64 WINTER SKETCHES. 



The truth is that the Pilgrims came here 

 by accident, but when once they had settled 

 down, they determined to make the best of it. 



In Young's " History of the Pilgrims," if I 

 remember aright the authority, we are told 

 that the company of the Mayflower were in the 

 habit of splitting their wood upon the quarter- 

 deck, and when the axe was not in use, they 

 laid it in the binnacle alongside of the compass, 

 which was so affected by the iron, that the ship 

 instead of bringing up at the Capes of the 

 Delaware or the Chesapeake, made the land at 

 Cape Cod. The passengers could not well get 

 away, and so, like the fox who had lost his tail, 

 they made a virtue of necessity, persuading 

 themselves and others whom they induced to 

 come after them, that this was indeed a goodly 

 land. 



Robert Cushman, who was a sort of Com- 

 missioner of Emigration, issued an address to 

 the English Puritans in 162 1, in which he set 

 forth the attractions of this land flowing with 

 milk and honey, with all the persuasiveness of 

 a railroad pamphleteer of the present day. He 

 was also a prototype of Mr. Henry George in 

 his theory of agrarianism. He had no more 

 regard for the rights of the Indians than Mr. 



