Few of the
English seem to have read it. Even its custodian miscalled it The Log of
the Mayflower, although after the ship finally cleared from England, only
five incidents of the voyage are briefly mentioned: the death of a young
seaman who cursed the Pilgrims on the voyage and made sport of their
misery; the cracking of one of the main beams of the ship; the washing
overboard in a storm of a good young man who was providentially saved; the
death of a servant; and the sight of Cape Cod. On petition, the Lord Bishop
of London generously gave this manuscript of 270 pages to the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts. In a speech at the time of its formal reception, Senator
Hoar eloquently summed up the subject matter of the volume as follows:--
"I do not think many Americans will gaze upon it without a little
trembling of the lips and a little gathering of mist in the eyes, as they
think of the story of suffering, of sorrow, of peril, of exile, of death,
and of lofty triumph which that book tells,--which the hand of the great
leader and founder of America has traced on those pages. There is nothing
like it in human annals since the story of Bethlehem.
Pages:
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40