framework of civil self-government whose fame will never
die; though the author is in full accord with Dr. Young (Chronicles,
p. 120) in thinking that "a great deal more has been discovered in
this document than the signers contemplated,"--wonderfully
comprehensive as it is. Professor Herbert B. Adams, of Johns
Hopkins University, says in his admirable article in the Magazine of
American History, November, 1882 (pp--798 799): "The fundamental
idea of this famous document was that of a contract based upon the
common law of England,"--certainly a stable and ancient basis of
procedure. Their Dutch training (as Griffis points out) had also
led naturally to such ideas of government as the Pilgrims adopted.
It is to be feared that Griffis's inference (The Pilgrims in their
Three Homes, p. 184), that all who signed the Compact could write,
is unwarranted. It is more than probable that if the venerated
paper should ever be found, it would show that several of those
whose names are believed to have been affixed to it "made their
'mark.'" There is good reason, also, to believe that neither
"sickness" (except unto death) nor "indifference" would have
prevented the ultimate obtaining of the signatures (by "mark," if
need be) of every one of the nine male servants who did not
subscribe, if they were considered eligible. Severe illness was, we
know, answerable for the absence of a few, some of whom died a few
days later.

The fact seems rather to be, as noted, that age--not social status
was the determining factor as to all otherwise eligible. It is
evident too, that the fact was recognized by all parties (by none so
clearly as by Master Jones) that they were about to plant themselves
on territory not within the jurisdiction of their steadfast friends,
the London Virginia Company, but under control of those formerly of
the Second (Plymouth) Virginia Company, who (by the intelligence
they received while at Southampton) they knew would be erected into
the "Council for the Affairs of New England." Goodwin is in error
in saying (Pilgrim Republic, p. 62), "Neither did any other body
exercise authority there;" for the Second Virginia Company under Sir
Ferdinando Gorges, as noted, had been since 1606 in control of this
region, and only a week before the Pilgrims