CAPE COD AND ABOUT THERE

 

 

 

 

 

ON the ninth of November, amid great rejoicing, land was sighted -- a flat but well-wooded coast coming down to the sea, "covered with oak, pine, juniper, and sassafras."

The captain said he thought the land was Cape Cod. What he should have said was, he knew it to be Cape Cod, and that he had in fact shaped his course for it.

This accusation carries considerable weight with it, as it is well known that the Dutch intended to plant a colony at Manhattan Island, and it is presumed that the master of the Mayflower was coerced by them to keep his ship north of that point.

 

 

 

At the time this was not suspected, however, and the same day the ship was apparently headed southward so as to round the cape, but after trying for some hours to accomplish this they found themselves among the shoals and currents off the highlands, so they returned to calm water before nightfall. Then followed a serious conference. The southern passage was dangerous, the season late, and disease had broken out among the passengers, hence they concluded to abandon all further attempts to voyage southward.

With a sense of relief they came to this decision, and finding themselves once more in harbor,

 

 

 

The Virginia company had no territorial rights over the lands bordering upon Cape Cod Bay, and the patent which the settlers possessed had none, hence, under the circumstances, there was danger of disorder and malcontent arising; this was, however, precluded by the following compact signed by the adult of the company in the cabin of the Mayflower, and which afterward became the basis of the constitution of the infant colony:

 

"In the name of God, amen. We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland, King, defender of the faith, etc., having undertaken, for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our King and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic for our better preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue thereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, and offices from time to time as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony, into which we promise all due submission and obedience.

 

 

In witness whereof, we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape Cod, the 11th November, in the year of the reign of our sovereign lord, King James of England, France and Ireland the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, anno domini 1620.

 

 

The voyagers originally intended settling in the northern part of the Virginia colony, as by the agreement, signed on board the Mayflower before leaving the old world:

 

 

"We whose names are underwritten being undertaken, for the glory of God and the advancement of Christian faith and honour of our King and country, a voyage to plant a colony in the northern part of Virginia."

Hence, so far as they then knew, they may have supposed that they were in that neighborhood when they first sighted land.

The greatest strength that the charge against the commander gains, is in the fact that the Dutch were desirous of retaining the region around Manhattan Island for their exclusive occupation ; hence the charge that he was not to sail his ship south of Vineyard Sound.

 

 

The region round about Cape Cod was by no means entirely unknown in 1620. Mariners from England were already engaged in the Newfoundland and off-shore fisheries, Verrazano had already been here, and likewise Gosnold, who first gave name to Cape Cod on account of the abundance of codfish to be taken in the adjacent waters.

In 1604 a French explorer, Sieur de Montes, set sail with four vessels from Havre de Grace with Champlain, already famous for his New World discoveries, as pilot. The expedition discovered what was afterward known as Plymouth Bay and Harbor, a locality which was subsequently mapped in detail by Champlain.

Hendrik Hudson, then in the employ of the East India Company, skirted the adjacent coast in 1608, landing on the extreme end of Cape Cod, but not entering the bay.

 

 

Captain John Smith, famous in history and romance alike, on account of his exploits in Virginia, after his return therefrom to England, set sail again with a small company in two ships "to take whales and to mine for gold and copper." First making land at Monhegan, in what was afterward the Maine Province, Smith anchored his vessel, and set sail in shallops southward to Cape Cod, mapping the region between from point to point and from inlet to inlet.

Smith returned to England and submitted a copy of his new map to Prince Charles, his patron, who afterward reigned as Charles I., and who gave the nomenclature to some of the principal features -- the Charles River, after himself, and Cape Anne, a spur of land a few leagues north, in remembrance of his mother, Anne of Denmark.

Nearly two years before the landing of the Pilgrims Captain Thomas Dermer, a navigator already familiar with the locality, and who had previously explored the near-by waters, suggested in his correspondence to his employer, Sir Fernando Gorges, that a plantation be settled here. This may possibly account for the allusion to the duplicity of the commander of the Mayflower as having steered his craft away from a course that would fetch them off Manhattan Island, or the mouth of the Hudson River, already viewed by the Dutch as a likely place for settlement.

 

 

It is doubtful if the charge is true, but it is also possible that various influences were brought to bear toward inducing the Pilgrims to form a settlement at this point.

Prince Charles also suggested the name of New Plymouth for the settlement, which was a duplicate merely of the name of the English seaport at the mouth of the River Plim.

The list of names of the one hundred and two souls that formed the company is here given. They were gathered together in groups or families by those ties of kinship or intimacy under which they had previously lived, the better to serve their common ends and for the sake of Christian unity.

 

 

The servants, so frequently referred to in the records of the Pilgrims, were undoubtedly not menials, but were those who served individual members or families or the company in the various capacities which were necessary to their self-government or in posts of honor or responsibility. It is not to be presumed that the term was used opprobriously, for the very tenets of their agreement were for equality and co-operation for a common end, although we know that some more learned than others were naturally held in the highest esteem and formed the heads of their councils.

They were all, however, of a common flesh and blood, and to their associates only, the crew of the Mayflower, could the slightest criticism of adverse character or coarseness be applied. The crew particularly were rough, brutal, and blasphemous, even during the times of great peril on the voyage, and the captain himself was of a selfish and unsympathetic nature, and, the charge against him of complicity with the Dutch being true, he was undoubtedly corrupt.

 

 

The only apparent internal troubles and bickerings up to this time were caused by these conditions alone, hence so magnificent it was that they were able to hold together and allay all spirit of doubt that had so often arisen.

List of names of the company who made the voyage on the  Mayflower, 1620:

 

 

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