God, of Great Britaine, Franc, & Ireland king, defender of y^e faith,
&c., having undertaken, for y^e glorie of God, and advancemente of y^e
Christian faith, and honour of our king & countrie, a voyage to plant
y^e first colonie in y^e Northerne parts of Virginia, doe by these
presents solemnly & mutualy in y^e presence of God, and one of
another, covenant & combine our selves together into a civill body
politick, for our better ordering & preservation & furtherance of y^e
ends aforesaid; and by vertue hearof to enacte, constitute, and frame
such just & equall lawes, ordinances, acts, constitutions, & offices,
from time to time, as shall be thought most meete & convenient for y^e
generall good of y^e Colonie, unto which we promise all due submission
and obedience. In witness wherof we have hereunder subscribed our
names at Cape-Codd y^e 11. of November, in y^e year of England, Franc,
& Ireland y^e eighteenth, and of Scotland y^e fiftie fourth. An^o:
Dom. 1620."

[1] William Bradford had already been a leading member of a little
dissenting congregation in England, when, in 1608, it fled from
England to Holland, and in 1620 settled at Plymouth, Mass. A year
after the arrival at Plymouth Bradford was elected Governor of the
Colony, and, with the exception of two short intervals, held this
office until his death nearly forty years afterward.

Bradford's "History of Plymouth" is a classic in New England
historical literature--the foundation-stone, in fact, of the
history of New England. A curious item in the survival of the
manuscript is that, at the time of the evacuation of Boston by the
British, during the Revolution, it disappeared mysteriously, to be
discovered eighty years afterward in the palace of the Bishop of
London. More than forty years after this discovery, the manuscript