and the smallest fifteen tons. The bark in
which Sir Humphrey Gilbert perished was of ten tons only." The LITTLE
JAMES, which the Company sent to Plymouth in July, 1623, was "a pinnace
of only forty-four tons," and in a vessel of fifty tons (the SPEEDWELL),
Martin Pring, in 1603, coasted along the shores of New England. Goodwin
says: "In 1587 there were not in all England's fleet more than five
merchant vessels exceeding two hundred tons." The SPARROW-HAWK wrecked
on Cape Cod in 1626 was only 40 feet "over all." The Dutch seem to have
built larger vessels. Winthrop records that as they came down the
Channel, on their way to New England (1630), they passed the wreck of
"a great Dutch merchantman of a thousand tons."

The MAY-FLOWER'S galley, with its primitive conditions for cooking,
existed rather as a place for the preparation of food and the keeping of
utensils, than for the use of fire. The arrangements for the latter were
exceedingly crude, and were limited to the open "hearth-box" filled with
sand, the chief cooking appliance being the tripod-kettle of the early
navigators: This might indeed be set up in any part of the ship where the
"sand-hearth" could also go, and the smoke be cared for. It not
infrequently found space in the fore castle, between decks, and, when
fine weather prevailed, upon the open deck, as in the open caravels of
Columbus, a hundred years before. The bake-kettle and the frying-pan
held only less important places than the kettle for boiling. It must have
been rather a burst of the imagination that led Mrs. Austin, in "Standish
of Standish," to make Peter Browne remind poor half-frozen Goodman--whom
he is urging to make an effort to reach home, when they had been lost,
but had got in sight of the MAY-FLOWER In the harbor--of "the good fires
aboard of her." Moreover, on January 22, when Goodman was lost, the
company had occupied their "common-house" on shore. Her ordnance
doubtless comprised several heavy guns (as such were then reckoned),
mounted on the spar-deck amid ships, with lighter guns astern and on.
the rail, and a piece of longer range and larger calibre upon the
forecastle. Such was the general disposal of ordnance upon merchant
vessels of her size in that day, when an armament was a 'sine qua non'.
Governor Winslow in his "Hypocrisie Unmasked," 1646 (p. 91), says, in
writing of the departure of the Pilgrims from Delfshaven, upon the
SPEEDWELL: "The wind being fair we gave