‘The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-hound coast:
And the woods against a stormy sky,
Their giant branches tost.
And the heavy night hung dark
The hills and waters o'er,
When a hand of exiles moored their bark
On the wild New England shore.’ HEMANS.

It was, indeed, a ‘stern and rock-bound coast’ beneath which the
gallant little Mayflower furled her tattered sails, and dropped her
anchor, on the evening of the eleventh of November, in the year 1620.
The shores of New England had been, for several days, dimly descried by
her passengers, through the gloomy mists that hung over the dreary and
uncultivated tract of land towards which their prow was turned; but the
heavy sea that dashed against the rocks, the ignorance of the captain
and his crew with regard to the nature of the coast, and the crazy
state of the deeply-laden vessel, had hitherto prevented their making
the land. At length the ship was safely moored in a small inlet,
beyond the reach of the foaming breakers; and the Pilgrim Fathers
hastened to leave the vessel in which they had so long been imprisoned,
and, with their families, to set foot on the land that was henceforth
to be their home. Cold, indeed, was the welcome which they received
from their adopted country; and cheerless was the view that met their
gaze, as they landed on a massy rock of granite, at the foot of a
precipitous cliff, and looked along the barren, inhospitable shore, and
over the dark waters which they had so lately crossed.

But hope was strong in the hearts of these exiles; and the faith that
had led them to seek these untrodden shores, had not deserted them