Felicia Dorethea Hemans - Casabianca

Felicia Dorethea Hemans, Casabianca

Felicia Dorethea Hemans, Casabianca

Casabianca

by Felicia Dorethea Hemans

August 1826

The boy stood on the burning deck
  Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle's wreck
  Shone round him o'er the dead.

Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
  As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,
  A proud, though child-like form.

The flames rolled on–he would not go
  Without his Father's word;
That father, faint in death below,
  His voice no longer heard.

He called aloud–'say, Father, say
  If yet my task is done?'
He knew not that the chieftain lay
  Unconscious of his son.

'Speak, father!' once again he cried,
  'If I may yet be gone!'
And but the booming shots replied,
  And fast the flames rolled on.

Upon his brow he felt their breath,
  And in his waving hair,
And looked from that lone post of death
  In still yet brave despair.

And shouted but once more aloud,
  'My father! must I stay?'
While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud,
  The wreathing fires made way.

They wrapt the ship in splendour wild,
  They caught the flag on high,
And streamed above the gallant child,
  Like banners in the sky.

There came a burst of thunder sound–
   The boy–oh! where was he?
Ask of the winds that far around
  With fragments strewed the sea!–

With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
  That well had borne their part–
But the noblest thing which perished there
  Was that young faithful heart.

Felicia Dorethea Hemans (c.1793-1835), August 1826

This poem is written in ballad meter and rhymes abab

Felicia Dorethea Hemans, poet

Felicia Hemans

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felicia_Hemans

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born	25 September 1793 Liverpool, England
Died	16 May 1835 (aged 41) Dublin, Ireland
Occupation	Poet
Nationality	British
Period	Late Romantic
Genres	Poetry

Ancestry

Felicia Heman's paternal grandfather was George Browne of Passage, County Cork, Ireland; her maternal grandparents were Elizabeth Haydock Wagner (d. 1814) of Lancashire and Benedict Paul Wagner (1718–1806), wine importer at 9 Wolstenholme Square, Liverpool. Family legend gave the Wagners a Venetian origin; family heraldry an Austrian one. The Wagners' country address was North Hall near Wigan; they sent two sons to Eton College. Of three daughters only Felicity married; her husband George Browne joined his father-in-law's business and succeeded him as Tuscan and imperial consul in Liverpool. [2]

Early life and works

Felicia Dorothea Browne was the fourth of six Browne children (three boys and three girls) to survive infancy. Of her two sisters, Elizabeth died about 1807 at the age of eighteen, and Harriett Mary Browne (1798–1858) married first the Revd T. Hughes, then the Revd W. Hicks Owen. Harriett collaborated musically with Felicia and later edited her complete works (7 vols. with memoir, 1839). Her eldest brother, Lt-Gen. Sir Thomas Henry Browne KCH (1787–1855), had a distinguished career in the army; her second brother, George Baxter CB, served in the Royal Welch Fusiliers 23rd foot, and became a magistrate at Kilkenny in 1830 and Chief Commissioner of Police in Ireland in 1831; and her third brother, Claude Scott Browne (1795–1821), became deputy assistant commissary-general in Upper Canada. [3]

Felicia was born in Liverpool, a granddaughter of the Venetian consul in that city. Her father's business soon brought the family to Denbighshire in North Wales, where she spent her youth. They made their home near Abergele and St. Asaph (Flintshire), and it is clear that she came to regard herself as Welsh by adoption, later referring to Wales as "Land of my childhood, my home and my dead". Her first poems, dedicated to the Prince of Wales, were published in Liverpool in 1808, when she was only fourteen, arousing the interest of no less a person than Percy Bysshe Shelley, who briefly corresponded with her. She quickly followed them up with "England and Spain" [1808] and "The domestic affections", published in 1812, the year of her marriage to Captain Alfred Hemans, an Irish army officer some years older than herself. The marriage took her away from Wales, to Daventry in Northamptonshireuntil 1814.

During their first six years of marriage, Felicia gave birth to five sons, including Charles Isidore Hemans, and then the couple separated. Marriage had not, however, prevented her from continuing her literary career, with several volumes of poetry being published by the respected firm of John Murray in the period after 1816, beginning with "The Restoration of the works of art to Italy" (1816) and "Modern Greece" (1817). "Tales and historic scenes" was the collection which came out in 1819, the year of their separation.

Later life

From 1831 onwards, she lived in Dublin, where her younger brother had settled, and her poetic output continued. Her major collections, including The Forest Sanctuary (1825), Records of Woman and Songs of the Affections(1830) were immensely popular, especially with female readers. Her last books, sacred and profane, are the substantive Scenes and Hymns of Life and National Lyrics, and Songs for Music. She was by now a well-known literary figure, highly regarded by contemporaries such as Wordsworth, and with a popular following in the United States and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. When she died of dropsy, Wordsworth and Walter Savage Landor composed memorial verses in her honour. She is buried in St. Ann's Church, Dawson Street.

Legacy

Felicia Dorethea Hemans, poet

Felicia Hemans' works appeared in nineteen individual books during her lifetime. After her death in 1835 they were republished widely, usually as collections of individual lyrics and not the longer, annotated works and integrated series that made up her books. For surviving women poets, like Britons Caroline Norton and Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Americans Lydia Sigourneyand Frances Harper, the French Amable Tastu and German Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, and others, she was a valued model, or (for Elizabeth Barrett Browning) a troubling predecessor; and for male poets including Tennyson and Longfellow, an influence less acknowledged. To many readers she offered a woman's voice confiding a woman's trials; to others a lyricism apparently consonant with Victorian chauvinism and sentimentality. Among the works she valued most were the unfinished "Superstition and Revelation" and the pamphlet "The Sceptic," which sought an Anglicanism more attuned to world religions and women's experiences. In her most successful book, "Records of Woman" (1828), she chronicles the lives of women, both famous and anonymous.

Hemans' poem The Homes of England (1827) is the origin of the phrase stately home in English. The first line of the poem runs, "The stately Homes of England".

Despite her illustrious admirers, her stature as a serious poet gradually declined, partly due to her success in the literary marketplace. Her poetry was considered morally exemplary, and was often assigned to schoolchildren; as a result, Hemans came to be seen a poet for children rather than taken seriously on the basis of her entire body of work. A jocular reference by Sakiin The Toys of Peace suggests simultaneously that she was a household word and that Saki did not take her seriously. Schoolchildren in the U. S. were still being taught The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in New England ("The breaking waves dashed high/On a stern and rock-bound coast...") in the middle of the 20th century. But by the 21st century, The Stately Homes of England refers to Noël Coward's parody, not to the once-famous poem it parodied, and Felicia Hemans was remembered popularly for her poem, "Casabianca".

However, Hemans' critical reputation has been re-examined in recent years. Her work has resumed a role in standard anthologies and in classrooms and seminars and literary studies, especially in the U. S. It is likely that further poems will be familiar to new readers, such as "The Image in Lava," "Evening Prayer at a Girls' School," "I Dream of All Things Free," "Night-Blowing Flowers," "Properzia Rossi," "A Spirit's Return," "The Bride of the Greek Isle," "The Wife of Asdrubal," "The Widow of Crescentius," "The Last Song of Sappho," and "Corinne at the Capitol."

Felicia Dorethea Hemans, Casabianca

Casabianca

First published in August 1826 the poem Casabianca (also known as The Boy stood on the Burning Deck)[1] by Felicia Hemans depicts Louis de Casabianca who perished in the Battle of the Nile. The poem was very popular from the 1850s on and was memorized in elementary schools for literary practice. The poem depicts what happened on the ship the Orient as Commander Louis de Casabianca died due to refusing to flee his post. Other poetic figures such as Elizabeth Bishop and Samuel Butler allude to the poem in their own works.

"Speak, father!' once again he cried, 'If I may yet be gone!" And but the

booming shots replied, And fast the flames rolled on. [4]

The poem is sung in ballad form (abab) and consists of a boy asking his father whether he had fulfilled his duties, as the ship continues to burn after the magazine catches fire. Martin Gardner and Michael R. Turner made modern day parodies that were much more upbeat and consisted of boys stuffing their faces with peanuts and breads. This contrasted sharply with the solemn image created in Casabianca as Hemans wrote it.

England and Spain, or, Valor and Patriotism

Her second book, England and Spain, or, Valor and Patriotism, was published in 1808 and was a narrative poem honoring her brother and his military service in the Peninsular War. The poem called for an end of the tyranny of Napoleon Bonaparte and for a long lasting peace after the war. The poem is very patriotic towards Great Britain as seen in Heman's multiple references to "Albion" which is an older name for the isles of Great Britain.

"For this thy noble sons have spread alarms, And bade
the zones resound with BRITAIN's arms!" [5]

It is seen throughout this poem that Felicia Hemans is alarmed with the thought of war but her overall pride of nationality overcome this fear. She saw all of the fighting as useless bloodshed and a waste of human life. "England and Spain" was used by her to spread her message across Europe, that the wars were senseless and that peace should resume.

Female suicide in Hemans' works

In many of Hemans' works, a choice is made by several female characters to take their own lives rather than suffer the social, political, and personal consequences of their compromised situations. The social context in which Hemans was writing was not largely conducive to the writing of women, as many modern readers might assume according to the poet's success. Instead, women writers were often torn between a choice of home or the pursuit of a literary career. [6] Hemans herself was able to balance both roles without much public ridicule, but left hints of discontent through the themes of feminine death in her writing. [7] The suicides of women in Hemans' poetry dwell on the same social issue that was confronted both culturally and personally during Hemans' life: the choice of caged domestication or freedom of thought and expression. [8]

'The Bride of the Greek Isle', 'The Sicilian Captive', 'The Last Song of Sappho', and 'Indian Woman's Death Song' are some of the most notable of Hemans' works involving women's suicides. Each poem portrays a heroine who is untimely torn from her home by a masculine force- such as pirates, Vikings, and unrequited lovers- and forced to make the decision to accept her new confines or command control over the situation. None of the heroines are complacent with the tragedies that befall them, and the women ultimately take their own lives in either a final grasp for power and expression or means to escape victimization. [9] The true reasons for the recurring femicide in Hemans' poetry collections can only be found in readers' personal interpretations, giving speculation to Hemans' life and cultural context.

Selected works

On the Restoration of the Works of Art to Italy

Hymns on the Works of Nature, for the Use of Children

Records of Woman: With Other Poems

The Better Land

Casabianca

Corinne at the Capitol

Evening Prayer at a Girl's School

A Farewell to Abbotsford

The Funeral Day of Sir Walter Scott

Hymn by the Sick-bed of a Mother

Kindred Hearts

The Last Song of Sappho

Lines Written in the Memoirs of Elizabeth Smith

The Rock of Cader Idris

Stanzas on the Late National Calamity, The Death of the Princess Charlotte

Stanzas To the Memory of George III

Thoughts During Sickness: Intellectual Powers

To the Eye

To the New-Born

Woman on the Field of Battle

Further reading

"Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature," 3rd ed., 4: 351-60 (2000)

"Oxford Dictionary of National Biography," 26: 274-77 (2004)

"Felicia Hemans: Selected Poems, Letters, Reception Materials," ed. Susan J. Wolfson (2000)

"Felicia Hemans: Selected Poems, Prose, and Letters," ed. Gary Kelly (2002)

Emma Mason, "Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century" (2006)

"Felicia Hemans: Reimagining Poetry in the Nineteenth Century," ed. Nanora Sweet & Julie Melnyk (2001)

Paula Feldman, "The Poet and the Profits: Felicia Hemans and the Literary Marketplace," "Keats-Shelley Journal" 46 (1996): 148-76

Peter W. Trinder, "Mrs Hemans," U Wales Press (1984)

Felicia Dorethea Hemans - The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers

The Landing of the Pilgrims, December 1620

THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS


The breaking waves dashed high

On a stern and rock-bound coast,

And the woods against a stormy sky

Their giant branches tossed;

And the heavy night hung dark,

The hills and waters o'er,

When a band of exiles moored their bark

On the wild New England shore.

Not as the conqueror comes,

They, the true-hearted came;

Not with the roll of the stirring drums,

And the trumpet that sings of fame;

Not as the flying come,

In silence and in fear;

They shook the depths of the desert gloom

With their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang,

And the stars heard, and the sea;

And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang

To the anthem of the free.

The ocean eagle soared

From his nest by the white wave's foam;

And the rocking pines of the forest roared -

This was their welcome home.

There were men with hoary hair

Amidst the pilgrim band:

Why had they come to wither there,

Away from their childhood's land?

There was woman's fearless eye,

Lit by her deep love's truth;

There was manhood's brow, serenely high,

And the fiery heart of youth.

What sought they thus afar?

Bright jewels of the mine?

The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?

They sought a faith's pure shrine!

Ay, call it holy ground,

The soil where first they trod;

They have left unstained what there they found -

Freedom to worship God.


by Felicia Dorethea Hemans (c.1793-1835)

"Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers" is reprinted from Historic Poems and Ballads.
Ed. Rupert S. Holland. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co., 1912.

* * * * * * * *

THE MAYFLOWER AND PILGRIMS

http://www.mayflower-de.org/MF_PilgrimHistory.html

The Pilgrims

The pilgrims were a group of English protestant “Separatists” who first sought freedom from religious persecution by the Church of England by moving to Leiden, Holland, and about ten years later by relocating to North America where they hoped to establish a colony in Northern Virginia. They were joined on their journey across the Atlantic by other English families and individuals, not Separatists, many of whom had skills and trades needed by the pilgrims to establish a colony, and who were themselves simply seeking the opportunity for a better life.

The Voyage

The Pilgrims engaged two aging sailing vessels, the Mayflower and the Speedwell to transport them with their supplies to Northern Virginia, where they had obtained a charter from the English king. The group left Southampton England in August 1620, but were forced to return to port after the Speedwell proved to be unseaworthy. One hundred and two passengers then crowded aboard the Mayflower in September 1620 and set out again, having to leave a number of their fellow pilgrims and vital supplies in England. The crossing was slower than expected and the Mayflower was driven off course and arrived far north of their Northern Virginia destination in November 1620, at the start of a harsh winter. The pilgrims decided that further travel to Northern Virgina at that time of year was dangerous and unwise, and began exploring Cape Cod seeking a safe harbor and suitable place to establish their colony.

The Mayflower Compact

Before leaving the Mayflower, the pilgrims and the other voyagers, drafted and all signed a document that established the legal and political structure of the new colony. That historic document is considered to be the first to set forth the democratic self governance principles on which the the United States Constitution was based a century and a half later, and is known as the Mayflower Compact:

Agreement Between the Settlers at New Plymouth : 1620 IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid: And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Officers, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience. IN WITNESS whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape-Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini; 1620. Mr. John Carver Mr. William Bradford Mr Edward Winslow Mr. William Brewster Isaac Allerton Myles Standish John Alden John Turner Francis Eaton James Chilton John Craxton John Billington Moses Fletcher John Goodman Mr. Samuel Fuller Mr. Christopher Martin Mr. William Mullins Mr. William White Mr. Richard Warren John Howland Mr. Steven Hopkins Digery Priest Thomas Williams Gilbert Winslow Edmund Margesson Peter Brown Richard Britteridge George Soule Edward Tilly John Tilly Francis Cooke Thomas Rogers Thomas Tinker John Ridgdale Edward Fuller Richard Clark Richard Gardiner Mr. John Allerton Thomas English Edward Doten Edward Liester

Plymouth Colony

The pilgrims selected a site on the western shore of Cape Cod in Massachusetts which they named Plymouth and where they established their colony. During that first winter, 46 of the 102 colonists died from the severe cold plus an influenza type of illness known as the “great sickness”, and left the remaining colonists weakened and without adequate food and supplies. During the spring of 1621, however, members of the peaceful native Wampanoags tribe, helped the colonists to adapt and grow enough food to survive. Although the colonists struggled and endured hardships for the first few years at Plymouth, they prevailed and established the first permanent colony in New England.

The First Thanksgiving

At the time of the fall harvest in 1621, Massasoit, the great sachem of the Wampanoag tribe and 90 of his people arrived with meat, fowl, fish and crops and helped the pilgrims prepare for the upcoming winter. The pilgrims and the Wampanoags joined together for a great three day harvest feast and a time of thanksgiving for the blessings bestowed on them. Almost two and a half centuries later in 1863, during the American Civil War, President Lincoln, who was urged to follow the tradition of the pilgrims' first thanksgiving, proclaimed a national day of Thanksgiving. This tradition was followed by every succeeding president, until Congress in 1941 established Thanksgiving as an official national holiday.

Plymouth Rock, Plymouth, Massachusetts

The Pilgrims

T h e   P i l g r i  m s

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/revolutionary-war/pilgrims/pilgrims.htm

During the middle of the sixteenth century the social condition of the people of England was very primitive, and life was hard. Poor people lived in cottages built of wooden frames filled in with dirt; their houses were without wooden floors; and in many of them the fireplaces were constructed in the middle of the rooms with no chimneys, a hole being left in the roof for the smoke to escape. The windows were not glazed, and were closed against the weather, and the light was allowed to enter by means of oiled paper. Such was the plain condition of the houses of the Puritans of New England.

Very few vegetables were cultivated, as gardening had not yet become popular. The common material for bread was flour of oats, rye, and barley; and sometimes, when these were scarce, they were mixed with ground acorns. Even this black bread was sometimes not available, and meat was the principal diet. Their forks and ploughs were made of wood, and these, with a hoe and spade, constituted the bulk of their agricultural implements. Their spoons and platters were made chiefly of wood, and forks were unknown. It is said that glazed windows were so scarce, and regarded as so much of a luxury, that noblemen, when they left their country-houses to go to court, had their glazed windows packed away carefully with other precious furniture.

The non-conformist English refugees in Holland under the pastorate of Rev. Mr. Robinson, yearning for a secluded asylum from persecution under the English government, proposed to go to Virginia and settle there in a distinct body under the general government of that colony. They sent Robert Cushman and John Carver to England in 1617 to treat with the London Company, and to ascertain whether the King would grant them liberty of conscience in that distant country. The company were anxious to have these people settle in Virginia, and offered them ample privileges, but the King would not promise not to molest them. These agents returned to Leyden. The discouraged refugees sent other agents to England in February, 1619, and finally made an arrangement with the company and with London merchants and others for their settlement in Virginia, and they at once prepared for the memorable voyage on the Mayflower in 1620. Several of the congregation at Leyden sold their estates and made a common bank, which, with the aid of their London partners, enabled them to purchase the Speedwell, a ship of 60 tons, and to hire in England the Mayflower, a ship of 180 tons, for the intended voyage. They left Delft Haven for England in the Speedwell (July, 1620), and in August sailed from Southampton, but, on account of the leakiness of the ship, were twice compelled to return to port. Dismissing this unseaworthy vessel, 101 of the number who came from Leyden sailed on the Mayflower on September 6.

Delft Haven

The following are the names of the forty-one persons who signed the constitution of government on board the Mayflower, and are known as the Pilgrim Fathers: John Carver, William Bradford, Edward Winslow, William Brewster, Isaac Allerton, Myles Standish, John Alden, Samuel Fuller, Christopher Martin, William Mullins, William 'White, Richard Warren, John Howland, Stephen Hopkins, Edward Tilley, John Tilley, Francis Cook, Thomas Rogers, Thomas Tinker, John Ridgedale, Edward Fuller, John Turner, Francis Eaton, James Chilton, John Crackston, John Billington, Moses Fletcher, John Goodman, Degory Priest, Thomas Williams, Gilbert Winslow, Edward Margeson, Peter Brown, Richard Britteridge, George Soule, Richard Clarke, Richard Gardiner, John Allerton, Thomas English, Edward Doty, Edward Lister. Each subscriber placed opposite his name the number of his family.

Pilgrim's Signing the Mayflower Compact

The following is the text of the agreement which was signed on the lid of Elder Brewster's chest (see BREWSTER, WILLIAM).

"In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are hereunto written, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, etc., having undertaken for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian Faith, and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitution, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names, at Cape Cod, the 11th of November [0. S.], in the year of the reign of our sovereign lord, King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini 1620."

The Mayflower first anchored in Cape Cod Bay, just within the cape, on November 21, in what is now the harbor of Provincetown, the only windward port for many a league where the vessel could have safely stayed. Nearly all the company went ashore, glad to touch land after the long voyage. They first fell on their knees, and thanked God for the preservation of their lives. The waters were shallow, and they had waded ashore—the men to explore the country, the women to wash their clothes after the long voyage.

The spot chosen by a party of explorers for the permanent landing-place of the passengers on the Mayflower was selected about Dec. 20, 1620, where New Plymouth was built. From about the middle of December until the 25th the weather was stormy, and the bulk of the passengers remained on the ship, while some of the men built a rude shelter to receive them. On the 25th a greater portion of the passengers went on shore to visit the spot chosen for their residence, when, tradition says, Mary Chilton and John Alden, both young persons, first sprang upon Plymouth Rock from the boat that conveyed them.

Most of the women and children remained on board the Mayflower until suitable log huts were erected for their reception, and it was March 21, 1621, before they were all landed. Those on shore were exposed to the rigors of winter weather and insufficient food, though the winter was a comparatively mild one. Those on the ship were confined in foul air, with unwholesome food. Scurvy and other diseases appeared among them, and when, late in March, the last passenger landed from the Mayflower, nearly one-half the colonists were dead.

The lands of the Plymouth Colony were held in common by the "Pilgrims" and their partners, the London merchants. In 1627 the "Pilgrims" sent Isaac Allerton to England to negotiate for the purchase of the shares of the London adventurers, with their stock, merchandise, lands, and chattels. He did so for $9,000, payable in nine years in equal annual installments. Some of the principal persons of the colony became bound for the rest, and a partnership was formed, into which was admitted the head of every family, and every young man of age and prudence. It was agreed that every single free-man should have one share; and every father of a family have leave to purchase one share for himself, one for his wife, and one for every child living with him; that every one should pay his part of the public debt according to the number of his shares. To every share twenty acres of arable land were assigned by lot; to every six shares, one cow and two goats, and swine in the same proportion. This agreement was made in full court, Jan. 3, 1628. The joint-stock or community system was then abandoned, a division of the movable property was made, and twenty acres of land nearest to the town were assigned in fee to each colonist. (See PLYMOUTH, NEW.)

Pilgrims Landing in the New World

Gov. WILLIAM BRADFORD wrote a History of the Plymouth Plantation, of which the following is an extract: This was written in a form of old English, so spelling and sentence structure may appear awkward today.

The Pilgrims' Arrival at Cape Cod.—Being thus arived in a good harbor and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees & blessed ye God of heaven, who had brought them over ye vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all ye periles & miseries thereof, againe to set their feete on ye firme and stable earth, their proper elemente. And no marvell if they were thus joyefull, seeing wise Seneca was so affected with sailing a few miles on ye coast of his owne Italy; as he affirmed, that he had rather remaine twentie years on his way by land, then pass by sea to any place in a short time; so tedious & dreadful was ye same unto him.

But hear I cannot but stay and make a pause, and stand half amased at this poore peoples presente condition; and so I thinke will the reader too, when he well considers ye same. Being thus passed ye vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before in their preparation (as may be remembered by yt which wente before), they had now no friends to wellcome them, nor inns to entertaine or refresh their weather-beaten bodys, no houses or much less townes to repaire too, to seeke for suecoure. It is recorded in scripture as a mercie to ye apostle & his shipwraked company, yt the barbarians shewed them no smale kindnes in refreshing them, but these savage barbarians, when they mette with them (as after will appeare) were readier to fill their sids full of arrows then otherwise. And for ye season it was winter, and they that know ye winters of yt cuntrie know them to be sharp & violent, & subjecte to cruell & feirce stormes, deangerous to travill to known places, much more to serch an unknown coast. Besids, what could they see but a hidious & desolate wildernes, full of wild beasts & willd men ? and what multituds ti r might be of them they knew not. Nether could they, as it were, goe up to ye tope of Pisgah, to vew from this willdernes a more goodly cuntrie to feed their hops; for which way soever they turned their eys (save upward to ye heavens) they could have litle solace or content in respecte of any outward objects. For sumer being done, all things stand upon them with a weatherbeaten face; and ye whole countrie, full of woods & thickets, represented a wild & savage heiw. If they looked behind them; ther was ye mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a maine barr & goulfe to seperate themfrom all ye civill parts of ye world. If it be said they had a ship to sucour them, it is trew; but what heard they daly from ye mr. & company? but yt with speede they should looke out a place with their shallop, wher they would be at some near distance; for ye season was shuck as he would not stirr from thence till a safe harbor was discovered by them wher they would be, and he might goe without danger; and that victells consumed apace, but he must & would keepe sufficient for them selves & their returne. Yea, it was muttered by some, that if they gott not a place in time, they would turne them & their goods ashore & leave them. Let it also be considered what weake hopes of supply & succoure they left behinde them, yt might bear up their minds in this sade condition and trialls they were under ; and they could not but be very smale. It is true, indeed, ye affections & love of their brethren at Leyden was cordiall & entire towards them, but they had litle power to help them, or them selves; and how ye case stode betweene them & ye marchants at their coming away, bath allready been declared. What could now sustaine them but ye spirite of God & his grace? May not & ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: Our faithers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this w-illdernes; but they cried unto ye Lord, and he heard their voyce, and looked on their adversitie, &c. Let them therefore praise ye Lord, because he is good, & his mercies endure for ever. Yea, let them which have been redeemed of ye Lord, spew how he hath delivered them from ye hand of ye oppressour. When they 'wandered in ye deserte wilddernes out of ye way, and found no citie to dwell in, both hungrie. & thirstie, their sowle was overwhelmed in them. Let them confess before ye Lord his loving kindnes, and his wonderful works before ye sons of men.

* * * * * * * *

For More Information on the

Pilgrim's Mayflower Compact, c.1620

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2011/11/pilgrims-mission-to-advance-christian.html

For More Information on the

Discovery and Settlement of America


http://www.sonofthesouth.net/revolutionary-war/explorers/discovering-america-columbus.htm