of earlier and natural misconceptions, and a certain percentage of error is inevitable, but many radical and reckless errors have been made in Pilgrim history which due study and care must have prevented.  Such errors have so great and rapidly extending power for harm, and, when built upon, so certainly bring the superstructure tumbling to the ground, that the competent and careful workman can render no better service than to point out and correct them wherever found, undeterred by the association of great names, or the consciousness of his own liability to blunder.  A sound and conscientious writer will welcome the courteous correction of his error, in the interest of historical accuracy; the opinion of any other need not be regarded.

Some of the new contributions (or original demonstrations), of more or less historical importance, made to the history of the Pilgrims, as the author believes, by this volume, are as follows:—­

(a) A closely approximate list of the passengers who left Delfshaven on the Speedwell for Southampton; in other words, the names—­those of Carver and Cushman and of the latter’s family being added—­of the Leyden contingent of the may-Flower Pilgrims.

(b) A closely approximate list of the passengers who left London in the may-Flower for Southampton; in other words, the names (with the deduction of Cushman and family, of Carver, who was at Southampton, and of an unknown few who abandoned the voyage at Plymouth) of the English contingent of the may-Flower Pilgrims.

(c) The establishment as correct, beyond reasonable doubt, of the date, Sunday, June 11/21, 1620, affixed by Robert Cushman to his letter to the Leyden leaders (announcing the “turning of the tide” in Pilgrim affairs, the hiring of the “pilott” Clarke, etc.), contrary to the conclusions of Prince, Arber, and others, that the letter could not have been written on Sunday.

(d) The demonstration of the fact that on Saturday, June 10/20, 1620, Cushman’s efforts alone apparently turned the tide in Pilgrim affairs; brought Weston to renewed and decisive cooperation; secured the employment of a “pilot,” and definite action toward hiring a ship, marking it as one of the most notable and important of Pilgrim “red-letter days.”

(e) The demonstration of the fact that the ship of which Weston and Cushman took “the refusal,” on Saturday, June 10/20, 1620, was not the may-Flower, as Young, Deane, Goodwin, and other historians allege.

(f) The demonstration of the fact (overthrowing the author’s own earlier views) that the estimates and criticisms of Robinson, Carver, Brown, Goodwin, and others upon Robert Cushman were unwarranted, unjust, and cruel, and that he was, in fact, second to none in efficient service to the Pilgrims; and hence so ranks in title to grateful appreciation and memory.

(g) The demonstration of the fact that the may-Flower was not chartered later than June 19/29, 1620, and was probably chartered in the week of June 12/22—­June 19/29 of that year.