only, without the mixture of human ceremonies, are spirited to attempt the settlement; that here they might enjoy a worship purely scriptural, and leave the same to their posterity. And they succeeding, open the way for the following colonies.

In this first part, I shall therefore recount, as well the most material events in Great Britain, wherewith they were chiefly affected before their leaving it, as the several voyages and attempts to settle these long neglected shores, till their arrival in 1620; keeping a particular eye on those remarkable steps of Providence, that led to this happy enterprise; and not omitting the primary settlements of the neighboring countries.

In the English history, besides a number of ancient pamphlets, printed within this period, and which I found in an old broken up library in England, I chiefly follow Howes* and Fuller. In the voyages and attempts of settlement, I chiefly make use of Purchas, Smith and Georges, who lived in the times they wrote of; and the two last personally interested in those affairs. Harris omitting many valuable accounts of these parts of the world preserved in Purchas; and Purchas being more of an original, I prefer the latter. In the passages relating to the Plymouth planters, I chiefly use Governor Bradford's manuscript History of that church and colony, in folio; who was with them froin their beginning to the end of his Narrative; which is now before me, and was never published. And in reciting from them, for the greater satisfaction, I keep so closely to the words of my Authors, as I have in the last great Section of the Introduction, that the reader may conceive them as speaking in their several articles.

As for the rise of these Plymouth planters, Governor Bradford informs us in the following terms. 'That several religious people, near the joining borders of Notinghamshire, Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, finding their pious ministers urged with subscription,† or silenced, and the people greatly vexed with the Commissary courts, Apparitors, and Pursevants, which they had borne sundry years with much patience, till they were occasioned by the continuance and increase of these troubles, and other means, to see further into these

* Howes's Continuation of Stow in folio, printed in 1631, and his Abridgment, in octavo, printed in 1618; wherein are several remarkable events not mentioned in the folio.

+ Subscription to the books of Common Prayer, Ceremonies, and all the Articles. Fuller.

things by the light of the word of God; how that not only the ceremonies were unlawful, but also the lordly and tyrannous power of the prelates, who would, contrary to the freedom of the gospel, load the consciences of men, and by their compulsive power make a profane mixture of things and persons in divine worship; that their offices, courts, and canons, were unlawful; being such as have no warrant in the word of God, but the same that were used in popery, and still retained. Upon which this people shake off this yoke of antichristian bondage; and, as the Lord's free people, join themselves by covenant into a church state, to walk in all his ways, made known, or to be made known to them, according to their best endeavors, whatever it cost them.'

Governor Bradford's History takes no notice of the year of this Federal Incorporation, but Mr. Secretary Morton, in his memorial, places it in 1602. And I suppose he had the account, either from some other writings of Governor Bradford, the Journals of Governor Winslow, or from oral conference with them, or other of the first planters; with some of whom he was contemporary, and from whence, he tells us, he received his intelligence.

And these are the christian people who were the founders of the Plymouth church and colony; who seem to be some of the first in England, that were brave enough to improve the liberty wherewith the divine Author of our religion has made us free, and observe his institutions as their only rule in church order, discipline and worship; for which they dearly suffered, and left their native country; and who laid the first foundation of the New England settlements. But we shall hear no more of them till 1606, when, under all their sufferings, they grow into two congregations. And that the reader may have some idea of the Puritans, so often mentioned in the histories of those times, and from whom this people derive, I shall only relate the definition which Dr. Fulk, a famous church of England writer, has given us of them. They are called Puritans, says he, who would have the church thoroughly reformed; that is, purged from all those

*They are Governor Bradford's words, as are all the rest in this citation; and he seems to call this antichristian bondage; as he judged the inventions of men, in worship imposed on the conscience, to be a bondage brought into the church by the Papal policy and power, against the superior law of Christ, the genius of his plain religion, and Christian liberty.

inventions which have been brought into it since the age of the apostles, and reduced entirely to the scripture purity.

But I begin with the voyages of others. And though the first I mention seems to commence a few days before Queen Elizabeth died, yet the reader will quickly see the ship leaves not the shore of Britain till above a fortnight after.

N. B. I still keep to the Julian year; and where foreign authors use the new style, I reduce it to the old.

That the reader may more distinctly see the chronological articles of the Plymouth planters, their lines begin with

commas.

NEW ENGLAND CHRONOLOGY.

King of Great Britain, James I.-King of France, Henry IV.-King of Spain, Philip III.

March 20, 1603. The Bristol men, by leave of sir Walter Raleigh, send captain Martin Pring, with a small ship of fifty tons, thirty men and boys, and William Brown with a bark of twenty-six tons, thirteen men and a boy; who then sail from King Road,* for the further discovery of North Virginia. April 10th, they sail from Milford Haven. In June they fall in with the main coast and a multitude of islands in 43 deg. and 30 min. north, land upon them, coast along the shore, bear into Cape Cod bay, sail round the Cape, anchor on the south side in 41 deg. and 25 min. where they land in another bay and excellent harbor, make a barricado, stay seven weeks. July ends, the bark goes homeward laden with Sassafras, and arrives safe. August 8th or 9th, the ship sets sail, and arrives at King Road again October 2d. (Pur.)

March 31. King James proclaimed at Edinburgh, king of Scotland, England, France, and Ireland. (Cal.)

* I suppose King Road is near Bristol in England.

Cal Calderwood.

1603.

King of G. Britain, James I.-France, Henry IV.-Spain, Philip III.

April 3. Lord's day, he declares in the great church at Edinburgh, that as God has promoted him to a greater power, he must endeavor to establish religion and take away corruption in both the countries; and that he had so settled both the church and kingdom in that state which he intended not to alter any ways. (Cal. and Petrie)

April 5. King James sets out from Edinburgh. (Cal. and Howes) Saturday May 7th, enters London. (Speed and Howes) In his way to London,* 746 ministers of the church of England, out of twenty-five counties of the forty in England and the twelve in Wales, present him a petition, desiring reformation of certain ceremonies and abuses of the church,† called the millenary petition. (Fuller)

May 10. Bartholomew Gilbert, in a bark of fifty tons, sails from Plymouth, to seek for the third colony left in South Virginia. June 16, arrives at St. Lucia; 17, at Dominica; 19, at Mevis; thence sails for South Virginia. But Friday, July 29, landing near Chesepioc bay, the captain and four more are slain by the Indians; the rest set sail and arrive at Ratcliff, near London in the end of September. Pur

June 4. A Grace passes in the University of Cambridge, that whoever shall publicly oppose either in word or writing, or any other way, in the said university, either the doctrine or discipline of the said Church of England, or any part thereof,

hs Howes.

Vice-Chancellor, &c. of Oxford, in their answer, printed there in quarto, 1603, who say, the petition was exhibited in April.

+ Abridgment of the book which the ministers of Lincoln Diocess presented to the king on Dec. 1, 1604, and printed in quarto, 1605, wherein there is a list of the number of the said petitioners in each of the said twenty-five counties; namely, thirty in London, fifty-seven in Essex, seventy-one in Suffolk, &c.