ss and size, and that she had
"topsails" is shown by the fact that the "top-saile halliards" were
pitched over board with John Howland, and saved his life. Bradford says:
"A lustie yonge man (called John Howland) coming upon some occasion above
ye grattings, was with a seele of ye shipe throwne into ye sea: but it
pleased God yt he caught hould of ye top-saile halliards which hunge over
board & rane out at length yet he held his hould . . . till he was
haled up," etc. Howland had evidently just come from below upon the
poop-deck (as there would be no "grattings" open in the waist to receive
the heavy seas shipped). The ship was clearly experiencing "heavy
weather" and a great lurch ("seele") which at the stern, and on the
high, swinging, tilting poop-deck would be most severely felt,
undoubtedly tossed him over the rail. The topsail halliards were
probably trailing alongside and saved him, as they have others under
like circumstances.

Whether or not the MAY-FLOWER had the "round house" under her poop-deck,
---a sort of circular-end deck-house, more especially the quarters, by
day, of the officers and favored passengers; common, but apparently not
universal, in vessels of her class,--we have no positive knowledge, but
the presumption is that she had, as passenger ships like the PARAGON (of
only 140 tons), and others of less tonnage, seem to have been so fitted!

It is plain that, in addition to the larger cabin space and the smaller
cabins,--"staterooms," nowadays,--common to ships of the MAY-FLOWER'S
size and class, the large number of her passengers, and especially of
women and children, made it necessary to construct other cabins between
decks. Whether these were put up at London, or Southampton, or after the
SPEEDWELL'S additional passengers were taken aboard at Plymouth, does not
appear. The great majority of the men and boys were doubtless provided
with bunks only, "between decks," but it seems that John Billington had a
cabin there. Bradford narrates of the gunpowder escapade of young
Francis Billington, that, "there being a fowling-piece, charged in his
father's cabin [though why so inferior a person as Billington should have
a cabin when there could not have been enough for better men, is a query],
shot her off in the cabin, there being a little barrel of powder
half-full scattered in and about the cabin, the fire being within four
feet of the bed, between the decks, . . . and many people gathered