New England; but for more than
twelve years after their arrival in Massachusetts they killed many
hundreds of Indians, but converted none, nor established any missions
for their instruction and conversion.

The historians of the United States laud without stint the Puritans of
Massachusetts Bay; and they are entitled to all praise for their
industry, enterprise, morality, independence. But I question whether
there are many, if any, Protestants in the United States who would wish
the views and spirit of those Puritans to prevail there, either in
religion or civil government--a denial of the liberty of worship to
Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, or Quakers; a denial of
eligibility to office or of elective franchise to any other than members
of the Congregational Churches; compulsory attendance upon
Congregational worship, and the support of that worship by general
taxation, together with the enforcement of its discipline by civil law
and its officers.

Had the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay understood the principles and
cherished the spirit of civil and religious liberty, and allowed to the
Browns and their Episcopalian friends the continued enjoyment of their
old and venerated form of worship, while they themselves embraced and
set up a new form of worship, and not made conformity to it a test of
loyalty and of citizenship in the Plantation, there would have been no
local dissensions, no persecutions, no complaints to England, no Royal
Commissions of Inquiry or Regulation, no restraints upon emigration, no
jealousies and disputes between England and the colony; the feelings of
cordiality with which Charles granted the Charter and encouraged its
first four years' operations, according to the testimony of the Puritans
themselves, would have developed into pride for the success of the
enterprise, and further countenance and aid to advance it; the religious
toleration in the new colony would have immensely promoted the cause of
religious toleration in England; and the American colonies would have
long since grown up, as Canada and Australia are now growing up, into a
state of national independence, without war or bloodshed, without a
single feeling other than that of filial respect and affection for the
Mother Country, without any interruption of trade or commerce--presented
an united Protestant and English nationality, under separate
governments, on the great continents of the globe and islands of the
seas.

I kn