Putting Things in Perspective
Stressed-out people sometimes feel their experiences are so tough, nobody ever had it as bad as them. They should think of my direct ancestor, John Howland. He was crossing from England to Massachusetts on board the Pilgrim fluyt ship Mayflower, back in October 1620. According to William Bradford, Howland came very close to drowning in mid-Atlantic:
The Pilgrim fluyt ship Mayflower in the mid-Atlantic
“In sundrie of these stormes the winds were so feirce, and the seas so high, as they could not beare a knote of saile, but were forced to hull, for diverce days togither. And in one of them, as they thus lay at hull, in a mighty storme, a lustie yonge man (called John Howland) coming upon some occasion aboye the grattings, was, with a seele [surge] of the shipe throwne into [the] sea; but it pleased God that he caught hould of the top-saile halliards, which hunge over board, and rane out at length; yet he held his hould (though he was sundrie fadomes under water) till he was hald up by the same rope to the brime of the water, and then with a boat hooke and other means got into the shipe againe, and his life saved; and though he was something ill with it, yet he lived many years after, and became a profitable member both in church and commone wealthe.”
That life experience certainly puts a lot of things in perspective!
John Howland met his future wife Elizabeth Tilley during the same voyage.
The Mayflower reaching Cape Cod