The Leyden Leaders Had Apparently Favored Purchasing Also The Larger
Vessel Still Needed For The Voyage, Hoping, Perhaps, To Interest Therein
At Least One Of Their Friends, Master Edward Pickering, A Merchant Of
Holland, Himself One Of The Adventurers, While Master Weston Had, As
Appears, Inclined To Hire.
From this disagreement and other causes,
perhaps certain sinister reasons, Weston had become disaffected, the
enterprise drooped, the outlook was dubious, and several formerly
interested drew back, until shipping should be provided and the good
faith of the enterprise be thus assured.
It transpires from Robinson's letter dated June 14., before quoted (in
which he says: "For shipping, Master Weston, it should seem is set upon
hiring"), that Robinson's own idea was to purchase, and he seems to have
dominated the rest. There is perhaps a hint of his reason for this in
the following clause of the same letter, where he writes: "I do not think
Master Pickering [the friend previously named] will ingage, except in the
course of buying ['ships?' - Arber interpolates] as in former letters
specified." If he had not then "ingaged" (as Robinson intimates), as an
Adventurer, he surely did later, contrary to the pastor's prediction, and
the above may have been a bit of special pleading. Robinson naturally
wished to keep their, affairs, so far as possible, in known and
supposedly friendly hands, and had possibly some assurances that, as a
merchant, Pickering would be willing to invest in a ship for which he
could get a good charter for an American voyage. He proved rather an
unstable friend.
Robinson is emphatic, in the letter cited, as to the imperative necessity
that shipping should be immediately provided if the enterprise was to be
held together and the funds subscribed were to be secured. He evidently
considered this the only guaranty of good faith and of an honest
intention to immediately transport the colony over sea, that would be
accepted. After saying, as already noted, that those behind-hand with
their payments refuse to pay in "till they see shipping provided or a
course taken for it," he adds, referring to Master Weston: "That he
should not have had either shipping ready before this time, or at least
certain [i.e. definite] means and course, and the same known to us, for
it; or have taken other order otherwise; cannot in [according to] my
conscience be excused."
Bradford also states that one Master Thomas Weston a merchant of London,
came to Leyden about the same time [apparently while negotiations for
emigration under their auspices were pending with the Dutch, in February
or March, 1620], who was "well acquainted with some of them and a
furtherer of them in their former proceedings.... and persuaded them....
not to meddle with the Dutch," etc. This Robinson confirms in his letter
to Carver before referred to, saying: "You know right well we depend on
Master Weston alone,.... and when we had in hand another course with the
Dutchman, broke it off at his motion."
On the morning of the 10th of June, 1620, Robert Cushman, one of the
Leyden agents at London, after writing to his associate, Master John
Carver, then at Southampton; and to the Leyden leaders - in reply to
certain censorious letters received by him from both these sources
- although disheartened by the difficulties and prospects before him,
sought Master Weston, and by an urgent appeal so effectively wrought upon
him, that, two hours later, coming to Cushman, he promised "he would not
yet give it [the undertaking] up." Cushman's patience and endurance were
evidently nearly "at the breaking point," for he says in his letter of
Sunday, June 11, when success had begun to crown his last grand effort:
"And, indeed, the many discouragements I find here [in London] together
with the demurs and retirings there [at Leyden] had made me to say, 'I
would give up my accounts to John Carver and at his coming from
Southampton acquaint him fully with all courses [proceedings] and so
leave it quite, with only the poor clothes on my back: But gathering up
myself by further consideration, I resolved yet to make one trial more,"
etc. It was this "one trial more" which meant so much to the Pilgrims;
to the cause of Religion; to America; and to Humanity. It will rank with
the last heroic and successful efforts of Robert the Bruce and others,
which have become historic. The effect of Cushman's appeal upon Weston
cannot be doubted. It not only apparently influenced him at the time,
but, after reflection and the lapse of hours, it brought him to his
associate to promise further loyalty, and, what was much better, to act.
The real animus of Weston's backwardness, it is quite probable, lay in
the designs of Gorges, which were probably not yet fully matured, or, if
so, involved delay as an essential part. "And so," Cushman states,
"advising together, we resolved to hire a ship." They evidently found one
that afternoon, "of sixty last" (120 tons) which was called "a fine
ship," and which they "took liking of [Old English for trial (Dryden),
equivalent to refusal] till Monday." The same afternoon they "hired
another pilot . . . one Master Clarke." - of whom further.
It seems certain that by the expression, "we have hired another pilot
here, one Master Clarke," etc.; that Cushman was reckoning the "pilott"
Reynolds whom he had hired and sent over to them in Holland, as shown - as
at the first, and now Clarke as "another." It nowhere appears that up to
this date, any other than these two had been hired, nor had there been
until then, any occasion for more than one.
If Cushman had been engaged in such important negotiations as these
before he wrote his letters to Carver and the Leyden friends, on Saturday
morning, he would certainly have mentioned them. As he named neither, it
is clear that they had not then occurred. It is equally certain that
Cushman's appeal to Weston was not made, and his renewed activity
aroused, until after these letters had been dispatched and nothing of the
kind could have been done without Weston.
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