The Conclusion Is Irresistible, That "The Good
Service" Recognized By The Vote Recorded Was Of The Past (He Had Sailed
Only the MAY-FLOWER voyage for the "Council" before), and that this
recognition was a part of the compensation previously
Agreed upon, if,
in the matter of the MAY-FLOWER voyage, Captain Jones did as he was
bidden. Thus much of the crafty Master of the MAY-FLOWER, Captain Thomas
Jones, - his Christian name and identity both apparently beyond dispute,
- whom we first know in the full tide of his piratical career, in the
corsair LION in Eastern seas; whom we next find as a prisoner in London
for his misconduct in the East, but soon Master of the cattle-ship FALCON
on her Virginia voyage; whom we greet next - and best - as Admiral of the
Pilgrim fleet, commander of the destiny freighted MAY-FLOWER, and though
a conspirator with nobles against the devoted band he steered, under the
overruling hand of their Lord God, their unwitting pilot to "imperial
labors" and mighty honors, to the founding of empire, and to eternal
Peace; whom we next meet - fallen, "like Lucifer, never to hope again"
- as Captain of the little buccaneer, - the DISCOVERY, disguised as a
trading-ship, on the Virginian and New England coasts; and lastly, in
charge of his leaking prize, a Spanish frigate in West Indian waters,
making his way - death-stricken - into the Virginia port of Jamestown,
where (July, 1625), he "cast anchor" for the last time, dying, as we
first found him, a pirate, to whom it had meantime been given to
"minister unto saints."
Of JOHN CLARKE, the first mate of the MAY-FLOWER, we have already learned
that he had been in the employ of the First (or London) Virginia Company,
and had but just returned (in June, 1620) from a voyage to Virginia with
Captain Jones in the FALCON, when found and employed by Weston and
Cushman for the Pilgrim ship.
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