"This Somewhat Embarrassing Ship": The British Foreign Office and the Mayflower II, 1954-1957

Abstract

ONE of New England's favorite tourist attractions, the Mayflower II, rides at anchor at Plymouth, Massachusetts. The ship is the centerpiece of Plimoth Plantation, the wellknown re-creation of the first Pilgrim settlement in America. Like its seventeenth-century predecessor, the Mayflower II was built in Britain and sailed across the Atlantic; it carried, though, not emigrants to the New World but Britain's gratitude for America's assistance in the Second World War. Apart from its educational merit, the vessel is symbol of both nations' heritage and their special relationship. As Plimoth Plantation put it in 1956, the ship, a symbol of good will that comes from the heart, resembles the Statue of Liberty: both stand for freedom and both were gifts from the people of foreign nation to the people of America.' So much for the language of the tourist brochure. In reality, the British government regarded the Mayflower II with distinct suspicion. Far from welcoming it as memorial to and symbol of the Anglo-American alliance, the Foreign Office did its best to scupper the ship, which it feared would be an embarrassing distraction from the more worthy and socially prestigious efforts of British organizations such as the Pilgrim Society and the