uritans denied those rights to all but
Congregational Church members for sixty years, and until they were
compelled to do otherwise by Royal Charter in 1692. The government of
the Pilgrims was just and kind to the Indians, and early made a treaty
with the neighbouring tribes, which remained inviolate on both sides
during half a century, from 1621 to 1675; the government of the
Puritans maddened the Indians by the invasion of their rights, and
destroyed them by multitudes, almost to entire extermination. The
government of the Pilgrims respected the principles of religious liberty
(which they had learned and imbibed in Holland), did not persecute those
who differed from it in religious opinions,[11] and gave protection to
many who fled from the persecutions of neighbouring Puritans'
government, which was more intolerant and persecuting to those who
differed from it in religious opinions than that of James, and Charles,
and Laud had ever been to them. The government of the Pilgrims was frank
and loyal to the Sovereign and people of England; the government of the
Puritans was deceptive and disloyal to the Throne and Mother Country
from the first, and sedulously sowed and cultivated the seeds of
disaffection and hostility to the Royal government, until they grew and
ripened into the harvest of the American revolution.

These statements will be confirmed and illustrated by the facts of the
present and following chapters.

The compact into which the Pilgrims entered before landing from the
_Mayflower_, was the substitute for the body politic which would have
been organized by charter had they settled, as first intended, within
the limits of the Northern Virginia Company. The compact specified no
constitution of government beyond that of authority on the one hand, and
submission on the other; but under it the Governors were elected
annually, and the local laws were enacted during eighteen years _by the
general meetings of the settlers_, after which a body of elected
representatives was constituted.

The first _official record_ of the election of any Governor was in 1633,
thirteen years after their settlement at Plymouth; but, according to the
early history of the Pilgrims, the Governors were elected annually from
1620. The Governors of the colony were as follows:--

1. John Carver, in 1620, who died a few months afterwards;

2. William Bradford, 1621 to 1632, 1635, 1637, 1639 to 1643, 1645 to
1656;

3. Edward Winslow, 16