New England's Dutch Connection

'Perkins scratched his neck."Actually," he said," I'm and old fashioned kind of guy. My old man , he was like twelfth-generation New England sailor in the merchant marine." (p.249)

New England is in the north east corner of the United States and one of the earliest European settlements in the New World. It was named so by the English pilgrims who landed there from England.

Everybody knows that the Pilgrim Fathers who landed at Plymouth sailed across the Atlantic on the Mayflower, but how many people know that several of the original English separatists also set sail from Leiden, Holland on the Speedwell?

The English separatists left England and had settled in Leiden for almost 11 years before they set sail for the New World to practice their faith without fear of persecution.