It Has Been Suggested That He Was A
Relative Of Isaac Allerton, But This Is Nowhere Shown And Is
Improbable.
He died before the MAY-FLOWER returned to England.
Thomas English (or Enlish), Bradford tells us ("Historie," Mass. ed.
p. 533), "was hired to goe Master of a [the] shallop here." He,
however, "died here before the ship returned." It is altogether
probable that he was the savior of the colony on that stormy night
when the shallop made Plymouth harbor the first time, and, narrowly
escaping destruction, took shelter under Clarke's Island. The first
three governors of the colony, its chief founders, - Carver,
Bradford, and Winslow, - with Standish, Warren, Hopkins, Howland,
Dotey, and others, were on board, and but for the heroism and prompt
action of "the lusty sea man which steered," who was - beyond
reasonable doubt - English, as Bradford's narrative ("Morton's
Memorial") shows, the lives of the entire party must, apparently,
have been lost. That English was, if on board - Bradford shows in
the "Memorial" that he was - as Master of the shallop, properly her
helmsman in so critical a time, goes without saying, especially as
the "rudder was broken" and an oar substituted; that the ship's
"mates," Clarke and Coppin, were not in charge (although on board)
fully appears by Bradford's account; and as it must have taken all
of the other (four) seamen on board to pull the shallop, bereft of
her sail, in the heavy breakers into which she had been run by
Coppin's blunder, there would be no seaman but English for the
steering-oar, which was his by right.
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