Note 215 — Chapter V · THE FIRST PERMANENT SETTLEMENTS
Reading edition
The captain was Christopher Jones, and not the Captain Thomas Jones of unsavory memory. J. R. Hutchinson, “The Mayflower, her Identity and Tonnage,” New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. LXX, pp. 337-42. Also Usher, Pilgrims, p. 72. The ship is thought to have been in the wine trade for several years; and as a wine ship was known among sailors as a “sweet” ship, this may have had something to do with the remarkable health of the Pilgrims on the voyage. For disease on shipboard during that period, cf. Oppenheim, Administration of the Royal Navy, vol. I, p. 136. Drake on his famous voyage lost 600 out of a crew of 2,300.