beauty. The useful pine lifted its cones into the frosty air. The maple, which is already making the forest gay with its orange hues, reddened over those houseless men. The majestic summits of Wachusett and Monadnoc towering in the hori zon, invited the steps of adventure westward.

As the season grew later, they felt its inconveniences." Many were forced to go barefoot and bareleg, and some in time of frost and snow, yet were they more healthy than now they are.' The land was low but healthy; and if, in common with all the settlements, they found the air of America very cold, they might say with Higginson, after his description of the other elements, that "New England may boast of the element of fire, more than all the rest; for all Europe is not able to afford to make so great fires as New England. A poor servant, that is to possess but fifty acres, may afford to give more wood for fire as good as the world yields, than many noblemen in England." Many were their wants, but more their privileges. The light struggled in through windows of oiled paper, but they read the word of God by it. They were fain to make use of their knees for a table, but their limbs were their own. Hard labor and spare diet they had, and off wooden

trenchers, but they had peace and freedom, and the wailing of the tempest in the woods sounded kindlier in their ear than the smooth voice of the prelates, at home, in England, "There is no people," said their pastor to his little flock of exiles, "but will strive to excel in something, What can we excel in, if not in holiness? If we look to number, we are the fewest; if to strength, we are the weakest; if to wealth and riches, we are the poorest of all the people of God through the whole world. We cannot excel nor so much as equal other people in these things; and if we come short in grace and holiness too, we are the most despicable people under heaven. Strive we, therefore, herein to excel, and suffer not this crown to be taken away from us.' The sermon fell into good and tender hearts; the people conspired with their teacher. Their religion was sweetness and peace amidst toil and tears. And, as we are informed, "the edge of their appetite was greater to spiritual duties at their first com ing, in time of wants, than afterwards."

The original Town Records; for the first thirty years, are lost. We have records of marriages and deaths, beginning nineteen years after the settlement; and copies of some of the doings: of the town in regard to territory, of the same

Mr. Bulke

date. But the original distribution of the land, or an account of the principles on which it was divided, are not preserved. Agreeably to the, custom of the times, a large portion was reserved to the public, and it appears from a petition of some newcomers, in 1643, that a part had been divided among the first settlers without price, on the single condition of improving it. Other portions seem to have been successively divided off and granted to individuals, at the rate of sixpence or a shilling an acre. But, in the first years, the land would not pay the necessary public charges, and they seem to have fallen heavily on the few wealthy planters. ley, by his generosity, spent his doubtless in consideration of his General Court, in 1639, granted him 300 acres towards Cambridge; and to Mr. Spencer, probably for the like reason, 300 acres by the Alewife River. In 1638, 1200 acres were granted to Governor Winthrop, and 1000 to Thomas Dudley, of the lands adjacent to the town, and Governor Winthrop selected as a building spot the land near the house of Captain Humphrey. Hunt. The first record now remaining is that of a reservation of land for the minister, and the appropriation of new lands as commons or

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estate, and,, charges, the

pastures to some poor men. At the same date, in 1654, the town having divided itself into three districts, called the North, South and East quarters, ordered, "that the North quarter are to keep and maintain all their highways and bridges over the great river, in their quarter, and, in respect of the greatness of their charge. thereabout, and in regard of the ease of the East quarter above the rest, in their highways, they are to allow the North quarter £3."*

Fellow citizens, this first recorded political act of our fathers, this tax assessed on its inhabitants by a town, is the most important event in their civil history, implying, as it does, the exercise of a sovereign power, and connected with all the immunities and powers of a corporate town in Massachusetts. The greater speed and success that distinguish the planting of the human race in this country, over all other plantations in history, owe themselves mainly to the new subdivisions of the State into small corporations of land and power. It is vain to look for the inventor. No man made them. Each of the parts of that perfect structure grew out of the necessities of an instant occasion. The germ was formed in England. The charter gave to the freemen of the Company of Massachusetts Bay the elec

tion of the Governor and Council of Assistants. It moreover gave them the power of prescribing the manner in which freemen should be elected; and ordered that all fundamental laws should be enacted by the freemen of the colony. But the Company removed to New England; more than one hundred freemen were admitted the first year, and it was found inconvenient to assemble them all. And when, presently, the design of the colony began to fulfil itself, by the settlement of new plantations in the vicinity of Boston, and parties, with grants of land, straggled into the country to truck with the Indians and to clear the land for their own benefit, the Governor and freemen in Boston found it neither desirable nor possible to control the trade and practices of these farmers. What could the body of freemen, meeting four times a year, at Boston, do for the daily wants of the planters at Musketaquid? The wolf was to be killed; the Indian to be watched and resisted; wells to be dug; the forest to be felled; pastures to be cleared; corn to be raised ; roads to be cut ; town and farm lines to be run. These things must be done, govern who might. The nature of man and his condition in the world, for the first time within the period of certain history, controlled the forma