The Friends’ Migration, 1675-1725My friends, that are gone or are going over to plant and make outward plantations in America, keep your own plantations in your hearts.
—George Fox
ON A BRIGHT SPRING DAY in the year 1677, “the good ship Kent,” Captain Gregory Marlowe, Master, set sail from the great docks of London. She carried 230 English Quakers, outward bound for a new home in British North America.
As the ship dropped down the Thames she was hailed by King Charles II, who happened to be sailing on the river. The two vessels made a striking contrast. The King’s yacht was sleek and proud in gleaming paintwork, with small cannons peeping through wreaths of gold leaf, a wooden unicorn prancing high above her prow, and the royal arms emblazoned upon her stern. She seemed to dance upon the water—new sails shining white in the sun, flags streaming bravely from her mastheads, officers in brilliant uniform, ladies in court costume, servants in livery, musicians playing, and spaniels yapping. At the center of attention was the saturnine figure of the King himself in all his regal splendor.
On the other side of the river came the emigrant ship. She would have been bluff-bowed and round-sided, with dirty sails and a salt-stained hull, and a single ensign drooping from its halyard. Her bulwarks were lined with apprehensive passengers—some dressed in the rough gray homespun of the northern Pen-nines, others in the brown drab of London tradesmen, several in the blue suits of servant-apprentices, and a few in the tattered motley of the country poor.
As the two ships passed, the King shouted a question across the water.
“Are all aboard good Quakers?” he asked.
“Yes,” came the reply, “we are all Friends.”
The King wished them godspeed for America, and the two vessels drew rapidly apart—two different parts of England sailing on their separate ways.1
Many months later, the emigrant ship Kent reached her destination and dropped anchor in the River Delaware. Her weary passengers splashed ashore and planted a new settlement which they named Bridlington, after a village in Yorkshire from whence many of them had come. It is now the city of Burlington, New Jersey.