ouest, et gouverne vers le
sud-ouest, il seroit entre dans le courant d'eau chaude ou Gulf Stream,
et auroit ete porte vers la Floride, et de la peut-etre vers le cap
Hatteras et la Virginie, incident d'une immense importance, puisqu'il
auroit pu donner aux Etats Unis, en lieu d'une population Protestante
Anglaise, une population Catholique Espagnole."--Humboldt's _Geog. du
Nouveau Continent_, tom. iii., p. 163.]

[Footnote 313: Alonzo s'etoit ecrie "que son coeur lui disoit que pour
trouver la terre, il falloit gouverner vers le sud-ouest." L'inspiration
d'Alonzo etoit moins mysteriuse qu'elle peut le paraitre au premier
abord. Pinzon avoit vu dans la soiree passer des perroquets, et il
savoit que ces oiseaux n'alloient pas sans motif du cote du sud. Jamais
vol d'oiseau n'a eu des suites plus graves.]

CHAPTER X.

The Protestant Reformation was eminently suited to the spirit of the
English people, although forced upon them in the first instance by the
absolute power of a capricious king, and unaccompanied by any
acknowledgment of those rights of toleration and individual judgment
upon which its strength seemed mainly to depend. The monarch, when
constituted the head of the Church, exacted the same spiritual obedience
from his subjects as they had formerly rendered to the Pope of Rome.
Queen Elizabeth adopted her father's principles: she favored the power
of the hierarchy, and the pomp and ceremony of external religious
observances. But the English people, shocked by the horrors of Mary's
reign, and terrified by the papal persecutions on the Continent, were
generally inclined to favor the extremes of Calvinistic simplicity, as a
supposed security against another reaction to the Romish faith. The
stern and despotic queen, encouraged by the counsels of Archbishop
Whitgift, assumed the groundless right of putting down the opinions of
the Puritans by force. (1583.) Various severities were exercised against
those who held the obnoxious doctrines; but, despite the storm of
persecution, the spirit of religious independence spread rapidly among
the sturdy people of England. At length a statute was passed of a nature
now almost incredible--secession from the Church was punishable by
banishment, and by death in case of refusal on return.[314] (1593.)

The Puritans were thus driven to extremity.[315] The followers of an
enthusiastic seceder named Brown[316] formed the first example of an
independent system: each congre