The Actual Builder's Plans, Reproduced By
Admiral Paris, From Drawings Still Preserved, Of Ships Of The MAYFLOWER'S
Time, Seem To Me To Offer More Correct And Conclusive Data For Accurately
Determining What The Famous Ship Of The Pilgrim Fathers Was Like."
Decidedly one of the larger and better vessels of the merchant class of
her day, she presumably followed the prevalent lines of that class, no
doubt correctly represented, in the main, by the few coeval pictures of
such craft which have come down to us.
No one can state with absolute
authority, her exact rig, model, or dimensions; but there can be no
question that all these are very closely determined from even the meagre
data and the prints we possess, so nearly did the ships of each class
correspond in their respective features in those days. There is a
notable similarity in certain points of the MAY-FLOWER, as she has been
represented by these different artists, which is evidence upon two
points: first, that all delineators have been obliged to study the type
of vessel to which she belonged from such representations of it as each
could find, as neither picture nor description of the vessel herself was
to be had; and second, that as the result of such independent study
nearly all are substantially agreed as to what the salient features of
her type and class were. A model of a ship [3 masts] of the MAY-FLOWER
type, and called in the Society's catalogue "A Model of the MAY FLOWER,
after De Bry," but itself labelled "Model of one of Sir Walter Raleigh's
Ships," is (mistakenly) exhibited by the Pilgrim Society at Plymouth.
It is by no means to be taken as a correct representation of the Pilgrim
bark. Few of the putative pictures of the MAY-FLOWER herself are at all
satisfactory, - apart from the environment or relation in which she is
usually depicted, - whether considered from an historical, a nautical,
or an artistic point of view. The only one of these found by the author
which has commanded (general, if qualified) approval is that entitled
"The MAY-FLOWER at Sea," a reproduction of which, by permission, is the
frontispiece of this volume. It is from an engraving by the master hand
of W. J. Linton, from a drawing by Granville Perkins, and appeared in the
"New England Magazine" for April, 1898, as it has elsewhere. Its
comparative fidelity to fact, and its spirited treatment, alike commend
it to those familiar with the subject, as par excellence the modern
artistic picture of the MAY-FLOWER, although somewhat fanciful, and its
rig, as Captain Collies observes, "is that of a ship a century later than
the MAY-FLOWER; a square topsail on the mizzen," he notes, "being unknown
in the early part of the seventeenth century, and a jib on a ship equally
rare." Halsall's picture of "The Arrival of the MAY-FLOWER in Plymouth
Harbor," owned by the Pilgrim Society, of Plymouth, and hung in the
Society's Hall, while presenting several historical inaccuracies,
undoubtedly more correctly portrays the ship herself, in model, rig,
etc., than do most of the well-known paintings which represent her.
It is much to be regretted that the artist, in woeful ignorance, or
disregard, of the recorded fact that the ship was not troubled with
either ice or snow on her entrance (at her successful second attempt) to
Plymouth harbor, should have covered and environed her with both.
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