New Haven Harbor was frozen over. When the "Great Shippe" was
ready to sail, it was necessary to cut a way out for her with
handsaws through the thick ice for nearly three miles. A good
many people from the town walked out on the harbor ice beside the
ship to see her begin her voyage, and to bid good-bye to a number
of their friends who were going home to England on business of
one kind or another. Seventy people had taken passage in the
"Great Shippe," and among them were some who were very prominent
in the colony, as, for instance, Captain Nathaniel Turner, who,
having had experience in the war with the Pequot Indians, had
been given "the command and ordering of all martial affairs" in
the plantation, and Thomas Gregson, one of the magistrates, who
was charged by the colony to obtain a charter for them, if
possible, from the English Parliament, then in control in
England.

Reverend John Davenport, the minister, stood in the crowd of
people on the ice that winter day and offered a prayer to God for
the protection of the travelers. "Lord," he said, "if it be thy
will to bury these our friends in the bottom of the sea, they are
thine, save them." This does not sound like a very cheerful
send-off, but we must remember that a long voyage was a serious
undertaking in those days and that people sometimes made their
wills even before sailing from New Haven for Boston.

When the "Great Shippe" had really gone, when the people had seen
the last of Captain Lamberton standing on her deck giving orders,
and had watched her white sails dwindle and disappear, they
walked back over the ice to their homes on the shore remembering
sadly that it would be a long time before they could expect to