Mayflower Contract

The penalties for conducting unofficial services included imprisonment and larger fines. Under the policy of this time, Barrowe and Greenwood was executed for sedition in 1593. Scrooby member William Bradford, of Austerfield, kept a journal of the congregation 's events that would later be published about the Plymouth Plantation. Of this time, he wrote, however, after these things they could not long continue in any peaceable condition, but was hunted & persecuted on every side, so as their former afflictions were but as flea-bitings in comparison of these, which now came upon them. For some were taken & clapt up in prison, others had their houses besett & watcht night and day, & hardly escaped their hands; and ye most were faine to flie

Some of the passengers, aware of the situation, suggested that without a patent in place, they were free to do as they chose upon landing and ignore the contract with the investors.[35][36] To address this issue, a brief contract, later to be known as the Mayflower Compact, was drafted promising cooperation among the settlers "for the general good of the Colony unto which we promise all due submission and obedience." It organized them into what was called a "civil BodyPolitick," in which issues would be decided by that key ingredient of democracy, voting. It was ratified by majority rule, with 41 adult male Pilgrims signing [37] for the 102 passengers, seventy-three males and twenty-nine females. There were included in the company nineteen male servants and three female servants, along with some sailors and craftsmen hired for short-term service to the colony.[38] At this time, John Carver was chosen as the colony 's first governor. It was Carver who had chartered the Mayflower, and being the most respected and affluent member of the group, his is the first signature on the Mayflower Compact. The Mayflower Compact was the seed of American democracy and has been called the world 's first written constitution.[39][40]in the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, defender of the Faith, etc. and in1620 place names mentioned by Bradford Land was sighted on November 9, 1620. The passengers who had endured miserable conditions for about sixty-five days were led by William Brewster in Psalm 100 as a prayer of thanksgiving. It was