The Mayflower Compact is a great contribution to civil liberty and democracy; it ranks with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. Our democracy was based on it from the landing of the Pilgrims. The Pilgrims established what they planned. The Plymouth settlement was the start of religious freedom. We owe them a great debt of gratitude. They were unimportant people, and their departure attracted little or no attention. Some were educated, others were not; some had means, most little or nothing, but all had character and courage. We call them ordinary people, but their accomplishment made history. When they wrote and signed the Compact they gave the world a new political idea for government by the people, and when, under the Compact, they organized the government of Plymouth, they laid the foundation of political liberty for this nation. Students of governmental history the world over, as well as statesmen, now know of the Mayflower Compact and discuss it. It cannot receive too much publicity, and there is no better place to reprint it than here in this story of the “House of Edward Winslow” where it can be easily and frequently perused. In no part of the world up to then did there exist a government of just and equal laws. It is the first incident where a government was formed by the governed, by their consent in writing at one time. One hundred and fifty years later its principles really framed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, and our laws today are interwoven with the ideals of this band of Pilgrims. One month after the signing of the Compact, the exploring party of eighteen men in the ship’s shallop that had left the ship 16 December, landed at Plymouth. Plymouth was not just what they wanted, but as Brewster said, it was the best they had seen. They returned to the ship and on 26 December 1620 the _Mayflower_ and her passengers reached Plymouth. It was 31 March that the last of them went ashore for good. On 15 April 1621 the _Mayflower_ sailed on her return trip, leaving every one of the survivors of the Pilgrim Company behind. It was a more striking picture than her departure from England. A situation more discouraging for the Pilgrims could hardly be conceived. Some interesting occurrences which happened on board the _Mayflower_ during the trip, are taken from the manuscript of “Prince’s Annals,” in his handwriting. Prince had drawn his pen diagonally across the passages, and they do not appear in his published work. They were first printed in the April number 1847 the _New England Historical and Genealogical Register_. It reads: