the
year 1624, increased rapidly. It was first planted at Nantasket, a
deserted village of the Indians, at the entrance of the Bay of
Massachusetts, where the Plymouth settlers had previously erected a few
houses, for the convenience of carrying on their trade with the
neighboring tribes. Another settlement had been formed, two years
later, at Naumkeak, a tongue of land of remarkable fertility, where
also a deserted Indian village was found, which formed the commencement
of the town afterwards called Salem; and which had become--at the
period we have now arrived at in our story--a place of some importance.
It was founded by a man of much zeal end enthusiasm, of the name of
Endicott; who was one of the original possessors of the patent granted
to several gentlemen of Dorsetshire, for the land in Massachusetts Bay,
extending from the Merrimak to the Charles River, from north to south;
but stretching to an indefinite distance westward, even over the
unexplored regions between the boisterous Atlantic, and the 'Silent
Sea,' as the Pacific has been very aptly and beautifully designated.

Endicott had been invested, by the society to which he belonged in
England, with the government of the whole district of Massachusetts;
and he soon found himself called on to exercise his authority for the
suppression of the disturbances excited by the settlers of Quincy. This
place was inhabited by a set of low and immoral men, one of whom, named
Thomas Morton, had come over in the wild and dissolute train sent out
by Weston several years previously. He was a man of some talent, but of
very contemptible character: and had attached himself to the retinue of
Captain Wollaston and his companions, who first settled at Quincy, and
gave it the name of Mount Wollaston. He afterwards, with his friends,
removed to Virginia, leaving some of his servants and an overseer to
manage the plantation during his absence. But, no sooner was Morton
relieved of the presence of those who had hitherto kept him in some
restraint, than he roused the servants to a complete mutiny, which
ended in their driving the overseer from the plantation, and indulging
in every kind of excess. They even had the boldness and the dishonesty
to sell the land which had been left in their charge by the lawful
possessors, to the Indians; and to obtain fresh estates, which they
claimed as their own. And, having thus established a sort of lawless
independence, they passed their time in