About noon
To this step they were urged not only by their own wishes , but by the importunities of Captain Jones , who having obeyed his Dutch employers and brought his passengers to a point well removed from the Virginian or Manhattan shores whereon they intended to land , was now only desirous to put them ashore almost anywhere , and make sail for England while the winter storms held off and his provisions lasted . His own interest , therefore , made him zealous in the Pilgrims ' service , and so heartily had he offered his men , boats , and provisions for the expedition that the Pilgrims had made him its leader , some of them still believing in his honesty and friendliness , and some others feeling that the surest way to effect their plans was to induce the surly commander to make them his own . The event proved their shrewdness , for Jones accepted the appointment with great satisfaction , and told off ten of his best seamen to add to the four-and-twenty sound men who were nearly all that the Pilgrims could muster , since , thanks to the secret councils of Rose Standish and her associates , all sick or weakly candidates were weeded out from the volunteers , and the Tilley brothers , William Molines , James Chilton , William White , and several others were kindly bidden to remain on board and nurse their strength for the next expedition . About noon the tide serving , the four-and-thirty adventurers , divided between the ship 's long-boat and their own pinnace , took the sea in teeth of a freezing northeasterly gale , and under low-lying clouds whose gray bosoms teemed with snow and sleet . Thomas English , a mariner engaged as master of the shallop , held the helm , while as many willing hands as could grasp the oars pulled lustily in the direction of what is now called the Pamet River , a stream discovered some days previously by a foot expedition under charge of Standish , and considered as a possible seat for their colony . The crowded state of the boats and the head wind rendered the sails useless , and oars proved inefficient to propel so large a boat as the pinnace , while the sea , rapidly rising with the rising wind , broke so dangerously over the quarter that English refused to proceed , and it was hastily resolved to run into what is now called East Harbor , land the passengers , and allow the long-boat to return to the ship , while the pinnace lay to until the gale moderated . This was done , but owing to the shoals , the men were obliged to wade knee-deep to reach land , and the cold was now so intense that their clothes froze upon them as they resumed their journey on foot .