conjectured, looked askance upon a man of Smith's quarrelsome temper, had taken no part in the emigration of his fellow-townsmen, but consented at once to act as Clifton's assistant at Scrooby. Brewster was to be the Elder, an office for which he was eminently fitted. His quiet unobtrusive goodness, as well as his position in the house in which the congregation met, enabled him, without the risk of giving offence, to speak words of kindly reproof, and to soften down those inevitable asperities which were working such mischief at Amsterdam. Bradford was, as yet, too young to take any prominent part in the community, but his more practical nature was likely to stand it in good stead when the time came for the exercise of the more energetic virtues. The step which these men had taken was not without its dangers. Everyone who met at Brewster's house knew that he was acting in defiance of the law. There was no Determina- longer any peace for them in England. They were none of them rich men. For the most part, they were engaged in agriculture, the pursuit which, of all others, is the least suggestive of movement and change. Time out of mind, their forefathers had ploughed the same fields, and had been buried in the same green churchyards, under the shelter of the old familiar churches. Their English homes were very dear to them. To dwell in a foreign land was to be cut off from all intercourse with those they loved, to a degree which, in these days, we are hardly capable of comprehending. Yet all this, and more than this, they were resolved to face. They had made up their minds that it was their duty to go, and, in spite of the hardships which awaited them, there was no shrinking back.

tion to

emigrate.

If, however, it was illegal to hold their assemblies in England, it was no less illegal to leave the country without the Difficulties Royal licence. It was therefore necessary to make in the way. their preparations in secret. At last all their difficulties seemed to be at an end. A vessel was hired to meet them

1 By 13 Ric. II. stat. 1, cap. 20, persons not being soldiers or merchants might not leave the realm without licence, excepting at Dover or Blymouth.

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ESCAPE OF THE SEPARATISTS.

151

at Boston. On the appointed day they moved down cautiously towards the coast, and timed their journey so as to arrive at the water's edge shortly after nightfall. They went on board at once, fancying they had nothing more to fear. Even then they were doomed to disappointment. The captain proved a rogue. He had already pocketed their passage money, and he wanted to be relieved from the fulfilment of his bargain. He accordingly gave notice to the magistrates, and just as the poor emigrants were watching for the weighing of the anchor, the officers came on board, and hurried them on shore. The unhappy men were stripped of everything which they possessed. and were brought up for examination on the following morning. The magistrates, as frequently proved the case, were disposed to be lenient to anything that bore the name of Protestantism, but they were hampered by the necessity of waiting for instructions from the Privy Council. In due time these instructions were received, and it was only after long imprisonment that the poor men were allowed to return to their homes. Brewster and six of his companions were detained still longer, and were only dismissed after having been bound over to answer for their conduct at the next assizes.

to Amster

dam.

It is hard to stop resolute men. In the course of the following year, they all, in one way or another, succeeded in 1608. effecting their escape. When, in the autumn of They escape 1608, they met together once more at Amsterdam, there were few who had not some tale to tell of sufferings endured. But even at Amsterdam there was no rest possible for them. The little Church there was still distracted by disputes, and it was not from a love of theological polemics that they had left their homes. Smith and Johnson might quarrel as much as they pleased; but as for themselves, they had come to Holland in search of peace, and, if peace was not to be found at Amsterdam, it must be sought elsewhere. Accordingly, before they had been many months upon the Continent, they removed in a body to Leyden, leaving Leyden. the theologians to fight out their battles amongst themselves. Clifton, worn out by the trials of his life, and

1609. Their removal to

sinking into a premature old age, was unable or unwilling to accompany them, and his place was taken by Robinson.1

The years of residence at Leyden were, in every respect, beneficial to the exiles. Whatever intolerance might be lurking in their hearts was no longer influenced by the opposition of an intolerant Church. It was true that in Holland, as well as in England, they found themselves face to face with that world from which they had done their best to separate themselves. It was a world in which there was sin and error enough, and in which evil men and evil habits were to be met at every turn, but not one in which was to be found either a Bancroft or a James. In their own little circle, the emigrants might pray and preach as they pleased. There was no Court of High Commission to visit them with fines, no informer to dog their steps, no justice of the peace to send them to prison. Was it strange that, although their recollections were still full of bitterness towards the system under which they had suffered, their sentiments towards individual men grew more kindly, and that they were more ready to make allowances than they had been before? On the other hand, their position drove them to grasp more firmly than ever their theory of the separation between the spiritual and the temporal, upon which the principles of toleration rest. Strangers in a foreign land, the wildest fancy could not lead them to expect a time when they might hope to win over the magistrates of the Republic to their own peculiar views. They knew that as long as they remained in Holland, they must either be tolerated or oppressed. Their only safeguard lay in throwing their whole weight into the scale of toleration, and in restricting to the uttermost the right of the civil magistrate to interfere in spiritual questions. What Knox and Calvin had failed to comprehend, was reserved for these poor Separatists to teach.

Influence of

At such a time, the presence of a man like Robinson was invaluable to them. If the Leyden congregation was to be saved from the fate of the Church at Amsterdam, Robinson. it could only be by the acceptance of some systematized belief, and the task of laying the foundations of such a 1 Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, 16.

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THE SEPARATISTS AT LEYDEN.

153

system was one for which Robinson was eminently fitted. It was by him that the opinions of his companions were welded into a coherent whole. Separation from sinners, resistance to a dominant clergy, the right of individual congregations to manage their own affairs, and the other peculiarities which the current of events had brought to the surface, all assumed their proper place in a theory so complete that those who accepted it were able to imagine that it contained all wisdom, human and Divine. Nor was it solely to his intellectual powers that Robinson owed the influence which he had acquired. Even amongst men who could measure gentleness of disposition by Brewster's standard, he was noted for the kindness of his heart.

1617. Dissatisfaction with Leyden.

Yet the exiles were not at ease even at Leyden. Their sober industry kept them from want: but most of them had to struggle hard. Their fingers had been trained to handle the plough better than the loom, and it was with difficulty that they were able to compete with the skilled workmen by whom they were surrounded. From their lodgings amidst the close alleys of the town they looked back with sadness to the pure air and the pleasant hedgerows of their native England. Nor were other causes of discontent wanting. They had come to Holland in order to keep themselves separate from the world. Were they sure that they had succeeded? Their longing for a land in which tares never mingled with the wheat was still unsatisfied. Their children, as they grew up, were not always content with the hard life of their parents. Some of them had enlisted in the armies of the Republic; with what danger to their souls, who could tell? Some, still worse, had strayed into folly and vice. Even in that land of Calvinism, the Sabbath rest was not observed as they would fain have seen it. And so, again and again, the question was raised, whether the world did not afford some spot where the young might be preserved from contamination. Nor was it only for themselves and for their children that they were anxious. They knew that there were many still in England whose opinions coincided with their own, and they had fondly hoped that their little Church would prove the nucleus

round which a large number of emigrants would gather. But, as long as they remained where they were, nothing of the kind was to be hoped for. The spiritual advantages of becoming a member of Robinson's congregation were of little weight with the hundreds who'shrank from the drudgery of daily life at Leyden.1

Determination to emigrate to

All these considerations urged the exiles to seek another home. The ideal of the pure and sinless community which they hoped to found was still floating before their eyes, and was drawing them on as it receded before America. them. Let us not stop to inquire whether such an ideal was attainable on earth. It is enough that in striving to realise it, they did that which the world will not willingly forget.

In what part of the globe was a home to be found for the new Christian commonwealth? Very tempting were the accounts borne across the Atlantic of the fertility of Guiana; but, even though Raleigh's hopes had not yet been wrecked on the banks of the Orinoco, prudence forbade the exposure of their scanty and unwarlike numbers to the hostility of the whole Spanish monarchy. Harsh, too, as their treatment had been in England, their hearts were still English, and not only were they unwilling to settle themselves out of the dominions of the English Crown, but all their hopes of attracting additional emigrants lay in their finding some spot where there was nothing to aggravate the ordinary difficulties in the way of a free communication with the mother country. With these hopes before them, their choice was limited to the Atlantic coast of North America.

spot.

Even with this limitation they had a wide range before them. From the Spanish possessions in Florida to the French Choice of a colony in Nova Scotia, the little settlement at Jamestown was, with the exception of a Dutch factory on the Hudson, the only spot were Europeans were to be found. The Plymouth Company, to which the northern part of the coast had been assigned, had accomplished nothing. At the

'Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation, 22. Winslow's Brief Narrative, in Young's Chronicle, 381.