MORE than one writer upon New-England history has attributed the landing of the pilgrim fathers at Plymouth, instead of in Virginia, whither they intended to go, to the evil doings of the master of the ‘Mayflower.’ It has been suggested that he was instigated either by the Dutch of New Amsterdam or by Sir Robert Rich, who was at variance with the Virginia Company, to plant the colonists upon a shore far removed from that to which he was employed to carry them. These suggestions are founded mainly upon the assumption that the master, who we know from Bradford’s history was a ‘Mr.’ Jones, was a certain Captain Thomas Jones, of whose character and connexions enough is known to make such a suggestion credible. The identity of the master of the ‘Mayflower’ is therefore a matter of some historical importance, and of more than local or antiquarian interest. The object of the present paper is to bring forward, from a source that has not hitherto been explored, some evidence to show that the master of the pilgrim fathers’ ship was not Captain Thomas Jones; that he was one Christopher Jones, against whose character nothing is known; and that the theory of a conspiracy to deposit the pilgrim fathers at Cape Cod, under colour of a contract to land them elsewhere, so far as it rests upon the supposed evil character of Mr. Jones, has no foundation in fact. The mistake which has been committed in identifying Mr. Jones with Captain Thomas Jones has arisen in consequence of the supposed absence of any evidence as to the history and career of the pilgrim fathers’ ship before and after she made the historic voyage. No serious attempt has hitherto been made to identify her with any one of the many ‘Mayflowers’ that are known to have been afloat in and about 1620. When a ship named ‘Mayflower’ occurs in a document of the period, it is commonly assumed that probably she is the pilgrim fathers’ ship. The facts stated below will show that conjecture resting only upon identity of name is of very slight value.

     The name ‘Mayflower’ was, in fact, very common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Besides Scotch and Irish ‘Mayflowers,’ of which there were several, there were ‘Mayflowers’ belonging to almost every port in England. There were ‘Mayflowers’

of Aldeburgh, Brightlingsea, Bristol, Chester, Dover, Grimsby, Looe, Lyme, Lynn, Maidstone, Millbrook, Newcastle, Plymouth, Portland, Rye, St. Ives, Sandwich, Scarborough, Shoreham, Southwold, Stockton, Stonehouse, Swansea, York, Weymouth, and Whitby. And although the same ship is not always described as belonging to the same port, some of the larger ports, such as Ipswich, London, Newcastle, and Yarmouth, possessed two or even several ‘Mayflowers’ apiece. There cannot have been fewer than forty or fifty ‘Mayflowers’ existing between A.D. 1550 and 1700. There were ‘Mayflowers’ trading to Virginia and New England, to the East and West Indies, to Africa, the Levant, and the Mediterranean, to Greenland, Norway, Spain, Portugal, Scotland, and Ireland. There were ‘Mayflowers’ in the service of the king and ‘Mayflowers’ in the service of parliament, ‘Mayflowers’ East Indiamen, men-of war, privateers, whalers, slavers, colliers, and fishermen; ‘Mayflowers’ of all sorts and sizes, from 15 to 400 tons. In the autumn of 1620, while the pilgrim fathers’ ship was on her outward voyage, at least two other seagoing ‘Mayflowers’ were under way, one in Eastern seas and one in the Thames. So fruitful in ‘Mayflowers’ are the records that it is very difficult to distinguish them, and still more difficult to identify any one of them with the pilgrim fathers’ ship. The task would indeed be impossible were it not for a mass of records which, to all appearance, have never been systematically searched for this or any other purpose, the records, namely, of the High Court of Admiralty. It is not possible here to describe these records, which have only recently been thrown open to the public. It is enough to state that during the Elizabethan and Stuart periods much of the shipping business of the country came before the Admiralty court, and that there is no class of records which contains so many references to the ships of that period as the records of that court. They are very voluminous, but are almost wholly without calendar or index, and a great part of them are in the utmost confusion. An exhaustive search of them would be the work of a lifetime; and it is probable that some documents relating to the subject before us have escaped the notice of the present writer.

     The constant occurrence in these records of ships bearing the name of ‘Mayflower’ is confusing. Nevertheless it is not difficult, by collecting a large number of references, to reduce the number of possible pilgrim fathers’ ‘Mayflowers’ to some half-dozen ships; for many craft bearing the name may be at once dismissed as impossible; such, for example, are all ‘Mayflower’ pinks, hoys, fishermen, and small craft, and all ‘Mayflowers’ built after or lost before the year 1620.¹

     The first step towards identifying the pilgrim fathers’ ship with a ‘Mayflower’ mentioned in the records is to collect all the facts bearing upon her identity which are to be gathered from outside sources. These are scanty and may be summed up in a few lines. Bradford, Mourt, Winthrop, Prince, Neill, and Hazard are our authorities. From them we learn that between 1620 and 1630 a ‘Mayflower,’ or ‘Mayflowers,’ crossed the seas three times. One in 1620 carried the pilgrim fathers to New Plymouth; one in 1629 carried Higginson’s party to Salem; and one in 1630 carried Winthrop’s party to Charlestown. It has generally been assumed that these three voyages were made by the same ship; but the strong probability is that the voyages of 1629 and 1630 were not made by the ship that sailed in 1620. Our reasons for arriving at this conclusion are given below. In this connexion it may be stated that besides the three ‘Mayflower’ voyages above mentioned at least three and probably more voyages were made by other ‘Mayflowers’ to America during the first half of the seventeenth century.

     As to the pilgrim fathers’ ship, the historians give us the following particulars. First, as to her name: this we should expect to find in Bradford’s history, but it is not there; nor is it mentioned by Mourt: it occurs in the records of the old colony of the year 1623; and ‘A Note of the shipping, men, and provisions sent and provided for Virginia by the Right Honorable the Earl of Southampton and the Company this year 1620,’ preserved among the duke of Manchester’s papers, mentions ‘the May-Flower of 140 tuns, sent in August 1620, with 100 persons.’ This, it would seem, must be the pilgrim fathers’ ship; but the note is not accurate, for she was not ‘sent and provided’ by Lord Southampton’s Virginia Company, but by the Plymouth Adventurers. As to the tonnage of the ‘Mayflower,’ Bradford says that her burden was ‘about nine score.’ This has universally been interpreted to mean nine score tons; but it is possible that Bradford meant nine score lasts (about 340 tons); and, if that be so, the ship of the Manchester papers would not be Bradford’s ship. The ‘last’ was the Dutch unit of measurement, and when Robert Cushman wrote to Bradford about a ship which he was inclined to charter for the Leyden Company he described her as of sixty lasts. The probability, however, is that the traditional interpretation of Bradford’s phrase is correct. The pilgrim fathers’ ship had two decks. This we know from Mourt, who tells us that her shallop, a boat able to carry twenty-five persons under sail, was with some difficulty stowed ‘betwixt the decks.’ As to her age in 1620, it would seem that she was not then a new ship. This may be inferred from several facts. Bradford tells us that on the voyage out one

of the beams in the midships was ‘bowed and cracked,’ and that her condition was so critical that, had she not been halfway out to New England, her master would have abandoned the voyage. The passengers lay wet in their berths, and continual caulking failed to keep the decks staunch. She was, says Captain John Smith, ‘a leaking, unwholesome ship.’ But her master, who knew her well, had faith in her; and after straining the buckled beam into its place with a screw-jack the crew shored it up and decided to continue the voyage. They were obliged, however, to keep the ship under small sail, and to ease her as much as possible.

     Her master, we know from Bradford, was a ‘Mr.’ Jones. Unfortunately we are not told his Christian or first name. The records supply us with a ‘Mayflower’ of 1609-1624, whose master and part owner was a Christopher Jones; and it is this connexion of a ‘Mayflower’ with a master whose name was Jones that enables us to identify the pilgrim fathers’ ship, and to follow her career in the records for at least thirteen years. The master of our ship being for the present assumed (though hereafter, it is submitted, he is proved) to be Christopher Jones, it is perhaps superfluous to show that he cannot have been the Captain Thomas Jones above mentioned. Inasmuch, however, as Captain Thomas Jones was undoubtedly trading to New England in 1620, and has for this reason been supposed by more than one writer to have been the master of the pilgrim fathers’ ship, it may be well to state that the Admiralty court records show that Captain Thomas Jones was in Virginia, in command of the ‘Falcon,’ in September 1620, at the time when Mr.’ Jones was on his outward voyage to New Plymouth in the pilgrim fathers’ ship, and that in April 1621 the former was being sued in England by some of the ‘Falcon’s’ crew for their wages, when the latter was on his voyage home from New Plymouth to England.³ The historians do not tell us the names of any of the owners of the pilgrim fathers’ ship. This is unfortunate, because the identity of the ship in the records can frequently be traced by owners’ names. Nor do they tell us to what port she belonged. All we can gather from them is that she was chartered, probably in London, in July 1620.

     As to the date and place of her sailing, we know that she sailed from London, some days before 19 July 1620, for Southampton, and that she arrived at the latter port on that day. She sailed from Southampton on 5 August, and soon afterwards put into Dartmouth. Thence she sailed on 23 August, but had again to put back to Plymouth. From Plymouth she sailed on 6 Sept., and arrived at her destination in New England on 11 Nov. She lay in New Plymouth harbour through the winter of 1620-1, and sailed

back for England on 5 April, arriving on the 5th or 6th of May. During the voyage out she had on board, besides her crew, 102 passengers.

     These are nearly all the facts to be gathered from contemporary writers which will assist us in our search for the pilgrim fathers’ ship among the records. They are set forth here at some length because, if any one of them were inconsistent with any fact stated in the records touching the ship in this paper called Christopher Jones’s ‘Mayflower,’ the conclusion at which we shall arrive as to her identity with the pilgrim fathers’ ship would be wrong. It is necessary, therefore, to state here that, so far as the writer is aware, there is nothing stated in the records about Christopher Jones’s ship which is inconsistent with what the chroniclers tell us about the pilgrim fathers’ ship.

     There is a passage in Mourt’s Relation which is of some importance in connexion with a ‘Mayflower’ whaler mentioned in the records, about which ship something will be said below. The passage is as follows. Speaking of whales seen by ‘Mr.’ Jones and the crew of the pilgrim fathers’ ship on the New England coast during the winter of 1620-1, Mourt says

     Our master and his mate and others experienced in fishing professed we might have made 3,000l. or 4,000l. worth of oil. They preferred it before Greenland whale fishing, and purposed the next winter to fish for whale here.

From this passage it would seem reasonable to infer that previously to 1620 ‘Mr.’ Jones, or some of his crew, had either been on a whaling voyage themselves or had some acquaintance with whale fishery. Now the records of the Admiralty court show that in 1624, and again in 1626, a ‘Mayflower’ of Yarmouth (or of Hull) was whaling in Greenland. And although the whaler of 1624 probably was not Christopher Jones’s ‘Mayflower’ it will be seen below that there is reason to think that at least two of the owners of Jones’s ship were part owners of the whaler of 1624. Further, Purchas in his Pilgrims (iii. 565) tells us that a Master Jones was whaling at Cherrie Island ⁴ in 1609, the year in which we first find Christopher Jones’s name as master of the ‘Mayflower’ in northern seas. Purchas tells us also (iii. 560, 561) that whalers sailed from Harwich; and it will be shown below that both Christopher Jones and his ship are described as ‘of Harwich’ in a document of 1611. There are other indications pointing to the conclusion that Jones’s ‘Mayflower’ may have been a whaler before 1620. The whaling fleet of 1624, of which the ‘Mayflower’ of Yarmouth (or of Hull) was one, was fitted out

by merchants of York and Hull; and this fleet had been whaling in Greenland for several years before 1624. Aldeburgh has always been closely connected with the neighbouring fishing port of Yarmouth; it is distant from Yarmouth only about 30 miles, and it was at this date a member of the port of Yarmouth. At Aldeburgh, it will be seen below, there was built in or about the year 1624 a new ‘Mayflower,’ and the master of this new ‘Mayflower’ was part owner of Christopher Jones’s ‘Mayflower.’ Since, as is stated above, there is reason to think that the new ‘Mayflower’ built at Aldeburgh was the whaler of 1624, it seems reasonable to conjecture that she was built to supply the place of the old (Christopher Jones’s) ‘Mayflower,’ and that the old Mayflower’ had also been a whaler.

     To return to the historic ship, we have gathered from the chroniclers her name and tonnage, her occupation from July 1620 to May 1621, and the surname of her master. We now turn to the Admiralty court records for information about Christopher Jones and his ‘Mayflower.’ Only those documents are here quoted which certainly relate to the same ship, her identity throughout being assured by statements as to her owner’s or master’s name and as to her tonnage. Upon the last point it is necessary to state that the records cannot be relied upon for accuracy in their statements as to a ship’s tonnage. The same ship is found to be described as of 200, 240, 250 tons; and sometimes the figures vary more than this. Nor is it safe to rely upon the description of a ship as belonging to a named port as evidence of identity. The same ship is frequently described as belonging to different ports. Christopher Jones’s ‘Mayflower’ is described some times as ‘of London’ and twice as ‘of Harwich.’ She may nevertheless have been owned in Aldeburgh, Ipswich, or elsewhere. As regards her connexion with Harwich, that port is much frequented by ships bound either to Ipswich or to Aldeburgh. It is, in fact, the entrance to the Ipswich river, and many ships bound into Orford Haven (the entrance to the Aldeburgh river, about 7 miles distant) bring up at Harwich, in order to wait there until the tide serves to cross the bar at Orford Haven. The Aldeburgh river is very difficult to enter, and the bar can be crossed only at the top of high water. Consequently at the present day Aldeburgh cod smacks, and other vessels of any draught, are constantly in and out of Harwich harbour.

     Christopher Jones first appears in the records as master of a ‘Mayflower’ in a document of 1609. Two years before this he is stated to have been owner and master of the ‘Josan’ (or ‘Jason’) of London. In her he made a voyage to Bordeaux in 1606 or 1607, and brought prunes to London. He sued James Campbell for freight of the prunes, and the suit was stayed by prohibition

from the Common Pleas on 22 May 1611. Of the history of Jones’s ‘Mayflower’ before 1609 nothing can be stated for certain. Her name does not appear in the report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission upon the Ipswich records, and the present writer has not succeeded in finding it amongst the (unpublished) records of the Harwich corporation. It is possible, however, that a more careful search at one of these places, or at Aldeburgh, or Yarmouth, or Hull, may discover further facts as to her ownership and history. The records of the Admiralty court and other sources contain a good deal of information about ‘Mayflowers’ of an earlier date, but no fact is stated about any one of them which enables us to identify her with Jones’s ship. We are told of a ‘Mayflower’ of Dover; which had wine on board in 1603, and some years later was in Barbary; a ‘Mayflower’ or ‘Mayflowers’ of Hull, referred to in documents dated between 1573 and 1582; a ‘Mayflower’ of Ipswich of 120 tons, built after 1571, and mentioned again (or another ‘Mayflower’ of Ipswich) in 1598; a ‘Mayflower’ of Lynn of 150 tons, which fought the Spaniards under Lord Edward Seymour in 1588; a ‘Mayflower’ of London of 250 tons, owned by John Vassall and others, fitted out by the Londoners for the queen in 1588, and mentioned in documents until 1594; a ‘Mary Floure’ of Newcastle, of 140 or 160 tons, which was captured from the Scots in 1558, rebuilt in 1566, and was trading in 1582; another ‘Mayflower’ of Newcastle (or possibly the same ship) trading to Africa in 1601-2; a ‘Mayflower’ of Southwold that was fishing at Iceland in 1593; and a ‘Mayflower’ of Yarmouth of 120 tons, of the year 1593. No evidence has been found of the loss, capture, or breaking up of any of these ships; and Christopher Jones’s ‘Mayflower’ may be any one of them.

     The records give the following particulars of the doings of Christopher Jones’s ship from 1609 to 1624. In August 1609 Andrew Pawlinge chartered the ‘Mayflower,’ Christopher Jones master, Robert Childe, Christopher Jones, and probably also Christopher Nicholls and Thomas Shorte, being her owners, for a voyage from London to Drontheim, in Norway, and back to London. Her cargo on the return voyage consisted wholly or in part of tar, deals, and herrings. She met with bad weather, lost an anchor and cable, and made short delivery of her herrings. Litigation followed, and was proceeding in 1612. Another suit arose out of this voyage which is of more interest. In 1609, when the ‘Mayflower’ was lying in the Thames, goods on board were arrested, at the suit of the king, for a crown debt owing by Pawlinge. Richard Nottingham claimed to be then owner of the goods under an assignment from Pawlinge. On behalf of the crown it was alleged that the assignment was fraudulent, and made for the purpose of evading

payment of Pawlinge’s debt to the crown. Application was made to the court by Nottingham that the goods should be released on bail. The judge of the admiralty, Sir Richard Trevor, doubted whether he could take bail in a crown suit, and refused to release the goods. Subsequently Nottingham procured the opinion of Sir Henry Hobart, attorney-general, that the goods might be released. This opinion was submitted to the court, and upon the strength of it the goods were released. In the course of this suit the Mayflower’s’ charter-party and a receipt by Christopher Jones for payment by Nottingham of freight and other charges on the goods were produced as evidence of Nottingham’s ownership of the goods. These documents were filed in the registry of the Admiralty court, but apparently they have been lost.

     In January 1611 Christopher Jones was probably at London in the ‘Mayflower.’ In the Thames estuary he had picked up at Gore End some wreckage, sails and other ship’s gear, which were presented as admiralty droits and claimed on behalf of the lord high admiral. In the appraisement of their value, dated 14 Jan. 1610-1, Christopher Jones is described as of Harwich, and his ship is called the ‘Mayflower’ of Harwich. In 1613 the ‘Mayflower,’ Christopher Jones master, was twice in the Thames, once in July and again in October and November. Export duties upon stockings, bayes, and Coney skins, part of her outward cargoes, were paid in London. In 1614 Christopher Jones was again party to an Admiralty suit. There are several other references to a ‘Mayflower’ in the years 1613, 1614, and 1615, but the particulars given are not sufficient to identify the ship. The next reference, which certainly relates to Christopher Jones’s ship, is in 1616. In that year John Cawkin came on board her in the Thames, and there, according to Jones’s statement, misconducted himself by inciting the crew to mutiny, abusing Jones, and drinking from the cargo of wine. For these matters he was sued by Jones in the Admiralty court, with what result does not appear. Cawkin was an officer of the court, and he may have been on board the ‘Mayflower’ in connexion with the death of Edward Baillie, who was drowned from a ‘Mayflower’ in the Thames about this time. The claim of the Admiralty coroner to hold an inquest upon bodies found in the Thames not infrequently led to trouble at this date. The mention of wine on board suggests that the ‘Mayflower’ had recently been on a voyage to France, Spain, Portugal, the Canaries, or some other wine country.

     After 1616 no record has been found which certainly relates to Jones’s ‘Mayflower’ until the year 1624. This is remarkable, for a ship trading to London does not usually disappear for so long a time. from the records. No Admiralty court document relating to the pilgrim fathers’ voyage of 1620 has been found, and no litigation

arose out of the voyage. Perhaps the hurry and secrecy with which the transfer of the pilgrims from Leyden to New England was arranged may account for this. Moreover the business of the Admiralty court at this period was at a low ebb, owing to the vigorous attack which had recently been made upon its jurisdiction by Lord Coke; and paucity of business was accompanied by neglect and dilapidation of its records, many of which belonging to this period have been lost. There is another possible explanation of the silence of the records touching Jones’s ‘Mayflower’ from 1616 to 1624. If the suggestion made above as to the whaling career of the ship is correct, there are reasons why she would not be likely to have come to London during those years. The Muscovy Company were now taking active measures to stop interlopers from Hull and Yarmouth, who were trespassing upon the Company’s patent monopoly of whaling in the Northern seas. If Jones’s ‘Mayflower’ was, in fact, one of the Hull and Yarmouth whalers, she would not be likely to have come within reach of the officers of the Admiralty court in London. Had she done so, she would probably have been arrested, and proceedings taken against her as an interloper. There is evidence to show that the east coast whalers carried their oil cargoes to Scotland and Hull; and this, Jones’s ship, if she was a whaler, may have done.

     The next appearance of Christopher Jones in the records of the High Court is in 1618. In that year he was plaintiff in an Admiralty suit, and is described as of Redrith (Rotherhithe), mariner. In another suit of the same year he was arrested as defendant, and was released upon bail. The name of the ‘Mayflower’ does not occur in either of these suits. Before 26 Aug. 1622 Christopher Jones died. The books at Somerset House tell us that on that day administration to his effects was granted to Joan, his widow.⁵ He must have died between the spring of 1621, when he was in the ‘Mayflower’ in New England, and 20 Aug. 1622. It is possible that he made whaling voyages in the ‘Mayflower’ in the summers of 1621 and 1622, but the absence of any whaling gear in the inventory of the ‘Mayflower,’ made in 1624, and mentioned below, makes this improbable. About two years after the death of Christopher Jones, on 4 May 1624, Robert Childe, John Moore, and [Joan,] widow of Christopher Jones, owners of three-fourths of the ‘Mayflower,’ obtained a decree in the Admiralty court for her appraisement. She was then probably lying in the Thames; for the commission of appraisement issued to four mariners and shipwrights of Rotherhithe. The appraisement is extant. It is a significant document, as regards her age and condition. Her hull was valued at 50l.; her five anchors at 25l.; her one suit of worn sails at 15l.; her cables,

hawsers, and standing rigging at 35l.; her muskets, arms, pitch-pots, and 10 shovels at 3l. 8s. It does not appear for what purpose the appraisement was made, nor has any other document or reference to the suit, if there was a suit, been found among the Admiralty court records. It is possible that the owner of the remaining one-fourth of the ship was unwilling to contribute to the cost of repairing her, or of fitting her out for a new voyage, and that the other co-owners took proceedings to compel him to contribute; or, possibly, the appraisement was made to fix the value of the widow Joan Jones’s one-fourth, for purposes of administration of Christopher Jones’s estate. A total value of 160l. for a ship of 180 tons seems a low value; but we know that she was at least thirteen years old, and possibly she had been laid up since Christopher Jones’s death in 1622, and had been allowed to get out of repair. In the suit of 1609 she was bailed for 800l.

     The next document⁶ which may relate to Christopher Jones’s ‘Mayflower’ is a certificate made by the mayor and bailiffs of Aldeburgh of the losses which that town had suffered by wreck and capture of their ships; and the object of the petition, to which it was probably attached, was doubtless to obtain relief from naval assessment. The certificate gives a list of ships lost and captured, and first amongst them is a ‘Mayflower’ of Aldeburgh of 160 tons, which is stated to have been owned in Aldeburgh and to have been worth 700l. The names of the owners are not given. She was captured on 5 March 1626 by Dunkirkers, while on a fishing voyage to Iceland. As compared with 160l., the appraised value of Christopher Jones’s ‘Mayflower’ in 1624, 700l. seems to be excessive, and to point to her being a different ship. But it is certain that the certificate would put the value of the captured ship at the highest possible figure, which would include the value of stores, provisions, fishing gear, and possibly some cargo. Unless the captured ship was ransomed (and there is no evidence that she was ransomed), it is not possible that she was the new ship next mentioned, which was trading for her owners of 1626 in the year 1630. In 1626 Robert Child, John Totten, Michael (or Myles) White, and others not named were owners of a ‘Mayflower’ of about 200 tons, which had been built at Aldeburgh ‘about a year since,’ John Moore being designed her master. It will be remembered that Robert Child was a part owner of Christopher Jones’s ‘Mayflower’ in 1609, and that he and John Moore were part owners of her when she was appraised in 1624. Myles White is perhaps the Myles White of London, grocer and rope-seller, who in 1625 owned the ‘William and Mary’ of Ipswich. The fact that Child and Moore named their new ship ‘Mayflower’ makes it unlikely that

their old ‘Mayflower’ (Christopher Jones’s ‘Mayflower’) was still afloat and owned by them. If, as is possible, their old ship was the ship that had been captured by Dunkirkers, they would not be unlikely to call their new ship by the old name. The new ship may be the whaler of 1626, which is in that year described as a new ship.

     It has been stated above that the voyages made by ‘Mayflowers’ to New England in 1629 and 1630 were probably not made by the pilgrim fathers’ ship. Apart from the probability that the ‘Mayflower’ captured by Dunkirkers in 1626 was the pilgrim fathers’ ship there are other reasons for distinguishing the ships of 1629 and 1630 from that of 1620. In the first place the chroniclers tell us that the ship of 1629 had 14 guns. Ordnance was supplied to ships only upon an order made by the Lord High Admiral most of these orders are extant, and there is no record of guns having been supplied to Christopher Jones’s ship. There is, however, a record of 14 guns having been supplied to a ‘Mayflower’ ‘of London’ in 1626; and this ship was not Christopher Jones’s ‘Mayflower.’ In the second place it is not likely that Christopher Jones’s ship, which was of some age and weak in 1620, would have been fit to carry 14 guns nine years later, in 1629. Thirdly, the ‘Mayflower’ of 1629 was chartered by a wealthy body, the Massachusetts Bay Company, who would not have been likely to employ ‘a leaky, unwholesome’ ship upon an arduous voyage, for which she had proved herself to be hardly fit nine years before. As to the ship of 1630, it is probable that she was the same ship as that which made the voyage of 1629. The subsequent history of this ship can be traced in the records with tolerable certainty and fulness. There is evidence to show that she was afterwards a ‘Mayflower’ ‘of Yarmouth,’ owned in and after 1627 by Thomas Hoarth of Yarmouth, and that she also became a whaler.

     Since this account was written it has been brought to the notice of the writer by the kindness of Mr. Henry F. Thompson, of Baltimore, that there was on board the pilgrim fathers’ ship a Christopher Jones. It is known that he was not one of the colonists; he must, therefore, have been one of the ship’s company. Modern research has discovered at Somerset House the will of William Mullens,⁷ who died on board the ‘Mayflower’ at Plymouth in 1621. A copy of the will is certified by John Carver, the governor of the Plymouth colony, Giles Heale, who, there is reason to think, was the doctor of the ‘Mayflower,’ and ‘Christopher Joanes.’ It is submitted that, if further evidence were necessary, the discovery of Mullens’s will leaves little doubt that the third witness to that will was Bradford[’]s ‘Mr.’ Jones, the master of the ‘Mayflower;’ that he was the Christopher Jones of the records,

and that the ship whose career we have followed from 1609 to 1624 or 1626 was the pilgrim fathers’ ship.

     The following references, except where otherwise stated to the records of the High Court of Admiralty, are the principal authorities for the statements in the text:—

     Captain Thomas Jones, in the ‘Lyon:’ ‘Acts’ 29, 19 & 27 April 1619, ff. 335, 355; ‘Libels’ 79, no. 60; in the ‘Falcon,’ ‘Lib.’ 77, no. 177; ‘Lib.’ 80, ad med.; ‘Examinations’ 43, April to June 1621; ‘Exam.’ 109, 10 July 1621; ‘Warrant Books’ 13, 20 April, 26 Oct. 1621; ‘Miscellanea,’ 1127.

     Christopher Jones, in the ‘Josan:’ ‘Lib.’ 75, no. 250; ‘Acts’ 28, March 1610, April 1611; ‘War. Bks.’ 12, 6 March 1610; prohibition in Jones c. Campbell, ‘Common Roll East.’ 9 Jac. I, rot. 1506; party to Admiralty suits, ‘War. Bks.’ 13, 22 June 1614, 5 & 12 May 1618; ‘Acts’ 29, ff. 249, 251; Jones c. Cawkin, ‘Lib.’ 79, no. 120; ‘Acts’ 29, f. 253.

     ‘Mayflower,’ voyage to Drontheim and suits of Rex c. Nottingham, Rex c. Pawlin, Jones c. Pawlin: ‘Acts’ 27 & 28, passim; ‘Lib.’ 73, nos. 27, 37, 69; ‘Lib.’ 74, no. 125; ‘Lib. 75, no. 143; ‘Exam.’ 40, 41, & 42, passim; ‘War. Bks.’ 12, 7 & 10 Dec.; in the ‘Thames,’ ‘Lib.’ 74, no. 60; ‘K. R. Customs’; appraisement, ‘Acts’ 30, f. 227; ‘Lib.’ 82, no. 167.

     New ‘Mayflower,’ built at Aldeburgh, S. P. Don. Chas. I, xvi. no. 25; voyage to Spain in 1630 and suit of Totten c. Bowyer: ‘Lib.’ 91, nos. 17, 121, 176; ‘Exam.’ 112, 27 Jan. 1633; ‘Exam.’ 113, 21 & 26 June 1634; ‘Exam.’ 50, 4 March 1633, 24 April 1634; ‘War. Bks.’ 19, 27 Sept. 1633, 22 July 1634; ‘Monitions’ 5, no. 72; ‘Miscellanea’ 949; ‘Miscellanea’ 1423, f. 20 b.

     ‘Mayflower’ whaler and the Hull whaling fleet: ‘Exam.’ 45, Jan. & Feb. 1626; ‘Exam.’ 46, 19 April 1627; ‘Exam.’ 50, 12 & 14 Nov. & 8 Feb. 1633; ‘Exam.’ 51, 15 & 24 Nov. 1634; ‘Exam.’ 112, 30 Oct. 1633; ‘Lib.’ 82, no. 5; ‘Exam.’ 148; ‘Interrogatories’ 7, ad med.; ‘Miscell.’ 1141; S. P. Dom. Chas. I, xvi. no. 30.

     Miles White, ‘Exam.’ 43, 30 May 1621; ‘Exam.’ 114, 1 Dec. 1635; ‘War. Bks.’ 15, 17 Feb. 1624.