THE DIVIDING LINE. 3 



These found tlie fast adventurers in a very starving condition, ijut relieved 

 tlieir wants with the fresh supply thry l)roii^lit witii them. From Kiquotan 

 they extended themselves as Ihr as James-town, where, like true English- 

 men, they built a cluu-ch that cost no more than fifty pounds, and a tavern 

 that cost five hundred. 



They had now made peaoe with the Indians, but there was one thing want- 

 ing to make that peace lasting. The natives could, by no means, persuade 

 themselves that the English were heartily their friends, so long as they dis- 

 dained to intermarry with them. And, in earnest, had the English consulted 

 their own security and the good of the colony — had they intended either to 

 civilize or convert these gentiles, they would have brought their stomachs to 

 embrace this prudent alliance. 



The Indians are generally tall and well-proportioned, which may make full 

 amends for the darkness of their complexions. Add to this, that they are 

 healthy and strong, with constitutions untainted by lewdness, and not en- 

 feebled by luxury. Besides, morals and all considered, I cannot think the 

 Indians were much greater heathens than the first adventurers, who, had 

 they been good Christians, would have had the charity to take this only- 

 method of converting the natives to Christianity. For, after all that can be 

 said, a sprightly lover is the most prevailing missionary tliat can be sent 

 amongst these, or any other infidels. 



Besides, the poor Indians would have had less reason to complain that the 

 English took away their land, if they had received it by way of portion 

 with their daughters. Had such affinities been contracted in the begin- 

 ning, how much bloodshed had been prevented, and how populous would 

 the country have been, and, consequently, how considerable ] Nor would 

 the shade of the skin have been any reproach at this day ; for if a Moor may 

 be washed white in three generations, surely an Indian might have been 

 blanched in two. 



The French, for their parts, have not been so squeamish in Canada, who 

 upon trial find abundance of attraction in the Indians. Their late grand 

 monarch thought it not below even the dignity of a Frenchman to become 

 one flesh with this people, and therefore ordered 100 livres for any of his sub- 

 jects, man or woman, that would intermarry with a native. 



By this piece of policy we find the French interest very much strengthened 

 amongst the savages, and their religion, such as it is, propagated just as far 

 as their love. And I heartily wish this well-concerted scheme does not here- 

 after give the French an advantage over his majesty's good subjects on the 

 northern continent of America. 



About the same time New England was pared off from Virginia by letters 

 patent, bearing date April the 10th, 1608. Several gentlemen of the town 

 and neighborhood of Plymouth obtained this grant, with the lord chief 

 justice Popham at their head. 



Their bounds were specified to extend from 38 to 45 degrees of northern 

 latitude, with a breadth of one hundred miles from the sea shore. The first 

 fourteen years, this company encountered many difficulties, and lost many 

 men, though far from being discouraged, they sent over numerous recruits of 

 presbyterians, evxry year, who fin- all that, had Uiuch ado to stand their 

 ground, witli all their fighting and praying. 



But about the year 1G20, a large swarm of dissenters fled thither from the 

 severities of their slepmothei", the church. These saints conceiving the same 

 aversion to the copper complexion of the natives, with that of the first ad- 

 venturers to V'irginia, would, on no terms, contract alliancea with them, afraid 

 perhaps, like the Jews of old, lest they might be drawn into idolatry by those 

 strange women. 



