This little band set out for America with a patent from the Virginia Company, according to James I.'s charter of 1606, but actually began here as labor-share holders in a sub-corporation of a new organization, the Plymouth Company, chartered in 1620. Launching in the Mayflower from Plymouth, where they had paused in their way hither from Holland, they arrived off the coast of Cape Cod in 1620, December 11th Old Style, December 21st New Style, and began a settlement, to which they gave the name Plymouth. Before landing they had formed themselves into a political body, a government of the people with "just and equal laws." [Illustration: The Life of the Colony at Cape Cod.] They based their civil authority upon this Mayflower compact, practically ignoring England. Carver was the first governor, Bradford the second. The colony was named Plymouth in memory of hospitalities which its members had received at Plymouth, England, the name having no connection with the "Plymouth" of the Plymouth Company. The members of the Plymouth Company had none but a mercantile interest in the adventure, merely fitting out the colonists and bearing the expense of the passage for all but the first. On the other hand, the stock was not all retained in England. Shares were allotted to the Pilgrims as well, one to each emigrant with or without means, and one for every 10 pounds invested. Plymouth early made a treaty with Massasoit, the chief of the neighboring Wampanoags, the peace lasting with benign effects to both parties for fifty years, or till the outbreak of Philip's War, discussed in a later chapter. The first winter in Plymouth was one of dreadful hardships, of famine, disease and death, which spring relieved but in part. Yet Plymouth grew, surely if slowly. It acquired rights on the Kennebec, on the Connecticut, at Cape Ann. It was at first a pure democracy, its laws all made in mass-meetings of the entire body of male inhabitants; nor was it till 1639 that increase of numbers forced resort to the principle of representation. In 1643 the population was about three thousand. [Illustration: Signatures to Plymouth Patent. /In witnes whereof the said President & Counsell haue to the one pt of this pute Indenture sett their seales* And to th'other pt hereof the said John Peirce in the name of himself and his said Associate haue sett to his seale geven the day and yeeres first aboue written/] [1626-1630]