rants from Leyden. Previous to their expedition
hither, they had endured a long banishment from their native
country. Under every species of discouragement, they undertook the
vogage; they performed it in spite of numerous and almost
insuperable obstacles; they arrived upon a wilderness bound with
frost and hoary with snow, without the boundaries of their charter,
outcasts from all human society, and coasted five weeks together, in
the dead of winter, on this tempestuous shore, exposed at once to
the fury of the elements, to the arrows of the native savage, and to
the impending horrors of famine.

Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which
difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air. These
qualities have ever been displayed in their mightiest perfection, as
attendants in the retinue of strong passions. From the first
discovery of the Western Hemisphere by Columbus until the settlement
of Virginia which immediately preceded that of Plymouth, the various
adventurers from the ancient world had exhibited upon innumerable
occasions that ardor of enterprise and that stubbornness of pursuit
which set all danger at defiance, and chained the violence of nature
at their feet. But they were all instigated by personal interests.
Avarice and ambition had tuned their souls to that pitch of exaltation.
Selfish passions were the parents of their heroism. It was reserved
for the first settlers of New England to perform achievements
equally arduous, to trample down obstructions equally formidable, to
dispel dangers equally terrific, under the single inspiration of
conscience. To them even liberty herself was but a subordinate and
secondary consideration. They claimed exemption from the mandates
of human authority, as militating with their subjection to a
superior power. Before the voice of heaven they silenced even the
calls of their country.

Yet, while so deeply impressed with the sense of religious
obligation, they felt, in all its energy, the force of that tender
tie which binds the heart of every virtuous man to his native
land. It was to renew that connection with their country which had
been severed by their compulsory expatriation, that they resolved to
face all the hazards of a perilous navigation and all the labors of
a toilsome distant settlement. Under the mild protection of the
Batavian government, they enjoyed already that freedom of religious
worship, for which they had resigned s