ADDRESS 
 
 / 
 
 THE CITIZENS OF BOSTON, 
 
 ON THE XVIl'^" OF SEPTEMBER, M DCCC XXX, 
 
 THE CLOSE 
 
 OF 
 
 THE SECOND CENTURY 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 FIRST SETTLEMENT OF THE CITY. 
 
 By JOSIAH aUINCY, ll. d. 
 
 PRESIDENT OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 
 
 ,,ry o^ Q^on^f.^ 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 J. H. EASTBUKN, PRINTER TO THE CITY. 
 
 1830. '• 
 

 < 
 
 ^LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 5 
 
 I FORCE COLLECTION.] j^\ 
 
 ^DNITED STATES OF AMERICA.^ 
 
CITY OF BOSTON. 
 
 Li Common Council, Sept. 17, 1830. 
 Ordered, that the Committee of Arrangements for the Celebration 
 of this day be, and they are hereby, directed to present the thanks of 
 the City Council to the Honorable Josiah Quincy, for the learned, 
 eloquent, and appropriate Address, this day delivered by him, and 
 respectfully request a copy of said Address for the press. 
 Sent up for concurrence, 
 
 B, T. PicKMAN, President. 
 
 In the Board of Aldermen, Sept. 17, 1830. 
 
 Read and concurred. 
 
 H. G. Otis, Mayor. 
 
 A true copy, Attest, 
 
 S. F. M'Cleary, City Clerk. 
 
 Boston, Sept. 17, 1830. 
 
 Hon. JOSIAH QUINCY, 
 
 The undersigned, the Committee of Arrangements for the 
 Centennial Celebration of the Settlement of Boston, have the honor to 
 enclose you an attested copy of a vote of the City Council, and 
 respectfully ask your compliance with the request contained therein. 
 
 H. G. Otis. 
 
 Benjamin Russell. 
 
 WiNSLOw Lewis. 
 
 J. Eveleth. 
 
 Th. Minns. 
 
 B. T. PiCKMAN. 
 
 J. W. James. 
 John P. Bigelow. 
 Washington P. Gragg. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 Or all the affections of man, those which connect 
 him with ancestry are among the most natural and 
 generous. They enlarge the sphere of his interests ; 
 multiply his motives to virtue ; and give intensity to 
 his sense of duty to generations to come, by the per- 
 ception of obligation to those which are past. In 
 whatever mode of existence man finds himself, be it 
 savage or civihzed, he perceives that he is indebted 
 for the far greater part of his possessions and enjoy- 
 ments, to events over which he had no control ; to 
 individuals, whose names, perhaps, never reached his 
 ear ; to sacrifices, in which he never shared ; and to 
 sufferings, awakening in his bosom few and very 
 transient sympathies. 
 
 Cities and empires, not less than individuals, are 
 chiefly indebted for their fortunes to circumstances 
 and influences independent of the labors and wis- 
 dom of the passing generation. Is our lot cast in a 
 happy soil, beneath a favored sky, and under the 
 shelter of free institutions ? How few of all these 
 blessings do we owe to our own power, or our own 
 
6 
 
 prudence ! How few, on which we cannot discern 
 the impress of long past generations ! 
 
 It is natural, that reflections of this kind should 
 awaken curiosity concerning the men of past ages. 
 It is suitable, and characteristic of noble natures, 
 to love to trace in venerated institutions the evi- 
 dences of ancestral worth and wisdom ; and to cher- 
 ish that mingled sentiment of awe and admiration, 
 which takes possession of the soul, in the presence 
 of ancient, deep-laid, and massy monuments of intel- 
 lectual and moral power. 
 
 Under impulses thus natural and generous, at the 
 invitation of your municipal authorities, you have as- 
 sembled. Citizens of Boston, on this day, in commem- 
 oration of the era of the foundation of your city, bear- 
 ing in fond recollection the virtues of your fathers, to 
 pass in review the circumstances which formed their 
 character, and the institutions which bear its stamp ; 
 to take a rapid survey of that broad horizon, which is 
 resplendent with their glories ; to compress, within 
 the narrow circle of an hour, the results of memo- 
 ry, perception, and hope ; combining honor to the 
 past, gratitude for the present, and fidelity to the 
 future. 
 
 Standing, after the lapse of two centuries, on the 
 very spot selected for us by our fathers, and sur- 
 rounded by social, moral, and rehgious blessings 
 greater than paternal love, in its fondest visions, ev- 
 er dared to fancy, we naturally turn our eyes back- 
 ward, on the descending current of years ; seeking 
 the causes of that prosperity, which has given this 
 city so distinguished a name and rank among simi- 
 lar associations of men. 
 
Happily its foundations were not laid in dark ages, 
 nor is its origin to be sought among loose and ob- 
 scure traditions. The age of our early ancestors 
 was, in many respects, eminent for learning and civil- 
 ization. Our ancestors themselves were deeply 
 versed in the knowledge and attainments of their pe- 
 riod. Not only their motives and acts appear in the 
 general histories of their time, but they are un- 
 folded in their own writings, with a simplicity and 
 boldness, at once commanding admiration and not 
 permitting mistake. If this condition of things re- 
 strict the imagination in its natural tendency to ex- 
 aggerate, it assists the judgment rightly to analyze, 
 and justly to appreciate. If it deny the power, en- 
 joyed by ancient cities and states, to elevate our an- 
 cestors above the condition of humanity, it confers a 
 much more precious privilege, that of estimating by 
 unequivocal standards the intellectual and moral 
 greatness of the early, intervening, and passing pe- 
 riods ; and thus of judging concerning comparative 
 attainment and progress in those qualities which 
 constitute the dignity of our species. Instead of 
 looking back, as antiquity was accustomed to do, on 
 fabling legends of giants and heroes, — of men ex- 
 ceeding in size, in strength, and in labor, all expe- 
 rience and history, and consequently, being obhged 
 to contemplate the races of men, dwindhng with 
 time, and growing less amid increasing stimulants and 
 advantages ; we are thus enabled to view things in 
 lights more conformed to the natural suggestions of 
 reason, and the actual results of observation ; — to 
 witness improvement in its slow but sure progress ; 
 in a general advance, constant and unquestionable; — 
 
8 
 
 to pay due honors to the greatness and virtues of our 
 early ancestors, and be, at the same time, just to the 
 not inferior greatness and virtues of succeeding gene- 
 rations of men, their descendants and our progeni- 
 tors. Thus we substantiate the cheering conviction, 
 that the virtues of ancient times have not been lost, 
 or debased, in the course of their descent, but, in 
 many respects, have been refined and elevated ; and 
 so standing faithful to the generations which are past, 
 and fearless in the presence of the generations to 
 come, we accumulate on our own times the responsi- 
 bility, that an inheritance, which has descended to 
 us enlarged and improved, shall not be transmitted 
 by us diminished or deteriorated. 
 
 As our thoughts course along the events of past 
 times, from the hour of the first settlement of Boston 
 to that in which we are now assembled, they trace 
 the strong features of its character, indelibly impressed 
 upon its acts and in its history ; — clear conceptions 
 of duty ; bold vindications of right ; readiness to in- 
 cur dangers and meet sacrifices, in the maintenance 
 of liberty, civil and religious. Early selected as the 
 place of the chief settlement of New England, it has, 
 through every subsequent period, maintained its rel- 
 ative ascendancy. In the arts of peace and in the 
 energies of war, in the virtues of prosperity and ad- 
 versity, in wisdom to plan and vigor to execute, in 
 extensiveness of enterprise, success in accumulating 
 wealth, and liberality in its distribution, its inhabi- 
 tants, if not unrivalled, have not been surpassed, by 
 any similar society of men. Through good report 
 and evil report, its influence has, at all times, been 
 so distinctly seen and acknowledged in events, and 
 
9 
 
 been so decisive on the destinies of the region of 
 which it was the head, that the inhabitants of the ad- 
 joining colonies of a foreign nation early gave the 
 name of this place to the whole country ; and at this 
 day, among their descendants, the people of the 
 whole United States * are distinguished by the name 
 of " Bostonians." 
 
 Amidst perils and obstructions, on the bleak side 
 of the mountain on v/hich it was first cast, the seed- 
 ling oak, self-rooted, shot upward with a determined 
 vigor. Now shghted and now assailed; amidst alter- 
 nating sunshine and storm ; with the axe of a native 
 foe at its root, and the lightning of a foreign power, 
 at times, scathing its top, or withering its branches, 
 it grew, it flourished, it stands, — may it for ever 
 stand! — the honor of the field. 
 
 On this occasion, it is proper to speak of the foun- 
 ders of our city, and of their glory. Now in its true 
 acceptation, the term glorij expresses the splendor, 
 which emanates from virtue in the act of producing 
 general and permanent good. Right conceptions 
 then of the glory of our ancestors are alone to be at- 
 tained by analyzing their virtues. These virtues, 
 indeed, are not seen charactered in breathing bronze, 
 or in living marble. Our ancestors have left no Co- 
 rinthian temples on our hills, no Gothic cathedrals 
 on our plains, no proud pyramid, no storied obe- 
 hsk, in our cities. But mind is there. Sagacious 
 enterprise is there. An active, vigorous, intelligent, 
 moral population throng our cities, and predomi- 
 nate in our fields ; men, patient of labor, submissive 
 to law, respectful to authority, regardful of right, 
 * See note A. 
 
to 
 
 faithful to liberty. These are the monuments of our 
 ancestors. They stand immutable and immortal, in 
 the social, moral, and intellectual condition of theirde- 
 scendants. They exist in the spirit, which their pre- 
 cepts instilled, and their example implanted. Let 
 no man think that to analyze, and place in a just light, 
 the virtues of the first settlers of New England, is a 
 departure from the purpose of this celebration ; or 
 deem so meanly of our duties, as to conceive that 
 merely local relations, the circumstances which have 
 given celebrity and character to this single city, are 
 the only, or the most appropriate topics for the oc- 
 casion. It was to this spot, during twelve successive 
 years, that the great body of those first settlers emi- 
 grated. In this place, they either fixed permanently 
 their abode, or took their departure from it for the 
 coast, or the interior. Whatever honor devolves 
 on this metropolis from the events connected with. 
 its first settlement, is not solitary or exclusive ; 
 it is shared with Massachusetts ; with New England; 
 in some sense, with the whole United States. For 
 what part of this wide empire, be it sea or shore^ 
 lake or river, mountain or valley, have the descend- 
 ants of the first settlers of New England not travers-' 
 edl what depth of forest, not penetrated? what 
 danger of nature or man, not defied? Where is the 
 cultivated field, in redeeming which from the wilder- 
 ness, their vigor has not been displayed ? Where, 
 amid unsubdued nature, by the side of the first log- 
 hut of the settler, does the school-house stand and 
 the church-spire rise, unless the sons of New Eng- 
 land are there ? Where does improvement advance, 
 under the active energy of willing hearts and ready- 
 
11 
 
 bands, prostrating the moss-covered monarchs of the 
 wood, and from theh' ashes, amid their charred roots, 
 bidding the greensward and the waving harvest to 
 upspring, and the spirit of the fathers of New Eng- 
 land is not seen, hovering, and shedding around the 
 benign influences of sound social, moral, and rehgious 
 institutions, stronger and more enduring than knot- 
 ted oak or tempered steel? The swelling tide of 
 their descendants has spread upon our coasts ; as- 
 cended our rivers ; taken possession of our plains. 
 Already it encircles our lakes. At this hour the 
 rushing noise of the advancing wave startles the wild 
 beast in his lair among the prairies of the West. 
 Soon it shall be seen climbing the Rocky mountains, 
 and, as it dashes over their cliffs, shall be hailed by the 
 dwellers on the Pacific, as the harbinger of the com- 
 ing blessings of safety, Hberty, and truth. 
 
 The glory, which belongs to the virtues of our 
 ancestors, is seen radiating from the nature of their 
 design ; — from the spirit in which it was executed ; — 
 and from the character of their institutions. 
 
 That emigration of Englishmen, which, two centu- 
 ries ago, resulted in the settlement, on this day, of 
 this metropolis, was distinguished by the comparative 
 greatness of the means employed, and the number, 
 rank, fortune, and intellectual endowments of those 
 engaged in it, as leaders, or associates. Twelve 
 ships, transporting somewhat less than nine hundred 
 souls, constituted the physical strength of the first 
 enterprise. In the course of the twelve succeeding 
 years, twenty-two thousand souls emigrated in one 
 hundred and ninety-two ships, at a cost, including 
 the private expenses of the adventurers, which can- 
 
12 
 
 not be estimated, in our currency, at less than one 
 million of dollars. At that time the tide of emigra- 
 tion was stayed. Intelligent writers of the last cen- 
 tury assert that more persons had subsequently gone 
 from New England to Europe, than had come to it 
 during the same period from that quarter of the 
 globe. A cotemporary historian* represents the 
 leaders of the first emigration, as " gentlemen of good 
 estate and reputation, descended from, or connected 
 by marriage with, noble famihes ; having large means, 
 and great yearly revenue, sufficient in all reason to 
 content ; their tables abundant in food, their coffers 
 in coin ; possessing beautiful houses, filled with 
 rich furniture ; gainful in their business, and growing 
 rich daily ; well provided for themselves, and having 
 a sure competence for their children ; wanting noth- 
 ing of a worldly nature to complete the prospects of 
 ease and enjoyment, or which could contribute to 
 the pleasures, the prospects, or the splendors of fife." 
 The question forces itself on the mind. Why did 
 such men emigrate ? Why did men of their condition 
 exchange a pleasant and prosperous home for a re- 
 pulsive and cheerless wilderness ; a civihzed for a 
 barbarous vicinity? why, quitting peaceful and 
 happy dwellings, dare the dangers of tempestuous 
 and unexplored seas, the rigors of untried and severe 
 climates, the difficulties of a hard soil and the inhu- 
 man warfare of a savage foe 7 An answer must be 
 sought in the character of the times ; and in the 
 spirit, which the condition of their native country 
 and age had a direct tendency to excite and cherish. 
 
 * Johnson's " Wonder- Working Providence of Sion's Saviour in 
 New England," ch. 12. 
 
13 
 
 The general civil and religious aspect of the Eng- 
 lish nation, in the age of our ancestors, and in that 
 immediately preceding their emigration, was singu- 
 larly hateful and repulsive. A foreign hierarchy, 
 contending with a domestic despotism for infallibility 
 and supremacy, in matters of faith. Confiscation, 
 imprisonment, the axe and the stake, approved and 
 customary means of making proselytes and promoting 
 uniformity. The fires of Smithfield, now lighted by 
 the corrupt and selfish zeal of Roman pontiffs ; and 
 now rekindled, by the no less corrupt and selfish 
 zeal of English sovereigns. All men clamorous for 
 the rights of conscience, when in subjection; all 
 actively persecuting, when in authority. Every 
 where religion considered as a state entity, and hav- 
 ing apparently no real existence, except in associa- 
 tions in support of estabhshed power, or in opposi- 
 tion to it. 
 
 The moral aspect of the age was not less odious 
 than its civil. Every benign and characteristic virtue 
 of Christianity was publicly conjoined, in close alli- 
 ance, with its most offensive opposite. Humility 
 wearing the tiara, and brandishing the keys, in the ex- 
 cess of the pride of temporal and spiritual power. 
 The Roman pontiff", under the title of " the servant 
 of servants," with his foot on the neck of every mon- 
 arch in Christendom ; and under the seal of the fish- 
 erman of Galilee, dethroning kings and giving away 
 kingdoms. Purity, content, and self-denial preach- 
 ed by men, who held the wealth of Europe tributary 
 to their luxury, sensuality, and spiritual pride. Broth- 
 erly love in the mouth, while the hand applied the 
 instrument of torture. Charity, mutual forbearance, 
 
14 
 
 and forgiveness chanted in unison with clanking 
 chains and crackling faggots. 
 
 Nor was the intellectual aspect of the age less re- 
 pulsive than its civil and moral. The native charm 
 of the religious feeling lost, or disfigured amidst 
 forms, and ceremonies, and disciplines. By one 
 class, piety was identified with copes, and crosiers, 
 and tippets, and genuflexions. By another class, all 
 these were abhorred as the tricks and conjuring gar- 
 ments of popery, or at best, in the language of Cal- 
 vin, as " tolerable fooleries" ; while they, on their 
 part, identified piety with looks, and language, and 
 gestures, extracted or typified from scripture, and 
 fashioned according to the newest " pattern of 
 the mount." By none were the rights of private 
 judgment acknowledged. By all, creeds, and dog- 
 mas, and confessions, and catechisms, collected 
 from scripture with metaphysical skill, arranged with 
 reference to temporal power and influence, and 
 erected into standards of faith, were made the flags 
 and rallying points of the spiritual swordsmen of the 
 church militant. 
 
 The first emotion, which this view of that period 
 excites, at the present day, is contempt or disgust. 
 But the men of that age are no more responsible for 
 the mistakes, into which they fell, under the circum- 
 stances in which the inteflectual eye was then placed, 
 than we, at this day, for those optical illusions to 
 which the natural eye is subject, before time and ex- 
 perience have corrected the judgment and instructed 
 it in the true laws of nature and vision. It was their 
 fate to live in the crepuscular state of the intellectual 
 day, and by the law of their nature they were com- 
 
16 
 
 pelled to see things darkly, through false and shifting 
 mediums, and in lights at once dubious and deceptive. 
 For centuries, a night of Egyptian darkness had over- 
 spread Europe, in the "palpable obscure" of which, 
 priests and monarchs and nobles had not only found 
 means to enthral the minds of the multitude, but ab- 
 solutely to lose and bewilder their own. When the 
 hght of learning began to dawn, the first rays of the 
 rising splendor dazzled and confused, rather than di- 
 rected the mind. As the coming light penetrated 
 the thick darkness, the ancient cumulative cloud 
 severed into new forms. Its broken masses became 
 tinged with an uncertain and shifting radiance. Shad- 
 ows assumed the aspect of substances ; the evanes- 
 cent suggestions of fancy, the look of fixed realities. 
 The wise were at a loss what to believe, or what to 
 discredit ; how to quit and where to hold. On all 
 sides sprang up sects and parties, infinite in number, 
 incomprehensible in doctrine ; often imperceptible in 
 difference ; yet each claiming for itself infallibility, 
 and, in the sphere it aftected to influence, supremacy ; 
 each violent and hostile to the others, haughty and 
 hating its non-adhering brother, in a spirit wholly 
 repugnant to the humility and love inculcated by 
 that rehgion, by which each pretended to be ac- 
 tuated ; and ready to resort, when it had power, to 
 corporal penalties, even to death itself, as allowed 
 modes of self-defence and proselytism. 
 
 It was the fate of the ancestors of New England 
 to have their lot cast in a state of society thus unpre- 
 cedented. They were of that class of the Enghsh 
 nation, in whom the systematic persecutions of a 
 concentrated civil and ecclesiastical despotism had 
 
16 
 
 enkindled an intense interest concerning man's social 
 and religious rights. Their sufferings had created in 
 their mind's a vivid and inextinguishable love of civil 
 and rehgious hberty ; a fixed resolve, at every peril, 
 to assert and maintain their natural rio:hts. Amons: 
 the boldest and most intelhgent of this class of men, 
 chiefly known by the name of Puritans, were the 
 founders of this metropoHs. To a superficial view, 
 their zeal seems directed to forms and ceremonies 
 and disciplines, which have become, at this day, ob- 
 solete or modified, and so seems mistaken or mis- 
 placed. But the wisdom of zeal for any object is 
 not to be measured by the particular nature of that ob- 
 ject, but by the nature of the principle, which the cir- 
 cumstances of the times, or of society, have identified 
 with such object. Liberty, whether civil or religious, 
 is among the noblest objects of human regard. Yet, 
 to a being constituted like man, abstract liberty 
 has no existence, and over him no practical influence. 
 To be for him an efficient principle of action, it 
 must be embodied in some sensible object. Thus 
 the form of a cap, the color of a surphce, ship- 
 money, a tax on tea, or on stamped paper, ob- 
 jects in themselves indifferent, have been so in- 
 separably identified with the principle temporarily 
 connected with them, that martyrs have died at 
 the stake, and patriots have fallen in the field, and 
 this wisely and nobly, for the sake of the princi- 
 ple, made by the circumstances of the time to inhere 
 in them. 
 
 Now in the age of our fathers, the principle of 
 civil and religious liberty became identified with 
 forms, disciplines, and modes of worship. The zeal 
 
17 
 
 of our fathers was graduated by the importance of 
 the inhering principle. This gave elevation to that 
 zeal. This creates interest in their sufferings. This 
 entitles them to rank among patriots and martyrs, 
 who have voluntarily sacrificed themselves to the 
 cause of conscience and their country. Indignant at 
 being denied the enjoyment of the rights of con- 
 science, which were in that age identified with those 
 sensible objects, and resolute to vindicate them, they 
 quitted country and home, crossed the Atlantic, and, 
 without other auspices than their own strength and 
 their confidence in Heaven, they proceeded to lay 
 the foundation of a commonwealth, under the princi- 
 ples and by the stamina of which, their posterity 
 have established an actual and uncontroverted inde- 
 pendence, not less happy than glorious. To their 
 enthusiastic vision, all the comforts of life and all the 
 pleasures of society, were light and worthless in 
 comparison with the liberty they sought. The 
 tempestuous sea was less dreadful than the troubled 
 waves of civil discord ; the quick-sands, the un- 
 known shoals, and unexplored shores of a savage 
 coast, less fearful than the metaphysical abysses and 
 perpetually shifting whirlpools of despotic ambition 
 and ecclesiastical policy and intrigue ; the bow and 
 the tomahawk of the transatlantic barbarian, less ter- 
 rible than the flame and faggot of the civilized Euro- 
 pean. In the calm of our present peace and pros- 
 perity, it is difficult for us to realize or appreciate 
 their sorrows and sacrifices. They sought a new 
 world, lying far off in space, destitute of all the at- 
 tractions which make home and native land dear and 
 venerable. Instead of cultivated fields and, a civiliz- 
 3 
 
18 
 
 ed neighbourhood, the prospect before them present- 
 ed nothing but dreary wastes, cheerless chmates, and 
 repulsive wildernesses, possessed by wild beasts and 
 savages ; the intervening ocean unexplored and in- 
 tersected by the fleets of a hostile nation ; its usual 
 dangers multiplied to the fancy, and in fact, by ig- 
 norance of real hazards, and natural fears of such, as 
 the event proved to be imaginary. 
 
 "Pass on," exclaims one of these adventurers,* 
 " and attend, while these soldiers of faith ship for 
 this western world ; while they and their wives and 
 their little ones take an eternal leave of their country 
 and kindred. With what heart-breaking affection did 
 they press loved friends to their bosoms, whom they 
 were never to see again ! their voices broken by 
 grief, till tears streaming eased their hearts to recov- 
 ered speech again ; natural aff'ections clamorous as 
 they take a perpetual banishment from their native 
 soil ; their enterprise scorned ; their motives de- 
 rided ; and they counted but madmen and fools. 
 But time shall discover the wisdom with which they 
 were endued, and the sequel shall show how their 
 policy overtopped all the human pohcy of this world." 
 
 Winthrop, their leader and historian, in his simple 
 narrative of the voyage, exhibits them, when in 
 severe suff'erings, resigned ; in instant expectation of 
 battle, fearless ; amid storm, sickness, and death, 
 calm, confident, and undismayed. " Our trust," 
 says he, " was in the Lord of hosts." For years, 
 Winthrop, the leader of the first great enterprise, was 
 the chief magistrate of the infant metropolis. His 
 
 * Johnson in his "Wonder-Working Providences of Sion's Saviour 
 in New England," ch. 12. 
 
19 
 
 prudence guided its councils. His valor directed Its 
 strength. His life and fortune were spent in fixing 
 its character, or in improving its destinies. A bolder 
 spirit never dwelt, a truer heart never beat, in any 
 bosom. Had Boston, like Rome, a consecrated 
 calendar, there is no name better entitled than that 
 of Winthrop to be registered, as its " patron saint." 
 
 From Salem and Charlestown, the places of their 
 first landing, they ranged the bay of Massachusetts to 
 fix the head of the settlement. After much delibera- 
 tion, and not without opposition, they selected this 
 spot ; known to the natives by the name of Shawmut, 
 and to the adjoining settlers by that of Trimountain ; 
 the former indicating the abundance and sweetness 
 of its waters ; the latter, the pecuhar character of 
 its hills. 
 
 Accustomed as we are to the beauties of the place 
 and its vicinity, and in the daily perception of the 
 charms of its almost unrivalled scenery, — in the centre 
 of a natural amphitheatre, whose sloping descents the 
 riches of a laborious and intellectual cultivation 
 adorn, — where hill and vale, river and ocean, island 
 and continent, simple nature and unobtrusive art, with 
 contrasted and interchanging harmonies, form a 
 rich and gorgeous landscape, we are little able to 
 realize the almost repulsive aspect of its original 
 state. We wonder at the blindness of those, who, 
 at one time, constituted the majority, and had well 
 nigh fixed elsewhere the chief seat of the settlement. 
 Nor are we easily just to Winthrop, Johnson, and 
 their associates, whose skill and judgment selected 
 this spot, and whose firmness settled the wavering 
 minds of the multitude upon it, as the place for their 
 
20 
 
 metropolis ; a decision, which the experience of two 
 centuries has irrevocably justified, and which there 
 is no reason to apprehend that the events or opinions 
 of any century to come will reverse. 
 
 To the eyes of the first emigrants, however, where 
 now exists a dense and aggregated mass of living 
 beings and material things, amid all the accommoda- 
 tions of life, the splendors of wealth, the delights 
 of taste, and whatever can gratify the cultivated 
 intellect, there were then only a few hills, which, 
 when the ocean receded, were intersected by wide 
 marshes, and when its tide returned, appeared a 
 group of lofty islands, abruptly rising from the sur- 
 rounding waters. Thick forests concealed the 
 neighbouring hills, and the deep silence of nature 
 was broken only by the voice of the wild beast or 
 bird, and the warwhoop of the savage. 
 
 The advantages of the place were, however, clearly 
 marked by the hand of nature ; combining at once, 
 present convenience, future security, and an ample 
 basis for permanent growth and prosperity. Towards 
 the continent it possessed but a single avenue, and 
 that easily fortified. Its hills then commanded, not 
 only its own waters, but the hills of the vicinity. At 
 the bottom of a deep bay, its harbour was capable 
 of containing the proudest navy of Europe ; yet, 
 locked by islands and guarded by winding channels, 
 it presented great difficulty of access to strangers, 
 and, to the inhabitants, great facility of protection 
 against maritime invasion ; while to those acquainted 
 with its waters, it was both easy and accessible. To 
 these advantages were added goodness and plente- 
 ousness of water, and the security afforded by that 
 
21 
 
 once commanding height, now, alas ! obliterated and 
 almost forgotten, since art and industry have levelled 
 the predominating mountain of the place ; from 
 whose lofty and imposing top the beacon-fire was 
 accustomed to rally the neighbouring population, on 
 any threatened danger to the metropolis. A single 
 cottage, from which ascended the smoke of the hospit- 
 able hearth of Blackstone, who had occupied the 
 peninsula several years, was the sole civihzed mansion 
 in the solitude ; the kind master of which, at first, 
 welcomed the coming emigrants ; but soon, disliking 
 the sternness of their manners and the severity of 
 their discipline, abandoned the settlement. His rights 
 as first occupant were recognised by our ancestors ; 
 and in November, 1634, Edmund Quincy, Samuel 
 Wildbore, and others were authorized to assess a rate 
 of thirty pounds for Mr. Blackstone,* on the payment 
 of which all local rights in the peninsula became 
 vested in its inhabitants. 
 
 The same bold spirit, which thus led our ancestors 
 across the Atlantic and made them prefer a wilder- 
 ness where liberty might be enjoyed, to civilized 
 Europe where it was denied, will be found charac- 
 terizing all their institutions. Of these, the limits of 
 the time permit me to speak only in general terms. 
 The scope of their policy has been usually re- 
 garded as though it were restricted to the acquisition 
 of religious liberty in the relation of colonial depend- 
 ence. No man, however, can truly understand their 
 institutions and the policy on which they were 
 founded, without taking as the basis of all reason- 
 ings concerning them, that civil independence was as 
 
 * Winthrop, Vol. i, p. 45, note by J. Savage. 
 
22 
 
 truly their object, as religious liberty ; * — in other 
 words, that the possession of the former was, in their 
 opinion, the essential means — indispensable to the 
 secure enjoyment of the latter, which was their 
 great end. 
 
 The master-passion of our early ancestors was 
 dread of the English hierarchy. To place them- 
 selves, locally, beyond the reach of its power, they 
 resolved to emigrate. To secure themselves, after 
 their emigration, from the arm of this their ancient 
 oppressor, they devised a plan, which, as they 
 thought, would enable them to estabhsh, under a 
 nominal subjection, an actual independence. The 
 bold and original conception, which they had the 
 spirit to form and successfully to execute, was the 
 attainment and perpetuation of rehgious liberty, 
 under the auspices of a free commonwealth.! This 
 is the master-key to all their policy, — this the 
 glorious spirit which breathes in all their institutions. 
 Whatever in them is stern, exclusive, or at this day 
 seems questionable, may be accounted for, if not 
 justified, by its connexion with this great purpose. 
 
 The question has often been raised, when and by 
 whom the idea of independence of the parent state 
 was first conceived, and by whose act a settled purpose 
 to effect it was first indicated. History does not 
 permit the people of Massachusetts to make a ques- 
 tion of this kind. The honour of that thought, and of 
 as eflScient a declaration of it as in their circumstances 
 was possible, belongs to Winthrop, and Dudley, and 
 Saltonstall, and their associates, and was included 
 in the declaration, that "the only condition on 
 
 * See note B. j See note C. 
 
23 
 
 WHICH THEY WITH THEIR FAMILIES WOULD REMOVE 
 TO THIS COUNTRY, WAS, THAT THE PATENT AND 
 CHARTER SHOULD REMOVE WITH THEM." * 
 
 This simple declaration and resolve included, as 
 they had the sagacity to perceive, all the conse- 
 quences of an effectual independence, under a nom- 
 inal subjection. For protection against foreign pow- 
 ers, a charter from the parent state Avas necessary. 
 Its transfer to New England vested, effectually, in- 
 dependence. Those wise leaders foresaw,! that, 
 among the troubles in Europe, incident to the age, 
 and then obviously impending over their parent state, 
 their settlement, from its distance and early insignifi- 
 cance, would probably escape notice. They trusted 
 to events, and doubtless anticipated, that, with its 
 increasing strength, even nominal subjection would 
 be abrogated. They knew that weakness was the 
 law of nature, in the relation between parent states 
 and their distant and detached colonies. Nothing 
 else can be inferred, not only from their making 
 the transfer of the charter the essential condition of 
 their emigration, thereby severing themselves from 
 all responsibility to persons abroad, but also from 
 their instant and undeviating course of policy after 
 their emigration ; in boldly assuming whatever pow- 
 ers were necessary to their condition, or suitable to 
 their ends, whether attributes of sovereignty or not, 
 without regard to the nature of the consequences 
 resulting from the exercise of those powers. Nor 
 was this assumption limited to powers which might 
 be deduced from the charter, but was extended to 
 
 * See Note D. f See Note E. 
 
24 
 
 such as no act of incorporation, like that which they 
 possessed, could, by any possibility of legal construc- 
 tion, be deemed to include. By the magic of their 
 daring, a private act of incorporation was transmuted 
 into a civil constitution of state ; under the authority of 
 which they made peace and declared war ; erected 
 judicatures ; coined money ; raised armies ; built 
 fleets ; laid taxes and imposts ; inflicted fines, penal- 
 ties, and death ; and, in imitation of the British con- 
 stitution, by the consent of afl its own branches, with- 
 out asking leave of any other, their legislature modi- 
 fied its own powers and relations, prescribed the qual- 
 ifications of those who should conduct its authority, 
 and enjoy, or be excluded from its privileges. The 
 administration of the civil aff'airs of Massachusetts, 
 for the sixty years next succeeding the settlement of 
 this metropolis, was a phenomenon in the history of 
 civil government. Under a theoretic colonial rela- 
 tion, an efficient and independent Commonwealth 
 was erected, claiming and exercising attributes of 
 sovereignty, higher and far more extensive than, 
 at the present day, in consequence of its con- 
 nexion with the general government, Massachusetts 
 pretends either to exercise or possess. Well might 
 Chalmers assert, as in his Political Annals of the 
 Colonies he does, that " Massachusetts, with a pe- 
 culiar dexterity, abohshed her charter ; " * that she 
 was always " fruitful in projects of independence, 
 the principles of which, at all times, governed her 
 actions." f In this point of view, it is glory enough 
 for our early ancestors, that, under manifold dis- 
 
 * Vol. I. p. 200. t Vol. I. pp. 158 and 177, 
 
25 
 
 advantages, in the midst of internal discontent and 
 external violence and intrigue, of wars with the sav- 
 ages and with the neighbouring colonies of France, 
 they effected their purpose, and for two generations 
 of men, from 1630 to 1692, enjoyed liberty of con- 
 science, according to their view of that subject, un- 
 der the auspices of a free commonwealth. 
 
 The three objects, which our ancestors proposed 
 to attain and perpetuate by all their institutions, were 
 the noblest within the grasp of the human mind, and 
 those, on which, more than on any other, depend hu- 
 man happiness and hope ; — religious liberty, — civil 
 liberty, — and, as essential to the attainment and 
 maintenance of both, intellectual power. 
 
 On the subject of religious liberty, their intolerance 
 of other sects has been reprobated as an inconsistency, 
 and as violating the very rights of conscience for which 
 they emigrated. The inconsistency, if it exist, is al- 
 together constructive, and the charge proceeds on a 
 false assumption. The necessity of the policy,* con- 
 sidered in connexion with their great design of inde- 
 pendence, is apparent. They had abandoned house 
 and home, had sacrificed the comforts of kindred and 
 cultivated life, had dared the dangers of the sea, and 
 were then braving the still more appalling terrors 
 of the wilderness ; for what ? — to acquire hberty 
 for all sorts of consciences ? Not so ; but to vindi- 
 cate and maintain the liberty of their own con- 
 sciences. They did not cross the Atlantic, on a 
 crusade, in behalf of the rights of mankind in gene- 
 ral, but in support of their own rights and liberties. 
 
 * See Note F. 
 4 
 
26 
 
 Tolerate ! Tolerate whom ? The legate of the Ro- 
 man Pontiff, or the emissary of Charles the First and 
 Archbishop Laud ? How consummate would have 
 been their folly and madness, to have fled into the 
 wilderness to escape the horrible persecutions of 
 those hierarchies, and at once have admitted into 
 the bosom of their society, men brandishing, and 
 ready to apply, the very flames and fetters from 
 which they had fled ! Those who are disposed to 
 condemn them on this account, neither realize the 
 necessities of their condition, nor the prevaiUng 
 character of the times. Under the stern discipline 
 of Elizabeth and James, the stupid bigotry of the 
 First Charles, and the spiritual pride of Archbishop 
 Laud, the spirit of the English hierarchy was very 
 different from that which it assumed, when, af- 
 ter having been tamed and humanized under the 
 wholesome discipUne of Cromwell and his common- 
 wealth, it yielded itself to the mild influence of the 
 principles of 1688, and to the liberal spirit of Til- 
 lotson. 
 
 But it is said, if they did not tolerate their an- 
 cient persecutors, they might, at least, have tole- 
 rated rival sects. That is, they ought to have tole- 
 rated sects, imbued with the same principles of in- 
 tolerance as the transatlantic hierarchies ; sects, whose 
 first use of power would have been to endeavour to 
 uproot the liberty of our fathers, and persecute 
 them, according to the known principles of sectarian 
 action, with a virulence in the inverse rado of their 
 reciprocal likeness and proximity. Those, who thus 
 reason and thus condemn, have considered but very 
 superficially the nature of the human mind and its 
 actual condition in the time of our ancestors. 
 
27 
 
 The great doctrine, now so universally recognised, 
 that liberty of conscience is the right of the individ- 
 ual, — a concern between every man and his Maker, 
 with which the civil magistrate is not authorized to 
 interfere, was scarcely, in their day, known, except 
 in private theory and solitary speculation ; as a prac- 
 tical truth, to be acted upon by the civil power, it 
 was absolutely and universally rejected by all men, 
 all parties, and all sects, as totally subversive, not 
 only of the peace of the church, but of the peace of 
 society.* That great truth, now deemed so simple 
 and plain, was so far from being an easy discovery of 
 the human intellect, that it may be doubted whether 
 it would ever have been discovered by human rea- 
 son at all, had it not been for the miseries in which 
 man was involved in consequence of his ignorance of 
 it. That truth was not evolved by the calm exer- 
 tion of the human faculties, but was stricken out by 
 the collision of the human passions. It was not the 
 result of philosophic research, but was a hard 
 lesson, taught under the lash of a severe disci- 
 pline, provided for the gradual instruction of a being 
 like man, not easily brought into subjection to vir- 
 tue, and with natural propensities to pride, ambition, 
 avarice, and selfishness. Previously to that time, in 
 all modifications of society, ancient or modern, re- 
 ligion had been seen only in close connexion with 
 the state. It was the universal instrument by which 
 worldly ambition shaped and moulded the multitude 
 to its ends. To have attempted the estabhshment 
 of a state on the basis of a perfect freedom of re- 
 
 * Hume's History of England, Vol. vi. p. 168. 
 
28 
 
 ligious opinion, and the perfect right of every man to 
 express his opinion, would then have been consid- 
 ered as much a solecism, and an experiment quite 
 as wild and visionary, as it would be, at this day, to 
 attempt the establishment of a state on the principle 
 of a perfect hberty of individual action, and the per- 
 fect right of every man to conduct himself according 
 to his private will. Had our early ancestors adopted 
 the course we, at this day, are apt to deem so easy 
 and obvious, and placed their government on the ba- 
 sis of liberty for all sorts of consciences, it would 
 have been, in that age, a certain introducdon of an- 
 archy. It cannot be questioned, that all the fond 
 hopes they had cherished from emigration would 
 have been lost. The agents of Charles and James 
 would have planted here the standard of the transat- 
 lantic monarchy and hierarchy. Divided and broken, 
 without practical energy, subject to court-influences 
 and court-favorites. New England at this day would 
 have been a colony of the parent state,* her charac- 
 ter yet to be formed and her independence yet to 
 be vindicated. 
 
 The non-toleration, which characterized our early 
 ancestors, from whatever source it may have originat- 
 ed, had undoubtedly the effect they intended and wish- 
 ed. It excluded from influence in their infant set- 
 tlement all the friends and adherents of the ancient 
 monarchy and hierarchy ; all who, from any motive, 
 ecclesiastical or civil, were disposed to disturb their 
 peace or their churches. They considered it a meas- 
 ure of " self-defence.'" And it is unquestionable, that 
 
 * See Note G. 
 
29 
 
 it was chiefly instrumental in forming the homogene- 
 ous and exclusively republican character, for which 
 the people of New-England have, in all times, been 
 distinguished ; and, above all, that it fixed irrevocably 
 in the country that noble security for religious liber- 
 ty, the mdependc7it system of church government. 
 
 The principle of the independence of the churches, 
 including the right of every individual to unite with 
 what church he pleases, under whatever sectarian 
 auspices it may have been fostered, has, through the 
 influence of time and experience, lost altogether its 
 exclusive character. It has become the universal 
 guarantee of rehgious liberty to all sects without dis- 
 crimination, and is as much the protector of the Ro- 
 man Cathohc, the Episcopahan, and the Presbyterian, 
 as of the Independent form of worship. The secu- 
 rity, which results from this principle, does not de- 
 pend upon charters and constitutions, but on what is 
 stronger than either, the nature of the principle in 
 connexion with the nature of man. So long as this 
 intellectual, moral, and religious being, man, is con- 
 stituted as he is, the unrestricted liberty of associat- 
 ing for public worship, and the independence of 
 those associations of external control, will necessari- 
 ly lead to a most happy number and variety of them. 
 In the principle of the independence of each, the 
 liberty of individual conscience is safe under the pan- 
 oply of the common interest of all. No other per- 
 fect security for liberty of conscience was ever de- 
 vised by man, except this independence of the 
 churches. This possessed, liberty of conscience 
 has no danger. This denied, it has no safety. 
 There can be no greater human security than com- 
 
30 
 
 mon right, placed under the protection of common 
 interest. 
 
 It is the excellence and beauty of this simple prin- 
 ciple, that, while it secures all, it restricts none. 
 They, who delight in lofty and splendid monuments 
 of ecclesiastical architecture, may raise the pyramid 
 of church power, with its aspiring steps and grada- 
 tions, until it terminate in the despotism of one, or a 
 few ; the humble dwellers at the base of the proud 
 edifice may wonder, and admire the ingenuity of the 
 contrivance and the splendor of its massive dimen- 
 sions, but it is without envy and without fear. Safe 
 in the principle of independence, they worship, be 
 it in tent, or tabernacle, or in the open air, as secure- 
 ly as though standing on the topmost pinnacle of the 
 loftiest fabric ambition ever devised. 
 
 The glory of discovering and putting this principle 
 to the test, on a scale capable of trying its efficacy, be- 
 longs to the fathers of Massachusetts,*' who are enti- 
 tled to a full share of that acknowledgment made by 
 Hume, when he asserts, " that for all the liberty of 
 the English constitution that nation is indebted to 
 the Puritans." 
 
 The glory of our ancestors radiates from no point 
 more strongly than from their institutions of learning. 
 The people of New England are the first known to 
 history, who provided, in the original constitution of 
 their society, for the education of the whole popu- 
 lation out of the general fund. In other countries, 
 provisions have been made of this character in favor 
 of certain particular classes, or for the poor by way 
 
 * Neal's History of the Puritans. Vol. i. p. 438 and 490. 
 
31 
 
 of charity. But here first were the children of the 
 whole community invested with the right of being 
 educated at the expense of the whole society ; and 
 not only this, — the obligation to take advantage of 
 that right was enforced by severe supervision and 
 penalties. By simple laws they founded their 
 commonwealth on the only basis on which a re- 
 public has any hope of happiness or continuance, 
 the general information of the people. They de- 
 nominated it "barbarism" not to be able "perfectly 
 to read the English tongue and to know the general 
 laws." * In sohciting a general contribution for the 
 support of the neighbouring University, they declare 
 that " skill in the tongues and liberal arts, is not only 
 laudable, but necessary for the ivell-being of the com- 
 monwealth." f And in requiring every town, having 
 one hundred house-holders, to set up a Grammar 
 School, provided with a master able to fit youth for 
 the University, the object avowed is, "to enable men 
 to obtain a knowledge of the Scriptures, and by ac- 
 quaintance with the ancient tongues to qualify them 
 to discern the true sense and meaning of the origin- 
 al, however corrupted by false glosses." Thus lib- 
 eral and thus elevated, in respect of learning, were 
 the views of our ancestors. 
 
 To the same master-passion, dread of the English 
 hierarchy, and the same main purpose, civil inde- 
 pendence, may be attributed, in a great degree, the 
 nature of the government which the principal civil and 
 spiritual influences of the time estabhshed, and, not- 
 withstanding its many objectionable features, the 
 willing submission to it of the people. 
 
 * Old Colony Laws, p. 2G. 
 
 t Records of the Colony, p. 117. lOtli Oct. 1652. 
 
32 
 
 It cannot be questioned that the constitution of the 
 state, as sketched in the first laws of our ancestors, 
 was a skilful combination of both civil and ecclesias- 
 tical powers. Church and state were very curiously 
 and efficiently interwoven with each other. It is 
 usual to attribute to religious bigotry the submission 
 of the mass of the people to a system thus stern and 
 exclusive. It may however, with quite as much 
 justice, be resolved into love of independence and 
 pohtical sagacity. 
 
 The great body of the first emigrants doubdess co- 
 incided in general rehgious views with those whose in- 
 fluence predominated in their church and state. They 
 had consequently no personal objection to the stern 
 discipline their political system established. They 
 had also the sagacity to foresee that a system, which 
 by its rigor should exclude from power all who did 
 not concur wnth their rehgious views, would have 
 a direct tendency to deter those in other countries 
 from emigrating to their settlement, who did not 
 agree with the general plan of policy they had 
 adopted, and of consequence to increase the probabili- 
 ty of their escape from the interference of their an- 
 cient oppressors, and the chance of success in laying 
 the foundation of the free commonwealth they con- 
 templated. They also doubtless perceived, that 
 with the unqualified possession of the elective fran- 
 chise, they had little reason to apprehend that they 
 could not easily control or annihilate any ill effect 
 upon their political system, arising from the union of 
 church and state, should it become insupportable. 
 
 There is abundant evidence that the submission of 
 the people to this new form of church and state com- 
 
33 
 
 bination was not owing to ignorance, or to indiffer- 
 ence to the true principles of civil and religious lib- 
 erty. Notwithstanding the strong attachment of the 
 early emigrants to their civil, and their almost blind 
 devotion to their ecclesiastical leaders, when, pre- 
 suming on their influence, either attempted any thing 
 inconsistent with general hberty, a corrective is seen 
 almost immediately applied by the spirit and in- 
 telligence of the people. 
 
 In this respect, the character of the people of 
 Boston has been at all times distinguished. In every 
 period of our history, they have been second to none 
 in quickness to discern or in readiness to meet 
 every exigency, fearlessly hazarding life and for- 
 tune in support of the liberties of the commonwealth. 
 It would be easy to maintain these positions by a re- 
 currence to the annals of each successive age, and 
 particularly to facts connected with our revoludonary 
 struggle. A few instances only will be noticed, and 
 those selected from the earhest times. 
 
 A natural jealousy soon sprung up in the me- 
 tropolis as to the intentions of their civil and ec- 
 clesiastical leaders.* In 1634 the people began to 
 fear, lest, by re-electing Winthrop, they " should 
 make way for a Governor for life." They accord- 
 ingly gave some indications of a design to elect an- 
 other person. Upon which John Cotton, their great 
 ecclesiastical head, then at the height of his popu- 
 larity, preached a discourse to the General Court, 
 and delivered this doctrine ; " that a magistrate ought 
 not to be turned out, without just cause, no more 
 than a magistrate might turn out a private man from 
 
 " Winthrop, Vol. i. p. 299. 
 
34 
 
 his freehold, without trial." * To show their dislike 
 of the doctrine by the most practical of evidences, 
 our ancestors gave the political divine and his ad- 
 herents a succession of lessons, for which they were 
 probably the wiser all the rest of their lives. They 
 turned out Winthrop at the very same election, and 
 put in Dudley. The year after, they turned out 
 Dudley and put in Haynes. The year after, they 
 turned out Haynes and put in Vane. So much for the 
 first broaching, in Boston, of the doctrine that public 
 office is of the nature of freehold. 
 
 In 1635, an attempt was made by the General Court, 
 to elect a certain number of magistrates as coun- 
 sellors/or life.j Although Cotton was the author also 
 of this project, and notwithstanding his influence, yet 
 such was the spirit displayed by our ancestors on the 
 occasion, that within three years the General Court | 
 was compelled to pass a vote, denying any such in- 
 tent, and declaring that the persons so chosen 
 should not be accounted magistrates or have any au- 
 thority in consequence of such election. 
 
 In 1636, the great Antinomian controversy divided 
 the country. Boston was for the covenant of grace ; 
 the General Court, for the covenant of w^orks. Under 
 pretence of the apprehension of a riot, the General 
 Court adjourned to Newtown, and expelled the Boston 
 deputies for daring to remonstrate. Boston, in- 
 dignant at this infringement of its liberties, was 
 about electing the same deputies a second time. At 
 the earnest solicitation of Cotton, however, they 
 chose others. One of these was also expelled by 
 
 * Wiathrop, Vol. i. p. 133. f Ibid. p. 186. I Ibid. p. 302. 
 
35 
 
 the Court ; and a writ having issued to the town 
 ordering a new election, they refused making any re- 
 turn to the warrant, — a contempt which the General 
 Court did not think it wise to resent. 
 
 In 1639, there being vacancies in the board of as- 
 sistants, the Governor and magistrates met and nomi- 
 nated three persons, " not with intent," as they said, 
 " to lead the people's choice of these, nor to divert 
 them from any other, but only to propound for con- 
 sideration (which any freeman may do), and so 
 leave the people to use their liberties according to 
 their consciences." The result was, that the peo- 
 ple did use their liberties according to their con- 
 sciences. They chose not a man of them.* So 
 much for the first legislative caucus in our history. 
 It probably would have been happy for their posteri- 
 ty, if the people had always treated like nominations 
 with as little ceremony. 
 
 About this time also the General Court took ex- 
 ception at the length of the '^lectures,^^ then the great 
 delight of the people, and at the ill effects resulting 
 from their frequency ; whereby poor people were led 
 greatly to neglect their affairs; to the great hazard al- 
 so of their health, owing to their long continuance in 
 the night. Boston expressed strong dislike f at this in- 
 terference, " fearing that the precedent might enthrall 
 them to the civil power, and, besides, be a blemish up- 
 on them with their posterity, as though they needed to 
 be regulated by the civil magistrate, and raise an ill- 
 savour of their coldness, as if it were possible for the 
 people of Boston to complain of too much preaching." 
 
 '' Ibid. Vol. II. p. 343. f Ibid. Vol. i. p. 325. 
 
36 
 
 The magistrates, fearful lest the people should 
 break their bonds, were content to apologize, to 
 abandon the scheme of shortening lectures or dimin- 
 ishing their number, and to rest satisfied with a gen- 
 eral understanding that assemblies should break up 
 in such season, as that people, dweUing a mile or two 
 off, might get home by dayhght. Winthrop, on this 
 occasion, passes the following eulogium on the peo- 
 ple of Boston, which every period of their history 
 amply confirms ; — "They were generally of that un- 
 derstanding and moderation, as that they would be 
 easily guided in their way by any rule from Scrip- 
 ture or sound reason." 
 
 It is curious and instructive to trace the principles 
 of our constitution, as they were successively sug- 
 gested by circumstances, and gradually gained by the 
 intelligence and daring spirit of the people. For the 
 first four years after their emigration, the freemen, 
 like other corporations, met and transacted business 
 in a body. At this time the people attained a repre- 
 sentation under the name of deputies, who sat in the 
 same room with the magistrates, to whose negative 
 all their proceedings were subjected. Next arose 
 the struggle about the negative, which lasted for ten 
 years, and eventuated in the separation of the Gen- 
 eral Court into two branches, with each a negative on 
 the other.* Then came the jealousy of the deputies 
 concerning the magistrates, f as proceeding too much 
 by their discretion for want of positive laws, and the 
 demand by the deputies that persons should be ap- 
 pointed to frame a body of fundamental laws in re- 
 semblance of the English Magna Charta. 
 
 • Winthrop, Vol. i. p. 160. ] Ibid. p. 322. 
 
37 
 
 After this occurred the controversy * relative to 
 the powers of the magistrates, during the recess of 
 the General Court ; concerning which when the 
 deputies found that no compromise could be made, 
 and the magistrates declared that, "if occasion 
 required, they should act according to the power and 
 trust committed to them," the speaker of the house 
 in his place replied, — "Then, gentlemen, you 
 
 WILL NOT BE OBEYED." 
 
 In every period of our early history, the friends of 
 the ancient hierarchy and monarchy were assiduous 
 in their endeavours to introduce a form of govern- 
 ment on the principle of an efficient colonial relation. 
 Our ancestors were no less vigilant to avail them- 
 selves of their local situation and of the difficulties of 
 the parent state to defeat those attempts ; — or, in 
 their language, " to avoid and protract." They lived, 
 however, under a perpetual apprehension, that a royal 
 governor would be imposed upon them by the law of 
 force. Their resolution never faltered on the point 
 of resistance, to the extent of their power. Notwith- 
 standing Boston would have been the scene of the 
 struggle, and the first victim to it, yet its inhabitants 
 never shrunk from their duty through fear of danger, 
 and were always among the foremost to prepare for 
 every exigency. Castle Island was fortified chiefly, 
 and the battery at the north end of the town, and 
 that called the " Sconce," wholly, by the voluntary 
 contributions of its inhabitants. After the restora- 
 tion of Charles the Second, their instructions to their 
 representatives in the General Court, breathe one 
 
 * Ibid. Vol. II. p. 169. 
 
38 
 
 uniform spirit, — "not to recede from their just 
 rights and privileges as secured by the patent." 
 When, in 1662, the king's Commissioners came to 
 Boston, the inhabitants, to show their spirit in sup- 
 port of their own laws, took measures to have them 
 all arrested for a breach of the Saturday evening law ; 
 and actually brought them before the magistrate for 
 riotous and abusive carriage. When Randolph, in 
 1684, came with his quo warranto against their char- 
 ter, on the question being taken in town meeting, 
 " whether the freemen were minded that the Gen- 
 eral Court should make full submission and entire 
 resignation of their charter, and of the privileges 
 therein granted, to his Majesty's pleasure," — Boston 
 resolved in the negative, ivithout a dissentient. 
 
 In 1689, the tyranny of Andros, the Governor ap- 
 pointed by James the Second, having become insup- 
 portable to the whole country, Boston rose, like one 
 man ; took the battery on Fort Hill by assault in open 
 day; made prisoners of the king's Governor, and 
 the Captain of the king's frigate, then lying in the 
 harbour; and restored, with the concurrence of the 
 country, the authority of the old charter leaders. 
 
 By accepting the charter of William and Mary, in 
 1692, the people of Massachusetts first yielded their 
 claims of independence to the crown. It is only 
 requisite to read the official account of the agents of 
 the colony, to perceive both the resistance they 
 made to that charter, and the necessity which 
 compelled their acceptance of it.* Those agents 
 
 *See "A brief Account concerning the Agents of New England, 
 and their Negotiation with the Court of England. By Increase 
 Mather." London. 1691. 
 
39 
 
 were told by the king's ministers, that they " must 
 take that or none; — that "their consent to it was 
 not asked," — that if "they would not submit to the 
 king's pleasure they must take what would follow." 
 " The opinion of our lawyers," say the agents, " was, 
 that a passive submission to the new, was not a 
 surrender of the old charter ; and that their taking 
 up with this did not make the people of Massachu- 
 setts, in law, uncapable of obtaining all their old 
 privileges, ichenever a favorable opportunity should 
 present itself.'^ In the year 1776, nearly a century 
 afterwards, that " favorable opportunity did present 
 itself," and the people of Massachusetts, in conformity 
 with the opinion of their learned counsel and faithful 
 agents, did vindicate and obtain all their " old 
 privileges " of self-government. 
 
 Under the new colonial government, thus authori- 
 tatively imposed upon them, arose new parties and 
 new struggles ; — prerogative men, earnest for a 
 permanent salary for the king's governor; — patriots, 
 resisting such an establishment, and indignant at the 
 negative exercised by that officer. 
 
 At the end of the first century after the settlement, 
 three generations of men had passed away. For 
 vigor, boldness, enterprise, and a self-sacrificing 
 spirit, Massachusetts stood unrivalled.* She had 
 added wealth and extensive dominion to the Engfish 
 crown. She had turned a barren wilderness into a 
 cultivated field, and instead of barbarous tribes had 
 planted civilized communities. She had prevented 
 France from taking possession of the whole of North 
 
 * See " A Defence of the New England Charters by Jeremiah 
 Dummer," printed in 1721. 
 
40 
 
 America; conquered Port Royal and Acadia and 
 attempted the conquest of Canada with a fleet of 
 thirty-two sail and two thousand men. At one time 
 a fifth of her whole effective male population was 
 in arms. When Nevis was plundered by Iberville, 
 she voluntarily transmitted two thousand pounds 
 sterling for the relief of the inhabitants of that island. 
 By these exertions her resources were exhausted, 
 her treasury was impoverished, and she stood bereft, 
 and " alone with her glory." 
 
 Boston shared in the embarrassments of the com- 
 monwealth. Her commerce was crippled by severe 
 revenue laws, and by a depreciated currency. Her 
 population did not exceed fifteen thousand. In 
 September, 1730, she was prevented from all notice 
 of this anniversary by the desolations of the small- 
 pox. 
 
 Notwithstanding the darkness of these clouds, 
 which overhung Massachusetts and its metropolis at 
 the close of the first century, in other aspects the 
 dawn of a brighter day may be discerned. The ex- 
 clusive policy in matters of religion, to which the state 
 had been subjected, began gradually to give place to a 
 more perfect liberty. Literature was exchanging sub- 
 tile metaphysics, quaint conceits, and unwieldy lore, 
 for inartificial reasoning, simple taste, and natural 
 thought. Dummer defended the colony in language 
 polished in the society of Pope and of Bolingbroke. 
 Coleman, Cooper, Chauncy, Bowdoin, and others of 
 that constellation, were on the horizon. By their 
 side shone the star of Franklin ; its early brightness 
 giving promise of its meridian splendors^ Even now 
 began to appear signs of revolution. Voices of 
 
41 
 
 complaint and murmur were heard in the air. " Spir- 
 its finely touched and to fine issues," — Avilling and 
 fearless, — breathing unutterable things, flashed along 
 the darkness. In the sky were seen streaming lights, 
 indicating the approach of luminaries yet below the 
 horizon ; Adams, Hancock, Otis, Warren ; leaders 
 of a glorious host; — precursors of eventful times; 
 " with fear of change perplexing monarchs." 
 
 It would be appropriate, did time permit, to 
 speak of these luminaries, in connexion with our 
 revolution ; to trace the principles, which dictated 
 the first emigration of the founders of this me- 
 tropohs, through the several stages of their devel- 
 opement ; and to show that the declaration of inde- 
 pendence, in 1776, itself, and all the struggles which 
 preceded it, and all the voluntary sacrifices, the self- 
 devotion, and the sufferings, to which the people of 
 that day submitted, for the attainment of indepen- 
 dence, were, so far as respects Massachusetts, but 
 the natural and inevitable consequences of the terms 
 of that noble engagement, made by our ancestors, in 
 August, 1 629, the year before their emigration ; — 
 which may well be denominated, from its early and 
 later results, the first and original declaration of 
 independence by Massachusetts. 
 
 " By God^s assistance, we will be ready in our per- 
 sons, and uiith such of our families as are to go with 
 us, to embark for the said plantation by the first of 
 March next, to pass the seas (under God''s protection) 
 to inhabit and continue in JYew England. Provided 
 always, that before the last of September 7iext, the 
 
 WHOLE GOVERNMENT, TOGETHER WITH THE PATENT, 
 
 BE FIRST LEGALLY TRANSFERRED AND ESTABLISHED, 
 6 
 
4^ 
 
 TO REMAIN WITH US AND OTHERS, WHICH SHALL 
 
 INHABIT THE SAID PLANTATION." * — Generous reso- 
 lution ! Noble foresight ! Sublime self-devotion ; 
 chastened and directed by a wisdom, faithful and 
 prospective of distant consequences ! Well may we 
 exclaim — " This policy overtopped all the policy of 
 this world." 
 
 For the advancement of the three great objects 
 which were the scope of the pohcy of our ances- 
 tors, — intellectual power, religious liberty, and civil 
 liberty, — Boston has in no period been surpassed, 
 either in readiness to incur, or in energy to make use- 
 ful, personal or pecuniary sacrifices. She provided for 
 the education of her citizens out of the general fund, 
 antecedently to the law of the Commonwealth making 
 such provision imperative. Nor can it be questioned, 
 that her example and influence had a decisive effect 
 in producing that law. An intelligent generosity 
 has been conspicuous among her inhabitants on 
 this subject, from the day when, in 1635, they 
 " entreated our brother Philemon Pormont to be- 
 come schoolmaster, for the teaching and nurturing 
 children with us," to this hour, when what is equiva- 
 lent to a capital of two hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand dollars is invested in school-houses, eighty 
 
 * See " A true coppie of the agreement at Cambridge, 1629," in 
 Hutchinson's " Collection of Original Papers relative to the History of 
 the Colony of Massachusetts Bay," page 25, signed by 
 
 Richard SaltonstaU, Isaac Johnson, 
 Thomas Dudley, John Humfrey, 
 
 William Vassal, Thomas Sharp, 
 
 Nicko : West, Increase Nowell, 
 
 John Winthrop, William Pynchon, 
 
 Kellam Browne, William Colbron. 
 
43 
 
 schools are maintained, and seven thousand and five 
 hundred children educated at an expense exceeding 
 annually sixty-five thousand dollars. No city in 
 the world, in proportion to its means and population, 
 ever gave more uniform and unequivocal evidences 
 of its desire to diffuse intellectual power and moral 
 culture though the whole mass of the communi- 
 ty. The result is every day witnessed, at home 
 and abroad, in private intercourse and in the public 
 assembly ; in a quiet and orderly demeanor, in the self- 
 respect and mutual harmony prevalent among its citi- 
 zens ; in the general comfort which characterizes 
 their condition ; in their submission to the laws ; and 
 in that wonderful capacity for self-government which 
 postponed for almost two centuries, a city organiza- 
 tion ; — and this, even then, was adopted more with 
 reference to anticipated, than from experience of 
 existing evils. During the whole of that period, and 
 even after its population exceeded fifty thousand, its 
 financial, economical, and municipal interests were 
 managed, either by general vote, or by men appoint- 
 ed by the whole multitude ; and with a regularity, 
 wisdom, and success, which it will be happy if future 
 administrations shall equal, and which certainly they 
 will find it difficult to exceed. 
 
 The influence of the institutions of our fathers is 
 also apparent in that munificence towards objects of 
 public interest or charity, for which, in every period 
 of its history, the citizens of Boston have been dis- 
 tinguished, and which, by universal consent, is re- 
 cognised to be a prominent feature in their character. 
 To no city has Boston ever been second in its spirit 
 of liberahty. From the first settlement of the 
 
44 
 
 country to this day, it has been a point to which 
 have tended applications for assistance or rehef, on 
 account of suffering or misfortune ; for the patronage 
 of colleges, the endowment of schools, the erection of 
 churches, and the spreading of learning and religion, — 
 from almost every section of the United States. Sel- 
 dom have the hopes of any worthy applicant been dis- 
 appointed. The benevolent and public spirit of its 
 inhabitants is also evidenced by its hospitals, its asy- 
 lums, public libraries, almshouses, charitable associa- 
 tions, — in its patronage of the neighbouring Univer- 
 sity, and in its subscriptions for general charities. 
 
 It is obviously impracticable to give any just idea 
 of the amount of these charities. They flow from 
 virtues which seek the shade and shun record. They 
 are silent and secret out-wellings of grateful hearts, 
 desirous unostentatiously to acknowledge the bounty 
 of Heaven in their prosperity and abundance. The 
 result of inquiries, necessarily imperfect, however, au- 
 thorize the statement, that, in the records of societies 
 having for their objects either learning or some pub- 
 lic charity, or in documents in the hands of individ- 
 uals relative to contributions for the relief of suffer- 
 ing, or the patronage of distinguished merit or talent, 
 there exists evidence of the liberality of the citizens of 
 this metropolis, and that chiefly within the last thirty 
 years, of an amount, by voluntary donation or bequest, 
 exceeding one milHon and eight hundred thousand 
 dollars.* Far short as this sum falls of the real amount 
 obtained within that period from the liberahty of our 
 citizens, it is yet enough to make evident, that the 
 
 * See Note H. 
 
45 
 
 best spirit of the institutions of our ancestors survives 
 in the hearts, and is exhibited in the hves, of the 
 citizens of Boston ; inspiring love of country and du- 
 ty ; stimulating to the active virtues of benevolence 
 and charity ; exciting wealth and power to their best 
 exercises ; counteracting what is selfish in our na- 
 ture ; and elevating the moral and social virtues to 
 wise sacrifices and noble energies. 
 
 With respect to religious liberty, where does it 
 exist in a more perfect state, than in this metropo- 
 hs ? Or where has it ever been enjoyed in a purer 
 spirit, or with happier consequences ? In what city 
 of equal population are all classes of society more 
 distinguished for obedience to the institutions of re- 
 hgion, for regular attendance on its worship, for more 
 happy intercourse with its ministers, or more uni- 
 formly honorable support of them ? In all struggles 
 connected with religious liberty, and these are in- 
 separable from its possession, it may be said of the 
 inhabitants of this city, as truly as of any similar as- 
 sociation of men, that they have ever maintained the 
 freedom of the Gospel in the spirit of Christianity. 
 Divided into various sects, their mutual intercourse 
 has, almost without exception, been harmonious and 
 respectful. The labors of intemperate zealots, with 
 which, occasionally, every age has been troubled, have 
 seldom, in this metropolis, been attended with their 
 natural and usual consequences. Its sects have nev- 
 er been made to fear or hate one another. The ge- 
 nius of its inhabitants, through the influence of the 
 intellectual power which pervades their mass, has 
 ever been quick to detect " close ambition varnished 
 o'er with zeal." The modes, the forms, the disci- 
 
46 
 
 pline, the opinions, which our ancestors held to be 
 essential, have, in many respects, been changed or 
 obhterated with the progress of time, or been coun- 
 tervailed or superseded by rival forms and opinions. 
 But veneration for the sacred Scriptures and attach- 
 ment to the right of free inquiry, which were the sub- 
 stantial motives of their emigration and of all their in- 
 stitutions, remain, and are maintained in a Christian 
 spirit, (judging by hfe and language) certainly not ex- 
 ceeded in the times of any of our ancestors. The right 
 to read those Scriptures is universally recognised. 
 The means to acquire the possession and to attain the 
 knowledge of them are multiphed by the intelligence 
 and liberality of the age, and extended to every class 
 of society. All men are invited to search for them- 
 selves concerning the grounds of their hopes of future 
 happiness and acceptance. All are permitted to 
 hear from the lips of our Saviour himself, that " the 
 meek," " the merciful," " the pure in heart," " the 
 persecuted for righteousness' sake," are those who 
 shall receive the blessing, and be admitted to the 
 presence, of the Eternal Father ; and to be assured 
 from those sacred records, that, " in every nation, he 
 who feareth God and worketh righteousness is ac- 
 cepted of him." Elevated by the power of these 
 sublime assurances, as conformable to reason as to 
 revelation, man's intellectual principle rises " above 
 the smoke and stir of this dim spot," and, hke an 
 eagle soaring above the Andes, looks down on the 
 cloudy cliffs, the narrow, separating points, and fla- 
 ming craters, which divide and terrify men below. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary, on this occasion, to speak 
 of civil liberty, or tell of our constitutions of govern- 
 
47 
 
 ment ; of the freedom they maintain and are calculated 
 to preserve ; of the equahty they establish ; the self- 
 respect they encourage ; the private and domestic vir- 
 tues they cherish ; the love of country they inspire ; 
 the self-devotion and self-sacrifice they enjoin ; — 
 all these are but the filling up of the great out- 
 hne sketched by our fathers, the parts in which, 
 through the darkness and perversity of their times, 
 they were defective, being corrected ; all are but en- 
 deavours, conformed to their great, original concep- 
 tion, to group together the strength of society and the 
 religious and civil rights of the individual, in a Hving 
 and breathing spirit of eflficient power, by forms 
 of civil government, adapted to our condition, and 
 adjusted to social relations of unexampled greatness 
 and extent, unparalleled in their results, and connect- 
 ed by principles elevated as the nature of man, and 
 immortal as his destinies. 
 
 It is not, however, from local position, nor from 
 general circumstances of life and fortune, that the 
 pecuhar fehcity of this metropolis is to be deduced. 
 Her enviable distinction is, that she is among the 
 chiefest of that happy New England family, which 
 claims descent from the early emigrants. If we take 
 a survey of that family, and, excluding from our view 
 the unnumbered multitudes of its members who have 
 occupied the vacant wildernesses of other states, we 
 restrict our thoughts to the local sphere of New 
 England, what scenes open upon our sight ! How 
 wild and visionary would seem our prospects, did 
 we indulge only natural anticipations of the fu- 
 ture ! Already, on an area of seventy thousand 
 square miles, a population of two millions ; all, but 
 
48 
 
 comparatively a few, descendants of the early emi- 
 grants ! Six independent Commonwealths, with con- 
 stitutions varying in the relations and proportions of 
 power, yet uniform in all their general principles ; 
 diverse in their pohtical arrangements, yet each 
 sufficient for its own necessities ; all harmonious 
 with those without, and peaceful within ; embra- 
 cing, under the denomination of towns, upwards 
 of twelve hundred effective republics, with quali- 
 fied powers, indeed, but possessing potent influ- 
 ences ; — subject themselves to the respective state 
 sovereignties, yet directing all their operations, and 
 shaping their policy by constitutional agencies ; 
 swayed, no less than the greater republics, by pas- 
 sions, interests, and affections ; like them, exciting 
 competitions which rouse into action the latent ener- 
 gies of mind, and infuse into the mass of each so- 
 ciety a knowledge of the nature of its interests, and a 
 capacity to understand and share in the defence of 
 those of the Commonwealth. The effect of these 
 minor republics is daily seen in the existence of 
 practical talents, and in the readiness with which 
 those talents can be called into the public service of 
 the state. 
 
 If, after this general survey of the surface of New 
 England, we cast our eyes on its cities and great 
 towns, with what wonder should we behold, did not 
 familiarity render the phenomenon almost unnoticed, 
 men, combined in great multitudes, possessing free- 
 dom and the consciousness of strength, — the com- 
 parative physical power of the ruler less than that 
 of a cobweb across a hon's path, — yet orderly, obe- 
 dient, and respectful to authority ; a people, but 
 
49 
 
 no populace ; every class in reality existing, which the 
 general law of society acknowledges, except one, — 
 and this exception characterizing the whole country. 
 The soil of New England is trodden by no slave. 
 In our streets, in our assemblies, in the halls of elec- 
 tion and legislation, men of every rank and condition 
 meet, and unite or divide on other principles, and are 
 actuated by other motives, than those growing out 
 of such distinctions. The fears and jealousies, which 
 in other countries separate classes of men and make 
 them hostile to each other, have here no influence, or 
 a very limited one. Each individual, of whatever con- 
 dition, has the consciousness of living under known 
 laws, which secure equal rights, and guarantee to each 
 whatever portion of the goods of life, be it great or 
 small, chance, or talent, or industry may have be- 
 stowed. All perceive that the honors and rewards of 
 society are open equally to the fair competition of 
 all ; that the distinctions of wealth, or of power, are 
 not fixed in families ; that whatever of this nature 
 exists to-day, may be changed to-morrow, or, in a 
 coming generation, be absolutely reversed. Com- 
 mon principles, interests, hopes, and affections, are 
 the result of universal education. Such are the con- 
 sequences of the equahty of rights, and of the provis- 
 ions for the general diffusion of knowledge and the 
 distribution of intestate estates, established by the 
 laws framed by the earliest emigrants to New England. 
 If from our cities we turn to survey the wide 
 expanse of the interior, how do the effects of the in- 
 stitutions and example of our early ancestors appear, 
 in all the local comfort and accommodation which 
 mark the general condition of the whole coun- 
 7 
 
50 
 
 try; — unobtrusive indeed, but substantial; in noth- 
 ing splendid, but in every thing sufficient and satis- 
 factory. Indications of active talent and practical 
 energy exist every where. With a soil compara- 
 tively litde luxuriant, and in great proportion either 
 rock, or hill, or sand, the skill and industry of 
 man are seen triumphing over the obstacles of na- 
 ture ; making the rock the guardian of the field ; 
 moulding the granite, as though it were clay ; leading 
 cultivation to the hill-top, and spreading over the 
 arid plain, hitherto unknown and unanticipated har- 
 vests. The lofty mansion of the prosperous adjoins 
 the lowly dwelHng of the husbandman ; their respec- 
 tive inmates are in the daily interchange of civili- 
 ty, sympathy, and respect. Enterprise and skill, 
 which once held chief affinity with the ocean or 
 the sea-board, now begin to delight the interior, 
 haunting our rivers, where the music of the wa- 
 terfall, with powers more attractive than those of 
 the fabled harp of Orpheus, collects around it intel- 
 lectual man and material nature. Towns and cities, 
 civilized and happy communities, rise, hke exhala- 
 tions, on rocks and in forests, till the deep and far- 
 resounding voice of the neighbouring torrent is itself 
 lost and unheard, amid the predominating noise of 
 successful and rejoicing labor. 
 
 What lessons has New England, in every period of 
 her history, given to the world ! What lessons do her 
 condition and example still give ! How unprecedent- 
 ed ; yet how practical ! How simple ; yet how pow- 
 erful ! She has proved, that all the variety of Chris- 
 tian sects may live together in harmony, under a 
 government, which allows equal privileges to all, — 
 
51 
 
 exclusive pre-eminence to none. She has proved, that 
 ignorance among the multitude is not necessary to 
 order, but that the surest basis of perfect order is the 
 information of the people. She has proved the old 
 maxim, that " no government, except a despotism 
 with a standing army, can subsist where the peo- 
 ple have,arms," is false. Ever since the first set- 
 tlement of the country, arms have been required to 
 be in the hands of the whole multitude of New Eng- 
 land ; yet the use of them in a private quarrel, if it 
 have ever happened, is so rare, that a late writer, of 
 great intelligence, who had passed his whole life in 
 New England, and possessed extensive means of in- 
 formation, declares, " I know not a single instance of 
 it." * She has proved, that a people, of a character 
 essentially military, may subsist without duelling. 
 New England has, at all times, been distinguished, 
 both on the land and on the ocean, for a daring, fear- 
 less, and enterprising spirit; yet the same writer f as- 
 serts, that during the whole period of her existence, 
 her soil has been disgraced but hy five duels, and 
 that only tivo of these were fought by her native in- 
 habitants ! Perhaps this assertion is not minute- 
 ly correct. There can however be no question, that 
 it is sufficiently near the truth to justify the position 
 for which it is here adduced, and which the history 
 of New England, as well as the experience of her in- 
 habitants, abundantly confirms ; that, in the present 
 and in every past age, the spirit of our institutions 
 
 * See " Travels in New England and New York, by Timothy Dwight, 
 s. T. D., LL. D., late President of Yale College." Vol. iv. p. 334. 
 f Tbid. p. 336. 
 
52 
 
 has, to every important practical purpose, annihilated 
 the spirit of duelUng. 
 
 Such are the true glories of the institutions of our 
 fathers ! Such the natural fruits of that patience in 
 toil, that frugality of disposition, that temperance of 
 habit, that general diftusion of knowledge, and that 
 sense of religious responsibility, inculcated by the 
 precepts, and exhibited in the example of every gen- 
 eration of our ancestors ! 
 
 And now, standing at this hour on the dividing Hne 
 which separates the ages that are past, from those 
 which are to come, how solemn is the thought, that 
 not one of this vast assembly — not one of that great 
 multitude who now throng our streets, rejoice in our 
 fields, and make our hills echo with their gratulations, 
 shall live to witness the next return of the era we 
 this day celebrate ! The dark veil of futurity conceals 
 from human sight the fate of cities and nadons, as 
 well as of individuals. Man passes away ; genera- 
 tions are but shadows; — there is nothing stable but 
 truth ; principles only are immortal. 
 
 What then, in conclusion of this great topic, are the 
 elements of the hberty, prosperity, and safety, which 
 the inhabitants of New England at this day enjoy? In 
 what language, and concerning what comprehensive 
 truths, does the wisdom of former times address the 
 inexperience of the future? 
 
 Those elements are simple, obvious, and famihar. 
 
 Every civil and rehgious blessing of New England, 
 all that here gives happiness to human life, or se- 
 curity to human virtue, is alone to be perpetuated 
 in the forms and under the auspices of a free com- 
 monwealth. 
 
53 
 
 The commonwealth itself has no other strength or 
 hope, than the intelligence and virtue of the individ- 
 uals that compose it. 
 
 For the intelligence and virtue of individuals, 
 there is no other human assurance than laws, provid- 
 ing for the education of the whole people. 
 
 These laws themselves have no strength, or efficient 
 sanction, except in the moral and accountable nature 
 of man, disclosed in the records of the Christian's faith; 
 the right to read, to construe, and to judge concerning 
 which, belongs to no class or cast of men, but ex- 
 clusively to the individual, who must stand or fall 
 by his own acts and his own faith, and not by those 
 of another. 
 
 The great comprehensive truths, written in letters 
 of living hght on every page of our history, — the 
 language addressed by every past age of New Eng- 
 land to all future ages is this ; — Human happiness has 
 no 'perfect security but freedom; — freedom none but 
 virtue; — virtue none but knowledge ; and neither free- 
 dom, nor virtue, nor knowledge has amj vigor, or im- 
 mortal hope, except in the principles of the Christian 
 faith, and in the scmctions of the Christian religion. 
 
 Men of Massachusetts ! Citizens of Boston ! de- 
 scendants of the early emigrants ! consider your 
 blessings ; consider your duties. You have an in- 
 heritance acquired by the labors and sufferings of 
 six successive generations of ancestors. They found- 
 ed the fabric of your prosperity, in a severe and 
 masculine morality ; having intelUgence for its ce- 
 ment, and religion for its ground-work. Continue to 
 
54 
 
 build on the same foundation, and by the same 
 principles ; let the extending temple of your coun- 
 try's freedom rise, in the spirit of ancient times, in 
 proportions of intellectual and moral architecture, — 
 just, simple, and sublime. As from the first to this 
 day, let New England continue to be an example to 
 the world, of the blessings of a free government, 
 and of the means and capacity of man to maintain 
 it. And, in all times to come, as in all times past, 
 may Boston be among the foremost and the boldest 
 to exemplify and uphold whatever constitutes the 
 prosperity, the happiness, and the glory of New Eng- 
 land. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 Note A., page 9. 
 Bostonais. The name is thus applied, at this day, by the Cana- 
 dian French. During our revolutionary war, Americans from the 
 United States were thus designated in France. Nor was the cus- 
 tom wholly discontinued even as late as the year 1795. " We 
 may remark," says a writer in the Collections of the Massachusetts 
 Historical Society, (Vol. vi, First Series, p. 69,) " that Boston was 
 not only the capital of Massachusetts, but the town most cele- 
 brated of any in North America. Its trade was extensive ; and 
 the name often stands for the country in old authors." 
 
 Note B., po^-c 22. 
 The testimony of Chalmers, in his " Political Annals of the United 
 Colonies," to the early and undeviating spirit of independence 
 which actuated the first emigrants to Massachusetts, is constant, 
 unequivocal, and conclusive. Those Annals were written during 
 the American revolution, and published in the year 1780, in the 
 heat of that controversy, and under the auspices of the British 
 government. A few extracts from that work, tending to show the 
 pertinacious spirit of independence which characterized our an- 
 cestors, and corroborative of the position maintained in the text, 
 cannot fail to be interestinir. 
 
 " The Charter of Charles the First, obtained in March, 1628-9, 
 was the only one which Massachusetts possessed prior to the revo- 
 lution of 1688, and contained its most ancient privileges. 0?i this 
 was most dexterously engrafted, not only the original government 
 of that colony, but even independence itself.''' — Book I. c. vi. p. 136. 
 
 " The nature of their government was now (1634) changed by 
 a variety of regulations, the legality of which cannot easily be 
 supported by any other than those principles of independence. 
 
56 
 
 which sprang up among them, and have at all times governed their 
 actions J" — Book I. p. 158. 
 
 Concerning the confederation entered into by the United Colo- 
 nies of New England in 1643, Chalmers thus expresses himself. 
 
 " The most inattentive must perceive the exact resemblance 
 that confederation bears to a similar junction of the colonies, more 
 recent [that of 1775], extensive, and powerful. Both originated 
 from Massachusetts, always fruitful in projects of independence. 
 'Wise men, at the era of both, remarked, that those memorable asso- 
 ciations established a complete system of absolute sovereignty^ 
 because the principles upon which it was erected necessarily led 
 
 TO WHAT IT WAS NOT THE POLICV OF THE PRINCIPAL AGENTS 
 AT EITHER PERIOD TO AVOW ! 
 
 " The principles, upon which this famous association [that of 
 1643] was formed, were altogether those of independency, and it 
 cannot easily be supported on any other. The consent of the 
 governing powers in England was never applied for and was never 
 given." — Book I. c. viii. pp. 177, 178. 
 
 " Principles of aggrandisement seem constantly to have been 
 had in view by Massachusetts, as the only rule of its conduct." — 
 Book I. p. 180. 
 
 " Massachusetts, in conformity to its accustomed principles, act- 
 ed, during the civil wars, almost altogether as an independent 
 state. It formed leagues, not only with the neighbouring colonies, 
 but with foreign nations, without the consent or knowledge of the 
 government of England. It permitted no appeals from its courts 
 to the judicatories of the sovereign state, without which a depen- 
 dence cannot be preserved or enforced ; and it refused to exercise 
 its jurisdiction in the name of the commonwealth of England. It 
 assumed the government of that part of New England, which is 
 now called New Hampshire, and even extended its power farther 
 eastward over the Province of Maine ; and, by force of arms it 
 compelled those, who had fled from its persecutions beyond its 
 boundaries into the wilderness, to submit to its authority. It 
 erected a mint at Boston, impressing the year 1652 on the coin, 
 as the era of independence. Though, as we are assured, the coin- 
 ing of money is the prerogative of the sovereign, and not the privi- 
 lege of a colony." 
 
 " The practice was continued till the dissolution of its govern- 
 ment ; thus evincing to all tchcd had been foreseen by the wise. 
 
57 
 
 that a people of such principles, religious and political, settling at 
 so great a distance from control, toould necessarily form an inde- 
 pendent state." — Book I. c. viii. p. 181. 
 
 "The committee of state of the long parliament, having resolved 
 to oblige Massachusetts to acknowledge their authority, by taking 
 a new patent from them and by keeping its courts in their name, 
 that colony, according to its wonted policy, by petition and remon- 
 strance, declaring the love they bore the parliament, the sufferings 
 they had endured in their cause, and their readiness to stand or fall 
 with them, and by flattering Cromwell, prevailed so far as that the 
 requisitions abovementioned were never complied with, and the 
 General Court consequently gained the point in the controversy." — 
 Book I. c. viii. pp. 184, 185. 
 
 " But Massachusetts did not only thus artfully foil the parlia- 
 ment, but it out-fawned and out-witted Cromwell. They declined 
 his invitation to assist his fleet and army, destined to attack the 
 Dutch at Manhattan in 1G5;3, and acknowledging the continued 
 series of his favors to the colonies, told him, that, " having been ex- 
 ercised with serious thoughts of its duty at that juncture, which 
 were, that it was most agreeable to the gospel of peace and safest 
 for the plantations to forbear the use of the sicord, if it had 
 been misled, it humbly craved his pardon." — Book I. c. viii. 
 p. 185. 
 
 " The address of Massachusetts abovementioned, it should seem, 
 gave perfect satisfaction to Cromwell. Its winning courtship seems 
 to have captivated his rugged heart, and, notwithstanding a varie- 
 ty of complaints were made to him against that colony, so strong 
 were his attachments, that all attempts, either to obtain redress, or 
 to prejudice it in his esteem, were to no purpose. Thus did Mas- 
 sachusetts, by the prudence or vigor of its councils, triumph over 
 its opponents abroad." — Book I. c. viii. p. 188. 
 
 " After the death of Cromv\'ell, Massachusetts acted with a cau- 
 tious neutrality. She refused to acknoivledge the authority of 
 Richard any more than that of the Parliament or Protector, be- 
 cause ALL SUBMISSION WOULD HAVE BEEN INCONSISTENT WITH HER 
 INDEPENDENCE." 
 
 " She heard the tidings of the restoration with that scrupulous 
 incredulity, with which men listen to news which they wish not to 
 be true." — Book I. c. x. p. 249. 
 
 8 
 
58 
 
 "Prince Charles the Second had received so many proofs of the at- 
 tachment of the colonies, during the season of trial, Neio England 
 only excepted, that he judged rightly, when he presumed they would 
 listen to the news of his restoration with pleasure, and submit to 
 his just authority with alacrity. Nor was he in the least deceived. 
 They proclaimed his accession with a joy in proportion to their 
 recollection of their late sufferings, and to their hope of future 
 blessings. Of the recent conduct of Massachusetts, he was well in- 
 structed ; he foresaw what really happened, that it would receive the 
 tidings of his good fortune with extreme coldness; he was informed 
 of the proceedings of a society which assembled at Cooper's Hall, in 
 order to promote its interests, and with them, the good old cause of 
 enmity to regal poivcr. And in May, ICGl, he appointed the great 
 officers of state a committee, * touching the affairs of New Eng- 
 land.' That Prince and that colony mutually hated and contemned 
 and feared each other, during his reign, because the one suspected 
 its principles of attachment, and the other dreaded an invasion of 
 its privileges." — Book I. p. 243. 
 
 " The same vessel which brought king Charles's proclamation to 
 Boston, in 1G60, brought also Whalley and Goffe, two of tiie regi- 
 cides. Far from concealing themselves, they were received very 
 courteously by Governor Endicott, and witli universal regard by the 
 people of New England. Of this conduct, Charles the Second, was 
 perfectly informed, and with it he afterwards reproached Massa- 
 chusetts." — Book I. c. X. pp. 2 19, 2.50. 
 
 " The General Court soon turned its attention to a subject of 
 higher concernment ; the present condition of affairs. In order 
 rightly to understand that duty which the people owed to them- 
 selves, and that obedience which was due to the authority of Eng- 
 land, a committee at length reported a declaration of rights and du- 
 ties, which at once shows the extent of their claims, and their dex- 
 terity at involving what they wished to conceal. The General 
 Court resolved, — 'That the patent (under God) was the first and 
 main foundation of the civil polity of that colony ; that the Govern- 
 or and Company are, by the patent, a body politic, which is vested 
 with power to make freemen ; that they have authority to chose a 
 governor, deputy-governor, assistants, and select representatives ; 
 that this government hath ability to set up all kinds of offices ; that 
 the governor, deputy-governor, assistants, and select deputies, 
 have full jurisdiction, both legislative and executive, for the govern- 
 
59 
 
 ment of the people here, without appeals, ' excepting law or laws 
 repugnant to the laws of England ' ; that this company is privi- 
 leged to defend itself against all who shall attempt its annoyance ; 
 that any imposition, prejudicial to the country, contrary to any of 
 its just ordinances (not repugnant to the laws of England), is an 
 infringement of its rights.' — Having thus with a genuine air of 
 sovereignty, by its own act, established its own privileges, it decid- 
 ed ' concerning its duties and allegiance ' ; and these were de- 
 clared to consist in upholding that colony as of right belonging to 
 his Majesty, and not subject to any foreign potentate ; in preserving 
 his person and dominions ; in settling the peace and prosperity of 
 the king and nation, by punishing crimes, and by propagating the 
 gospel. It was at the same time determined, that the royal warrant 
 for apprehending Whalley and GolYo ought to be faithfully execut- 
 ed ; that if any legally obnoxious, and fleeing from the civil justice 
 of the state of England, shall come over to these parts, they may 
 not expect shelter.' What a picture do these resolutions display 
 of the embarrassments of the General Court, between its principles 
 of independence on the one hand, and its apprehension of giving 
 offence to the state of England, on the other." — Book I. p. 252. 
 
 " During the whole reign of Charles the Second, Massachusetts 
 continued to act as she always had done, as an independent stated 
 
 "Disregardingequally her charter and the laws of England, Mas- 
 sachusetts establi:ihcd for herself, an independent government, simi- 
 lar to those of the Grecian republics" — Book I. c. xvi. p. 400 ; also 
 c. xxii, p. 632. 
 
 It is not easy to perceive on what ground Chalmers supports the 
 charge against our ancestors, of " concealment" of their real in- 
 tentions, by the General Court in their declaration of rights, above 
 quoted, from page 2.52 of his Annals. On the contrary, it seems 
 to have been conceived in a spirit of boldness, which, consid- 
 ering the weakness of the colony, might be much better denom- 
 inated imprudently explicit than evasive. It is difficult to conceive 
 what the General Court could have added to that declaration of their 
 right to independent self-government, unless they had been prepar- 
 ed to draw the sword against the king and throw away the scabbard. 
 
 Note C, page 22. 
 This is apparent from the fact, that they did form and maintain 
 such a commonwealth, and from the further fact that in no other 
 
60 
 
 way could they, in that age, have had any hope successfully to 
 maintain and transmit to their posterity religious liberty, according 
 to their conception of that blessing. Those who reason practically 
 concerning the motives of mankind, must take their data from their 
 master-passions, and the necessities of their situation. Acts best 
 develope intentions. Official language takes it modification from 
 circumstances, and is often necessarily a very equivocal indica- 
 tion of motives. 
 
 To escape from the dominion of the English hierarchy, was our 
 ancestors' leading design and firm purpose. They took refuge in 
 the forms and principles of a commonwealth ; trusting to their own 
 intellectual skill and physical power for its support. They were 
 well apprized of the fixed determination of the English hierarchy, 
 from the earliest times of their emigration, to subject them to its 
 supremacy, if possible; and this design is distinctly avowed by 
 Chalmers. 
 
 "The enjoyment of liberty of conscience, the free worship of the 
 Supreme Being in the manner most agreeable to themselves, were 
 the great objects of the colonists, which they often declared was the 
 orincipal end of their emigration. Nevertheless, though their his- 
 torians assert the contrary, the charter did not grant spontaneously 
 to them a freedom, which had been denied to the solicitations of the 
 Brownists ; and it is extremely probable that so essential an omis- 
 sion arose, not from accident^ but design." 
 
 " In conformity to his intentions of establishing the Church of 
 England in the plantations, James had refused to grant to that sect 
 the privilege of exercising its own peculiar modes, though solicited 
 by the powerful interest of the Virginia Company. His successor 
 adopted and pursued the same policy under the direction of Laud, 
 ' loho, we are assured, kept ajealous eye over New England.' And 
 this reasoning is confirmed by the present patent, tohich required, 
 with peculiar caution, ' that the oatii of supremacy shall be ad- 
 ministered to every one, tvho shcdl pass to the colony and inhabit 
 there.' " — Book I. c. vi. p. 141. 
 
 Note D., page 23. 
 The consentaneousness of the views entertained by Chalmers, 
 with those presented in the text, respecting the motives of our an- 
 cestors in making the removal of the charter the condition of 
 their emigration, is remarkable. 
 
61 
 
 " Several persons of considerable consequence in the nation, 
 who had adopted the principles of the Puritans, and who wished to 
 enjoy their own mode of worsliip, formed the resolution of emigrat- 
 ing to Massachusetts. But they felt themselves inferior, neither to 
 the governor nor assistants of the company. They saw and dread- 
 ed the inconvenience of being governed by laws made for them with- 
 out their consent : and it appeared more rational to them, that the 
 colony should be ruled by those who made it the jjlctce of their resi- 
 dence, than bi/ men dwelling at the distance of three thousand tniles, 
 over lohorn they had no control. At the same time therefore, that 
 they proposed to transport themselves, their families, and their es- 
 tates, to that country, they insisted that the charter should be 
 transmitted with them, and that the corporate powers, which were 
 conferred by it, should be executed, in future, in New England." 
 
 "A transaction, similar to this, in all its circumstances, is not 
 to be easily met with in story." — Book I. c. vi. pp. 1.50, 151. 
 
 It is very plain from the above extract, that Chalmers understood 
 the transfer of the charter to this country in the light in which it is 
 represented in the text ; — that the object was self-government ; 
 an intention " not to be governed by laws made for them, without 
 their consent"; — a determination that those "should rule in New 
 England, who made it the place of their residence " ; and " not 
 those who dwelt at the distance of three thousand miles, over ichom 
 they had no control''' 
 
 Two causes have concurred to keep the motives of our ancestors 
 in that measure, from the direct developement which its nature de- 
 serves. The first was, that their motives could not be avowed 
 consistently with that nominal dependence, which in the weakness 
 of the early emigrants was unavoidable. The other was, that al- 
 most all the impressions left concerning our early history, have 
 been derived through the medium of the clergy, who naturally gave 
 an exclusive attention to the predominating motive, which was, un- 
 questionably, religious liberty, and paid less regard to what the co- 
 lonial statesmen of that day as unquestionably considered to be the 
 essential means to that end. The men who said " they would not 
 go to New England unless the patent went with them," were not 
 clergymen, but high-minded statesmen, who knew what was in- 
 cluded in that transfer. Their conduct and that of their immedi- 
 
62 
 
 ate descendants, speak a language of determined civil independ- 
 ence, not, at this day, to be gainsaid. 
 
 Winthrop gives, incidentally, a remarkable evidence of his own 
 sensibility, on the subject of the right of self-government, in the 
 very earliest period after their emigration. 
 
 " Mr. Winslow, the late Governor of Plymouth," Winthrop re- 
 lates, " being this year (1035) in England, petitioned the council 
 for a commission to withstand the intrusions of the Dutch and 
 French. Notv this," Winthrop remarks, "was undcrtalcen ivith ill- 
 advice ; for such precedents endanger our liberty, that we should 
 
 DO NOTHING HEREAFTER BUT BY COMMISSION OUT OF ENGLAND." 
 
 Winthrop, Vol. i. p. 172. 
 
 Note E., page 23. 
 
 That the early emigrants foresaw that the transfer of the charter 
 would effectually vest independence, may be deduced, not only 
 from the whole tenor of their conduct after their emigration, which 
 was an effectual exercise of independence, but from the fact of the 
 secrecy, icith which this intention to transfer the charter was main- 
 tained, until it teas actually on this side of the Atlantic. 
 
 Our ancestors readily anticipated with what jealousy this trans- 
 fer would be viewed by the English government ; and were ac- 
 cordingly solicitous to keep it from being known until they and 
 the original charter were beyond their power. The original 
 records of the General Court, in which the topic of this transfer 
 of the charter was first agitated, speak a language on this sub- 
 ject, not to be mistaken. 
 
 The terms of this record are as follows : 
 
 "At a General Court holden at London, for the Company of the 
 Massachusetts Bay in New England, in Mr. Deputy's house, on 
 Tuesday, the 28th of July, 1629. Present, 
 
 Mr. MATHEW CRADOCK, Governor. 
 Mr. GOFF, Deputy Go:.'' 
 
 Here follow the names of the " assistants " and "generality," 
 who were present. 
 
 " Mr. Governor read certain propositions conceived by himself, 
 viz. that for the advancement of the plantation, the inducing and 
 encouraging persons of worth and quality to transplant themselves 
 and families thither, and for other weighty reasons therein contain- 
 ed, to transfer the government of the plantation to those that shall 
 
63 
 
 inhabit there, and not to continue the same in subordination to the 
 company here, as now it is. This business occasioned some de- 
 bate ; but by ?'ea.-t»« of t/ic many great and considerable consequen- 
 ces thereupon depending, it was not now resolved upon, but those 
 present are privately and seriously to consider hereof, and to set 
 down their particular reasons in writing, pro and contra, and to 
 produce the same at the next General Court, where they being re- 
 duced to heads and maturely considered of, the company may then 
 proceed to a final resolution therein, and in the mean time they 
 
 ARE DESIRED TO CARRY THIS BUSINESS SECRETLY, THAT THE SAME 
 
 BE NOT DIVULGED." — See Original records of Massachusetts, p. 19. 
 
 What our ancestors thouglit they had gained, or what practical 
 consequences they intended to deduce from this transfer of the pa- 
 tent, and from their possession of it in this country, is apparent 
 from the reasons, given by Winthrop, for not obeying the court 
 mandate, to send the patent to England. 
 
 Wintlirop's account is as follows: 
 
 "The General Court was assembled [1 638], in which it was 
 agreed, that whereas a very strict order was sent from the Lords 
 Commissioners for Plantations, for sending home our patent, 
 upon pretence that judgment had passed against it upon a quo 
 warranto, a letter should be written by the Governor in the name 
 of the Court, to excuse our not sending it; for it was resolved to be 
 best, not to send it, because then such of our friends and others in 
 England would conceive it to be surrendered, and that thereupon, 
 ICC should be bound to rcceinc such a Governor and such orders, as 
 should be sent to us, and many bad minds, yea, and some ?veak ones, 
 among ourselves, would think it lawful, if not necessary, to 
 
 ACCEPT A GENERAL GOVERNOR." Wiuthrop, Vol. I. p. 209. 
 
 Note F., jjage 25. 
 The object of this policy was perceived by Chalmers. Thus, 
 he reprobates the law, that " none should be admitted to the free- 
 dom of the company but such as were church members, and that 
 none but freemen should vote at elections or act as magistrates and 
 jurymen," because it excluded fro7n all participation in the gov- 
 ernment, those who could not comply with the necessary requisites. 
 He understood well, that it was a means of defence against the 
 English hierarchy, and intended to exclude from influence all who 
 were of the English church ; and complains of it as being " made 
 
64 
 
 in the true spirit of retaliation ," (Book I. p. 153.) and adds, that 
 "this severe law, notwithstanding the vigorous exertions of Charles 
 the Second, continued in force till the quo loarranto laid in ruins 
 the structure of the government that had established it." 
 
 To prove the necessity of this exclusive policy of our ancestors, 
 and that it was strictly a measure of " self-defence," it is proper 
 to remark, that as early as April, 1635, a commission was issued 
 for the government of the Plantations, granting absolute po2oer to 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury and to others, " to make laws and 
 
 CONSTITUTIONS, CONCERNING EITHER THEIR STATE PUBLIC OR THE 
 UTILITY OF INDIVIDUALS, AND FOR THE RELIEF OF THE CLERGY TO 
 CONSIGN CONVENIENT MAINTENANCE UNTO THEM BY TITHES AND 
 OBLATIONS AND OTHER PROFITS ACCORDING TO THEIR DISCRETION," 
 AND THEY WERE EMPOWERED TO INFLICT PUNISHMENTS, EITHER 
 BY IMPRISONMENT OR BY LOSS OF LIFE AND MEMBERS. 
 
 A broader charter of hierarchical despotism was never conceived. 
 The only means of protection against it, to which our ancestors 
 could resort, was that which they adopted. By the principle of 
 making church-membership a qualification for the enjoyment of 
 the rights of a freeman, they excluded from all political influence 
 the friends of the hierarchy. To the same motive may he referred 
 that other principle, that " no churches should be gathered but 
 such as were approved by the magistrate." Notwithstanding that 
 the direct tendency of these principles was to destroy the influence 
 of the crown and the hierarchy in the colony, the obviousness of the 
 motive is unnoticed by Chalmers, for the sake of repeating the 
 wross charge of bigotry ; and this too at the very time when he is 
 uro'ino' their design of independence against our ancestors as their 
 great crime. Our ancestors could not avow their ruling motive ; 
 and they seem at all times to be actuated by the noble principle 
 of being content to submit in their own characters to the obloquy 
 of bigotry, as a less evil than that their children should become 
 subject to the hierarchy of the Stuarts. 
 
 It is difficult to perceive how the principles of this commission 
 could have been otherwise resisted by our ancestors, than by put- 
 ting at once out of influence all those disposed to yield submission 
 to it. Nor was it possible for them to apply their disqualification 
 directly to the adherents of the English hierarchy Tliey were 
 compelled, if it were adopted at all, to make it general, and to ac- 
 quiesce in the charge of bigotry in order to give efficacy to their 
 policy. 
 
65 
 
 Note G., page 28. 
 Lest the consequences of an opposite policy, had it been adopted 
 by our ances-tors, may seem to be exaggerated, as here represented, 
 it is proper to state, that upon the strength and united spirit of 
 New England mainly depended (under Heaven) the success of 
 our revolutionary struggle. Had New England been divided, or 
 even less unanimous, independence would have scarcely been 
 attempted, or, if attempted, acquired. It will give additional 
 strength to this argument to observe, that the number of troops, 
 regular and militia, furnished by all the states during the war of 
 the revolution, was , - - - - 288,134 
 
 Of these, New England furnished more than half, viz. 147,674 
 
 And Massachusetts alone furnished nearly one third, viz, 83,162 
 
 See the " Collections of the New Hampshire Historical Society," 
 Vol. I. p. 236. 
 
 Note H., page 44. 
 
 Amounts received from the liberality of the citizens of Boston 
 towards objects of a public nature, of a moral, religious, or literary 
 character, chiefly within the last thirty years, as stated in the 
 text. 
 
 I. By the following Societies ; 
 
 Boston Athenaeum . - _ _ 75,000 
 
 Humane Society _ . . _ _ 20,791 
 
 Boston Dispensary for the Medical Relief of the Poor 19,000 
 
 Massachusetts General Hospital _ - _ 354,400 
 
 Massachusetts Charitable Society - - 16,714 
 
 Boston Penitent Female Refuge Society - - 15,172 
 
 Boston Fragment Society - - - - 15,205 
 
 Boston Mechanics' Institution - . _ 6,119 
 
 Boston Eye and Ear Infirmary - . . 5,500 
 
 Boston Female Asylum _ _ . . 79,582 
 
 Boston Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge 1,035 
 Boston Society for the Religious and Moral Instruction 
 
 of the Poor . - - - . 23,500 
 
 Charitable Mechanic Association - _ . 15,000 
 
 Boston Asylum for Indigent Boys - - - 20,000 
 
 $667,018 
 
66 
 
 Amount brought up $667,018 
 Fatherless and Widows' Society - 6,320 
 
 Howard Benevolent Society - - 16,900 
 
 Charitable Fund, placed under the control 
 of the Overseers of the Poor, and derived 
 from private benevolence - - 95,000 
 
 Massachusetts Congregational Charitable So- 
 ciety .... 51,000 
 Seamen's Friend Society - - - 3,000 
 American Education Society - - 32,228 
 Bible Society ... - 40,000 
 Harvard College and the several Institu- 
 tions embraced within, or connected with, 
 that seminary - . - 222,696 
 Theological Institution at Andover - 21,824 
 
 488,968 
 
 [From the above amounts have been as far as possible excluded all 
 
 sums not derived from the citizens of Boston. Those amounts 1,155,986 
 
 also must not be understood as expressing the present amount of 
 
 funds of these Societies, although in many instances it is the 
 
 case ; the object of this recapitulation being not to represent 
 
 the actual state of each of those Societies at this time, but 
 
 the amount they have, within the time specified, received from 
 
 the liberal and public spirit of the citizens of Boston.] 
 
 II. Various contributions for the relief of suf- 
 ferers by fire in Boston - - 34,528 
 in Newbury port - - 16,500 
 in St. Johns - - 8,666 
 in Augusta - - 2,264 
 in Wiscasset - - 5,504 
 
 67,462 
 
 [The above, although excluding many knovrn contributions, . 
 
 are all ^of ^which the amounts could be ascertained with ac- 1,223,448 
 curacy.] 
 
 III. Moneys raised, within the time specified in the 
 text, by various contributions, or by donations of 
 individuals, either from motives of charity, or for 
 the patronizing of distinguished merit, or for the re- 
 lief of men eminent for their public services, — 
 
67 
 
 Amount brought up $1,223,448 
 
 the evidences of whicli have been examined for this 
 purpose, (testamentary bequests not being included,) 
 
 8,000 
 
 11,000 
 
 24,500 
 
 10,000 
 
 1,400 
 
 C,000 
 
 2,000 
 
 5,000 
 
 5,000 
 
 In sums between 500 and 1500 - - 35,500 
 
 108,400 
 
 [Particular names and objects have been omitted from motives of 
 delicacy or propriety.] 
 
 IV. Amount collected for objects of general charity, or 
 for the promotion of literary, moral, or religious pur- 
 poses by, or under the influence of, various religious 
 societies in the metropolis (not including the particu- 
 lar annual objects of expenditure of each society), 
 communicated by the several officers o f those socie- 
 ties, or by individuals having access to their records 
 or to the papers containing evidence of such col- 
 lections ..... 469,425 
 
 [The names of the particular societies and objects it is not deemed 
 proper to publish, 
 
 1. Because it was the express wish of several officers of the 
 societies, that it should not be done. 
 
 2. Because several of tlic societies could not be applied to, and 
 their omission here might imply that they have not made sim- 
 ilar collections, which would be unjust. 
 
 3. Because, since the account of the amounts thus collected de- 
 pends upon the retaining or not retaining (often accidental) of 
 the evidence of such collections, the comparative returns are 
 very difTerent from what there is reason to believe were the 
 comparative amounts collected, as they would have appeared, 
 had the evidence in all cases been equally well retained. 
 
 The object, on this occasion, has not been completeness, which 
 was known to be impracticable, but as near an approximation 
 to it as was possible. How far short the statement in this item 
 is from the real amount collected, may be gathered from this 
 
 $1,801,273 
 
■z 9 
 
 68 
 
 fact, — that information was requested /or the amount collected 
 within the last thirty years ; yet more tiian half the sum 
 stated in this item arose from collections made within the last 
 ten years. 
 As a farther illustration, it may not be improper to state, that, 
 within the last twelve years. Jive citizens of Boston have de- 
 ceased, whose bequests for objects exclusively of public interest 
 or benevolence, when united, amount to a sum exceeding 
 three hundred thousand dollars ; and that one of these, dur- 
 ing the last twenty years of his life, is known to have given 
 away, toward similar objects, a sum equal to ten thousand 
 dollars annually.]