On The Mayflower
The Mayflower departed Plymouth, England on September 6, 1620 with 102 passengers and about 30 crew members in a small 100 foot ship. The first month in the Atlantic, the seas were not severe, but by the second month the ship was being hit by strong north-Atlantic winter gales causing the ship to be badly shaken with water leaks from structural damage. There were two deaths, but this was just a precursor of what happened after their Cape Cod arrival, when almost half the company would die in the first winter.
On November 9, 1620, after a month of delays off the English coast and about two months at sea, they spotted land which was Cape Cod. After several days of trying to get south to their planned destination of the Colony of Virginia, strong winter seas forced them to return to Cape Cod and the harbor that is now the site of Provincetown, Massachusetts. They anchored there on November 11. When it became apparent that, due to a shortage of provisions, they would have to settle on or near Cape Cod, the leaders of the colony decided to draw up the Mayflower Compact to ensure a degree of law and order in this place where they had no legal rights to settle. Myles Standish was the fourth to sign the compact.
Read more about this topic: Myles Standish
Famous quotes containing the word mayflower:
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—Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)