Several repeated misadventures of this kind did, for some time, allay the itch of sailing to this new world; but the distemper broke out again about the year 1606. Then it happened that the earl of Southampton and several other persons, eminent for their quality and estates, were invited into the company, who applied themselves once more to people the then almost abandoned colony. For this purpose they embarked about a hundred men, most of them reprobates of good families, and related to some of the company, who were men of quality and fortune. The ships that carried them made a shift to find a more direct way to Virginia, and ventured through the capes into the bay of Chesapeake. The same night they came to an anchor at the mouth of Powhatan, the same as James river, where they built a small fort at a place called Point Comfort. This settlement stood its ground from that time forward in spite of all the blunders and disagreement of the first adventurers, and the many calamities that befel the colony afterwards. The six gentlemen who were first named of the company by the crown, and who were empowered to choose an annual president from among themselves, were always engaged in factions and quarrels, while the rest detested work more than famine. At this rate the colony must have come to nothing, had it not been for the vigilance and bravery of captain Smith, who struck a terror into all the Indians round about. This gentleman took some pains to persuade the men to plant Indian corn, but they looked upon all labour as a curse. They chose rather to depend upon the musty provisions that were sent from England and when they failed they were forced to take more pains to seek for wild fruits in the woods, than they would have taken in tilling the ground. Besides, this exposed them to be knocked on the head by the Indians, and gave them fluxes into the bargain, which thinned the plan

tation very much. To supply this mortality, they were reinforced the year following with a greater number of people, amongst which were fewer gentlemen and more labourers, who, however, took care not to kill themselves with work.

These found the first adventurers in a very starving condition, but relieved their wants with the fresh supply they brought with them. From Kiquotan they extended themselves as far as James-town, where, like true Englishmen, they built a church that cost no more than fifty pounds, and a tavern that cost five hundred.

They had now made peace with the Indians, but there was one thing wanting to make that peace lasting. The natives could, by no means, persuade themselves that the English were heartily their friends, so long as they disdained to intermarry with them. And, in earnest, had the English consulted their own security and the good of the colony-had they intended either to civilize or convert these gentiles, they would have brought their stomachs to embrace this prudent alliance. The Indians are generally tall and well-proportioned, which may make full amends for the darkness of their complexions. Add to this, that they are healthy and strong, with constitutions untainted by lewdness, and not enfeebled by luxury. Besides, morals and all considered, I cannot think the Indians were much greater heathens tkan the first adventurers, who, had they been good Christians, would have had the charity to take this only method of converting the natives to Christianity. For, after all that can be said, a sprightly lover is the most prevailing missionary that can be sent amongst these, or any other infidels. Besides, the poor Indians would have had less reason to complain that the English took away their land, if they had received it by way of portion with their daughters. Had such affinities been contracted in

the beginning, how much bloodshed had been prevented, and how populous would the country have been, and, consequently, how considerable? Nor would the shade of the skin have been any reproach at this day; for if a Moor may be washed white in three generations, surely an Indian might have been blanched in two. The French, for their parts, have not been so squeamish in Canada, who upon trial find abundance of attraction in the Indians. Their late grand monarch thought it not below even the dignity of a Frenchman to become one flesh with this people, and therefore ordered 100 livres for any of his subjects, man or woman, that would intermarry with a native. By this piece of policy we find the French interest very much strengthened amongst the savages, and their religion, such as it is, propagated just as far as their love. And I heartily wish this well-concerted scheme does not hereafter give the French an advantage over his majesty's good subjects on the northern continent of America.

About the same time New England was pared off from Virginia by letters patent, bearing date April the 10th, 1608. Several gentlemen of the town and neighborhood of Plymouth obtained this grant, with the lord chief justice Popham at their head. Their bounds were specified to extend from 38 to 45 degrees of nortnern latitude, with a breadth of one hundred miles from the sea shore. The first fourteen years, this company encountered many difficulties, and lost many men, though far from being discouraged, they sent over numerous recruits of presbyterians, every year, who for all that, had much ado to stand their ground, with all their fighting and praying. But about the year 1620, a large swarm of dissenters fled thither from the severities of their stepmother, the church. These saints conceiving the same aversion to the copper complexion of the natives, with that of the first adventurers to Virginia, would;

on no terms, contract alliances with them, afraid perhaps, like the Jews of old, lest they might be drawn into idolatry by those strange women. Whatever disgusted them I cannot say, but this false delicacy creating in the Indians a jealousy that the English were ill affected towards them, was the cause that many of them were cut off, and the rest exposed to various distresses. This reinforcement was landed not far from cape Cod, where, for their greater security, they built a fort, and near it a small town, which, in honour of the proprietors, was called New Plymouth. But they still had many discouragements to struggle with, though, by being well supported from home, they by degrees triumphed over them all. Their brethren, after this, flocked over so fast, that in a few years they extended the settlement one hundred miles along the coast, including Rhode Island and Martha's Vineyard. Thus the colony throve apace, and was thronged with large detachments of independents and presbyterians, who thought themselves persecuted at home. Though these people may be ridiculed for some pharisaical particularities in their worship and behaviour, yet they were very useful subjects, as being frugal and industrious, giving no scandal or bad example, at least by any open and public vices. By which excellent qualities they had much the advantage of the southern colony, who thought their being members of the established church sufficient to sanctify very loose and profligate mortals. For this reason New England improved much faster than Virginia, and in seven or eight years New Plymouth, like Switzerland, seemed too narrow a territory for its inhabi

tants.

For this reason, several gentlemen of fortune purchased of the company that canton of New England now called Massachusetts colony. And king James confirmed the purchase by his royal charter, dated March the 4th, 1628.

In less than two years after, above one thousand of the puritanical sect removed thither with considerable effects, and these were followed by such crowds, that a proclamation was issued in England, forbidding any more of his majesty's subjects to be shipped off. But this had the usual effect of things forbidden, and served only to make the wilful independents flock over the faster. And about this time it was that Messrs. Hampden and Pym and (some say) Oliver Cromwell, to show how little they valued the king's authority, took a trip to New England.

In the year 1630, the famous city of Boston was built, in a commodious situation for trade and navigation, the same being on a peninsula at the bottom of Massachusetts bay. This town is now the most considerable of any on the British continent, containing at least 8,000 houses and 40,000 inhabitants. The trade it drives, is very great to Europe, and to every part of the West Indies, having near 1,000 ships and lesser vessels belonging to it.

Although the extent of the Massachusetts colony reached near one hundred and ten miles in length, and half as much in breadth, yet many of its inhabitants, thinking they wanted elbow room, quitted their old seats in the year 1636, and formed two new colonies: that of Connecticut and New Haven. These king Charles II. erected into one government in 1664, and gave them many valuable privileges, and among the rest, that of choosing their own gov. The extent of these united colonies may be about seventy miles long and fifty broad.

ernors.

Besides these several settlements, there sprang up still another, a little more northerly, called New Hampshire. But that consisting of no more than two counties, and not being in condition to support the charge of a distinct gov ernment, was glad to be incorporated with that of Massachusetts, but upon condition, however, of being named in