He Seems To Have Been A Competent And Faithful Man, Who Filled Well His Part In Life.

He will always have honorable mention as the first officer of the historic MAY-FLOWER, and as sponsor at the English christening of the smiling islet in Plymouth harbor which bears his name.

Of ROBERT COPPIN, the "second mate" (or "pilot") of the MAY-FLOWER, nothing is known before his voyage in the Pilgrim ship, except that he seems to have made a former to the coast of New England and the vicinity of Cape Cod, though under what auspices, or in what ship, does not transpire. Bradford says: "Their Pilotte, one Mr. Coppin, who had been in the countrie before." Dr. Young a suggests that Coppin was perhaps on the coast with Smith or Hunt. Mrs. Austin imaginatively makes him, of "the whaling bark SCOTSMAN of Glasgow," but no warrant whatever for such a conception appears.

Dr. Dexter, as elsewhere noted, has said: "My impression is that Coppin was originally hired to go in the SPEEDWELL, . . that he sailed with them [the Pilgrims] in the SPEED WELL, but on her final putting back was transferred to the MAY-FLOWER." As we have seen in another relation, Dr. Dexter also believed Coppin to have been the "pilot" sent over by Cushman to Leyden, in May, 1620, and we have found both views to be untenable. It was doubtless because of this mistaken view that Dr. Dexter believed that Coppin was "hired to go in the SPEEDWELL," and, the premise being wrong, the conclusion is sequentially incorrect. But there are abundant reasons for thinking that Dexter's "impression" is wholly mistaken. It would be unreasonable to suppose (as both vessels were expected to cross the ocean), that each had not - certainly on leaving Southampton her full complement of officers. If so, each undoubtedly had her second mate. The MAY-FLOWER'S officers and crew were, as we know, hired for the voyage, and there is no good reason to suppose that the second mate of the MAY-FLOWER was dismissed at Plymouth and Coppin put in his place which would not be equally potent for such an exchange between the first mate of the SPEEDWELL and Clarke of the MAY-FLOWER. The assumption presumes too much. In fact, there can be no doubt that Dexter's misconception was enbased upon, and arose from, the unwarranted impression that Coppin was the "pilot" sent over to Leyden. It is not likely that, when the SPEEDWELL'S officers were so evidently anxious to escape the voyage, they would seek transfer to the MAY-FLOWER.

Charles Deane, the editor of Bradford's "Historie" (ed.1865), makes, in indexing, the clerical error of referring to Coppin as the "master-gunner," an error doubtless occasioned by the fact that in the text referred to, the words, "two of the masters-mates, Master Clarke and Master Coppin, the master-gunner," etc., were run so near together that the mistake was readily made.

In "Mourt's Relation" it appears that in the conferences that were held aboard the ship in Cape Cod harbor, as to the most desirable place for the colonists to locate, "Robert Coppin our pilot, made relation of a great navigable river and great harbor in the headland of the Bay, almost right over against Cape Cod, being a right line not much above eight leagues distant," etc.

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