368 



HISTORY OF THE SEA. 



February, her want of ballast — unladen as she was — rendering 

 her light as a cockle-shell. With the opening of spring, the 

 captain determined to return to England, and offered to carry 

 back any of the colonists who might be disheartened by the 

 calamities which had overtaken them, — for they had buried 

 half their number. But their sufferings had endeared the soil 

 to them, and not one embraced the opportunity of returning. 

 The Mayflower left Plymouth on the 5th of April, 1621, and 

 made the run home to London in thirty days. She seems to 

 have performed several voyages back and forth, and, in 1630, 

 arrived in the harbor of Charlestown, with a portion of Win- 

 throp's company of emigrants. Her subsequent history is very 

 uncertain ; and all attempts to ascertain it have been baffled by 

 the circumstance that several ships bore the name of Mayflower, 

 and no reliable means exist of distinguishing her of Pilgrim 

 celebrity from others of obscurer fame. 



