merchants therefore prayed that such protection should be granted, and that two shipsof-war should be sent out to secure provisionally the lands to the Dutch Government. The matter thus referred to the States-General, after repeated deliberations, was rejected on April 11.2 But we gather from a letter from Robinson to Carver (June 14, 1620), that, on the persuasion of one Thomas Weston, he and his associates had broken off negotiations with the merchants even before the rejection of their overtures by the States-General. Who Weston

The Colonial Papers (ii., 20, 22, &c.) represent in the main the case of Sir E. Sandys; the MSS. in the Duke of Manchester's Collection at Kimbolton Castle represent, but far more in detail, the case of Sir Thomas Smith.

2 Brodhead's History of New York, pp. 123–126.

was we are not told, but it is probable he had sympathy with the Pilgrims in their religious opinions, for Bradford says he was well acquainted with some of them, and had been a furtherer of them in their former proceedings.' He came over to Leyden and offered to find the necessary funds, along with their own means, if the Manhattan idea were dismissed. With this view he associated with himself some seventy English merchants and others, who, as a mercantile speculation, were prepared to take stock in this emigration scheme at £10 a share, on the understanding that at the end of seven years there should be a division between the shareholders and the inhabitants of all the colony's possessions and earnings. On this understanding articles were signed by both parties, and Carver and Cushman were at once sent over into England to receive the money subscribed by the Merchant Adventurers, as Weston's associates came to be called, and to make provision of shipping and all necessaries for the voyage. On their part also the brethren in Leyden who had arranged to emigrate prepared themselves with all speed, selling their goods and estates, putting their money into a common stock, and so making ready to depart when the word was given.

In 1620 the Plymouth Company, which, according to the original charter, had jurisdiction from 45° down to 41°, was revived. In its original form an ally of the Virginia Company, it now came to be a rival. The Merchant Adventurers, associated with the Pilgrims, thinking that New England with its fisheries might be a better field for their enterprise than Virginia, resolved to abandon the patent already obtained, and to get fresh powers from the Plymouth Company. Therefore, on February 12, 1620, the Wincob patent was superseded by one granted to John Pierce, one of the Adventurers, which conferred powers of self-government, and the right to a tract of land

to be selected near the mouth of the Hudson by the planters themselves.

In addition to the emigrants from Leyden the expedition was to be joined by a contingent from England, and one of their number, Christopher Martin, an Essex man, was joined with Carver and Cushman in carrying out the arrangements as their representative. It was against Robinson's advice that Cushman was set over this matter, for, in his opinion, though a good man and of some ability, he was unfit to deal for other men by reason of his singularity, and as a man more facile in talk than fruitful in service. Events proved Robinson to be right in his judgment, for Cushman, on his own responsibility and without consulting with the rest, consented to a fundamental alteration in the terms agreed upon, for the purpose of meeting the views of the Merchant Adventurers. The original agreement was for a seven years' partnership, during which the labour of all the colonists was to be for the common benefit, except that each colonist might reserve two days in the week for his own purposes. By his subsequent private agreement with the Adventurers Cushman surrendered this reservation, so that the whole of the labour of the colonists was to go to the common fund, and he further consented that at the end of seven years everything, houses, lands and goods, should be equally divided between the settlers and the Adventurers. When these terms were made known at Leyden the brethren complained that Cushman had made conditions more fit for thieves and bond-slaves than honest men. On the other hand, he defended himself against their 'many quirimonies and complaints' by reminding them that it was one thing to settle matters among themselves at Leyden, and quite another to make terms with the other side in London. They had reckoned without their host. As to one of the clauses he had consented to alter, Sir George Farrer and his brother