One Small Candle: The Pilgrim's First Year in America (The Thomas Fleming Library)

by Thomas Fleming

  This, then, was the mixed company that greeted the Leyden exiles as the Speedwell tied up beside the Mayflower at Southampton’s West Quay. The pleasure of seeing William Brewster, John Carver, and Robert Cushman soon vanished when they realized that these “strangers,” if their servants were counted, actually outnumbered them - and if their spokesman, Christopher Martin, was typical of their attitude, the plantation could look forward to nothing but acrimony and chaos. Between them, Martin and Carver had spent over seven hundred pounds on provisions, with Martin accounting for the lion’s share. But when they asked him for a coherent statement of his expenditures, he flew into a fantastic rage and refused. “If he be called upon for accounts,” Robert Cushman wrote a London friend, “he crieth out of unthankfulness for his pains and care, that we are suspicious of him: and flings away and will end nothing.”

  Cushman had good reason to dislike Martin. The brusque Essex man had singled him out for special excoriation for conceding the changes in the articles of agreement. “He said he never received no money on those conditions,” Cushman raged to his friend. “He was not beholden to the Merchants for a pin! They were bloodsuckers! and I know not what. Simple man! He indeed never made any Conditions with the Merchants, nor ever spake with them. But did all that money fly to Southampton, or was it his own? Who will go and lay out money so rashly and lavishly as he did and never know how he comes by it, or on what conditions?”

  Unfortunately, poor Cushman found no support among his brethren from Leyden. They were as unhappy with him as they were with Martin. Cushman protested that he had notified John Carver of the changes and had received his approval. But Carver denied it, saying he was so busy buying supplies he had left all negotiations to his fellow deacon.

  In the midst of these hot words, who should appear from London but their old friend Thomas Weston himself, with the revised articles of agreement for all to sign. He got a flat no from everybody. They were not going to become bond servants for seven years. They were still perfectly willing to fulfill the agreement in the original articles - but their houses and those two precious days a week of free labor they insisted on having for themselves. This threw Weston into a rage which made Martin’s temper seem mild. In a complete huff he went back to London, telling them contemptuously they would now have to “stand on their own legs.”

  The ironmonger refused to advance them another cent, not even enough to pay the sixty pounds they still owed to various merchants for ordered supplies. This meant they would have to sell some of the food already purchased in order to clear the port.

  From his poop deck, Captain Jones watched all this wrangling with growing apprehension. After seven days in port, the crew was growing restless. Many of the passengers, seeing the dissension among the leaders, were talking about going home.

  By now the hold of the Mayflower was crammed with the tons of supplies needed for passengers and crew. Barrels of salt beef and cod and sacks of smoked beef, huge barrels of beer and water, tubs of pickled eggs, barrels of biscuits, boxes of smoked herring had been lugged and hoisted and rolled aboard during the seven-day wait.

  With the supplies had come another hired hand, a twenty-one-year-old cooper named John Alden. By royal command, every ship clearing an English port had to have a cooper aboard to watch over the precious barrels of beer and water, sample them, and if necessary tighten them to make sure air was not getting in to spoil the contents. If the ship discharged some of its barrels, it was up to the cooper to hammer together an equal number for the return trip, so England would not be shortchanged in precious wood. The husky, blond young Alden had been hired for a year with the understanding that he could leave the plantation at the end of his contract, or stay as a settler if he chose.

  Now, the passengers had to confer with Alden and Captain Jones to decide which of their provisions they could most easily spare. Jones recommended the butter, which they had apparently overbought. So they sold “four score firkins,” about four thousand pounds, and paid their debts. Then they sat down and wrote a pleading letter to Weston and his associates in London. It began with a long and involved explanation of why they could not accept the amended articles of agreement which Robert Cushman had had no authority to sign. Then came an honest attempt to make a settlement:

  “Since you conceive yourselves wronged as well as we, we thought meet to add a branch to the end of our ninth article as will almost heal that wound of itself, which you conceive to be in it. But that it may appear to all men that we are not lovers of ourselves only, but desire also the good and enriching of our friends who have adventured your moneys with our persons, we have added our last article to the rest, promising you again by letters in the behalf of the whole company that if large profits should not arise within the seven years, that we will continue together longer with you if the Lord give a blessing. This we hope is sufficient to satisfy any in this case, especially friends.”

  Having offered to extend the share-the-wealth agreement almost indefinitely, the voyagers obviously felt that generosity could do no more. So they turned to the serious shortages which only the merchants and their cash could solve.

  “We are in such a strait at present, as we are forced to sell away sixty pounds worth of our provisions to clear the haven, and withal to put ourselves upon great extremities, scarce having any butter, no oil, not a sole to mend a shoe, nor every man a sword to his side, wanting many muskets, much armour, etc. And yet we are willing to expose ourselves to such eminent dangers as are like to ensue, and trust to the good providence of God, rather than His name and truth should be evil spoken of, for us. Thus saluting all of you in love and beseeching the Lord to give a blessing to our endeavour, and keep all our hearts in the bonds of peace and love, we take leave and rest.”

  This rather forlorn attempt to reconcile the London businessmen before sailing away into the unknown was absolutely necessary from the voyagers’ point of view, because no one in the group had any illusion that the plantation would become self-sufficient immediately. As in Virginia, they planned to rely on ships from home for food and clothing, and make their profits from fishing and trading for furs with the Indians. If Weston really meant what he said about leaving them to stand on their own legs, they were sailing to almost certain doom.

  Fortunately, at this crucial moment they were heartened by a letter from their pastor, John Robinson. Obviously unhappy that he was not going with them (“How willingly . . . I would have borne my part with you in this first brunt, were I not from strong necessity held back” ), Robinson urged them to place their total trust in God and try to practice perfect Christian charity toward each other. He urged them neither to give nor take offense especially toward those who were strangers among them. He devoted another earnest exhortation to the need for everyone to work for the common good. Finally came his most significant words: “Whereas you are to become a body politic, using amongst yourselves civil government, and are not furnished with any persons of special eminency above the rest to be chosen by you into office of government, let your wisdom and godliness appear, not only in choosing such persons as do entirely love and will promote the common good, but also yielding unto them all due honour and obedience in their lawful administrations. . . .”

  The letter was read to the assembled company on the deck of the Speedwell. It takes an effort of imagination for us, its inheritors, to realize how unusual these words were. They were being read to people a few feet away from a shore where the king’s power was almost absolute, and those who lacked noble blood in their veins had no hope, much less the possibility, of ruling men. For a thousand years, men of “special eminency” had ruled in Europe, and were ruling in the colonies of Holland, Portugal, and Spain. Even in Virginia their rule still prevailed, simply because it was, to men of 1620, the way things were done. But these voyagers had found in their exile a different way, rooted in a new sense of individual worth and a new kind of solidarity.

  Warmed by their pastor’s words, they made final pre
parations for the trip. The passengers were divided, about eighty to the Mayflower and thirty to the Speedwell. Most of the leaders preferred the roomier Mayflower, but Captain Reynolds protested that he wanted some prominent names on the Speedwell to keep order among his passengers and make sure his little ship would not be left in the lurch if a crisis came. William Bradford volunteered along with several others. “The chief of them that came from Leyden,” he says, “went in this ship to give the master content.” Finally, “governors” were appointed for each ship. Christopher Martin drew the assignment for the Mayflower, with Robert Cushman for his assistant. These men would have absolute authority while on shipboard to settle all disputes arising between passengers.

  They were now as ready as they would ever be, and they informed Captain Reynolds and Captain Jones that they could sail with the first fair wind.

  Their minds heavy with their internal dissensions and worry about the apparent desertion of their vitally needed backers, the voyagers had no doubt forgotten all about the difficulties of the Speedwell. But Reynolds and Jones had spent the days consumed by their passenger’s wrangles going over the Speedwell with Southampton shipwrights, who had suggested several changes in her sails and rigging. For the two captains, the question was simple but potentially huge: If the Speedwell handled badly in the mild seas of the Channel, how would she fare on the heaving Atlantic? There was only one way to find out.

  Down the Solent, that narrow body of water between the Isle of Wight and England, and into the Channel went the Mayflower and the Speedwell. It was August 5, already late in the year for a voyage to the New World. It would have been far better to have left in the late spring, when the Atlantic winds were more favorable, and have arrived in time to build houses and explore the country in mild summer weather. They had already lost two precious months in argument and hesitation. Even so, with a good crossing they could still arrive by early October, and have some kind of shelter before the worst of winter came.

  But not even this mild share of good fortune was to be theirs. First they ran into unfavorable winds, which left them beating about the Channel for several days, unable to, make any real headway. Then Captain Reynolds of the Speedwell began raising and lowering one of his sails - the signal of distress. Both ships came about, and Reynolds put off from the Speedwell in a small boat for a conference with Captain Jones.

  Reynolds had grim news. The Speedwell was leaking badly. He had to keep men working the pumps continuously, and still the water was rising steadily in the hold. To attempt an ocean crossing in such condition was out of the question. There was only one thing to do - get her into a dry dock. Jones suggested Dartmouth, a few miles down the coast from Southampton. Reynolds agreed, and by the next day the Speedwell was being examined by another team of local shipwrights.

  It was disheartening and demoralizing, especially for those who had not exactly enjoyed their first few days at sea. Among the outstanding problems was seasickness and the outrageous behavior of Christopher Martin. Robert Cushman was undone by both. In a mournful letter to his friend in London, he declared they would never meet again in this world because “an infirmity of body has seized me, which will not in all likelihood leave me till death. What to call it I know not, but it is a bundle of lead, as it were, crushing my heart more and more these fourteen days; as that although I do the actions of a living man, yet I am but as dead, but the will of God be done.”

  As for the expedition, Cushman could not have been more discouraged. “Our pinnace will not cease leaking, else I think we had been halfway to Virginia. Our voyage hither hath been as full of crosses as ourselves have been of crookedness. We put in here to trim her; and I think as others also, if we had stayed at sea three or four hours more, she would have sunk right down. And though she was twice trimmed at Hampton, yet now she is as open and leaky as a sieve; and there was a board a man might have pulled off with his fingers, two foot long, where the water came in as at a mole hole.”

  Leaks were not uncommon in the days of wooden bottoms, but it should not have happened in a ship that had been supposedly reconditioned in Holland. There would seem to be good evidence that the shipwrights of Delftshaven had taken advantage of the voyagers’ total ignorance of the sea and ships. But the condition of the Speedwell was not the only reason for the “bundle of lead” inside poor Cushman.

  Christopher Martin was behaving more like a dictator than a governor on board the Mayflower. “He so insulteth over our poor people, with such scorn and contempt, as if they were not good enough to wipe his shoes,” Cushman lamented. “It would break your heart to see his dealing, and the mourning of our people; they complain to me and alas I can do nothing for them. If I speak to him, he flies in my face as mutinous, and says no complaints shall be heard or received but by himself, and says they are forward and waspish, discontented people, and I do ill to hear them.”

  The passengers were not the only ones Martin was enraging, according to Cushman. “The sailors also are so offended at his ignorant boldness in meddling and controlling in things he knows not what belongs to as that some threaten to mischief him; others say they will leave the ship and go, their way.” A number of the passengers were having similar thoughts, and Martin forbade them to go ashore at Dartmouth.

  “Friend,” wrote Cushman, summing it all up, “if ever we make a plantation, God works a miracle, especially considering how scant we shall be of victuals and most of all disunited amongst ourselves and devoid of good tutors and regiment. . . . If I should write to you of all things which promiscuously forerun our ruin, I should overcharge my weak head and grieve your tender heart. Only this, I pray you prepare for evil tidings of us every day.”

  As for his own fate, Cushman could only report that poor William Ring (another victim of mal de mer) “and myself do strive who shall be meat first for the fishes; but we look for a glorious resurrection.”

  After at least four days, and possibly a week, they put to sea again, the Speedwell’s obvious leaks repaired and her rigging and sails again readjusted according to the best advice they could get in Dartmouth. This time, surely, they were on their way. Out of the Channel into the heaving swells of the Atlantic they plowed. Land’s End and the Scilly Islands fell behind them, and they were almost three hundred miles across the mighty ocean when Captain Reynolds was told by an alarmed mate that the water was rising in the Speedwell’s hold once more, and the men were ordered to the pumps.

  Another hour and the pumpers reported that they were barely staying even with the rising flood. Regretfully, Reynolds had to inform William Bradford that it was suicide to go any farther. Once more the signal of distress was made, and once more the captain of the Speedwell put off in his boat to confer with Captain Jones aboard the Mayflower.

  The grim decision was quickly reached: Turn back again. This time they limped into Plymouth, a few miles closer to the Atlantic on the same English coast. It was a slow return. The Speedwell had to shorten sail drastically, since with full sail the masts put extra strain on the already opened timbers. If a sudden “breather,” as the furious southwest storms were called along that shore, had come roaring down on them, the Speedwell would have certainly gone to the bottom with all hands. But the weather remained merciful, and after perhaps another week of sailing, the two ships limped into Plymouth harbor.

  The choice of Plymouth showed that Jones knew his business. The town was famous for its shipbuilders and had a full supply of experts to examine the recalcitrant Speedwell. A witness from another voyage of the time told of such anatomy work on cranky vessels. “There might be seen master, master’s mate, boatswain, quartermaster, coopers, carpenters and who not, with candles in their hands, creeping along the ribs viewing the sides and searching every corner and listening in every place if they could hear the water run.”

  The performance was repeated on the Speedwell for days on end, but the frustrating little ship refused to show a single leak that could be blamed and repaired. Finally, the assembled experts
reluctantly pronounced her basically unseaworthy. “The general weakness of the ship,” is how William Bradford describes it. Apparently the new masts that had been stepped into the Speedwell in Holland were too large, and when running in the heavy Atlantic swell with a full suit of sails, they would “work” the ship until the strained timbers opened wider and wider. There was nothing to do but abandon her, the men of Plymouth told the dismayed voyagers.

  This was a catastrophic blow. Delays and disagreements were frustrating but hardly struck at the fundamental plans of the expedition. The Speedwell was the cornerstone of these plans. Without her, any hope of large profits dwindled away and the isolation of the colony would be complete. There would be no way to get messages to England if supplies ran short, or to return sick and discontented citizens. Moreover, if they were to go forward now, it would have to be on the Mayflower alone.

  Visions of the disastrous Blackwell voyage of the previous year instantly rose before everyone’s eyes. Was God trying to warn them, with these mishaps, that an equally horrible doom was waiting for them out there on the Atlantic, or in the New World? For people who tried to find in everyday events the finger of God’s guidance, it was no small question. There were long hours of meditation and of conferences between themselves and with Captain Christopher Jones. What did the captain think of attempting the Atlantic alone?