became formidable, violent and bloody.----

It was this great struggle that peopled America.--It was not religion
alone, as is commonly supposed; but it was a love of _universal_
liberty, and an hatred, a dread, an horror of the infernal confederacy
before described, that projected, conducted, and accomplished the
settlement of America.----

It was a resolution formed by a sensible people, I mean the _Puritans_
almost in despair. They had become intelligent in general, and many of
them learned.--For this fact I have the testimony of Archbishop _King_
himself, who observed of that people, that they were more intelligent,
and better read than even the members of the church whom he censures
warmly for that reason.--This people had been so vexed, and tortured by
the powers of those days, for no other crime than their knowledge, and
their freedom of enquiry and examination; and they had so much reason to
despair of deliverance from those miseries on that side the ocean, that
they at last resolved to fly to the _wilderness_ for refuge, from the
temporal and spiritual principalities and powers, and plagues, and
scourges of their native country.

After their arrival here, they began their settlement, and formed their
plan both of ecclesiastical and civil government, in direst opposition
to the _canon_ and the _feudal_ systems.----The leading men among them,
both of the clergy and the laity were men of sense and learning: To many
of them, the historians, orators, poets and philosophers of Greece and
Rome were quite familiar: and some of them have left libraries that are
still in being, consisting chiefly of volumes, in which the wisdom of
the most enlightened ages and nations is deposited, written however in
languages, which their great grandsons, _though educated in European
Universities_, can scarcely read.

Thus accomplished were many of the first planters of these colonies.--It
may be thought polite and fashionable, by many modern fine gentlemen,
perhaps, to deride the characters of these persons as enthusiastical,
superstitious and republican: But such ridicule is founded in nothing
but foppery and affectation, and is grosly injurious and
false.----Religious to some degree of enthusiasm, it may be admitted
they were; but this can be no peculiar derogation from their character,
because it was at that time almost the universal character, not only of
England but of Christendom. Had this however been otherwise, their
enthus