12 



carve the ground a foot deep, and then wrest it up 

 with levers, for we had forgot to bring our tools."' 



The harvests which ripen on the fields of Massa- 

 chusetts, in defiance of the premature invasion of 

 the frosts of winter, may be lineal descendants of 

 the fair corn ears borrowed from the Indian, as the 

 virtues of their cultivators are the heirlooms, trans- 

 mitted from sire to son along the generations of the 

 planters of New England. 



The tobacco, which might be suspected of hav- 

 ing imbibed one trait of our national character, from 

 the obstinacy of its resistance to the counterblasts 

 of kings, the denunciations of lawgivers, and the 

 anathemas of physicians, still holding its place re- 

 solutely, as the anodyne of care, the solace of sor- 

 row, and the cheerful companion of prosperity, de- 

 corated the garden and furnished the pipe of the 

 red chieftain.'^ 



Before the Pilgrims hewed down the primeval 

 forest spreading an immeasurable shade over the 

 land of their adoption, they laid the foundation of 

 civil liberty on the imperishable basis of the rock, 

 provided general education as its safeguard, and 

 planted those institutions, which, in vigorous matu- 

 rity, bestow ripened benefits on us. The founders 

 of an empire, struggling with the savageness of 

 man and nature, and contending against the obsta- 

 cles of physical and moral difficulty, with the wing 

 of pestilence overshadowing their dwellings, and 

 famine scowling around their young village, must 

 have been more occupied with the stern trials and 

 hard realities of life, than in drawing its luxuries 



(1)1 Mass. Hist. Col. vo\.vm. pnge23i. See note I. (2) See nole H. 



