Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1921-11-18

remain English, they could not return to England
without riskng contamination by contact with
Puritans and Anglicans.
The wilderness of America, with all its terrOrS.
seemed to offer them the essential conditions.
They early decided not to go to Jamestown be-
cause the Episcopal church already established
there. They tried to get definite concessions from
the established church to their own government
and worship and then abandoned such attempts
Finally, in June, 1919, they got patent from the
Virginia company. They concealed their real pur-
pose, and got the patent in the name of John Win
cob 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 PIERCE and associates
Under this instrument their anonymity was COM
plete
They then negotiated seven-year contract with
Thomas Weston and group of London merchants,
afterward known the Adventures. The con-
tract, as first arranged, covered the financing of
the enterprise and planned to set up a trading
post. The question then WaS-hOw many would
go across the sea, and who?
It was decided that if a majority voted to go.
Robinson should lead them; If the majority voted
not to go, Brewster should lead those who went.
The majority voted not to CO. and Robinson never
saw the New world.
On September is, 1920, the Mayfower left
Plymouth on her immortal voyage In mid ocean
they nearly turned back because of structural
weaknesses in the ship. Land was sighted on the
nineteenth of November. The sailors said it was
Cape Cod; so they turned south, as 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 northward.
In doing this they abandoned their patent
tirely. The famous compact signed in the May
flowers cabin before they landed drawn up
not as a kind of earlier Declaration of Indepen-
Of n how h1rf
because some of the men denied that Bradford had
any authority over them after the patent had been
abandoned. The instrument was intended to
be declaration that all stood on 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 subse-
uuent 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 to 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.
1t is not easy for to understand what it
meant in those days to demonstrate to the Old
World that could live, could even prosper, in
the New World without aid from over the sea-
No one had previously done it no 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 next six years, out
of population of one hundred and ninety-nne
only six died.
The great Puritan migration which began in
1627-which directly created Massachusetts and
had an almost Unreasonable influence in founding
New Engand-was the direct result not of the
Pilgrims religious beliefs but of the economic sue
cess achieved at Plymouth.
Six, possibly more, of the guarantors of the Bay
colony had been members Of the Adventures who
purchased the Mayfiower and backed the original
enterprise. They knew the whole story intimately
and profited by the experience.