of them, having crossed over from Leyden, set sail from Southampton in two vessels, the Speedwell and the Mayflower. At first everything seemed against them; before they had gone far the Speedwell sprang a leak, and was obliged to return for repairs. On the next attempt, when they were three hundred miles from land, the Speedwell was found to be overmasted, and unfit for the voyage. They decided to divide into two companies, one of which should return, and the other proceed in the Mayflower. On the 9th of November they sighted land. This proved to be Cape Cod, a promontory some 130 miles north of the spot where they wished to settle; they then directed the master of the ship to sail south. This, however, he professed himself unable to do, and landed them inside the bay formed by Cape Cod and the mainland. They believed that he had been bribed by the Dutch, who traded with the Indians about the mouth of the river Hudson, and who did not wish to have any rivals there. As it turned out, the coast within the bay was a fitter spot for a weak colony. The Indians had a few years before captured the crew of a French vessel, and cruelly put them to death. One of the French had warned them that their crime would not go unpunished. Shortly after a great plague fell upon them and swept off whole villages. This had a twofold effect: it weakened the Indians, and left much of their country desolate and empty for the new comers, and it made the savages believe that the God of the white men would punish any wrong done to them.

The first act of the settlers was to constitute themselves a body politic, with power to make laws and ordinances for the management of their joint affairs. Then they looked out for a suitable spot for a permanent settlement. They decided on a place with a harbor, sloping land, and running water, on the west side of the bay. On the 11th (old style) of December they landed, calling the place "Plymouth," after the last English town they had

left.

For the first few years the climate bore hardly on the settlers, and the history of the colony is little more than one long story of suffering and endurance. The first winter the cold was so severe that out of a hundred settlers about half died, and of the rest all but six or seven were at one time ill. Slighter hardships had broken up the Virginia settlements under Lane and Somers. But the men of

Plymouth were more enduring, and held on; the friendship of the Indians was of great service to them. The first meeting, a few days after the settlers landed, was hostile, and the English had to use their guns in self-defence. But soon after they met with a savage who could speak English, and they soon made friends with Massasoit, the chief sachem in those parts. With him they made a firm league; two years later his life was saved by the medical skill of the English, and he was ever after their fast friend. The only show of enmity on the part of the Indians was made by a chief named Canonicus. He sent the English the skin of a snake full of arrows, as a sort of challenge. Bradford, the governor of Plymouth, stuffed the skin. with powder and ball, and sent it back. The Indians seem to have taken the warning, and made no attack. After this, the settlers of Plymouth lived for many years at peace with their savage neighbors. One exception there was indeed, but that was due entirely to the misconduct of other English settlers. In 1622 one Weston obtained a patent from the Plymouth Company, and settled sixty men. in Massachusetts, some thirty or forty miles north of Plymouth. They proved idle and disorderly, and instead of working, plundered the Indians, and so endangered the peace between them and the Plymouth settlers. Some trifling hostilities broke out and a few Indians were killed, but peace was soon restored. Weston's colony broke up. Later on, one Captain Wollaston set up a plantation near the site of Weston's. This too, failed, and Wollaston "made tracks" for Virginia, with most of his men. The rest stayed under one Morton, who made himself so dangerous to the men of Plymouth, that they arrested and sent him home.

The colony for a while did not prosper. For the first five years the settlers had no cattle, and when their corn was spent, they had often to live wholly on shell-fish. At the end of four years the settlement numbered only one hundred and eighty persons, dwelling in thirty-two houses. In 1627 a change was made, greatly for the good of the colony; the settlers themselves bought up the whole stock of the company, paying for it by instalments. By 1643 the colony numbered 3,000 inhabitants, divided among eight towns. Moreover, the members of the Plymouth Company sent out fishing and exploring expeditions, and founded trading stations

along the coast, and there opened markets for the produce of Plymouth.

There were various causes for a difference between the settlements at Virginia and at Plymouth. One was that the Puritans made it a great point frequently to worship together, and so could not bear to be widely scattered. Another was that the Plymouth settlers were not, like many of the Virginians, taken from the landed gentry, and so they had no special taste for large landed estates, even if they could have got them.

The government of Plymouth consisted of a governor, a body of assistants, and an assembly. The governor and assistants were elected by the whole body of freemen. The assembly was at first what is called primary, that is to say, it consisted of the whole body of freemen meeting themselves, not sending their representatives. The first freemen were the original settlers, afterwards those who in each town were admitted by the body of freemen already existing. As may be easily supposed, when the number of townships increased, it was found inconvenient for the whole body of freemen to meet together for public business. Accordingly in 1639 the system of representation, the same by which the English House of Commons is formed, was introduced. Every township sent two representatives, and the body so returned was, with the governor and assistants, the general court. The primary assembly of all the freemen still kept its power of enacting laws, but this gradually fell into disuse, and the whole government passed over to the general court. Thus we see that in the two earliest American colonies, the government was modelled on that of England. But there was this important difference between the two: in Virginia the system of government was originally copied from the English constitution; while in Plymouth it was at first quite different, and became like it only by gradually fitting itself to the wants of the people. This change is of special importance, since it shows the way in which, in many free communities in different parts of the world, a representative assembly has taken the place of a primary one.

MASSACHUSETTS AND CONNECTICUT.

About 1627 many of the leaders among the Puritan party, men of much greater wealth and education than the founders of Plymouth, bethought

them of forming a second Puritan colony in America. Already some of these men had a fishing station on the coast about sixty miles from Plymouth, which was to serve as a sort of foundation for their colony. In 1628 they got a tract of land, about sixty miles along the coast, granted them by the Plymouth Company, and sent out a party of sixty men to occupy it. So far the founders of the settlement were only a private trading company; but in the spring of 1629 they took an important step,-they increased their number, and obtained a charter from the king making them into a corporation, called the Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England. This company had nothing to do with the Plymouth Company, beyond having bought a tract of land from it. In its character and objects it was not unlike the Virginia Company. Its affairs were managed by a governor, a deputy-governor, and eighteen assistants. these officers were elected by the entire company once a year. The whole body of members had the power of making laws for the settlers in their territory, so long as these did not interfere with the laws of England. The company immediately appointed a council of thirteen to manage their affairs in the colony, and sent out six ships with three hundred men and eighty women. Next year a very important change was made. The charter said nothing. as to the place at which the meetinge of the company were to be held. Accordingly the members resolved to carry the charter over to America, and to hold their meetings there. In this way they would be less under the eye of the English government, and better able to make such religious and political changes as might please them.

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The real object of the company was something very different from trade. It was to found a separate State, independent of England, and differing from it in many leading points. The first governor, John Winthrop, was a gentleman of good estate in Suffolk, forty-two years of age. In the summer of 1630 Winthrop went out with a thousand emigrants. Like the early settlers in Virginia and Plymouth, they suffered grievous hardships. In the winter before nearly eighty of the colonists had died, and of course, as their numbers increased, food was scarcer and their plight became worse. Moreover, the cold weather came on before they had time to settle and build houses, and many died. By ill-luck

it was a time of dearth in England, and very little corn was sent over, and that at great prices. One result of this was that the settlers, in their attempts to find food, spread abroad, and instead of all forming one town, as was originally intended, they formed eight small settlements.

One of the most interesting and remarkable things in the early history of Massachusetts is the series of changes in its system of government. After a few years it had, like Virginia and Plymouth, a government which was a sort of miniature of the English system, and consisted of a governor, a council of assistants, and a body of representatives, two from each settlement. In the process by which this came about Massachusetts resembled, not Virginia, but Plymouth. In February, 1634, the English government made an attempt upon the company's charter. In 1635 the Plymouth Company came to an end, and they resolved to surrender their patent to the king. In the fall of 1635 vigorous measures were taken by the English government against Massachusetts. The charter was declared null and void, and a strict order was sent out demanding it. The colony sent back, not the charter, but a protest against the injustice of taking it from them. This was in 1638. In 1639 the Scots were in arms against Charles I. The civil war drew off all attention from the colonies, and the charter of Massachusetts was safe.

Settlement of Connecticut.

About 1634 the people in three of the townships of Massachusetts,-Newtown, Watertown, and Dorchester,-being pressed by lack of pasture for their cattle, formed a scheme for settling the lands which lay to the west beyond the boundary of Plymouth. This was a fertile land, watered by a broad river, the Connecticut. One reason for the movement was the fear that the Dutch, who were already settled on the river Hudson, might step in and occupy this land. In 1635, with the leave of the court, a settlement was formed. The emigrants set out too late in the year, and they suffered great hardships. The next year about a hundred emigrants with a hnndred and sixty cattle set forth. By 1637 the new settlement contained three towns and eight hundred inhabitants.

The new colony was called Connecticut. At first the government was unsettled. It was held that the

inhabitants were still subject to the state of Massachusetts; yet as early as 1636 they had a court of their own, consisting of two deputies from each town, who managed all the public business of the settlement. This system went on for three years; but it was clear that they could not continue dependent on the government of a state separated from them by more than a hundred and thirty miles of wilderness. Accordingly in 1639 the freemen of Connecticut all met together and formed a constitution very like that of Massachusetts.

In 1635, John Winthrop, son of the Massachusetts governor, came out with a commission for a tract of land on the river Connecticut. He established a fort and drove out a Dutch ship. In 1644, Fenwick, the governor of the fort, made it over to the state of Connecticut in return for certain duties to be levied on passing ships.

Soon after the settlement of Connecticut, New England was engaged in the first Indian war. The country near the river Connecticut was inhabited by the Pequods, a fierce and warlike tribe, numbering nearly a thousand warriors. For three or four years there were various paltry quarrels between the Pequods and the English, and some on each side. were killed. The Pequods tried to strengthen themselves by an alliance with a neighboring tribe, the Narragansetts. Roger Williams, who had been banished from Massachusetts, now showed a noble spirit of forgiveness. Being able to speak the Indian language, he went at the risk of his own life to the Narragansett chiefs and persuaded them to have no dealings with the Pequods. They were the more easily persuaded to this as the Pequods had formerly been their enemies. Soon after the Narragansetts sent an embassy to Boston, and made a firm alliance with England. The Mohegans, the only other powerful tribe of Indians in that country, were also friendly to the English. Thus the Pequods were left to stand alone. If it had been otherwise, and if the Indian tribes had united, it is possible that the English settlers might have been. exterminated.

In 1637 the English considered that they had good cause for beginning the war, and a force from Massachusetts and Connecticut marched against the Indians. They attacked the chief fort, where the Pequods had placed their women and children. The Indians for a while resisted, till the English set

the fort on fire. The light wood and wicker work was at once in a blaze. All within, men, women, and children, to the number of six hundred, perished. Of the besiegers only two fell. The English then pushed on into the Pequod country, desolating and destroying everywhere, till nearly the whole tribe was exterminated. About two hundred survived, some of whom were kept as slaves by the English, while the rest lived scattered among the other Indian tribes. Their chief, Sasacus, fled to the Mohawks, by whom he was killed, and the nation of Pequods ceased to exist.

THE SMALLER NEW ENGLAND COLONIES.

Besides the three more important Puritan colonies, there were other small settlements in the same neighborhood. The most important of these was New Haven. This was founded by a small body of men, chiefly from London, some of them of good birth and education. They wished to establish a state which should in all its arrangements make the Bible its rule of life. In 1638 they settled themselves at a place called Quinipiac on the coast, thirty miles west of the river Connecticut. Soon after they changed the name to New Haven. The most noticeable point about New Haven was the wealth of its inhabitants, which was greater than in any of the neighboring states. The town of New Haven was the handsomest and best built in New England, and some of the inhabitants displeased the people of Massachusetts by the size and costliness of their houses.

When Roger Williams was driven out of Massachusetts, he established himself with a small band of followers at a place which they called Providence, at the head of Narragansett Bay. In 1640 we find the first record of any regular government among them. The colony then contained thirty-nine members. All their affairs were managed by five men, called arbitrators. Another settlement much like this sprang up in an island near Providence, called by its occupants Rhode Island. In 1639 the settlement broke up into two independent bodies, Newport and Portsmouth, but they were joined together again in 1640.

'MAINE.

In 1639 Gorges obtained from the king a charter, making him a proprietor of the province of Maine

in New England. The grant to Gorges included all the land between the Piscataqua and Kennebec rivers, as far as a hundred and twenty miles from the sea. His charter gave him almost kingly power over this territory.

NEW HAMPSHIRE.

Several scattered settlements had been formed to the north and east of Massachusetts in the neighborhood of the Piscataqua. The settlements on the Piscataqua were the beginning of what, after a long contest for jurisdiction, and many changes, became the royal province of New Hampshire.

So far we have considered the various English colonies to the north of the Hudson as separate provinces; we may now treat them as divisions of a single country, applying to all of them together the name of New England. The whole territory of New England extended about two hundred and fifty miles along the coast. Excepting the towns on the Connecticut, there were no settlements more than eight or ten miles from the sea. eight or ten miles from the sea. The whole English population amouted to about twenty-six thousand, of whom fifteen thousand belonged to Massachusetts. The laws, customs, and manners of life throughout all the colonies were much alike; all, except the small settlements on the Piscataqua and eastward, were composed mainly of Puritans. In none were there any very rich or very poor, or any class of wealthy landed gentry. Everywhere there were laws providing for the teaching of children.

The first definite proposal for an union between the colonies was made in 1638; the reasons for it were plain enough. There was the danger always to be feared from the Indians. There was also the possibility of encroachments by the English government. If the king conquered the parliament, New England was almost sure to be one of his first victims. Danger also threatened from two other quarters. The French had by this time established themselves in Canada and in the country now called Nova Scotia, then Acadia. The city of Quebec had been founded in 1608, and, under the energetic government of Cardinal Richelieu, the great French minister, the colony had grown and prospered. Indeed, it is likely that, if the settlement of Massachusetts had been delayed for a few years, the whole territory north of the Hudson would have been

seized by the French. The English and French settlers soon fell out. In 1613 Argall, who afterwards so misconducted himself as governor of Virginia, had, without provocation, attacked and destroyed two of the French settlements. In 1629, when England and France were at war, a small English fleet, under a brave sea captain, David Kirk, captured Quebec, and destroyed or took all the French settlements on the American coast. But before the capture was made peace had been declared, on the condition that everything taken after April 24, 1629, should be given back. cordingly, the captured territory was restored to France. In 1631, though England and France were at peace, the New Englanders heard that the French colonists were about to attack them, and made ready to resist. In the next year a French ship fell on a trading station belonging to Plymouth, and carried off goods worth £500.

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Another European settlement threatened New England from the opposite side. In 1609 Henry Hudson, one of the greatest of English seamen, had, in the service of the Dutch, explored the coast to the south-west of Massachusetts Bay, and sailed up the river which now bears his name. The Dutch, who had just cast off the rule of Spain, were then one of the most enterprising nations in Europe. They soon occupied the country between Delaware Bay and the Connecticut, and gave it the name of New Netherlands. In 1627 they sent a friendly embassy to Plymouth. But as soon as New England began to extend itself towards the Connecticut, the Dutch thought that their territory was being encroached on, and disputes arose. Twice the Dutch sent vessels to drive the English away from the Connecticut, but each time without success. Besides this, small disputes arose ever and again between the Dutch and the English on the borders.

As was natural, Connecticut, being one of the weakest colonies and nearest to the Dutch, was most anxious for some sort of league among the New England colonies. In September, 1642, proposals from Connecticut were laid before the court of Massachusetts. In the next year an union of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven, was formed. Maine, Rhode Island, and Providence applied for admission, but were refused. As might have been expected, New England was a

gainer by the victory of the parliament over the king. In 1642, the House of Commons passed a resolution freeing New England from the impost and export duties levied on the other colonies. After his desolation of Ireland, Cromwell wished the colonists to move in there.

Till 1646 there was no open quarrel between the Confederation and its Dutch neighbors. In that year, Peter Stuyvesant, a man of high spirit and great courage, was appointed governor of New Netherlands. One of his first acts was to seize a Dutch smuggling vessel in New Haven harbor. The men of New Haven resented this as an outrage, and Stuyvesant made matters worse by addressing a letter to "Newhaven in New Netherlands," as if laying claim to the territory. He then proposed to refer the dispute to the governors of Plymouth and Massachusetts. The court of Massachusetts thought that the question would be better referred to the Federal Commissioners. Stuyvesant demurred to this, and for four years the question remained open. In 1650 Stuyvesant himself came to Hartford in Connecticut to settle the matter in dispute.

The New Englanders fearing an attack from the Dutch, and as Massachusetts refused to take part with them, Connecticut and New Haven applied to England for help. Cromwell replied by sending a fleet, with a land force on board. Massachusetts allowed five hundred volunteers to be raised. The news came that the Dutch were beaten in the English Channel, and this ended the disputes with the New Netherlands.

Massachusetts got into a row with the other states by making concessions to a claimant to the governorship of the French settlement of Acadia, and the Federal Commissioners dealt with a high hand. In 1650 the governor of New France made proposals to New England for an offensive alliance against the Iroquois, or Five Nations, the most powerful and warlike of all the Indian races. The New Englanders refused to have anything to do with the quarrel, and at a later time the Iroquois proved valuable allies against the French.

In 1656, some Quakers having appeared in the colony, a law was passed against this "cursed sect of hæreticks." This law provided that all Quakers coming into the colony should be flogged and confined at hard labor; that any shipmaster bringing them into the colony, or any person entertaining