93 



PART III. 



UNITED STATES, 



PLYMOUTH COLONY. 



From 1620 until the union ivith Massachusetts by the charter of William 



and Mary, 1G92. 



After long and patient inquiry, I am convinced that the whole truth 

 as to the motives which induced the Pilgrims to remove from Holland 

 to America has not been told by our historians. 



The sweet poetess asks, "What sought they thus afar?" and herself 

 replies, not "the wealth of seas," but "a faith's pure shrine." She 

 has expressed the sentiments of all. But is it so certain that they 

 " sought" not both? Of the men of their time, were they alone exempt 

 from the influence of the fishing mania which prevailed throughout 

 maritime Europe? Weary, stricken, homeless exiles, could they have 

 lived unmoved by the spirit around them, when the Dutch fisheries* 

 were at the highest point of prosperity, and when every one's thoughts 

 in their own country were turned to the planting of fishing colonies at 

 Newfoundland and on the shores of New England? Our continent was 

 discovered in 1497, by Cabot; and from the moment that the chron- 

 icler of his voyage made known to the people of England that our 

 waters teemed with fish — that here "were great seals, and those which 

 we commonly call salmons ; and also soles above a yard in length, but 

 especially there is a great abundance of that kinde which the sauages 

 call haccalos or codfish" — down to the year 1620, as we have seen in 

 the first and second parts of this report, the intercourse of the French 

 and English with tlic northerly seas of America was constant; and ot 

 all this were not the Puritans as well informed as others? Were they 

 ignorant of what transpired in the New World in the ten years immedi- 

 ately preceding their flight from England, and during the ten years of 



* It is said, by writers of authority, that in th<' ycjir ISHO the Dutch employed one tbou- 

 Band vessels in their herrini,' fiwhi-ry; tlutt tlif nuiiilier in 1(110 was fiftrfii iiuiulred; and that, 

 at the time the l'il<Trims emharkiMl for Aincrica, it was iiuirc two tii(»iisan<l. These estimates 

 are extrnvat'aiit eiionch, surely. Wliat ."IimII !)(■ thouuli' "f Sir Walter Ivalriyli, who set the 

 value of this fishi-ry annually at £l(i,(tOii,(iiiil. (or neaiiy fifty millions of dollars;) or of De 

 Witt, who said that I'vcry fifth jicrson in Hnlliiml rarui'il liis sulisistcnce by it ? Yet such 

 Btatruiriits wen- Ixdit.'Vfd at tlio tinif, and their trniii is cdnlcndid for now. 



Nor was this the oidy fishini; cxcitcnii-nt of (he l'ilt,'iinis' day. In Itil'J, the Dutch st.iit 

 whale-Hhi])s to the (Jrecniand sens, Imt the Uritisli considered them iiiterlii]iers, and com]ielled 

 them t4» retire. The year after, Frencli, Dutch, and S|i;tnisli shijjs at SiulzhiMxen were for- 

 bichlen to fish, by the same "lords of the seas." Itrilish whalers, as is stated, went anniMl at 

 this period. In Kill?, the British Unssia (.'onijiany received a mono|toly of the whale fisheiy, 

 and the year following' a c(»mj>auy in Holland obtained the same exclusive ri>;ht. In HiJ"^, the 

 controversy betweeu tho Uritisb tmd Dutch, ou the subject of the liabcrics, tcnuiuatcd in a 

 gCDural war. 



