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i'i 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 TWO-HUNDRED AND FIFTY-EIGHTH ANNIVERSARY 
 
 Ikitlmjg of t\it Unpl^am €alan^. 
 
 HON. JAMES W. PATTERSON. 
 

 i/ AS 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 PENINSULA OF SABINO, 
 
 OP THE 
 
 PLANTING OF THE ^OPHAM COLONY, 
 
 Aua. 29, 1865. 
 
 Bt HON. JAMES W. PATTERSON 
 
 WTPA 
 
 DBLIVEEBD AND PUBLISHED AT THE BEQUEST OE THE COMMITTEE OU THE 
 COMMEMORATION. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 JOHN K. WIG GIN. 
 
 1865. 
 
A /as-^< 
 
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 f<CORN£LL\ 
 
 EOitton, ^iDO J^nnttreD anb JFtCtg Cojites. 
 
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 OAUDBIDSB: FBBSB 01' JOHN WILSOK AND SONS. 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 The " Boston Post " of August 31, 1865, contained the 
 following : — 
 
 FOET POPHAM, MAINE. 
 
 The 258<^ Anniversary of the Landing of George Popham,. 
 
 THE ANNIVEKSART EXERCISES. 
 
 The celebration was quite largely attended, the numbers pro- 
 bably reaching about four thousand. Conveyances by steamers 
 and barges carried the multitude to and from the Fort, both from 
 Portland and Bath. Fort Popham was reached about eleven 
 o'clock ; and) at twelve, the assemblage gathered in front of the 
 " Ocean House," where the exercises of the day were to take place. 
 Hon. B. C. Bailey, of Bath, called the meeting to order, and 
 nominated, as President of the day, Hon. Charles J. Gilman, of 
 Brunswick. The President took his place upon the platform, 
 accompanied, among others, by Hon. E. E. Bourne, President of 
 the Maine Historical Society ; John A. Poor, Esq. ; Eev. Leonard 
 "Woods, D.D., President of Bowdoin College ; and Hon. Mr. Pat- 
 terson, of New Hampshire, Orator of the day. 
 
 Rev. A. D. Wheeler, D.D., of Topsham, then offered prayer. 
 
 After the prayer, Hon. Charles J. Gilman, the President of the 
 day, addressed the meeting as follows. 
 
 SPEECH OF CHARLES J. GILMAN. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, — It will be remembered by many 
 present to-day, that we were assembled here three years ago for 
 the first time ; and it was a curious question then to many, and it 
 
is a question now, as to the real import of this celebration. The 
 salient point of American Colonization before this, was Ply- 
 mouth. All our hopes seemed to be set there ; all our aspirations 
 seemed to take origin in that spot. Now, it will be understood on 
 this occasion, and on all similar occasions in future, that it is not 
 the design of the Popham celebration to transport Plymouth Bock 
 to this spot ; neither to underrate the efforts of the early settlers of 
 Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay, or of those of Lord Baltimore, 
 at Baltimsre, or of the settlements of Jamestown in Virginia. Nor 
 is this the arena to prove that Puritanism is better than Episcopa- 
 lianism, or that Episcopalianism is better than Puritanism. "We 
 do not propose that this is to be the sign of a conflict between 
 Episcopacy and Puritanism ; but we do say, that there is an his- 
 torical record, and that record is founded on truth, and with truth 
 we propose to deal. 
 
 After the discovery of America by Columbus, various enter- 
 prises were set on foot for the occupation of the Atlantic shores of 
 this continent. A long interval, however, elapsed before any pur- 
 poses were accomplished, having reference to the settlement of the 
 region now known as New England. Petitions had been made to 
 the Crown of England as early as 1574, for measures to be allowed 
 tending to secure the possession of the northern parts of North 
 America. In 1578, Elizabeth granted a charter to Sir Humphrey 
 Gilbert, embracing a large territory, the central portion of which 
 appears to have been Nova Scotia. The loss of the charter by 
 lapse to the Crown followed the cessation of occupancy ; and, in 
 consequence of the loss of the patentee (Gilbert) by shipwreck, 
 the Crown was left at liberty to make a new grant. Several expe- 
 ditions followed, under Gosnold, 1602 ; Pryng, 1603 ; and George 
 Weymouth, in 1605 ; in all of which, the evidence shows that the 
 mind, means, and energy of Sir Ferdinando G-orges were specially 
 concerned. 
 
 The French government was at the same time eager to secure 
 a title to the lands in the New World ; and, in 1603, gave a patent 
 to the De Monts, covering the region from the 40° of latitude to 
 New Brunswick; and, in 1604, the De Monts made a voyage for 
 exploration and occupancy. But the great event which determined 
 the title to our land, and gave permanent direction to its coloniza- 
 tion by the Anglo-Norman race with English laws and institutions, 
 
was the charter of James I., in 1606, which granted to seven per- 
 sons, and among them the "worthy" George Popham, the territory 
 Iq North America between the degrees of 34 and 45 north latitude, 
 extending one hundred miles inland. In this royal charter we find 
 the foundation of the title of the English of that day, and their 
 descendants since, to the New World. The first colonizing act 
 under this charter was the settlement of Jamestown, Virginia, 
 May 13, 1607. The second colony followed in the same year, and 
 took possession Aug. 19 (O.S.), 1607, corresponding to Aug. 29 
 (N.S.). The leaders were George Popham and Raleigh Gil- 
 bert, men of long experience, and " as noble and gallant command- 
 ers as ever walked a quarter-deck, and worthy the command of an 
 expedition of so grand an ^mport." The enterprise was watched 
 with deep and untiring interest by its patrons at home. The prin- 
 ciples apparent in the charter and in the laws for the guidance of 
 the colony were such as warranted the expectations of a new 
 world, where civilization and Christianity should, in coming ages, 
 have their permanent home ; and though the shores of the Ameri- 
 can side of the Atlantic were rock-bound, and their interior forests 
 undisturbed except by the Indian hunter, yet the eye of hope saw 
 them peopled with a prosperous population, and a new government 
 arising under which the soil should produce abundant wealth. 
 The French nation never had any possessions west of the Kenne- 
 bec ; and ithe fact of English occupancy seems to have been one of 
 the causes, if not the only cause, why the French government did 
 not assert the authority in this part of the country, as was claimed 
 in the charter to De Mont. But they did claim the Eastern region, 
 and wars followed ; and Pemaquid, occupied and fortified by the 
 English, became a subject of dispute between the nations. Hos- 
 tilities continued, with intervals of peace, till the capture of Quebec 
 in 1759, and the treaty of Paris in 1763. Thus the charter of 
 James, issued April 10, 1606, was the foundation of North-Ameri- 
 can greatness. It was grounded on the right of occupation and 
 exploration previous to the charter under Gilbert, Gosnold, and 
 Weymouth. It was confirmed by the occupation of this spot by 
 Popham, and of Argall at Mount Desert, Francis Popham at 
 Pemaquid, Richard Vines at Saco, and others at Monhegan, as 
 well as at Plymouth. It was for ever confirmed by successful 
 war and the treaty of Paris in 1763. A strong proof of the early 
 
occupation of Pemaquid by the English, for purposes of commer- 
 cial pursuits and profits, is found in the " Jesuite Relations," where 
 it is shown that the English were in the habit of coming every 
 year to Pemaquid to provide themselves with fish for winter use. 
 They heard, in 1613, of the establishment of the French on Mount 
 Desert ; and their commander, Samuel ArgaU, changed his course 
 thither for the purpose of claiming the territory under the charter 
 of James I., issued six years before. From this we learn, that, 
 in 1G13, the English claimed a right at Pemaquid, and they used 
 it for shelter and commerce ; and their habit of coming there 
 every year will carry the occupancy back as far as the five years 
 since the Popham colony ceased. The Popham colony may have 
 failed as a commercial enterprise ; bu^ in its historical influence, it 
 was one of the steps in the grand onward march of civilization. 
 
 The discovery by Cabot, in 1497, gave a knowledge of our 
 shores ; De Mont, in 1605, was upon our shores ; Champlain was 
 here in 1604, and has, in his writings, given us a thorough survey 
 of the discoveries here made. 
 
 In 1607, here was a representative form of organized govern- 
 ment ; here was punishment of crime ; and here were the germi- 
 nating principles of that system of government now overshadowing 
 the continent under which we now live and thrive. Popham 
 planted and colonized here ; and it is owing to this fact that we 
 have the Anglo-Norman rather than the French elements of civil- 
 ization on these Eastern shores. 
 
 Mr. Gilman concluded by introducing the Orator of the day. 
 
A D D E E S S. 
 
 This is hallowed ground. The lines of an eventful 
 history, stretching through more than two centuries 
 and a half, converge to this beautiful promontory of 
 Sabino. Here, by "the most excellent and benefi- 
 cyall river of Sagadahoc," sleep the ashes of George 
 Popham, the companion of Raleigh, and the vener- 
 able leader of the first colony of New England, whose 
 charter was maintained amid the many grants and 
 revocations of that mutable age of adventure, and 
 which England pleaded, as the legal evidence of a 
 priority of right, against the counter-claims of France 
 and Spain. In the quaint but touching language of 
 Gorges, " he was well stricken in years, and had long 
 been an infirm man. Howsoever, heartened by hope, 
 willing he was to die in acting something that might 
 be serviceable to God, and honorable to his country." 
 This massive and splendid structure, that frowns 
 upon the sea, reared by the genius and skill of mili- 
 tary science, at once a mausoleum and a fortress, 
 shall preserve alike the memories of the dead and 
 the liberties of the living.* 
 
 It is meet that you, the children of this noble and 
 
 * Port Popham. 
 
8 
 
 magnificent State, should gather year by year, from 
 your prolific fields and opulent marts, at this spot, to 
 pay a tardy but fitting tribute to the adventurous and 
 enterprising men who disembarked from the fragile 
 " Gift of God " and the " Mary and John," two hun- 
 dred and fifty-eight years ago, and, kneeling beneath 
 the shadows of Seguin, dedicated this broad inheri- 
 tance of their offspring to a free commerce, a free 
 church, and a free state. 
 
 Though a spirit of adventure and a lust for gold 
 entered largely into most of the voyages for discovery 
 or colonization during the seventeenth century, un- 
 questionably the settlement at Sagadahoc ia 1607, 
 which Gorges says was subsequently broken up, had 
 its origin in commercial enterprise, fostered and di- 
 rected by the lucrative fisheries upon our coast. The 
 impelling motive was an honorable desire to increase 
 the wealth and enlarge the dominion of the English 
 people. 
 
 The colonists of 1620 encountered the hazards of 
 a stormy sea, and the greater dangers of the wilder- 
 ness, from the exalted desu-e to found an asylum ia 
 which they and their faith should be free from the 
 restraints and persecutions of the father-land. The 
 stern and indomitable will imparted by religious 
 enthusiasm maintained an unbroken continuity of the 
 Plymouth settlement with the subsequent history of 
 the country. 
 
 The rival claims of these respective colonies I leave 
 to be settled by the research of the masters of history. 
 
If my purpose were not to-day to treat of the respon- 
 sibilities rather of the living than the dead actors of 
 history, I would not presume to strike the balance of 
 evidence in the friendly controversy in respect to 
 priority of birth which a natifral pride has raised 
 between " the beautiful mother and her more beau- 
 tiful daughter." But permit me to remark in pass- 
 ing, that, in all such discussions, we do well to bear 
 in mind that the connections of history, though some- 
 times material, are largely invisible and moral, and 
 lie within the region of thought, memory, and emotion. 
 Failure is often the necessary antecedent to success, 
 and defeat begets the spirit which ensures victory. 
 The want of success in the expeditions sent to Port 
 Koyal and Roanoke did not discourage and frustrate 
 colonization ; but rather, by obstructing, increased the 
 head and force of public opinion to such an extent as 
 to overcome all obstacles, and to secure the permanent 
 settlement and final possession of the continent. The 
 fearful disasters of our late conflict were, through 
 their influence in uniting public sentiment and 
 arousing the popular heart, the necessary antece- 
 dents to our magnificent victories and glorious tri- 
 umphs. The gratitude and the honors of the nation 
 are due to those who struggled against defeat at 
 Bull Run, as well as to those who upheld the vic- 
 torious banners of the Republic on the bloody field 
 of Gettysburg. 
 
 The developments of history are as natural and as 
 necessary as those of nature. Each plant and tree, 
 
 2 
 
10 
 
 each insect and animal, " after its kiad," unfolds, in 
 endless variety of beauty and strength, to the devout 
 student, the fixed thought and creative activity of God 
 in nature. An invariable sequence of cause and effect 
 makes a science of nature possible, and enhances our 
 power over its results with the extension of our know- 
 ledge of its laws. So too, in the progress of society, 
 the connection of antecedent and result is equally uni- 
 form and certain, and, when we have discovered the 
 line of its march amid the wide range of its com- 
 plicated facts, we are able to trace the sublime and 
 irresistible movements of Him "who works within 
 us to wiU and to do of his own good pleasure," 
 and will work till the golden promise of the ages is 
 realized. 
 
 This invariable connection between moral forces 
 and social results makes the successive stages of civ- 
 ilization a development from the past, and connects 
 the generations of men in indissoluble bonds of 
 gratitude and responsibility. In it prophecy becomes 
 possible, and is, to the eye of faith, but history unful- 
 filled. If civilization, as some have affirmed, was the 
 accidental resultant of uncontrolled facts and forces, 
 it would be difficult to comprehend how, in the long 
 run, there could be any progress of society such as 
 history establishes. Human destiny, in time at least, 
 would be a mystery more insoluble than the Sphynx's 
 riddle, and the lofty incentives to noble effort and 
 heroic action would be lost in the uncertainty and 
 aimlessness of the organic life of communities. The 
 
11 
 
 march of ideas, the enlargement of the domain 
 of knowledge, the improvement in the civil institu- 
 tions and social condition of man, witnessed in every 
 age, are not the fortunate outgrowth of accidents. 
 The oper'ations of chance are without method or uni- 
 formity. ' 
 
 Neither is this unbroken advance of the human 
 mind from the rude civilization of the infant world, 
 through the sesthetic but sensuous culture of the old 
 Greek, to our higher intellectual and spiritual con- 
 dition, the development of a blind fatalism. It is the 
 majestic evolution of an intelligent forethought which 
 sees the end from the beginning, and works out its 
 purposes without limiting human activity of invading 
 the domain of its responsibility. 
 
 The causes which operate to, produce the progress 
 of society are not absolute and efficient, but , motive 
 causes existing in the condition of society itself; and 
 hence the responsibiUty of each generation to those 
 who come after them.^ But the great body of motive 
 power, which we sometimes denominate the spirit of 
 the age^ and which determines the mental activity 
 and achievements of a people, is not the same in the 
 nineteenth as in the fifth century, — is not the same 
 in New England as in China ; and neither the volition 
 nor the activity of man can make them the same, any 
 more than they can turn back the Gulf Stream to 
 its source, or change its drops of water to a tide of 
 glittering pearls. The planets are impelled in their 
 orbits by the power of a mutual attraction which they 
 
12 
 
 cannot resist ; so man is borne forward by the current 
 of civilization which his own free activity has created, 
 but cannot arrest or divert. Blind conservatism and 
 arbitrary power, though baffled at every stage, have 
 wrangled against the progress of man, and stained 
 his path with blood in every epoch ; and still he ad- 
 vances. 
 
 It is this inseverable connection of the present with 
 the future, and the certainty that the vindication of 
 truth and the establishment of justice will lift man to 
 a more exalted condition of civil and moral life, 
 which justify the unmixed horrors of war, and make 
 labor and sacrifice the highest duty and loftiest ser- 
 vice of a Christian patriot. 
 
 He who governs in nature by a system of laws 
 has not sundered the connection between cause and 
 effect in the higher sphere of intelligent moral action, 
 where the finite approaches, and seems to blend with 
 the infinite ; has not left man, wayward in his affec- 
 tions, and hence misguided by his vsdll, to an aimless 
 existence, the mere sport of accident; but moves 
 through the ages, shaping their events for the con- 
 summation of designs supremely wise and beneficent. 
 That development is absolute progress ; and its law, 
 as applied to governments, is the profoundest political 
 philosophy. 
 
 To deduce from the iufinite chaos of misrule and 
 right government, of malignant war and benignant 
 peace, of misfortune and prosperity, of misery and 
 happiness, with which society has heaved and swayed 
 
13 
 
 througli tlie lapse of centuries, the principles which 
 have determined the conditions and characteristics of 
 different nationalities; to clearly set forth a theory 
 of government founded upon the absolute rights of 
 man, and under which he will attain to the highest 
 social and moral development, — is the work of a 
 sound political philosophy. 
 
 Profound study and meditation, in this most difficult 
 of all sciences, give to the statesman the wisdom and 
 marvellous forecast of a Richelieu or of a Burke. 
 A sciolist, familiar with the shibboleths of party, may 
 navigate the quiet currents of politics ; but the work 
 of laying governmental foundations and of organic 
 legislation demands comprehensive knowledge, and 
 something of the prpphetic genius displayed by Madi- 
 son and Hamilton in our own Convention of 1787. 
 The great crises in human affairs which come natu- 
 rally, though by the ordination of Providence, wiU be 
 directed at last by the men, however belittled at the 
 time, whom the future will discover to have been spe- 
 cially fitted to be leaders and lawgivers in the exodus 
 from a cramped and partial system of institutions to 
 one full of the promise and wealth of a higher devel- 
 opment. 
 
 The teachings of inspiration confirm the revelations 
 of national experience. " Whatsoever a man soweth, 
 that shall he also reap." This finds illustration in 
 every phase of the organic life of a people. It is the 
 most terse and comprehensive generalization of the 
 great law of human progress to be found in language, 
 
14 
 
 and rests upon the authority of Him who spoke cen- 
 tral truths in the philosophy of life, which transcend 
 the loftiest utterances of Plato. 
 
 The seed which one generation scatters must bear 
 its legitimate harvest in the institutions, the fortunes, 
 the social conditions, and moral life of another. Men 
 cannot, if they would, shuffle off their responsibilities 
 to the future. They are as inevitable as their shad- 
 ows. Pre-eminently is this true of the founders of 
 nations. I use the word nation rather than gov- 
 ernment, because it comprehends not only the con- 
 stitution and laws which are the framework of civil 
 power, but the sentiments, the spirit, the education, 
 the religion, — all those peculiarities in the character 
 and condition of a people which give them a distinct 
 nationality. Government, it is readily admitted, is 
 the chief element in the more comprehensive idea of 
 a nation, for all. history teaches, that civil institutions 
 though unable to meet the profounder wants of man, 
 determine largely his intellectual growth, his social 
 condition, and spiritual development. 
 
 The strength and reach of the influence of prin- 
 ciples, when embodied in national laws and insti- 
 tutions, may be gathered from any epoch of history. 
 Art and life, — indeed, what are they but the ideas of 
 men crystallized into things and deeds? The im- 
 provements, the culture, the learning, the civilization 
 of an age, are but the accumulated resultant of the 
 thought of the present and past generations, corrected 
 and systematized by experience. The spiiit of a 
 
15 
 
 people, too, though exerting a reciprocal influence 
 upon their institutions, is itself the outgrowth of those 
 institutions. The ordinances of Lycurgus, by which 
 Spartan youth were educated at the expense and 
 under the direction of the government, — by 'which 
 aU. the interests, the person, and the life itself of the 
 citizen were made subordinate to the welfare of the 
 State, — entirely transformed the spirit and social 
 organization of the people, and created a military 
 power, which, sweeping the Peloponnesus, humbled 
 the pride of Athens at the very gates of that proud 
 home of eloquence and philosophy, and, shaping 
 the course of Greek history, permanently affected the 
 political condition of the world. The dogma of the 
 Koran, that the Mohammedan faith must be propa- 
 gated by the sword, and the promise of a Paradise of 
 sensuous pleasures to the followers of Allah who 
 might fall in the cause of the Prophet, covered the 
 half of two continents with the desolations of war, 
 and caused the fair fields of Spain to smoke with the 
 blood of Christian and Moor for eight centuries. 
 
 If we reflect for a little upon the state of European 
 society as it existed at a later day, and measurably 
 even in our own time, we discover that the want, the 
 intellectual and moral degradation, and nameless mis- 
 eries of the masses ; the laggard march of popular 
 industry and trade ; the slow increase of capital and 
 the tardy development of ideas ; the perpetual unrest 
 and upheavals of society, — were the legitimate fruits 
 of false and vicious systems of government, which 
 
16 
 
 made the welfare of the people subordinate to the 
 interests of the State. 
 
 " The State ! I am myself the State," said Louis 
 Fourteenth ; and he but expressed, with honest brev- 
 ity, the essential idea of absolute monarchy, which 
 rests its claim to power upon the gratia Dei, and 
 repudiates all responsibility to the nation. 
 
 The principle of fear shapes the polity of abso- 
 lutism, and is the paramount motive to obedience 
 with the subject. The unavoidable result is an arbi- 
 trary and oppressive administration of power, which 
 engenders national ignorance, stolidity, cowardice, 
 and selfishness. The pleasures of vice supplant the 
 noble enjoyments of the mind, and the spirit of 
 society becomes slavish and morally depraved. En- 
 terprise and thrift perish for want of motive ; and the 
 springing aspirations of youth, like the heart of Pro- 
 metheus, are consumed by the vultures of despair. 
 The currents of progress fall into eddies, advancing 
 only by spasmodic and convulsive movements. At 
 length, the yearning instincts of men force them into 
 rebellion against the unendurable oppression, and the 
 red-handed genius of revolution stalks like a scom-ge 
 of God through the kingdom, pUing its battle-fields 
 with mangled victims whose blood cries to God for 
 vengeance. The people, freed from then- tyrant, but 
 too ignorant for self-government, irresolute and help- 
 less, fall back to play the bloody carnival of a reign 
 of terror, till some demon of the storm lui-es the 
 exhausted nation, by the pomp and glitter of military 
 
17 
 
 glory, back into the " Serbonian bog " of despotism, 
 from which they must again emerge through the 
 smoke of battle. Is not this a truthful picture of the 
 experience of France and Italy, nay, of continental 
 Europe, drawn from the records of history? 
 
 The free constitution and liberties of England, too, 
 have been wrested from power, unlimited by law and 
 absolute in practice, by a series of stern struggles in 
 Parliament and Court, by arms and press, stretching 
 from the gift of the great charter at Runnymede to 
 the last national approbation of a liberal policy, sealed 
 by the vote of the people whose paeans of victory 
 may even now be heard ringing along our shores. 
 Nor have the rights of the governed been wrested 
 from the grasp of tyrants once only, but time and 
 again have they been rescued, when royal arts and 
 arbitrary power would override and trample them 
 down, by a people constant to resist unto death the 
 invasion of their privileges. 
 
 What have not the liberties of England cost ? and 
 yet her lowest operatives might covet to-day the free- 
 dom and condition of the sleek, well-fed studs of 
 blooded steeds in the stables of her nobility. 
 
 Such is the unbroken record of irresponsible sov- 
 ereignty. " A system so bad," says Lord Brougham, 
 "that the best disposition on the part of those who 
 administer it could not make its burden tolerable to 
 the community; but calculated at the same time to 
 eradicate all good intentions in the rulers and privi- 
 leged orders, and foster the prejudices and propensi- 
 
 3 
 
18 
 
 ties most hurtful to their own character, and most 
 unhappy for their fellow-citizens." It learns nothing 
 by experience, and yields to nothing but necessity. 
 The demands for salutary reformations which might 
 perpetuate the government by transforming it into a 
 solid and useful system of civil polity, it scorns to 
 heed, and, with blind defiance, imites the terrific 
 sweep of popular revolutions. 
 
 An autocracy is an organism of selfishness, which, 
 from its nature, must become more exclusive and ar- 
 bitrary with age. But, if it never changed, man's 
 growth in ideas and capacity, and consequent wants, 
 would render it a cruel and vmyielding frame, within 
 which his spirit would chafe, and his misery become 
 complete. This iron harness of oppression must be 
 broken and cast ofi", or all progress ceases, and the 
 nation becomes enslaved. I would not charge home 
 upon the founders of an autocracy all the evils which 
 spring from its existence, for, in the rude beginnings 
 of a people, monarchy may be necessary as a matrix 
 within which the culture and discipline necessary to 
 organize and sustain a plan of self-government may be 
 produced. But he who would not labor wisely to 
 remove it as soon as man is prepared for something 
 better ; he who would engraft any slip of the accursed 
 tree upon the institutions of a people who may safely 
 enjoy the franchises of liberty, — deserves the glory 
 and the reward of him who would — 
 
 " Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell, 
 Uproar the universal peace, confound 
 All unity on earth," 
 
19 
 
 ' Government is an experimental science, and its 
 fundamental principles are reached through manifold 
 errors and failures. The world is the grand labora- 
 tory within which men have been testing, during all 
 time, by an experimentum crucis, -without a figure of 
 speech, the successive theories of statesmen and phi- 
 losophers. 
 
 Political equality, and the inalienable right to life, 
 liberty, and the conditions of happiness, the first 
 truths in any system of national self-government, 
 though sometimes foreshadowed in the utterances of 
 men of such mould as the poet-statesman of the Puri- 
 tan era of English history, come slowly to the ap- 
 prehension of the unlettered masses of the mother 
 continent. 
 
 When the great Cromwell fellj mark with what 
 pliant submission the lion-hearted and iron-handed 
 men who had conquered at Marston Moor and Naseby 
 suffered absolutism to resume its lost dominion in the 
 person of the weak and licentious Charles, and, over- 
 riding constitution and laws, to flaunt its usurped pre- 
 rogatives in their faces with a superlative audacity and 
 corruption of regal power that must have tempted the 
 great protector to repass the portals of the tomb, and 
 drive the lascivious hirelings from the temple of Eng- 
 lish liberties. That people knew not what they lost. 
 
 To-day the birth-rights of men are ignored on more 
 than half the globe. Children suck slavery and mis- 
 ery with their mother's milk, and wear them in their 
 hearts to the grave. 
 
20 
 
 It not unfrequently happens, in the grand march of 
 events, that the Providence of history overrules the 
 wrath of oppression to the furtherance of the interests 
 of freedom. The restrictions and monopohes which 
 crippled home industry and trade, and the arbitrary 
 encroachments upon civil and religious liberty which 
 at last drove the Roundheads into rebellion, and reared 
 the commonwealth upon the ruins of the monarchy, 
 pushed out, during the first half of the seventeenth 
 century, those numerous expeditions which resulted 
 in planting along our seaboard a chosen people, whom 
 the loftiest virtues, the profoundest experience, and 
 the most heroic spirit, fitted to lay, in pain and toU 
 and sacrifices and the agonies which come to the man- 
 liest and noblest souls, the foundations upon which 
 their children after them, in many generations, should 
 rear the superstructure of a mighty republic. 
 
 They were prescient of the future, and suffered and 
 died in the triumphs of a faith which was the " evi- 
 dence of things not seen," and yet they did not fully 
 comprehend the nature and responsibilities of the 
 great work in which they were engaged. They 
 claimed the right of personal liberty, and were ready 
 to die for it, but they did not clearly understand that 
 it could be permanently secured only by independent 
 self-government. 
 
 The Plymouth emigrants, warned by a factious 
 spirit manifested by some rude adventurers who had 
 crept in among them, realized the dream of philoso- 
 phers by entering into an original social compact 
 
21 
 
 before disembarking; and yet they did not realize 
 fully that governments derive all their just powers 
 from the consent of the governed, and that the 
 people may alter, abolish, and establish new govern- 
 ments to secure their rights. One of the magistrates 
 of the colony declared, when the freemen demanded 
 that assistants should be " chosen anew every year," 
 that " the bigotry " of Laud and " the tyranny " of 
 a Stuart were preferable to a popular government.* 
 "Democracy I do not conceive that ever God did 
 ordain," wrote John Cotton, " as a fit government or 
 commonwealth. As for monarchy and aristocracy, 
 they are both of them clearly approved and directed 
 in the Scriptures." f 
 
 These men had not been long enough in the school 
 of Providence to unlearn the lessons of a lifetime. 
 They had surrendered affluence and ease at home, — 
 had turned from friends and father-land with many 
 tears to a voluntary exile of toil and suffering, to 
 establish the freedom of their faith, to secure wealth, 
 liberty, and a home to their children after them, and 
 to give an empire to the crown of England; but 
 they did not apprehend that they were the elect of 
 many generations, produced in the fulness of time, 
 and prepared by the discipline of sorrow, to lay 
 the foundations of an independent republic on a 
 continent reserved and revealed foi this very pur- 
 pose. 
 
 • Oliver's Puritan Commonwealth. 
 
 t Letter to Lord Say and Seal in Hutchinson. 
 
22 
 
 It was on the threshing-floor of the wilderness, and 
 in the wintry winds of six generations, that the un- 
 mixed seed of Uberty, in Church and State, was to be 
 separated from the chaff of European governmental 
 philosophy. If they were tenacious of social and 
 civil prerogatives, if they were stem and exclusive in 
 church discipline, it resulted from the narrowness of 
 the times, and was rather their misfortune than their 
 fault. If bitter persecution had given to their faith a 
 shade of gloomy intolerance, what a grand and sol- 
 emn massiveness and solidity of character it im- 
 parted ! how it prepared them " to hope all things 
 and endure all things " in the far-reaching enterprise 
 upon which they had entered! how it centralized 
 and intensified the forces of their being, and organ- 
 ized and elevated every thing that it touched ! 
 
 The freemen of the colonies, who had sprung from 
 the unprivileged classes of Europe, untainted by 
 prejudice, never faltered, never tripped in the path 
 of empire which they trod with an unwavering faith 
 and an undaunted courage. They were of the order 
 of God's nobility, and the men who fought and fell at 
 Yorktown and at Gettysburg had their blood in their 
 veins. 
 
 That God whose offspring men are, and who " hath 
 determined the times before appointed, and the bounds 
 of their habitation," knowing that human instrumen- 
 talities were impotent against the arts and power of 
 the moss-grown despotisms of the old world, and that 
 the principles and polity essential to the successful 
 
23 
 
 establisliment, vigorous administration, and enduring 
 strength of an extended representative government, 
 could never be learned in the school of absolutism, 
 preserved here, for the reception of a chosen seed, a 
 continent of unparalleled resources and unexhausted 
 wealth. Here; sequestered from arbitrary force and 
 the influence of false theories, they passed a century 
 and a half of necessary and profitable pupilage. The 
 savage at first supplied their wants, when famine 
 would have swept off" the infant colony, and then, 
 by incessant war, taught them a vigilance and self- 
 reliance which bafi[led the disciplined forces that would 
 have wrested from them the inherited rights of Brit- 
 ish subjects. The want and hardship of the wilder- 
 ness gave them force and resource of character. The 
 unjust exactions and insidious invasions of prescrip- 
 tive rights by Parliament, the neglect and insolence 
 of the officers of the king, weaned their affections 
 and loosened their loyalty to the home government. 
 The organization and discipline of their church, their 
 coloiiial legislation, and the administration of munici- 
 pal and provincial affairs, discovered to them the 
 nature and value of liberty. And so, in the sixth 
 generation, the founders of the colonies, in the per- 
 sons of Sherman, Adams, Morris, Jefferson, Madison, 
 Washington, and their great compeers, came to the 
 Declaration, the war, and the organization of inde- 
 pendence. The men of that day need no eulogy 
 from their children ; their record is in the memory of 
 mankind ; the story of their lives is too familiar to be 
 rehearsed. 
 
24 
 
 The declaration of independence ; the formal con- 
 federation of States, already leagued, and in their unity 
 exercising the functions of national sovereignty wrested 
 from England by a revolutionary power; the seven 
 years of disaster and defeat, eventuating in victory 
 and freedom ; the utter failure of the confederation, 
 and consequent ruin to the industry and credit of the 
 country; the reconstruction of the constitution by 
 the convention of 1787, and its subsequent adoption 
 by the people of the States, — these and other mo- 
 mentous issues, which moulded the institutions and 
 determined the destiny of a great people, — which ex- 
 erted a large and permanent influence upon the polit- 
 ical history and civilization of the future of the world, 
 — crowded into the brief period of a little more than 
 a decade. But the influence of those infant years of 
 the republic who can telll Who can measTire the 
 responsibilities of the patriot founders of our govern- 
 ment to the millions of their posterity here, and to 
 that wider posterity who shall enter into their labors 
 in other lands 1 No conclave or council mentioned in 
 civil history has been perplexed with more original, 
 difiicult, and weighty problems than the convention 
 of 1787. None ever better comprehended its respon- 
 sibilities, or met them with a broader reach of under- 
 standing, a more religious fidelity. 
 
 The natural rights of man, abstractly considered, 
 were clearly defined in the writings of such men as 
 Locke, Sydney, and Montesquieu ; but there were no 
 existing constitutions of government from which they 
 
25 
 
 could learn how properly to distribute and vest the 
 original sovereignty of the people, and yet upon this 
 rested the success and permanence of their work. 
 All the teachings of a hundred and fifty years of colo- 
 nial life, and all the sacrifices and sufferings of the 
 war, would be lost if their wisdom and sagacity should 
 fail in the reconstruction of the government. The 
 English constitution, though far from being a model, 
 was frequently referred to for parallels or contrasts in 
 their great work. But this embraced three estates, — 
 the Sovereign, the Lords, and the Commons ; and 
 the rights and privileges which it secured to the 
 people, though large, were such only as they had 
 been able to extort from the Crown in the bitter 
 struggles of more than a thousand years, and any 
 amendment of the fundamental law by which their 
 liberties might be enlarged must be made by further 
 violent encroachments upon the royal prerogatives. 
 
 There is yet a fourth estate, — the large producing 
 substratum of the population, — whom the constitution 
 of Great Britain cruelly excludes from all participa- 
 tion in the government, and who, though theoretically 
 entitled to the protection of laws which they are al- 
 lowed no voice in enacting, are practically deprived of 
 this advantage by an enforced poverty. And, to obvi- 
 ate the wreck and destruction which might naturally 
 be anticipated from this great magazine of explosive 
 human forces criminally placed beneath the super- 
 structure of society, when the train may be fired by 
 
 4 
 
26 
 
 unavoidable want and misery, it is guarded by an 
 expensive and arrogant drove of military drones. 
 
 The suicidal policy is perpetuated, too, by keeping 
 this excluded caste in a state of precautionary ignor- 
 ance, and by stealing the sweat of their brows to feed 
 their watchdogs. 
 
 But the convention of the new-born republic re- 
 ceived, as a first truth, the principle which had been 
 settled by the Revolution, that all political rights and 
 power reside originally in the people, and must be 
 distributed, so far as given up, between the legislative, 
 judicial, and executive branches of government, exclu- 
 sively for the popular good. 
 
 Starting from that pt)int, they vested the supreme 
 authority, executive and legislative, in the people, to 
 be exercised only by representatives chosen by and 
 responsible to themselves. They excluded the esta- 
 blishment of governmental and class monopohes, 
 and provided for the freedom of industry in aU its 
 branches. They for ever barred the possibility of priv- 
 ileged orders, and all laws of entail and primogeniture. 
 They guarded against the abuse of ofiicial power by 
 requiring its frequent and stated return to its source. 
 They consulted the interests of liberty and humanity 
 by connecting the sympathies of the highest tribunal 
 of justice with popular rights. They gave to the 
 people an assurance, in the guarantee of a republican 
 form of State governments, that no independent power 
 should arise in the future to interfere or tamper with 
 laws made for the protection of their persons and 
 
27 
 
 property. They anticipated internal dissensions and 
 revolutions by providing for amendments to the or- 
 ganic law to meet the growth of public intelligence 
 and the changed conditions of society. All this, and 
 more, they added to the great inheritance of English 
 liberties and common law. 
 
 The tests of ninety years have proved their work 
 well and faithfully done. They have been gath- 
 ered to the fathers, but their monument is washed 
 by lake and gulf, by sea and sea, and rises through 
 the generations of their children, — 
 
 " And 80 sepulchred, in such pomp do lie, 
 That kings, for such a tomb, would -wish to die." 
 
 It may be a sad but profitable reflection, that the 
 one great marplot in our national history; the fiend 
 of mischief and discord that for eighty years put a 
 break upon the industrial prosperity and growth of 
 power in the republic ; which .threw apples of discord 
 into deliberative assemblies and religious conventions, 
 and, at last, slew, as of old, even the first-bom, until 
 " there was not a house where there was not one 
 dead," — sprung from the sufferance of a political 
 wrong which the fathers believed to be a demand of 
 prudence and patriotism. The principles underlying 
 the Revolution and the Confederation demanded that 
 the constitutional convention should abolish slavery; 
 but an anxious desire to unite all the States which 
 . had stood together through the war, in the adoption of 
 the new constitution, beguiled them into the behef 
 
28 
 
 that a wise statesmanship demanded the surrender 
 of justice for the attainment of a present good. Could 
 their eyes have been opened to look down the vista 
 of a hundred years, and see this dark genius of bar- 
 barism, now " fiercer by despair," sweeping away the 
 accumulated wealth of generations, and, in a war of 
 unparalleled violence and destructiveness, slaying half 
 a million of men, the most intelligent who have ever 
 fallen in battle, they would have discovered that the 
 teachings of political justice are a safer guide than 
 the dictates of expediency. For them to have, left 
 South CaroUna and Georgia out of the Union, nay, to 
 have sunk them in the depths of the sea, would have 
 been far better for the nation than to have done that 
 great wrong. 
 
 But the end is not yet. We, too, have work to 
 do ; for the foundations of the republic are not yet 
 completed. We cannot escape the responsibility of 
 those who build for posterity. The great architects 
 of our system reared the framework, and other gener- 
 ations have labored faithfully and successfully upon 
 it. The star-lit flag which symbolizes its existence, 
 more beautiful than the pearly gates of morning 
 closed with bars of crimson, has been unfurled over 
 fleet and camp and court, but the broad substructure 
 of this great nation cannot be settled firmly and com- 
 pactly in its bed in a hundred years. 
 
 " I am a long time painting," says an old Greek 
 artist; "for I paint for a long time." This is the 
 laconic language of a universal truth. Whatever is 
 
29 
 
 destined long to survive comes slowly to maturity. 
 The primeval forests of cedar and oak, whose giant 
 strength has resisted the forces of decay through half 
 the lifetime of man, slowly lifted their gnarled and 
 massive forms through centuries of growth. The 
 earth's deep plating was laid, stratum above stratum, 
 through the lapse of the silent, unchronicled ages ; 
 for it was to be the theatre of man's historic career. 
 While the old cathedrals of Europe have risen slowly 
 to their grand and solemn beauty, kings, their found- 
 ers, have mouldered back to dust within their vaults, 
 and the names of their architects have perished from 
 memory. ■ Succeeding generations have added a tower, 
 a stained window, or a jewelled altar, and lain down 
 to rest beneath their shadow, and the work still 
 lingers ; but there they stand, firm as the hills, per- 
 petuating in histories of stone the moral life and 
 intellectual growth of the world through many of its 
 most eventful centuries. These are but types, of 
 national life. 
 
 From the foundations of Eome, eight centuries, 
 crowded with the reverses and triumphs of a heroic 
 people, had passed into history, ere she became the 
 mistress of the world. 
 
 The republic of Venice, too, which at first fled 
 from Rome's insatiable lust of power, and hid herself 
 in the islands of the sea, dropping her bridal ring 
 into the Adriatic, while the white-haired Doge pro- 
 nounced the " Desponsamus te, mare, in signum veri 
 perpetuique dominii," wedded the waves to her sweep 
 
30 
 
 of power through thirteen hundred years of free- 
 dom: — 
 
 " The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord; 
 
 And, annual marriage now no more renewed, 
 The Bucentaur lies rotting unrestored, 
 Neglected garment of her widowhood." 
 
 The records of France, of Spain, and of other of 
 the existing transatlantic States, may be traced up- 
 ward for thousands of years to the dim beginnings of 
 European civilization. 
 
 In history, where results are to be reached through 
 the slow-moving but irresistible tides of public opinion, 
 time must be reckoned, not by years, but by ages. 
 Centuries are required for maturing the fruits of 
 national life, that they may be used as the seeds of a 
 more advanced civilization. 
 
 We cannot reasonably expect our government to 
 be an exception in this divine economy of nations. 
 If we are soon to perish, why were we given a hun- 
 dred and fifty years of pupilage "? Why led through 
 a seven years' war into governmental independence 1 
 Why were the wisest of statesmen brought together 
 to organize civil institutions based upon the liberty 
 and political equality of men, and inspired to plant 
 free schools and free churches, if we as a people are 
 to be cut off in our childhood 1 Why this palpable 
 interposition of the divine hand in every period of 
 peace and war ? Have the principles of civil hberty 
 answered their design, and lost their vitality 1 Have 
 the American people reached the limit of then capa- 
 city, and exhausted their energy and enterprise ? Let 
 
31 
 
 the farmer, who floods the markets of the world 
 with the products of his toil; let the cunning arti- 
 ficer, the noise of whose industry never dies in our 
 land ; let the merchant, whose white-winged messen- 
 gers of trade are on every sea ; let the sailor, whose 
 fleets have battered down the strong defences of 
 cities, and penetrated to the inland fastnesses of trea- 
 son ; let the soldier, who has saved liberty and civil- 
 ization on fields more bloody and glorious than Cressy 
 or Waterloo, whose heroic valor and Christian for- 
 titude have perpetuated to after-ages the inheritance 
 of the fathers, as he now stands modestly in his 
 robes of peace at his daily toil, with his virtues and 
 his sensibiUties all untouched, — answer these inter- 
 rogatories. 
 
 Already have the American people proved, con- 
 trary to the predictions of speculative statesmen, that 
 a purely repubhcan form of self-government can be 
 founded and maintained in a country of vast extent, 
 and peopled by millions of inhabitants. It remains 
 to us to develop this plan in the spirit of its found- 
 ers ; to build up and perpetuate here a system of 
 institutions and society upon the postulates laid down 
 in our declarations of right and independence. 
 
 "In the great frame of kingdoms and common- 
 wealths, it is in the power of princes or estates," says 
 Lord Bacon, " to add amplitude and greatness to their 
 kingdoms. For, by introducing such ordinances, con- 
 stitutions, and customs as are wise, they may sow 
 greatness to their posterity and successors." In that 
 
32 
 
 hope we labor. If to-morrow we die, we ftiay eat, 
 drink, and be merry, — giving ourselves no concern 
 about the character of society or the issue of great 
 public events ; but, if the nation is to live in our pos- 
 terity, we must remember " the evil that men do lives 
 after them," and strive to purge our institutions from 
 every admixture of arbitrary power or injustice, that 
 they may be transmitted pure and simple in their mas- 
 sive beauty, so that not only our children may be glad 
 as they enter into our labors, but that the down- 
 trodden and despairing of other lands and other times 
 may see that liberty is possible, and worth dying for. 
 
 As the seed comes to the golden sheaves of harvest 
 by the constant care and toil of the husbandman ; so 
 the rich fruitage of life is secured by forethought, 
 attention, and assiduous labor. The adoption of a 
 free constitution and the enactment of equitable laws 
 wUl not build up an enduring fabric of government, 
 or make a virtuous community : the people must give 
 themselves to study, to self-restraint, and the practice 
 of righteousness between man and man ; must search 
 for that wisdom which comes from the experience of 
 the past, and yield a supreme love and obedience to 
 justice and truth. There is no safety to a nation in 
 the path of wrong-doing. Our fathers proclaimed, in 
 justification of their declaration of independence, that 
 all men are entitled to freedom ; but they practically 
 proclaimed it a cheat and a lie by continuing the 
 bondage of an enslaved people. God held the nation 
 to its declaration, and to the vindication of its constitu- 
 
33 
 
 tion. We have poured out the gathered treasures of 
 three generations like water, and have sacrificed 
 three hundred thousand of our bravest and best to 
 pay the penalty of that primal infidelity to , principle. 
 We assumed also that there was btft one estate, and 
 that " all men are created equal " before the law. 
 It remains to be .seen whether this generation wUl 
 be true to that first truth of its organic law or not. 
 If we depart from fundamental principles of the con- 
 stitution from a motive of mistaken prudence and 
 patriotism, we may throw upon our children the price 
 of our exemption from a fancied ill. God grant that 
 they may not be called upon to pay in blood the pen- 
 alty of our unmanly surrender of a great opportunity ! 
 We are now perplexed and puzzled because the appli- 
 cation of the principle seems to require of us what 
 public safety denies. If our injustice first made him 
 ignorant and debased whom God has now made free, 
 shall we attempt to remedy the evil by limiting God's 
 justice or by correcting our own wrong 1 Which does 
 the wisdom of experience pronounce to be the part of 
 prudence, — to give to the ignorant freedmen the in- 
 centives to knowledge and good citizenship, or to 
 make them a class by themselves, without the privi- 
 leges or responsibilities of citizens, whose wrongs will 
 aggravate the very danger we so much dread 1 
 
 We cannot justify a system of class restriction, on 
 the plea that females and minors are deprived of the 
 right of suffrage ; for the sex and condition of woman 
 makes hers a different case, while the right is only 
 
34 
 
 delayed to the minor, and made sure on the sole con- 
 dition of his majority. 
 
 I do not here propound or discuss the method by 
 which the condition of the freedmen is to be disposed 
 of : I only contend that the policy of the Government 
 in this matter shall be uniform and homogeneous, and 
 in accordance with the principles which underlie our 
 whole system, and which must be appealed to in revo- 
 lutionary times. We may sacrifice, as in the past, if 
 we will, justice, to appease sectional prejudice, and to 
 ease off a present danger ; but, if we do, we shall 
 only help to verify the fearful prediction of Macaulay, 
 that, at some distant day, hungry millions of the ab- 
 ject and the depraved will rise, and sack our fair and 
 rich inheritance with more than fiendish hate and 
 Vandal fury. " Righteousness exalteth a nation, but 
 sin is a reproach to any people." 
 
 We stand to-day on the spot where the. footsteps of 
 Popham and his loyal "landmen" first pressed the 
 continent two hundred and fifty years ago. The pain- 
 ful hut glorious record of those troubled centuries 
 out-rolls to our vision, through the soft and sombre 
 light of the past, revealing a few feeble settlers slowly 
 lifting themselves from the humiHty of colonial sub- 
 ordination to the proud pre-eminence of self-govern- 
 ment. From out the fruitless and pathless wilderness 
 rises the republic, full of the wealth, the arts, and the 
 institutions of an industrious Christian population. 
 Its shores are lined with the opulent marts and bur- 
 dened fleets of commerce, and its fruitful fields dotted 
 
35 
 
 with tlie -palaces of its untitled rulers. The beauty 
 and vu'tue of its daughters are equalled only by the 
 intelligence and enterprise of its sons. Twice, in glo- 
 rious and just war, it has hurled back its hereditary 
 foe discomfited and defeated. Since first you met to 
 commemorate, by annual services and grateful remem- 
 brances, the settlement of 1607 upon these sandy in- 
 lets and rocky headlands, it has crushed the organized 
 treason of millions of the slave-corrupted sons of noble 
 sires in a colossal war, and to-day its industries, its 
 charities, its liberties, and its intelligent population, 
 are the grand memorials of its heroic dead. 
 
 How feeble is the loftiest conception of the genius 
 of art, compared with this picture drawn by the hand 
 of Providence on the canvass of history ! There upon 
 the shore stand the first settlers, homeless, houseless,- 
 heart-sick, and weary, in a world alone. Thence com- 
 mences the long march of centuries, through cold and 
 hunger, toil and sickness, war and despair. The way 
 opens before them into fruitful fields, where peace and 
 prosperity wait upon toil and enterprise as they move. 
 Onward stUl press the gathering throng, and, as 
 they come, we catch the songs of liberty and the 
 shouts of victory; nor, widening as they move, rest 
 they day or night, till here they stand in this broadest, 
 freest, richest, goodliest inheritance of men, and this 
 is all our own. Those untitled exiles upon the shore 
 were our ancestors ; and, thank God, we are their 
 children. So may we improve these liberties, this 
 civilization, this faith, that our children may turn 
 back to bless us when we sleep with our fathers ! 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 At the conclusion of the Address, a vote of thanks to Pro- 
 fessor Patterson was proposed by Eev. Dr. Ballard, seconded 
 by Oliver Moses, Esq., of Bath, and unanimously adopted ; 
 and a copy of his oration requested for publication by the 
 committee. 
 
 A resolution was adopted, that the committee of last 
 year be re-appointed, with authority to fill Tacancies and 
 add to their number. 
 
 From the various interesting letters received by the 
 
 committee, in reply to invitations to take part in this year's 
 
 celebration, the following is thought worthy of preservEu- 
 
 tion : — 
 
 Boston, Aug. 27, 1865. 
 
 Mt dbab Sie, — Your invitation to be present at the Popham 
 Celebration is at hand. The short notice will prevent me from 
 being present to take part in the interesting ceremonies. With- 
 out assenting to all the claims made in your "Popham Memorial" 
 volume, allow me to say, that I think those who have spoken or 
 written on that subject have overlooked one of the most important 
 results of that enterprise. In this practical age, we must look to 
 what was really effected by the earliest colonists on these shores. 
 Let us briefly try that at Sagadahoc by this test ; for, in my opin- 
 ion, their works were far more important than the formal acts 
 recorded. They certainly erected houses, a church, a fort ; and, 
 lastly, a vessel, the dimensions of which are unknown, but fit to 
 cross the ocean. Now we know, that, in a forest, it is not a diffl- 
 
38 
 
 cult thing to build log-houses, or a church and a fort in the same 
 "way ; but to construct a sea-going vessel is quite a different affair. 
 This requires artisans who are used to such work ; and there can 
 be no doubt, that, among the colonists, there were found a master- 
 builder,* with the necessary journeymen and sawyers (for there 
 were no mills), a smith, and also several laborers ; for the building 
 of a vessel in a remote wilderness would then require three times the 
 amount of manual labor that would now effect the same result, — 
 in these days when materials are so easily prepared, transported, 
 and fitted, by the aid of machinery. 
 
 Looking, then, at what was certainly done by the Popham 
 colony, we must allow, that, during the short period they occupied 
 the rugged peninsnla of Sabino, and making due allowance for a 
 hard winter, the destruction of their store-house, and the sickness 
 that followed, they deserve credit for enterprise and industry in 
 constructing a vessel fit to encounter the storms of the Atlantic, 
 and make a safe voyage to England. There she must have 
 attracted much attention, being the pioneer ship built in North 
 America. When, therefore, we consider the value of Popham's 
 enterprise, the building and voyage of the " Virginia of Sagada- 
 hoc " is one of its most important results. It was not equalled by 
 the Plymouth colony in the first ten years of its existence ; and it 
 was not till the third year of the existence of its powerful neighbor 
 of " Massachusetts Bay," that a ship, fit to cross the ocean, was 
 constructed.! 
 
 Wishing you a pleasant day and a numerous company, I am. 
 
 Yours truly, Fkedemc Kidder. 
 
 To Eev. Edward BaLlard, Secretary, §rc. 
 
 * Strachey says, " the chief shipwright was one Digby, of London." He 
 also speaks of " the carpenters." — Ch. x. 
 
 t According to " Holmes's Annals," a ship of sixty tons was built at Med- 
 ford in 1633. " The Blessing of the Bay " was built in 1631 ; but she was a 
 mere shallop, without a deck, and fit only to keep along the shore. 
 

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