The Mayflower and Her Log; July 15, 1620-May 6, 1621 — Volume 5Ames, Azel
History
The Mayflower and Her Log; July 15, 1620-May 6, 1621 — Volume 5
Ames, Azel
Massachusetts -- History -- New Plymouth, 1620-1691; Mayflower (Ship); Pilgrims (New Plymouth Colony)
"Conserves of Roses, Clove-Gilliflowers, Wormwood, Green-Ginger, Burnt-
Wine, English Spirits, Prunes to stew, Raisons of the Sun, Currence
[currants], Sugar, Nutmeg, Mace, Cinna mon, Pepper and Ginger, White
Bisket, Butter, or 'Captains biscuit,' made with wheat flour or Spanish
Rusk, Eggs, Rice, Juice of Lemons, well put up to cure or prevent the
Scurvy, Small Skillets, Pipkins, Porringers and small Frying Pans."
Josselyn further gives us an estimate for:--
"Victuals for a whole year to be carried out of England for one man and so
for more after this rate." He annexed also their current prices:--
"Eight bushels of Meal [Rye meal probably intended]
Two bushels of Pease at 3/s
Two bushels of Oatmeal at 4s/6d
One Gallon of Aqua Vitae
One Gallon of Oyl
Two Gallons of Vinegar
[No estimate of Beef or Pork, or of vegetables, is included.]
A Hogshead of English Bear
A Hogshead of Irish Bear
A Hogshead of Vinegar
A bushel of Mustard seed
A Kental [Quintal] of fish, Cod or Haberdine, 112 lb."
Edward Window, in his letter to George Morton before mentioned, advising
him as to his voyage, says: "Bring juice of lemons and take it fasting.
It is of good use."
It is indeed remarkable that, totally unused to any such conditions, wet,
cold, poorly fed, overcrowded, storm-tossed, bruised and beaten, anxious,
and with no homes to welcome them, exposed to new hardships and dangers
on landing, worn and exhausted, any of the MAY-FLOWER'S company survived.
It certainly cannot be accounted strange that infectious diseases, once
started among them, should have run through their ranks like fire, taking
both old and young. Nor is it strange that--though more inured to
hardship and the conditions of sea life--with the extreme and unusual
exposure of boat service on the New England coast in mid winter, often
wading in the icy water and living aboard ship in a highly infected
atmosphere, the seamen should have succumbed to disease in almost equal
ratio with the colonists. The author is prepared, after careful
consideration, to accept and professionally indorse, with few exceptions,
the conclusions as to the probable character of the decimating diseases
of the passengers and crew of the MAY-FLOWER, so ably and interestingly
presented by Dr. Edward E. Cornwall in the "New England Magazine" for
February, 1897--From the fact that Edward Thompson, Jasper More, and
Master James Chilton died within a month of the arrival at Cape Cod (and
while the ship lay in that harbor), and following the axiom of vital
statistics that "for each death two are constantly sick," there must have
been some little (though not to say general) sickness on the MAY-FLOWER
when she arrived at Cape Cod. It would, in view of the hardship of the
voyage, have been very remarkable if this had not been the case. It
would have been still more remarkable if the ill-conditioned, thin-
blooded, town-bred "servants" and apprentices had not suffered first and
most.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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