"I see the pilgrims," he continues, "escaped from their perils, landed at last, after a two months' passage, on the ice-clad rocks of Plymouth, weak and weary from the voyage,--without shelter, without means, surrounded by hostile tribes. Shut now the volume of history, and tell me, on any principle of human probability, what shall be the fate of this handful of adventurers. Tell me, man of military science, in how many months were they all swept off by the thirty savage tribes enumerated within the early limits of New England? Tell me, politician, how long did this shadow of a colony, on which your conventions and treaties had not smiled, languish on the distant coast? Student of history, compare for me the baffled projects, the deserted settlements, the abandoned adventures, of other times, and find the parallel of this. Was it the winter's storm, or disease, or labor and spare meals, or the tomahawk--that hurried this forsaken company to their melancholy fate? And is it possible that neither of these causes, that not all combined, were able to blast this bud of hope? Is it possible that from a beginning so feeble, so frail, so worthy not so much of admiration as of pity, there has gone forth a progress so steady, a growth so wonderful, an expansion so ample, a reality so important, a promise, yet to be fulfilled, so glorious?" The Mayflower remained in Plymouth Harbor, and was the home of the women and children during the severe winter of 1620-21. She rode out the storm at her anchorage,--though she was placed in great danger by a gale upon the 4th of February, her want of ballast--unladen as she was--rendering her light as a cockle-shell. With the opening of spring, the captain determined to return to England, and offered to carry back any of the colonists who might be disheartened by the calamities which had overtaken them,--for they had buried half their number. But their sufferings had endeared the soil to them, and not one embraced the opportunity of returning. The Mayflower left Plymouth on the 5th of April, 1621, and made the run home to London in thirty days. She seems to have performed several voyages back and forth, and, in 1630, arrived in the harbor of Charlestown, with a portion of Winthrop's company of emigrants. Her subsequent history is very uncertain; and all attempts to ascertain it have been baffled by the circumstance that several ships bore the name of Mayflower, and no reliable means exist of distinguishing her of Pilgrim celebrity from others of obscurer fame. [Illustration: THE COD.] [Illustration: TASMAN'S VESSEL,--THE ZEEHAAN.] CHAPTER XXXVI. DISCOVERY OF NEW HOLLAND--TASMAN ORDERED TO SURVEY THE ISLAND--DISCOVERY OF VAN DIEMEN'S LAND--OF NEW ZEALAND--MURDERERS' BAY--THE FRIENDLY ISLANDS--THE FEEJEES--NEW BRITAIN--AN EARTHQUAKE AT SEA--A COPIOUS LANGUAGE--CIRCUMNAVIGATION OF NEW HOLLAND--RETURN TO BATAVIA--RESULTS OF THE VOYAGE--DUTCH OPINIONS OF TASMAN'S MERIT.