No Indication Of The Old-Time Consultations With The Chief Men Appears Here As To The Matter Of The Return.

Their advice was not desired.

"The mariners put back" on their own responsibility.

Goodwin forcibly remarks, "These waters had been navigated by Gosnold, Smith, and various English and French explorers, whose descriptions and charts must have been familiar to a veteran master like Jones. He doubtless magnified the danger of the passage [of the shoals], and managed to have only such efforts made as were sure to fail. Of course he knew that by standing well out, and then southward in the clear sea, he would be able to bear up for the Hudson. His professed inability to devise any way for getting south of the Cape is strong proof of guilt."

The sequential acts of the Gorges conspiracy were doubtless practically as follows: -

(a) The Leyden leaders applied to the States General of Holland, through the New Netherland Company, for their aid and protection in locating at the mouth of "Hudson's" River;

(b) Sir Dudley Carleton, the English ambassador at the Hague, doubtless promptly reported these negotiations to the King, through Sir Robert Naunton;

(c) The King, naturally enough, probably mentioned the matter to his intimate and favorite, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, the leading man in American colonization matters in the kingdom;

(d) Sir Ferdinando Gorges, recognizing the value of such colonists as the Leyden congregation would make, anxious to secure them, instead of permitting the Dutch to do so, and knowing that he and his Company would be obnoxious to the Leyden leaders, suggested, as he admits, to Weston, perhaps to Sandys, as the Leyden brethren's friends, that they ought to secure them as colonists for their (London) Company;

(e) Weston was dispatched to Holland to urge the Leyden leaders to drop the Dutch negotiations, come under English auspices, which he guaranteed, and they, placing faith in him, and possibly in Sandys's assurances of his (London) Virginia Company's favor, were led to put themselves completely into the hands of Weston and the Merchant Adventurers; the Wincob patent was cancelled and Pierces substituted;

(f) Weston, failing to lead them to Gorges's company, was next deputed, perhaps by Gorges's secret aid, to act with full powers for the Adventurers, in securing shipping, etc.;

(g) Having made sure of the Leyden party, and being in charge of the shipping, Weston was practically master of the situation. He and Cushman, who was clearly entirely innocent of the conspiracy, had the hiring of the ship and of her officers, and at this point he and his acts were of vital importance to Gorges's plans. To bring the plot to a successful issue it remained only to effect the landing of the colony upon territory north of the 41st parallel of north latitude, to take it out of the London Company's jurisdiction, and to do this it was only necessary to make Jones Master of the ship and to instruct him accordingly. This, with so willing a servant of his masters, was a matter of minutes only, the instructions were evidently given, and the success of the plot - the theft of the MAY-FLOWER colony - was assured.

To a careful and candid student of all the facts, the proofs are seemingly unmistakable, and the conclusion is unavoidable, that the MAY-FLOWER Pilgrims were designedly brought to Cape Cod by Captain Jones, and their landing in that latitude was effected, in pursuance of a conspiracy entered into by him, not with the Dutch, but with certain of the nobility of England; not with the purpose of keeping the planters out of Dutch territory, but with the deliberate intent of stealing the colony from the London Virginia Company, under whose auspices it had organized and set sail, in the interest, and to the advantage, of its rival Company of the "Northern Plantations."

It is noteworthy that Jones did not command the MAY-FLOWER for another voyage, and never sailed afterward in the employ of Thomas Goffe, Esq., or (so far as appears) of any reputable shipowner. Weston was not such, nor were the chiefs of the "Council for New England," in whose employ he remained till his death.

The records of the Court of the "Council" show, that "as soon as it would do," and when his absence would tend to lull suspicion as to the parts played, Captain Jones's noble patrons took steps to secure for him due recognition and compensation for his services, from the parties who were to benefit directly, with themselves, by his knavery. The records read:

"July 17, 1622. A motion was made in the behaffe of Captaine Thomas Jones, Captaine of the DISCOVERY, nowe employed in Virginia for trade and fishinge [it proved, apparently, rather to be piracy], that he may be admitted a freeman in this Companie in reward of the good service he hath there [Virginia in general] performed. The Court liked well of the motion and condiscended thereunto." The DISCOVERY left London at the close of November, 1621. She arrived at Jamestown, Virginia, in April, 1622. She reached Plymouth, New England, in August, 1622. Her outward voyage was not, so far as can be learned, eventful, or entitled to especial consideration or recognition, and the good store of English trading-goods she still had on hand - as Governor Bradford notices - on her arrival at Plymouth indicates no notable success up to that time, in the way of a trading-voyage, while "fishing" is not mentioned. For piracy, in which she was later more successful, she had then had neither time nor opportunity. 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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