TALBOT."

In view of such positive statements as these, from such eminent
authorities and others, and of the collateral facts as to the probable
ownership of the MAY-FLOWER in 1630, and on her earlier voyages herein
presented, the doubt expressed by the Rev. Mr. Blaxland in his "Mayflower
Essays," whether the ship bearing her name was the same, on these three
several voyages, certainly does not seem justified.

Captain William Pierce, who commanded the MAY-FLOWER in 1629, when she
brought over part of the Leyden company, was the very early and intimate
friend of the Pilgrims--having brought over the ANNE with Leyden
passengers in 1623--and sailed exclusively in the employ of the Merchant
Adventurers, or some of their number, for many years, which is of itself
suggestive.

To accept, as beyond serious doubt, Mr. Goffe's ownership of the MAY-
FLOWER, when she made her memorable voyage to New Plimoth, one need only
to compare, and to interpret logically, the significant facts;--that he
was a ship-owner of London and one of the body of Merchant Adventurers
who set her forth on her Pilgrim voyage in 1620; and that he stood, as
her evident owner, in similar relation to the Puritan company which
chartered her for New England, similarly carrying colonists, self-exiled
for religion's sake, in 1629 and again in 1630. This conviction is
greatly strengthened by the fact that Mr. Goffe continued one of the
Pilgrim Merchant Adventurers, until their interests were transferred to
the colonists by the "Composition" of 1626, and three years later (1629)
sent by the MAY-FLOWER, on her second New England voyage, although under
a Puritan charter, another company from the Leyden congregation. The
(cipher) letter of the "Governor and deputies of the New-England Company