spread their sails on a boisterous ocean, and under inclement skies to direct their course to an in hospitable clime. After much consultation, and several seasons of special prayer for the divine direction and blessing upon their enterprise, they left Holland for England in July, 1620, and having made suitable preparations for the voyage, embarked for America on the 5th of August, of the same year, the whole number of adventurers being about one hundred and twenty.* After having been obliged, by the badness of the weather and the unsoundness of one of their ships, to return twice into port, they at length survived a tedious passage of suffering and hazard; reached the harbour of Cape Cod on the 11th of November; about the middle of December arrived opposite the town of Plymouth, and on the 22d of the same month, landed on the memorable rock so famed in the history of the Pilgrims of New-England. Their condition on landing was such as to call for the peculiar benignity of a superintending Providence. Without the limits of their patent-enfeebled and sickly through the length and hardships of their voyage-without shelter and without friends-before them a wide region of solitude and savageness-they were compelled to pitch their tents between the howlings of the forest and the storm of the ocean, and * The Rev. Mr. Robinson never himself removed to New-England. It was his intention to follow his congregation; but he died March 1, 1625, in the fiftieth year of his age, and at the summit of his usefulness. His widow and children afterwards removed to Plymouth. + Their design was to make a settlement on Hudson River, or in the adjacent country. For this they had obtained a patent: but they were carried beyond the precincts of the territory which had been granted to them, and were prevented from altering their course by the inclemency of the season. Robertson's History of America. spend a dreary season in burying their dead, and thinking of their homes. Like the pilgrims of other times, "they wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in." Notwithstanding the rigour of the climate, and the severities of a disease which had cut off nearly one half of the colony, very conspicuous were the divine guardianship and munificence toward these pious men.* Not only was their arrival beyond the limits of their charter a favourable disappointment, but large numbers of the natives had been swept off by a pestilence which raged the preceding year; so that it was not only less difficult to repel their invasions, but more easy to obtain the means of a comfortable subsistence, and to form such alliances as proved salutary to the colony for many years to come.t Such was the prosperity of the Plymouth colony, that large bodies of pious people in England began to make preparations for settlements among their bre "A combination of circumstances, singularly providential, is observable in the settlement and preservation of these pious pilgrims in New-England. On Hudson's River and its vicinity, the Indians were numerous, and had they not been disappointed with respect to their original design, probably they would have fallen a prey to savage cruelty. In New-England, Providence had prepared the way for their settlement. The uncommon mortality in 1617, had in a manner depopulated that part of the country in which they began their plantation. They found fields which had been planted, without owners, and a fine country round them, in some measure cultivated, without an inhabitant. The winter broke up sooner than usual; and early in the season, they entered into a perpetual league of friendship, commerce, and mutual defence with the Indians." Trumbull's General History of the United States, vol. i. + The first Governor of Plymouth colony, was Mr. John Carver. He was among the emigrants to Leyden, who composed Mr. Robinson's Church in that place. He was unanimously elected to this office by the colony, after their arrival in Plymouth harbour, and before they went on shore. He died on the 5th of April following, greatly lamented by the infant colony. Prince's Chronolog. Hist. of New-England thren in the West. Not only were the causes of their dissatisfaction by no means removed at home, but additional considerations began now to influence the English government to increase the facilities of removing abroad. In the year 1628, a patent was granted to a company of knights, covering a large portion of Massachusetts, which resulted in establishments at Salem, Charlestown, Boston, Dorchester, Watertown, and Roxbury. In March, 1631, a plan was set on foot for establishing a colony on Connecticut River; and in the prosecution of this design, several families removed from Dorchester, Cambridge, and Watertown, and commenced settlements at Windsor, Hartford, and Weathersfield. In November, 1635, Mr. John Winthrop, agent for Lords Say, Seal, and Brook, to whom the Connecticut patent had been granted in 1631, arrived at the mouth of the river, built a fort, and commenced an establishment at Saybrook; in April, 1638, a company from England commenced an establishment at New-Haven; and in the same year, a branch of the Plymouth colony began a settlement in Providence, Rhode-Island.* Thus in less than twenty years from the first arrival at Plymouth, were the New-England colonies established, and in the enjoyment of a regular and prosperous government, and amid all the anticipations of a flourishing empire. In this short period, a world that had been little else than the resort of beasts of prey, was turned into fruitful fields and pleasant habitations; and a forest that had swarmed with savage men became peopled with the sons of the Most High. * Vide Trumbull's History of Connecticut, and Trumbull's History of the United States. Such is the way in which the God of our fathers led forth the Pilgrims of New-England. "We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us what work thou didst in times of old; how thou didst drive out the heathen with thy hand, and plantedst them; how thou didst afflict the people and cast them out." As the difficulties which obstructed the course of our ancestors, seemed to demand no common interpositions of favour; so did the God of nations seem to "give his angels charge over them to keep them in all their ways." When difficulties and darkness perplexed them, he "sent out his light and his truth that they might lead them :" When they were hemmed in by enemies, he opened a passage for them through the sea: When they "wandered in the wilderness where there was no water," he "brought water out of the rock," and rained down manna for them out of heaven. "He found them in a desert land, in a waste howling wilderness; he led them about; he instructed them; he kept them as the apple of his eye. As an eagle stirreth up her nest-fluttereth over her young-spreadeth abroad her wings-taketh them-beareth them on her wings; so the Lord alone did lead them, and there was no strange god with them." A sensible writer on the uses of history, remarks, that "History tends to strengthen the sentiments of virtue, by the variety of views in which it exhibits the conduct of Divine Providence, and points out the hand of God in the affairs of men." I do not see how any man can deny the agency of the Supreme, in upholding and directing all things, who considers the supremacy he exercises "in increasing the na enlarging the nations How obvious to the tions and enlarging them; in and straitening them again." most superficial observer, that the whole course of our venerable forefathers was the result of the divine purpose, lay under the divine inspection, and was directed by a divine and omnipotent hand. There was no slumber to his eye, no intermission to his agency and care. There was nothing fortuitous in any one occurrence connected with this humble, yet magnificent enterprise. Events, which a superficial observer would have been tempted to pronounce unimportant and accidental, flowed from design, and in the issue were seen to be invested with real importance. But what we design to bring into view in this part of our subject, is, that this enterprise was under the guidance of a Providence not only particular and constant, but singularly wise. The settlement of New-England was designed to have a very important influence on the character, prospects, and usefulness of the American nation. I speak not of that hardihood and enterprise, which distinguishes the physical character of New-England, and which is felt in different parts of the land to the present period; but of the operation of those moral causes which have acted so powerfully, not only on their own immediate descendants, but on this risen and extended empire. You will allow me, then, In the first place, to call your attention to the influence of this event on religious liberty. It was not until lately, that even in Protestant countries, the spirit of intolerance in matters of religion was deemed no constituent part either of good government or vital godliness. When we consider what human nature is, |