among these Robert Cushman, with his family, one of the
most distinguished and honoured of the Pilgrim Fathers. And there was
doubtless as good "seed" in "the three kingdoms" after this "sifting" of
them for the New England enterprise as there was before.

In one of his speeches, the late eloquent Governor Everett, of
Massachusetts, describes their voyage as the "long, cold, dreary
autumnal passage, in that one solitary, adventurous vessel, the
_Mayflower_ of forlorn hope, freighted with prospects of a future state,
and bound across the unknown sea, pursuing, with a thousand misgivings,
the uncertain, the tedious voyage, suns rise and set, and winter
surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the sight of the
wished-for shore. The awful voice of the storm howls through the
rigging. The labouring masts seem straining from their base; the dismal
sound of the pumps is heard; the ship leaps, as it were, madly from
billow to billow; the ocean breaks, and settles with engulfing floods
over the floating deck, and beats with deadening, shivering weight
against the staggering vessel."

It is difficult to imagine how "winter" could surprise passengers
crossing the ocean between the 6th of September and the 9th of
November--a season of the year much _chosen_ even nowadays for crossing
the Atlantic. It is equally difficult to conceive how that could have
been an "unknown sea" which had been crossed and the New England coasts
explored by Gosnold, Smith, Dermer and others (all of whom had published
accounts of their voyage), besides more than a dozen fishing vessels
which had crossed this very year to obtain fish and furs in the
neighbourhood and north of Cape Cod. Doubtless often the "suns rose and
set" upon these vessels without their seeing the "wished-for shore;" and
probably more than once, "the awful voice of the storm howled through
their rigging," and "the dismal sound of their pumps was heard," and
they "madly leaped from billow to billow," and "staggered under the
deadening, shivering weight of the broken ocean," and with its
"engulfing floods" over their "floating decks." The _Mayflower_ was a
vessel of 180 tons burden--more than twice as large as any of the
vessels in which the early English, French, and Spanish discoverers of
America made their voyages--much larger than most of the vessels
employed in carrying emigrants to Virginia during the previous ten
years--more than three times as large as the ship _Fortune_,