h sovereign denied them even that humblest of requests, and
instead of liberty would barely consent to promise connivance, neither
he nor they might be aware that they were laying the foundations of a
power, and that he was sowing the seeds of a spirit, which, in less
than two hundred years, would stagger the throne of his descendants, and
shake his united kingdoms to the centre. So far is it from the ordinary
habits of mankind to calculate the importance of events in their
elementary principles, that had the first colonists of our country ever
intimated as a part of their designs the project of founding a great and
mighty nation, the finger of scorn would have pointed them to the cells
of Bedlam as an abode more suitable for hatching vain empires than the
solitude of a transatlantic desert.

These consequences, then so little foreseen, have unfolded themselves,
in all their grandeur, to the eyes of the present age. It is a common
amusement of speculative minds to contrast the magnitude of the most
important events with the minuteness of their primeval causes, and the
records of mankind are full of examples for such contemplations. It
is, however, a more profitable employment to trace the constituent
principles of future greatness in their kernel; to detect in the acorn
at our feet the germ of that majestic oak, whose roots shoot down to
the centre, and whose branches aspire to the skies. Let it be, then, our
present occupation to inquire and endeavor to ascertain the causes
first put in operation at the period of our commemoration, and already
productive of such magnificent effects; to examine with reiterated care
and minute attention the characters of those men who gave the first
impulse to a new series of events in the history of the world; to
applaud and emulate those qualities of their minds which we shall find
deserving of our admiration; to recognize with candor those features
which forbid approbation or even require censure, and, finally, to lay
alike their frailties and their perfections to our own hearts, either as
warning or as example.

Of the various European settlements upon this continent,
which have finally merged in one independent nation, the first
establishments were made at various times, by several nations, and under
the influence of different motives. In many instances, the conviction
of religious obligation formed one and a powerful inducement of the
adventures; but in none, excepting the sett