The States and Union. [volume] (Ashland, Ohio) 1868-1872, 1870-05-04
.NO5.43.

! tom. Fortunately too, Brewster, Rob-
inson, Clifford, Bradford and other
influential persons of the company re-
manned in England. and through their
exertions the little congregation found
their way to Holland, and the distract
ed families were reunited. Brewster
and Robinson, it appears, like the
faithful captain and mate of a ship,
would not leave England until the
last of the company were embarked.
In Holland, as Bradford eloquently
says, the poor pilgrims saw ''fair and
beautiful cities, flowing with abundance
of all sorts of wealth and riches" but
in those riches these English farmers
had no part; and sit was not long be-
fore they saw the grim and gristly
face of poverty coming upon them
like an armed man, with whom they
must buckle and encounter, and from
whom they could not fly"
But they went to work, like men of
sense, at whatever honest thing they
could find to do. At. Leyden, where
they settled, Robinson. their minister
wrote and translated books; Brewster
gave lessons in English to the students
of the University; Bradford became
a silk weaver, and, by and by, when
he came of age, he sold his Inheritance
in England, and invested it in the silk
business. He prospered so well that
he married in Holland, and was able
to contribute something to the assis-
tance of his pooer brethren. Others
of the congregation hatters; Others
workers in wool; and some engaged
in more lsborious mechanical trades.
When, twelve years after settling in
Holland, the pilgrims emigrated to
Plymouth in Massachusetts, Bradford
went with them, and he became the
second governor of the colony, serv-
ing it for many years with wisdom,
courage and fidelity. Toward the
close of his life he wrote that invalua-
BILE history of the Plymouth Planta-
ton, by which it is chiefly known.
He died in 1867, aged sixty-nine, ''la-
mented," as Cotton Matter observes,
:'by all the colonies of New England,
as common blessing and father to
them all" g+t
Some books have history as
strange as the events which they re-
cord and this was the case with the
one written by William Bradford. 1t
was lost for a hundred years, and was
then discovered where no one would
have thought of looking for the manus-
cript history of an American colony.
Every one who has had occasion to
look into the early history of New
is aware that the oldest
books relating to the Plymouth colony
frequently refer TO Governor Brad
ford's History of Plymouth, and draw
from it some OF their most interesting
in: ormation. In 1853, we know that |
it was deposited in the tower of the
Old South Church in Boston, along
with other precious works, both print
ed and manuscript; but from that time |
nothing was heard of it until within !
,hese few years. AS the Old South
during the Revolutionary
war, was used as a riding school by
The British troops, it was feared that |
History had been destroy
ID or carried off by some one ignorant
IF its value
In 1856, the Rev. John S. Barry,
who was engaged in writing history |
If Massachusetts, observed, whileread-
ng the Bishop of Oxford's History of
he Episcopal Church in America,
hat the author quoted passages from
Bradford, which, he stated, were deriv-
ID from "a manuscript History of the
of Plymouth in the Eul |
lam library" Fulham is a suburb of
London, where the Bishops of London
lave their summer residence. This
ed to the discovery of the manuscript.
t was found in the library of the
Bishop of London, where it had been,
10 one knew how long, and where the
Bishop had discovered it when search
ng for material for his work upon the
history named above. The Histori-
al Society of Massachusetts caused
n exact copy of it to be made, which
yas published in 1855.