"They sought in western wilds to meet Where freedom winged might raptured roam, TORK $56550 AUX AND WHEN FOUNDATIONS 1946 THE SHIP MAY-FLOWER. The necessary preparations having been made, and the arrangements settled for the voyage to America, two small vessels were purchased, one in Holland, called the "Speedwell," of about sixty tons burthen, the other, called the "May-Flower," of one hundred and eighty tons, which was to await their arrival in England, where they expected to be joined by some others of a like mind with themselves. The "Speedwell" was finally abandoned, and the band of Pilgrims embarked in the "May-Flower," at Plymouth, England, on the 16th of September, upon the voyage which has rendered their vessel and themselves alike immortal. In our day it would be considered somewhat hazardous even with the greater knowledge which we possess of the sea, and the securities which science has enabled us to gather around us, to attempt this ocean voyage in a little and the hazard vessel of the size of the "May-Flower," would be regarded as much enhanced by the clumsiness and apparent unseaworthiness of the craft. But, small as she Maywas, clumsily and tub-like as she was modelled, the " Flower," breasted well the billows of the Atlantic, rode out the fierce north-easters of the equinox, and struggling gallantly onward with her precious freight, finally brought the little band in safety to the destination prepared for them by Providence. Nor was this her only service in the cause of New Eng- In 1629, she was still engaged in crossing between Eng- ony. SOCIAL COMPACT OF THE FOREFATHERS. strangers who were with them had let fall discontented We whose names are under-writen, the loyall subjects of our dread soveraigne Lord King JAMES, by ye grace of God of Great Britaine, Franc & Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, &c., Haveing under-taken for y glorie of God, and advancemente of y Christian faith, and honour of our King & Countrie, a voyage to plant ye first colonie in ye northerne parts of VIRGINIA, doe by these presents solemnly & mutualy in y presence of God and one of another, covenant, & combine our selves togeather into a civill body politick, for our better ordering & preservation, & furtherance of ye ends aforesaid; and by vertue hearof to enacte, constitute and frame such just & equall lawes, ordinances, acts, constitutions, & offices, from time to time, as shalĺ be thought most meete & convenient for ye generall good of ye Colonie; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witnes wherof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cap-Codd y 11 of November, in ye year of ye raigne of our soveraigne Lord King JAMES of England, France & Ireland ye eighteenth, and of Scotland ye fiftie-fourth, Ano Dom. 1620. In alluding to this inimitable agreement, John Quincy Adams has aptly said in his admirable discourse, delivered at Plymouth in December, 1802, "This is perhaps the only compact which speculative philosophers have imagined as instance in human history of that positive original social the only legitimate source of government. Here was a unanimous and personal assent by all the individuals of the community, to the association by which they became a nation. It was the result of circumstances and discussions, which had occurred during their passage from Europe, and is a full demonstration that the nature of civil government, abstracted from the political institutions of their native country, had been an object of their serious meditation. The settlers of all the former European colonies had contented themselves with the powers conferred upon them by their respective charters, without looking beyond the seal of the royal parchment for the measure of their rights and the rule of their duties. The founders of Plymouth had been impelled by the peculiarities of their situation to examine the subject with deeper and more comprehensive research." The names of the signers are not given in Gov. Bradas follow. ford's manuscript, but are believed to have been essentially JOIN CARVER, WILLIAM BRADFORD ISAAC ALLERTON, SAMUEL FULLER, WILLIAM MULLINS, EDWARD TILLEY, JOHN TURNER, GILBERT WINSLOW, EDWARD MARGESON, PETER BROWN, RICHARD BRITTERIGE, JOHN ALLERTON, The first act under this constitution,- for such it was, - was the election, on the day to all intents and purposes, of its adoption, of John Carver to be the Governor of the new colony, an office to which he was re-elected in the fol lowing April, and which he held but for a very short time, as he died a few days after his last election. and in the presence of many citizens, pointed it out as the one on which the Pilgrims had landed, from their own testimony repeatedly given to himself. back the waves of Persian invasion,-nor the slope Not the pass where Leonidas and his companions turned upon which the brave Switzer, Winkelried, gathered into his own breast the sheaf of spears, - -nor the spot where Hampden fell in defence of right,-nor any place famous and hallowed in human story is more worthy to be held, in perpetual remembrance, than this rock upon which were planted the feet of those who brought in themselves the germs of every quality essential to national greatness. The rock was broken in two in an attempt during the Revolution to remove it to the Town Square. The piece represented in the engraving, is now placed in front of Pilgrim Hall, where it is surrounded with a heavy iron railing, upon which are the names of the passengers of the May Flower. The other piece remains in its original site; and the Pilgrim Society is erecting over it a canopy of granite, for the double purpose of enabling it to be seen, and to preserve it. In the year 1620, there stood on the beach of a sandy shore, at the south-eastern curve of Massachusetts Bay, beneath an abrupt ridge facing the sea and some twenty to thirty feet high, a large boulder of greenish granite, upon whose top, sometimes covered by the angry waves driven in before the north-east wind, probably no white man had ever stepped foot. On the 21st of December, a little shallop was steered to the foot of this rock, and upon it climbed, one after another, a small party of emigrants, seeking a home in the wilderness where they might worship God according to the light which he had given them. This sandy shore, then covered with woods, was the shore of Plymouth, the granite boulder was the Forefathers' Rock, and the party of sea-beaten, care-worn emigrants, were a portion of the Pilgrim Fathers. He who now reading their strange and eventful history, cannot see the finger of God tracing the course of this people, leading them through weary wanderings to this place of rest, and separating them from evil and troublesome companions by guiding them to this apparently inhospitable shore, must, indeed, be blind; and he who among their descendants can attempt to turn their trials and misfortunes into ridicule, or speak with irreverence, even of the spot made immortal by the mark of their footsteps, is not without the cold heart and the shallow brain of the scoffer. It was natural that the Pilgrims should themselves regard the rock merely as having been the place where they landed, and that their immediate descendants, with the cares of a new country upon their minds and hands, should have dwelt but little upon the hallowed associations which were gathering around it. Yet we find that in 1741, when it was proposed to build a wharf near the rockwhose position had been up to that time undisturbedElder Thomas Faunce, who was born in 1646, fearing that the rock might be injured, expressed great uneasiness; JOHN CARVER. The first notice we have of John Carver, in the history of the Pilgrims, is at the time when they had determined, if possible, to settle somewhere by themselves in the territory of the Virginia Company, and endeavor to obtain from King James a special dispensation of religious liberty for themselves and their descendants, and Carver and Cushman, who are represented as influential members of the congregation, were sent to England to negotiate with the company. Carver was, at this time, a Deacon of the Church, - he took an active part in all the arrangements for the voyage and settlement, -was one of the passengers in the "MayFlower," and, upon the signing of the social compact, was elected governor of the colony. Shortly after the departure of the "May-Flower" for England, which occurred on the 15th of April, 1621, Governor Carver, who had been at work in the field, came home complaining greatly of his head. In a few hours he became speechless and insensible, and died after a short illness, to the inexpressible grief of the colonists, who attributed his death to mental anxiety and exhaustion occasioned by his ceaseless labors for the common good. His wife died but a few weeks afterwards. Bradford, whose faithfulness to the cause had been abundantly proved through the whole season of their trials and sufferings, was chosen to succeed him, with Isaac Allerton as his assistant. Among the few memorials of the Pilgrims, preserved in Pilgrim Hall, is the chair of Governor Carver, represented above. ["Behold the little Mayflower, rounding now the southern Cape of England, filled with husbands, and wives, and children, families of righteous men, under 'covenant with God and each other,' to 'lay some good foundation for religion,' engaged both to make and to keep their own laws, expecting to supply their own wants, and bear their own burdens, assisted by none but the God in whom they trusted. Here are the hands of industry! the germs of liberty! the dear pledges of order! and the sacred beginDr. Bushnell's Address, at New nings of a home! York, Dec. 22, 1849.] " TOWN HALL, BOSTON, ENGLAND. TRIBUTE TO THE PILGRIM FATHERS. The late Hon. John C. Calhoun, in his letter to the New England Society Committee at Washington, declining their invitation to a dinner on the anniversary of Fore causes has so inconsiderable a beginning, under such formfather's Day, thus speaks of the Pilgrims:- By what idable, and apparently almost insurmountable difficulties, resulted in so brief a period in such mighty consequences? They are to be found in the high moral and intellectual qualities of the Pilgrims. Their faith, piety, and confident trust in a Superintending Providence; their stern virtues; their patriotic love of liberty and order; their devotion to learning; and their indomitable courage and perseverance. These are the causes which have surmounted every obstacle, and led to such mighty results." BOSTON CHURCH, LINCOLNSHIRE, ENGLAND. The Church of St. Botolph, in Boston, was given to the great Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary, in York, by Alan Rufus, Earl of Brittany, in the reign of William the Conqueror, and, after several changes, became the property of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, in the reign of Edward IV. The first stone of the foundation of the tower, the great feature of the church, was laid upon the Monday after the Feast of St. John the Baptist, in the year 1309, being the third year of the reign of Edward II., by Dame Margery Tilney, who gave, at that time, £5 sterling to the work. The church was completed in the reign of Henry VII., and is considered the finest parish church in England. The tower is about two hundred and sixty-three feet high, terminated by a very beautiful octagon lantern. This lantern was formerly lighted at night, and served not only as a landmark at sea, but to enable travellers crossing the fens and marshes of Lincolnshire to guide their courses aright, -as the original steeple of Bow Church in Cheapside, was "furnished nightly with five lanterns, that those approaching London might the better find their way." The interior of the church is vast and imposing, but it has in the progress of time been shorn of much of its original beauty. The windows were originally filled with stained glass, of which none now remains, and all the more delicate ornaments throughout the church have been defaced or entirely destroyed. In August, 1856, was commenced the work of restoring The old town of Boston, Lincolnshire, has many claims to the remembrance of the sons of the Pilgrims. Here a portion of the church, and especially the South-west they came first to take passage to Holland, and met with Chapel, which had become very much dilapidated, - and their first misadventure,- here, notwithstanding the en- the citizens of Boston, New England, in grateful rememmity of king and bishops, they found many sympathizing brance of the connection of the Rev. John Cotton with St. friends, even the magistrates feeling and acting in their Botolph's, of which he was Vicar previous to his emigrabehalf; in the old Town Hall, Brewster, Bradford, and tion to America, contributed £670 towards the expenses of their companions, were examined before the magistrates, restoration. An interesting account of the ceremonies at and bound over to the assizes, probably to permit them to the inauguration of the restored chapel, with a description escape;-and here they left at their departure the seeds of the work itself, appeared at the time in the "Illustrated London News," from which is copied below the address of of the colony which was to follow them in a few years, and found at the head of Massachusetts Bay the new Bos- the Vicar to the Hon. G. M. Dallas, then American Minton, which has now so far outstripped in population, and ister to England, with a portion of his remarks in reply:fame, its ancient mother town. At the time of the flight of the Pilgrims to Holland, To the Hon. G. M. Dallas, Minister of the United States: We receive, also, with much pleasure, within these ancient walls, the memorial of a former Vicar of this parish, The Town Hall is a quaint building, in the last style of who, in the Providence of God, became one of the settlers Gothic architecture, now rapidly going to decay. Num- of New England, and the founders of a city which bears our name; and we gratefully recognize, in this generous bers of old buildings, some of wood, others of brick with stone dressings, quaint high-pointed gables, and steep compliment which has been paid to us by his descendants roofs, show the influence of Dutch trade and taste, and and countrymen, proof of that kindly affection which has so suggest the appearance of the town when our forefathers, long existed between the two Bostons, and a renewed pledge with their wives and families, were marched through the (as we believe) of that international friendship which our common parentage binds us to maintain. streets, the victims of the Court of High Commission, exposed as a spectacle to the multitude who came from all sides to behold them." That such affection may be increased a hundredfold, and perpetuated to generations yet unborn, and that the Anglo-Saxon race, to which we alike belong, may rise to that high and holy destiny which the God of Nations seems to have appointed for them as the conservatives of the peace and liberties of the world, is our ardently cherished wish, and will continue to be our earnest prayer. JOHN ELSAM, Mayor G. B. BLENKIN, Vicar. Mr. Dallas replied as follows:-"Mr. Mayor, Reverend Sir, and Gentlemen of the Committee: The repair of this chapel, as a memorial of the Rev. John Cotton, you have ascribed to the generous sympathies of a number of my countrymen. Hence it is that my presence is deemed appropriate, to represent, in some sort, the American contributors; to accept, on their behalf, the acknowledgments of the parishioners of St. Botolph; and to recognise the moral ties which bind in fraternal eling the two Bostons of Lincolnshire and Massachusetts. Agreeably to your authentic annals, this ancient borough furnished, soon after the Pilgrims of the May-Flower landed on Plymouth Rock, more of her best citizens for Transatlantic colonization than any other town in England; and, in furnishing, as she did, in 1633, a man so eminent for his ability and attainments and so resolute in his civil and religious opinions, as John Cotton, she gave a specially vigorous and wholesome impulse to the newly-started community; of which its present generation gratefully desire to perpetuate the memory. When John Cotton, dissenting from the discipline, not the doctrines, of his church withdrew from its vicarage, which he had occupied for twenty-one years, and sought his favorite "Christian Liberty" on a soil yet tenanted by savages, he was welcomed with open arms, and affectionately received by the Pilgrim Villagers of Ishmut, at the head of Massachusetts Bay descent from this magnificent pile was to the humble mud and straw enclosure of his meeting-shed. His fervid and fearless genius made of that little lecture room a focus whence radiated the glowing beams of spiritual freedom. Indeed, the rapid growth of the whole region attests the power and purity of the seed first sown, and irresistibly proves the virtuous zeal and energy with which he and his associates worked at the foundation of an empire. -I touch on this without going further, and only as explanatory why Ishmut relinquished its Indian name, preferring yours, and why the citizens of that now opulent and refined metropolis naturally press forward, as soon as permitted, with the tributes of a just and honorable gratitude." An elegant brass tablet is affixed to the wall beneath the eastern arch, bearing a Latin inscription from the classical pen of the Hon. Edward Everett. THE PILGRIMS OF THE MAY-FLOWER. The fact that a large portion of the pilgrims were young men and women, with their children, and young people unmarried, should not be overlooked. A number of them were under twenty, and few only had more than reached the forlorn-hope that storms the fortress, and perthe meridian of life. Ardent, full of hope, they led the way, ishes in the attempt. They opened the gates to this broad and rich domain. They saw the land of promise, but fell as their feet touched its borders, or ere any of them had long been permitted to enjoy those civil and religious institutions of which they planted the seed, while over their neglected dust a crowding population has gone up to take possession of every valley and hill-top. Have these men and women, that thus periled all, and thus fell in the very flower of their life, no claim on our grateful remembrance? Have they no claim on the young men and young women of this day? Is it not fitting that some monumental pile should be placed where they landed, - where, too, they fell, and where their dust still reposes, -a structure worthy of such men of such women, and of such sacrifices, and on which shall be inscribed their names? Is it not fitting that the young men and young women of this age should place their names within this structure, that coming generations may know who willing-aly contributed to this end, in grateful remembrance of the the sacrifices and sufferings, and to commemorate the early death of those Pilgrims of the May-Flower?" In the opinion of not a few persons, they were a set of stern, bigoted, and intolerant men, who fled from persecution in their native land to become the persecutors of others weaker than themselves. But nothing can be farther from the truth. The pilgrims of the May-Flower were a company of men and gentle women, with their children, large portion of them young men and women, between twenty and thirty years of age when they left England for Holland, where they remained some twelve years, and then embarked for the New World. In number about one hundred, they left Delfthaven, August 1, 1620, and, after several delays on the coast of England, they reached that of New England (then known as Northern Virginia), near the beginning of winter. The work of exploring the coast for a suitable landing place was attended with peril, from the climate and the Indians, and occupied many days. A company sent out for this purpose in an open boat found themselves in a storm of snow and rain, the sea rough, their rudder gone, their mast broken in three parts, overtaken by one of the darkest of December nights, under the lee of a small island in Plymouth harbor. Here the Sabbath found them, but they were not the men to pursue their explorations on that day. They rested, and for the first time the silence of the New England wilderness was broken by the voice of Christian worship and a Christian Sabbath. At length the landing was effected on the 21st of Decem-nation. ber, 1620. That EVENT is the parent of all the other events in our national history, which we commemorate by monumental structures or by annual festivities. In cherishing and honoring the children, then, let us not be unmindful of so worthy a parent. from exposure, Does any one say, "I am too far removed from Plymouth to feel much interest in this monument enterprise?" But are you removed beyond the benefits-the inestimable privileges, civil and religious, which are daily flowing and spreading wider and wider through the land, from the principles upon which the Pilgrims founded their Commonwealth? What has distance to do with the question? It is not merely for the people of Plymouth, of Massasachusetts, of New England, but of the Nation, without distinction of sect or party, to be interested in this_great work, and to aid in bringing it to its completion. Wherever intelligent Faith, with her open Bible, and pointing heavenward; wherever Morality, Education, Law, and Liberty are recognized and cherished in this land, there should be found liberal contributors to the erection of a structure which shall be an honor to the Pilgrims, an honor to the contributors, and an honor to the age and us now these twelve years, and yet we never had any suit or accusa- Having landed, the work of preparing some means There are at least two sorts of people to whom the world owe most of their misconceptions in this matter; and it so happens that they are sentimentalist, whose interest in the children of the forest,' and their persons with whom historical facts have little or no weight. One is the feather-cinctured chief,' is merely a poetic fancy or fervor, which canfield, a stone-mortar and pestle into a grist-mill, and a birch-bark canoe not endure the idea of turning an Indian hunting-ground into a corninto a steamboat (and a squalid wigwam into a refined and Christian dwelling.] Another is the ultra-philanthropist, whose humanity is of a the murderer hung: and who must, therefore, from principle and conscience and consistency, condemn the man-especially the Christian texture to be less shocked at seeing a neighbor murdered, than at seeing man who shoots down a savage, when he might avoid the necessity ever their bearing, can have no influence on either of these classes, so by permitting himself to be tomahawked first. Historical facts, whatsupplanted the red." long as it still remains an admitted fact that the white man has actually James Otis used the following language to Governor Barnard, in 1767. "The Indians had perfect confidence in our Fathers, and applied or humanity required. We glory in their conduct; we boast of it as unto them in all their difficulties. Nothing has been omitted which justice exampled." *It may be proper to cite, in this connection, a small portion of the The testimony of the Dutch nagistrates as to the character of the To the above may be added the following from John Quincy Adams, on the New England Confederacy:-"The whole territory of New comers, and the Indian title was extinguished by compact, fulfilling the England was thus purchased, for valuable consideration, by the new law of justice between man and man. The most eminent writer on the the natural right of the indigenous natives of the country. It is from respect to our forefathers, for their rigid observance, in this respect, of the example of the New England Puritans that he draws the preceptive rule, and he awards to them merited honors for having established it." |
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