Because while something less
than half as we know, gave their votes for the American undertaking, it
cannot be known whether or not the women of church had a vote in the
matter. Presumably they did not, the primitive church gave good heed to
the words of Paul (i Corinthians xiv. 34), "Let your women keep silence
in the churches." Neither can it be known - if they had a voice - whether
the wives and daughters of some of the embarking Pilgrims, who did not go
themselves at this time, voted with their husbands and fathers for the
removal. The total number, seventy-two, coincides very nearly with the
estimate made by Goodwin, who says: "Only eighty or ninety could go in
this party from Leyden," and again: "Not more than eighty of the
MAY-FLOWER company were from Leyden. Allowing for [i.e. leaving out]
the younger children and servants, it is evident that not half the
company can have been from Robinson's congregation." As the total
number of passengers on the MAYFLOWER was one hundred and two when she
took her final departure from England, it is clear that Goodwin's
estimate is substantially correct, and that the number representing the
Leyden church as given above, viz., forty-two, is very close to the
fact.
"When they came to the place" [Delfshaven], says Bradford, "they found
the ship and all things ready; and such of their friends as could not
come with them [from Leyden] followed after them; and sundry also came
from Amsterdam (about fifty miles) to see them shipped, and to take their
leave of them."
Saturday, July 22/Aug. 1, 1620, the Pilgrim company took their farewells,
and Winslow records: "We only going aboard, the ship lying to the key
[quay] and ready to sail; the wind being fair, we gave them [their
friends] a volley of small shot [musketry] and three pieces of ordnance
and so lifting up our hands to each other and our hearts for each other
to the Lord our God, we departed."
Goodwin says of the parting: "The hull was wrapped in smoke, through
which was seen at the stern the white flag of England doubly bisected by
the great red cross of St. George, a token that the emigrants had at last
resumed their dearly-loved nationality. Far above them at the main was
seen the Union Jack of new device."
And so after more than eleven years of banishment for conscience' sake
from their native shores, this little band of English exiles, as true to
their mother-land - despite persecutions - as to their God, raised the
flag of England, above their own little vessel, and under its folds set
sail to plant themselves for a larger life in a New World.
And thus opens the "Log" of the SPEEDWELL, and the "Westward-Ho" of the
Pilgrim Fathers.
