Perhaps The Best
Illustration Now Known Of A Craft Of This Type Is Given In The Painting
By The Cuyps,
Father and son, of the "Departure of the Pilgrims from
Delfshaven," as reproduced by Dr. W. E. Griffis, as the
Frontispiece to
his little monograph, "The Pilgrims in their Three Homes." No reliable
description of the pinnace herself is known to exist, and but few facts
concerning her have been gleaned. That she was fairly "roomy" for a
small number of passengers, and had decent accommodations, is inferable
from the fact that so many as thirty were assigned to her at Southampton,
for the Atlantic voyage (while the MAY-FLOWER, three times her tonnage,
but of greater proportionate capacity, had but ninety), as also from the
fact that "the chief [i.e. principal people] of them that came from
Leyden went in this ship, to give Master Reynolds content." That she
mounted at least "three pieces of ordnance" appears by the testimony of
Edward Winslow, and they probably comprised her armament.
We have seen that Bradford notes the purchase and refitting of this
"smale ship of 60 tune" in Holland. The story of her several sailings,
her "leakiness," her final return, and her abandonment as unseaworthy,
is familiar. We find, too, that Bradford also states in his "Historie,"
that "the leakiness of this ship was partly by her being overmasted and
too much pressed with sails." It will, however, amaze the readers of
Professor Arber's generally excellent "Story of the Pilgrim Fathers," so
often referred to herein, to find him sharply arraigning "those members
of the Leyden church who were responsible for the fitting of the
SPEEDWELL," alleging that "they were the proximate causes of most of the
troubles on the voyage [of the MAY-FLOWER] out; and of many of the deaths
at Plymouth in New England in the course of the following Spring; for
they overmasted the vessel, and by so doing strained her hull while
sailing." To this straining, Arber wholly ascribes the "leakiness" of
the SPEEDWELL and the delay in the final departure of the MAYFLOWER, to
which last he attributes the disastrous results he specifies. It would
seem that the historian, unduly elated at what he thought the discovery
of another "turning-point of modern history," endeavors to establish it
by such assertions and such partial references to Bradford as would
support the imaginary "find." Briefly stated, this alleged discovery,
which he so zealously announces, is that if the SPEEDWELL had not been
overmasted, both she and the MAY-FLOWER would have arrived early in the
fall at the mouth of the Hudson River, and the whole course of New
England history would have been entirely different. Ergo, the
"overmasting" of the SPEEDWELL was a "pivotal point in modern history."
With the idea apparently of giving eclat to this announcement and of
attracting attention to it, he surprisingly charges the responsibility
for the "overmasting" and its alleged dire results upon the leaders of
the Leyden church, "who were," he repeatedly asserts, "alone
responsible." As a matter of fact, however, Bradford expressly states
(in the same paragraph as that upon which Professor Arber must wholly
base his sweeping assertions) that the "overmasting" was but "partly"
responsible for the SPEEDWELL'S leakiness, and directly shows that the
"stratagem" of her master and crew, "afterwards," he adds, "known, and by
some confessed," was the chief cause of her leakiness.
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