Winthrop been misjudged by them, that, although they had that which, in Massachusetts, was emphatically the popular side of the question, the result of their arraignment against him was to give him the largest majority ever cast, we believe, by the same constituency for any candidate in a contested election. George T. Curtis, of Boston, referring to the relation in which Mr. Winthrop stands to the people of that city, says: "A Boston boy, nurtured at one of the darling public institutions of this town, passing thence to our own Harvard College, where his career was distinguished for early discretion of character as well as for eminent talent, and coming from the University, through the study of the law, almost at once into public life, he has been from his earliest youth an object of the public regard, as a person of high qualifications for the public service. In his talents, his cultivation, his correctness of principle, his uniform adherence to a true public policy, and his capacity to judge rightly and speak eloquently upon public affairs, he has been all his life a representative of the people among whom he was born of their institutions, and of the spirit of their whole condition. To these characteristics, there have been added, in his case, the associations which gather about a name interwoven forever with our history and our glory. Nor has he ever disappointed one of the expectations that have fondly centered upon him, until, in this middle period of his life, in an hour of that misapprehension or misrepresentation to which all public men are exposed, he has had charges laid at his door which aim at his integrity of purpose and consistency of character." We shall refer to these charges in another page. In the preparation of this memoir, we did not enjoy the advantage of personal access to Mr. Winthrop, owing to his absence in Europe, and we have, therefore, been compelled to gather scraps and fragments for our history as chance might throw them in our way. We find that he was born in the city of Boston, on the 12th day of May, 1809. He is the direct descendant of John Winthrop, who led out the Massachusetts colony in 1630, and who was its first governor. Speaking of some of the scenes through which that infant colony passed, Bancroft, in his History of the United States, says: "At the court, convened for the purpose of appointing officers who would emigrate, John Winthrop, a man approved for piety, liberality, and wisdom, was chosen governor, and the whole board of assistants selected for America. Yet, as the hour of departure drew near, the consciousness of danger spread such terrors, that even the hearts of the strong began to fail. One and another of the magistrates declined. It became necessary to hold a court at Southampton for the election of three substi tutes among the assistants, and of these three, one never went. Even after they had embarked, a court was held on board the Arabella, and Thomas Dudley was chosen deputy-governor in the place of Humphrey, who stayed behind. Dudley emigrated, and had hardly reached America before he repented that he had come; the country had been described in too favorable colors. It was principally the calin decision of Winthrop which sustained the courage of his companions. "The whole number of ships employed during the season was seventeen, and they carried over not far from fifteen hundred souls. About eight hundred, all of them Puritans, inclined to the party of the Independents, many of them men of high endowments, large fortune, and the best education, scholars well versed in all the learning of the times, clergymen who ranked among the most eloquent and pious in the realm, embarked with Winthrop for their asylum, bearing with them the charter which was to be the basis of their liberties. Religion did not expel the feelings of nature; before leaving Yarmouth, they published to the world the grounds of their removal, and bade an affectionate farewell to the Church of England and to the land of their nativity. Our hearts,' say they, 'shall be fountains of tears for your everlasting welfare when we shall be in our poor cottages in the wilderness.' "The emigrants were a body of sincere believers, desiring purity of religion, and not a colony of philosophers, bent upon universal toleration; reverence for the peculiarities of their faith led them to a land which was either sterile, or overgrown with unprofitable vegetation. They emigrated to a new hemisphere, where distance might protect them from imposition; to a soil of which they had purchased the exclusive possession with a charter of which they had acquired the entire control, for the sake of reducing to practice the doctrines of religion and the forms of civil liberty which they cherished more than life |