nually, from the goodly harbor, went forth a gallant fleet of broad bottomed Dutch vessels, richly laden with furry treasures, to gladden the hearts of the honest burgers of Amsterdam and Hoorn.

Yet during all this time, and for many years after, there was little or no attempt at colonization. The rich and beautiful country to which they had gained access, was occupied only by a few straggling and scantily garrisoned log forts, which served. as centers of trade; and their government was merely the agency of a wealthy mercantile corporation at home, whose objects and regulations were unfavorable to agricultural or independent industrial pursuits. As yet no plans of comfortable settlement or visions of future empire had troubled the Dutchman's busy brain. The meadows of the Connecticut Valley were lovely in his eyes, not as the home and inheritance of his race, but for the 10,000 beaver skins which were annually gathered from thence. Meanwhile events were transpiring on another Continent, and in another nation, which were destined to wrest this territory from the Dutch, and to give it for a goodly heritage unto men of a different mould and nobler aims.

England, at this time, was overcast by the thick gathering cloud of civil and religious persecution. Church and State were becoming more and more exacting in their demands; all rights of conscience and faith were abnegated, and every heart was filled with forebodings of the future. "Every corner of the nation," says Macauley, "was subjected to a constant and minute inspection. Every little congregation of separatists was tracked out and broken up. Even the devotions of private families could not escape the vigilance of spies. And the tribunals afforded no protection to the subject against the civil and ecclesiastical tyranny of that period." It was then that America, long known to the English people for its valuable fur trade and fisheries, began to be regarded as an asylum, by those whose principles and persecutions had left them no alternative but exile. Hope whispered to their saddened hearts that, perhaps, in these

1 Winthrop, 1, 113.

savage western wilds, they might be permitted to enjoy those privileges which were denied them at home. The experiment was made. In 1620, the Rev. John Robinson's congregation, who, for eleven years, had found a home with the kind hearted Hollanders, embarked for America, and on the memorable 11th of December,1 landed upon the bleak and rockbound coast of Plymouth. It is not our purpose to dwell upon the details of that scene which has become one of the grandest epochs of the world's history. Suffice it to say, that the experiment was a success. Starvation, cold, and all the novel dangers of a new settlement, failed to extinguish the life, or check the growth, of the Plymouth Colony. On this portion of the Western Continent were now planted two races of Europeans, with different natures and aims. The Dutchman, with his feudal institutions, and a soul absorbed in pelf. The Englishman, with his deep religious zeal, his love for popular liberty, and, it must be confessed, as great a love of trade as his Teutonic rival. The probability that, sooner or later, their claims must conflict, was warranted equally by their national antecedents, and their diversities of character. Yet it was not until 1627 that there was any actual communication between the two colonies.

Then the Dutch sent a pacific and commercial embassage to Plymouth. Their envoy, Captain De Rasiere, was courteously welcomed, and honorably attended with the noise of trumpets. The meeting was pleasant to both parties. The Dutchman was the countryman of those who had befriended them in the day of their affliction. "Our children after us," said the Pilgrims, "shall never forget the good and courteous entreaty, which we found in your country; and shall desire your prosperity forever." He in turn, seeing the sterility of their soil, invited them, as old friends, to remove to the fertile and pleasant lands on the Connecticut. But the Pilgrims, with a frankness which savored almost of discourtesy, questioned the right of the Dutch to the banks of the Hudson, and requested them to desist from trading at Narragansett; at the same time plainly suggesting the propriety of a treaty with England. Good feeling, however, pre

1 Old style.

C

vailed in their intercourse. It could hardly be otherwise with so many pleasant memories to bind them together. Yet when De Rasiere returned to New Amsterdam, it must have been with an uncomfortable apprehension of future trouble with their English neighbors. For, soon after his return, the authorities sent home to the Directors in the Fatherland for a reinforcement of forty soldiers. The Dutchman's heart was kind, and his voice was ever for peace. But the plain words and grasping attitude of the Plymouth colonists had sown seeds of dissension which could not fail to disturb his tranquillity. Nor were these fears entirely groundless. The success of the Plymouth Colony, as well as the continuance of religious persecution and intolerance in the mother country, gave a decided impetus to the progress of emigration to New England.

The Charter of Massachusetts Bay, granted in 1628, was confirmed in 1629, and the same year the first settlement under its provisions was made at Salem, by Gov. Endicott and 300 others. Charlestown was next settled by a portion of the Salem people, and the same year the patent and government of Massachusetts was transferred to New England. This was but the beginning. The next year not less than 17 ships arrived, bringing some 1500 or 1700 immigrants. Dorchester, Watertown, Roxbury, Medforth and Weymouth, were rapidly settled by the new comers. And the social necessities of these colonists, as well as their restless activity and numbers, forbade the supposition that they would long remain within these narrow limits, when they became acquainted with the better lands and resources of the interior.

Foremost among these colonies of 1630, both as regards the character of its members, and the date of its arrival, was the one which settled at Dorchester, and which afterwards removed to Windsor, Conn. It had been formed mostly from the western counties of England,1 early in the spring of 1629, by the

1 Trumbull says this "honorable company" was derived from the counties of Davonshire, Dorsetshire, and Somersetshire.

exertions of the Rev. John White of Dorchester, whose zeal and labors fairly entitle him to the appellation of the "great patron of New England emigration."

"Great pains were taken," says the historian,1 "to construct this company of such materials as should compose a wellordered settlement, containing all the elements of our independent community. Two devoted ministers, Messrs. Maverick and Warham,3 were selected, not only with a view to the spiritual welfare of the plantation, but especially that their efforts might bring the Indians to the knowledge of the Gospel. Two members of the government, chosen by the freemen or stockholders of the company in London, assistants or directors, Messrs. Rosseter and Ludlow, men of character and education, were joined to the association, that their counsel and judgment might aid in preserving order, and founding the social structure upon the surest basis. Several gentlemen, past middle life, with adult families and good estates, were added. Henry Wolcott, Thomas Ford, George Dyer, William Gaylord, William Rockwell and William Phelps, were of this class. But a large

1 History of the Town of Dorchester, Mass., (edited) by a committee of Dorchester Antiquarian and Historical Society.

2 John Maverick was a minister of the Established Church, and resided about forty miles from Exeter, England; he is first mentioned at the time of the assemblage in the New Hospital, Plymouth, England, to organize a Church. Cotton Mather includes him in the "First Classis" of ministers, viz: those who " were in the actual exercise of their ministry when they left England." He was "somewhat advanced of age," at that period. He took the freeman's oath May 18, 1631. A curious account of his drying some gun-powder in a pan over the fire, in the Dorchester meeting-house, which was used as a magazine also, and the wonderful escape of Maverick in the consequent explosion of a "small barrel," are described in Winthrop's Journal, i. *78. Mr. Maverick expected to remove to Connecticut, but died Feb. 3, 1636-7, aged “about sixty." "A godly man, a beloved pastor, a safe and truthful guide." Samuel Maverick, an Episcopalian, an early settler of Noddle's Island, and afterwards royal commissioner, was a son of Rev. John. For a full account of each, see Sumner's Hist. of East Boston.

A. H. Q.

3 Rev. John Warham had been an eminent minister in Exeter, England, and came to New England as the teacher of the Dorchester Church.

portion of active, well-trained young men, either just married, or without families, such as Israel Stoughton, Roger Clap, George Minot, George Hall, Richard Collicott, Nathaniel Duncan, and many others of their age, were the persons upon whom the more severe trials of a new settlement were expected to devolve. Three persons of some military experience-viz: Captain John Mason, Captain Richard Southcote and Quarter-Master John Smith—were selected as a suitable appendage, as forcible resistance from the Indians might render the skill and discipline which these gentlemen had acquired under De Vere, in the campaign of the Palatinate, on the Continent, an element of safety essential to the enterprise."

"These godly people," says Roger Clap, one of the number,1 "resolved to live together, and therefore as they had made choice of those two Rev. Servants of God, Mr. John Warham and Mr. John Maverick to be their Ministers, so they kept a solemn Day of Fasting in the New Hospital in Plymouth, in England, spending it in Preaching and praying; where that worthy man of God, Mr. John White of Dorchester, in Dorsetshire, was present and preached unto us in the forepart of the day, and in the latter part of the day, as the people did solemnly make choice of, and call these godly ministers to be their Officers, so also the Rev. Mr. Warham and Mr. Maverick did accept thereof and expressed the same."

On the 20th of March, 1630, this company of 140 persons, embarked at Plymouth, in the Mary and John, a vessel of 400 tons burden, commanded by Captain Squeb. "So we came," says Clap, "by the hand of God, through the Deeps comfortably; having Preaching, or Expounding of the Word of God, every day for Ten Weeks together, by our Ministers." On the Lord's Day, May the 30th, 1630, their good ship came to anchor, on the New England Coast. Their original destination was the Charles River, but an unfortunate misunderstanding which arose between the captain and his passengers, resulted in the latter being summarily put ashore at Nantasket (now Hull),

1 Roger Clap's Memoirs, published by the Dorchester Antiq. and Hist. Society.