4 
THE HISTORY OF 
Whatever disgusted them I cannot say, but this false delicacy creating in 
the Indians a jealousy that the English were ill affected towards them, was 
the cause that many of them were cut off, and the rest exposed to various 
distresses. 
This reinforcement was landed not far from cape Cod, where, for their 
greater security, they built a fort, and near it a small town, which, in honour 
of the proprietors, was called New Plymouth. But they still had many dis- 
couragements to struggle with, though, by being well supported from home, 
they by degrees triumphed over them all. 
Their brethren, after this, flocked over so fast, that in a few years they ex- 
tended the settlement one hundred miles along the coast, including Rhode 
Island and Martha’s Vineyard. 
Thus the colony throve apace, and was thronged with large detachments of 
independents and presbyterians, who thought themselves persecuted at home. 
Though these people may be ridiculed for some Pharisaical particularities 
in their worship and behaviour, yet they were very useful subjects, as being 
frugal and industrious, giving no scandal or bad example, at least by any 
open and public vices. By which excellent qualities they had much the ad- 
vantage of the southern colony, who thought their being members of the 
established church sufficient to sanctify very loose and profligate morals. 
For this reason New England improved much faster than Virginia, and in 
seven or eight years New Plymouth, like Switzerland, seemed too narrow a 
territory for its inhabitants. 
For this reason, several gentlemen of fortune purchased of the company 
that canton of New England now called Massachusetts colony. And king 
James confirmed the purchase by his royal charter, dated March the 4th, 
1628. In less than two years after, above one thousand of the puritanical 
sect removed thither with considerable effects, and these were followed by 
such crowds, that a proclamation was issued in England, forbidding any 
more of his majesty’s subjects to be shipped off. But this had the usual effect 
of things forbidden, and served only to make the wilful independents flock 
over the faster. And about this time it was that Messrs. Hampden and Pym, 
and (some say) Oliver Cromwell, to show how little they valued the king’s 
authority, took a trip to New England. 
In the year 1630, the famous city of Boston was built, in a commodious 
situation for trade and navigation, the same being on a peninsula at the bot- 
tom of Massachusetts bay. 
This town is now the most considerable of any on the British continent, 
containing at least 8,000 houses and 40,000 inhabitants. The trade it drives, 
is very great to Europe, and to every part of the "West Indies, having near 
1,000 ships and lesser vessels belonging to it. 
Although the extent of the Massachusetts colony reached near one hundred 
and ten miles in length, and half as much in breadth, yet many of its inhabit- 
ants, thinking they wanted elbow room, quitted their old seats in the year 
1636, and formed two new colonies: that of Connecticut and New Haven. 
These king Charles II. erected into one government in 1664, and gave them 
many valuable privileges, and among the rest, that of choosing their own 
governors. The extent of these united colonies may be about seventy miles 
long and fifty broad. 
Besides these several settlements, there sprang up still another, a little more 
northerly, called New Hampshire. But that consisting of no more than two 
counties, and not being in condition to support the charge of a distinct go- 
vernment, was glad to be incorporated with that of Massachusetts, but upon 
condition, however, of being named in all public acts, for fear of being quite 
lost and forgotten in the coalition. 
