dently of its connection with names now incorporated with the history of empire. The embarkation was intended to be made in such a manner that it might escape the notice of the officers of government. Great pains had been taken to secure boats, which should come undiscovered to the shore, and receive the fugitives; and frequent disappointments had been experienced in this respect. At length the appointed time came, bringing with it unusual severity of cold and rain. An unfrequented and barren heath, on the shores of Lincolnshire, was the selected spot where the feet of the Pilgrims were to tread, for the last time, the land of their fathers. The vessel which was to receive them did not come until the next day; and in the mean time the little band was collected, and men and women and children and baggage were crowded together in melancholy and distressed confusion. The sea was rough, and the women and children were already sick from their passage down the river to the place of embarkation on the sea.

At length the wished-for boat silently and fearfully approaches the shore, and men and women and children, shaking with fear and with cold, as many as the small vessel could bear, venture off on a dangerous sea. Immediately the advance of horses is heard from behind, armed men appear, and those not yet embarked are seized and taken into custody. In the hurry of the moment, the first parties had been sent on board without any attempt to keep members of the same family together; and on account of the appearance of the horsemen, the boat never returned for the residue. Those who had got away, and those who had not, were in equal distress. A storm of great violence and long duration arose at sea, which not only protracted the voyage, rendered

DEPARTURE OF THE PILGRIMS FOR HOLLAND. 17

distressing by the want of all accommodation which the interruption of the embarkation had occasioned, but also forced the vessel out of her course and menaced immediate shipwreck; while those on shore, when they were dismissed from the custody of the officers of justice, having no longer homes or houses to return to, and their friends and protectors being already gone, became objects of necessary charity, as well as of deep commiseration.

As this scene passes before us, we can hardly forbear asking, whether this be a band of malefactors and felons flying from justice. What are their crimes that they hide themselves in darkness? To what punishment are they exposed, that, to avoid it, men and women and children thus encounter the surf of the North Sea, and the terrors of a night storm? What induces this armed pursuit and arrest of fugitives of all ages and both sexes? Truth does not allow us to answer these inquiries in a manner that does credit to the wisdom or the justice of the times. This was not a flight of guilt, but of virtue. It was an humble and peaceable religion flying from causeless oppression. It was conscience attempting to escape from the arbitrary rule of the Stuarts. It was Robinson and Brewster leading off their little band from their native soil at first to find a shelter on the shore of a neighboring continent, but ultimately to come hither; and, having surmounted all difficulties and braved a thousand dangers, to find on Plymouth Rock a place of refuge and of rest. Thanks be to God, that spot was honored as the asylum of religious liberty! May its standard remain forever! May it rise up as high as heaven, till its banner shall fan the air of both continents, and wave as a glorious ensign of peace and security to the nations!

SUFFERINGS OF THE PILGRIMS.

EDWARD EVERETT.

IT is sad, indeed, to reflect on the disasters which the little band of pilgrims encountered. Sad, to see a portion of them the prey of unrelenting cupidity, treacherously embarked in an unsound ship, which they are soon obliged to abandon, and crowd themselves into one vessel; one hundred persons besides the ship's company, in a vessel of one hundred and sixty tons. One is touched at the story of the long, cold, weary, autumnal passage, of the landing on the inhospitable rocks at this dismal season, where they are deserted before long by the ship which had brought them over, and which seemed their only hold upon their fellow-man; a prey to the elements, and to want, and fearfully ignorant of the numbers, of the power, and the temper of the savage tribes that filled the unexplored continent upon whose shores they had ventured.

Methinks I see it now, that one, solitary, adventurous vessel, the Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a future State, and bound across the unknown sea; I behold it pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the uncertain, tedious voyage. Suns rise and set, weeks and months pass, and winter surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the sight of the wished-for shore. I see them, now scantily supplied with provisions, crowded almost to suffocation in their ill-stored prison, delayed by calms, pursuing a circuitous route. Now driven in fury before the raging tempest on the high

SUFFERINGS OF THE PILGRIMS.

19

is

and giddy waves, the awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging, the laboring masts seem straining at their base, the dismal sound of the pumps heard, the ship leaps, as it were, madly from billow to billow, the ocean breaks and settles with engulfing floods over the floating deck, and beats with deadening, shivering weight against the staggering vessel. I see them, escaped from these perils, pursuing their all-but-desperate undertaking, and landed at last, after a five-months' passage, on the ice-clad rocks of Plymouth. Weak and weary from the voyage, poorly armed, scantily provisioned, depending on the charity of their ship-master for a draught of beer on board, drinking nothing but water on shore, without shelter, without means, surrounded by hostile tribes.

Shut now the volume of history and tell me, on any principle of human probability what shall be the fate of this handful of adventurers? Tell me, man of military science, in how many months were they all swept off by the thirty savage tribes enumerated within the early limits of New England? Tell me, politician, how long did this shadow of a colony, on which your conventions and treaties had not smiled, languish on the distant coast? Student of history, compare for me the baffled projects, the deserted settlements, the abandoned adventures of other times, and find the parallel of this. Was it the winter's storm, beating upon the houseless heads of women and children? Was it hard labor and spare meals? Was it disease? Was it the tomahawk? Was it the deep malady of a blighted hope, a ruined enterprise, and a broken heart aching in its last moments, at the recollection of the loved and left, beyond the sea? Was it some, or all of these united, that hurried this forsaken company to their melan

cities. That which we sow is weakness shall be raised in strength. From our sincere but houseless worship there shall spring splendid temples to record God's goodness; from the simplicity of our social union there shall arise wise and politic constitutions of government, full of the liberty which we ourselves bring and breathe; from our zeal for learning, institutions shall spring which shall scatter the light of knowledge throughout the land, and, in time, paying back where they have borrowed, shall contribute their part to the great aggregate of human knowledge; and our descendants, through all generations, shall look back to this spot and to this hour with unabated affection and regard."

THE REVOLUTIONARY ALARM.

GEORGE BANCROFT.

DARKNESS closed upon the country and upon the town, but it was no night for sleep. Heralds on swift relays of horses transmitted the war message from hand to hand, till village repeated it to village, the sea to the backwoods, the plains to the highlands, and it was never suffered to droop till it had been borne North and South and East and West, throughout the land. It spread over the bays that receive the Saco and the Penobscot; its loud reveille broke the rest of the trappers of New Hampshire, and, ringing like bugle notes from peak to peak, overleapt the Green Mountains, swept onward to Montreal, and descended the ocean river till the responses were echoed from the cliffs at Quebec. The hills along the Hudson told to one another the tale. As the summons hurried to the South, it was