A large number succeeded in embarking on board a vessel bound for Holland in Boston Harbor, but they were betrayed by the captain, who handed them over to some officers in quest of them. They were searched, robbed of all their valuables, and marched back to Boston. A month's imprisonment was succeeded by a second attempt at escape, ending even more disastrously than the first. A Dutch ship was this time engaged to convey the sufferers for their faith to Holland, and it was arranged that the embarkation should take place at a lonely spot somewhere between Grimsby and Hull. The women and children were sent to the rendezvous in a small vessel; the men marched thither in small parties by land. All seemed likely to go well. The two detachments met on the low sands of the Lincoln shores, and eager greetings were exchanged between husbands and wives, fathers and little ones. The men were embarking on the Dutch vessel, on which their families were to join them immediately, when a loud tumult suddenly arose on the beach, and down rushed a mob of country people, wild with delight at having arrived in time to cut off the heretics.
The few men already on the Dutch vessel were carried off, whether they would or no, by its affrighted master; and of the remainder, some endeavored to protect the women and children, while others hurried off in different directions and escaped. From one magistrate to another the luckless emigrants who had been taken prisoners were marched, bearing themselves so nobly and simply in their trial, that many were won over to their belief, and the hearts of others, even in those unrelenting days, were touched. No magistrate would convict them of any worse crime than a desire to be with those belonging to them, and, after much wandering to and fro, a public subscription was got up on their behalf, which enabled them to take ship for Amsterdam, where, in the winter of 1608, nearly the whole of the original Scrooby congregation met once more. Even in Amsterdam, however, their rest was not to be; for, in the little English community which had already settled there, disputes, some of them most trivial in their character, had arisen, and the Scrooby people had therefore little heart to join it. They had had enough of conflict with foes at home to make them sick of strife, and more than sick of strife among brethren; and so, with their pastor at their head, they moved on to Leyden.
For a time the sufferers enjoyed peace in the land of their exile. Their pastor, Brewster, and his able coadjutor, Robinson, administered the affairs of the little community with gentle wisdom. The names of Carver, Cush-
