Owing to the many delays which the emigrants had experienced, a severe winter had set in before they landed, and had fixed a spot for their permanent abode; and they found themselves exposed to the inclemency of a North climate, with no other shelter than a few tents, besides that which the vessel continued to afford.  In haste they felled the trees of the neighboring forests; and in haste they constructed the village of log huts which was to be their present abode, and which, ultimately, grew into the flourishing and wealthy city of New Plymouth.  In the erection of this hamlet, no head was so fertile in plans and expedients, and no arms were so strong to execute them, as those of Rodolph Maitland, the head of the family in whom we are specially interested.  He was a younger member of a very respectable family in the North of England, and had passed his youth and early manhood in the service of his country as a soldier.  This profession, however, became distasteful to him when the religious dissensions which troubled the land called on him, at times, to obey his commander in carrying out schemes of oppression which were contrary both to his feelings and his principles.  His marriage with Helen Seatown, the daughter of a nonconforming minister, increased his repugnance to bearing arms, which might be turned against the party to which he was now so closely connected; and he threw up his commission, and soon afterwards accompanied his father-in-law to Holland, and joined the congregation of the respected Robinson at Leyden.

Here he continued to reside until the resolution to emigrate was formed by the Puritan refugees, when he was among the first to embrace the proposition of the pastor, and to lend all the aid which his comparative wealth, and the influence of his connections in England, enabled him to offer in furtherance of the enterprise.  His father-in-law had died soon after his arrival at Leyden; but his amiable and devoted wife was most willing to follow him in his voluntary exile, and to take her children to the New World, where she hoped to bring them up in the same principles of pure evangelical religion which she had learnt from her own parents, and which were dearer to her than home or friends or aught on earth besides.

At the time when the Pilgrims reached America, the Maitland’s family consisted of two sons, Henrich and Ludovico; the elder of whom was sixteen years of age, and the younger about seven; and one little girl between ten and eleven, named Edith.  In the thoughtful seriousness of his eldest boy, which was united with great intelligence and spirit, and a manly resolution beyond his years, Rodolph saw his own character again depicted; and Helen proudly hoped that her Henrich would one day manifest all those qualities of mind and person by which his father had first won her admiration and love, and by which he had since gained the esteem and affection of all who were in any way connected with him.  Henrich was