104 THE DORSET COLONY IN MASSACHUSETTS. 



constitution these new diseases have so strangely fatal an effect. 



The severe type of character affected by the Puritan emigrants 

 seems not to have been abated by their new surroundings but 

 rather intensified. The discipline of the society was so severe 

 that splits occurred, ending in secessions, and sometimes resulting 

 in the opening up of new settlements. Some even went so far as 

 to renounce all connection with the scheme, preferring the old 

 tyranny at home to that of the elders of New Plymouth, who, 

 adopting the Books of Moses for the law of the land, imitated the 

 Jewish polity in almost all respects. Cruel laws were passed 

 against Baptists, Papists, Idolaters, Quakers, &c. To the latter 

 sect they behaved so harshly, inflicting death in not a few cases, 

 that the Royal authority had in 1661 to interpose to restrain them. 

 All this was a hindrance to progress, the more so as it prevented 

 the effectual use of the secular arm in chastising the Indians, who 

 daily harrassed and murdered the inhabitants with impunity, 

 because, forsooth, " many of the officers and soldiers were under a 

 covenant of works." The bitterness of their enthusiasm was also 

 painfully illustrated by the persecution of so-called witches and 

 sorcerers which invaded the colony like an epidemic, and was the 

 cause of countless sufferings and the death of hundreds of innocent 

 victims. It is needless to add that the colony outlived all this 

 enthusiasm, and that the New Englander of to-day is not pro- 

 nouncedly religious. Notwithstanding such extraordinary develop- 

 ments as Shakerism, Revivalism, and the Salvation Army, the 

 average Yankee is shrewdly suspected of holding the same opinion 

 as one of Russell Lowell's characters " They didn't know every- 

 thing down in Judee." 



So early as 1624 the Rev. Jno. White, of Dorchester, in this 

 county, attempted to found a settlement like that of New Plymouth 

 at Cape Ann, Mass., and placed the direction of it in the hands of 

 Mr. Roger Conant, " a most religious, prudent, worthy gentleman," 

 one of the seceders from the old colony ; but the design, through 

 many discouragements, for a while almost fell through. However, 

 he held his ground with only three companions until new arrange- 





