Standing on the heights of Plymouth Hoe, Sir Ferdinand Gorges and Mayor Thomas Fownes watch as 102 passengers and crew leave Sutton harbour on September 6, packed cheek by jowl aboard the Mayflower. The voyagers include the fourth Saints’ leader, the printer from Droitwich, Edward Winslow and his wife Elizabeth. Accomapanying them are their two men servants, George Sowle and Elias Story, together with a little girl called Ellen More, who has been placed in the Winslows’ care.

At 90 feet long, 25 at its broadest, the Mayflower is not a large ship for such a crowd and though a canvas cover over the central deck provides elementary living space for some of the emigrants, others have to sleep in the ship’s boats. Even below decks conditions are hardly better for the ship, previous to this voyage, has been used as a whaler and the foul stench lingers on. Sickened and scared the Saints have to endure hunger as well, as the Mayflower  fights gales and alarming leaks on its way across the Atlantic for the next 66 days, before finally dropping anchor off Cape Cod on an early November, bitterly cold day. One servant has died and another man washed overboard but miraculously rescued. Two babies have been born. One is named Oceanus Hopkins, the other Peregrine White (Peregrine means ‘Pilgrim’, a name that will be used to describe all this group of settlers in later years.)

The leaders’ relief at reaching America safely is short-lived, however, when Captain Jones reveals to them that they have arrived 200 miles further north of their intended destination, which was that of the London Virginia Company’s territory. They are now in that of the Plymouth Company’s. Plans must be changed. The weather is so foul that they decide that instead of venturing on they will make their settlement here. This causes unrest among some servants and hired men who feel that they are no longer bound by their agreements, which are for a colony further down the coast. This is soon scotched by the leaders drawing up a new contract, called the Mayflower Compact which all are forced to sign before going ashore with gun and bible, as is shown. Half of them will die before twelve months are out. The survivors will found Plymouth Massachusetts and thrive.