Tasuta

The Mayflower and Her Log; July 15, 1620-May 6, 1621. Volume 5

Tekst
Autor:
Märgi loetuks
Šrift:Väiksem АаSuurem Aa

Bradford mentions "aqua vitae" as a constituent of their lunch on the exploring party of November 15. "Strong waters" (or Holland gin) are mentioned as a part of the entertainment given Massasoit on his first visit, and they find frequent mention otherwise. Wine finds no mention. Bradford states in terms: "Neither ever had they any supply of foode from them [the Adventurers] but what they first brought with them;" and again, "They never had any supply of vitales more afterwards (but what the Lord gave them otherwise), for all ye company [the Adventurers] sent at any time was allways too short for those people yt came with it."

The clothing supplies of the Pilgrims included hats, caps, shirts, neck- cloths, jerkins, doublets, waistcoats, breeches (stuff and leather), "hosen," stockings, shoes, boots, belts (girdles), cloth, piece-goods (dress-stuff's), "haberdasherie," etc., etc., all of which, with minor items for men's and women's use, find mention in their early narratives, accounts, and correspondence. By the will of Mr. Mullens it appears that he had twenty-one dozen of shoes and thirteen pairs of boots on board, doubtless intended as medium of exchange or barter. By the terms of the. contract with the colonists, the Merchant Adventurers were to supply all their actual necessities of Clothing food, clothing, etc., for the full term of seven years, during which the labors of the "planters" were to be for the joint account. Whether under this agreement they were bound to fully "outfit" the colonists before they embarked (and did so), as was done by Higginson's company coming to Salem in 1628-29 at considerable cost per capita, and as was done for those of the Leyden people who came over in 1629 with Pierce in the MAY-FLOWER and the TALBOT to Salem, and again in 1630 with the same Master (Pierce) in the LION by the Plymouth successors to the Adventurers (without recompense), does not clearly appear. No mention is found of any "outfitting" of the MAY-FLOWER passengers except the London apprentices. There is no doubt that a considerable supply of all the above-named articles was necessarily sent by the Adventurers on the MAY-FLOWER, both for the Pilgrims' needs on the voyage and in the new colony, as also for trading purposes. There seems to have been at all times a supreme anxiety, on the part of both Pilgrim and Puritan settlers, to get English clothes upon their red brethren of the forest, whether as a means of exchange for peltry, or for decency's sake, is not quite clear. There was apparently a greater disparity in character, intelligence, and station between the leaders of Higginson's and Winthrop's companies and their followers than between the chief men of the Pilgrims and their associates. With the former were titles and considerable representation of wealth and position. With the passengers of the MAY-FLOWER a far greater equality in rank, means, intelligence, capacity, and character was noticeable. This was due in part, doubtless, to the religious beliefs and training of the Leyden contingent, and had prompt illustration in their Compact, in which all stood at once on an equal footing. There was but little of the "paternal" nature in the form of their government (though something at times in their punishments), and there was much personal dignity and independence of the indi vidual. An equipment having so much of the character of a uniform—not to say "livery "—as that furnished by Higginson's company to its people suggests the "hedger and ditcher" type of colonists (of whom there were very few among the Plymouth settlers), rather than the scholar, publisher, tradesman, physician, hatter, smith, carpenter, "lay reader," and soldier of the Pilgrims, and would certainly have been obnoxious to their finer sense of personal dignity and proportion. Doubtless an equivalent provision existed—though in less "all-of-a-pattern " character—in the bales and boxes of the MAY-FLOWER'S cargo for every need suggested by the list of the Higginson "outfit," which is given herewith, both as matter of interest and as affording an excellent idea of the accepted style and needs in dress of a New England settler (at least of the men) of 1620-30. One cannot fail to wonder at the noticeably infrequent mention of provision in apparel, etc., for the women and children. The inventory of the "Apparell for 100 men" furnished by Higginson's company in 1628-29 gives us, among others, the following items of clothing for each emigrant:– 4 "peares of shoes." 4 "peares of stockings." 1 "peare Norwich gaiters." 4 "shirts." 2 "suits dublet and hose of leather lyn'd with oyld skyn leather, ye hose & dublett with hooks & eyes." 1 "sute of Norden dussens or hampshire kersies lynd the hose with skins, dublets with lynen of gilford or gedlyman kerseys." 4 bands. 2 handkerchiefs. 1 "wastecoat of greene cotton bound about with red tape." 1 leather girdle. 1 "Monmouth cap." 1 "black hatt lyned in the brows with lether." 5 "Red knitt capps milf'd about 5d apiece." 2 "peares of gloves." 1 "Mandiliion lynd with cotton" [mantle or greatcoat]. 1 "peare of breeches and waistcoat." 1 "leather sute of Dublett & breeches of oyled leather." 1 "peare of leather breeches and drawers to weare with both there other sutes."

In 1628 Josselyn put the average cost of clothing to emigrants to New

England at L4 each. In 1629 good shoes cost the "Bay" colonists 2s/7d

per pair. In his "Two Voyages to New England "previously referred to,

Josselyn gives an estimate (made about 1628) of the "outfit" in clothing

needed by a New England settler of his time. He names as "Apparel for

one man—and after this rate for more:—"

One Hatt

One Monmouth Cap

Three falling bands

Three Shirts

One Wastcoat

One Suite of Frize (Frieze)

One Suite of Cloth

One Suite of Canvas

Three Pairs of Irish Stockings

Four Pairs of Shoes

One Pair of Canvas Sheets

Seven ells of coarse canvas, to make a bed at sea for two men,

to be filled with straw

One Coarse Rug at Sea

The Furniture of the Pilgrims has naturally been matter of much interest to their descendants and others for many years. While it is doubtful if a single article now in existence can be positively identified and truthfully certified as having made the memorable voyage in the MAY- FLOWER (nearly everything having, of course, gone to decay with the wear and tear of more than two hundred and fifty years), this honorable origin is still assigned to many heirlooms, to some probably correctly. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes in his delightful lines, "On Lending a Punch Bowl," humorously claims for his convivial silver vessel a place with the Pilgrims:—

 
"Along with all the furniture, to fill their new abodes,
To judge by what is still on hand, at least a hundred loads."
 

To a very few time-worn and venerated relics—such as Brewster's chair and one or more books, Myles Standish's Plymouth sword, the Peregrine White cradle, Winslow's pewter, and one or two of Bradford's books—a strong probability attaches that they were in veritate, as traditionally avowed, part of the MAY-FLOWER'S freight, but of even these the fact cannot be proven beyond the possibility of a doubt.

From its pattern and workmanship, which are of a period antedating the "departure from Delfshaven," and the ancient tradition which is traceable to Brewster's time, it appears altogether probable that what is known as "Elder Brewster's chair" came with him on the ship. There is even greater probability as to one of his books bearing his autograph.

The sword of Myles Standish, in possession of the Pilgrim Society, may claim, with equal probability, MAY-FLOWER relation, from its evident antiquity and the facts that, as a soldier, his trusty blade doubtless stayed with him, and that it is directly traceable in his descendants' hands, back to his time; but an equally positive claim is made for similar honors for another sword said to have also belonged to the Captain, now in the keeping of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

The Peregrine White cradle "is strongly indorsed as of the MAY-FLOWER, from the facts that it is, indubitably, of a very early Dutch pattern and manufacture; that Mrs. White was anticipating the early need of a cradle when leaving Holland; and that the descent of this one as an heirloom in her (second) family is so fairly traced."

The pewter and the silver flask of Winslow not only bear very early "Hallmarks," but also the arms of his family, which it is not likely he would have had engraved on what he may have bought after notably becoming the defender of the simplicity and democracy of the "Pilgrim Republic." Long traceable use in his family strengthens belief in the supposition that these articles came with the Pilgrims, and were then very probably heirlooms. One of Governor Bradford's books (Pastor John Robinson's "Justification of Separation"), published in 1610, and containing the Governor's autograph, bears almost 'prima facie' evidence of having come with him in the MAY-FLOWER, but of course might, like the above-named relics, have come in some later ship.

In this connection it is of interest to note what freight the MAY-FLOWER carried for the intellectual needs of the Pilgrims. Of Bibles, as the "book of books," we may be sure—even without the evidence of the inventories of the early dead—there was no lack, and there is reason to believe that they existed in several tongues, viz. in English, Dutch, and possibly French (the Walloon contribution from the Huguenots), while there is little doubt that, alike as publishers and as "students of the Word," Brewster, Bradford, and Winslow, at least, were possessed of, and more or less familiar with, both the Latin and Greek Testaments. It is altogether probable, however, that Governor Bradford's well attested study of "the oracles of God in the original" Hebrew, and his possession of the essential Hebrew Bible, grammar, and lexicon, were of a later day. Some few copies of the earliest hymnals ("psalme-bookes")—then very limited in number—there is evidence that the Holland voyagers had with them in the singing of their parting hymns at Leyden and Delfshaven, as mentioned by Winslow and in the earlier inventories: These metrical versions of the Psalms constituted at the time, practically, the only hymnology permitted in the worship of the "Separatists," though the grand hymn of Luther, "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott," doubtless familiar to them, must have commended itself as especially comforting and apposite.

 

Of the doctrinal tracts of their beloved Pastor, John Robinson, there is every probability, as well as some proof, that there was good supply, as well as those of Ainsworth and Clyfton and of the works of William Ames, the renowned Franeker Professor, the controversial opponent but sincere friend of Robinson: the founder of evangelical "systematic theology," [method—Methodist? D.W.] whom death alone prevented from becoming the President of Harvard College. We may be equally sure that the few cases of books in the freight of the Pilgrim ship included copies of the publications of the "hidden and hunted press" of Brewster and Brewer, and some at least of the issues of their fellows in tribulation at Amsterdam and in Scotland and England. Some few heavy tomes and early classics in English, Dutch, Latin, and Greek were also presumably among the goodly number of books brought in the MAY FLOWER by Brewster, Bradford, Winslow, Fuller, Hopkins, Allerton, Standish, and others, though it is probable that the larger part of the very considerable library of four hundred volumes, left at his death by Brewster (including sixty-two in Latin), and of the respectable libraries of Fuller, Standish, and others, named in their respective inventories, either were brought over in the later ships, or were the products of the earliest printers of New England. One is surprised and amused that the library of the good Dr. Fuller should contain so relatively small a proportion of medical works (although the number in print prior to his death in 1633 was not great), while rich in religious works pertinent to his functions as deacon. It is equally interesting to note that the inventory of the soldier Standish should name only one book on military science, "Bariffe's Artillery," though it includes abundant evidence to controvert, beyond reasonable doubt, the suggestion which has been made, that he was of the Romanist faith. Just which of the books left by the worthies named, and others whose inventories we possess, came with them in the Pilgrim ship, cannot be certainly determined, though, as before noted, some still in existence bear intrinsic testimony that they were of the number. There is evidence that Allerton made gift of a book to Giles Heale of the MAY-FLOWER (perhaps the ship's surgeon), while the ship lay at Plymouth, and Francis Cooke's inventory includes "1 great Bible and 4 olde bookes," which as they were "olde," and he was clearly not a book-buyer, very probably came with him in the ship. In fact, hardly an adult of the Leyden colonists, the inventory of whose estate at death we possess, but left one or more books which may have been his companions on the voyage.