law, though
their self-originated and self-sustained polity perished at length, by
royal forgetfulness and credulity, to the plausible representations and
ambitious avarice of their ever aggressive Massachusetts Puritan
neighbours.

While the last act of the Pilgrims before leaving the _Mayflower_, in
the harbour of Cape Cod, was to enter into a compact of local
self-government for common protection and interests, and their first act
on landing at New Plymouth was, on bended knees, to commend themselves
and their settlement to the Divine protection and blessing, it is a
touching fact that the last official act of the General Assembly of the
colony was to appoint a day of solemn fasting and humiliation on the
extinction of their separate government and their absorption into that
of Massachusetts Bay.

It was among the sons and daughters of the Plymouth colony that almost
the only loyalty in New England during the American Revolution of the
following century was found. Most of the descendants of Edward Winslow,
and of his more distinguished son, Josiah Winslow, were loyalists during
that revolution.[18] In the councils of the mother country, the merits
of the posterity of the Pilgrims have been acknowledged; as in her
service some of them, by their talents and courage, have won their way
to eminence. Among the proudest names in the British navy are the
descendants of the original purchaser of Mattapoisett, in Swansey
(William Brenton, afterwards Governor of Rhode Island);[19] to the
distinguished title of one of the English peerage is attached the name
of one of the early settlers of Scituate, in the Plymouth colony
(William Vassall, who settled there in 1635.)[20]

"In one respect," says Moore, "the people of the Old Colony present a
remarkable exception to the rest of America. They are the purest English
race in the world; there is scarcely an intermixture even with the
Scotch or Irish, and none with the aboriginals. Almost all the present
population are descended from the original English settlers. Many of
them still own the lands which their early ancestors rescued from the
wilderness; and although they have spread themselves in every direction
through this wide continent, from the peninsula of Nova Scotia to the
Gulf of Mexico, some one of the family has generally remained to
cultivate the soil which was owned by his ancestors. The fishermen and
the navigators of Maine, the children of Plymouth, still continue th