The Pilgrim Fathers, as you know, were not men of Devon. Indeed the contrast between them and the famous Devonians of their time is marked and noteworthy. The great men of Devon, such as Walter Raleigh, Richard Grenville, Francis Drake, and John Hawkins, usually went forth for the express purpose of adventure, or conquest, or discovery, or for the acquisition of wealth. The Pilgrim Fathers went forth for none of these objects but, as the great English poet Milton says of them, they were faithful and free-born Englishmen and good Christians constrained to forsake their dearest homes, their friends and kindred, whom nothing but the wide ocean and the savage deserts of America could hide and shelter from the fury of the Bishops.
