60 Inasmuch 



The Great What this &quot;wonderful plague&quot; was, precisely, 



we do not know. It is probable that it was the 

 plague which ravaged England at a little later 

 period, and that it was introduced among the 

 Indians by one of the vessels visiting the Coast 

 from a Spanish or Mediterranean port. Our 

 author says, &quot;The extent of its ravages, as near 

 as we can judge, was from Narraganset Bay to 

 Kennebec, or perhaps, Penobscot, and was sup 

 posed to have commenced about 1617, and the 

 length of its duration seems to have been between 

 two and three years, as it was nearly abated in 1619. 

 The Indians gave a frightful account of it, saying 

 that they died so fast that the living were not 

 able to bury the dead. When the English arrived 

 in the country, their bones were thick upon the 

 ground in many places. This they looked upon 

 as a great providence inasmuch at it had de 

 stroyed multitudes of the barbarous heathen to 

 make way for the chosen people of God.&quot; 

 Count Num- Whether the white man can, or cannot, be righ tly 

 convicted on this statement makes bnt little 

 difference; putting the plague out of the count 

 he has still to answer for the &quot;destruction, devas 

 tation and depopulation,&quot; caused by the intro- 

 tion of measles, smallpox, together with those 

 loathsome and satanic diseases which defile and 

 destroy the very sources and issues of life. 

 Fiigrim The Pilgrim Fathers arrived in the Mayflower, 



aved e No r ~ forty-one strong. &quot;One of the first things they 

 pVnded 2 bec. found it necessary to do, to preserve order among 

 themselves, was to form a kind of constitution or 



