After dawn one November morning they sighted land, and recognized Cape Cod, well known to previous mariners. This landfall was evidently the Highlands of Truro. Steering south-west while well out, they encountered the shoals off Chatham, at the elbow of the Cape, and resolved to abandon the run under New England to the Hudson. Captain Jones practically took the matter into his own hands, and conveyed the sea-weary voyagers back and around the tip of the Cape, anchoring in the nearest available harbor, at present Provincetown, on Saturday, November 21, New Style. Bradford says that before entering the harbor, they drew up a compact as "y^e first foundation of their governments in this place," to which he and all the men of the incipient Colony affixed their signatures. This classic document of essential democracy was a swift and prudent precaution against insubordination, which a few ultra-independent souls had threatened to show, declaring that on landing they would do as they pleased, since in New England they were not under the authority of their patent for Virginia. It was English territory, however, and in the beginning of the statement they professed themselves "loyal subjects" of King James. Better to have the protection of an unsympathetic sovereign than to become the prey of a lawless and irresponsible anarchy. Thus "before they came ashore," they secured themselves against despotism's opposite extreme. It was a timely act, done on the day of debarkation. The Mayflower boxed the compass, rounding the tip of the Cape and feeling her way in the circular harbor there. The inner beaches are shallow, and it seems even the longboat, though launched three-quarters of a mile off, could not be brought near the strand. The men were obliged to wade a bow-shot or two, landing at the insular Long Point, toward the sea, and carrying back to the boat swamp-cedar, as fire-wood aboard was gone. The exposure caused illness at this season, which with later aggravations proved fatal to some. Bradford escaped the "lung woe," but contracted an acute and critical form of rheumatism, or confirmed it after the chilly discomforts of the bunks and the sweeping gales of the voyage. Yet despite this prolonged cold foot-bath in American brine, he records that "being thus arrived in a good harbor, and brought safe to land; they fell upon their knees and blessed y^e God of heaven; who had brought them over y^e vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all y^e periles and miseries thereof; againe to set their feete on y^e firm and stable earth, theire proper element."