Mr. Goffe's Intimate Connection With The Pilgrims Was Certainly Unbroken From The Organization Of Their Merchant Adventurers In 1619/20, Through The Entire Period Of Ten Years, To 1630.

There is every reason to believe, and none to doubt, that his ownership of the MAY-FLOWER of imperishable renown remained equally unbroken throughout these years, and that his signature as her owner was appended to her Pilgrim charter-party in 1620.

Whoever the signatories of her charter-party may have been, there can be no doubt that the good ship MAY-FLOWER, in charge of her competent, if treacherous, Master, Captain Thomas Jones, and her first "pilot," John Clarke, lay in the Thames near London through the latter part of June and the early part of July, in the summer of 1620, undergoing a thorough overhauling, under contract as a colonist-transport, for a voyage to the far-off shores of "the northern parts of Virginia."

In whatever of old English verbiage, with quaint terms and cumbersome repetition, the stipulations of this contract of were concealed, there can be no doubt that they purported and designed to "ingage" that "the Good ship MAY-FLOWER of Yarmouth, of 9 score tuns burthen, whereof for the present viage Thomas Joanes is Master," should make the "viage" as a colonist-transport, "from the city of London in His Majesty's Kingdom of Great Britain," etc., "to the neighborhood of the mouth of Hudson's River, in the northern parts of Virginia and return, calling at the Port of Southampton, outward bound, to complete her lading, the same of all kinds, to convey to, and well and safely deliver at, such port or place, at or about the mouth of Hudson's River, so-called, in Virginia aforesaid, as those in authority of her passengers shall direct," etc., with provision as to her return lading, through her supercargo, etc.

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