As properly antecedent to the story of the voyage of the may-Flower as told by her putative “Log,” albeit written up long after her boned lay bleaching on some unknown shore, some pertinent account has been given of the ship herself and of her “consort,” the Speedwell; of the difficulties attendant on securing them; of the preparations for the voyage; of the Merchant Adventurers who had large share in sending them to sea; of their officers and crews; of their passengers and lading; of the troubles that assailed before they had “shaken off the land,” and of the final consolidation of the passengers and lading of both ships upon the may-Flower, for the belated ocean passage.  The wholly negative results of careful search render it altogether probable that the original journal or “Log” of the may-Flower (a misnomer lately applied by the British press, and unhappily continued in that of the United States, to the recovered original manuscript of Bradford’s “History of Plimoth Plantation “), if such journal ever existed, is now hopelessly lost.

So far as known, no previous effort has been made to bring together in the consecutive relation of such a journal, duly attested and in their entirety, the ascertained daily happenings of that destiny-freighted voyage.  Hence, this later volume may perhaps rightly claim to present —­and in part to be, though necessarily imperfect—­the sole and a true “Log of the may-Flower.”  No effort has been made, however, to reduce the collated data to the shape and style of the ship’s “Log” of recent times, whose matter and form are largely prescribed by maritime law.  While it is not possible to give, as the original—­if it existed—­would have done, the results of the navigators’ observations day by day; the “Lat.” and “Long.”; the variations of the wind and of the magnetic needle; the tallies of the “lead” and “log” lines; “the daily run,” etc.—­in all else the record may confidently be assumed to vary little from that presumably kept, in some form, by Captain Jones, the competent Master of the Pilgrim bark, and his mates, Masters Clarke and Coppin.

As the charter was for the “round voyage,” all the features and incidents of that voyage until complete, whether at sea or in port, properly find entry in its journal, and are therefore included in this compilation, which it is hoped may hence prove of reference value to such as take interest in Pilgrim studies.  Although the least pleasant to the author, not the least valuable feature of the work to the reader—­especially if student or writer of Pilgrim history—­will be found, it is believed, in the numerous corrections of previously published errors which it contains, some of which are radical and of much historical importance.  It is true that new facts and items of information which have been coming to light, in long neglected or newly discovered documents, etc., are correctives