it
pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the uncertain, the tedious
voyage. Suns rise and set, and weeks and months pass, and winter
surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the sight of the
wished-for shore. I see them now scantily supplied with provisions,
crowded almost to suffocation in their ill-stored prison, delayed
by calms, pursuing a circuitous route; and now driven in fury
before the raging tempest, on the high and giddy waves. The awful
voice of the storm howls through the rigging. The laboring 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 weight against the staggered vessel.
I see them, escaped from these perils, pursuing their all but
desperate undertaking, and landed at last, after five months'
passage, on the ice-clad rocks of Plymouth,--weak and weary from
the voyage, poorly armed, scantily provisioned, depending on the
charity of their shipmaster for a draft of beer on board, drinking
nothing but water on shore, without shelter, without means,
surrounded by hostile tribes."

What an extraordinary coincidence it is that a Dutch slaver, laden with
slaves for Virginia, should be on the ocean at the same time with the
"Mayflower," in whose cabin was written the first charter of
independence, the first American constitution, in the words following:

"In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwritten, the
loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord, King James, by the
grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland king, defender
of the faith, etc., having undertaken, for the glory of God, and
advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our king and
country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts
of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually in the
presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves
together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and
preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue
hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws,
ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time,
as shall be thought most meet and convenient