We know enough of the absolute unselfishness and devotion of all the Leyden leaders, whatever their birth or station,—­so grandly proven in those terrible days of general sickness and death at New Plymouth,—­to be certain that with them, under all circumstances, it was noblesse oblige, and that no self-seeking would actuate them here.  It should be remembered that the may-Flower was primarily a passenger transport, her passengers being her principal freight and occupying the most of the ship, the heavier cargo being chiefly confined to the “hold.”  As in that day the passenger traffic was, of course, wholly by sailing vessels, they were built with cabin accommodations for it, as to numbers, etc., proportionately much beyond those of the sailing craft of to-day.  The testimony of Captain John Smith, “the navigator,” as to the passengers of the may-Flower “lying wet in their cabins,” and that of Bradford as to Billington’s “cabin between decks,” already quoted, is conclusive as to the fact that she had small cabins (the “staterooms” of to-day), intended chiefly, no doubt, for women and children.  The advice of Edward Winslow to his friend George Morton, when the latter was about to come to New England in the Anne, “build your cabins as open as possible,” is suggestive of close cabins and their discomforts endured upon the may-Flower.  It also suggests that the chartering-party was expected in those days to control, if not to do, the “fitting up” of the ship for her voyage.  In view of the usual “breadth of beam” of ships of her class and tonnage, aft, and the fore and aft length of the poop, it is not unreasonable to suppose that there were not less than four small cabins on either side of the common (open) cabin or saloon (often depicted as the signing-place of the Compact), under the high poop deck.  Constructed on the general plan of such rooms or cabins to-day (with four single berths, in tiers of two on either hand), there would be—­if the women and girls were conveniently distributed among them—­space for all except the Billingtons, who we know had a cabin (as had also doubtless several of the principal men) built between decks.  This would also leave an after cabin for the Master, who not infrequently made his quarters, and those of his chief officer, in the “round house,” when one existed, especially in a crowded ship.

Cabins and bunks “between decks” would provide for all of the males of the company, while the seamen, both of the crew and (some of) those in the employ of the Pilgrims—­like Trevore and Ely—­were no doubt housed in the fore castle.  Alderton and English seem to have been counted “of the company.”  The few data we have permit us to confidently assume that some such disposition of the passengers was (necessarily) made, and that but for the leaky decks, the inseparable discomforts of the sea, and those of over crowding, the wives of the Pilgrims (three of whom gave birth to children aboard the ship), and their daughters, were fairly “berthed.”