by Anglo-Saxons: the English, the British colonists, and the people of the United States. - Josiah Strong. You are blood from England! bone from its bone, and flesh from its flesh. The Anglo-Saxon race was the kernel around which gathered this glorious fruit, your Republic. Every other nationality is oppressed. It is the Anglo-Saxon alone which stands high in its independence. You, the younger brother, are entirely free, because republican. They, the elder brother, are monarchical, but they have a constitution, and they have many institutions which even you retain, and by retaining them have proved that they are institutions which are congenial to freedom and dear to freemen. The free press, the jury, free speech, the freedom of association, and the institution of municipalities, the share of the people in the legislature, are English institutions; the inviolability of the person and the inviolability of property are English principles. - Louis Kossuth. The Pilgrim fathers fled from persecution in England to religious liberty in Massachusetts. The Highlanders who fought for Prince Charles Edward Stuart found refuge in North Carolina. The Quakers, to be free from their tormentors, sailed to Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and they received there with open arms the Germans driven from the Palatinate by Louis XIV. The Huguenots, escaping from France after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, built happy homes on the Hudson, and under the shelter of the groves of South Carolina. Oglethorpe led the Teutons, seeking an opportunity to worship God according to their lights, from Salzburg to Georgia. Irishmen, saved from the merciless conquests of Cromwell, scattered all over the land to consecrate their altars and enjoy in safety their religion. Dutch Prot estants came to New York, Swedish Protestants to Delaware, English Catholics to Maryland, and the English Church cavaliers to Virginia. -Chauncey M. Depew. The Pilgrims who settled Plymouth had lived twelve years in Holland. The Puritans who settled Massachusetts had all their lives been exposed to a Netherland influence, and some of their leaders had also lived in Holland. Thomas Hooker, coming from Holland, gave life to Connecticut, which has been well called the typical American commonwealth. Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island, was so much of a Dutch scholar that he taught the language to the poet Milton. Penn, who founded Pennsylvania, was half a Dutchman. New York and New Jersey were settled by the Dutch West India Company. Pennsylvania, which contributed largely to American institutions, Delaware, and New Jersey were settled by men of diverse nationalities, so that at the outbreak of the Revolution probably only a minority of their inhabitants were of English origin. In addition, all through the other colonies were scattered large numbers of Scotch-Irish, French Huguenots, Germans, Irish, Scotch, Welsh, and Swedes, counted as English, but essentially modifying the mass of the population and the national type. - Douglas Campbell. What prompted the Colonists to leave their native lands to settle in the wilderness and brave the hardships of a new country? They were impelled by a great variety of motives, some good, some bad. Love of adventure, desire for gold, curiosity, and a wish to better their worldly fortunes by the opportunities offered in a new country, prompted many. Others were influenced by a desire for greater civil and religious liberty, which they believed could be more easily attained in America than at home. We thought we might more glorify God, do more good to our country, better provide for our posterity, and live to be more refreshed by our labors than ever we could do in Holland, where we were. - Edward Winslow. The English colonists in America, generally speaking, were men who were seeking new homes in a new world. They brought with them their families and all that was most dear to them. This was especially the case with the colonists of Plymouth and Massachusetts. Many of them were educated men, and all possessed their full share, according to their social condition, of the knowledge and attainments of that age. Daniel Webster. Look at the people of New England. From Britain, their fathers had fled to America for religion's sake. Religion had taught them that God created men to be happy; that to be happy they must have virtue; that virtue is not to be attained without knowledge, nor knowledge without instruction, nor public instruction without free schools, nor free schools without legislative order. - Francis Marion. Individuals, led on by an ambitious desire to improve their personal fortunes, have abandoned the home of their fathers. None of these motives prompted the Huguenot ancestors of the people of Carolina to leave the delightful hills and valleys of PAT. CIT.-6 their native France. They were no instruments in the hands of ambitious princes for the increase of their wealth or power. They did not seek a home in America through mere love of adventure, or the ordinary inducements of pecuniary gain. They sought an asylum from persecution, a home in which they might enjoy, unmolested, the sweets of political and personal liberty. They longed to bear away their altars and their faith to a land of real freedom, a land allowing free scope to the exercise of conscience in worship of their Maker. -William C. Moragne. What sought they thus afar? Bright jewels of the mine? Ay, call it holy ground, the soil where first they trod! They have left unstained what there they found, - freedom to worship God! - Felicia D. Hemans. Who were the Pilgrims? The Pilgrims were English people; some, having fled from their native country to Holland to escape religious persecution, came to America (the first party of them in the Mayflower), landing at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620. The compact signed in the cabin of the Mayflower tells the story of their coming hither. A band of exiles, three thousand miles of ocean separating them from the land of their nativity, and the unknown and unexplored wilds of New England to be from thence and forevermore their home, they declare the purpose of their coming "to plant a colony for the glory of God, the advancement of the Christian faith, and the honor of their king." No sordid purpose is here disclosed. In these words and lofty sentiments we read their future history. Waldo Hutchins. In the name of God, Amen; We, whose names are underwritten, the loyall subjects of our dread soveraigne King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britaine, France, and Ireland King, defender of the faith, etc., haveing undertaken, for the glorie of God, and advancemente of the Christian faith and honor of our king and countrie, a voyage to plant the first colonie in the Northerne parts of Virginia, doe, by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civill body politick, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and, by vertue heareof, to enacte, constitute, and frame, such just and equall laws, ordenances, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meete and convenient for the generall good of the Colonie. Unto which we promise all In witnes whereof we have due submission and obedience. hereunder subscribed our names, at Cap Codd, the 11th of November, in the year of the raigne of our sovereigne lord, King James, of England, France, and Ireland the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini, 1620. -The Mayflower Compact. Methinks I see it now, that one solitary, adventurous vessel, the Mayflower of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a future state, and bound across the unknown sea. I behold it pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the uncertain, the tedious voyage. Suns rise and set, and weeks and months |