been,
at one time, a Romanist--he must have been settled among them for
years, for, on the eve of their emigration to America, we find him as
one of their leaders, accepted and commissioned as the military
adviser of the colonists. The time of his life in Leyden was one of
religious unrest in Europe; and in Holland, during that twelve years'
truce with Spain, the theological disputes between Calvinists and
Arminians ran so high as to bring John of Barneald to the scaffold,
and to drive Grotius the scholar into exile. These days of stern
dispute may have had their influence on the sturdy English soldier
living in the midst of Dutch life and Dutch disputations, and made him
lean to the side of Puritanism, even if never openly avowing it as his
religious faith. It is, indeed, a singular fact that the mainstay and
chief protector of the first Puritan colonists of America was neither
of their communion nor of their connection, and is openly censured by
Puritan writers as one who, so says Hubbard, "had been a soldier in
the Low Countries and had never entered the school of our Saviour
Christ or of John the Baptist." But his companions and associates seem
not to have permitted the dissociation to have had special weight with
them. They gladly welcomed Captain Standish and his wife, Rose, among
the little company of exiles that set out from Delft Haven for
Virginia, and gave their names place on that memorable passenger list
of the little schooner Mayflower, which, leaving the harbor of old
Plymouth, in England, in September, 1620, finally dropped anchor in
the harbor of new Plymouth, in New England, in December following.

From the outset of this novel "adventure"--itself a turning-point in
American history--this soldier of fortune was given place and
prominence in the councils of a community which seems to have enlisted
his support, not so much on its religious as on its adventurous side;
and to this "dissenter from dissent" was intrusted the defence of a
company of religious enthusiasts, sailing upon what they deemed a
divine mission, only in the practical side of which did their military
adviser find occupation or interest.

The up-bringing of Miles Standish had been such as to fit him for
leadership, and this he assumed early in the history of the
enterprise. Even on the deck of the Mayflower, he was recognized as
one whose counsels were wise and whose actions were inspiring, and
when in the cabin of the Mayflower, in th