Crisis Magazine, Declan Leary: Amid an otherwise estimable analysis of the Pilgrims’ early years and legacy, Christopher Caldwell makes a common mistake in the Claremont Review of Books, describing Myles Standish not just as “brave, erudite, underhanded, and so diminutive that he was known (though not to his face) as Captain Shrimp”—all true—but as “a secular mercenary” to boot.
Standish was a mercenary, yes, and hardly a true believer in the Pilgrims’ puritanical cause. But the man cannot rightly be called secular. Quite the contrary: Account is here.
