It Was
Very Possibly Further Permitted By The Adventurers, That Mr. Pickering's
And His Partners' Subscriptions To Their Capital Stock
Should be applied
to the purchase of the SPEEDWELL, as they were collected by the Leyden
leaders, as Pastor Robinson's
Letter of June 14/24 to John Carver,
previously noted, clearly shows.
She was obviously bought some little time before May 31, 1620, - probably
in the early part of the month, - from the fact that in their letter of
May 31st to Carver and Cushman, then in London, Messrs. Fuller, Winslow,
Bradford, and Allerton state that "we received divers letters at the
coming of Master Nash and our Pilott," etc. From this it is clear that
time enough had elapsed, since their purchase of the pinnace, for their
messenger (Master Nash) to go to London, - evidently with a request to
Carver and Cushman that they would send over a competent "pilott" to
refit her, and for Nash to return with him, while the letter announcing
their arrival does not seem to have been immediately written.
The writers of the above-mentioned letter use the words "we received,"
- using the past tense, as if some days before, instead of "we have your
letters," or "we have just received your letters," which would rather
indicate present, or recent, time. Probably some days elapsed after the
"pilott's" arrival, before this letter of acknowledgment was sent. It is
hence fair to assume that the pinnace was bought early in May, and that
no time was lost by the Leyden party in preparing for the exodus, after
their negotiations with the Dutch were "broken off" and they had "struck
hands" with Weston, sometime between February 2/12, 1619/20, and April
1/11, 1620, - probably in March.
The consort was a pinnace - as vessels of her class were then and for many
years called - of sixty tons burden, as already stated, having two masts,
which were put in - as we are informed by Bradford, and are not allowed by
Professor Arber to forget - as apart of her refitting in Holland. That
she was "square-rigged," and generally of the then prevalent style of
vessels of her size and class, is altogether probable. The name pinnace
was applied to vessels having a wide range in tonnage, etc., from a craft
of hardly more than ten or fifteen tons to one of sixty or eighty. It
was a term of pretty loose and indefinite adaptation and covered most of
the smaller craft above a shallop or ketch, from such as could be
propelled by oars, and were so fitted, to a small ship of the SPEEDWELL'S
class, carrying an armament.
None of the many representations of the SPEEDWELL which appear in
historical pictures are authentic, though some doubtless give correct
ideas of her type. Weir's painting of the "Embarkation of the Pilgrims,"
in the Capitol at Washington (and Parker's copy of the same in Pilgrim
Hall, Plymouth); Lucy's painting of the "Departure of the Pilgrims," in
Pilgrim Hall; Copes great painting in the corridor of the British Houses
of Parliament, and others of lesser note, all depict the vessel on much
the same lines, but nothing can be claimed for any of them, except
fidelity to a type of vessel of that day and class.
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