Note 7 — Chapter I

The agreement was as follows:—"In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord, King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c., having undertaken, for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith, and honour of our King and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of [then called] Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, and furthermore of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most mete and convenient for the general good of the colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cape Cod, the 11th of November, in the 18th year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth. Anno Dom. 1620." Mr. John Carver was chosen Governor for one year.

This simple and excellent instrument of union and government, suggested by apprehensions of disorder and anarchy, in the absence of a patent for common protection, has been magnified by some American writers into an almost supernatural display of wisdom and foresight, and even the resurrection of the rights of humanity. Bancroft says, "This was the birth of popular constitutional liberty. The middle ages had been familiar with charters and constitutions; but they had been merely compacts for immunities, partial enfranchisements, patents of nobility, concessions of municipal privileges, or the limitations of sovereign in favour of feudal institutions. In the cabin of the Mayflower humanity recorded its rights, and instituted a government on the basis of 'equal laws' for the 'general good.'" (History of the United States, Vol. I, p. 310.)

Now, any reader of the agreement will see that it says not a word about "popular constitutional liberty," much less of the "rights of humanity." It was no Declaration of Independence. Its signers call themselves "loyal subjects of the King of England," and state one object of their emigration to be the "honour of our King and country." The Pilgrim Fathers did, in the course of time, establish a simple system of popular government; but from the written compact signed in the cabin of the Mayflower any form of government might be developed. The good sense of the following remarks by Dr. Young, in his Chronicles of the Pilgrims of Plymouth, contrast favourably with the fanciful hyperboles of Bancroft: "It seems to me that a great deal more has been discovered in this document than the signers contemplated. It is evident that when they left Holland they expected to become a body politic, using among themselves civil government, and to choose their own rulers from among themselves. Their purpose in drawing up and signing this compact was simply, as they state, to restrain certain of their number who had manifested an unruly and factious disposition. This was the whole philosophy of the instrument, whatever may have since been discovered and deduced from it." (p. 120.)