d how
little was required for their succor appears in the experience of the
soldier Captain Miles Standish, who, being sent to England for
assistance--not military, but financial--(God save the mark!) succeeded
in borrowing--how much do you suppose?--L150 sterling. [Laughter.]
Something in the way of help; and the historian adds, "though at fifty
per cent. interest." So much for a valiant soldier on a financial
expedition. [Laughter, in which General Sherman and the company joined.]
A later agent, Allerton, was able to borrow for the colony L200 at a
reduced interest of thirty per cent. Plainly, the money-sharks of our
day may trace an undoubted pedigree to these London merchants.
[Laughter.] But I know not if any son of New England, oppressed by
exorbitant interest, will be consoled by the thought that the Pilgrims
paid the same.

And yet this small people--so obscure and outcast in condition--so
slender in numbers and in means--so entirely unknown to the proud and
great--so absolutely without name in contemporary records--whose
departure from the Old World took little more than the breath of their
bodies--are now illustrious beyond the lot of men; and the Mayflower is
immortal beyond the Grecian Argo, or the stately ship of any victorious
admiral. Though this was little foreseen in their day, it is plain now
how it has come to pass. The highest greatness surviving time and storm
is that which proceeds from the soul of man. [Applause.] Monarchs and
cabinets, generals and admirals, with the pomp of courts and the
circumstance of war, in the gradual lapse of time disappear from sight;
but the pioneers of truth, though poor and lowly, especially those whose
example elevates human nature and teaches the rights of man, so that
government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not
perish from the earth [great applause], such harbingers can never be
forgotten, and their renown spreads coextensive with the cause they
served.

I know not if any whom I now have the honor of addressing have thought
to recall the great in rank and power filling the gaze of the world as
the Mayflower with her company fared forth on their adventurous voyage.
The foolish James was yet on the English throne, glorying that he had
"peppered the Puritans." The morose Louis XIII, through whom Richelieu
ruled, was King of France. The imbecile Philip III swayed Spain and the
Indies. The persecuting Ferdinand the Second, tormentor of Protes