Admirable man! Free from pettiness and egotism. Fortunate man, who, working in one of the obscurest and dustiest corners of this noisy and self-seeking world, succeeded in training and sending out a company that diffused his spirit and teachings into the institutions and thoughts of a great people! IX. [Sidenote: The landing.] [Sidenote: Morton's Memorial, 6th edition, p. 22, note.] [Sidenote: Compare Asher's History of W. I. Company in Bibl. Essay.] [Sidenote: Note 7.] [Sidenote: Note 8.] On a chain of slender accidents hung the existence of New England. Had the claims of Guiana prevailed, had the tempting offers of the Dutch changed the allegiance of the Robinsonian Independents, had the Mayflower reached her destination in what is now New Jersey, the current of American history would not have flowed as it has. A South American New England, a Dutch New England, or a non-peninsular community of English Puritans west of the Hudson with good wheat fields and no fisheries or foreign trade, would have been different in destiny from what we call New England, and its influence on events and national character could not have been the same. It will always remain doubtful whether or not Jones, the captain of the Mayflower, was bribed by the Dutch, as the Plymouth people came to believe. Nothing could be more probable in view of the general bad character of the seamen of that time and the eagerness of one political party in Holland to secure a foothold for the Dutch in America; but whether Jones, who seems to have borne a bad reputation, was bribed, or, as he pretended, became entangled in the shoals of Cape Cod and turned back in real despair of finding his way, is of no moment. He turned back and came to anchor in Provincetown Harbor. Here the threats of the brutal seamen, unwilling to go farther, and the clamor of the overcrowded and sea-weary passengers did the rest. To continue longer closely cabined in the little ship was misery and perhaps death. Here was land, and that was enough. And so, after exploration of the whole coast of Cape Cod Bay, the place already named Plymouth on John Smith's map was selected for a settlement. Here the landing was made on the 10th of November, O.S., 1620. [Sidenote: Elements of New England.] Camden has preserved to us an old English saying accepted in the days of the Pilgrims, to the effect that "a barren country is a great whet to the industry of a people." It was the wedding of an austere creed to an austere soil under an austere sky that gave the people of New England their marked character, and the severe economic conditions imposed by the soil and climate were even more potent than Puritanism in producing the traits that go to make up the New England of history. X. [Sidenote: Earlier attempts to colonize New England.]