CHAPTER IX.

THE EMIGRATION TO HOLLAND.

As

S has been explained, no practicable alternative remained to the Scrooby church but to depart from England. As Bradford puts it, they were "constrained to leave their native soyle and countrie, their lands & livings, and all their freinds & famillier acquaintance." Yet, although they could not stay, they were not allowed to emigrate freely. The legal and ecclesiastical authorities interposed every possible hindrance, not hesitating to employ trickery and even actual force. No description can be more suggestive than the pathetic language which Bradford used years afterwards when narrating their experience :

Though they could not stay, yet were ye not suffered to goe, but ye ports & havens were shut

against them, soe as they were faine to seeke secrete means of conveance, & to bribe & fee ye mariners, & give exterordinarie rates for their passages. And yet were they often times betrayed (many of them), and both they & their goods intercepted & surprised, and therby put to great trouble & charge.1

For example, in 1607 a large number of them hired a ship, intending to sail from some place agreed upon but now unknown near Boston on the Lincolnshire coast. Of course it would not have been safe to embark in the town. The master settled with them upon the day and the place of embarkation. But he failed to keep the appointment and a long delay ensued, which caused them heavy expense and of course serious anxiety. At last he did appear in the nighttime and took them and their goods aboard, but only to betray them. He had connived with the authorities for their capture. The officers promptly arrested them. They were put into open boats and taken ashore, their

persons, even those of the women, being searched with gross indignities. Stripped of money, books, and much other property, they were carried back into the town through inquisitive crowds, taken before the magistrates, and then imprisoned.

It is pleasant to be told that the magistrates "used them courteously, and shewed them what favour they could," although having no power to release them. The case had to be laid before the lords of the council, so settled was the policy of the government not to allow even peaceable and otherwise inoffensive persons to disregard the statutes requiring conformity, and, there being then neither telegraphs nor the modern postal service, messengers had to be employed, no matter how long the accused remained in prison awaiting trial. They were kept in jail for a whole month and then, although their lordships of the council dismissed the greater part of them, seven of the leaders were continued in prison and bound over for

further trial at the next assizes.

Who these seven were is not stated, but Brewster was one,2 and there can be little doubt that Robinson and Bradford also were among them. It is stated that those set at liberty were "sent to ye places from whence they came." Probably they had no other alternative but to return sadly to Scrooby, or wherever else they had lived, and try to resume their former life. as best they could, while waiting to see what new hope the future might afford.

They were not daunted, however, and in the spring of the next year, 1608, they made another attempt. Their seven leaders appear to have been again free. Apparently distrusting their own countrymen, they this time engaged at Hull a Dutch captain from Zeland. They told him their pitiable history frankly, "hoping to find more faithfullnes in him, then in ye former of their owne nation," and he promised to be loyal to them. Between Grimsby and Hull, on the bay formed by

the mouth of the Humber, they knew of a lonely stretch of shore, "a large comone a good way distante from any towne." There this captain agreed to meet and embark them. Thither, therefore, they sent the women and children the previous day in a small vessel, the men planning to follow by land. The little vessel with its precious load reached the rendezvous, but the roughness of the sea had made the passengers ill, so that the vessel was run for shelter into a small creek, where she grounded at low tide. The next morning the Dutch captain appeared, as agreed, but the transfer of passengers could not be made until high tide, about noon.

Meanwhile the men of the company came. The shipmaster sent his boats to embark them, but as soon as the first boatload had been shipped the work had to be abandoned. There appeared “a greate company, both horse & foote, with bills & gunes, & other weapons; for ye countrie was raised to take them." Whether the