FIRST SETTLEMENT OF NEW ENGLAND.*

AMIDST all the proud and grateful feelings, which the return of this anniversary must inspire, in the bosom of every child of New England, a deep solicitude oppresses me, lest I should fail in doing justice to the men and to the events, which we are met to commemorate. This solicitude, I would hope, is no mere personal feeling. I should be unworthy to address you, on this occasion, could I, from the selfish desire of winning your applause, devote the moments of this consecrated day to any cold speculations, however ingenious or original. Gladly would I give utterance to the most familiar commonplaces, could I be so happy in doing it, as to excite or strengthen the feelings, which belong to the time and the place. Gladly would I repeat to you those sentiments, which have been so often uttered and welcomed on this anniversary; sentiments, whose truth does not change in the change of circumstances; whose power does not wear out with time. It is not by pompous epithets or lively antitheses, that the exploits of the Pilgrims are to be set forth by their children. We can only do this worthily, by repeating the plain tale of their sufferings, by dwelling on the circumstances, under which their memorable enterprise was executed, and by catching that spirit, which led them across the ocean, and guided them to the spot where we stand. We need no voice of artificial rhetoric, to celebrate their names. The bleak and deathlike desolation of Nature proclaims, with touching eloquence, the fortitude and patience of the meek adventurers. On the bare and wintry fields around us, their exploits are written, in characters, which will last, and tell their tale to posterity, when brass and marble have crumbled into dust.

*Oration delivered at Plymouth, December, 22, 1824.

The occasion, which has called us together, is certainly one, to which no parallel exists, in the history of the world. Other countries have their national festivals. They commemorate the birthdays of their illustrious children; they celebrate the foundation of important institutions. Momentous events, victories, reformations, revolutions, awaken, on their anniversaries, the grateful and patriotic feelings of posterity. But we commemorate the birthday of all New England; the foundation, not of one institution, but of all the institutions, the settlements, the communities, the societies, the improvements, comprehended within our broad and favored borders.

Were it only as an act of rare adventure; were it a trait in foreign, or ancient history; we should fix upon the achievement of our fathers, as one of the noblest deeds, in the annals of the world. Were we attracted to it, by no other principle, than that sympathy we feel, in all the fortunes of our race, it could lose nothing, it must gain, in the contrast, with whatever history or tradition has preserved to us of the wanderings and settlements of the tribes of man. A continent, for the first time, effectually explored; a vast ocean, traversed by men, women, and children, voluntarily exiling themselves from the fairest portions of the Old World; and a great nation grown up, in the space of two centuries, on the foundations, so perilously laid, by this pious band:-point me to the record, to the tradition, nay, to the fiction, of any thing, that can enter into competition with it. It is the language, not of exaggeration, but of truth and soberness, to say, that there is nothing, in the accounts of Phoenician, of Grecian, or of Roman colonization, that can stand in the comparison.

What new importance, then, does not the achievement acquire for us, when we consider, that it was the deed of our fathers; that this grand undertaking was accomplished on the spot where we dwell; that the mighty region, they explored, is our native land; that the unrivalled enterprise, they displayed, is not merely

a fact, proposed to our admiration, but is the source of our being; that their cruel hardships are the spring of our prosperity; that their weary banishment gave us a home; that to their separation from every thing which is dear and pleasant in life, we owe all the comforts, the blessings, the privileges, which make our lot the envy of mankind!

These are the wellknown titles of our ancestors, to our gratitude and veneration.

But there seems to me this peculiarity, in the nature of their enterprise, that its grand and beneficent consequences are, with the lapse of time, constantly unfolding themselves, in an extent, and to a magnitude, beyond the reach of the most sanguine promise. In the frail condition of human affairs, we have often nothing left us to commemorate, but heroic acts of valor, which have resulted in no permanent effect; great characters, that have struggled nobly, but in vain, against the disastrous combinations of the times; and brilliant triumphs of truth and justice, rendered, for the present, unproductive, by untoward and opposite events. It is almost the peculiar character of the enterprise of our pilgrim forefathers,-successful, indeed, in its outset, that it has been more and more successful, at every subsequent point, in the line of time. Accomplishing all they projected; what they projected was the least part of what has been accomplished. Forming a design, in itself grand, bold, and even appalling, for the risks and sacrifices it required; the fulfilment of that design is the least thing, which, in the steady progress of events, has flowed from their counsels and their efforts. Did they propose to themselves a refuge, beyond the sea, from the religious and political tyranny of Europe? They achieved not that, alone, but they have opened a wide asylum to all the victims of oppression throughout the world. We, ourselves, have seen the statesmen, the generals, the kings, of the elder world, flying, for protection, to the shadow of our institutions. Did they look for a retired spot, inoffen

sive for its obscurity, and safe in its remoteness, where the little church of Leyden might enjoy the freedom of conscience? Behold the mighty regions, over which, in peaceful conquest,-victoria sine clade,*-they have borne the banners of the cross! Did they seek, beneath the protection of trading charters, to prosecute a frugal commerce, in reimbursement of the expenses of their humble establishment? The fleets and navies of their descendants are on the furthest ocean; and the wealth of the Indies is now wafted, with every tide, to the coasts, where, with hook and line, they painfully gathered up their humble earnings. In short, did they, in their brightest and most sanguine moments, contemplate a thrifty, loyal, and prosperous, colony, portioned off, like a younger son of the imperial household, to an humble and dutiful distance? Behold the spectacle of an independent and powerful Republic, founded on the shores, where some of those are but lately deceased, who saw the first-born of the pilgrims!

And shall we stop here? Is the tale now told; is the contrast now complete; are our destinies all fulfilled; are we declining, or even stationary? My friends, I tell you, we have but begun; we are in the very morning of our days; our numbers are but a unit; our national resources, but a pittance; our hopeful achievements in the political, the social, and the intellectual, nature, are but the rudiments of what the children of the Pilgrims must yet attain. If there is any thing certain, in the principles of human and social progress; if there is any thing clear in the deductions from past history; if there is any, the least, reliance to be placed on the conclusions of reason, in regard to the nature of man,-the existing spectacle of our country's growth, magnificent as it is, does not suggest even an idea of what it must be. I dare adventure the prediction, that he, who, two centuries hence, shall stand where I stand, and look back on our present condition,

*Conquest without slaughter.

from a distance, equal to that from which we contemplate the first settlement of the Pilgrims, will sketch a contrast far more astonishing; and will speak of our times, as the day of small things, in stronger and juster language, than any in which we can depict the poverty and wants of our fathers.

But we ought to consecrate this day, not to the promise, nor even the present blessings, of our condition, except so far as these are connected with the memory of the Pilgrims. The twenty-second of December belongs to them; and we ought, in consistency, to direct our thoughts to the circumstances, under which their most astonishing enterprise was achieved. I shall hope to have contributed my mite towards our happy celebration, if I can succeed in pointing out a few of those circumstances, of the first emigration to our country, and particularly of the first emigration to New England, from which, under a kind Providence, has flowed, not only the immediate success of the undertaking, but the astonishing train of consequences, auspicious to the cause of liberty, humanity, and truth.

I. Our forefathers regarded, with natural terror, the passage of the mighty deep. Navigation, notwithstanding the great advances which it had made in the sixteenth century, was yet, comparatively speaking, in its infancy. The very fact, that voyages of great length and hazard were successfully attempted, in small vessels, (a fact, which, on first view, might seem to show a high degree of perfection in the art,) in reality proves, that it was as yet but imperfectly understood. That the great Columbus should put to sea, for the discovery of a new passage across the Western Ocean to India, with two out of three vessels unprovided with decks, may, indeed, be considered the effect, not of ignorance of the art of navigation, but of bitter necessity. But that Sir Francis Drake, near a hundred years afterwards, the first naval commander who ever sailed round the earth, enjoying the advantage of the royal patronage, and aided