In 1607 the Scrooby congregation made their first attempt to escape into Holland.  A large party of them hired a ship at Boston, in Lincolnshire, but the captain betrayed them to the officers of the law, who rifled them of their money and goods and confined them for about a month in jail.  The next year another party made an attempt to leave.  The captain, who was a Dutchman, started to take the men aboard, but after the first boat-load he saw a party of soldiers approaching, and, “swearing his countries oath Sacramente, and having the wind faire, weighed anchor, hoysted sayles & away.”  The little band was thus miserably separated, and men and women suffered many misfortunes; but in the end, by one means or another, all made good their escape from England and met together in the city of Amsterdam.

They found there both the church of the London Separatists and that of the Gainsborough people stirred up over theological questions, which bid fair to tear them to pieces.  Hence, Robinson determined to remove his flock, and in May, 1609, they made the city of Leyden, twenty miles distant, their permanent abode.  Their pastor, Richard Clifton, remained in Amsterdam, and the care of the congregation in their new home was confided to John Robinson and William Brewster.[10]

In Leyden the Pilgrims were compelled to adapt themselves, as they had in Amsterdam, to conditions of life very different from those to which they had been trained in their own country.  As far as they can be traced, a majority seem to have found employment in the manufacture of woollen goods, for which the city was famous.  Their uprightness, diligence, and sobriety gave them a good name and pecuniary credit with their Dutch neighbors, who testified twelve years later that in all their stay in Holland “we never had any suit or accusation against any of them."[11]

To Robinson, Brewster, and Bradford the change was a decided gain.  As the site of a great university, Leyden furnished them intercourse with learned men and access to valuable libraries.  Robinson was admitted a member of the university, and before long appeared as a disputant on the Calvinist side in the public discussions.  Brewster taught the English language to the Dutch, and, opening a publishing house, printed many theological books.  Bradford devoted himself to the study of the ancient languages, “to see with his own eyes the ancient oracles of God in all their native beauty."[12]

Their stay at Leyden covered the period of the famous twelve years’ truce between Spain and Holland, and their number increased from one hundred to three hundred.  Among the new-comers from England were John Carver, Robert Cushman, Miles Standish, and Edward Winslow.  Towards the end of the period the exiles began to think of a second emigration, and this time it was not persecution that suggested the thought.  In expectation of the renewal of hostilities with Spain, the streets of Leyden sounded with the beating of drums and preparations of war.  Although Holland afforded them religious freedom, they won their subsistence at the price of unremitting toil, which might be made even harder by renewal of hostilities.  A more sentimental reason was found in the desire to perpetuate their existence as a religious body of Englishmen.