feeble were the operations of the Plymouth company, to whom was assigned the conduct of the northern division, although animated by the zeal of Sir John Popham, chief jus tice of England, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and other publie spirited gentlemen of the west.

2. In the year 1607, the same in which James Town was founded, a small settlement was commenced on the river Sagadahoc, now called the Kennebec; but this was soon abandoned. Some fishing vessels visited Cape Cod several times. among them, one commanded by Captain Smith, who re turned with a high-wrought description of the coast and country, exhibiting a map of the bays, harbors, &c., on which he inscribed "New England;" the Prince of Wales, delighted with the representations of Smith, immediately confirmed the name.

3. To the operations of religion, rather than to the desire of pecuniary emolument, are the various settlements of New England indebted for their origin. The sacred rights of conscience and of private judgment were not then properly understood; nor was the charity and mutual forbearance taught Christians by their divine Master, practised in any country. Every church employed the hand of power in supporting its own doctrines, and opposing the tenets of another.

4. In reforming the rituals and exterior symbols of the church of England, Elizabeth, lest by too wide a departure from the Romish church, she might alarm the populace, had allowed many of the ancient ceremonies to remain unaltered. With several of these a large number of her subjects being dissatisfied, they wished to address their Creator according to their own opinions, but were subjected to very rigorous penalties.

5. Those who dissented from the established church obtained the general name of Puritans, a term applied to them because they wished for a purer form of discipline and wor ship. Among the most popular and strenuous declaimers against the established church, were the Brownists, a sect formed about 1581, by Robert Brown, who afterwards renounced his principles of separation, and took orders in the church against which he had so loudly declaimed. The Rev. John Robinson, the father of the first settlement of New England, is said to have been a follower of Brown, but afterwards renounced the principles of the Brownists, and became the founder of a new sect, denominated Independents.

6. Mr. Robinson affirmed that all Christian congregations were so many independent religious societies, that had a right to be governed by their own laws, independent of any foreig

jurisdiction. Being persecuted in England, he, with many others embracing his opinions, removed to Holland, where they formed churches upon their own principles. Remaining there some years, the society were desirous to remove to some other place: they turned their thoughts to America, and applied to James, who, though he refused to give them any positive assurance of toleration, seems to have intimated some promise of passive indulgence.

7. They readily procured a tract of land from the Plymouth company. One hundred and twenty persons sailed from Plymouth in 1620, their destination being Hudson's river: by some treachery of the Dutch, who then contemplated, and afterwards effected a settlement at that place, they were carried to the north, and landed on Cape Cod, the eleventh of November of that year.

8. They chose for their residence a place called by the Indians Patuxet, to which they gave the name of New Plymouth. Before spring, half their number were cut off by famine or disease. In a few days after they landed, Captain Standish was engaged in skirmishing with the Indians; and the many disasters which followed, together with the impla cable hostility of the Indians, which always has subsisted, are perhaps more owing to the imprudence of the first settlers, than to the bad disposition of the natives.

9. This colony, like that of Virginia, at first held their goods and property in common; and their progress was retarded as well by this circumstance, as by the impulse of imaginary inspiration, which regulated all their actions. At the end of ten years, these well meaning people, when they became incorporated with their more powerful neighbors of Massachusetts Bay, did not exceed three hundred.

10. In the year 1629, Mr. White, a non-conformist minister at Dorchester, having formed an association, purchased from the Plymouth company a tract extending in length from three miles north of Merrimac river, to three miles south of Charles river, and in breadth from the Atlantic to the Southern ocean; and obtained a charter from Charles, similar to that given to the two Virginian companies by James. Five ships were fitted out, on board of which were embarked upwards of three hundred souls, amongst whom were several eminent non-conforming ministers.

11. On their arrival, they found the remnant of a small party that had left England the preceding year, under the conduct of Mr. Endicott, who had been appointed by his companions deputy governor. They were settled at a place called by the Indians Naumkeag, to which he had given the

scripture name of Salem. The new colonists immediately formed a church, elected a pastor, teacher, and elder, disregarding the intentions of the king. They disencumbered their public worship of every superfluous ceremony, and reduced it to the lowest standard of Calvinistic simplicity.

12. But much as we respect that noble spirit which enabled them to part with their native soil, we must condemn the persecuting spirit of the colonists themselves. Sonie of the colonists, retaining a high veneration for the ritual of the church of England, refused to join the colonial state establishment, and assembled separately to worship; Endicott called before him two of the principal offenders, expelled them from the colony, and sent them home in the first ships returning to England.

13. The government of the colony was soon transferred to America, and vested in those members of the company who should reside there. John Winthrop was appointed governor, and Thomas Dudley deputy governor, with eighteen as sistants. In the course of the next year, 1630, fifteen hundred persons arrived in Massachusetts from England, amongst whom were several distinguished families, some of them in easy, and others in affluent circumstances; and Boston, Charlestown, Dorchester, Roxbury, and other towns were settled.

14. The first general court, held at Charlestown, ventured to deviate from their charter in a matter of great moment: a law was passed, declaring that none should be freemen, or he entitled to any share in the government, except those who had been received as members of the church.

15. The fanatical spirit continued to increase. A minister of Salem, named Roger Williams, having conceived an aversion to the cross of St. George, a symbol in the English standard, declaimed against it with great vehemence, as a relic of superstition; and Endicott, in a transport of zeal, cut out the cross from the ensign displayed before the governor's gate. This frivolous matter divided the colony; but the matter was at length compromised by retaining the cross in the ensigns of forts and vessels, and erasing it from the colors of the militia.

QUESTIONS.

What was the origin of the Plymouth colony?

When was the settlement made?

Of how many persons did the colony at first consist?

Of how many did it consist ten years afterwards?

How many emigrants came to Massachusetts in the year 16801

SECTION 111.

Settlement of Rhole Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine, Maryland, and North and South Carolina.

1. IN 1636, Roger Williams was banished from Salem; and, accompanied by many of his hearers, the exile went south, purchased a tract of land of the natives, to which he gave he name of Providence; and a Mr. Coddington, with seventysix others, exiled from Boston, bought a fertile island on Narraganset Bay, that acquired the name of Rhode Island. Mr. Coddington embraced the sentiments of the Quakers, or Friends; he received a charter from the British parliament, in which it was ordered, that " none were ever to be molested for any difference of opinion in religious matters:" yet, the very first assembly convened under this authority, excluded Roman Catholics from voting at elections, and from every office in the government!

2. To similar causes the state of Connecticut is indebted for its origin. Mr. Hooker, a favorite minister of Massachusetts, with about one hundred families, after a fatiguing march, settled on the western side of the river Connecticut, and laid the foundation of Hartford, Springfield, and Weathersfield. Their right to this territory was disputed by the Dutch, who had settled at the mouth of the Hudson, and by the lords Say-and-Seal and Brook. The Dutch were soon expelled; and the others uniting with the colony, all were incorporated by a royal charter.

3. New Hampshire was first settled in the spring of 1623, under the patronage of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Captain John Mason, and several others, who sent over David Thompson, a Scot, Edward and William Hilton, and a number of people, furnished with the requisite supplies. One company landed at a place called Little Harbor; the others settled at Dover. Mr. Wheelwright, a clergyman, banished from Massachusetts, founded Exeter in 1638.

4. Maine was not permanently settled until 1635. Gorges obtained a grant of this territory, which remained under its own government until 1652, when its soil and jurisdiction. as far as the middle of Casco Bay, was claimed by Massa husetts.

5. The mutual hostility of the English and Indians commenced with the first settlement; but it was not until the year 1637, that a systematic warfare was begun. The Pe quods, who brought into the field more than a thousand war

riors, were exterminated in a few months by the combined troops of Massachusetts and Connecticut. In the night, the Pequods were attacked, near the head of Mistic, by the Connecticut troops and Narraganset Indians, commanded by Captain Mason: in a few moments, five or six hundred lay gasping in their blood, or were silent in the arms of death. The darkness of the forest," observes a New England author, "the blaze of the dwellings, the ghastly looks of the dead, the groans of the dying, the shrieks of the women and children, and the yells of the friendly savages, presented a scene of sublimity and terror indescribably dreadful."

6. In 1643, an alliance for mutual defense was formed between the New England colonies, excepting Rhode Island, which Massachusetts was unwilling to admit. This alliance continued until the charters were annulled by James the Second.

7. Up to 1638, twenty-one thousand British subjects had settled in New England; and the country had begun to extend the fisheries, and to export corn and lumber to the West Indies. In 1656, the persecution of the Quakers was at its height. A number of these inoffensive people having arrived in the Massachusetts colony, from England and Barbadoes, and given offense to the clergy of the established church by the novelty of their religion, were imprisoned, and by the first opportunity sent away.

8. A law was passed, which prohibited masters of ships from bringing Quakers into Massachusetts, and themselves from coming there, under a graduated penalty, rising, in case of a return from banishment to death. In consequence, several were hanged! These proceedings are still the more reprehensible and remarkable, when contrasted with a previous declaration of their government, which tendered "hos pitality and succor to all christian strangers, flying from wars, famine, or the tyranny of persecution." The Anabaptists were also persecuted; many were disfranchised, and some were banished.

9. On the accession of James II., several of the New Eng land colonies were deprived of their charters; but these, with various unimportant modifications, were restored after the revolution. Sir William Phipps, a native of Maine, who rose to wealth and power in a manner the most extraordinary, was the first governor of Massachusetts under the new charter. With a force of seven hundred men, he wrested from the French, L'Acadie, now called Nova Scotia. He af terwards made an unsuccessful attempt on Quebec, with the loss of one thousand men.