They founded the towns of Boston, Watertown, Charlestown, Lynn, and Dorchester. The first colony still kept the name of Plymouth, and had its separate governor. All the last named towns, including Salem, were united under the name of the "Massachusetts Bay Colony," and their first governor was Mr. John Winthrop, a very noble name in the annals of the Puritans.

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About this time a good minister, named John Eliot, came to America, and devoted his life to the teaching of the savages. He is known as the "Apostle of the Indians." He worked among the savages in Massachusetts many years, learned their language, sat at their camp-fires, and slept in their lodges. He taught the men to till the ground with better tools than they had before known how to use. He taught the Indian women to spin, and the whirr of the wheel was heard in many a savage wigwam where Eliot had visited. He founded churches and schools, and taught the natives to read and pray. He translated for them a Bible into their own language, and this book was printed afterwards on the first printing-press ever set up in the American colonies.

Such were some of the labors of this good man, who deserves to be remembered for his life of devotion and self-sacrifice.

CHAPTER XVI.

SETTLEMENT OF RHODE ISLAND.

Religious Intolerance. - Roger Williams's Banishment. He finds Succor from friendly Indians. Providence settled. Religious Freedom in Rhode Island. Williams gets a Charter for his Colony.

You have now seen something of the men who settled first in New England. Life seems much more severe and uninviting among the Puritans in their bleak wintry climate, than among the Cavaliers in Virginia. And in many respects they are less agreeable to contemplate. They had left their homes, spent their fortunes, and periled their lives, that they might have liberty of conscience,

that is, the right to worship God as they pleased. But having got this right for themselves they did not mean to give it to anybody else. They had seen how powerful a thing for its people was an established church, and how dangerous it was to any religious society to permit any difference of opinion among its people; and they kept strict watch over all their church-members to see that no one disputed any of their rules or dogmas.

If they heard of a man who said anything against their church, they brought him before the council and admonished him not to do so again. If he did it a second time, they banished him from the colony.

Once in the dead of winter they banished two men, who were accused of having written home to England something unfavorable to their religious autocracy. Governor Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony did not send them away from the settlement until the weather grew warmer, because he was more humane than some of the others, and said he did not like to be the cause of their death. On this they reproved Governor Winthrop for being "overtender in his administration of the law," and the governor penitently owned his error and said he would not do so again.

As they were always talking about religious matters it is not strange that little differences were constantly springing up among them. One woman who called together a few others at her house, and claimed that every one had a right to interpret the Scriptures for himself, was accounted very wicked. Her name was Anne Hutchinson, and as she was a very clear-headed person and a powerful reasoner, and made a good deal of trouble, she was banished, with all her family.

Another woman who did not make quite as much disturbance as Mrs. Hutchinson, but yet held some opinions of her own, was publicly whipped at a whipping-post. She bore the whipping like a Spartan boy but when they put a cleft stick on her tongue to convince her she had better not talk any more, the poor young woman burst into tears at the additional disgrace.

Indeed, so frequent were these whippings and persecutings among the Puritans, that the friends of the colony in England began to remonstrate, and beg them to be a little more generous. It is natural to suppose that among so many who came over here, in these early days, to get liberty to worship as they pleased, there were many men who would not relish the strict watch which the Puri

tans kept over everybody's opinions, and would desire to have the freedom they had crossed the seas for.

One such man there was named Roger Williams, who had come

to Salem as minister. It was very soon found out that this new minister, who was a learned and very promising young man, did not altogether agree with the leaders of the Massachusetts Church in some points of religion. The difference between them was so small, that I don't believe you or I could understand it very well if we tried. I do not think Roger Williams was any less strict in his views than they were, ex

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much tyranny over everybody's conscience.

The Massachusetts men tried hard to bring him to terms. Governor John Winthrop, who seems to have been a gentler sort of Puritan, tried his best, and entreaty and persuasion were used with him. But Roger Williams stood his ground. He was going to declare what he believed true. Liberty of conscience was what he came to America for.

At length they concluded to take Williams and send him back to England to be rid of him. They had tried that remedy before with some Episcopalians who had gone quietly to worshiping in their own fashion. Roger Williams heard of their plan just before they were ready to execute it, and when they got to his house they found it empty.

It was midwinter, one of those hard New England winters, when Roger Williams was thus driven from his home and family. For three months he was without home, almost without shelter, hiding from his persecutors. To the goodness of some friendly Indians he owed his life.

Of these Indians he was able to purchase some lands, and, removing his family, he soon drew many of his church in Salem after him, who had sympathized with his opinions. Here he built a town called Providence, which was the first town built in the State of Rhode Island.

In his colony Roger Williams declared that "all dwelling therein should worship God as they chose." There Catholic and Protestant, Baptists, Episcopalians, and Puritans, should say their prayers in their own fashion. In this colony rose the star of pure religious freedom. All honor to Roger Williams! All honor to that little settlement which shone for years a bright spot in the midst of persecution and bigotry.

Roger Williams did not forget to be grateful to the Indians who had been good to him. He was a rare scholar, knew many languages, and now he set about learning the Indian tongue. He was famous for his labors among them, and they loved him scarcely less than the good Eliot was loved. He was very dear to his colony too, and few men seem to have been more honored and loved. He had founded his little colony in 1636, and in 1642, when it had been planted six years, and had grown and flourished, he went to England to get a charter from the king. Several other towns had, in the mean time, been built in Rhode Island, by different parties of men who had been driven out of the Massachusetts colonies for their opinions.

Williams remained in England nearly two years, and got a very liberal charter from King Charles I., which left the little colony almost entire freedom in its laws and the choice of its rulers.

When he returned to Providence and was coming over the river to his home, he found the whole colony had come out in boats to meet him. The old and young men, the women and children, were all embarked, and welcomed him with every demonstration of joy. Williams was greatly affected and touched by this welcome, and felt that he never knew before how much his people loved him.

CHAPTER XVII.

WEST COUNTRY PEOPLE SETTLE CONNECTICUT.

Settlers in Dorchester. March to Connecticut River. - New Haven founded. Traders and Fishermen settle New Hampshire and Maine. - Troubles in England. - The King beheaded. -Story of Oliver Cromwell. - Maine a Province of Massachusetts.

You have now seen the beginning of three colonies in New England: the Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, and Rhode Island colonies. The next in the list of settlements is that of the colonies in Connecticut.

The people who had settled the town of Dorchester, near Boston, in the great immigration of 1630, were generally known as the "west country people." They were so called because they were nearly all from Dorsetshire, a county in England lying west of Lincolnshire, the county from which the larger part of Massachusetts Bay Colony had come. These Dorsetshire people had been accustomed to a much more fertile and pleasant country than that in which they were settled. They had brought over a large number of English cattle, and their cows and oxen had been used to better feedinggrounds than the salt marshes with their coarse grass, which surrounded their settlement. But they heard very soon of green pasture lands and smiling meadows in the valley of the Connecticut River which flowed southwest of them. It was also said that here plenty of rich furs could be had very cheap of the Indians, who had not yet learned to drive sharp bargains with the white man. Then it was whispered that the Dutch traders had already begun to come up this river, and would claim these beautiful lands if the English did not make haste to get them.

Some Englishmen from Plymouth had already visited the banks of the Connecticut; and one of the Indian sachems had sent to the governors of the two Massachusetts colonies, inviting them to send their people to build a town there.

In 1635 a party of these Dorchester men got permission of the magistrates to remove to Connecticut. In the spring of this year, nearly half the males of Dorchester went down where the town of Windsor was afterwards built, and began felling trees and cutting logs for their houses. They found some Dutch encamped on the river and drove them away; they found also a party of twenty settlers from Plymouth on the site of Windsor, and succeeded, by fair