Dr. Griffis, in his delightful little narrative, “The Pilgrims in their Three Homes, England, Holland, America,” cites the name “Mullins” as a Dutch distortion of Molines or Molineaux.  Without questioning that such it might be,—­for the Dutch scribes were gifted in remarkable distortions of simple names, even of their own people,—­they evidently had no hand in thus maltreating the patronym of William Mullens (or Mullins) of the Pilgrims, for not only is evidence entirely wanting to show that he was ever a Leyden citizen, though made such by the fertile fiction of Mrs. Austin, but Governor Carver, who knew him well, wrote it in his will “Mullens,” while two English probate functionaries of his own home-counties wrote it respectively “Mullens” and “Mullins.”

Dr. Grifs speaks of “the Mullens family” as evidently [sic] of Huguenot or Walloon birth or descent, but in doing so probably knew no other authority than Mrs. Austin’s little novel, or (possibly) Dr. Baird’s misstatements.

A writer in the “New England Historic-Genealogical Register,” vol. xlvii, p. 90, states, that “Mrs. Jane G. Austin found her authority for saying that Priscilla Mullens was of a Huguenot family, in Dr. Baird’s ‘History of Huguenot Emigration to America,’ vol. i. p. 158,” etc., referring to Rev. Charles W. Baird, D. D., New York.  The reference given is a notable specimen of very bad historical work.  Of Dr. Baird, one has a right to expect better things, and the positiveness of his reckless assertion might well mislead those not wholly familiar with the facts involved, as it evidently has more than one.  He states, without qualification or reservation, that “among the passengers in the Speedwell were several of the French who had decided to cast in their lot with these English brethren.  William Molines and his daughter Priscilla, afterwards the wife of John Alden and Philip Delanoy, born in Leyden of French parents, were of the number.”  One stands confounded by such a combination of unwarranted errors.  Not only is it not true that there “were several of the French among the passengers in the Speedwell,” but there is no evidence whatever that there was even one.  Those specifically named as there, certainly were not, and there is not the remotest proof or reason to believe, that William Mullens (or Molines) and his daughter Priscilla (to say nothing of the wife and son who accompanied him to America, whom Baird forgets) ever even saw Leyden or Delfshaven.  Their home had been at Dorking in Surrey, just across the river from London, whence the may-Flower sailed for New England, and nothing could be more absurd than to assume that they were passengers on the Speedwell from Delfshaven to Southampton.

So far from Philip Delanoy (De La Noye or Delano) being a passenger on the Speedwell, he was not even one of the Pilgrim company, did not