ng the enterprise. That
they were not signing-parties to this contract, in particular, is made
very certain by the suggestion of Cushman's letter of Sunday, June 11,
to the effect that he hoped that "our friends there [at Leyden] if they
be quitted of the ship-hire [as then seemed certain, as the Adventurers
would hire on general account] will be induced to venture [invest] the
more." There had evidently been a grave fear on the part of the Leyden
people that if they were ever to get away, they would have to hire the
necessary ship themselves.

There is just the shadow of a doubt thrown upon the accuracy of Smith's
statement as to the non-corporate status of the Adventurers, by the loose
and unwieldy features which must thereby attach to their business
transactions, to which it seems probable that merchants like Weston,
Andrews, Beauchamp, Shirley, Pickering, Goffe, and others would object,
unless the law at that time expressly limited and defined the rights and
liabilities of members in such voluntary associations. Neither evidences
of (primary) incorporation, or of such legal limitation, have, however,
rewarded diligent search. There was evidently some more definite and
corporate form of ownership in the properties and values of the
Adventurers, arrived at later. A considerable reduction in the number of
proprietors was effected before 1624--in most cases by the purchase of
the interests of certain ones by their associates--for we find their
holdings spoken of in that year as "sixteenths," and these shares to have
sometimes been attached for their owners' debts. A letter of Shirley,
Brewer et als., to Bradford, Allerton et als., dated London, April 7,
1624, says: "If it had not been apparently sold, Mr. Beauchamp, who is of
the company also, unto whom he [Weston] oweth a great deal more, had long
ago attached it (as he did other's 16ths)," etc. It is exceedingly
difficult to reconcile these unquestionable facts with the equal
certainty that, at the "Composition" of the Adventurers with the Planters
in 1626, there were forty-two who signed as of the Adventurers. The
weight, however, of evidence and of probability must be held to support
the conclusion that in June, 1620, the organization was voluntary, and
that the charter-party of the MAY-FLOWER was signed--" on the one part
"--by each of the enrolled Adventurers engaged in the Leyden
congregation's colonization scheme. Goodwin' alone pretends to any
certain