NEW-ENGLAND. S8f 



ments, however, were made in New-England by virtue of this autho- 

 rity. The companies contented themselves with sending out a ship 

 or two, to trade with the Indians lor their furs, and to fish upon their 

 coasts. This continued to be the only sort of correspondence between 

 Great Britain and this part of America, till the year 1620, when the 

 religious dissensions, by which England was turn to pieces, had be- 

 come warm and furious. Archbishop Laud persecuted all sorts of 

 non-conformists with an unrelenting severity. Those men, on the 

 other hand, were ready to submit to all the rigour of persecution 

 rather than give up their religious opinions, and conform to the cere- 

 monies of the church of England, which they considered as abuses 

 of the most dangerous tendency. There was no part of the world 

 into which they would not fly in order to obtain liberty of conscience. 

 America opened an extensive held. Thither they might transport 

 themselves, and establish whatever sort of religious polity they were 

 inclined to. With this view, having purchased the territory which 

 was within the jurisdiction of the Plymouth company, and having ob- 

 tained from the king the privilege of settling it whatever way they 

 chose, one hundred and fifty persons embarked for New-England, 

 and built a city, which, because they had sailed from Plymouth, they 

 called by that name. Notwithstanding the severity of the climate, 

 the unwholesomeness of the air, and the diseases to which, after a 

 long sea voyage, and in a country which was new to them, they were 

 exposed ; notwithstanding the want of all sorts of conveniences, and 

 even of many of the necessaries of life, those who had constitutions 

 fit to endure such hardships, not dispirited or broken by the death 

 of their companions, and supported by the vigour then peculiar to 

 Englishmen, and the satisfaction of finding themselves beyond the 

 reach of the spiritual arm, set themselves to cultivate this country, 

 and to take the best steps for the advancement of their infant colony. 

 New adventurers, encouraged by their example, and finding them- 

 selves, for the same reasons, uneasy at home, passed over into this 

 land of religious and civil liberty. By the close of the year 1630, they 

 had built four towns, Salem, Dorchester, Charlestown, and Boston ; 

 which last became the capital of New-England. But as necessity 

 is the natural source of that active and frugal industry which pro- 

 duces every thing great among mankind, so an uninterrupted flow 

 of prosperity and success occasions those dissensions which are the 

 bane of human affairs, and often subvert the best founded establish- 

 ments. 



The inhabitants of New-England, who had fled from persecution. 

 became in a short time strongly tainted with this illiberal vice, and 

 were eager to introduce an uniformity in religion among all who en- 

 tered their territories. The minds of men were not in that age supe- 

 rior to many prejudices ; they bad not that open and generous way of 

 thinking which at present distinguishes civilized nations ; and the 

 doctrine of universal toleration, which, to the honour of the firs: 

 settlers in America, began to appear among them, bad few abettors, 

 and many opponents. Many of them were bigoted Calvinists; and 

 though they had felt the weight of persecuti«;i themselves, they had 

 no charity for those who professed sentiments different from their 

 own. It was not the general idea of the age, that men might live 

 comfortably together in the same society, without maintaining the 

 same religious opinions ; and wherever these were at variance, the 

 T.bers of different sects kept at a distance from each other, and 



