by
a still more iniquitous execution. Yet returning justice has
fully vindicated Raleigh's fame. And nearly two centuries
after his death the State of North Carolina gratefully named
its capital after that extraordinary man, who united in
himself as many kinds of glory as were ever combined in any
individual."

CHAPTER III.

THE COMMENCEMENT OF COLONISATION.

The Puritans.--Memorial to the States-General.--Disagreement
of the English and the Dutch.--Colony on the
Delaware.--Purchase of Manhattan.--The First Settlement.--An
Indian Robbed and Murdered.--Description of the
Island.--Diplomatic Intercourse.--Testimony of De
Rassieres.--The Patroons.--The Disaster at Swaanendael.

In the year 1620 the Puritans founded their world-renowned colony at
Plymouth, as we have minutely described in the History of Miles
Standish. It will be remembered that the original company of Puritans
were of English birth. Dissatisfied with the ritual and ceremonies
which the Church of England had endeavored to impose upon them, they
had emigrated to Holland, where they had formed a church upon their
own model. Rev. John Robinson, a man of fervent piety and of
enlightened views above his times, was their pastor.

After residing in Holland for several years, this little band of
Englishmen, not pleased with that country as their permanent abode,
decided to seek a new home upon the continent of North America. They
first directed their attention towards Virginia, but various obstacles
were thrown in their way by the British Government, and at length Mr.
Robinson addressed a letter to the Dutch Company, intimating the
disposition felt by certain members of his flock, to take up their
residence at New Netherland.

The proposition was very cordially received. The intelligent gentlemen
of that Company at once saw that there was thus presented to them an
opportunity to establish a colony, at their trading post, which it
would be wise to embrace. They therefore addressed a memorial upon the
subject to the States-General, and to the Prince of Orange, in which
they urged the importance of accepting the proposition which they had
received from Mr. Robinson, and of thus commencing an agricultural
colony upon the island of Manhattan. In this memorial they write under
date of February, 1620:

"It now happens that there resides at Leyden an English
clergyman, well