The point reached by the voyagers was considerably north of the intended place of settlement, the vicinity of the Hudson River; but whether accidental or designed--and some evidence there certainly was which seemed to show that the master of the Mayflower had been bribed by the Dutch[4] to keep away from Manhattan, which they wanted for themselves--the variation was a happy one for the colonists, inasmuch as it saved them from the savages, who were warlike and numerous near the Hudson, while in this district they had been decimated and scattered by disease. [Illustration: _Copyright, 1906, by A. S. Burbank, Plymouth_ _From a Painting_ THE MARCH OF MILES STANDISH] Now the Pilgrims were a prudent as well as a pious and plucky people, and while yet upon the water they set about providing themselves with a system of civil government. Placed as they were by this time outside the pale of recognized authority, some fitting substitute for it must be established if order was to be maintained. The necessity for this was the more imperative as there were some on board--the hired labourers, probably--who were not, it was feared, "well affected to peace and concord." Assembled in the cabin of the Mayflower, we accordingly have the leaders of the expedition, preparing that other historical incident of the pilgrimage. There they drew up the document forming a body politic and promising obedience to laws framed for the common good. This was the first American charter of self-government. It was subscribed by all the male emigrants on board, numbering forty-one. Under the constitution adopted, John Carver was elected Governor for one year. The Mayflower rode at anchor while three explorations were made to discover a suitable place of settlement, one of them on shore under Captain Miles Standish, and two by water in the ship's shallop, which had been stowed away in pieces 'tween decks on the voyage. On December 21st an inlet of the bay was sounded and pronounced "fit for shipping," and the explorers on going inland found "divers cornfields and little running brooks," and other promising sources of supply. They accordingly decided that this was a place "fit for situation," and on December 26th the Mayflower's passengers, cramped and emaciated by long confinement on board, leaped joyfully ashore. Appropriately the spot was named New Plymouth, after the last port of call in Old England. The Pilgrims landed on a huge boulder of granite, the Pilgrim Stone, still reverently preserved by their descendants: a rock which was to their feet as a doorstep Into a world unknown--the cornerstone of a nation![5]