lay at anchor in Cape Cod Harbor. The first thing to be done was to select a place for their settlement. This, however, could not be done till the shallop, or sail-boat, was ready; and it would take several days, as they found. So they went to work on this, and meanwhile, for the sake of a mutual understanding among themselves, this agreement was drawn up and signed by all the men on board.

"In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyall subiects of our dread soveraigne lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britaine, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith, etc., having undertaken, for the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith, and honour of our King and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northerne parts of Virginia, doe, by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civill body politike, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by vertue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such iust and equal lawes, ordinances, acts, constitutions, offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the generall good of the Colony; vnto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witnesse whereof we haue hereunto subscribed our names. Cape Cod, 11 of November, in the year of the raigne of our soveraigne lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland 18, and of Scotland 54. Anno Domini 1620."

Here was the "social compact" in good earnest—a thing which philosophers have claimed to be implied in all human government, but which has rarely been put in a shape so unequivocal. Robinson's letter of advice to the company had recognized before they left Holland that they were "to become a body-politic," using among themselves civil government, and choosing their own rulers. As with most persons who write important documents, their work seemed less imposing to themselves than it has since appeared to others. They thought of discipline rather than of philosophy; they had secured a good working organization, and it was not till long after that the act was discovered to have been "the birth of popular constitutional liberty." Such as it was, it was signed by forty-one men, mostly heads of families. Against

each name was placed the number represented by him, making a total of one hundred and one persons, though accurately revised estimates give one more.

This being signed, the people were eager to go on shore and examine the new country, even by venturing a little way. So a party landed for fuel, a portion of them being armed; they saw neither person nor house, but brought home a boatload of juniper boughs, "which smelled very sweet and strong," and which became a frequent fuel with them. Then the women went ashore under guard the next Monday to do their washing, and we may well suppose that some of the twentyeight children begged hard to go also, and offered much desultory aid in bringing water, while the men guarded and the women scrubbed. The more they knew of the land, the more they wished to know, and at last it was agreed that Captain Miles Standish and sixteen men, "with every man his musket, sword, and corselet," should be sent along the cape to explore. The muskets were matchlocks, and the corselet was a coat of mail, a heavy garment to be worn amid tangled woods and over weary sands.

The journal kept by this first party has been preserved. They found walnuts, strawberries, and vines, and came to some springs, where they sat down and drank their first New England water, as one of them says, "with as much delight as ever we drunk drink in all our lives." They saw no Indians, but found their houses and graves; they found also a basket holding three or four bushels of Indian corn of yellow, red, and blue, such as still grows in Cape Cod. This they took with them on their return, meaning to pay for it, which they afterwards did. Then they returned, and a few days after another party, twice as large, and including the captain of the Mayflower, set off in the shallop to make further explorations. All their adventures are preserved to us in the most graphic way by contemporary narratives. Then a third party of eight

een went out, including Carver, Standish, Bradford, and other leading men. They were attacked by Indians; they lost their rudder and their mast; they drifted at last on Clark's Island, kept the Sabbath there, and on the 11th December, Old Style -commonly reckoned, but not quite accurately, as corresponding to the 22d of December, New Style-they made their first landing on Plymouth Rock. This place being approved, they returned to the Mayflower, and the vessel came into harbor five days later.

There they spent the winter-their first experience of a New England winter! They were ill housed, ill fed; part of them remained for several months on board the ship; one-half of them died during the first winter of scurvy and other diseases. At times, according to the diary of the heroic Bradford, there were but six or seven sound persons who could tend upon the sick and dying, "fetched them wood, made them fires, dressed them meat, made their beds, washed their loathsome clothes, clothed and unclothed them," two of these nurses being their spiritual and military leaders, Elder Brewster and Captain Miles Standish. The New Plymouth Colony never grew to be a strong one; its later history is merged in that of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, to which it led; but its success may be said to have been the turning-point in the existence of Raleigh's "English nation." The situation is thus briefly stated by the ablest historian who wrote in this continent before the Revolution, Governor Hutchinson:

"These were the founders of the colony of Flymouth. The settlement of this colony occasioned the settlement of Massachusetts Bay, which was the source of all the other colonies of New England. Virginia was in a dying state, and seemed to revive and flourish from the example of New England. I am not preserving from oblivion the names of heroes whose chief merit is the overthrow of cities, provinces, and empires, but the names of the founders of a flourishing town and colony, if not of the whole British empire in America."

In September, 1628, there came sailing into the harbor of