To his Excellency Captain General and Governor in Chief in and SPENCER PHIPPS, Esq., Lieutenant Governor, AND To the Honourable His Majesty's Council, and House of Re- TH He Province, under your united care, being the Principal of the New England Governments, containing especially the two First Colonies, of Plymouth and the Massachusetts, from whence the others chiefly derived; and having the greatest share in the following Work: to whom, could a son of the Province more properly offer this fruit of his labours, than to Your Excellency and Honours? Especially when he beholds you as mostly, if not wholly, descendants from the worthy Fathers of these Plantations, whom Yourselves and posterity cannot but have in everlasting honour: not only for their eminent self-denial and piety, wherein they set examples for future ages to admire and imitate; but also for their great concern that the same Vital and Pure Christianity, and Liberty, both civil and ecclesiastical, might be continued to their successors; for which, they left their own and their fathers' houses in the most pleasant places then on earth, with many of their dearest relatives, and came over the ocean into this then hideous wilderness. The peaceful fruits of whose extraordinary cares, labours, hardships, wisdom, courage, patience, blood, and death; we, under the Divine protec tion, and the justice of the best of kings, enjoy. It is to these, we firstly owe our pleasant houses, our fruitful fields, our growing towns and Churches, our wholesome laws, our precious privileges, our Grammar Schools and Colleges, our pious and learned Ministers and Magistrates, our good Government and order, the public restraints of vices, the general knowledge of our common people, the strict observation of the Christian Sabbath: with those remains of public modesty, sobriety, social virtues, and religion; for which, this country is distinguished among the British colonies, and in which we are as happy as any on earth. In the midst of our great advantages, You will doubtless take a noble and useful pleasure in reviewing the names and actions of your pre decessors, that You may imitate their virtues; as also in surveying the gradual steps that led to our present situation: together with the Train of Providences appearing for us, sometimes indeed afflicting, and then delivering; but preserving us through all our dangers, disappointing the designs of enemies, maintaining our invaluable liberties, and causing us to grow and prosper-that the Sovereign Power who has formed, preserved, and blessed this People, may receive His due and grateful adorations. It is the orderly succession of these transactions and events, as they precisely fell out in time (too much neglected by our historians); that, for some years past, I have taken the greatest pains to search and find, even vastly more than in composing and which, through a world of difficulty and much expense, I here present You: not in the specious form of a proper History, which admits of artificial ornaments and descriptions to raise the imagination and affections of the reader; but of a closer and more naked Register, comprising only Facts, in a Chronological Epitome, to enlighten the understanding, somewhat like the Form of Usher's Annals, which a competent historian may easily fill up and beautify. Nor is the design of this Dedication, as is usual with others, to implore Your patronage of the Work in general at all adventures, or to palliate or excuse the faults or mistakes therein; but rather humbly to appeal to Your collective and superior knowledge, that it may more thoroughly be examined, every mistake of fact discovered, and the remainder only justified. It would be too high a presumption in me, as well as too intruding on your more important cares, to supplicate a public examination or correction of this composure. But if it were as worthy as the Reverend and learned Mr. Hubbard's Narrative of the Indian War, for the perusing and approving which, three honourable Magistrates were deputed by the Governor and Council of the Massachusetts Colony, in 1677 (one of whom was a Major General, and the other two were afterwards Governors): upon rectifying every error, such a Public Approbation would consign it, as a True Report of Facts, to the regard and credit both of the present and of future generations. I should now conclude, were it not for an observation of too great and public moment to be here omitted, which is as follows: That when the Founders of these Colonies came over, it was a time of general tyranny both in Church and State, through their mother island, under which the British Kingdoms loudly groaned; as the united voice declared both of their Lords and Commons in several Parliaments, both of England and of Scotland, the only national representatives and the most proper witnesses of the national oppressions: a thousand times more credible than any particular writers. From which, those Kingdoms could never obtain a legal and established deliverance till the glorious Revolution in 1688; nor could apprehend it to be sufficiently secured till the happy Accession of King George I. to the British throne in 1714. A Prince, who was a grandson by the Princess Sophia, of that most excellent King and Queen of Bohemia, whom the Puritans admired and loved; whom they grieved to see so much neglected in their bitter sufferings, by the Court of England; and whom those who came over hither represented to their posterity in the most amiable character. Of which I can myself, bear witness. For though born in a remoter corner of this land, yet while in the arms of a knowing and careful mother, a granddaughter of the first race of settlers; Next to the Scripture History, she gave me such a view of the Reformation, and of the sufferings and virtues of those renowned Princes; as raised my joy with others, when the first hopeful prospect opened, of their Protestant descendants in the Illustrious House of Hanover being advanced to the British Throne ; and carried us into unbounded transports, when our eyes beheld it. Upon this occasion, His Excellency will forgive |