The Mayflower and Plymouth Colony
Not all the English Separatists set out for the New World.
The first group to leave England actually headed for the Dutch Netherlands in 1608. They became uneasy in their new land as their children started speaking Dutch and abandoning English traditions. Even worse to the Separatists, the tolerance shown to them by the Dutch was shown to many different faiths. They became disgusted with the attention paid to worldly goods, and the presence of many "unholy" faiths.
The great Separatist experiment in the Netherlands came to a quick end, as they began to look elsewhere for a purer place to build their society. Some headed for English islands in the Caribbean. Those who would be forever known to future Americans as the Pilgrims set their sights on the New World in late 1620.
http://www.ushistory.org/us/3a.asp
