THE NEW ENGLAND HISTORY, FROM THE DISCOVERY OF THE CONTINENT BY THЕ NORTHMEN, A.D. 986, TO THE PERIOD WHEN THE COLONIES DECLARED THEIR INDEPENDENCE, A.D. 1776. BY CHARLES W. ELLIOTT, MEMBER OF THE NEW YORK, OHIO AND CONNECTICUT HISTORICAL SOCIETIES. CHARLES SCRIBNER, 377 & 379 BROADWAY; BOSTON: SANBORN, CARTER, BAZIN & CO.; 233. 0.123. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by CHARLES W. ELLIOTT, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York, PREFACE. I AM aware that much has been written, and well written, about New England and her History. Valuable and minute histories of towns, counties, and colonies exist, and her general History or Chronology has been incorporated into various elaborate works; but when, some years since, I undertook to examine New England life, with a desire to trace the growth of ideas and principles, through her active struggles and unremitting labors from the beginning, I met with difficulties. It seemed to me that for the general reader the local histories were too detailed, and the general history was too chronological and disconnected it seemed, too, that the peculiar and marked development of man there was worthy of a more simple, compact, and picturesque re-presentation than it had received, and that, if it could be so re-presented to the reader of this day, it would be a commendable work to do. This is what I have attempted. Few will doubt that, however well History may have been written, it is desirable that it should be re-written from time to time, by those who look from an advanced position; it is, of course, only necessary to say, that I have written from the democratic stand-point of to-day, believing it to be the true one from which to see and judge the past. With no conscious wish to exalt or depress the Puritans, it has been my aim to see them fairly, and represent them truly, while I have not hesitated to praise or blame when truth seemed to demand it. The historian is not a chronologer only, without sympathy for the right, or hatred of the wrong. It seems to me that he ought to feel quickly, and appreciate justly, and to state clearly and positively; for there is great danger that what is written without feeling will be read without interest. It is altogether possible that I may have failed to give prominence to some important event—and, of course, no writer is above criticism-but the great reading public, I trust, will pardon a slight deviation from the beaten. track, in the attempt made to group those events which have a natural and necessary connection, into single chapters, so that a continuous narrative may be presented, rather than a broken record of disconnected events. At the end of the second volume will be found a chronological table, containing many facts which did not fall into place elsewhere. Many valuable books now challenge the attention of the reader; and I can only ask, that whatever good this work may contain will sooner or later be accepted. C. W. E. NEW YORK, January, 1857. |