FIRST SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND.*

AMIDST all the proud and grateful feelings which the return of this anniversary must inspire in the bosom of every child of New England, a deep solicitude oppresses me, lest I should fail in doing justice to the men and to the events which we are met to commemorate. This solicitude, I would hope, is no mere personal feeling. I should be unworthy to address you on this occasion, could I, from the selfish desire of winning your applause, devote the moments of this consecrated day to any cold speculations, however ingenious or original. Gladly would I give utterance to the most familiar commonplaces, could I be so happy in doing it as to excite or strengthen the feelings which belong to the time and the place. Gladly would I repeat to you those sentiments which have been so often uttered and welcomed on this anniversary; sentiments whose truth does not change in the change of circumstances; whose power does not wear out with time. It is not by pompous epithets or lively antitheses that the exploits of the Pilgrims are to be set forth by their children. We can only do this worthily by repeating the plain tale of their sufferings, by dwelling on the circumstances under which their memorable enterprise was executed, and by catching that spirit which led them across the ocean, and guided them

* Oration delivered at Plymouth on the 22d of December, 1824. The immediate reference in this discourse is to the settlement of New England, as commenced at Plymouth; but some of the views contained in it are equally applicable to other portions of the United States. It was not thought necessary, in each particular case, to interrupt the train of remark for the purpose of guarding against an undue limitation or extension.

to the spot where we stand. We need no voice of artificial rhetoric to celebrate their names. The bleak and deathlike desolation of Nature proclaims with touching eloquence the fortitude and patience of the meek adventurers. On the bare and wintry fields around us their exploits are written, in characters which will last, and tell their tale to posterity when brass and marble have crumbled into dust.

The occasion which has called us together is certainly one to which few parallels exist in the history of the world. Other countries have their national festivals. They commemorate the birthdays of their illustrious children; they celebrate the foundation of important institutions. Momentous events, victories, reformations, revolutions, have awakened in all countries, on their anniversaries, the grateful and patriotic feelings of posterity. But we commemorate the birthday of all New England; the foundation, not of one institution, but of all the institutions, the settlements, the societies, the improvements, here or elsewhere, which trace their descent to a New England origin.

Were it only as an act of rare adventure, were it a trait in foreign or ancient history, we should fix upon the achievement of our fathers as one of the noblest deeds in the annals of the world. Were we attracted to it by no other principle than that sympathy we feel in all the fortunes of our race, it could lose nothing, it must gain, in the contrast, with whatever history or tradition has preserved to us of the wanderings and settlements of the tribes of man. A continent, for the first time, effectually explored; a vast ocean, traversed by men, women, and children, voluntarily exiling themselves from the fairest portions of the Old World; and a great nation grown up, in the space of two centuries, on the foundations so perilously laid by this feeble band-point me to the record or to the tradition of any thing that can enter into competition with it! It is the language, not of exaggeration, but of truth and soberness, to say that there is nothing in the accounts of Phoenician, of Grecian, or of Roman colonization, that can stand in the comparison.

What new importance, then, does not the achievement

acquire for us, when we consider that it was the deed of our fathers; that this grand undertaking was accomplished on the spot where we dwell; that the mighty region they explored v is our native land; that the unrivalled enterprise they displayed is not merely a fact proposed to our admiration, but is the source of our being; that their cruel hardships are the spring of our prosperity; that their weary banishment gave us a home; that to their separation from every thing which is dear and pleasant in life we owe all the comforts, the blessings, the privileges, which make our lot the envy of mankind!

These are the well-known titles of our ancestors to our gratitude and veneration.

But there seems to me this peculiarity in the nature of their enterprise, that its grand and beneficent consequences are, with the lapse of time, constantly unfolding themselves, in an extent, and to a magnitude, beyond the reach of the most sanguine promise. Successful, indeed, in its outset, — it has been more and more successful, at every subsequent point, in the line of time. Accomplishing all they projected, what they projected was the least part of what has come to pass. Forming a design, in itself grand, bold, and even appalling, for the risks and sacrifices it required, the fulfilment of that design is the least thing, which, in the steady progress of events, has flowed from their counsels and their efforts. Did they propose to themselves a refuge, beyond the sea, from the religious and political tyranny of Europe? They achieved not that alone, but they have opened a wide asylum to all the victims of oppression throughout the world. We ourselves have seen the statesmen, the generals, the kings of the elder world flying for protection to our shores. Did they look for a retired spot, inoffensive for its obscurity, and safe in its remoteness, where the little church of Leyden might enjoy the freedom of conscience? Behold the mighty regions, over which, in peaceful conquest, — victoria sine clade, they have borne the banners of the cross! Did they seek, under the common franchise of a trading charter, to prosecute a frugal commerce, in reimbursement of the expenses

of their humble establishment? The fleets and navies of their descendants are on the farthest ocean; and the wealth of the Indies is now wafted, with every tide, to the coasts where, with hook and line, they painfully gathered up their frugal earnings. In short, did they, in their brightest and most sanguine moments, contemplate a thrifty, loyal, and prosperous colony, portioned off, like a younger son of the imperial household, to an humble and dutiful distance? Behold the spectacle of an independent and powerful republic, founded on the shores where some of those are but lately deceased who saw the first-born of the Pilgrims!

And shall we stop here? Is the tale now told? Is the contrast now complete? Are our destinies all fulfilled? My /friends, we are in the very morning of our days; our numbers are but a unit; our national resources but a pittance; our hopeful achievements in the political, the social, and the intellectual nature, are but the rudiments of what the children of the Pilgrims must yet attain. If there is any thing certain in the principles of human and social progress; if there is any thing clear in the deductions from the history of the past; if there is any, the least, reliance to be placed on the conclusions of reason, in regard to the nature of man, the existing spectacle of our country's growth, magnificent as it is, does not suggest even an idea of what it must be. I dare adventure the prediction, that he who, two centuries hence, shall stand where I stand, and look back on our present condition, will sketch a contrast far more astonishing; and will speak of our times as the day of small things, in stronger and juster language than any in which we can depict the poverty and wants of our fathers.

But we ought to consecrate this day to the memory of the Pilgrims. The twenty-second of December belongs to them; and I shall hope to have contributed my mite towards our happy celebration, if I can succeed in pointing out a few of those circumstances of the first emigration to our country, and particularly of the first emigration to New England, from which, under a kind Providence, has flowed, not only the immediate success of the undertaking, but the astonishing

train of consequences auspicious to the cause of liberty, humanity, and truth.

I. When the first settlements were made upon the coasts of America by Europeans, a voyage across the Atlantic must have been much more formidable, to all except seafaring people by profession, than it is at the present day. Persons, like most of those who composed the company of the Mayflower, no doubt regarded with natural terror the passage of the mighty deep. Navigation, notwithstanding the great advances which it had made in the sixteenth century, was yet, comparatively speaking, in its infancy. The very fact that voyages of great length and hazard were successfully attempted in very small vessels, (a fact which, on first view, might seem to show a high degree of perfection in the art,) in reality proves that it was as yet but imperfectly understood. That the great Columbus should put to sea, for the discovery of a new passage across the Western Ocean to India, with two out of three vessels unprovided with decks, may, indeed, be considered the effect, not of ignorance of the art of navigation, but of bitter necessity.* Sir Francis Drake, near a hundred years afterwards, the first naval commander who ever sailed round the earth, enjoying the advantage of the royal patronage, and of no little personal experience, embarked on his voyage of circumnavigation with five vessels, of which the largest was of one hundred, and the smallest of fifteen tons. This fact must be regarded as proof that the art of

* "Ex regio fisco destinata sunt tria navigia; unum onerarium caveatum, alia duo levia mercatoria sine caveis, quæ ab Hispanis caravelæ vocantur." Peter Martyr de rebus oceanicis. p. 2.

The great extent to which the fishing business was very early carried, on the Banks of Newfoundland and the New England coasts, must have familiarized men with the idea of a passage across the Atlantic, and thus have been one cause of the readiness of so many persons to undertake the voyage. It appears that, as early as 1578, there were employed, in this fishery, of Spaniards, 100 sail, besides 20 or 30 in the whale fishery on the same coasts; of Portuguese, 50; of French, 150; of English, from 30 to 50.-Hakluyt, Vol. III, p. 132, cited in North American Review for July, 1824, p. 140.-Captain Smith remarks that according to Whitbourne's "Discovery of Newfoundland," the banks and coasts of that region were visited by 250 sail of English fishermen annually.—Vol. II. p. 246, Richmond edition.