REINFORCEMENT.
“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 the wilderness 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 than half 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 dignified reply 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 familiarly in 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]