^/j^'c.yriliiVcf^. 
 
 R. DlLLIl 
 
 ORATION. 
 
AN 
 
 ORATION 
 
 DELIVERED Bl:FORE THE 
 
 SOCIETY OF THE SONS OF NEW ENGLAND 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, 
 
 DECEMBER 22d, 1847, 
 
 THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS, 
 
 WILLIAM H. Dillingham. 
 
 /x: v^7b 
 
 1.66©*= 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 JOHN C. CLARK, PRINTER, 60 DOCK STREET. 
 1847. 
 

.^nnibcv.'sJtrs of tf)c Han^tufl of tijc IDflsrims, 
 Philadelphia, Dec. 22d, 1847. 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 At a meeting of the Board of Officers of the Society of the Sons 
 of New England, held after the public exercises of this day, it was — 
 ^'Resolved, That the thanks of the Society be presented to Wm. H. 
 Dillingham, Esquire, for his eloquent Oration, and that a copy be re- 
 quested for publication." 
 
 It affords us great pleasure to transmit to you the aforegoing reso- 
 lution, and to accompany it with a hope that you will regard with 
 favour the request therein contained. 
 
 We have the honour to be, with sentiments of esteem. 
 Your obedient servants, 
 
 JOS. R. CHANDLER, 
 JNO. W. CLAGHORN, 
 JNO. T. S. SULLIVAN, 
 
 Com7nittee. 
 To Wm H. Dillingham, Esq. 
 
 Philadelphia, Dec. 2Sd, 1847. 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 In compliance with your request on behalf of the Society of the 
 Sons of New England, I submit herewith a copy of the Discourse 
 delivered at the recent Anniversary of the Landing of the Pilgrims. 
 W^ith my best acknowledgments for the handsome terms in which 
 the vote of your Board of Officers has been conveyed, 
 
 I am, gentlemen. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 W. H. DILLINGHAM. 
 To Joseph R. Chandler, 
 
 John W. Claghorn, , 
 
 John T. S. Sullivan, Esqs. 
 
 Committee. 
 
ORATION. 
 
 History has its narrative and its moral. Nothing is more de- 
 serving of attention than the lessons it teaches. But they are not 
 always to be found upon the surface. Philosophy teaching by 
 examples, in parables which he wlio runs may read, was reserved 
 for him Avho spake as never man spoke. History takes its hue 
 and colouring from the writer. The same transactions and the 
 same characters may be so presented as to merit either admira- 
 tion or contempt. To be infallible and impartial is not given to 
 man. For the most part we peruse its pages or listen to the 
 recital of its incidents for amusement rather than for instruction. 
 But it is not in this manner we can get to understand the character 
 of the Pilgrim Fathers. They belonged to a sect that has been 
 much calumniated. In this work royalty and infidelity exhausted 
 their powers : happily, sophistry and ridicule are no longer in the 
 ascendant. It is not in the pages of sceptical casuists and dog- 
 gerel rhymsters that the men of this age will look for the motives 
 and objects of the first great champions of civil liberty. 
 
 Casting a hasty glance at the past, we see a little company 
 of persecuted men in England making their escape to Holland, 
 whence, after taking breath, they come to America and settle in 
 the wilderness. What is there in this movement to excite our 
 admiration? Is it even possible that the day on which these 
 pilgrims landed has come to be regarded as an era in history — one 
 of those great way-marks by which we measure the track of time 
 — and that we have assembled here now for purposes of mutual 
 
G 
 
 congratulation and joyous greeting, upon our own personal rela- 
 tions to it? Considered as a part of the narrative of history only, 
 without reference to previous events bearing upon it, or subse- 
 quent developments flowing from it, amidst the great commotions 
 of human affairs, it is as nothing. Let us attend a little to the 
 moral. The "great mistress of wisdom" presents us here ex- 
 amples, to which, on this day, our birth-right challenges attention. 
 It was not until the close of the fourteenth century that the old 
 world had heard of the new. Thousands of years had rolled on — 
 generation succeeded generation, and nations had their rise and 
 fall. Babylon and Nineveh had come and gone; Egypt had built 
 her pyramids and filled her catacombs; Greece and Rome had 
 enjoyed, each in turn, its brief day of power and splendour ; the 
 Alexandrian Library had been burnt, and the hoofs of the Caliphs 
 had trampled upon all that Avas sacred in Palestine. The age of 
 chivalry was gone, with its Charlemagne, its Richards, and its 
 Edwards, leaving behind its feudal system, iron-bound and rough- 
 shod, with some foot-prints of the Moor upon the banks of Guadal- 
 quiver. The Papal hierarchy had reached its zenith, and kings 
 still stood in awe of the sovereign pontiff. They had thought 
 themselves Avise in geography in that same old world, and have 
 left us their outline of the figure of the earth as they imagined it. 
 They had had their commerce in papyrus ; they had still their illu- 
 minated manuscripts, their libraries of hundreds of thousands of 
 volumes, and their very few copies of the Bible. They had 
 watched the stars with the aid of their own divine philosophy, 
 and rejoiced in astrology ; they had subjected every material sub- 
 stance to the test of alchymy, and been untiring in their searches 
 after the philosopher's stone. Aristode had been regarded for ages 
 as the ne phis ultra of human wisdom, and St. T'homas Aquinas 
 was their great master in theology. To say that the earth moved, 
 even so late as the time of Bacon, merited and received condign 
 punishment al the bunds of sp|f-constituted guardians of the truth. 
 
Europe was just emerging from its " night of a thousand years," 
 when Columbus, by the aid of the mariner's compass, made his 
 first voyage, " due west," and America was discovered. The new 
 route to India was traced ; and the ocean thenceforth became the 
 highway of nations. The commerce of the world was transferred 
 from the camel and the caravan to swift ships and proud navies, 
 borne by every wind to every clime. Merchants soon became 
 merchant princes, and new avenues were opened to wealth and 
 power. Human nature was beginning to assert its claim to a 
 higher destiny. 
 
 These mighty influences, the mariner's compass, the art of print- 
 ing, the revival of learning, and the reformation, had been in 
 operation about a century, when this little band of persecuted men 
 sought an asylum in the new world. 
 
 Their number was but one hundred, all told. The bark in 
 which they crossed the ocean was of less capacity than that of 
 one of the craft which navigate our Schuylkill canal. The length 
 of their voyage was the same with that of Columbus, a little more 
 than a century before. The Spaniards had held their " revels in 
 the halls of the Montezumas" during the greater part of this cen- 
 tury. Virginia had been settled a few years, and contained from 
 five hundred to one thousand inhabitants. What we now call 
 New England was regarded as an island — a mistake not corrected 
 in old England so late as the time of an official despatch of Lord 
 North during our revolution. They came from England, and our 
 thoughts are naturally turned to the condition of things in England 
 at the time. They had not much glass for their houses, and not a 
 great deal of linen for their persons ; no tea or coftee, and but 
 little sugar for their tables, in old England then. They had no 
 science of chemistry or of geology : no knowledge of electricity 
 or of the power of steam ; scarcely any manufactures, but very 
 imperfect agricidture, and very little horticulture. Cross-bows 
 had scarcely gone out of use in war. and their fire arms, generally. 
 
8 
 
 had match-locks. They had their old baronial establishments, 
 their ruined castles, and deserted monasteries ; their magnificent ca- 
 thedrals, their two great universities, their vast enclosures for parks 
 and preserves : they had monuments of the times of the Druids, 
 and abiding evidence that England, for two centuries, had been a 
 Roman province. They boasted of a constitution, but it existed 
 principally in custom, depending upon uncertain memory, and 
 there were precedents of all kinds; those favouring prerogative 
 greatly prevailing over those in favour of liberty. From the peas- 
 ant to the prince, the distance was more awful than we can well 
 imagine. For five thousand years the human race had been sub- 
 ject, all the world over, to the dominion of arbitrary power. From 
 the earliest period of recorded time, history had been occupied 
 with the rise and fall of " kingdoms and of kings." With excep- 
 tions " few and far between," men had enjoyed no rights, liberties 
 or privileges, paramount to the will of a despot. Even in the 
 brightest days of the Grecian republics, Attica had its four hun- 
 dred thousand slaves to its ten thousand freemen. The authority 
 of kings was sustained by the simple dogma of divine right, with- 
 out foundation in reason, or revelation. Its strength was in the 
 antiquity and universality of the precedent, and it was great. It 
 would seem to have been regarded as a sort of necessity. Men 
 fell into the absurdity of fearing their own bad passions, and those 
 of their fellows, without power, more than those of a ruler, of like 
 passions, with all power. The great master of English history, 
 upon this subject, discourses thus: — " A regard for liberty, though 
 a laudable passion, ought commonly to be subjected to a reverence 
 for established government, treating the opposite maxims as essen- 
 tial to its very existence." This is the language of a monarchist, 
 embarrassed by a sense of the value of freedom. Although liberty 
 is laudable, passive obedience and non-resistance are more lauda- 
 ble. It inculcates the doctrine that whatever estimate we may set 
 upon the value of liberty, the maxims which go to sustain that 
 
9 
 
 which is opposed to it, are essential to the very existence of the 
 British crown. But the opposite of liberty is slavery ; therefore, 
 according to their philosophic historian, slavery is an essential 
 element in the constitution of their government. 
 
 Curious antiquaries may indeed discover in the Wittena-gemote 
 of old England, some traces of right in the subject, and some effort 
 to limit the royal prerogative, and upon this ground claim similar 
 virtue for modern parliaments. All have heard of their famous 
 Magna Charta, which, if of any efficacy, should have been a per- 
 fect safe-guard for liberty. But in sober truth the ancient British 
 constitution, as has been justly said by one of their own whig his- 
 torians, is "a popular delusion" — "but an echo." The maxim 
 that " the king can do no wrong," makes all a delusion with which 
 it is identical. The kings of England have always taken to them- 
 selves just so much prerogative as the necessity created by their 
 passions or their vices prompted, and as they had the power, skill 
 and courage to maintain. Sometimes they have had no better excuse 
 for this law of necessity than caprice and cruelty. Magna Charta 
 and parliaments were mere cobwebs before such tyrants as Henry 
 VIII. and the scarcely less arbitrary sovereigns who succeeded him. 
 The judiciary was of little avail where the law which governed was 
 the law of the strongest. Royal prerogative, as has been said of 
 an army, " is so forcible, and at the same time so strong a weapon, 
 that any hand which wields it, may, without much dexterity, per- 
 form any operation, and attain any ascendant in human society."* 
 The Tudors and the Stuarts, Avith their Court of Star Chamber, 
 their Court of High Commission, and their Courts Martial, recog- 
 nised no such thing as " the riglits of man :" they trampled upon 
 life, liberty, property and conscience, alike. The historian al- 
 ready cited remarks,—" It may be said with truth, that the Eng- 
 lish, in that age, were so thoroughly subdued, that, like Eastern 
 
 Hume. 
 
10 
 
 slaves, they were inclined to admire those acts of tyranny which 
 were exercised over themselves and at their own expense." What 
 is tliis but to say, "however odious and detestable tyranny may be, 
 there is a period in English history, when by common consent it 
 was adopted in its worst shape by the nation, and not only adopted 
 but admired." But this would go to establish the foundations of 
 absolute power, both in the consent of the governed and in the 
 genius of the people ; as, he afterwards argues, that such power is 
 essential to the very existence of their government. With what 
 show of truth can such a proposition be predicated of that portion 
 of the population whose very name has always been a standing 
 protest against tyranny ? We venture the assertion that there 
 never was a time in England, since Wickliffe translated his Bible 
 and preached his doctrines, when a majority of the British nation 
 gave their free consent to the exercise of unlimited power by their 
 sovereigns. The casuist must fall back upon the dogma of a 
 divine right to do wrong ; rob the prince of the power of darkness 
 of his great peculiar infamy, and transfer his governing principle, 
 " evil be thou my good," to the benign ruler of the universe. 
 
 It is certain that during the first twenty years of the reign of 
 Henry VIII. parliament was not in session a twelvemonth ; and 
 during his entire reign of near thirty-eight years, there were but 
 ten parliaments summoned, and but twenty-three sessions held. 
 His acts of cruelty are the disgrace of English history, and add to 
 the thousand contradictions of their maxim, that " the king can do 
 no wrong." 
 
 Elizabeth was no less a tyrant; and with more semblance of 
 virtue than her father, did more injustice to humanity. Sir James 
 M'Intosh, in the beautiful history which he began, and which it 
 can never be sufficiently lamented that he did not live to finish, 
 says, of the death of the Lady Jane Grey, and of her treatment of 
 that unfortunate lady, "It was a death sufficient to HoxorR and 
 
11 
 
 DISHONOUR AN AGE."* Tliis was ill the earlier part of her more 
 than forty years of arbitrary sway over the Anglo-saxoii race. 
 Near its close, to find an excuse to take the life of Mary Queen of 
 Scots, a man was convicted under circumstances which demon- 
 strate, that an Englishman had no more security for his life under 
 the Tudor Queen, than men had under the worst despotisms, 
 of the worst countries, in the worst times. Her government is 
 described by Hume even, as no more limited or constitutional 
 than that of France, and " the English constitution as non-existent 
 in her reign." The clue to her character is supposed to be found 
 in her dying words, betraying, as they do, a remorseless selfish- 
 ness — "that she knew nothing in the world worthy to trouble 
 her;" as much as to say, she left behind not one living thing that 
 she cared for : worthily and justly compared to that expression of 
 the most odious of the Roman emperors — " Me pereunte pereat 
 mundus." Thus much of the second example, illustrating the 
 irony of the maxim as to the infallibility of sovereigns.t 
 
 And what shall we say of James ; the prince who, like Pharaoh 
 of old, would let the people neither stay nor go. One commences 
 the account of his reign with the remark, that " it is the basest and 
 most barren in English history." It has been said of his divine 
 right to the crown of England, that " his title by descent would 
 not pass an estate of twenty marks, and yet from whose accession 
 was dated the doctrine of indefeasible right of birth to the crown." 
 Upon the sacred immunities which such a title bestowed, the Stu- 
 arts attempted to practice the tyranny of the Tudors. He is de- 
 scribed by Bolingbroke as "one who could neither think with 
 sense nor act with spirit." He died from the effects of "habitual 
 intemperance, gout and vexation," after having cursed his country 
 
 See note A, in Appendix, for the entire passage. 
 See note B, in Appendix. 
 
» 12 
 
 with a reign of twenty-three years.* Who was this king whose 
 tyranny forced the Pilgrims to abandon the home of their fathers, 
 and fly to the wilderness? He was the son of a mother who 
 conspired with her paramour to murder her husband. He was 
 the son of a mother who married the murderer of her husband. 
 And who was his father ? All know the story of Darnley, and 
 Ruthven, and David Rizzio, and Bothwell. The revolting scan- 
 dal of the times brings into ridiculous prominence "a contemptible 
 Italian music master," in connexion with a race of kings; the 
 same race who persecuted our forefathers, and over the fate of 
 one of whom, wlio sutfered upon the scaffold a sacrifice to justice, 
 liberty and law, so many tears have been shed. Mary, Darnley, 
 Ruthven, Rizzio, Bothwell; these are the names to be remem- 
 bered, and these the characters to be studied, if we would form a 
 just estimate of the lineage of James I. Of such materials are 
 those whom artificial systems would consecrate as "the Lord's 
 anointed." 
 
 With these sovereigns religion was a mere engine of state: the 
 "Defender of the Faith" sustained the church of Rome until he 
 saw it interfering with his own supremacy: then he sent Catho- 
 lics to the stake for refusing to acknowledge his sovereignty over 
 the Pope in all ecclesiastical matters pertaining to England: he 
 persecuted Protestants with equal rigour, for not believing in tran- 
 substantiation. Elizabeth and James vented their fiercest wrath 
 upon non-conformists and separatists. These three reigns, with 
 that of Mary which intervened, cover a period of a century. 
 What a period of fiery trials? What a century of suffering for 
 conscience sake ? A century unparallelled in the annals of religious 
 persecution — immortalized by its contributions to the "army of 
 martyrs." 
 
 The history of the Plymouth Pilgrims begins with that of the 
 
 See note C, in Appendix. 
 
13 
 
 Puritans, and the history of the Puritans is the history of the 
 Reformation. The Pilgrims came out of the very heart of the 
 Reformation. In studying this history we must put on the man- 
 tle of Christian charity. It cannot be disposed of simply by de- 
 nunciation of the Pope, or a sneer at the Reformers, or by the 
 assertion of infallibility in either. The age is too far advanced 
 and too enlightened for such short and dogmatical logic. Nor, 
 although the satirist and the caricaturist find continual occasion 
 for the exercise of their craft in denouncing and depicting the 
 vices and follies of poor human nature, will we put forth the 
 theory of the natural depravity of our race. 
 
 But of all pretences in this wicked world, we do contend, that 
 of kings is the greatest pretence ; and of all dogmas, that of the 
 infallibility of kings the most absurd. Both are persevered in, on 
 and on, against light and truth. Both are an insult to common 
 sense and the common conscience of all truly enlightened Chris- 
 tian men. Far better have your kings of wood and iron, and 
 your queens of ivory and gold : they would not so often contradict 
 your maxim, and put truth to shame. Our hope and trust is, 
 that the work of the Puritans is still going on ; that man is yet to 
 be elevated to his true dignity in the scale of being — when kings 
 shall be regarded by all civilized nations, and by all created intel- 
 ligences, as we now regard the idols of the heathen — "the work 
 of men's hands." 
 
 The Reformation was every where connected with civil liberty. 
 Its seed had been sown in England, by Wicklifte, so early as 1360. 
 Lord Cobham was its first great martyr. " / shrive me here unto 
 Thee, my Eternal, living God,^^ were his remarkable words, ut- 
 tered upon his knees with uplifted hands, as he turned from the 
 archbishop who had solicited him to accept of absolution, after 
 being sentenced to the stake. Many of the Lollards, who adopted 
 the doctrines of Wicklifi'e, sufi'ered in the same manner, in the 
 same righteous cause, "to win a starry crown." John IIuss. in 
 
14 
 
 Bohemia, and Jerome of Prague, preached similar doctrines in 
 the next century, and also suffered martyrdom for advocating the 
 principles of religious and intellectual freedom. Whence came 
 this little band of Christian men, known among us as the United 
 Brethren, or Moravians, distinguished for purity and virtue, "liv- 
 ing in the world and yet not of the world," retaining traits of 
 primitive simplicity, uncontaminated, and unsophisticated by the 
 fashions and manners of artificial life ? They are the descendants 
 of those Avho followed John Huss. 
 
 " In England the torch was lit which first showed the nations 
 how to emancipate themselves from the slavery under which they 
 had groaned for so many ages."* Luther, in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, carried out the great work which WicklifTe had begun. But, 
 according to the Philosophy of History, the Lutheran movement 
 in Germany was sustained liy the principle, that it was "the right 
 of the civil ruler to reform religion, and to maintain it as reform- 
 ed."! The Calvinistic movement which came after it, was a po- 
 pular movement, independent of and sometimes in defiance of the 
 civil power. Its principal seat, originally, was in France and the 
 Low Countries, where "the connexion between civil and religious 
 liberty forced itself upon the eyes and hearts of all Protestants. ";{: 
 The school where these doctrines were taught was at Geneva. 
 Hither, those who fled from the Spanish regime, while it held 
 sway in England, resorted. They cherished their peculiar doc- 
 trines Avith a zeal proportioned to the persecution endured in the 
 cause. When, upon the accession of Elizabeth, the fires of Smith- 
 field were extinguished, these persecuted men returned, and were 
 every where regarded with intense interest. John Knox had been 
 of their number. They soon acquired commanding influence. 
 
 * 2d Stebbing's History of the Christian Church, 307. 
 
 1 See note D, in Appendix. 
 
 t 3d M'tntosh's History, 185, 18G. 
 
15 
 
 They were generally men of true piety and acknowledged ability. 
 They urged further reforms in the discipline and ceremonial of the 
 established church. This was opposed by Elizabeth ; but such was 
 their weight, that she was only able with all her influence as a Pro- 
 testant queen, to resist the movement by a vote of 59 to 58* in the 
 ecclesiastical council ; those in the minority being of greatest weight 
 both in council and at court. This strong resistance to the will of a 
 queen of the house of Tudor, a daughter of Henry VIII., put her to 
 the assertion of her high prerogatives. She proceeded at once to 
 extremes against those who had dared to oppose her. The Court of 
 Star Chamber was set to work with all its appropriate and colla- 
 teral engines, not excepting the pillory and the rack. These stern 
 opposers of arbitrary despotism were nick-named Puritans, be- 
 cause of their adherence to rigid principles. We are told, that 
 " their strength was in great towns, the scenes of bold discussion, 
 and the favourite dwelling of bold innovation." Elizabeth, in the 
 school of her father, had seen men punished for teaching their 
 children the Lord's prayer in their own language; for reading the 
 New Testament in the same language, she had seen them subject- 
 ed to the pains and penalties of the Star Chamber. To entertain 
 a persecuted preacher, to neglect a fast, had been capital oflfences. 
 Sir Thomas More pronounced some of these sentences, and wit- 
 nessed their execution — then lost his own head for not conceding 
 that Henry, in England, should be regarded as the head of the 
 church. She profited by the lesson. But the cruelty of the father 
 Avas in keeping with his vices : hers had not this apology, and 
 was the more odious because of her sex. 
 
 These things must be called to mind, considered, and reconsi- 
 dered, to enable us to form an adequate idea of the persecution 
 our forefathers had undergone in England, and to understand the 
 
 :5d M'Intosli's History, 132-3. 
 
16 
 
 tnie value of civil and relifrious liberty. It was under such perse- 
 cutions, that Puritanism sprung into existence. 
 
 It may be worth while here, to examine a little the justice of the 
 sneers with which a certain great historian commonly treats the 
 Puritan character. It should be remembered, that one object of 
 the same historian is to bring all Christianity into contempt. Treat- 
 ing of the times which we have been considering, on one page he 
 pronounces toleration " paradoxical in principle, salutary in prac- 
 tice."* On the next, he refers to certain early doctrines held by 
 the first reformers in common, and still retained by the Puritans, 
 as " affording the highest subject of joy, triumph and security," 
 and intimately connected with that enthusiastic spirit which pro- 
 duced such great results, as yet in theory absurd, and when exa- 
 mined by the test of human reason also paradoxical. Mutato no- 
 mine de te fabula nurratur. The principles of the early re- 
 formers styled Calvinistic, are, like toleration, "paradoxical in 
 theory, salutary in practice." Thus we find him throughout. 
 Speaking of the passive obedience and non-resistance every where 
 inculcated in the reign of James I., he says: "It was only during 
 the next generation that the noble principles of liberty took root, 
 and spreading themselves under the shelter of puritanical absur- 
 dities, became fashionable among the people. "t Wonderful philo- 
 sophy, to bring into such close alliance, such continual and inti- 
 mate connexion and mutual relation, absurdities and benignities — 
 teaching that things absurd in nature are yet benign in action. To 
 solve the enigma, we must regard the one as a fact, while the 
 other is but an opinion. 
 
 Again: "The English have no reason, from the example of 
 their ancestors, to be in love with the picture of absolute monar- 
 
 * 3d Vol. Hume's History, 330. 
 \ Ibid, 226. 
 
17 
 
 chy, or to prefer the unlimited authority of the prince, and his 
 unbounded prerogatives, to that noble liberty, that sweet equality, 
 and that happy security by which they are at present distinguished 
 above all nations of the universe."* But, for these priceless 
 blessings, his entire history teaches, they are indebted Avholly to 
 the Puritans. Indeed, he says, in another passage, in so many 
 words, speaking of the Puritans, " by whom alone the precious 
 spark of liberty had been kindled and was preserved, and to 
 whom the English owe the whole freedom of their constitution." 
 He describes them as men of " independent genius and large 
 views, governed more by future consequences than former pre- 
 cedents." He admits that ancient and recent precedents, so late 
 as the time of James I., were " diametrically opposed to all the 
 principles of a free government; "t and we learn from him that 
 absolutism was filched by the civil power from the ecclesiastical, 
 in the contest of Henry with the Pope, engrafted by him into 
 their constitution, and cherished by Elizabeth and James I. Hence, 
 he informs us, although the reformed church in England, as esta- 
 blished by Elizabeth, had embraced the early Calvinistic doctrines 
 of the Puritans, yet, " at the restoration, the church, though she 
 still retained her old subscriptions and articles of faith, was found 
 to have totally changed her speculative doctrines, and to have em- 
 braced tenets more suitable to the genius of her discipline and 
 worship, without its being possible to assign the precise period in 
 which the alteration was produced. "J In other words, the specu- 
 lative doctrine of the church of the Reformation were found so to 
 work in practice, as to have come into exceeding bad odour when 
 royalty was restored to power. 
 
 In tracing the causes which led to the overthrow of absolute 
 
 * 3d Vol. Hume's History, 227. 
 
 t Ibid. 268. t Ibid. 831. 
 
18 
 
 power, he says, that many of the leaders among the commons 
 were of the Puritanical party, and had " secretly embraced the 
 rigid tenets of their sect," — " although their religious schemes 
 appear frivolous,* men of the greatest parts and most extensive 
 knowledge adopted them." He recognises the leaders of the 
 House of Commons, in the time of Charles I., as of uncommon 
 capacity and the largest views, " generous patriots, actuated by a 
 warm regard to liberty, boldly embracing the side of freedom." 
 Here is the palpable impersonation of an infidel philosopher in a 
 fog : he sees " men as trees walking." Hampden, Pym, and 
 Vane, are made identical Avith what is " frivolous" in the most 
 sacred transaction of their lives ; men, the like of whom none 
 ever lived before or since in England. The brightness of their 
 character and the greatness of their deeds have been the admira- 
 tion of all succeeding ages. 
 
 When he treats of the German reformers, the same cloud of in- 
 fidelity obscures his mental vision. He admits that Melancthon, 
 Bucer, and their co-labourers, were of the greatest importance in 
 the world ; " that no poet or philosopher, even in ancient Greece, 
 where they were treated with most respect, had ever reached 
 equal applause and admiration ;" and then he stigmatizes them as 
 "wretched composers of metaphysical polemics." 
 
 In summing up the argument between the partisans of the court 
 and the friends of liberty, he gives decided preponderance to the 
 reasoning of the latter ; and speaks of " that sacred liberty which 
 heroic spirits, in all ages, have deemed more precious than life 
 itself." And in the civil war which is to follow, he says, that 
 "the good and virtuous would hardly know what vows to form, 
 were it not that liberty, so necessary to the perfection of human 
 society, would be sufficient to bias their affections towards the 
 
 3d Vol. Hume's History, 35'2. 
 
19 
 
 side of its defenders."* And then again, to come to the matter in 
 hand, " the Puritans, restrained in England, shipped themselves 
 off for America, and laid the foundations of a government which 
 possessed all the liberty, both civil and religious, of which they 
 found themselves bereaved in their native country."! Yes, "ship- 
 ped themselves off," with their "frivolous schemes," their "para- 
 doxical creed," their "absurd doctrines;" and notwithstanding this 
 superabundance of folly, paradox, and nonsense, wrought out for 
 themselves and for the generations which come after them, super- 
 abounding good. We stand here this day to vindicate their fair 
 fame from infidel sneers. The blessings of good government, 
 "like the dew of Hermon," are silent and unseen. " The evil 
 that men do lives after them." A sacred duty is devolved upon 
 us to take care that the "good" done by our ancestors shall not 
 "be interred with their bones." 
 
 But the descendants of the Pilgrims might forgive the infidel 
 historian all his prejudice against the religion of their forefathers, 
 in consideration of the seeming magnanimity of his avowal in the 
 concluding chapter of his story — "No man," says Hume, "has 
 yet arisen, who has paid an entire regard to truth, and has dared 
 to expose her, without covering or disguise, to the eyes of the 
 prejudiced public. "f 
 
 This is, indeed, a precious admission— what but to give notice 
 to all — "in concluding this history, I must candidly acknowledge, 
 I have not been able always to speak the truth ; I had not the 
 moral courage to dare to do it; the prejudices by which I was 
 surrounded forced me to cover it up and disguise it." Had this 
 been said in the tone and manner of confession, as a matter to be 
 repented of and reformed, it would be one thing: but it is a 
 simple and naked avowal, with no seeming consciousness that it 
 
 * 3d Vol. Hume's History, 353. t Ibid. 411. 
 
 t 4lh Vol. 427. 
 
20 
 
 betrays want of principle, obliquity of design, slavish fear; indi- 
 cating an utter perversion of the moral sense. In the same para- 
 grapli he illustrates this theory of his admission by his own con- 
 duct, thus — he presents to us in subtle, sophistical, and incompre- 
 hensible combination, the course of the whigs, as having led to 
 "the increase of law and liberty;" themselves as actuated by the 
 "highest regard to liberty;" "noble in their ends and highly bene- 
 ficial to mankind;" and yet, at the same time, governed by "rage 
 and folly;" charging it upon them as a calumny, that they had 
 propagated that "Charles I. was a tyrant," thereby infatuating and 
 corrupting the people, and promoting violence in the name of 
 liberty and justice, and proceeding through a course of "delu- 
 sions," till they reached "a fiction which exceeds the ordinary 
 bounds of human credulity!" This is, indeed, "wonderful;" to 
 borrow his own phrase — alike wonderful and incomprehensible — 
 the very climax of "covering up and disguising the truth from the 
 eyes of a prejudiced public," amounting to something more than 
 simple paradox, and meriting the retaliation of some of his own 
 phrases, before applied to the Puritans when speaking of their 
 doctrines as '■'■frivolous nonsense." A calumny, indeed, to say 
 that "Charles I. was a tyrant!" A calumny of such malignity and 
 enormity, as to indicate "rage and folly in its authors!" This 
 could only have been said by one who had already written of 
 this same Charles — " we stand astonished, that, among a civilized 
 people, so much virtue should ever meet with so fatal a catas- 
 trophe." 
 
 Now the indubitable historical fact is, that the " two distinctive 
 and decisive traits (of Charles I.) were despotism and bad faith."* 
 He exhibited the " ruling passion strong in death," when he said, 
 upon the scaftbld, that " he died the martyr of the people," ad- 
 ding, " a share of the government being nothing pertaining to 
 
 * 6lh Vol. Con. of Sir James M'Intosh's History, 127. 
 
21 
 
 them." Of this it has been remarked, by one who had no fear of 
 speaking the truth in the atmosphere of royalty, that " if he is to 
 be esteemed a martyr, it is to the right and perpetuity of tyrannic 
 power in the kings of England."* How can his admirers, who 
 see no fault in his character, forget the occasion of that celebrated 
 exclamation by Strafford, "Put not your trust in princes," al- 
 though the memory of it haunted Charles in his dying moments, 
 and wrung from him the confession of " his having permitted an 
 iniquitous sentence, which was then visited upon him in his own." 
 If king ever owed any thing to subject, Charles owed it to Straf- 
 ford, and yet he had the pusillanimity, against his own convic- 
 tions of right and justice, nay, against a solemn pledge, when the 
 life of his great minister was in his power, to permit him to be 
 executed. 
 
 The apology for Charles is to be found in his having been 
 taught to believe monarchy of " right divine," and that as he in- 
 herited the crown of the Tudors, so he might justly exercise the 
 full extent of prerogative claimed by Henry VHI. and Elizabeth, 
 as had been done by his father, James I. Had he been suffered 
 to go on, the nation must have sunk to the same degrading servi- 
 tude, which Hume himself detects in the former reigns. 
 
 Such was the character of the government from which our fore- 
 fathers fled for refuge to " the depths of the desert gloom." 
 
 It would be pleasant to spend some little time with the Pilgrims 
 in Holland, if only to correct an error which long had currency, 
 and into which some of our friends have fallen, as to the true 
 character of their relations there, and the reasons of their depar- 
 ture.! But time forbids. 
 
 The old story of a Dutch captain of the Mayflower, bribed to 
 avoid the fertile banks of the Hudson, has been long since ex- 
 
 * 6th Vol. Con. of Sir James M'Intosh's History, p. 126. 
 f See note E, in Appendix. 
 
22 
 
 ploded. We cherish the faith which teaches that it was an over- 
 ruling power which delayed the little barque so long upon her 
 voyage, and determined her approach, after winter had begun, to 
 the bleak shores of the old Bay State, creating a necessity there 
 to land. But for this faith, how can we reconcile ourselves to 
 those thousand ills of life, the wisdom of which we cannot now 
 see, but " which we shall see hereafter." The one idea of the 
 Pilgrims was the strength of their Faith and Hope — their trust in 
 God — and this was sublime, beyond the comprehension of infidel 
 philosophy. 
 
 It is not proposed here to go over the chronicles of the Pilgrims, 
 to recapitulate for the thousandth time what they did and what 
 they suffered, with illustrations of their many virtues, their strik- 
 ing peculiarities, and their few but prominent errors. 
 
 They landed at Plymouth, on the 22d of December, 1620. 
 They went through incredible hardships, and soon lost half their 
 number. A step in advance of their brother Puritans, had entitled 
 them to the designation of Separatists, and the honours of especial 
 persecution. In their new position they were regarded with in- 
 tense interest by their brethren, and were speedily reinforced. 
 Within the next ten years, Endicott and Winthrop, with more 
 numerous trains of followers, and more ample resources, settled 
 in the vicinity of Boston. These had not separated themselves 
 from the church of England, like the Plymouth Pilgrims, but were 
 what was styled Non-conformists, of which character were all the 
 subsequent settlements in New England. The difference between 
 these two classes in England had been great ; here it was soon 
 forgotten, and is now only remembered as a matter of curious 
 history. They were all Puritans. Impelled by similar motives, 
 they had all fled to the wilderness, and have always been regarded 
 as identical. We avoid the minute chronology of the settlement 
 of these respective colonies, familiar no doubt to all. They oc- 
 curred within the first twenty years. 
 
23 
 
 The class to which they belong has been styled " the most re- 
 markable body of men the world has ever produced."* Certain 
 it is, they have been more unjustly treated than any body of men 
 the world has ever produced. We protest against the extrava- 
 gance both of praise and of censure with which their character has 
 been sketched by one of the most distinguished writers of the day. 
 There is no arriving at the sober certainty of truth in the midst of 
 such violent contrasts. We protest also against the super-sublima- 
 tion of the character of their great champion, by a scarce less dis- 
 tinguished writer. We live in an age when the public taste re- 
 quires that all should be in heroics, and our literary caterers yield 
 to its demands. We are on the very verge of the mock-heroics. 
 It might even be well that some Cervantes should send us another 
 knight errant, of peerless honour, stainless virtue, dauntless cour- 
 age, and truthful love, who should make us so laugh at our own 
 follies, by his whole-souled and simple-hearted extravaganza, as 
 to bring back things to the modesty of nature. Now, to arrest 
 attention, every thing must be presented in the shape of paradox. 
 The reviewer makes his shades so very dark, and his lights so 
 very bright, as to give a series of startling contradictions. His- 
 tory, to be attractive, must be clothed in the guise of fiction. The 
 historical novel bewilders by its mixture of truth with falsehood. 
 The pathos of song must have its equivalent of humour to make 
 us laugh when we should rather weep. Learning must be made 
 picturesque, and the common incidents of life dramatised to ap- 
 pear as so many oddities. We have all got to be, some how, 
 bizarre : the whole world is fast becoming grotesque. Caricature 
 is a perfect passion with us : not only the pen and pencil and the 
 burin minister to it ; but the art of printing. Our good old fash- 
 ioned English capitals, when used to usher in a grave topic, must 
 
 * Macaulay. 
 
24 
 
 nevertheless have their circumambients of all sorts of comicalities. 
 Whether Jeffrey, or Macaulay, or Carlyle, or Theodore Hook, or 
 Tom Hood, have aided to bring about this state of things, and 
 which most, certain it is that in the popular literature of the day 
 Punch and Boz are lords of the ascendant. 
 
 Why should a sincere religious profession be regarded as ridi- 
 culous and incomprehensible ; earnest devotion as fanaticism, and 
 all conversation on the subject out of church, or on any other day 
 but Sunday, as cant ? 
 
 Washington was not ashamed to acknowledge his obligations to 
 the God of battles : Washington, of whom it may be said with 
 more propriety than of the great captain to whom the words have 
 been applied, — 
 
 Cujus negotium, an otium, 
 Gloriosius incerlum. 
 
 Franklin, when the members of that old Congress, which declared 
 our independence, were in their darkest hour of adversity, pro- 
 posed that they should seek wisdom from above. The President 
 of the United States, in his annual message to Congress, still re- 
 cognises the " divine guidance." Nay, we date every transaction 
 in life with reference to the Christian era ; and this, by common 
 consent, throughout the Christian Avorld. The event which it 
 commemorates is regarded as the bright particular spot in the his- 
 tory of our race. Thus the entire Christian world recognises 
 one great truth in common, as paramount to every other. Why 
 should it be that when we come to treat of this subject, we must 
 study a curious felicity of speech to avoid the imputation of cant, 
 always offensive to " ears polite ?" Such is human nature. 
 
 But time has done much for the Puritan character. We must 
 not withhold our acknowledgments to Macaulay and Carlyle for 
 their labours in this behalf, although we have ventured to protest 
 against certain peculiarities of style. The change in public opi- 
 
25 
 
 nion respecting the true character of Cromwell, the great Puritan 
 champion, now almost universal, is to be ascribed, mainly, to their 
 efforts.* The article upon Milton, which appeared in the Edin- 
 burg Review some twenty years ago, produced a great sensation, 
 and paved the way for what has followed. Forster, in his Lives 
 of Eminent British Statesmen, first published in the Cabinet Cy- 
 clopaedia; and the continuation of Sir James M'Intosh's History 
 by Wallace, aided in accomplishing this object. But the recent 
 work by Carlyle upon Cromwell is a marvel. It is a marvel 
 in itself, and has produced a still greater marvel in having con- 
 vinced the Blackwood writers that Cromwell was not a hypocrite. 
 His magazine says that the perusal of Carlyle's volumes will dis- 
 abuse any candid and intelligent mind of this hypothesis. It is a 
 marvel in having been made the foundation of another life of the 
 Puritan champion by D'Aubigne. It is a marvel in itself, because 
 of its profound investigation and research ; its unparalleled dex- 
 terity in the use of chronology ; its fearless and independent tone ; 
 its power and pathos, and eloquence and entertaining incident — and 
 this all covered up in a style so odd and strange, that you have 
 every now and then to stop to determine whether to laugh or cry.t 
 Carlyle has not satisfied us that Cromwell was perfect, either as 
 a man or as a statesman. But he has demonstrated that Crom- 
 
 * Macaulay and Carlyle both bear testimony, that while the character of 
 Cromwell has been the object alike of ridicule and denunciation, ever since 
 the restoration, without anj' one to defend it, still it has constantly main- 
 tained its hold upon the admiration of the great mass of the people of Eng- 
 land, and that this has rather increased than diminished with the lapse of 
 time. 
 
 t It is remarkable that Carlyle refers to a letter from John Maidstone, one 
 of the Protector's household, to Governor Winthrop, of Connecticut, as fur- 
 nishing more insight into the true character of Cromwell than any of his 
 express biographies. This letter is published in an Appendix to Forster's 
 Life of Cromwell, in the Cabinet Cyclopaedia, occupying twelve pages. 
 D 
 
26 
 
 well did all that any mere man could do under the circumstances ; 
 that he did more than any other man who ever lived has done as 
 a sovereign, for liberty and truth ; that he was unsurpassed in the 
 excellence of his domestic relations, pre-eminent in council as in 
 the field, and that he died in the " full assurance of hope." Of what 
 other conqueror can it be said, that — " he never fought a battle 
 without gaining a victory. He never gained a victory ivithout 
 annihilating the force opposed to him."* What other sovereign 
 ever avowed sentiments in favour of religious toleration, like those 
 words of the Lord Protector to his Parliament, — " if the poorest 
 Christian, the most mistaken Christian, should desire to live 
 peaceably and quietly under you, let him be protected."! 
 
 The able author of the Lives of Eminent British Statesmen, 
 appears to have lent himself to the old theory of hypocrisy, not- 
 withstanding the general liberality of his strain. Carlyle com- 
 mends his work, but speaks of him as endowed " with energy in 
 abundance and superabundance." All these men of superabundant 
 energy run into paradoxical extemes. Mr. Forster speaks of Crom- 
 well, as " a solitary specimen of a great man, who was not also a 
 true one ;"f and yet he says, in conclusion, speaking of his death, § 
 which occurred on the eve of the anniversary of the day on which 
 he achieved each of his great victories, at Worcester and Dunbar, 
 " It was indeed a night which prophesied a woful time to Eng- 
 land, but to Cromwell it proved a night of happiness. It ushered 
 in for him, far more surely than at Worcester or Dunbar, his 
 FORTUNATE DAY." What confidence can we place in any estimate 
 of character by one who supposes that his hero may find happi- 
 ness in death, although in life he was not a man of truth ; or how 
 can we suppose that to be a fortunate day for such a man, on 
 
 "* Macaulay. 
 
 i 7th Vol. Forster's Eminent British Statesmen, 15G. 
 
 ; Ibid. 274. § Ibid. 392. 
 
27 
 
 which he exchanges the probation of time for the retributions of 
 Eternity — leaves a frowning world to meet an angry God ! 
 
 An able writer in Blackwood, in his review of Carlyle, while he 
 exempts Cromwell from hypocrisy, charges his faults to the peculi- 
 arities of his creed. He says, again and again, he was a genuine 
 Puritan — "every where and throughout, the genuine, fervid Puri- 
 tan"— "the Puritan general, the Puritan statesman" — "it is as the 
 great Puritan that he must ever be rembembered in history." 
 But he would have us believe that Puritanism itself was all a 
 cheat. Cromwell was honest, but his religion was false, says 
 Blackwood, thus — " His religion, genuine as it was, would no 
 more prevent him from the practice of this necessary craft than 
 from the sanguinary deeds not more necessary to the triumph of 
 his cause." — " When the saints were in the ascendant, dissimula- 
 tion would unavoidably take a religious form." We protest 
 against having such a religion as this palmed off upon our fore- 
 fathers. It is the reasoning of a monarchist, who has no concep- 
 tion of religion, except as a matter of king-craft. That is the 
 only true religion with him, which best sustains the divine right 
 of the king his master. He flatters himself that he has taken a 
 step beyond Clarendon and Hume, and the herd who have fol- 
 lowed them in putting forward hypocrisy as the clue to Crom- 
 well's character ; but he has taken a false step. He admits that 
 Cromwell is not the least extraordinary, nor the " least misrepre- 
 sented personage in history," and says, " we look upon this hy- 
 pothesis, this Machiavelian explanation of Cromwell's character, 
 as henceforth entirely dismissed from all candid and intelligent 
 minds." — "It has lasted long enough." — " It may now be torn 
 into shreds, and cast aside as utterly faithless." He then pro- 
 ceeds, deliberately, to place a fooVs cap on his head, demonstra- 
 ting to his own entire satisfaction, that the religion of the Puritans, 
 which Cromwell sincerely professed, was the quintessence of 
 folly ! 
 
28 
 
 And yet he concedes to him throughout his elaborate, in- 
 genious, and eloquent article, the possession of rare virtues and 
 strong conscientiousness, and expresses great admiration of some 
 concluding passages of his life, when, as he beautifully remarks, 
 — " the sere and yellow leaf is falling on the shelterless head of 
 the royal Puritan." 
 
 Cromwell first girt on his sword as Captain of the Ironsides, in 
 1642.* His great deeds were all achieved within the seventeen 
 years ensuing. He died in 1658, under sixty years of age. He 
 had been a farmer of St. Ives. From being captain of a company 
 of yeoman cavalry, in ten years he became the greatest captain of 
 his time. All his battles were fought before 1652. His pre-emi- 
 nent abilities made him Lord Protector. His military fame had 
 already become world-wide ; as a statesman he attained equal re- 
 nown. He was, indisputably, the master-spirit of the age. All 
 history does not furnish his parallel. No other man ever accom- 
 plished so much in the same time. None of the legitimate sove- 
 reigns of England can be at all compared to him. He was a man 
 every way estimable in the relations of private life, and his virtue 
 did not succumb before the temptations of his great and sudden 
 elevation. His public character has long been a difficult problem. 
 The descendants of the Puritans owe a debt of gratitude to Carlyle 
 for placing it in a true light. He was the cotemporary of the 
 Pilgrims. He was of their own creed. He drew his sword to 
 resist the same tyranny which had driven them into the wilder- 
 ness. He was actuated by the same religious principles, the same 
 motives. They lived and died by these principles and have per- 
 petuated them here. Their influence has been illustrated in the 
 lives and conduct of each succeeding generation, and the result is 
 
 * If we examine the records, more than one of the sons of New England 
 will find the names of ancestors made freemen of Massachusetts In that vear. 
 
29 
 
 before us. The world sees it. It is time to have done with these 
 sneers at the religion of the Puritans. Let any other sect produce 
 a braver or a better champion than Oliver Cromwell ; let any- 
 other religion point to greater results, or better fruits — to more that 
 has been done to honour God and improve the condition of man. 
 
 We have been taught from earliest childhood to set a high esti- 
 mate on the value of liberty. We see its emblem every where 
 around us, as that of the guardian genius of our country. The 
 day on which our fathers resolved to vindicate their right to the 
 enjoyment of it, with life, fortune, and sacred honour, is celebrated 
 as our great national anniversary. It was for this they drew the 
 sword and returned it not again into the scabbard until they had 
 won the greatest boon which heaven vouchsafes to man. Placi- 
 dam sub Libert ate quiet em. Liberty and peace. Civil liberty 
 and religious liberty. Liberty of conscience and peace of con- 
 science — " that peace which passeth knowledge." This is the 
 glorious boon for which our Puritan ancestors had been struggling 
 since the days of Wickliffe. Unfortunately, in the enjoyment of 
 civil and religious liberty, we forget or neglect too much the im- 
 portance of moral liberty. Few, very few, it is to be feared, un- 
 derstand the true meaning of this word, in the possession of which 
 all profess so greatly to rejoice ; still fewer, probably, have any 
 just or adequate sense of the responsibilities which it imposes. 
 
 Shortly before our declaration of independence, there appeared 
 in Great Britain a work on this subject, which produced a 
 great sensation at the time.* It was entitled, " Observations on 
 the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and 
 the Justice and Policy of the War with America, by Richard 
 
 * You might have seen it in the library of every American whig of the re- 
 volution. Many a son of New England here to-day, no doubt, recollects his 
 early wonder that this book should be deemed worthy of a place alongside of 
 the family Bible, in the family library. 
 
30 
 
 Price." The preface to the first edition is dated Feb. 8, 1776, 
 that to the fifth, March 12, 1776. From the eighth edition, pub- 
 hshed within the same year, we cite a single passage, such as 
 when heard by those who have been so bitter in their denuncia- 
 tion of the reUgion of our ancestors, one would suppose, should 
 make their ears tingle. 
 
 " I cannot help wishing I could here fix my reader's attention, 
 and engage him to consider carefully the dignity of that blessing 
 to which we give the name of Liberty, according to the represen- 
 tation now made of it. There is not a word in the Avhole com- 
 pass of language, which expresses so much of what is important 
 and excellent. It is, in every view of it, a blessing truly sacred 
 and invaluable. Without Physical Liberty, man would be a ma- 
 chine acted upon by mechanical springs, having no principle of 
 motion in himself, or command over events ; and therefore incapa- 
 ble of all merit and demerit — without Moral Liberty, he is a wicked 
 and detestable being, subject to the tyranny of base lusts, and the 
 sport of every vile appetite — and without Civil and Religions Li- 
 berty, he is a poor and abject animal, without rights, without pro- 
 perty, and without a conscience, bending his neck to the yoke, 
 and crouching to the will of every silly creature who has the inso- 
 lence to pretend to authority over him. Nothing, therefore, can 
 be of so much consequence to us as Liberty. It is the foundation 
 of all honour, and the chief privilege and glory of our nature." 
 
 Here we are taught, in 
 
 "Thoughts that breathe and words that burn," 
 
 that with Liberty man may fulfil his highest destiny — choose for 
 himself the path of usefulness and happiness — ally himself to the 
 highest order of created intelligences — fit himself to live and to 
 die. Brave words, these, truly, and bravely spoken, — and brave 
 Old England for permitting them to be spoken, and not punishing 
 the author as Christian men were punished, who spoke God's 
 truth in the ears of royalty, before the days of Oliver Cromwell; 
 and this eight times over during the very year that America first 
 
31 
 
 proclaimed liberty to the captive. Where were Laud, and the Star 
 Chamber, and the Court of High Commission, once so blood- 
 thirsty in vindication of the royal prerogative, and in teaching the 
 people that " government was an affair with which they had no- 
 thing to do ?" Thanks to the Puritans, these mighty engines of 
 power had been crushed — the spell by which men had been held 
 in slavery, was broken. Yes, thanks to the Puritans — " the gen- 
 uine Puritan" — "the fervid Puritan" — "the conscientious, zealous 
 Puritan" — " the Puritan general, the Puritan statesman"— the Pu- 
 ritan of the same sect and stamp with those who " shipped them- 
 selves off for America" — that some restraint is put upon the pre- 
 rogative, some liberty reserved for the subject, and some rights se- 
 cured to the people of England. 
 
 The day we celebrate is second only in importance to that of 
 the anniversary of our independence as a nation. Second, be- 
 cause it witnessed but the planting of that tree, of which the other 
 saw the blossoming. Sons of the Pilgrims, who first landed on 
 the "stern and rock-bound coast" of New England, and there, at 
 the expense of toil and suffering and blood, made for themselves 
 and for their children a happy home, we meet, after the lapse of 
 two hundred and twenty-seven years, in this fair land of Penn. 
 Here, under the over-shadowing branches of this tree of liberty, 
 we have cast our lot, and here many of us have numbered the 
 greater part of "the days of our years." Here are our altars and 
 our firesides, with the thousand ties and affinities which cluster 
 around them — here our children have been born, and here we ex- 
 pect to lay our bones. It is with no want of fealty to home and 
 hearth-stone, that, on this festal day, our hearts yearn towards the 
 land of our fathers. With hearts true to the natale solum, we 
 can still bear testimony that our " lines have been cast in pleasant 
 places." Upon a recent occasion, in this city, a distinguished 
 gentleman paid a just tribute to the public spirit and liberal contri- 
 butions of the citizens of Boston to scientific, literary, and benevo- 
 
32 
 
 lent objects. We have been before indebted to the same source, 
 for a notice of the New England character, and of New England 
 men, spoken out openly and handsomely. We would gladly re- 
 pay our neighbour for his kind office to the "town of Boston," 
 by furnishing a list of Philadelphia contributions to religious, 
 literary, scientific and benevolent objects, prepared by the dis- 
 tinguished President of this Society. These statistics have been 
 collected under an impression that we had not done ourselves jus- 
 tice in this respect. No other city is, perhaps, so reserved in 
 speaking of its own good deeds as Philadelphia. Ever ready to 
 do justice to the public spirit of others, she seldom speaks of 
 her own. It will be seen, upon examination, that we are not 
 behind any other town in the Union in the exercise of phi- 
 lanthropy. In truth, this city was founded by a sect proverbial 
 for benevolence, and a large portion of its inhabitants have always 
 devoted their spare time and money, systematically and regularly, 
 to our great public charities. These furnish resources for their 
 leisure hours, which others find in places of fashionable amuse- 
 ment. The great amount of active but quiet and unseen charity 
 always going on around us, is a marked characteristic of the city 
 of Penn. Of the list which has been referred to, comprising more 
 than one liundred and fifty public charities and bequests for public 
 objects, we cannot afford space to state more, than that for the 
 promotion of literature, the establishment of libraries, and for ge- 
 neral education, about three million three hundred thousand dol- 
 lars have been given by individuals, and provided by the public. 
 
 For other benevolent and useful purposes, six million seven 
 hundred thousand dollars, in testamentary and other modes of do- 
 nation, have been bestowed by citizens of Philadelphia, making 
 an aggregate of ten millions of dollars. This includes, of course, 
 the Girard legacy. The public schools cost annually about two 
 hundred and forty thousand dollars, educating thirty-six thousand 
 six hundred and sixty-five children. 
 
33 
 
 This authoritative statement will be regarded with the more in- 
 terest, as coming from one who, through a long life of active use- 
 fulness, public spirit, and enlightened intelligence, has done honour 
 to the city of his birth in the city of his adoption, and now makes 
 it, not that he loves Boston less, but Philadelphia more. We 
 would not provoke invidious contrasts between Philadelphia and 
 the city of the three hills. We are, in truth, here, now, in more 
 intimate intercourse and closer contact with Boston than Plymouth 
 was during all the time they belonged to separate colonies. In all 
 respects of time, trouble and expense, we are nearer to Boston 
 than they were in the old colony for two hundred years. The 
 intercommunication is far greater. Such are the revolutions pro- 
 duced by commerce, manufactures, rail-roads and the telegraph. 
 Time was when the journey from Barnstable to Boston was a 
 work of two days. From Berkshire, then their far west, to Bos- 
 ton, four days. The man is now living who has seen and con- 
 versed with the post-rider who took the entire mail in his saddle- 
 bags, on horseback, between Boston and New York, going one 
 week and returning the next. Now they can make the journey 
 from Berkshire in one day ; we travel from here to Boston in 
 twenty-four hours. We communicate by telegraph and obtain an 
 answer in less than an hour. In truth, we are fast becoming one 
 people. This vast commerce which has recently sprung up, our 
 demand for and sale of their manufactures, their demand for* and 
 consumption of our flour and coal and iron, create mutual interests 
 and mutual dependence, while the rail-road and the telegraph fur- 
 nish the means of quick responsive sympathies. Look at the 
 immense amount of New England capital now invested here, not 
 only in mercantile houses, but in our rail-roads and canals, in coal 
 fields and iron-mines. Look at that fleet of coasters whose sails 
 continually whiten the bosom of tlie Delaware ; look at that forest 
 of masts at Richmond ; what does all this speak ? We must be 
 one people. 
 
 K 
 
34 
 
 And while we rejoice in New England as the land of our fa- 
 thers, the land of our l)irth, let us rejoice more that we are citi- 
 zens of the United States. Let it be our chief pride and glory, 
 that we enjoy the blessings of this Federal Union, and the hope to 
 transmit them unimpaired to our children. 
 
 There is a spot within the limits of the old colony, a forest of 
 several thousand acres in extent, where the fallow deer and young 
 fawn still have their range ; there may still be seen the wigwam 
 and the slight canoe, together with some poor remnants of the 
 race once monarchs of the soil. Within their iramedite vicinity, 
 some of our ancestors have dwelt for more than two centuries, 
 and a great part of their descendants still find their home. When 
 the clarion sounded its cry for liberty in the war of the revolution, 
 when the thunder of the artillery at Bunker Hill, came to them 
 across the waters of the Massachusetts bay, you might see men 
 of three generations of the same name and famUy, rallying in the 
 same ranks, to stand by the men of Boston, of Lexington, and of 
 Concord. Their efforts aided to establish this Union — to make 
 this a free country ; to unite us as one country. Looking at their 
 participation in this great work, our hearts swell with peculiar 
 emotions as citizens of this republic. Let us ever cherish the re- 
 collection as among the most interesting of the pleasant memories 
 of father-land. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 NOTE A.— page 11. 
 
 The entire passage is this, — 
 
 "The history of tyranny affords no example of a female of seven- 
 teen, by command of a female, and a relation, put to death for 
 acquiescence in the injunction of a father, sanctioned by the con- 
 currence of all that the kingdom could boast of that was illustrious 
 in nobility, or grave in law, or venerable in religion. The example 
 is the more affecting, as it is that of a person who exhibited a match- 
 less union of youth and beauty, with genius, with learning, with 
 virtue, with piety ; whose affections were so warm, while her pas- 
 sions were so perfectly subdued. It was a death sufficient to honour 
 and dishonour an age." 
 
 NOTE B.— page 11. 
 
 We cite the following brief passages from a summary of her 
 character. 
 
 " She inherited the passions of her father. Her temper was im- 
 patient, self-indulgent, jealous, savage, and tyrannical." 
 
 "When she found her favourite, Essex, incorrigible, she delibe- 
 rately cut off his head." 
 
 " Her severities against the Roman Catholics are vindicated only 
 by sophistry, and extenuated only by falsehood." 
 
 " The spirit of her severities against the Puritans was more per- 
 sonal and keen." 
 
 " She foresaw, perhaps, that the Puritans were making the breach 
 through which liberty and reason would one day enter."* 
 
 * History of England continued from the late Sir James MIntosh, Vol. 
 v., pp. 140, 147. 
 
36 
 
 NOTE C— page 12. 
 
 It is recorded, that " the day of his coronation was the worst 
 weather of the season, and that eleven hundred persons died the 
 same week, in London, of plague." 
 
 " He swore that he would fight to the death against a toleration ; 
 and he sent men to the tower for the offence of petitioning for it." 
 
 "He altered the Book of Common Prayer, without reference to 
 the clergy in convocation, and assumed despotic power in all matters, 
 whether civil or ecclesiastical." 
 
 When forced to call a Parliament in 1604, " he opened the session 
 with a speech of rambling egotism, dictation and despotism, exceed- 
 ing the usual length of a sermon." 
 
 "In the third year of his reign he was reduced to extreme and 
 degrading want. He could neither pay his servants nor supply his 
 table," 
 
 "The tone of prerogative, compared with the late reign, rose with 
 the debility and folly of James, compared with the strength and pru- 
 dence of Elizabeth. This state of things led actually to the great 
 catastrophe of the next reign. The only matter of surprise is, that 
 it was delayed so long." 
 
 " The example of his vulgarity and his vices debased the court. 
 No idea can be formed of the indecency and dissolution that pre- 
 vailed there."* 
 
 NOTE D.— page 14. 
 
 Sir James M'Intosh says, in his third volume of the History of 
 England, chapter fourth, at page 185, — 
 
 "The first movement of the human miud in the sixteenth century 
 which may be called Lutheran, was very distinguishable from the 
 religious convulsions which afterwards ensued. The German re- 
 formation was effected by princes in form subordinate, in fact inde- 
 pendent. As soon as the revolt of the boors was suppressed, the 
 new religion coalesced with the established government as perfectly 
 as the ancient faith had before done. All changes were introduced 
 by legal authority, and the same power restrained them within their 
 original limits. If some German states had not adopted a Calvinistic 
 system, which gave rise to the distinction between ' Evangelicals 
 
 Continuation of Sir James M'Intoshs History. 
 
 I 
 
37 
 
 and Reformed,' there would have been no inlet left for toleration 
 among the rigid doctors of the Saxon reform. But after a time, 
 being most rekictantly compelled to make common cause against 
 the church of Rome, they very slowly learned the necessity of ex- 
 tending the boundaries of toleration beyond those of common belief. 
 The principle of the Lutherans was the right of the civil ruler to re- 
 form religion, and to maintain it as it was reformed. Laws had 
 established Lutheranism : it had been the object of negotiation, and 
 consequently liable to some compromise. Treaties had secured the 
 religion of each separate state. At the point where we now pause, 
 the face of Germany was calm, and its general quiet was for many 
 years after undisturbed. 
 
 " The second religious movement, called Calvinistic, was of more 
 popular origin, and rose in defiance of the authorities of the world. 
 In France and the Low Countries, its principal seat, it had to strug- 
 gle with bigoted sovereigns and cruel laws. The reformation was in- 
 deed every where connected with civil liberty. But among the Lu- 
 therans the connexion was long invisible, and the fruits of it very 
 slowly ripened. Among the French and Belgic Calvinists who were 
 obliged to resist the civil as well as the ecclesiastical superiors, the 
 connexion of civil and religious liberty was no longer indirect. It 
 forced itself on the eyes and hearts of all Protestants. It had long 
 before been foretold that a revolt against the ancient authority of the 
 church would shake the absolute power of monarchs to its founda- 
 tion. But it was not till princes became religious persecutors that 
 persecuted subjects inquired into the source and boundaries of poli- 
 tical power. The Calvinists resisted their monarch in order to de- 
 fend themselves." 
 
 NOTE E.— page 21. 
 
 In Young's Chronicles of the Pilgrims, at page 48, after giving the 
 reasons assigned by Bradford and Winslow, why the Pilgrims left 
 Holland, we have the following note. 
 
 " These reasons for their removal, as stated by Bradford and Wins- 
 low, are sufficient, and are to be received as the true and sole rea- 
 sons. Yet Douglass, in his Summary, i. 369, says, ' Being of unstea- 
 dy temper, they resolved to remove to some remote country in some 
 wilderness, — as recluses.' Chalmers, in his Political Annals, p. 85, 
 says, ' After twelve years' unmolested residence they became un- 
 happy in their situation, because they foresaw the desf ruction of 
 their society in the toleration they enjoyed ; and determined to seek 
 
38 
 
 new adventures in America. Continuing unhappy in a country 
 "where tliey were obscure and unpersecuted,' &c. Robertson, in his 
 History of America, Book X., says, ' They resided at Leyden for 
 several years unmolested and obscure. But as their church re- 
 ceived no increase, either by recruits from England or by proselytes 
 gained in the country, they began to be afraid that all their high at- 
 tainments in spiritual knowledge would be lost, if they remained 
 longer in a strange land.' And Burke, in his account of the Eu- 
 ropean Settlements in America, says tliat ' though in a country of 
 the greatest religious freedom in the world, they did not find them- 
 selves better satisfied than they had been in England. They were 
 tolerated indeed, but watched ; their zeal began to have dangerous 
 languors for want of opposition ; and being without power or conse- 
 quence, they grew tired of the indolent security of their sanctuary.' 
 These sneers are as contemptible as they are unjust. It is to be re- 
 gretted that any respectable writer in this country should have in- 
 cautiously given currency to such misrepresentations. Chief Justice 
 Marshall perceived and corrected the error into which he had been 
 led by following such unworthy authorities. Compare his Life of 
 Washington, i. 90, (first ed.) with his History of the American Colo- 
 nies, p. 78." 
 
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