Sir Ferdinando Gorges makes the curious misstatement that the Pilgrims had three ships, and says of them:  “Of the three ships (such as their weak fortunes were able to provide), whereof two proved unserviceable and so were left behind, the third with great difficulty reached the coast of New England,” etc.

CHAPTER II

THE MAY-FLOWER’S CONSORT THE SPEEDWELL

The Speedwell was the first vessel procured by the Leyden Pilgrims for the emigration, and was bought by themselves; as she was the ship of their historic embarkation at Delfshaven, and that which carried the originators of the enterprise to Southampton, to join the may-Flower, —­whose consort she was to be; and as she became a determining factor in the latter’s belated departure for New England, she may justly claim mention here as indeed an inseparable “part and parcel” of the may-FLOWER’S voyage.

The name of this vessel of associate historic renown with the may-Flower was even longer in finding record in the early literature of the Pilgrim hegira than that of the larger It first appeared, so far as discovered, in 1669—­nearly fifty years after her memorable service to the Pilgrims on the fifth page of Nathaniel Morton’s “New England’s Memorial.”

Davis, in his “Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth,” makes a singular error for so competent a writer, when he says:  “The agents of the company in England had hired the Speedwell, of sixty tons, and sent her to Delfthaven, to convey the colonists to Southampton.”  In this, however, he but follows Mather and the “Modern Universal History,” though both are notably unreliable; but he lacks their excuse, for they were without his access to Bradford’s “Historie.”  That the consort-pinnace was neither “hired” nor “sent to Delfthaven” duly appears.

Bradford states the fact,—­that “a smale ship (of some 60 tune), was bought and fitted in Holand, which was intended to serve to help to transport them, so to stay in ye countrie and atend ye fishing and such other affairs as might be for ye good and benefite of ye colonie when they come ther.”  The statements of Bradford and others indicate that she was bought and refitted with moneys raised in Holland, but it is not easy to understand the transaction, in view of the understood terms of the business compact between the Adventurers and the Planters, as hereinafter outlined.  The Merchant Adventurers—­who were organized (but not incorporated) chiefly through the activity of Thomas Weston, a merchant of London, to “finance” the Pilgrim undertaking—­were bound, as part of their engagement, to provide the necessary shipping,’ etc., for the voyage.  The “joint-stock or partnership,” as it was called in the agreement of the Adventurers and Planters, was an equal partnership between but two parties, the Adventurers, as a body, being one of the co-partners; the Planter colonists,