though it was a neighbour countrie, and a civill and rich comone wealth.1 7 [4] Robinson's house. 8 [8] House of widow van Alckemade. 9, 10, 11 [9] Other houses of Johann de Lalaing. 12 [12] Falyde Beguynhof and grounds, between which and the de Lalaing houses on the east was the Dovecker canal. 13 [5, 6] Garden of Robinson's house. [10] Estate of Dirck van Boostel, apparently bought between 1578 and 1611 by de Lalaing. [11] Donckegeracht. [13] Tenements of Falyde Beguynhof. 1 Some means they had accumulated, as their homes would show. The location of very few of the houses occupied by the Pilgrims in Leyden has come down to us. Brewster, in 1609, lived on an alley called Stinck steeg (Stench Lane) near the Hoogewoerds Bridge and later removed to Choor steeg (Choir Lane), an alley extending from Broadway to the Choir of St. Peter's Church. This is the Vicus Choralis which is mentioned on the title-page of Brewster's printing of Cartwright's Commentaries (1617). The location of the first house occupied by John Robinson is not known, and in the first year or two may not have been fixed. The enlargement of the city in 1611, the fourth in its history, doubtless increased the opportunities for employment, and so added to the resources of the English, enabling them to buy a house and lot as a permanent settlement. In May, 1611, such an estate was purchased in Klok steeg (Bell Lane), being a house then belonging to Johann de Lalaing, and known as the Groenepoort (Green Door). The price was eight thousand gilders, of which two thousand were paid down, and five hundred annually thereafter, until the mortgage should be satisfied. The lot was irregular in shape, containing about half an acre of land and having a frontage on the Klok steeg of only twenty-five and a half feet. In the garden twenty-one houses were built between 1611 and 1647, and were presumably occupied by members of the families of the company. The parties named in the instrument as purchasers were "John Robinson, minister of God's word of the English congregation in this city, William Jepson, Henry Wood and Randall Thickins." Dexter, The England and Holland of the Pilgrims, 529 et seq. Winslow describes the pastor's house as "large." (Hypocrisie Unmasked, *90.) Occupation was taken in May, 1612, and very probably by that time an addition had been made to it. Dexter, 541. From a poll tax return of 1622 we learn that the house was occupied only by John Robinson and his family. After Robinson's death, Jepson bought out the interest of the others (December 13, 1629), and became sole owner. The house passed into other hands in 1637, and was taken down with others in 1681-83 for the purpose of erecting a hof (charitable institution) for the Walloons, still remaining, and known as Pesyn's Hof. Historical Magazine, III. 331. It was answered, that all great, and honourable actions, are accompanied with great difficulties; and must be, both enterprised, and overcome with answerable courages. It was granted the dangers were great, but not desperate; the difficulties were many, but not invincible. For though their were many of them likly, yet they were not cartaine; it might be sundrie of the things feared, might never befale; others by providente care and the use of good means, might in a great measure be prevented; and all of them (through the help of God) by fortitude, and patience, might either be borne, or overcome. True it was, that shuch atempts were not to be made and undertaken without good ground, and reason; not rashly, or lightly as many have done for curiositie, or hope of gaine, etc. But their condition was not ordinarie; their ends were good and honourable; their calling lawfull, and urgente; and therfore they might expecte the blessing of God in their proceding. Yea though they should loose their lives in this action, yet might they have comforte in the same, and their endeavors would be honourable. They lived hear but as men in exile, and in a poore condition; and as great miseries might possiblie befale them in this place; for the 12. years of truce were now out, and ther was nothing but beating of drumes, and preparing for warr, the events wherof are allway uncertaine. The Spaniard might prove as cruell as [18] the salvages of America;1 and the famine and pestelence as sore hear as ther; and their libertie less to looke out for remedie. After many other perticuler things answered, and aledged on both sides, it was fully concluded by the major parte, to put this designe in execution; and to prosecute it by the best means they could. 1 In this very year of 1620, appeared at Amsterdam two brochures depicting the cruelties perpetrated by the Spaniards in the Netherlands and in America. The Belgic scenes, twenty in number, were described by Jan Everaard Cloppenburg, and the American, seventeen plates, were used as illustrations of Las Casas. Published at this time, when the truce of twelve years was about to end, the horrible pictures could well serve to excite the people of Holland against their would-be conquerors, and deter the Leyden congregation from adventuring within the reach of so cruel and murderous fanatics. The .5. Chap [ter] Shewing what means they used for preparation to this waightie vioag. ND first, after thir humble praiers unto God, for his direction, and assistance, and a generall confferrence A held hear aboute, they consulted what perticuler place to pitch upon, and prepare for. Some (and none of the meanest) had thoughts, and were ernest for Guiana,1 or some of those 1 Sir Walter Ralegh issued his Discoverie of the large, rich and bewtiful Empyre of Goiana, with a relation of the great and Golden Citie of Manoa (which the Spanyards call El Dorado,) in 1596. It was translated into Dutch and printed in 1598; into Latin, to be included in De Bry, in 1599; and in the same year and the same language, in Hulsius. Later Hulsius issued a German edition. The subject and manner of presentation appealed to the cupidity of adventurers, and this will account for the popularity of the book. Lawrence Keymis's Relation of the Second Voyage to Guiana, dedicated to Ralegh, was also printed in 1596, and passed into a Dutch translation in 1598. Ralegh's Discoverie, with Keymis's at the end, was again issued in the Dutch tongue in 1617, by Michiel Colijn, of Amsterdam, an overdrawn picture of possible wealth. Ralegh had now paid by his life the penalty of his eagerness to obtain the favor of his royal mistress by realizing his dreams of enormously rich mines of the precious metals in Guiana. In the re-issue of Hakluyt's Principall Navigations, by the Hakluyt Society (x. 384), Ralegh's own map of Guiana is reproduced, with the fabled city and lake of Manoa and El Dorado upon it, sufficient evidence, even for that day, of the wildness of his project and the absence of knowledge of the region. Robert Harcourt, with a company of adventurers, sailed to Guiana in 1609, and took possession in the king's name of a tract of country lying between the Amazon and the Dollesquebe. He left a colony there, under his brother Michael, and returning to England, obtained a patent giving him power to plant and inhabit the land he had taken. A series of misfortunes followed, and in the end the colony came to naught. He wrote Relation of a Voyage to Gviana, which was printed in 1613, and was included in Purchas's Pilgrimes, pt. iv. Like Captain John Smith's Description of New England, it was dedicated to Prince Charles. This colony must have been fertill places in those hott climates; others were for some parts of Virginia, wher the English had all ready made enterance, and begining. Those for Guiana aledged that the c[o]untrie was rich, fruitfull, and blessed with a perpetuall spring, and a florishing greenes; where vigorous nature brought forth all things in abundance, and plentie without any great labour, or art of man. So as it must needs make the inhabitants rich; seing less provissions of clothing and other things, would serve, then in more coulder, and less fruitfull countries must be had. As also that the Spaniards (haveing much more then they could possess) had not yet planted there, nor any wher very near the same. But to this it was answered, that out of question, the countrie was both frutfull, and pleasante; and might yeeld riches, and maintenance to the possessors, more easily then the other; yet, other things considered, it would not be so fitt for them. And first that shuch hott countries are subject to greevos diseases, and many noysome Impediments, which other more temperate places are freer from and would not so well agree with our English bodys.2 Againe if they should ther live, known in Holland, as the Dutch traded with the Indians there, and some of the Harcourt colony "richly returned from the Amazon in a Holland ship,” in March, 1617, and it was said their cargo was tobacco, which sold for £2,300, and some gold ingots. These men intended to return to Guiana. In 1629 (?) the Council stopped some Englishmen who intended to go to Guiana with an Irishman, William Gayner. Gayner proposed to sail from Holland, and it was feared that he would take the Dutch to the Amazon, and cause quarrels and bloodshed between the two nations. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, 1574-1660, 218. See also references to Guiana in Acts of the Privy Council, Colonial Series, 1. 1 The Virginia Company received its charter in 1606, and for ten years struggled to obtain money and adventurers, issuing broadsides giving the conditions of a voyage and describing the kind of emigrants desired. Occasion arose also to make reply to the attacks made upon the company and the country of Virginia, and to spread a knowledge of the plantation a series of nine tracts was printed before 1616, of which the two latest in date, Whitaker's Good Newes from Virginia (1613), and Hamor's Troe Discourse of the Present Estate of Virginia (1615), were the more important. See Miss Susan L. Kingsbury's Introduction to the Records of the Virginia Company of London, 1. 32. Any of these issues may have come to the notice of the English in Leyden. Charles Leigh's plantation at Wiapoco, in Guiana, suffered much from sickness. A RELATION OF A VOYAGE TO GVIANA. DESCRIBING THE CLIMAT, Performed by ROBERT HARCOVRT, of The Pattent for the Plantation of which Country, HARCOVAT Vader the Great Stale. NONB.14.7,8. The Land which we walked thorow to fearch it is a very goed Land.. If the Lord lone vs,he will bring us into this land,and wil gine it us AT LONDON Printed by IOHN BEALE, for W. WEIBY, and are to be fold at his fhop in Pauls Churchyard at the figne of the Swan. 2.61 3. |