It was on the shore of Cape Cod Bay that the new settlers had landed, in the inlet now called New Plymouth Harbor:  but this was not the place of their original destination.  They had intended to steer for the mouth of Hudson’s River, and to have fixed their habitation in that less exposed and inhospitable district.  But the Dutch had already conceived the project, which they afterwards accomplished, of settling in that part of the new continent; and it is supposed that the captain of the Mayflower was bribed by them to convey the English emigrants further to the north; so that the first American land which they beheld was Cape Cod.  They found that the place where they had landed was beyond the precincts of the territory which had been granted to them; and even beyond that of the Company from which they derived their right of colonization; and after exploring hastily the neighboring coast, and finding it dreary and unpromising, they again embarked, and insisted on the captain’s conveying them to the district which they had first desired to reach.  They sailed to the south, and many days were lost in endeavoring to find a more convenient spot for their settlement:  but it was in vain.  The shoals and the breakers with which the coast was lined, presented obstacles that were insurmountable at that advanced, and unusually inclement, season; and, weary and disheartened, they returned to the place of their first landing.  There they fixed their abode, and there they founded the infant city of New Plymouth.  It was a desolate situation, and one that subjected the new settlers to many trials and privations; for the nearest English settlements then established were upwards of five hundred miles distant.  Winter having set in with more than common severity, they felt that no more time could be wasted in seeking for a better spot, on which to build their first American habitations.  Sickness also had begun to show itself among the little band of men, women, and children who were all unaccustomed to the hardships and confinement of a long voyage; and it was necessary to disembark with all possible speed, and erect huts to shelter them from the daily increasing inclemency of the weather.  For this purpose, the forests of oak, pine, juniper, and sassafras, that had grown undisturbed for centuries along the coast, furnished them with abundant materials; and the woods soon echoed to the unaccustomed sound of the hatchet and the saw, at which all the men, of every rank and condition, labored unremittingly, while the women and children gathered up the great muscles, and other shell-fish, which abounded on the shore, and collected dry wood for firing.

But before we follow the settlers in the detail of their sufferings and trials, and of their ultimate success and prosperity, it will be needful to go back a few years, and consider the motives that led these brave men to expose themselves and their families to such severe hardships, and to abandon their home and their kindred.  A brief glance at their previous history will suffice for this purpose.