Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony)

You have been instruments to break the ice for others who come after with less difficulty.

The Pilgrims, also known as the Pilgrim Fathers, were the English settlers who travelled to North America on the ship Mayflower and established the Plymouth Colony at what now is Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States. John Smith had named this territory New Plymouth in 1620, sharing the name of the Pilgrims' final departure port of Plymouth, Devon, England. The Pilgrims' leadership came from religious congregations of Brownists or Separatists who had fled religious persecution in England for the tolerance of 17th-century Holland in the Netherlands.

Quotes

• I charge you before God ... that you follow me no farther than you have seen me follow the Lord Jesus Christ. If God reveal anything to you by any other instrument of His, be as ready to receive it as ever you were to receive any truth by my ministry; for I am verily persuaded, I am very confident, the Lord has more truths yet to break forth out of His holy word.
  • John Robinson, Farewell to the Pilgrims at Leyden, in Holland (1620)
  • Daniel Neal, The History of New-England (1720), vol. 1, ch. 3, p. 78

• In the name of God, Amen; We, ... the loyall subjects of our dread soveraigne King James, ... haveing undertaken, for the glorie of God, and advancemente of the Christian faith and honor of our king and countrie, a voyage to plant the first colonie in the Northerne parte 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 politick, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and, by vertue heareof, to enacte, constitute, and frame, such just and equall laws, ordenanrcs, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meete and convenient for the generall good of the Colonie.
  • Mayflower Compact (November 21 [O.S. November 11], 1620)

• The hospitals [of England] are full of the ancient ... the almshouses are filled with old laborers. Many there are who get their living with bearing burdens; but more are fain to burden the land with their whole bodies. Neither come these straits upon men always through intemperance, ill-husbandry, indiscretion, etc.; but even the most wise, sober, and discreet men go often to the wall when they have done their best. ... The rent-taker lives on sweet morsels, but the rent-payer eats a dry crust often with watery eyes.
  • Robert Cushman, Plymouth (1621)
  • Alexander Young, Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers (1841), ch. 16, p. 247

• We are all freeholders; the rent day doth not trouble us.
  • William Hilton Sr, Letter from Plymouth (November, 1621)
  • Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers, ch. 16, p. 250

• Let it not be grievous unto you that you have been instruments to break the ice for others who come after with less difficulty; the honor shall be yours to the world’s end.
  • Letter from London to the Pilgrims (1622)
  • Nathaniel Morton, New-England's Memorial (1669), anno 1623

Retrospective

So held they firm, the Fathers aye to be,
From Home to Holland, Holland to the sea—
Pilgrims for manhood, in their little ship,
Hope in each heart and prayer on every lip.

• I deem it a great thing for a nation, in all the periods of its fortunes, to be able to look back to a race of founders and a principle of institution in which it might seem to see the realized idea of true heroism. That felicity, that pride, that help, is ours.
  • Rufus Choate, "The Age of the Pilgrims the Heroic Period of Our History", Address to the New-England Association, in New York (December, 1843); Samuel G. Brown (ed.) Works, with a Memoir (1862), vol. 1, p. 392

• The compact signed in the cabin of the "Mayflower" tells the story of their coming hither. A band of exiles, three thousand miles of ocean separating them from the land of their nativity, and the unknown and unexplored wilds of New England to be from thence and forevermore their home, they declare the purpose of their coming "to plant a colony for the glory of God, the advancement of the Christian faith, and the honor of their king." No sordid purpose is here disclosed. In these words and lofty sentiments we read their future history.
  • Waldo Hutchins, "New England", in The Independent, vol. 37, no. 1910 (July 9, 1885), p. 6, col. 4

• One righteous word for Law—the common will;
  One living truth of Faith—God regnant still;
  One primal test of Freedom—all combined;
  One sacred Revolution—change of mind;
  One trust unfailing for the night and need—
  The tyrant-flower shall cast the freedom-seed.
  So held they firm, the Fathers aye to be,
  From Home to Holland, Holland to the sea—
  Pilgrims for manhood, in their little ship,
  Hope in each heart and prayer on every lip.
  They could not live by king-made codes and creeds;
  They chose the path where every footstep bleeds.
  Protesting, not rebelling; scorned and banned;
  Through pains and prisons harried from the land;
  Through double exile,—till at last they stand
  Apart from all,—unique, unworldly, true,
  Selected grain to sow the earth anew;
  A winnowed part—a saving remnant they;
  Dreamers who work—adventurers who pray!
  • John Boyle O'Reilly, "The Pilgrim Fathers", sts. 1–2. J. J. Roche (ed.) Life, Poems and Speeches (1891), pp. 397–8

External links

• The Proceedings at the Celebration by the Pilgrim Society, at Plymouth, August 1st, 1889, of the Completion of the National Monument to the Pilgrims (Plymouth: Avery & Doten, 1889), p. 107