when either adopted from prudential motives, or submitted to from compulsion. Pretending to be

what we are not, and holding out ourselves to the government or to the world as Churchmen, when in reality we are Dissenters or Romanists, is, in fact, hypocrisy, and no man can long wear that garb, without a total change in his character. The essence of hypocrisy is falsehood. If a man inclines to the belief, that simulated compliance with unsound doctrines, or unscriptural churches, is defensible, he naturally seeks for plausible reasons to satisfy his own scruples, and if he succeed in deceiving himself, the inevitable tendency of his mind is to attempt to deceive others.

When privately in

Dissent is progressive. dulged for any length of time it grows too burdensome for a secret, and requires to be acknowledged, and when announced it assumes a new name and a new form, and ripens into secession. Its waters, however, are then drugged with bitterness and strife, and whoever drinks of them soon finds their baneful operation on his temper, on the affections of his heart, and in all his social relations of life, while he experiences a sympathetic change on his political creed, and becomes familiarized with violent and seditious measures. Demanding a charitable construction on his own motives and conduct, he is not willing to concede it to others;

VOL. I.

D

and as people seldom forgive those whom they have injured, he views the members of the church he has left with all the acrimony of an enemy, and all the vindictive energy of an insulted and outraged friend. To the forced compliance or voluntary nonconformity of the Pilgrim Fathers, as well as the cold Calvinistic tenets of their faith, may be traced their austere manners and gloomy dispositions, their subtle reasoning and adroit evasions, their unrelenting persecutions, numerous banishments and barbarous executions, their unmitigated hatred of episcopacy, and deep-rooted aversion to monarchical institutions. On the other hand, their patience under toil, privation and suffering, their indomitable courage in resisting the numerous enemies, and overcoming the many difficulties with which they were surrounded, their energy, industry and enterprise, their love of independence, their hospitality, benevolence, and public and private liberality, the unity that prevailed among themselves, their brotherly affection for each other, and many other correlative qualities are attributable in part to the Anglo-Saxon stock from which they sprang, and in part to the requirements and incidents of a forest home in a new world. But their frugality, temperance, purity of morals, simplicity of manners, respect for the authorities of their little state, both civil and religious, and similar virtues, were all their own.

Such a careful analysis is due both to their character, and the faithfulness of this narrative. In order to make that intelligible, which is otherwise irreconcilable, it is necessary to seek for the springs of action that lie beneath the surface, for conduct can only be duly appreciated by its motives, and effects be fully estimated by tracing them to their real causes.

CHAPTER IV.

Reasoning of the first settlers as to their independenceThe colony becomes a republic from necessity-Oaths of supremacy and allegiance dispensed with They decline to set up the King's arms-Mutilate the flagDrinking healths abolished-Blackstone's remarks about the Lord's Brethren-Order that none but Church members be admitted to be freemen-Another, forbidding a stranger to settle in the colony without a licence-Petitioning the King called slandering the brethren-Punishment of Morton, Sir Christopher Gardner, and Ratcliffe -Morton publishes a satire at Amsterdam-Returns to Massachusetts-Is fined and banished again-Intimate connection between their Church and State-The King orders several vessels in the Thames to be put under embargo-A House of Representatives meets in Boston, and is admitted as a branch of the Legislature-The Governor is not re-elected, and is made to account for his expenditure of the public moneys-His manly conduct on the occasion-A code of laws ordered to be compiledAlso a uniform system of Church Discipline.

HAVING traced the origin of this republic, and its history to the removal of the proprietors and their

charter to New England, I shall now give a brief sketch of their resolute and systematic defence of their independence until the year 1686, when the patent was revoked. We have seen that they apprehended aggression from three sources, the Crown, the Hierarchy, and the Parliament. It will be instructive to show with what courage they resisted, or what ingenuity they evaded compliance with the authority or claims of all. Their conduct in this particular was not the result of accident, or of public distractions in England, or of their remote and isolated situation, though all contributed to favour their object, but it was a predetermined and well-concerted plan. They had paid a large sum of money to the Council of New Plymouth for their territory, they had fortified their title to the soil by purchases from the Indians, and they affected to believe that if the fortuitous circumstance of prior discovery had conveyed any right to the Crown, the King had formally surrendered it by the charter, in consideration of the conditions contained in it. They regarded it, therefore, as peculiarly their own country, and they were unwilling to allow any interference whatever from any quarter. The form of the grant of incorporation caused at first some embarrassment, by its total want of adaptation to the purposes to which it had been so unexpectedly applied. But as it was based on general election, and the Governor