а "park for deer," and, on another, ship building was commenced, and prosecuted with success, at a very early day.

For most of the winter succeeding the arrival of Winthrop and the fleet, destitution and suffering among the colonists continued; the cold proved extreme; provisions. were scanty; the poor were wretchedly lodged; "many were obliged to live upon clams, muscles and other shell fish, with ground nuts and acorns instead of bread; "* but still, under these great deprivations, they were able to thank God, "who had given them to suck of the abundance of the seas, and of treasure hid in the sands." Having appointed a fast, and a vessel arriving, with provisions, a short time before the day, "they turned their fast into a thanksgiving."

The succeeding year proved favorable to the Colonists. The scarcity they had experienced induced greater efforts at tillage; the season was propitious; the harvest abundant. Notwithstanding all disasters, the Colony increased and prospered. Additions were made to the number of settlers by every arrival. In 1633, the emigration from England to Massachusetts became so large as to create alarm in the Government, and call forth an order of the king, in council, to arrest it. The tide may, for a short time, have been checked a little, but the effort to stop it was of no avail. Vessels continued to arrive here all summer; "twelve or fourteen in a month." The eminent ministers, Cotton, Hooker, and Stone, arrived this year. In 1635, came over a fleet of twenty vessels, bringing three thousand colonists; among the number were eleven ministers, and two individuals afterwards conspicuous as martyrs to the cause of English liberty,- Hugh Peters and Sir Henry Vane.

*Hutchinson's Hist. Mass., Vol. I. p. 23. † Ibid.

The number of freemen in the Colony having so increased as to render it "impracticable to debate and determine matters in a body," the towns agreed, as early as 1634, to send deputies to a General Court, and thus was established the Representative branch of the Legislature, which soon after came to constitute a distinct and separate House, having a negative upon the Magistrates.

But I must pass more rapidly on. The Governor and assistants were chosen by the votes of the whole body of the freemen, and, by these votes, the wise and faithful Winthrop was re-elected, from year to year, to the chief magistracy, with now and then an intermission designed principally to guard against a precedent, which might lead to a Governor for life; with a few intermissions, he was continued in the office, from the time he came over with the charter, to 1649, the year when he died, worn out by the cares of the infant Commonwealth, and severe personal and private trials; worn out by care and trial, though blessed beyond most men, in being not only the "father of the Colony," but the founder of a family honorably distinguished in each generation, and having a representative in our day to preside over the councils of the Nation.

During the above period of nineteen years, between the first settlement of Charlestown and the incorporation of the town of Malden, the greatest obstacles to the success of the Colony had been overcome. That, in the many severe trials to which they were at times subjected, in the difficult, and delicate, and complicated questions presented for their adjudication, the Colonists should always have acted with an intelligence, a wisdom, and an enlarged Hutchinson's Hist. Mass., Vol. I. p. 36.

charity, two centuries in advance of the most enlightened nation in the world, would hardly seem to be a very reasonable expectation. Yet the censures which have so often been cast upon the Puritan founders of New England have implied as much; nay, more, they have implied, on the part of their authors, a misapprehension, to use the mildest term, of the true merits of the question, — of the substantial facts in the case. Having been persecuted at home, and driven to seek an asylum here, our ancestors had the right, nay, it was their duty, to adopt the measures which were necessary to protect themselves; to guard against secret as well as open enemies; against intruders and revilers, whose insidious purpose was to break down the authority of the magistrates, destroy the characters and influence of the clergy, interrupt public worship on the Lord's Day, outrage the moral sense and disturb the peace of society. No harsh measures were resorted to whenever mildness would avail. But, with those, who, after repeated admonition, obstinately persisted in obtruding themselves, and setting all authority and the moral sentiment of the community at defiance, our fathers were compelled, by the necessity of self-protection, to deal with a strong hand.

In the midst of these difficulties, the danger was, at times, imminent, of a revocation of the charter; special commissioners being appointed to regulate the affairs of the Colony, and a General Governor being talked of to be in the interest of the Crown. And here was afforded an early opportunity for the display of the independent spirit of the colonists. Indications were exhibited, too plainly to be mistaken, that in such measures they would not tamely acquiesce. Fortunately the experiment was not attempted; King Charles himself becoming so involved

in disputes with his people and parliament as to be obliged to let the Colony alone. To let the Colony alone,this was all that the colonists desired. They asked no favor of the royal government; or no other than the favor of neglect. They had resources of their own, sufficient for their reliance. They had come to plant and settle here, wholly at their own cost; and, left to themselves, they were just beginning, under the smiles of heaven, to make the wilderness and the solitary place to be glad, and the desert to rejoice and blossom as the rose.

In the first ten years, twenty-one thousand two hundred settlers had arrived; or about four thousand families. They came in one hundred and ninety-eight vessels; and it seems a remarkable providence, that, out of the whole number which sailed, only a single one was lost. They came at their own charges. The cost of the transportation, with "their goods, the stock of cattle, provisions until they could support themselves, necessaries for building, artillery, arms and ammunition," has been estimated, at what was called a "modest computation," at £192,000 sterling, or $853,333. This is exclusive of what was paid for the original patent, said to have been £2,000,† and of all that was paid "to the Sachems of the country."

Under the hand of industrious labor,- on land which the occupants held by no feudal tenure, land which they could call their own, the fee being in themselves, their heirs and assigns, forever, the face of nature was undergoing a rapid change; while civil and religious liberty struck its roots deep into a soil congenial to its growth, was nurtured by the free school and the independent church, and has *Hutchinson's Hist. Mass., Vol. I. p. 93, note t. † Ibid, Vol. II. p. 1

continued, under a favoring providence, to grow with a strong trunk, and to send forth its branches to every quarter under heaven; and it is our fervent prayer that " the leaves of this tree may be for the healing of the nations."

Before 1649, nearly fifty towns had been settled in the Colony; twenty-seven churches had been gathered; the rude huts and thatched cottages of the early planters had given place to substantial and comfortable dwellings; the land was made to yield more than was required for the sustenance of the inhabitants; a trade sprung up with the West India Islands, and other places, from which there was profitable return; the furs obtained from the natives were exchanged for foreign manufactures; ship building was commenced and prosecuted with spirit and success; and navigation, commerce, and the fisheries, displayed to the admiring world the intelligence and enterprise of the Puritan Colony.

That the rapid growth of the settlement and its advance over the country should have excited deep concern, in the bosoms of the native proprietors of the soil, was perfectly natural. Sagacious chieftains meditated the means by which they might check the intruders, or drive them off from their hunting grounds. In this state of feeling collision on the borders was hardly to have been avoided. Atrocities were sometimes perpetrated. The most formidable and hostile tribe was the Pequods, whose strength lay in the south-eastern part of Connecticut, and consisted of seven hundred warriors, who had made up their minds for aggressive measures. The few towns, which had just been settled in their vicinity by those who had removed from Massachusetts, were exposed to extreme danger, if not total destruction. A military force was promptly or