"Which Of These Was The Vessell Which Carried Over The Precious [Pilgrim] Freight Cannot Perhaps Be Told [Apparently Neither, Unless

Perhaps the MAY-FLOWER of Yarmouth of 1593, in which case her tonnage is incorrectly given], but we learn from

Mr. Sherley's letter to Governor Bradford' that the same vessel was employed in 1629 in passing between the two countries, a company of the church at Leyden, who had joined in the first emigration, intending to pass in it to America; and in the same author we find that the vessel arrived in the harbour of Charlestown [N. E.] on July 1, 1630. There was a MAY-FLOWER which, in 1648, gained an unenviable notoriety as a slaver. But this was not the MAY-FLOWER which had carried over the first settlers, it being a vessel Of 350 tons, while the genuine MAY-FLOWER was of only 180 tons." Of the first of her two known visits, after her voyage with the Pilgrim company from Leyden, Goodwin says: "In August, 1629, the renowned MAY-FLOWER came from England to Salem under Plymouth's old friend [William] Peirce, and in her came thirty-five Leyden people, on their way to Plymouth." The number has been in dispute, but the large cost of bringing them, over L500, would suggest that their families must have also come, as has been alleged, but for the following from Governor Bradford's Letter Book: "These persons," he says, "were in all thirty-five, which came at this time unto us from Leyden, whose charge out of Holland into England, and in England till the ship was ready, and then their transportation hither, came to a great deal of money, for besides victuals and other expenses, they were all newly apparelled." Shirley, one of the Adventurers, writing to Governor Bradford in 1629, says:

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