The adventures of our Pilgrim Fathers must ever be a theme of absorbing interest to all their descendants. Their persecutions in England, their flight to Holland, their passage across the stormy ocean, this new world, as they found it, swept by the storms of approaching winter, their struggles with the hardships of the wilderness, and conflicts with the ferocious savage,—all combine in forming a narrative replete with the elements of entertainment and instruction.

Fortunately, there can be no doubt in reference to the essential facts. All these events have occurred within the last three hundred years, a period fully covered by authentic historical documents. In giving occasional extracts from these documents, I have deemed it expedient to modernize the spelling, and occasionally to exchange an unintelligible, obsolete word for one now in use.

For a period of about forty years, Captain Miles Standish was intimately associated with the Pilgrims.ii His memory is inseparably connected with theirs. It has been a constant pleasure to the author to endeavor to rear a worthy tribute to the heroic captain and the noble man, who was one of the most illustrious of those who laid the foundations of this great Republic.