34 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



have begged my brother, Mr. Charles Sumner, to send you 

 from Boston two copies of a memoir upon the ten years' 

 residence of the " Pilgrims " in Holland, which is the re- 

 sult of researches made by me in Leyden and elsewhere, 

 with the hope of clearing up, in part, the obscurity that 

 hangs over an important portion of the early history of the 

 settlers of New England. I should be gratified if you 

 would do me the honor to accept one of these copies, and 

 (if it be not giving you too much trouble) to present the 

 other, de ma part, to the Historical Society of Connecticut. 

 Some of the conclusions of this memoir are not in exact 

 harmony with the statements of many of our writers ; and 

 it was with some hesitation and only after a good deal 

 of labor, which, however, brought to light little but negative 

 evidence that I found myself compelled to adopt them. 

 One thing which it perhaps shows, is the error of those 

 who have so often harped upon an imaginary sympathy be- 

 tween the Pilgrims and the shrewd, beer-drinking Burgh- 

 ers of Leyden I might give you some details of 



the present scientific movement in Paris, which would per- 

 haps interest you ; but this is the last moment for writing 

 by the steamer of the 4th, and I must make my letter as 

 short as possible. The news of the settlement of the Ore- 

 gon limit and of the progress of the Mexican war, have 

 made considerable sensation in Paris. The French press 

 in general is delighted with the reculade which England 

 has made, in accepting in 1846 that which twenty years 

 ago it declared, through Canning and Huskisson, could 

 never be accepted, and that which less than a twelvemonth 

 since it declared " inconsistent with its just expectations, 

 with fairness, and with equity." The journals which have 

 occasionally reproached the United States with inertness 

 and inability to act in an emergency, seem surprised by the 

 energy developed on the Mexican frontier 



