Professor Arber Dissents From Goodwin's Conclusion
That Captain Jones Of The DISCOVERY Was The Former Master Of The
MAY-FLOWER, But The Reasons Of His Dissent Are By No Means Convincing.
He
argues that Jones would not have accepted the command of a vessel so much
smaller than his last, the DISCOVERY being only one third the size of the
MAY-FLOWER.
Master-mariners, particularly when just returned from long
and unsuccessful voyages, especially if in bad repute, - as was Jones,
- are obliged to take such employment as offers, and are often glad to get
a ship much smaller than their last, rather than remain idle. Moreover,
in Jones's case, if, as appears, he was inclined to buccaneering, the
smaller ship would serve his purpose - as it seems it did satisfactorily.
Nor is the fact that Bradford speaks of him - although previously so well
acquainted - as "one Captain Jones," to be taken as evidence, as Arber
thinks, that the Master of the DISCOVERY was some other of the name.
Bradford was writing history, and his thought just then was the especial
Providence of God in the timely relief afforded their necessities by the
arrival of the ships with food, without regard to the individuals who
brought it, or the fact that one was an acquaintance of former years.
On the other hand, Winslow - in his "Good Newes from New England"
- records the arrival of the two ships in August, 1622, and says, "the one
as I take [recollect] it, was called the DISCOVERY, Captain Jones having
command thereof," which on the same line of argument as Arber's might be
read, "our old acquaintance Captain Jones, you know"! If the expression
of Bradford makes against its being Captain Jones, formerly of the
MAY-FLOWER, Winslow's certainly makes quite as much for it, while the fact
which Winslow recites, viz.
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