It Must Have
Been Rather A Burst Of The Imagination That Led Mrs. Austin, In "Standish
Of Standish," To Make
Peter Browne remind poor half-frozen Goodman - whom
he is urging to make an effort to reach home, when they
Had been lost,
but had got in sight of the MAY-FLOWER In the harbor - of "the good fires
aboard of her." Moreover, on January 22, when Goodman was lost, the
company had occupied their "common-house" on shore. Her ordnance
doubtless comprised several heavy guns (as such were then reckoned),
mounted on the spar-deck amid ships, with lighter guns astern and on.
the rail, and a piece of longer range and larger calibre upon the
forecastle. Such was the general disposal of ordnance upon merchant
vessels of her size in that day, when an armament was a 'sine qua non'.
Governor Winslow in his "Hypocrisie Unmasked," 1646 (p. 91), says, in
writing of the departure of the Pilgrims from Delfshaven, upon the
SPEEDWELL: "The wind being fair we gave them a volley of small shot and
three pieces of ordnance," by which it seems that the SPEEDWELL, of only
sixty tons, mounted at least "three pieces of ordnance" as, from the form
of expression, there seem to have been "three pieces," rather than three
discharges of the same piece.
The inference is warranted that the MAY-FLOWER, being three times as
large, would carry a considerably heavier and proportionate armament.
The LADY ARBELLA, Winthrop's ship, a vessel of 350 tons, carried
"twenty-eight pieces of ordnance;" but as "Admiral" of the fleet, at a
time when there was a state of war with others, and much piracy, she
would presumably mount more than a proportionate weight of metal,
especially as she convoyed smaller and lightly armed vessels, and
carried much value.
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