This beautiful and significant flag will be hoisted on board vessels as well as places on shore, that those captains who are favourable to the cause of temperance may be aided in promoting, in this manner, the best interests of their men. By this means, under the Divine blessing, it is not doubted that many, who are now the devotees of intemperance, will be reclaimed. This subject requires to be frequently brought before seamen on board ships, as many of them are still altogether unacquainted with the principles of the Temperance Society-their necessity for the promotion of the health and temporal comfort of sailors-the extent to which experience has proved the beneficial effects of temperance among the seamen of America and Englandand their connection with the advancement of the saving doctrines of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

C. WOOD, PRINTER, POPPIN'S COURT, FLEET STREET.

OR

SAILORS' MAGAZINE.

NEW SERIES.

FOR OCTOBER, 1836.

BRITISH AND AMERICAN SEAMEN COMPARED.

AMERICAN seamen are said by many to be, now at least, more moral and religious than those of Great Britain. This testimony is made by those who are extensively and familiarly acquainted with the habits and character of seamen of both countries; and however painful the reflection may be, which such a statement is calculated to make, there is reason to fear that there is too much truth in the declaration.

American seamen cannot originally be saints or angels, any more than our own; nor are they of a superior moral nature to those of our country; and if they are found to excel British mariners, their virtues must arise from the Divine blessing upon the greater attention paid to their moral and religious improvement. Temperance Societies have laboured with the happiest effects among the seamen of America; and now upwards of one thousand of the merchant ships sail on "Temperance principles," from the different ports of the United States.

Great Britain, as the mother country, abounding far more with the means of luxury than America, is supposed by some to be the cause of greater depravity in our seamen; but however this may in some respects be correct, there are other causes of their inferiority. From the evidence that we can obtain, the seamen of America are better instructed than those of Britain; and in most of the ports of the United States, more active efforts are made to promote their evangelization.

British seamen have not been so generally favoured; for while some of our devoted and excellent pastors have

VOL. III.

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made worthy efforts, and shown commendable zeal to bring the Gospel in all its regenerating ordinances within the reach of our mariners, many have altogether forgotten or entirely neglected them. Doubtless there are various circumstances in America, arising from the religious history and peculiar character of the people, which render it less difficult to call the attention of seamen to the Gospel than in England: but it cannot be concealed, that many of the British churches, while enjoying, in common with their countrymen, all the advantages of wealth, necessaries, and luxuries, from the labours of our 250,000 mariners, never contribute a shilling or breathe a prayer in favour of the evangelization of that deserving class of our country's labourers. How can this negligence be justified by the favoured disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ?

BRITISH COLONIZATION OF AMERICA.

MR. EDITOR,

I HAVE seen with much pleasure the pains so much taken to render the " PILOT" at once entertaining, interesting, and instructive to the class for which your cheap and valuable periodical is principally designed. I have taken it regularly from its first publication, and have not only induced others to take it monthly, but have established in my neighbourhood (near a fishing town) a plan for its loan and its perusal, where it would not perhaps be purchased. Most willingly would I lend assistance to increase its benefit and having read with sincere pleasure your account of the "Colonization of South Australia," I now send you for insertion, if you shall approve, an account of the emigration of the first British refugees on account of religion. To me, as a landsman, the perusal has been very interesting, and I think it cannot fail to be very much more so to those pious men who are accustomed to see the wonders of the Lord in the "GREAT DEEP." Surely these pilgrims had the Almighty Maker, who holds the seas in the hollow of his hand, for their PILOT! They sought his blessing, and they were, by him, made the instruments of mighty benefits following, and many yet to succeed. No wonder that pious gratitude reveres the "Rock" on which the pilgrims first planted their steps in that new

land: a Rock which the pious, yet unborn, will gladly visit; and of which your many readers will, I trust, feel pleasure in now being informed by,

Mr. Editor, yours gratefully,

THE SAILOR'S FRIEND.

FIRST EXPEDITION OF THE BRITISH PILGRIM FATHERS.

AND now (1620) the English at Leyden trusting in God and in themselves made ready for their departure. The Speedwell, a ship of sixty tons, was purchased in London; the Mayflower, a vessel of one hundred and eighty tons, was hired in England. These could hold but a minority of the congregation, and Robinson was therefore detained at Leyden, while Brewster, the teaching-elder, conducted the emigrants. Every enterprize of the Pilgrims began from God. A solemn fast was held. "Let us seek of God," said they, a right way for us, and for our little ones, and for all our substance." Anticipating their high destiny, and the sublime doctrines of liberty that would grow out of the principles on which their religious tenets were established, Robinson gave them a farewell, breathing a noble spirit of Christian liberty, such as was then hardly known in the world "I charge you before God and his blessed angels, that you follow us no further than you have seen us follow the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord has yet more truth to break forth out of his Holy Word. I cannot sufficiently bewail the condition of the Reformed churches, who are come to a period of religion, and will go at present no further than the instruments of their Reformation. Luther and Calvin were great and shining lights in their times, yet they penetrated not into the whole counsel of God. I beseech you remember it; it is an article of your church-covenant that you be ready to receive whatever truth shall be made known to you from the written Word of God." The pilgrims were accompanied by most of the brethren from Leyden to Delfthaven, where the night was passed in friendly and Christian converse. As the morning dawned, Robinson, kneeling in prayer by the sea-side, gave to their embarkation the sanctity of a religious rite. A prosperous wind wafts the vessel to Southampton; and in a fortnight the Mayflower and Speedwell, freighted with the first colony for New England, leave Southampton for America. But they had not gone far upon the Atlantic before the smaller

vessel was found to need repairs; and returning, they entered the port of Dartmouth. After the lapse of eight precious days they again weighed anchor; the coast of England recedes; already they are unfurling their sails on the broad ocean, when the captain of the Speedwell, and his company, dismayed at the dangers of the enterprise, once more pretend that the ship is too weak for the service. They put back to Plymouth to dismiss their treacherous companions, though the loss of the vessel was very grievous and discouraging. The timid and the hesitating were all freely allowed to abandon the expedition. Having thus winnowed their numbers of the cowardly and the disaffected, the little band of resolute men, some with their wives and children, in all but one hundred and two souls, went on board the single ship, which was hired only to convey them across the Atlantic; and on the 6th day of September, 1620, thirteen years after the first colonization of Virginia, two months before the concession of the grand charter of Plymouth, without any warrant from the. sovereign of England, without any charter from a corporate body, the passengers in the Mayflower, under the guidance of a faithless captain, who had received a bribe to thwart their purposes, set sail for a new world, where the past could offer no favourable auguries.

Had New England been colonized immediately on the discovery of the American Continent, the old English institutions would have been planted under the powerful influence of the Roman Catholic religion; had the settlement been made under Elizabeth, it would have been before the activity of mind in politics. The pilgrims were Englishmen, Protestant exiles for religion; men disciplined by misfortune, cultivated by opportunities of extensive observation, equal in rank as in rights, and bound by no code but that which was imposed by religion, or might be created by the public will.

The eastern coasts of the United States abound in beautiful and convenient harbours, in majestic bays and rivers. The first Virginia colony, when sailing along the shores of North Carolina, was, by a favouring storm, driven into the magnificent bay of the Chesapeake. The pilgrims having selected as the place of their settlement the mouth of the Hudson, the best position on the whole coast, were, by the treachery of their captain, conducted to the most barren, inhospitable regions of Massachusets. After a long and boisterous voyage of sixty-three days, during which one