. It is in the Bishop's Library. I went to Fulham
the other day, but found the Bishop was gone. I had supposed
the Library was a half-public one. I asked the servant who
came to the door for the librarian. He told me there was
no such officer, and that it was treated in all respects as
a private library. But I should be very glad if I could get
an opportunity to see it." Mr. Frewen answered, "I do not
myself know the Bishop. But Mr. Grenfell, at whose house
you spent Sunday, a little while ago, is his nephew by marriage.
He is in Scotland. But if I can reach him, I will procure for
you a letter to his uncle." That was Friday. Sunday morning
there came a note from Mr. Grenfell to the Bishop. I enclosed
it to his Lordship in one from myself, in which I said that
if it were agreeable to him, I would call at Fulham the next
Tuesday, at an hour which I fixed. I got a courteous reply
from the Bishop, in which he said that he would be glad to
show me the "log of the Mayflower," as he called it. I kept
the appointment, and found the Bishop with the book in his
hand. He received me very courteously, and showed me a little
of the palace. He said that there had been a Bishop's palace
on that spot for more than a thousand years.
I took the precious manuscript in my hands, and examined
it with an almost religious reverence. I had delivered the
address at Plymouth, the twenty-first of December, 1895, on
the occasion of the two hundred and seventy-fifth anniversary
of the landing of the Pilgrims upon the rock. In preparing
for that duty I read carefully, with renewed enthusiasm and
delight, the noble and touching story as told by Governor
Bradford. I declared then that this precious history ought
to be in no other custody than that of their children.
There have been several attempts to procure the return of
the manuscript to this country. Mr. Winthrop, in 1860, through
the venerable John Sinclair, Archdeacon, urged the Bishop
of London to give it up, and proposed that the Prince of Wales,
then just coming to this country, should take it across the
Atlantic and present it to the people of Massachusetts. The
Attorney-General, Sir Fitzroy Kelley, approved the plan, and
said it would be an exceptional act of grace, a most interesting
action, and that he heartily wished the success of the application.
But the Bishop refused. Again, in 1869, John Lothrop Motley,
the Minister to England, who had a great and deserv
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