alarmed, but such was their courage and selfreliance, they were not dismayed or discouraged. They apprehended danger from three sources, the crown, the hierarchy, and the parliament, as they were equally dreaded, and hated; they continued until the close of the war of independence, in 1783 to be objects of their peculiar aversion.

The deception practised by these people throughout the whole of their negotiation in England, seems to admit of no further addition, but their very last act was to publish a manifesto to the clergy of the Established Church, assuring them that they were in fact and in heart members of the same communion, and solicited their prayers and their blessings on this undertaking. They entreated them to believe, to use their own words: "that they esteemed it their honour to call the Church of England their dear mother, and they could not leave the country where she resided without tears in their eyes. We leave it not, therefore," they said, "as loathing that milk wherewith we were nourished there. But blessing God for the parentage and education, and as members of the same body shall rejoice in her good, and while we have breath, sincerely desire and endeavour the continuance and abundance of her welfare, with the enlargement of her bounds in the kingdom of Jesus Christ,"* and much more * See the original letter in Book 11, Chap. 7, of this work.

to the same effect. History can scarcely furnish such an instance of consummate hypocrisy.

The accounts of their early settlement in general circulation are chiefly those written by themselves or their descendants, who are their eulogists. Such being the case, truth can only be ascertained by a careful examination of original documents and obsolete contemporaneous works. They were always anxious to be considered as martyrs, and laid claim to all that is noble in conduct, exalted in principle, and pure in religion, while the Sovereign whom they duped, has been represented as a tyrant, and the prelates, whom they publicly flattered and privately traduced, have been held up to the world as cruel and senseless bigots. There was no doubt much in the conduct of the King that cannot be justified, and in the hierarchy of the day that is deeply to be regretted, but rebellious subjects compel monarchs to be cruel in selfdefence, and a priest may well be excused, if he thinks schism aggravated by deception and falsehood.

The object of this extraordinary manifesto is evident enough, but neither the persecution of the old, nor the possession of the new world, justifies them in sacrificing that, without which life in either hemisphere would find no security but in brute force. It has been said in extenuation of their conduct, that they had not formally seceded

from the Church, at the time they circulated this valedictory address. The answer is, congregationalism they knew had already been adopted at Salem before they left England, by their agent Endicott, and subsequently confirmed by their approbation. And, furthermore, that as soon as they could possibly devote a day to it, from their indispensable duties, they again established it at Boston and Cambridge, with the utmost unanimity among the people, and the consent of every man that signed that touching appeal to their "Dear Brethren."

Such were the people who laid the foundation of Republicanism in America. There is much in their conduct to admire and applaud, and much to reprove and condemn. The bright lights and dark shades of their character are in such contrast, that, to do them justice and preserve the impartiality of history, it will be difficult to avoid the charge of inconsistency, so different must the language occasionally be, that is extorted by truth on the one hand, or awarded by slander on the other. If, therefore, the meed of panygeric, to which they are often justly entitled, shall seem irreconcilable with the terms in which their duplicity, obstinacy, and cruelty are denounced, it must be recollected that their defects, no less than their virtues, contributed to form that indomitable character for dogged resolution, without which

they never would have been non-conformists in England, or republicans in America. To overlook these distinctions would betray a total ignorance of human nature; to attempt to palliate or conceal them, would lead to the suspicion that disingenuousness is infectious, and that it cannot even be contemplated without danger. They have alternately been the subject of extravagant eulogy, or unmitigated abuse, according to the medium of religious or political prejudice, through which they have been viewed. Nothing can be farther from the truth than either of these extreme opinions. Their character, like that of most men, was mixed, but unlike that of any other people, was distinguished for qualities so totally opposite, and yet so strongly developed and so powerfully contrasted, that it is difficult to imagine how they could be combined without neutralizing each other. Their conduct exhibits so much despotism, and so ardent a love of liberty, so great a degree of superstition, and so much practical good sense, such refined casuistry, and Jesuitical double dealing, united with extraordinary frankness and manly behaviour, so little regard for the form of jurisprudence, and so warm an attachment to constitutional law, so much impatience of restraint or interference from others, with such a strong predilection to intermeddle with or control their neighbours, that general terms are manifestly inapplicable to

them. Their acts must be separately considered, and severally praised or censured according to their deserts. In searching for the causes that led to the formation and development of this extraordinary character, we must regard their condition in their native country, and the circumstances that moulded their opinions, and called forth the peculiarities that I have alluded to.

At the period of their leaving England, the great majority of them, though conforming to the Established Church, were at heart dissentients, having undergone the probation of complying, but not agreeing; obeying but not respecting; combining but not uniting; assembling in Churches where everything that they saw or heard shocked them as unscriptural and superstitious, using the PrayerBook but rejecting it as papistical, listening to clergymen whose authority they despised and whose doctrine they denied; and above all, to bishops whom they believed to be neither Papists nor Protestants, but amphibious beings clothed in all the frippery, and practising all the mummery of the first, without possessing their antiquity or authority, and yet claiming to belong to the other, without having the purity of their doctrine, the simple rigour of their discipline, or the independence of their self-government. Nothing can be more destructive of true piety, ingenuous conduct, and simplicity of mind, than insincere conformity,