After a good run with a prosperous wind they found the _Mayflower_ at Southampton, but as the _Speedwell_ proved unseaworthy they were again delayed, and after putting in for repairs to Dartmouth and Plymouth, the _Mayflower_ finally, on September 16th, sailed alone from Plymouth. Observe the group of brave voyagers setting forth on an unknown “sea of troubles,” trustful wives and children, manly youths and blooming maidens, as they wave a last good-by to dear Old England from the deck of the _Mayflower_. Their leaders form a notable band: Brewster, Carver, Bradford, Winslow, Standish, the soul, the heart, the head, the good right hand, the flashing sword, well-chosen instruments to unlock the frozen heart of New England, and to found there “Empire such as Spaniard never knew.” Perhaps George Herbert, prince of poets, referred to this sailing when he wrote in his _Church Militant_: “Religion stands on tiptoe in our land, Ready to pass to the American strand.” Of the terrible discomforts and dangers of that perilous voyage of sixty-seven days who has not read the pitiful story? Have we not, all of us, “come over in the _Mayflower_,” and rejoiced with these patient souls when at length, one clear morning in November, the shores of Cape Cod lay fair before their expectant eyes? Determining to put in to Cape Cod harbor, and so to land on a territory where their patent could confer no rights, the leaders of the expedition, after consulting together in the cabin of the _Mayflower_, there drew up and signed the historic “Compact” which was to convert the hundred voyagers into the founders of a commonwealth. There they solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and of one another, combined themselves into a civil body politic, to frame and enact such just and equal laws from time to time as should be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony, unto which they promised all due submission and obedience. While their sloop-rigg shallop of some fifteen tons was made ready for exploration by sea, those who went at once far into the forest came back with reports of fine growths of oak, pine, sassafras, juniper, birch and holly, abundant grape-vines and red cedar, which like sandalwood “Sheds its perfume on the axe that slays it.” They found excellent springs, many deer and wild-fowl, and what proved to be their salvation in the wilderness, “divers faire Indian baskets filled with corn, which seemed to them a goodly sight.” For this precious seed-corn the Indian owners were conscientiously paid double price some six months later.