110 



Hr cngnger! m various enterprises, from time to time, by w-hich he 

 ticquired wealih. In his endeavors to contiuer the Freneh possessions 

 in America he was unwearied, for he saw that, unless they were added 

 lo the British crown, there could be no peace upon the fishing grounds. 

 He was at hi.«t knighted, and, under the second charter of Massachusetts, 

 was appointed the first governor. When the Indians, who knew him 

 in his youth, hslened to the tale of his successes and honors, they were 

 amazed, for, says an old writer, "they had fished and hunted with 

 him many a weary day." He died in 1G95, without children. 



Sir Wiiliam Pepperell, the commander of the memorable expedition 

 ao'ainst Louisbourg, was the son of a fisherman of the Isles of Shoals. 

 As a merchant at Kittery, the oldest incorporated town in Maine, where 

 }je was born, where he lived and died, and where strangers are still 

 shown his large mansion-house and, his tomb, he was personally con- 

 cerned in the fisheiies. He acquired great wealth. The dignity of a 

 baronet of Great Britain, an honor never before nor since conferred on 

 a riative of New England, was bestowed in reward of his military ser- 

 vices; and not long previous to his death, he was created a lieutenant 

 general. He deceased in 1759. His grandson, who inherited his title and 

 a large part of his estate, was a loyalist in the Revolution; and losing 

 his patrimony under the confiscation act, was a recipient of the bounty 

 of the British crown. The baronetcy is now extinct: and such are the 

 vicissitudes of human condition, that members of the Pepperell family 

 have been literally saved from becoming inmates of an almshouse by 

 individual charities, 



NEW HAMPSHIRE. 



Ffom 1623 to the RetohitionKtry Controversy. 



T'o include the early inhabitants of New Hampshire with Puritans 

 and among refugees from rehgious persecution, as some do, is to degrade 

 to mere fable many of the best authenticated facts in history. The 

 •sole purpose of the first and of the subsequent proprietors was to 

 acquire wealth by fishing and trading. The original patentees were 

 Sir Perdinando (jorges, John Mason, and several merchants of London, 

 Bristol, Plymouth, Dorchester, and other places in England, who pur- 

 chased the country between the Merrimack and the Kennebec,* and 

 back to the great lakes and the St. Lawrence, and styled themselves 

 the "Company of Laconia." In 1623 they sent over David Thomp- 

 son, Edward and William Hilton, fishmongers in London, with a num- 

 ber of other persons, in two divisions, furnished with ample, tools, im- 

 plements, and provisions, to commence a fishery and plant a colony. 

 One division landed on the south shore of the Piscataijua, at its mouth, 

 where, immediately to provide salt to cure fish, they built salt works, 



* In a pajxsr wliich Ilutchhison preserves in his "Collection," and whieh he ascribes to tlic 

 commissiouers of Charles II, or to «((iue perso!H'i!ii)!<»y«'d by them, it is aaiA that "Mr. Mason 

 had a paltent f(»r some land alxiut Cape Ann before tlie Massaclnisetts had rlieir first pattent; 

 wlitMcuiion ("apt-tin Mason and Mr. (Jradnek, \\\ni was the first governorof the Massachnsetfs, 

 «nd lived in Liind(tn, agre(!dthat the Massaehnsetts should have that land which was graiinted 

 %» Ca])tain Mason about Cape Ann, and Captain Mason should hav« that laiid which was 

 beyoud Meriuiac river and grauutcd lo the Ma.ssachusctts," &c., &c. 



