The awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging.

The labouring masts seem straining from their base; the dismal sound of the pumps is heard; the ship leaps, as it were, madly from billow to billow; the ocean breaks, and settles with engulfing floods over the floating deck, and beats with deadening, shivering weight against the staggering vessel." It is difficult to imagine how "winter" could surprise passengers crossing the ocean between the 6th of September and the 9th of November--a season of the year much _chosen_ even nowadays for crossing the Atlantic.

It is equally difficult to conceive how that could have been an "unknown sea" which had been crossed and the New England coasts explored by Gosnold, Smith, Dermer and others (all of whom had published accounts of their voyage), besides more than a dozen fishing vessels which had crossed this very year to obtain fish and furs in the neighbourhood and north of Cape Cod.

Doubtless often the "suns rose and set" upon these vessels without their seeing the "wished-for shore;" and probably more than once, "the awful voice of the storm howled through their rigging," and "the dismal sound of their pumps was heard," and they "madly leaped from billow to billow," and "staggered under the deadening, shivering weight of the broken ocean," and with its "engulfing floods" over their "floating decks." The _Mayflower_ was a vessel of 180 tons burden--more than twice as large as any of the vessels in which the early English, French, and Spanish discoverers of America made their voyages--much larger than most of the vessels employed in carrying emigrants to Virginia during the previous ten years--more than three times as large as the ship _Fortune_, of 53 tons, which crossed the ocean the following year, and arrived at Plymouth also the 9th of November, bringing Mr.Cushman and the rest of the passengers left by the _Speedwell_ the year before.

Gosnold had crossed the ocean and explored the eastern coasts of America in 1602 in a "small bark;" Martin Pring had done the same in 1603 in the bark _Discovery_, of 26 tons; Frobisher, in northern and dangerous coasts, in a vessel of 25 tons burden; and two of the vessels of Columbus were from 15 to 30 tons burden, and without decks on which to "float" the "engulfing floods" under which the _Mayflower_ "staggered" so marvellously.