But far worse to them than any material loss was the loss of the
dear friends and relatives who had sailed with the "Great Shippe"
for England. No compensation could come to those who had loved
them. In November, 1647, the passengers on the ship were finally
given up as lost and counted among the dead and their estates
settled.

Yet many to whom they were dear could not rest satisfied. They
remembered all the perils of the sea, the dangers of shipwreck on
some barren coast, of possible capture by pirates, such as those
who had attacked Captain Carman off the Canary Islands not many
years before, and they came to feel at last that they would be
thankful to learn that the ship had foundered at sea and that
their friends had gone down with her to a natural death in the
waters.

Two years and a half after the sailing of the "Great; Shippe" (so
the story stands in a strange old book called the Magnolia
Christi, by the Reverend Cotton Mather), a wonderful vision
came to the people of New Haven. On that June afternoon in the
year 1648, a great thunderstorm came up from the northwest. The
sky grew black and threatening, there was vivid lightning, and a
cold wind swept over the harbor. Before the rain had ceased and
calm had come again, it was nearly sunset.

Then, against the clear evening light, a strange ship sailed into
New Haven Harbor. Around the point she came with her sails full
set and her colors flying. "There's a brave ship," cried the
children, and they left their play to stand and gaze at her. Men
and women gathered on the water-front and the same startled hope