I shall a litle returne backe and begine with a combination made by them before they came ashore, being y^e first foundation of their governmente in this place; occasioned partly by y^e discontented and mutinous speeches that some of the strangers amongst them had let fall from them in y^e ship—­That when they came ashore they would use their own libertie; for none had power to comand them, the patente they had being for Virginia, and not for New-england, which belonged to an other Government, with which y^e Virginia Company had nothing to doe.  And partly that shuch an acte by them done (this their condition considered) might be as firme as any patent, and in some respects more sure.  The forme was as followeth: 

“In y^e name of God, Amen.  We whose names are underwriten, the loyall subjects of our dread soveraigne Lord, King James, by y^e Grace of God, of Great Britaine, Franc, & Ireland king, defender of y^e faith, &c., having undertaken, for y^e glorie of God, and advancemente of y^e Christian faith, and honour of our king & countrie, a voyage to plant y^e first colonie in y^e Northerne parts of Virginia, doe by these presents solemnly & mutualy in y^e presence of God, and one of another, covenant & combine our selves together into a civill body politick, for our better ordering & preservation & furtherance of y^e ends aforesaid; and by vertue hearof to enacte, constitute, and frame such just & equall lawes, ordinances, acts, constitutions, & offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meete & convenient for y^e generall good of y^e Colonie, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.  In witness wherof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape-Codd y^e 11. of November, in y^e year of England, Franc, & Ireland y^e eighteenth, and of Scotland y^e fiftie fourth.  An^o:  Dom. 1620.”

[1] William Bradford had already been a leading member of a little dissenting congregation in England, when, in 1608, it fled from England to Holland, and in 1620 settled at Plymouth, Mass.  A year after the arrival at Plymouth Bradford was elected Governor of the Colony, and, with the exception of two short intervals, held this office until his death nearly forty years afterward.

Bradford’s “History of Plymouth” is a classic in New England historical literature—­the foundation-stone, in fact, of the history of New England.  A curious item in the survival of the manuscript is that, at the time of the evacuation of Boston by the British, during the Revolution, it disappeared mysteriously, to be discovered eighty years afterward in the palace of the Bishop of London.  More than forty years after this discovery, the manuscript was restored by the diocese of London to the commonwealth of Massachusetts, which now preserves it in the State Library in Boston.

[2] Now known as Provincetown, where a lofty monument on a hilt back of the harbor, dedicated in 1910, commemorates the landing there of the Pilgrim Fathers.  While the Mayflower lay in this harbor, Paregrine White was born, the first child of English parentage born in New England.

    [3] The landing at Plymouth was effected on December 21.