possessed to a poor man, they saw a ship from England, with provisions, just entering the harbor.

A good many died of hardship and fatigue during the first year or two; but, after that, they grew quite healthy. They found the climate bracing; and one said, that "a sup of New England's air was better than a whole draught of Old England's ale." Even in their worst times, very few went back to England; and, notwithstanding their poverty, there was not an instance of theft among them for four years. Governor Winthrop wrote to his wife, "We here enjoy God and Jesus Christ; and is not that enough? I thank God I like so well to be here as [that] I do not repent my coming. I would not have altered my course, though I had foreseen all these afflictions. I had never more content of mind."

These two colonies, Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay, were for many years independent of one another; but the Plymouth Colony, though the older of the two, grew far more slowly than the other, and was at last united with it, in 1692, under the name of Massachusetts; the name being taken from one of the tribes of Indians inhabiting the soil. The meaning of the word is said to be "Blue Hills."

CHAPTER IX.

THE OTHER NEW ENGLAND COLONIES.

HE two colonies, afterwards united under the

THE

name of Massachusetts, have been described before the other New England colonies. This is because Massachusetts, being first settled, was in a manner the parent of these later colonies. Let us take up the rest in the ordinary geographical order.

Maine was not for many years considered as a separate colony; and yet it was one of the first parts of the country to be visited and explored by Europeans. It was visited by the navigator Gosnold in 1602; and an English colony tried to establish itself there in 1607, as has already been told; and a French colony came soon after. But the English settlers went home; and the Frenchmen were driven away by the Virginia settlers, who did not wish to have them so near, and sent an expedition against them. Capt. John Smith explored the coast of Maine, and wrote a description of it; and an Englishman, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, had a patent from the king, Charles I., for a part of it; and it was named Maine by him, probably in honor of Queen Henrietta Maria, who is said to have owned a French province of that name; though this is doubtful. Then the Massachusetts Colony claimed the whole; and so

there was a good deal of confusion about the ownership of that region. But Maine was, after all, reckoned a part of Massachusetts during almost all the colonial period, and for many years after.

The first settlements grew gradually out of fishingstations; and it is hard to say when the earliest permanent town settlements were founded; before 1630, at any rate. People sought Maine for hunting and fishing, rather than for farming: so the villages grew slowly, and they suffered greatly in the Indian wars. The laws were milder in that part of New England than in Massachusetts and Connecticut. There was much religious freedom, and no persecution for opinion's sake; so that persecuted people often took refuge in Maine. But, on the other hand, the nearness to Canada was a disadvantage; because the French and Indians were for many years the great source of terror to the English colonists. So these settlements had much to keep them back; and Maine was not counted as a separate colony among those that finally combined to form the United States.

New Hampshire was also visited very early, in 1603, by an explorer named Martin Pring; and Portsmouth and Dover were settled in 1623. Portsmouth was first called Strawberry Bank. The settlements made there were chiefly for fishing; and it is said, that when a travelling preacher went among the people, ten years later, and told them that they must be religious, for that was their main end in coming thither, they replied, "Sir, you are mistaken. You think you are speaking to the people of Massachusetts Bay. Our

main end was to catch fish." The colony grew very slowly; and, thirty years after the settlement of Portsmouth, that town contained only fifty or sixty families. New Hampshire was several times connected with Massachusetts in government, and at one time with New York; but, after 1741, it was a separate province, under a royal governor, who lived in much style and elegance at Portsmouth. There are still to be seen in that part of the State the fine dwellings of colonial days.

Gov. Benning Wentworth of New Hampshire claimed that the lands of that colony extended through what is now Vermont, and as his Excellency asserted the right to give away townships west of the Connecticut River, and to reserve for himself five hundred acres in every township, it is plain that it was a profitable thing to be a colonial governor in New Hampshire. Then the more northern townships were gradually filled up by immigrants from Scotland and Ireland; and, by the time of the American Revolution, New Hampshire was a strong and independent colony. It took its name from the English county of Hampshire, whence some of the early settlers came.

Vermont was first explored in 1609, by Champlain, a French officer, after whom Lake Champlain was named. It had, however, no European settlers for more than a century after that; and, down to the time of the American Revolution, it was not recognized as a separate colony, but was known as the "New Hampshire Grants," on account of the townships that Governor Wentworth had granted. But the governor of New

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York also claimed to control these same grants; and Ethan Allen and the other "Green Mountain Boys," as they were called, refused to submit to New York, and wished to be independent of the other colonies. It was, however, long before they succeeded in this; and the history of their efforts must therefore be postponed for a good many pages. The name "Vermont means simply "Green Mountain.”

Rhode Island was founded quite differently from any of the other New England settlements; for it was established mainly by those who had fled from religious persecution in another colony. The founders of Massachusetts came to America to secure freedom for the exercise of their own religious opinions; but they did this because they thought those opinions were right, not because they believed in the general principle of toleration. The idea of liberty in matters of religion was not very common in those days; and the very men who were most conscientious in maintaining their own views of things were often the most zealous in putting down all those who differed from them. But one young minister came out to America who believed in religious freedom, not only for his own opinions, but for those of all others. His name was Roger Williams. He said that the magistrates of a country should behave like the captain of a ship, who lets his passengers have any kind of religious meeting they please on board, so long as they keep the peace, and do not quarrel. He thought that the law ought to be used to keep people from crime, but that it had nothing to do with their religious belief. He did not approve