hat
no time was lost by the Leyden party in preparing for the exodus, after
their negotiations with the Dutch were "broken off" and they had "struck
hands" with Weston, sometime between February 2/12, 1619/20, and April
1/11, 1620,--probably in March.

The consort was a pinnace--as vessels of her class were then and for many
years called--of sixty tons burden, as already stated, having two masts,
which were put in--as we are informed by Bradford, and are not allowed by
Professor Arber to forget--as apart of her refitting in Holland. That
she was "square-rigged," and generally of the then prevalent style of
vessels of her size and class, is altogether probable. The name pinnace
was applied to vessels having a wide range in tonnage, etc., from a craft
of hardly more than ten or fifteen tons to one of sixty or eighty. It
was a term of pretty loose and indefinite adaptation and covered most of
the smaller craft above a shallop or ketch, from such as could be
propelled by oars, and were so fitted, to a small ship of the SPEEDWELL'S
class, carrying an armament.

None of the many representations of the SPEEDWELL which appear in
historical pictures are authentic, though some doubtless give correct
ideas of her type. Weir's painting of the "Embarkation of the Pilgrims,"
in the Capitol at Washington (and Parker's copy of the same in Pilgrim
Hall, Plymouth); Lucy's painting of the "Departure of the Pilgrims," in
Pilgrim Hall; Copes great painting in the corridor of the British Houses
of Parliament, and others of lesser note, all depict the vessel on much
the same lines, but nothing can be claimed for any of them, except
fidelity to a type of vessel of that day and class. Perhaps the best
illustration now known of a craft of this type is given in the painting
by the Cuyps, father and son, of the "Departure of the Pilgrims from
Delfshaven," as reproduced by Dr. W. E. Griffis, as the frontispiece to
his little monograph, "The Pilgrims in their Three Homes." No reliable
description of the pinnace herself is known to exist, and but few facts
concerning her have been gleaned. That she was fairly "roomy" for a
small number of passengers, and had decent accommodations, is inferable
from the fact that so many as thirty were assigned to her at Southampton,
for the Atlantic voyage (while the MAY-FLOWER, three times her tonnage,
but of greater proportionate capacity, had but ninety), as also from the
fact that "the chief [i.e. princi