Of the
passengers, John Howland by name, coming
upon some occasion above the gratings
latticed covers to the hatches, was with
the seel [roll] of the ship thrown into the
sea, but caught hold of the topsail
halliards, which hung overboard and ran out
at length; yet he held his hold, though he
was sundry fathoms under water, till he was
hauled up by the same rope to the brim of
the water, and then with a boathook and
other means got into the ship again and his
life saved. He was something ill with it.
The equinoctial disturbances over and the
strong October gales, the milder, warmer
weather of late October followed.
Mistress Elizabeth Hopkins, wife of Master
Stephen Hopkins, of Billericay, in Essex,
was delivered of a son, who, on account of
the circumstances of his birth, was named
Oceanus, the first birth aboard the ship
during the voyage.
A succession of fine days, with favoring
winds.
MONDAY Nov. 6/16
William Butten; a youth, servant to Doctor
Samuel Fuller, died. The first of the
passengers to die on this voyage.
MONDAY Nov. 7/17
The body of William Butten committed to the
deep. The first burial at sea of a
passenger, on this voyage.
MONDAY Nov. 8/18
Signs of land.
MONDAY Nov. 9/19
Closing in with the land at nightfall.
Sighted land at daybreak. The landfall
made out to be Cape Cod the bluffs [in what
is now the town of Truro, Mass.]. After a
conference between the Master of the ship
and the chief colonists, tacked about and
stood for the southward. Wind and weather
fair. Made our course S.S.W., continued
proposing to go to a river ten leagues
south of the Cape Hudson's River. After
had sailed that course about half the day
fell amongst dangerous shoals and foaming
breakers [the shoals off Monomoy] got out of
them before night and the wind being
contrary put round again for the Bay of
Cape Cod. Abandoned efforts to go further
south and so announced to passengers.
[Bradford (Historie, Mass. ed. p. 93) says: "They resolved to bear
up again for the Cape." No one will question that Jones's assertion
of inability to proceed, and his announced determination to return
to Cape Cod harbor, fell upon many acquiescent ears, for, as Winslow
says: "Winter was come; the seas were dangerous; the season was
cold; the winds were high, and the region being well furnished for a
plantation, we entered upon discovery." Tossed for sixty-seven days
on the north Atlantic at that season of the year, their food and
firing well spent, cold, homesick, and ill, the bare thought of once
again setting foot on any land, wherever it might be, must have been
an allurement that lent Jones potential aid in his high-handed
course.]
SATURDAY Nov.
