Chapter 44

Landing of the Pilgrims--Their Abiding Faith in God's Goodness--The Agreement Signed on the Mayflower--A Winter of Hardship--The Indians Help the Settlers--Improved Conditions--The Colony Buys Its Freedom--Priscilla and John Alden--Their Romantic Courtship and Marriage.

It is usual to celebrate the landing day of the Pilgrim Fathers on the bleak shore of New Plymouth, December 11 (22) 1620, as the beginning of New England. It was an event which richly deserves all the commemoration in song and story and banquet-hall which it has received or ever will receive, but the real and substantial foundation of New England was laid about ten years later, when a numerous and well-to-do body of Puritans, under a charter granted by the crown, formed the colony of Massachusetts Bay. The Pilgrim Fathers were merely a handful in number, and as poor as they were loyal and conscientious. Exiles to Holland, they declined an offer from the Dutch West India Company to accept lands in New Netherland. They wished to remain English, and with the aid of some London merchants whose Puritan sympathies were mingled with a desire for gain, the little community procured the means to sail for "the northern parts of Virginia." The Pilgrims were just as true to King James as the settlers of Jamestown, but they did not intend to join that colony, whose members were attached to the Established Church, so far as they had any religion, and where dissenters would have been ill at ease. At the same time the immigrants in the Mayflower did not intend to land so far north as they did. The wearisome voyage, however, made them anxious to get on shore, the land could not be more inhospitable than the winter sea, and they had an abiding faith in God's goodness and providence which enabled them to face with resolution the hardships and dangers of the northern wilderness. The act which the men of the party signed on the Mayflower, previous to landing, showed that they were determined to have an orderly government. It was the first American constitution, and as such deserves to be remembered: "In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are hereunder written, 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 the 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 of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitution and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod, the 11th of November (O. S.) 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 day of landing was, as already stated, December 11, or according to the new style, December 22. The spot which the Pilgrims selected for settlement was well-watered and promising, and they gave to it the name of the haven where they had taken a final leave of their native land. The winter was fortunately mild, but they had to endure cruel hardships. Their stores were scanty; they had no fishing tackle, and game was not abundant. Fortunately spring came early; but forty-four of the little company succumbed to want and cold, and those who retained their health were hardly equal to the task of nursing the sick and burying the dead. Had the savages been numerous and hostile they could have swept the little settlement out of existence with but small effort; but the country had been wasted not long before by a deadly pestilence and the native tribes were too weak and too much in fear of more powerful enemies of their own race, to make an attack on the strangers. Instead of injuring the newcomers the Indians helped them, brought them game and fish, and taught them how to cultivate corn. In 1623 the colony had, with new arrivals, about one hundred and fifty inhabitants. The first division of land was made this year, and a large crop of corn was harvested. Twelve years after the foundation the people of Plymouth hardly numbered five hundred, and they were soon overshadowed by the large Puritan immigration to Salem and Boston. The poor and struggling settlers of Plymouth did not even have the satisfaction of knowing that the fruits of their toils and sufferings would be their own. They were still bound to the London merchants who had supplied them with the means for emigration, and these partners in the enterprise were impatient of the lack of returns. As the Pilgrims gradually grew better off they were the more anxious to remove the yoke which interfered with their independence, and some members of the community who were richer than the others agreed, in exchange for a monopoly of the Indian trade and the surrender of the accumulated wealth of the colony, to pay its debt to the English shareholders. The colony thus achieved its freedom, and its members were able to proceed in building their settlement according to their own ideas of religion and civil government without restraint from partners who had sought only for worldly profit.

One of the most interesting incidents connected with the early history of the Plymouth Colony was the romantic marriage of Priscilla and John Alden, immortalized in the verse of Longfellow. Captain Miles Standish was a redoubtable soldier, small in person, but of great activity and courage. He came over in the Mayflower, and his wife Rose Standish fell a victim to the privations which attended the first year in America. Another passenger on the Mayflower was Priscilla Mullins, daughter of William Mullins, a maiden of unusual beauty, just blooming into womanhood. The gallant widower fell in love with Priscilla, but for some reason which does not clearly appear, but probably bashfulness, he sent another to do his courting. Standish himself was about thirty-seven years of age, and doubtless showed the effect of his hard service in the wars. Nevertheless, he might have won Priscilla had he gone for her in person, for, as the military leader of the colony, beset as it was by savages who might at any time become hostile, he was a man of importance and desirable for a son-in-law. He made the mistake of choosing as Cupid's messenger a handsome young man named John Alden, a cooper from Southampton, with whom Priscilla was already well acquainted, and with whom she had quite possibly whiled away many hours of the wearisome three months' voyage from old Plymouth. Alden and Priscilla may have been in love with each other already, when Captain Standish sent the youth on his embarrassing mission. Even the rigid rules of Puritanism could not prevent young men and women from falling in love, while their elders were engaged in more sedate occupations. It is to be said for Standish, also, that he evidently did not intend that the young man should state the case to Priscilla, but only to her father. The parent promptly gave his consent, but added that "Priscilla must be consulted." The maiden was called into the room, and a brighter light dawned in her eyes, and a ruddier flush suffused her cheeks, as her gaze met that of the handsome young cooper. John Alden, too, could not remain unaffected, as he repeated his message to the fair young woman, into whose ears he had probably poured sweet nothings many a time while they dreamed, perhaps, of the day when more serious words would be spoken. Priscilla asked why Captain Standish had not come himself. Alden replied that the Captain was too busy. This naturally made the maiden indignant, for she was justified in assuming that no business could be more important than that of asking for her hand. It is also possible that she was glad of an excuse for rejecting the proffered honor. She declared that she would never marry a man who was too busy to court her, adding, in the words of Longfellow:

"Had he waited awhile, had only showed that he loved me, Even this captain of yours--who knows?--at last might have won me, Old and rough as he is, but now it never can happen."

John Alden pressed the suit in behalf of his soldier friend, secretly hoping, it is to be feared, that Priscilla would not take him too much in earnest, when, continues Longfellow:

"Archly the maiden smiled, and with eyes over-running with laughter. Said, in a tremulous voice: 'Why don't you speak for yourself, John?'"

John did not speak for himself--at least not directly, on that occasion, but he did later on, and shortly afterward the marriage of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins was celebrated with all the display that the Plymouth settlers could afford. Captain Standish did not blame Alden, but he did not remain long near the scene of his disappointment, moving, in 1626, to Duxbury, Massachusetts. He lived to a hale old age, respected both for his private virtues and his public services.