[Dr. Ames, so stringent in his requirements of other authors, for example Jane Austin, has to this point been pathetically naive as to the opinions of Captain John Smith.  Captain Smith’s self-serving and very subjective narratives of his own voyages obtained for him the very derogatory judgement by his contemporaries.  One of the best reviews of John Smith’s life may be found in a small book on this adventurer by Charles Dudley Warner.  D.W.]

If the number one hundred and twenty (120) is correct, and the distribution suggested is also exact, viz. thirty (30) to the Speedwell and ninety (90) to the may-Flower, it is clear that there must have been more than twelve (the number usually named) who went from the consort to the larger ship, when the pinnace was abandoned.  We know that at least Robert Cushman and his family (wife and son), who were on the may-Flower, were among the number who returned to London upon the Speedwell (and the language of Thomas Blossom in his letter to Governor Bradford, else where quoted, indicates that he and his son were also there), so that if the ship’s number was ninety (90), and three or more were withdrawn, it would require fifteen (15) or more to make the number up to one hundred and two (102), the number of passengers we know the may-Flower had when she took her final departure.  It is not likely we shall ever be able to determine exactly the names or number of those transferred to the may-Flower from the consort, or the number or names of all those who went back to London from either vessel.  Several of the former and a few of the latter are known, but we must (except for some fortunate discovery) rest content with a very accurate knowledge of the passenger list of the may-Flower when she left Plymouth (England), and of the changes which occurred in it afterward; and a partial knowledge of the ship’s own complement of officers and men.

Goodwin says:  “The returning ones were probably of those who joined in England, and had not yet acquired the Pilgrim spirit.”  Unhappily this view is not sustained by the relations of those of the number who are known.  Robert Cushman and his family (3 persons), Thomas Blossom and his son (2 persons), and William Ring (1 person), a total of six, or just one third of the putative eighteen who went back, all belonged to the Leyden congregation, and were far from lacking “the Pilgrim spirit.”  Cushman was both ill and heart-sore from fatigue, disappointment, and bad treatment; Ring was very ill, according to Cushman’s Dartmouth letter; but the motives governing Blossom and his son do not appear, unless the comparatively early death of the son—­after which his father went to New England—­furnishes a clue thereto.  Bradford says:  “Those that went back were, for the most part, such as were willing to do so, either out of some discontent, or fear they conceived of the ill success of the Voyage,