The Idaho recorder. [volume] (Salmon City, Idaho) 1886-1927, 1921-11-25

remain English. they could not return to England
without rlsking contamination by contact with
Puritans and Angcans.
Inc wilderness of America, with all its terrors.
seemed to offer them the essential conditions
Ihey early decided not to go to jamestown, be-
cause the Episcopal church was already established
.ere' lhey tried To get definite concessions from
the established church as To their own government
ana worship, and then abandoned such attempts.
flhaily In June, 1919. they got a patent from the
virginia company They concealed their real pur-
pose ana got the patent In the name of John Win
coo. They hoped to sail without revealing who
they were and what they purposed Later they
abandoned this patent for another granted by the
virginia company to John Peirce and associates.
Under this Instrument their anonymity was com
plete.
They then negotiated a seven-year contract with
Thomas Weston and group of London merchants
htterWard known rs the Adventures The con-
tract, us first arranged covered the financing OF
the enterprise and planned to set UP trading
post. The question then was-how many would
go across the sea- and who?
IL was decided that II majority voted to 90
Robinson should lead them: IL the ma orty voted
not to 20, Brewster should lead those who went
Inc majority voted not to go, and Robinson never
the New world
On September IL, 1920, the Maynower left
plymouth on her immortal voyage. In mid ocean
they nearly turned back because of some structural
weaknesses In the ship. Land was sighted on the
nineteenth of November The sailors said II was
Cape Cod; so they turned SOUTH us they were
under Virginia patent and must land In territory
controlled by the Virginia company They quick.
ly ran into the shoals and breakers that lie about
the cape. and then turned norhward
In doing this they abandoned their patent en-
tirely. The famous compact signed In the May
flowers cabin before they landed was drawn up
not MS kind OF earlier Declaration of Indepen.
dence, ms orators time out of mind have said, but
because some OF the men denied that Bradford had
any authority over them after the patent had been
abandoned The new instrument was intended TO
be- declaration that all stood an equal footing
The critical period of the Plymouth colony was
from 1920 to 1927. In those seven years its found
ers achieved the success and rendered the unique
service that have nightly influenced the suisse
quent development of the world.
These were not the first religious zealots who
landed In the New World. for the Huguenots had
preceded them nor was Plymouth the first col
ony for many settlements had been made earlier;
but they first interpreted America 10 Europe The
thing that impressed Europe was not the high
ideals of the Pilgrims not their religious DEVOTION
the fact that counted was their economic success
II Is not easy for us 10 understand what Il
meant In those days 10 demonstrate To the Oil
World that could live, could even prosper I'm
the New World without aid from over the sea
No had previously done II one believed It
could be done, The men and women OF Plymouth
came to the New World to make homes to stick
even though they died In the struggle. They stuck
and they died. In the first year more than one
half their number died. In the six years OUT
Of population of one hundred and ninety.nIne
only six died.
The great Puritan migration which began In
162I-which directly created Massachusetts and
had an almost Unreasonable influence In founding
New Eneland-was the direct result not of the
Pilgrims religious beliefs but of the economic sue
achieved ut Plymouth.
Six, possibly more of the guarantors of the BAY
colony had been members of the Adventures who
purchased the Mayhower and backed the original
enterprise. They knew the whole story intimately
and prohted by the experience.