The Mayflower and Her Log

Mayflower and Her Log,
Complete, by Azel Ames

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Title: The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete
Author: Azel Ames
Release Date: October 6, 2006 [EBook #4107]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
MAYFLOWER AND LOG ***

Produced by David Widger

THE MAY-FLOWER AND HER LOG
July 15, 1620--May 6, 1621 Chiefly from Original Sources
By AZEL AMES, M.D. Member of Pilgrim Society, etc.

"Next to the fugitives whom Moses led out of Egypt, the little shipload
of outcasts who landed at Plymouth are destined to influence the future
of the world." JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

INTRODUCTORY
O civilized humanity, world-wide, and especially to the descendants of
the Pilgrims who, in 1620, laid on New England shores the foundations
of that civil and religious freedom upon which has been built a refuge
for the oppressed of every land, the story of the Pilgrim "Exodus" has
an ever-increasing value and zest. The little we know of the inception,
development, and vicissitudes of their bold scheme of colonization in
the American wilderness only serves to sharpen the appetite for more.
Every detail and circumstance which relates to their preparations; to the
ships which carried them; to the personnel of the Merchant Adventurers
associated with them, and to that of the colonists themselves; to what
befell them; to their final embarkation on their lone ship,--the immortal
MAY-FLOWER; and to the voyage itself and to its issues, is vested
to-day with, a supreme interest, and over them all rests a glamour
peculiarly their own.
For every grain of added knowledge that can be gleaned concerning the
Pilgrim sires from any field, their children are ever grateful, and
whoever can add a well-attested line to their all-too-meagre annals is
regarded by them, indeed by all, a benefactor.
Of those all-important factors in the chronicles of the "Exodus,"--the
Pilgrim ships, of which the MAY-FLOWER alone crossed the
seas,--and of the voyage itself, there is still but far too little known. Of
even this little, the larger part has not hitherto been readily accessible,
or in form available for ready reference to the many who eagerly seize
upon every crumb of new-found data concerning these pious and
intrepid Argonauts.

To such there can be no need to recite here the principal and familiar
facts of the organization of the English "Separatist" congregation under
John Robinson; of its emigration to Holland under persecution of the
Bishops; of its residence and unique history at Leyden; of the broad
outlook of its members upon the future, and their resultant
determination to cross the sea to secure larger life and liberty; and of
their initial labors to that end. We find these Leyden Pilgrims in the
early summer of 1620, their plans fairly matured and their agreements
between themselves and with their merchant associates practically
concluded, urging forward their preparations for departure; impatient of
the delays and disappointments which befell, and anxiously seeking
shipping for their long and hazardous voyage.
It is to what concerns their ships, and especially that one which has
passed into history as "the Pilgrim bark," the MAY-FLOWER, and to
her pregnant voyage, that the succeeding chapters chiefly relate. In
them the effort has been made to bring together in sequential relation,
from many and widely scattered sources, everything germane that
diligent and faithful research could discover, or the careful study and
re-analysis of known data determine. No new and relevant item of fact
discovered, however trivial in itself, has failed of mention, if it might
serve to correct, to better interpret, or to amplify the scanty though
priceless records left us, of conditions, circumstances, and events which
have meant so much to the world.
As properly antecedent to the story of the voyage of the
MAY-FLOWER as told by her putative "Log," albeit written up long
after her boned lay bleaching on some unknown shore, some pertinent
account has been given of the ship herself and of her "consort," the
SPEEDWELL; of the difficulties attendant on securing them; of the
preparations for the voyage; of the Merchant Adventurers who had
large share in sending them to sea; of their officers and crews; of their
passengers and lading; of the troubles that assailed before they had
"shaken off the land," and of the final consolidation of the passengers
and lading of both ships upon the MAY-FLOWER, for the belated
ocean passage. The wholly negative results of careful search render it
altogether probable that the original journal