Chapter VIII: The Pilgrim Church and Plymouth Colony (2)

[The chest of drawers is an ancient one, which there is some reason to believe belonged to Peregrine White. (_N. E. Hist._ and _Geneal. Reg._ 1873, p. 398.) The sword and vessels belonged to Standish. The cradle belonged to Dr. Samuel Fuller, the physician of the Pilgrims. (Russell’s _Pilgrim Memorials_, p. 55; Bartlett’s _Pilgrim Fathers_, p. 201.) Chair No. 1 belonged to Governor Carver; No. 2 was Elder Brewster’s; No. 3 is said to have been Governor Edward Winslow’s; and this with a table, which was until recently in the hall of the Massachusetts Historical Society, has lately been reclaimed by its owner, Mr. Isaac Winslow. (See 3 _Mass. Hist. Coll._ v. 293.; _Proceedings_, ii. 1, 284; iv. 142; xix. 124; Young’s _Chronicles_, p. 238; Bartlett’s _Pilgrim Fathers_, p. 197.) There are other groupings of Pilgrim relics in Dr. Dexter’s papers; C. W. Elliott’s “Good Old Times at Plymouth” in _Harper’s Monthly_, 1877, p. 180; Bartlett’s _Pilgrim Fathers_.—ED.]]

The most striking feature of this period was the growth from a single plantation to a province of eight towns, seven of them stretching for fifty miles along the shore of Cape Cod Bay, from Scituate to Yarmouth, and Taunton lying twenty-five miles inland,—in all containing about twenty-five hundred souls. With this growth there was also some extension of trade on the Kennebec and Penobscot, and in 1632 a beginning of exploration, and in 1633 of settlement, in the Connecticut Valley; but the appearance of numerous emigrants from Massachusetts Bay defeated the contemplated removal of the entire colony to the last-named location.

The establishment of towns led necessarily to a more elaborate system of civil government, and in 1636 it was found expedient to revise and codify the previous enactments of the General Court, and to prescribe the duties of the various public officers. In 1638 the inconveniences of governing by mass-meeting led to the introduction of the representative system already familiar to Massachusetts Bay. The number of Assistants had been increased in 1633 from five to seven.

In 1629 an acceptable minister of the gospel—Ralph Smith, a Cambridge graduate—for the first time took charge of the church in Plymouth; and by 1641 the eight towns of the colony were all (except Marshfield, which was but just settled) supplied with educated clergy, of whom perhaps the most influential was Ralph Partridge, of Duxbury.

The half-century (1641-91) which completed the separate existence of Plymouth Colony, witnessed no radical changes, but a steady development under the existing patent, though repeated but unsuccessful attempts were made to obtain a charter direct from the English Government. At the outset (in 1641), by a purchase of the remaining interests of the English partners of 1627, the last trace of dependence on foreign capital was wiped out.

Notwithstanding the discontinuance of English emigration after 1640, and the enormous devastation of Philip’s war in 1675-76, the population of the colony increased to about eight thousand in these fifty years, being distributed through twenty towns, of which Scituate had probably the largest numbers and certainly the most wealth, the town of Plymouth having lost, even as early as 1643, its former prominence. That this growth was no greater, and that expansion beyond the strict colony limits was completely checked, resulted inevitably from the more favorable situation of the neighboring colony of the Bay.

The civil administration continued as before, the Governor’s Assistants and the Deputies sitting in General Court as one body. Deputies were elected in each town by the resident freemen, the freemen being the original signers of the compact on board the “Mayflower,” with such persons as had been added to their number by a majority vote of the general court. Public sentiment was so trustworthy that no qualifications were named for the estate of freemen until 1656, when it was merely provided that a candidate must have been approved by the freemen of his own town. Two years later, when the colony was overrun by Quaker propagandists, persons of that faith, as well as all others who similarly opposed the laws and the established worship, were distinctly excluded from the privileges of freemen, and in the new revision of the laws in 1671 freemen were obliged to be at least twenty-one years of age, “of sober and peaceable conversation, orthodox in the fundamentals of religion,” and possessed of at least £20 worth of ratable estate in the colony. By the Code of 1671 a Court of Assistants was created to exercise the judicial functions hitherto retained by the General Court; but in 1685, with the constitution of three counties, most of these duties were transferred to county courts.

Two interdependent circumstances conspired with the poverty of the settlers and the unattractiveness of the soil,—even as compared with Massachusetts Bay,—to retard seriously the progress of the colony; and these were, their inability to keep up a learned ministry, and the enforced delay in providing for public education. The first of these facts was so patent as to call forth public rebukes from Massachusetts, and it may be enough to recall that in 1641 seven of the eight townships constituting the colony were served by ministers of English education; but in the next half-century these same pulpits stood vacant on the average upwards of ten years each, and the new towns which were formed in the colony had no larger amount of ministerial service. As to the other point, it is sufficient to note that neither from tradition nor from public records is there evidence of any opportunity or provision for education before 1670,—except, of course, in the private family. Their poverty no doubt chiefly occasioned this.

Yet while the resources of Plymouth and the education of her public men were distinctly inferior to those of the Bay, she bore herself in her relations with the other colonies with a certain simple dignity and straightforward reasonableness which won respect; and in matters of general interest she was content to share the sentiments of her comrades without controlling them. She joined in the New England Confederation of 1643; and though the idea sprang from another quarter, it is probable that the form was influenced by suggestions from the Plymouth men, derived from their experience in the United Netherlands.

Plymouth’s treatment of the Quakers, in 1656 and the following years, illustrated in part the contrast with Massachusetts Bay. At the outset public sentiment was much the same in the two colonies, in view of the extravagances and indecencies of these intruders; but the greater mildness of administration in Plymouth bore its appropriate fruit in lessening the evil characteristics which developed by opposition, and gradually the dreaded sectaries gained a foothold, until finally their principles were widely adopted in certain localities with only good results.

Plymouth’s treatment of the Royal Commissioners in 1665 indicated fairly her consistent attitude towards the mother country; in receiving the King’s mandates with respect, and in promising conformity, she held the course which had produced the seven articles at Leyden in 1617.

The most serious misfortune to visit the colony was the Indian war which broke out early in 1675. Up to that time the Plymouth men had been careful to acquire by _bonâ fide_ purchase a title to all new lands as they were occupied; they had endeavored also (with fair success, as compared with like efforts in Massachusetts Bay) to spread the knowledge of Christianity; and in 1675 there were perhaps six or seven hundred “praying Indians” within the colony bounds.

[This canvas is likewise the property of Isaac Winslow, Esq., and is now in the Pilgrim Hall, at Plymouth. This portrait, and that of the father, the elder Governor Winslow, are the only likenesses of the Plymouth governors extant; and Josiah Winslow was the first governor of native birth, having been born in Marshfield in 1629; dying there in 1680.—ED.]]

But Wamsutta and Metacomet (otherwise Alexander and Philip), the sons and successors of the sachem Massasoit, were hostile to the whites and unaffected by Christian influences; and after Alexander’s death, in 1662, the colonists found that only by constant watchfulness could they prevent a breach with the savages. Finally under Philip’s lead they rose and began a war of extermination. The exciting cause and the earliest operations were within the territory claimed by Plymouth; on her fell successively the heaviest blows (in proportion to her population) and the most pressing responsibilities for defence. When the war ended with Philip’s death, in August, 1676, more than half her towns had been partially or wholly destroyed, and the colony’s share (about £15,000) of the expense incurred by the New England Confederacy in suppressing the Indians was a very serious burden on a feeble agricultural community. Before the slow process of recovery from these desolations could be accomplished, the ancient customs of self-government were invaded by James II.; and when the arbitrary exactions under Andros, as Governor of all New England, were ended in the Revolution of 1689, the return to the old conditions of freedom was but temporary; the new monarchs followed James’s policy of consolidation, and Plymouth found herself fated to be included either in the charter of New York or in that of Massachusetts. Better a known than an unknown evil; and accordingly the London agent of Plymouth was authorized to express a preference for union with Boston, and the provincial charter of Massachusetts in October, 1691, put an end to the separate existence of the colony of New Plymouth. Of the original “Mayflower” company but two members survived,—John Cooke, of Dartmouth, who died in 1695, and Mary (Allerton) Cushman, of Plymouth, who died in 1699. The younger generation were accustomed to the leadership of Massachusetts Bay, and accepted the union as a natural and fitting step.

CRITICAL ESSAY ON THE SOURCES OF INFORMATION.

THE earliest printed volume treating of the origin of Plymouth Colony was _New England’s Memorial; ... with special Reference to the first Colony thereof_, published by Nathaniel Morton in 1669. As he states in his “Epistle Dedicatory,” the most of his intelligence concerning the beginnings of the settlement came from manuscripts left by his “much-honored uncle, Mr. William Bradford.” Morton’s parents had emigrated in 1623, when he was a boy of ten, from Leyden to Plymouth, with a younger sister of Mrs. Morton, who had been sent for to become the wife of Governor Bradford. This connection and his own position as secretary of the General Court of the Colony from 1645, gave peculiar opportunities for gathering information; but his book preserves nothing on the earliest portion of the Pilgrim history, beyond the date (1602) and the place (“the North of England”) of their entering into a church covenant together.

The manuscripts of Governor Bradford passed at his death (1657) to his eldest son, Major William Bradford, of Plymouth, and while in his possession a few particulars were extracted for Cotton Mather’s use in his _Magnalia_ (1702), especially in the “Life of Bradford” (book ii. chap. i.). A minute, but very efficient typographical error, however (A_n_sterfield for A_u_sterfield), kept students for the next century and a half out of the knowledge of Governor Bradford’s birthplace, and of the exact neighborhood whence came the Leyden migration. From Major William Bradford, who died in 1704, the manuscripts descended to his son, Major John, of Kingston (originally a part of Plymouth), by whom the most precious were lent or given, in 1728, to the Rev. Thomas Prince, of Boston.[486] Prince made a careful use of this material in the first volume of his _Annals_ (1736), fixing the locality whence the Pilgrims came as “near the joining borders of Nottinghamshire, Linconshire, and Yorkshire,” and lodged the originals in the library which he bequeathed, in 1758, to the Old South Church in Boston. Governor Thomas Hutchinson, while writing his _History of Massachusetts Bay_, found these manuscripts in the Prince Library, and printed in the Appendix to his second volume (1767) a valuable extract describing the exodus to Holland. In the troublous times which followed, the Bradford papers disappeared.

Another extract from Bradford, however, soon after came to light in the records of the First Church in Plymouth, where Secretary Morton had transcribed, in 1680, most of his uncle’s account of the transatlantic history of the Pilgrims. This was printed, in part and somewhat inaccurately, by Ebenezer Hazard, in vol. i. of his _Historical Collections_ (1792), and in full by the Rev. Alexander Young, in his _Chronicles of the Pilgrims_ (1841).

The clews furnished by Mather and Prince to the Pilgrim cradle-land attracted no special attention until 1842, when the Hon. James Savage, during a visit to England,[487] submitted the problem to the Rev. Joseph Hunter, author of a history of South Yorkshire, of which region he was also a native. Mr. Hunter, though the evidence was incomplete, suggested that Austerfield was the place wanted; and the attention of this accomplished antiquary being thus enlisted, the result appeared in a tract, published by him in 1849, entitled _Collections concerning the Founders of New Plymouth_, which identified the meeting-place of the Separatist Church before their removal to Holland. This tract was reissued, in 1852, in the _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, vol. xxxi., and again in London, in an enlarged form, in 1854.[488] The author’s careful examination of local records made plain the position of the Brewsters in Scrooby, and of the Bradfords in Austerfield (with the entry of Governor Bradford’s baptism), and traced their families, as well as the families of other early members of the Scrooby flock, in the neighboring parishes. The importance of Mr. Hunter’s labors may be seen in the fact, that, besides Brewster and Bradford, none of the “Mayflower” passengers (except the two Winslows) have even yet been surely traced to an English birthplace.[489]

Mr. Hunter’s success soon attracted the attention of other investigators. The earliest visit to Scrooby which has received notice in print was one made in July, 1851, by the Rev. Henry M. Dexter, of Boston, described by him in _The Congregationalist_ of Aug. 8, 1851. Mr. W. H. Bartlett’s _Pilgrim Fathers_, p. 35, published in 1853, added nothing to Hunter’s researches, except some interesting engravings of the church in which Bradford was baptized, and of Scrooby village. In his enlarged edition of 1854, Hunter gave a better view of the remains of the palace inhabited by Brewster. Mr. Palfrey visited the neighborhood in 1856, and records his impressions in a note on p. 134 of vol. i. (1858) of his _History of New England_. In 1860 the Rev. John Raine, vicar of the parish of Blyth, in which these hamlets were formerly included, printed a valuable account of that parish’s history and antiquities.[490]

In January, 1862, the Rev. H. M. Dexter published, in the _Congregational Quarterly_, an article on “Recent Discoveries concerning the Plymouth Pilgrims,” summarizing conveniently what had been learned regarding the place where, and the time when, the church was gathered. In March, 1867, he contributed to the _Sabbath at Home_ magazine an illustrated article on the “Footprints of the Pilgrims in England,” which is still the most vivid and the fullest description extant of the Scrooby neighborhood. With this should be compared, for additional facts, a letter from Dr. Dexter in the _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._ (xii. 129) for July, 1871; the early pages of the chapter on Robinson, in the same author’s _Congregationalism as seen in its Literature_ (1880); and the record of a visit in 1860, in Professor James M. Hoppin’s _Old England_. The Scrooby episode is also told, more or less fully, in the Rev. Ashbel Steele’s _Life of Elder Brewster_ (1857), in Dr. John Waddington’s _Track of the Hidden Church_ (1863), and in chap. vi. of the second volume of his _Congregational History_ (1874), in the Rev. George Punchard’s _History of Congregationalism_, vol. iii. chap. xi. (1867), in chap. vii. of vol. ii. of S. R. Gardiner’s _Prince Charles and the Spanish Marriage_ (1869), and in chap. x. of Dr. Leonard Bacon’s _Genesis of the New England Churches_ (1874).[491]

Scrooby village is about one hundred and forty miles N.N.W. from London, and eighty miles due east from Liverpool. It lies on the Great Northern Railway; but as its population numbers only some two hundred, it is practically a mere suburb of Bawtry, a small market-town a mile and a quarter to the north, of perhaps a thousand inhabitants. Austerfield, a little larger than Scrooby, and at about the same distance from Bawtry in a northeasterly direction, is included, as well as much of the other two localities, in the patrimony of Lord Houghton (Richard Monckton Milnes), whose family have held it since 1779.

* * * * *

Of the life in Holland and the preparations for removal to America, the first connected account in print was that appended by Edward Winslow (who had joined the company at Leyden in 1617, at the age of twenty-two) to his _Hypocrisy Unmasked_, in 1646, which was reprinted in 1841, in Dr. Young’s _Chronicles of the Pilgrims_. Winslow’s object in this brief appendix was to refute an unjust charge of schism in the Leyden church, and to explain the reasons for the removal and the course of the accompanying negotiations; he also reviewed Robinson’s doctrinal position, and incidentally preserved the substance of the pastor’s farewell address to the departing portion of his flock.[492] Morton’s _Memorial_, in 1669, gave from Bradford’s manuscripts a fuller account of the events in question; and Mather’s _Magnalia_ (1702), and Prince’s _Annals_ (1736), added a few touches to the picture. Prince has also the distinction of being the first of those who have retraced the steps of the Pilgrims on Dutch soil, his _Annals_ (vol. i. p. 160) recording his visit to Leyden in 1714, and his supposed identification of the church which Robinson’s congregation used, and in which he was buried.[493]

The extracts from Bradford published by Hazard in 1792, with those included in the notes to Judge John Davis’s edition of Morton’s _Memorial_ in 1826, all of which were reprinted by Dr. Young in 1841, set forth in a more orderly way the story of the removal. But there was no inquiry in Holland until Leyden was visited by Mr. George Sumner, a younger brother of Senator Sumner, who communicated the results of his researches to the Massachusetts Historical Society, in 1843, in a paper which was published separately at Cambridge in 1845, and in the Society’s _Collections_, vol. xxix. (1846). Mr. Sumner threw much light on the actual condition of the Pilgrims in Holland, while investigating Prince’s report of a church lent them by the city, and Winslow’s account of the respect paid Robinson at his funeral. He showed that Prince had confused this congregation with one founded contemporaneously by English Presbyterians in Leyden, for whose use a chapel was granted, while Robinson’s company received no such favor. He also printed the record of Robinson’s admission to the University,—a fact not before recovered,—and the entry of his burial in St. Peter’s cathedral, just across the way from his house.[494]

In 1848 another item of interest,—the application of Robinson and his people for leave to come to Leyden,—was printed for the first time in a _Memoir of Robinson_, by Professor Kist, in vol. viii. of the _Nederlandsch Archief voor Kerkelijke Geschiedenis_.[495] A fuller memoir, prefixed to a collected edition of his writings, was published in London three years later (1851), by the Rev. Robert Ashton, and reprinted in the _Mass. Hist. Coll._, vol. xli. (1852).

Next in chronological order comes the publication of the most important of all known sources of information respecting the Pilgrims from 1608 to 1646,—the _History of Plymouth Plantation_, by William Bradford, second governor of the colony. We have seen that this history was used, in manuscript, by various writers, but disappeared after 1767. In 1844 a _History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America_, by the Bishop of Oxford (Dr. Samuel Wilberforce), was published in London, in which quotations embodying new information were made from an otherwise unknown “Manuscript History of the Plantation of Plymouth, etc., in the Fulham Library.” The Bishop’s volume passed to a second edition in 1846, and was reprinted in New York in 1849; while in 1848 there appeared in London the Rev. J. S. M. Anderson’s _History of the Colonial Church_, in which reference was distinctly made to “Bradford’s MS. History of Plymouth Colony ... now in the possession of the Bishop of London.” But the significance of these allusions was ignored by American students, until February, 1855, when Mr. John Wingate Thornton, of Boston, called the attention of the Rev. John S. Barry, who was then engaged on the first volume of his _History of Massachusetts_, to the Bishop of Oxford’s book. Taking up the clew thus given, Mr. Barry conferred with Mr. Charles Deane, who sent at once to London for information, and by the replies received, was enabled to announce at the meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society, April 12, 1855, that the complete manuscript of Governor Bradford’s history had been found in the Library of the Bishop of London’s Palace at Fulham, and that an accurate copy had been ordered for the Society’s use. This transcript reached Boston in August, and was issued, under Mr. Deane’s able editorship, in the spring of 1856, both as a separate publication and as volume xxxiii. of the Society’s _Collections_.[496]

How the manuscript came to be in the Fulham Library is uncertain; most probably it was taken from the Prince Library, upon the evacuation of Boston by the British in March, 1776, and was preserved and finally deposited in a public collection by those who perceived it to be of value. The desirability of its return to America has been repeatedly suggested; but as an individual bishop has no power to alienate the property of his See, nothing has yet been accomplished.

The next special contribution to the history of the Pilgrims in Holland was the publication of the “Seven Articles which the church of Leyden sent [in September, 1617] to the Council of England, to be considered of in respect of their judgments occasioned about their going to Virginia, anno 1618.” A contemporary transcript of this paper was found in the British State-Paper Office by the Hon. George Bancroft, and communicated by him, with an introductory letter, to the New York Historical Society, in October, 1856. It was included, in 1857, in vol. iii. of the second series of their _Collections_.[497]

In 1859-60 the Hon. Henry C. Murphy, of Brooklyn, N. Y., United States Minister at the Hague from 1857 to 1861, published in the _Hist. Mag._ (iii. 261, 335, 357; iv. 4) a series of four “Contributions to the History of the Pilgrim Fathers, from the Records at Leyden.” These valuable papers presented much new information (derived especially from the marriage records) as to the full names, ages, occupations, and English homes of Robinson’s congregation; they determined also the site and dimensions of his house, and the details of its purchase. Another fact, which was already known, that Elder Brewster during the last three years of his stay in Leyden was a printer and publisher, especially of books on ecclesiastical matters, both in Latin and English,[498] which it would not have been safe to print at home, received new illustration from Mr. Murphy.

The labors of Sumner and Murphy in Holland have been supplemented by the diligent researches of Dr. H. M. Dexter, whose work at Scrooby was mentioned above. In the _Congregational Quarterly_ for January, 1862 (vol. iv.), he gave an account of the recent additions to our knowledge; and in the notes to his invaluable addition of _Mourt’s Relation_, in 1865, he traced the personal history of the Pilgrims, so far as an exhaustive examination of the Leyden records made that possible. In 1866, in company with Professor George E. Day, of Yale College, who had shared in the previous investigations, Dr. Dexter superintended the erection of a marble tablet, with appropriate inscription, on the front of the Home for Aged Walloons, which now occupies the site of Robinson’s house. In the _Sabbath at Home_ for April, 1867, he published a graphic account of the “Footprints of the Pilgrims in Holland,” and in the _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._ for January, 1872 (xii. 184), suggested some valuable corrections of Mr. Sumner’s Memoirs, respecting Robinson’s death and burial. The Leyden pastor’s influence and doctrinal position may be best studied in Dr. Dexter’s _Congregationalism as seen in its Literature_ (1880), and in vol. iii. of the Rev. George Punchard’s _History of Congregationalism_ (2d ed. 1867).[499]

For various contributions to fuller knowledge than Bradford affords of the negotiations in London, after removal to America had been decided on, great credit is due to the researches of the Rev. Edward D. Neill, especially in his _History of the Virginia Company_ (1869) and his _English Colonization of America_ (1871). Cf. _Hist. Mag._, xiii. 278. The same writer has investigated the personal history of Captain Thomas Jones, master of the “Mayflower,” in the _Historical Magazine_ (January, 1869), xv. 31-33, and in the _N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._ (1874), xxviii. 314-17. The charge that Jones was bribed by the Dutch in 1620, is considered by Mr. William Brigham in the volume of lectures published by the Massachusetts Historical Society on the _Early History of Massachusetts_, and in the Society’s _Proceedings_ for December, 1868.[500]

For the colony’s affairs from the sailing of the “Mayflower” to 1646, the prime source of knowledge is Bradford’s _History_. At the time of emigrating, the author was in his thirty-first year, and his book was written at various dates, from 1630 to 1650, when he was from forty to sixty years of age. Less than four months after landing he became Governor, and for the remaining quarter-century covered by his _History_ he held the same office, except during five years, when excused at his own urgent request. The foremost man in the colony for this long period, nature and opportunity equally fitted him to be its chronicler from the beginning. No one could speak with more authority than he of the inner motives and guiding policy of the original colonists,—fortunately, also, no one could exemplify more clearly in written words the ideal Pilgrim than does Bradford, with his grave, homely, earnest style, not unsuggestive of the English of the Bible. Between his style and that of Winthrop, the contemporary historian of the Bay, there is something of the same difference that existed between the two emigrations; and yet Bradford’s simple story, standing as it does as the earliest piece of American historical composition, possesses a peculiar charm which the broader, more philosophic page of Winthrop cannot rival.[501]

* * * * *

The special contributions by others to the history of Bradford’s period began in 1622 with the publication of _Mourt’s Relation_, a daily journal of the first twelve months (Sept. 1620, to Dec. 11, 1621), so called from the name, “G. Mourt,” subscribed to the preface, but doubtless written by Bradford and Winslow. The standard edition is that of 1865, with notes by Dr. H. M. Dexter.[502] A few facts may also be gleaned from a _Sermon_ (by Robert Cushman) preached at Plymouth, Dec. 9, 1621,[503] and from the second edition of Captain John Smith’s _New England’s Trials_,—both published in London in 1622. Winslow’s _Good News from New England_ appeared in 1624, continuing the narrative of events from November, 1621, to September 10, 1623.[504] Next came, after a long interval, _New England’s Memorial_, by Nathaniel Morton, printed at Cambridge in 1669, which professed to give the annals of New England to 1668; beyond the part supplied from Bradford and Winslow, however, there was little of value. Judge John Davis’s[505] edition of 1826 is still the best.[506]

To these materials the next sensible addition was in the “Summary of the Affairs of the Colony of New-Plimouth,” appended, in 1767, to vol. ii. of Governor Hutchinson’s _History of Massachusetts Bay_, and containing some personal items not before collected. In 1794 a fragment of a letter-book, preserving copies of important letters written and received by Governor Bradford from 1624 to 1630, having lately been found in Nova Scotia, was printed in the _Massachusetts Historical Collections_, vol. iii.[507] In 1798 Dr. Jeremy Belknap included in vol. ii. of his _American Biography_ sketches of the leading Pilgrims (Robinson, Carver, Bradford, Brewster, Cushman, Winslow, and Standish), which put in admirable form all then known of early Plymouth history.

The next quarter of a century added nothing to the existing stock of knowledge, unless by the publication in 1815 of the _General History of New England_ to 1680, by the Rev. William Hubbard (born 1621, died 1704), which, so far as Plymouth was concerned, was little more than a compilation from sources already named. But with the issue, in 1826, of a new edition of _Morton_, and in 1830 of _An Historical Memoir of the Colony of New Plymouth_, by the Hon. Francis Baylies,[508] and in 1832 of a _History of the Town of Plymouth_, by Dr. James Thacher, was introduced the new era of modern research.[509]

[This is in the handwriting of Governor Bradford; it is also in Hazard, i. 100, and in the State edition, xii. 2. It is not clear when the entry was made. Pulsifer, _Records_, xii. p. iv., holds it was written in 1620; Shurtleff, _Ibid._, i. Introd., says that all entries dated before 1627 were made in this last year. Beside the account of the records in this introduction, there is another in 3 _Mass. Hist. Coll._, ii. Also see _N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._, 1858, p. 358. The State edition is in twelve volumes, usually bound in ten; and was originally sold for $75, but is now obtainable at a much less price.

The patents under which the colony governed itself have been defined in the preceding narrative, and in a note the first one is traced. (Cf. also Neill’s notes on it in _N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._, 1876, p. 413, and Poor’s _Vindication of Gorges_.) The second patent, of April 20, 1622, is not extant. The third, of Jan. 13, 1629-30, is at Plymouth in the Registry of Deeds, and is printed in Brigham’s edition of the _Laws_, Hazard’s _Collections_, etc. Cf. _Mass. Archives, Miscellanies_, i. 123.—ED.]]

The Legislature of Massachusetts gave fresh impulse to this spirit of investigation by publishing in 1836, under the editorship of Mr. William Brigham, the _Laws passed in Plymouth Colony from 1623 to 1691_, with a selection of other permanent documents. In 1841 the Rev. Alexander Young[510] collected, under the title of _Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers from 1602 to 1625_, the principal writings of that period, and, enriching them with a body of useful notes, made a volume which still retains a distinct value. In 1846 and 1851 a local antiquary, Mr. William S. Russell,[511] brought out two small volumes,—_A Guide to Plymouth_ and _Pilgrim Memorials_,—which are not yet superseded; Mr. William H. Bartlett’s _Pilgrim Fathers_[512] (1853) added something to these local touches. Between 1855 and 1861 the _Records of the Colony of New Plymouth_ were printed _in extenso_, by order of the State Legislature, under the editorship of Dr. N. B. Shurtleff[513] and Mr. David Pulsifer.

The year 1856 was made memorable by the printing of Bradford’s manuscript, and two years later appeared the initial volume of Dr. John G. Palfrey’s _History of New England_, which comprehends by far the best of modern narratives of the complete career of Plymouth Colony. Only in subsidiary literature have the more recent years added anything. Valuable bibliographical notes on Pilgrim history, by the editor of the present volume, were printed in the _Harvard College Library Bulletin_ for 1878, nos. 7 and 8; and the “Collections toward a Bibliography of Congregationalism,” appended to Dr. H. M. Dexter’s _Congregationalism as seen in its Literature_ (1880), are indispensable to future students. In 1881 General E. W. Peirce published a useful volume of _Civil, Military, and Professional Lists of Plymouth and Rhode Island Colonies_ to 1700.

Apart from strictly historical composition, the theme has inspired some of the greatest oratorical efforts of the sons of New England in the present century,—especially in connection with the stated annual celebrations of the Pilgrim Society,[514] formed at Plymouth in 1820 (a successor of the earlier Old Colony Club,[515] founded in 1769). Most deservedly conspicuous in this series are the orations delivered in 1820 by Daniel Webster, in 1824 by Edward Everett, and in 1870 by Robert C. Winthrop; of similar note are several of the orations before the New England Society of New York, founded in 1805. The Pilgrim Society has also fostered local sentiment by erecting (in 1824) Pilgrim Hall in the town of Plymouth, and by gathering within it a valuable collection of memorials of the early settlers and of portraits of historical interest.[516]

A portrait of Edward Winslow (engraved on a previous page) is in Pilgrim Hall at Plymouth, and is the only undoubted portrait of any of the Pilgrims now existing.[517] Of the many attempts to depict on canvas signal events of Pilgrim history, the most important is a painting by Robert W. Weir of the embarkation at Delft Haven, executed in 1846, and occupying one of the panels in the Rotunda of the Capitol at Washington.[518] The most imposing works of architecture and sculpture in commemoration of the same events are the canopy recently erected over the rock in Plymouth on which the Pilgrims are believed to have landed, and the monument on a neighboring hill-top.[519]

In poetical literature the most serious and sustained effort to represent the Pilgrim spirit is in Longfellow’s “Courtship of Miles Standish” (1859);[520] while in briefer compass Old England, through Lord Houghton (Prefatory Stanzas to Hunter’s _Founders of New Plymouth_) and Mrs. Hemans (“Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers”), and New England through Pierpont (“The Pilgrim Fathers”) and Lowell (“Interview with Miles Standish”), have vied in celebrating the character and deeds of the exiles of 1620.[521]