We are told too, by Bradford,

[Bradford’s Historie, as already cited; Arber, The Story of the Pilgrim Fathers, p. 341.  John Brown, in his Pilgrim Fathers of New England, p. 198, says:  “She [the Speedwell] was to remain with the colony for a year.”  Evidently a mistake, arising from the length of time for which her crew were shipped.  The pinnace herself was intended, as we have seen, for the permanent use of they colonists, and was to remain indefinitely.]

that the crew of the Speedwell “were hired for a year,” and we know, in a general way, that most of them went with her to London when she abandoned the voyage.  This there is ample evidence Coppin did not do, going as he did to New England as “second mate” or “pilott” of the may-Flower, which there is no reason to doubt he was when she left London.  Neither is there anywhere any suggestion that there was at Southampton any change in the second mate of the larger ship, as there must have been to make good the suggestion of Dr. Dexter.

Where the Speedwell lay while being “refitted” has not been ascertained, though presumably at Delfshaven, whence she sailed, though possibly at one of the neighboring larger ports, where her new masts and cordage could be “set up” to best advantage.

We know that Reynolds—­“pilott” and “Master” went from London to superintend the “making-ready” for sea.  Nothing is known, however, of his antecedents, and nothing of his history after he left the service of the Pilgrims in disgrace, except that he appears to have come again to New England some years later, in command of a vessel, in the service of the reckless adventurer Weston (a traitor to the Pilgrims), through whom, it is probable, he was originally selected for their service in Holland.  Bradford and others entitled to judge have given their opinions of this cowardly scoundrel (Reynolds) in unmistakable terms.

What other officers and crew the pinnace had does not appear, and we know nothing certainly of them, except the time for which they shipped; that some of them were fellow-conspirators with the Master (self-confessed), in the “strategem” to compel the SPEEDWELL’S abandonment of the voyage; and that a few were transferred to the Mayflower.  From the fact that the sailors Trevore and Ely returned from New Plymouth on the Fortune in 1621, “their time having expired,” as Bradford notes, it may be fairly assumed that they were originally of the SPEEDWELL’S crew.

That the fears of the SPEEDWELL’S men had been worked upon, and their cooperation thus secured by the artful Reynolds, is clearly indicated by the statement of Bradford:  “For they apprehended that the greater ship being of force and in which most of the provisions were stored, she would retain enough for herself, whatever became of them or the passengers, and indeed such speeches had been cast out by some of them.”