As yet another means of emphasizing the extent to which he and his fellow Puritans were persecuted for their faith in England, Bradford includes the following simile in Book 1, Chapter 1:
After the events referred to above, they were not long permitted to remain in peace. They were hunted and persecuted on every side, until their former afflictions were but as fleabitings in comparison.
In the above passage, Bradford uses figurative language to emphasize the relative severity of the Puritans' persecution. He does so through simile, comparing all prior hardships experienced by his people to "fleabitings"—wounds of little consequence that cause only momentary pain or discomfort. The image of a "fleabiting" draws to one's mind the image of an animal: some dog, perhaps, who after running around in the outdoors and picking up fleas sits lazily in the sun, perturbed only enough to scratch occasionally at the small pests infiltrating its fur coat. To such animals, fleas are everywhere, hardly noteworthy in the grand scheme of life's various ills and injuries. Similarly, for the Puritans, their persecution at the hands of the English religious majority diminishes all previous suffering, putting things into greater perspective on account of its severity.
In Book 1, Chapter 3, Bradford describes the Puritans' flight from England to Holland, detailing the initial shock they received upon arriving in Amsterdam. Describing this transition, Bradford employs figurative language—including personification and smile—as a means of emphasizing the plight faced by his people:
For though they saw fair and beautiful cities, flowing with abundance of all sorts of wealth and riches, it was not long before they saw the grim and grisly face of poverty coming upon them like an armed man, with whom they must buckle and encounter, and from whom they could not fly; but they were armed with faith and patience against him and all his encounters; and though they were sometimes foiled, yet, by God’s assistance, they prevailed and got the victory.
Bradford uses both personification and simile to describe the experience of his fellow church members upon fleeing to Holland. Soon after arriving, the "face of poverty" approaches them "like an armed man," bringing to the forefront of the reader's mind the image of an assault, both physical and mental, like what the congregants experienced in England. Poverty, here is personified, having a grim face of its own with which to conduct this physical assault.
In Book 1, Chapter 4, Bradford outlines his second of several reasons that the Leyden congregation uses to justify their removal from Holland to New England. As Bradford details, the congregation feels themselves splintering apart, all whilst being beset on all sides by persecutors who bear them ill will. Alluding to the Bible, Bradford describes the congregation's decision to leave as a calculated risk:
Therefore, according to the divine proverb (Prov. xxii, 3), that a wise man seeth the plague when it cometh, and hideth himself; they, like skillful and hardened soldiers, were wary of being surrounded by their enemies, so that they could neither fight nor flee, and thought it wiser to dislodge betimes to some place of better advantage and less danger, if any such could be found.
Here, Bradford alludes to a story in the Bible, equating the plight of the Puritans with that of the ancient Israelites. This passage goes further, referencing the book of Proverbs and comparing Bradford's fellow church members to "skilled and hardened soldiers." This excerpt is yet another instance of a Puritan—this time Bradford himself—looking to the Bible for advice in times of difficulty and, in the process, self-identifying with the persecution of God's chosen people.
In the following passage from Book 1, Chapter 5, Bradford outlines with some trepidation the difficulties and sufferings undertaken by those who attempt the Atlantic passage between Europe and America. This passage would become renowned for its manifold discomforts, as Bradford details through the use of simile:
Mr. Blackwell is dead, and Mr. Maggner, the Captain; in fact Captain Argoll says 130 persons on that ship died out of a total of 180. There were so many that they were packed together like herrings.
Notably, Bradford describes the colonists heading over on Captain Argoll's boat as "sardines" packed together. This simile conveys the feeling of claustrophobia those passengers undoubtedly experienced in the cramped ship. This passage is curious, mainly because Bradford describes the colonists undergoing conditions similar in nature to those of enslaved Africans brought to American through the Atlantic slave trade. Though the colonists are not in chains, they are loaded into the ship like prisoners and die in droves—and they die under essentially imprisoned circumstances. Though Bradford does not discuss the Atlantic slave trade at length, this passage provides a disturbing look into the conditions of that sordid business. Even when not mentioned directly, slavery forms part of the violent, seldom-discussed (at least by Bradford) backdrop to the Plymouth settlement's colonization efforts.
In Book 1, Chapter 7, Bradford includes a letter from Mr. John Robinson to the Plymouth settlers, warning them not to assert themselves too much in favor of religious freedom in their applications to the king. In his haste to warn them against stirring the proverbial political pot, Robinson utilizes a simile:
Further, the plans for your intended civil community will furnish continual occasion of offence, and will be as fuel to the fire, unless you diligently quench it with brotherly forbearance.
The colonists want more than to live in undisturbed peace: they want assurance that the religious persecution they faced in Europe will not follow them to New England. Their proposition of religious freedom, basic though it may appear to modern readers, is in fact a radical proposition. Using simile, Robinson argues that the colonists would be adding "fuel to the fire" of British politics if they continue to press for religious freedom in writing.
Crucially, the legal, constitutional right to religious self-determination here denied the Plymouth colonists would become a primary tenant of the United States Constitution, stated clearly in the preamble as something afforded all United States citizens. The experiences of the Plymouth colonists laid the foundation for the later establishment of these rights.
In the following passage from Book 2, Chapter 1, Bradford recounts the words of a sailor who, suffering from illness like the rest of the settlers, compares his prior behavior to theirs. This sailor makes use of an apt simile to cast his own behavior in an unfavorable light:
Then he confessed he did not deserve it at their hands, for he had abused them in word and deed. “Oh,” said he, “you I see now, show your love like Christians indeed to one another; but we let one another lie and die like dogs.”
The sailor in the above passage had previously, when healthy, refused to help the sick out of fear of infection. However, after seeing how the Christians treated him during his illness, the sailor regrets his prior actions. Confessing to his transgressions as one might confess to a priest, the sailor uses a simile to emphasize just how little the non-Christian sailors care for one another, letting each other die "like dogs."
Bradford's decision to include this excerpt is not an innocuous one: it serves the very deliberate purpose of painting the Plymouth settlers and their version of Christianity in a morally superior light. The sailor's words provide an external source of validation for Bradford's moral hierarchy.
