bears his name. The Dutch East India Company then obtained a patent for an exclusive trade on the River Hudson. In pursuance of which, a number of trading adventurers built a fort and trading-house on the spot where Albany now stands, which they called Fort Orange. At the same period another fort and trading-house was established on the south-west point of Manhattan Island, which they named New Amsterdam: the whole colony received the name of New Netherlands.

ORIGIN OF THE NAME, NEW ENGLAND, AND FIRST ATTEMPT AT SETTLEMENT BY THE ENGLISH.

In 1614, Capt. John Smith, so distinguished in the history of Virginia, was sent with two ships from England to North Virginia, with instructions to remain in the country, and to keep possession. In April he reached the Island of Monahigon, in latitude 43° 4". After building seven boats, he, in one of them, with eight men, ranged the coast east and west from Penobscot to Cape Cod, and bartered with the natives for beaver and other furs. By this voyage he made a profit of nearly fifteen hundred pounds. On his return to England, he drew a map of the country from the observations he had made, and presented it to King Charles, who was so well pleased with it that he directed that it should be called New England.

Captain Smith left one of his vessels under the command of Captain Hunt, with orders to complete her lading on the coast, and then proceed to Malaga, in Spain. Hunt, under the pretense of trade, enticed upward of twenty of the natives on board of his ship, put them under hatches, and carried them to Spain, where he sold them as slaves. This perfidious act disposed the natives in that part of the country to revenge the injury on the countrymen of the offender; and the English were obliged to suspend their trade and projected settlements.

ORIGIN OF THE PURITANS.

About the period of the first English settlement in America, a respectable body of Protestants, in England, were dissatisfied with the religious state of things in that country: Queen Elizabeth took violent and arbitrary measures to enforce uniformity in church discipline and ceremonies. Many of her subjects, though professing the same doctrines as those held by the established church of England, were averse to observing all its rites and services: some of these they deemed were too much like those used by the Catholics, which they believed were

unscriptural. For their zeal in preserving purity of worship they received the name of Puritans.

THE PURITANS EMBARK FOR AMERICA.

Many of the Puritans, in consequence of the persecutions they endured, were obliged to leave their native country. Of this number were John Robinson and his congregation, who left England in 1608, took up their residence in Amsterdam, and the next year removed to Leyden, in Holland. Finding that country unfavorable for the religious education of their children, they resolved to emigrate to America, where they could lay the foundations of a Christian commonwealth.

In 1620, a part of Mr. Robinson's congregation purchased a small ship, and hired another in England, called the Mayflower; they sailed on the 5th of August from Southampton for America; but on account of the leakiness of the small ship, they were twice obliged to return. Abandoning that ship as unfit for service, all the passengers were crowded into the Mayflower, which sailed from Plymouth on the 6th of September, and on November 9th they discovered the land of Cape Cod. Perceiving that they had been carried to the north of their destination, they stood to the southward, but falling among shoals, they were induced to return to the cape, and anchored in the harbor. Before landing they formed themselves into a "body politic," and chose Mr. John Carver their governor for one year. The following is a copy of this contract, with the names of the signers:

"In the name of God, Amen. We whose names are under written, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland, king, defender of the faith, etc., having undertaken, for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith and honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do, by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws and ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony, unto which we promise all due subjection and obedience. In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names, at Cape Cod, the 11th day of November, in the year of the reign of our sovereign Lord King James of England, France and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini 1620."

This compact was subscribed in the following order by:

This brief, and comprehensive, and simple instrument established a most important principle, a principle which is the foundation of all the democratic institutions of America, and is the basis of the republic; and, however it may be expanded and complicated in our various constitutions, however unequally power may be distributed in the different branches of our various governments, has imparted to each its strongest and most striking characteristic.

Many philosophers have since appeared, who have, in labored treatises, endeavored to prove the doctrine, that the rights of man are inalienable, and nations have bled to defend and enforce them, yet in this dark age, the age of despotism and superstition, when no tongue dared to assert, and no pen to write, this bold and novel doctrine, which was then as much at defiance with common opinion as with actual power, of which the monarch was then held to be the sole fountain, and the theory was universal that all popular rights were granted by the crown-in this remote wilderness, among a small and unknown band of wandering outcasts, the principle that the will of the majority of the people shall govern, was first conceived, and was first practically exemplified.

The pilgrims, from their notions of primitive Christianity, the force of circumstances, and that pure moral feeling which is the offspring of true religion, discovered a truth in the science of government which had been concealed for ages. On the bleak shore of a barren wilderness, in the midst of desolation, with the blast of winter howling around them, and surrounded with dangers in their most awful and appalling forms, the pilgrims of Leyden laid the foundation of American liberty. Baylies, vol. i, p. 29.

THE PURITANS FOUND A COLONY AT PLYMOUTH.

When the Puritan colony arrived on the coast of Massachusetts the weather was wintry, and they were undetermined on a spot for their settlements. Parties were dispatched to explore the country, which, after great suffering from cold, rain and snow, found a harbor. There

†Those with this mark brought their wives.

* Those who died before the end of the next March are distinguished by an asterisk.

they landed on the 22d of December, 1620, and named the place Plymouth, from the name of the last town they had left in England. The anniversary of their landing is still celebrated by the descendants of the pilgrim fathers, as a festival, in several prominent places in this country.

GRANT OF PATENT OF NEW ENGLAND TO THE DUKE OF LENOX.

The same month that the Plymouth settlers arrived in America, King James granted a patent to the Duke of Lenox and others, incorporating with the style of the "Council established at Plymouth, in the county of Devon, for the planting and governing of New England in America." The limits of the grants to them were, "from forty to forty-eight degrees of latitude, throughout the main lands from sea to sea," with the isles adjoining, provided they were not occupied by any other Christian prince or state, and on the condition of paying to the crown a fifth of the gold and silver ore they should find and mine. By this patent, the territory granted, which had before been called NORTH VIRGINIA, received by royal authority the name of NEW ENGLAND; from this instrument were derived all the subsequent grants made of the several parts of the territory.

VARIOUS GRANTS OF LAND.

In 1621, the Council of Plymouth granted to John Mason all the land from Salem to the Merrimac, extending inward to the heads of the rivers. This district was called Mariana. In 1622, the council assigned another grant to Gorges and Mason jointly, all the lands between the Merrimac and Sagadahoc, extending westward to the rivers of Canada, which district was called Laconia. In 1628, the Plymouth Company granted to Sir Henry Rosewell and others all the lands lying between a line three miles north of the Merrimac, and a line three miles south of every part of Charles River, and of the Bay of Massachusetts throughout the main lands "from the Atlantic to the South Sea." They also obtained a charter from the crown of England, by which the company was erected into a corporation, with ample powers of government. Massachusetts was settled under this charter.

In 1630, the council for planting New England, granted to Governor Bradford of Plymouth, and his associates, a patent of a tract of land extending from a rivulet called Cohasset, to Narraganset River, and westward to a country called Paconokit; and also a tract of fifteen

miles on each side of the Kennebec, with full powers of colonial gov

ernment.

In 1631, the Earl of Warwick, one of the Plymouth company, granted to Lord Say, and Seal and others, a patent of the territory in New England extending westward of the River Narraganset forty leagues, in a straight line near the sea shore, and all the lands of and within that breadth to the South Sea.

The shores of that part of America, extending from the River Pascatagua to the Bay of Fundy, had been discovered by many of the first voyagers, both English and French. The grant of the French king to De Monts, in 1603, covered the lands from the fortieth to the forty-sixth degree of latitude, and of course included Maine; but the French settlements were north and east of this district. In 1639, Sir Fernando Gorges obtained a grant by royal patent of all the lands between Pascatagua and Newichawanoc on the south and west, and Sagadahoc and Kennebec on the east, extending one hundred and twenty leagues north-westward into the country, with the isles adjacent, and Martha's Vineyard. This charter gave that territory the title of the "Province of Maine," by which it was known afterward.

GRANT TO LORD BALTIMORE.

In 1632, Charles I granted to Cecilius Calvert, Baron of Baltimore, in Ireland, the lands in America between Watkins' Point in the Chesapeake, and a line under the fortieth degree of latitude on the Delaware, on the north; which north line was extended to the highest source of the Potomac, and thence by that river to its mouth, and across the bay to Watkins'-to be held by him and his heirs in fee simple. This tract, named Maryland, was settled at first by Catholics from Ireland.

SETTLEMENTS ON THE DELAWARE.

It is difficult to ascertain the exact date of the first plantations on the Delaware. The Dutch and Swedes began settlements there within a few years after the Dutch West India Company obtained a grant of New Netherlands. Both claimed the territory, and a controversy arose between the Dutch governor of New Netherlands and the Swedish settlers, which continued many years. The plantations on the Delaware fell within the patent of the Duke of York in 1664, or were considered within its limits. After the grant of Pennsylvania to William Penn in 1682, the Duke of York granted and released to him all his