proceedings.

The repose of Maryland was soon disturbed CHAP. II. by the superintending care of parliament. In 1651. September, commissioners were appointed "for Tyrannical reducing and governing the colonies within the bay of Chessapeake." Among them was Clayborne, the evil genius of the colony. As the proprietor had acknowledged and submitted to the authority of parliament, he was permitted to retain his station and to govern as formerly, although in the name of the keepers of the liberties of England. It was, however, impossible that he could long retain the quiet possession of actual authority. The distractions of England, having found their way into Maryland, divided the colonists; and the commissioners supported with their countenance the faction opposed to the established government. The contentions generated by such a state of things, at length, broke out into civil war, which terminated in the defeat of the governor and the roman catholics. A new assembly was now convened, which being entirely under the influence of the victorious party, passed an act declaring, that none who professed the popish religion could be protected in the province by the laws; that such as profess faith in God by Jesus Christ, although dissenting from the doctrine and discipline publicly held forth, should not be restrained from the exercise of their religion, provided such liberty was not extended to popery, or prelacy, or to

CHAP. II. such as, under the profession of Christ, prac1651. tised licentiousness. Other laws in the same

spirit were enacted, and a persecution commenced against the quakers, as well as those guilty of popery and prelacy. A scene of revolutionary turbulence ensued, in the course of which the upper house was resolved to be useless, which continued until the restoration; when Philip Calvert was appointed governor, by lord Baltimore, and the ancient order of things restored. Notwithstanding the commotions which had agitated the colony for a few years past, it had greatly flourished, and at the restoration its population was estimated at twelve thousand souls.

Robertson....Chalmer.... Stith....Beverly....L'Escarbot.

CHAPTER III.

First ineffectual attempts of the Plymouth company to settle the country....Settlements at New Plymouth.... Sir Henry Rosewell and company....New charter....Settlement of the country vigorously prosecuted....Government transferred to the colonists....Boston founded.... Religious intolerance....General court established.... Commission granted by the crown for the government of the plantations....Contests with the French colony of Acadié....Hugh Peters....Henry Vane....Mrs. Hutchinson and the antinomians....Maine granted to Gorges.... Quo warranto against the patent of the colony....Religious dissensions....Providence settled....Rhode Island settled....Connecticut settled.... War with the Piquods.... New Haven settled.

tual attempts

mouth com

the country.

April.

WE have seen with what slow and difficult First ineffec steps the first or southern colony, although sup- of the Plyported by individuals of great wealth and in-pany to settle fluence in the nation, advanced to a firm and secure establishment. The company for founding the second or northern colony, to which it 1606. will be recollected a charter was at the same time granted, and which was composed of gentlemen residing in Plymouth and other parts of the west of England, was less wealthy, and possessed fewer resources for the establishment of distant and expensive settlements than the first company, which resided in the capital. Their efforts were consequently more feeble,

CHAP. II. and less successful, than those which were 1606. made in the south.

The first vessel fitted out by the company in 1606, was captured and confiscated by the Spaniards, who at that time asserted a right to exclude the ships of all other nations, from navigating the American seas. Not discouraged by this misfortune, two other vessels under the command of Raleigh Gilbert, having on board about one hundred persons designed to form the proposed settlements, were dispatched the following year, and arriving safely on the 1607. American coast in autumn, took possession

of a piece of ground near the river Sagahadoc, where they built fort St. George. Their sufferings in that severe climate during the following winter were immense. Many of the company, among whom were Gilbert their admiral and George Popham their president, sunk under the diseases with which they were attacked; and, in the spring, the vessels which brought them supplies, brought them also information that their principal patron, sir John Popham chief justice of England, was dead. Discouraged by their own losses and sufferings, and by the death of a person on whose active exertions, more than on those of any other, they relied for assistance; it was determined to abandon the country, and they embarked on board the vessels then returning to England. The frightful pictures given of the

coast and of the climate, deterred the company, CHAP. III. for the present, from further attempts to make 1608. a settlement; and their enterprises were limited to voyages made for the purposes of taking fish, and of trading with the natives for their furs. One of those was made in 1614 by captain Smith, so remarkable in the history of Virginia. He explored with great accuracy that part of the coast which stretches from Penobscot to cape Cod, and, having delineated it in a map, he presented it, with the descriptions dictated by a mind which however sound was enthusiastic and sanguine, to Charles prince of Wales, who was so pleased with the country that it was denominated New England, which name it has ever since retained.

The languishing company of Plymouth, however, could not be stimulated to engage in further schemes of colonization, the advantages of which were distant and uncertain, while the expense was immediate and inevitable.

To accident, and to a stronger motive than even interest, a motive found to be among the most powerful which can influence the human mind, is New England indebted for its first settlement.

An obscure sect, which had acquired the appellation of Brownists from the name of its founder, and which had rendered itself peculiarly obnoxious by the democracy of its tenets respecting church government, had been