Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' From the Original Manuscript. With a Report of the Proceedings Incident to the Return of the Manuscript to Massachusetts

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Transcribers note:

      Numbers in square brackets, [29], represent original manuscript
      pages.

      Letters in Square brackets, [AB], represent a link to a footnote
      located at the end of the book.

      A caret ^ indicates that the following letter/s are
      superscripted. The letters are enclosed in curly brackets where
      it may not be clear about which letters are superscripted.

      A square bracket, like [~m] indicates a letter with a tilde
      above.

      A square bracket, like [p=] indicates a letter with a macron
      under the letter.

      [=m] and [=n] sometimes are used to represent a double letter.

      16^li. represents 16 pounds in monetary terms. The original
      manuscript used a middle dot before and after the numbers, but
      this publisher used only a single period/stop after the number.

      The 'li' appears to mean libra and in this book the 'l' is
      crossed with a middle bar or stroke. It was very difficult to
      represent in a Latin-1 text, so 'li' must suffice.

      Most often y, such as y^e, represents a thorn and the word is
      'the'. Sometimes you will encounter the actual word 'the'.

      This book is composed of many letters written by a number
      of authors and each writer uses their own spellings and
      abbreviations, which was common for the time in which they
      were written.

      Spelling is inconsistent and is left unchanged from the original
      printing of this book.





BRADFORD'S HISTORY
"OF PLIMOTH PLANTATION."

From the Original Manuscript.

With a Report of the Proceedings Incident
to the Return of the Manuscript
to Massachusetts.







Printed Under the Direction of the Secretary of the
Commonwealth,
by Order of the General Court.

Boston:
Wright & Potter Printing Co., State Printers,
18 Post Office Square.
1898.




INTRODUCTION.


To many people the return of the Bradford Manuscript is a fresh
discovery of colonial history. By very many it has been called,
incorrectly, the log of the "Mayflower." Indeed, that is the title by
which it is described in the decree of the Consistorial Court of London.
The fact is, however, that Governor Bradford undertook its preparation
long after the arrival of the Pilgrims, and it cannot be properly
considered as in any sense a log or daily journal of the voyage of the
"Mayflower." It is, in point of fact, a history of the Plymouth Colony,
chiefly in the form of annals, extending from the inception of the
colony down to the year 1647. The matter has been in print since 1856,
put forth through the public spirit of the Massachusetts Historical
Society, which secured a transcript of the document from London, and
printed it in the society's proceedings of the above-named year. As thus
presented, it had copious notes, prepared with great care by the late
Charles Deane; but these are not given in the present volume, wherein
only such comments as seem indispensable to a proper understanding of
the story have been made, leaving whatever elaboration may seem
desirable to some future private enterprise.

It is a matter of regret that no picture of Governor Bradford exists.
Only Edward Winslow of the Mayflower Company left an authenticated
portrait of himself, and that, painted in England, is reproduced in this
volume. In those early days Plymouth would have been a poor field for
portrait painters. The people were struggling for their daily bread
rather than for to-morrow's fame through the transmission of their
features to posterity.

The volume of the original manuscript, as it was presented to the
Governor of the Commonwealth and is now deposited in the State Library,
is a folio measuring eleven and one-half inches in length, seven and
seven-eighths inches in width and one and one-half inches in thickness.
It is bound in parchment, once white, but now grimy and much the worse
for wear, being somewhat cracked and considerably scaled. Much
scribbling, evidently by the Bradford family, is to be seen upon its
surface, and out of the confusion may be read the name of Mercy
Bradford, a daughter of the governor. On the inside of the front cover
is pasted a sheet of manilla paper, on which is written the following:--


  "_Consistory Court of the Diocese of London_

  In the matter of the application of The Honorable Thomas Francis
  Bayard, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary in London of the
  United States of America, for the delivery to him, on behalf of the
  President and Citizens of the said States, of the original manuscript
  book entitled and known as The Log of the Mayflower.

  Produced in Court this 25th day of March, 1897, and marked with the
  letter A.

  HARRY W.