The Mayflower and Her Log; July 15, 1620-May 6, 1621 — Volume 3

The text surveys the officers and crew who served the Pilgrim voyage, reconstructing how the pilot John Clarke and his recommended captain, Thomas Jones, were hired from earlier voyages and how their prior commands linked them to Virginia traffic. It weighs contemporary narratives and later scholarship to assess Jones's abilities as a mariner alongside accusations of piracy, extortion, and selfish conduct, and debates about whether he intentionally redirected the settlement party to Cape Cod rather than Hudson River. Primary accounts and documentary evidence are used to trace contracts, ship movements, and conflicting interpretations of these seafaring figures' motives and consequences.