Come bearing gifts
FOUR hundred years ago this month, bravely set sail from Plymouth in Devon for North America with 102 passengers and some 30 crew. About half of them (the Saints, from Holland) sought religious freedom—they had had to abandon their own ship, , when she sprang a leak—but, for the others (the Strangers), there was a desire for adventure, new horizons, a brighter future and work: the group included skilled craftsmen backed by investors. The issues these Pilgrims faced have echoes, if in more primitive form, of those preoccupying news headlines today.
