Amid such scenes as these well may we of to-day pause and reflect. For on this hallowed spot, with its historic environment and its striking reminders of a great and honoured past, was rocked the cradle of a nation of whose civil and religious liberty it was the first rude home. [Illustration: _Photograph by A. S. Burbank, Plymouth_ FIRST CHURCH, PLYMOUTH _The entrance to Burial Hill is shown on the Right_] FOOTNOTES: [4] Morton in his "New England's Memorial," declares that the Dutch fraudulently hired the captain of the Mayflower to steer to the north of what is now New York, and adds: "Of this plot between the Dutch and Mr. Jones I have had late and certain information." [5] Longfellow, "The Courtship of Miles Standish." [6] This is the Cole's Hill of the present day, the spot where half the Mayflower Pilgrims found their rest during the first winter. Five of their graves were discovered in 1855, while pipes for the town's waterworks were being laid, and two more (now marked with a granite slab), in 1883. The bones of the first five are deposited in a compartment of the granite canopy which covers the "Forefathers' Rock" on which the Pilgrim Fathers landed. [7] The letter was addressed by De Rassieres to Herr Blommaert, a director of his company, after his return to Holland, where the Royal Library became possessed of it in 1847. [8] This document, preserved still in the Pilgrim Hall at Plymouth, is dated June 1, 1621, and bears the signatures and seals of the Duke of Lenox, the Marquis of Hamilton, the Earl of Warwick, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges, a name for many years prominent in American history. The patent only remained in force a year. That issued by the Council eight years later was transferred by Governor Bradford to the General Court in 1640. [9] Burial Hill was the site of the embattled church erected in 1622, and contains many ancient tombstones and the foundations of a watchtower (1643), now covered with sod. [10] John Cuckson, "History of the First Church in Plymouth." Dying in 1699, two years after his resignation at Charleston, South Carolina, Cotton was "buried with respect and honour by his old parishioners, who erected a monument over his grave." V THE PILGRIM ROLL CALL--FATE AND FORTUNES OF THE FATHERS [Illustration: _Photograph by A. S. Burbank, Plymouth_ THE PILGRIM FATHERS' MEMORIAL, PLYMOUTH] V THE PILGRIM ROLL CALL--FATE AND FORTUNES OF THE FATHERS _On Fame's eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled._ EDMUND SPENSER. _There were men with hoary hair_ _Amidst that pilgrim band:_ _Why had they come to wither there,_ _Away from their childhood's land?_ _There was woman's fearless eye,_ _Lit by her deep love's truth;_ _There was manhood's brow serenely high,_ _And the fiery heart of youth._