The Same Query Has Arisen, With Even Better
Reason, As To The Passengers Of The SPEEDWELL During The Stay At
Dartmouth, when the consort was being carefully overhauled to find her
leaks, the suggestion being made that in this case
Some of them might
have found accommodation on board the larger ship. The question may be
fairly considered as settled negatively, from the facts that the
colonists, with few exceptions, were unable to bear such extra expense
themselves; the funds of the Adventurers - if any were on hand, which
appears doubtful - were not available for the purpose; while the evidence
of some of the early writers renders it very certain that the Leyden
party were not released from residence on shipboard from the time they
embarked on the SPEEDWELL at Delfshaven till the final landing in the
harbor of New Plimoth. Just who of the Leyden chiefs caused themselves
to be assigned to the smaller vessel, to encourage its cowardly Master,
cannot be definitely known. It may be confidently assumed, however, that
Dr. Samuel Fuller, the physician of the colonists, was transferred to
the MAY-FLOWER, upon which were embarked three fourths of the entire
company, including most of the women and children, with some of whom, it
was evident, his services would be certainly in demand. There is little
doubt that the good Elder (William Brewster) was also transferred to the
larger ship at Southampton, while it would not be a very wild guess - in
the light of Bradford's statement - to place Carver, Winslow, Bradford,
Standish, Cooke, Howland, and Edward Tilley, and their families, among
the passengers on the consort. Just how many passengers each vessel
carried when they sailed from Southampton will probably never be
positively known. Approximately, it may be said, on the authority of
such contemporaneous evidence as is available, and such calculations as
are possible from the data we have, that the SPEEDWELL had thirty (30),
and the MAY-FLOWER her proportionate number, ninety (90) - a total of one
hundred and twenty (120).
Captain John Smith says,
[Smith, New England's Trials, ed. 1622, London, p. 259. It is a
singular error of the celebrated navigator that he makes the ships
to have, in less than a day's sail, got outside of Plymouth, as he
indicates by his words, "the next day," and "forced their return to
Plymouth." He evidently intends to speak only in general terms, as
he entirely omits the (first) return to Dartmouth, and numbers the
passengers on the MAY-FLOWER, on her final departure, at but "one
hundred." He also says they "discharged twenty passengers."]
apparently without pretending to be exact, "They left the coast of
England the 23 of August, with about 120 persons, but the next day [sic]
the lesser ship sprung a leak that forced their return to Plymouth; where
discharging her [the ship] and twenty passengers, with the great ship and
a hundred persons, besides sailors, they set sail again on the 6th of
September."
[Dr. Ames, so stringent in his requirements of other authors, for
example Jane Austin, has to this point been pathetically naive as to
the opinions of Captain John Smith. Captain Smith's self-serving
and very subjective narratives of his own voyages obtained for him
the very derogatory judgement by his contemporaries. One of the
best reviews of John Smith's life may be found in a small book on
this adventurer by Charles Dudley Warner. D.W.]
If the number one hundred and twenty (120) is correct, and the
distribution suggested is also exact, viz. thirty (30) to the SPEEDWELL
and ninety (90) to the MAY-FLOWER, it is clear that there must have been
more than twelve (the number usually named) who went from the consort to
the larger ship, when the pinnace was abandoned. We know that at least
Robert Cushman and his family (wife and son), who were on the MAY-FLOWER,
were among the number who returned to London upon the SPEEDWELL (and the
language of Thomas Blossom in his letter to Governor Bradford, else where
quoted, indicates that he and his son were also there), so that if the
ship's number was ninety (90), and three or more were withdrawn, it would
require fifteen (15) or more to make the number up to one hundred and two
(102), the number of passengers we know the MAY-FLOWER had when she took
her final departure. It is not likely we shall ever be able to determine
exactly the names or number of those transferred to the MAY-FLOWER from
the consort, or the number or names of all those who went back to London
from either vessel. Several of the former and a few of the latter are
known, but we must (except for some fortunate discovery) rest content
with a very accurate knowledge of the passenger list of the MAY-FLOWER
when she left Plymouth (England), and of the changes which occurred in it
afterward; and a partial knowledge of the ship's own complement of
officers and men.
Goodwin says: "The returning ones were probably of those who joined in
England, and had not yet acquired the Pilgrim spirit." Unhappily this
view is not sustained by the relations of those of the number who are
known. Robert Cushman and his family (3 persons), Thomas Blossom and his
son (2 persons), and William Ring (1 person), a total of six, or just one
third of the putative eighteen who went back, all belonged to the Leyden
congregation, and were far from lacking "the Pilgrim spirit." Cushman
was both ill and heart-sore from fatigue, disappointment, and bad
treatment; Ring was very ill, according to Cushman's Dartmouth letter;
but the motives governing Blossom and his son do not appear, unless the
comparatively early death of the son - after which his father went to New
England - furnishes a clue thereto. Bradford says: "Those that went back
were, for the most part, such as were willing to do so, either out of
some discontent, or fear they conceived of the ill success of the Voyage,
seeing so many crosses befallen and the year time so far spent.
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