That The DISCOVERY, Under Jones, Was Sailing
As Consort To The SPARROW, A Ship Of Thomas Weston, - Who Employed Him For
The MAY-FLOWER, Was Linked With Him In The Gorges Conspiracy, And Had
Become Nearly As Degenerate As He, - Is Certainly Significant.
There are
still better grounds, as will appear in the closely connected relations
of Jones, for holding with Goodwin rather than with Arber in the matter.
The standard authority in the case is the late Rev.
E. D. Neill, D. D.,
for some years United States consul at Dublin, who made very considerable
research into all matters pertaining to the Virginia Companies,
consulting their original records and "transactions," the Dutch related
documents, the "Calendars of the East India Company," etc. Upon him and
his exhaustive work all others have largely drawn, - notably Professor
Arber himself, - and his conclusions seem entitled to the same weight here
which Arber gives them in other relations. Dr. Neill is clearly of
opinion that the Captains of the MAY-FLOWER and the DISCOVERY were
identical, and this belief is shared by such authorities in Pilgrim
literature as Young, Prince, Goodwin, and Davis, and against this
formidable consensus of opinion, Arber, unless better supported, can
hardly hope to prevail.
The question of Jones's duplicity and fraud, in bringing the Pilgrims to
land at Cape Cod instead of the "neighbor-hood of Hudson's River," has
been much mooted and with much diversity of opinion, but in the light of
the subjoined evidence and considerations it seems well-nigh impossible
to acquit him of the crime - for such it was, in inception, nature, and
results, however overruled for good.
The specific statements of Bradford and others leave no room for doubt
that the MAY-FLOWER Pilgrims fully intended to make their settlement
somewhere in the region of the mouth of "Hudson's River." Morton states
in terms that Captain Jones's "engagement was to Hudson's River."
Presumably, as heretofore noted, the stipulation of his charter party
required that he should complete his outward voyage in that general
locality. The northern limits of the patents granted in the Pilgrim
interest, whether that of John Wincob (or Wincop) sealed June 9/ 19,
1619, but never used, or the first one to John Pierce, of February 2/12,
1620, were, of course, brought within the limits of the First (London)
Virginia Company's charter, which embraced, as is well-known, the
territory between the parallels of 34 deg. and 41 deg. N. latitude.
The most northerly of these parallels runs but about twenty miles to the
north of the mouth of "Hudson's River." It is certain that the Pilgrims,
after the great expense, labor, and pains of three years, to secure the
protection of these Patents, would not willingly or deliberately, have
planted themselves outside that protection, upon territory where they had
none, and where, as interlopers, they might reasonably expect trouble
with the lawful proprietors. Nor was there any reason why, if they so
desired, they should not have gone to "Hudson's River" or its vicinity,
unless it was that they had once seemed to recognize the States General
of Holland as the rightful owners of that territory, by making petition
to them, through the New Netherland Company, for their authority and
protection in settling there.
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