porate bodies, fulfilling the conditions of their char. ters, can be diffolved at the pleasure of the legislature. The only difficulty concerning this charter is, whether, after the company removed from Old-England to New-England, the acts and proceedings of that company had the fame force as before? Reason and justice will readily determine this point in the affirmative; but what it may be as a point of law, I will not affirm. If the fovereign has a right to grant charters, according to the laws of the empire, one charter must be as good as another; and if an act of parliament be neceffary to make them legal and certain, then all the charters of incorporated bodies must have that fanction, otherwife they are not good tenures for any privileges. It would appear that the above-mentioned charter was a charter to hold lands within certain latitudes, and to authorise these fettlers to chuse a governor and affiftants. From whence it is natural to infer, that it gave them authority within those diftricts, when the inhabitants fhould encrease, to encreafe the number of affiftants; or at least to grant to all who fhould incorporate with them, according to the intention of the grant, the fame privileges, according to their charters, as members of the corporation. Thefe adventurers did not intend to fet up any independent government, but meant to continue members of the British empire; but they certainly believed that their removing from one place of the empire to another, did not deprive them of that privilege which other fubjects of the fovereign enjoyed. When they purchafed lands under the fanction of their charter, they did not imagine that they were not their own, but might be taken from them at the pleasure of the British legislature without their confent. They certainly understood that their eftates were freeholds, held held upon condition of their fulfilling the allegiance to the fovereign implied in their charter, and that no power in Britain could take them from them, without manifeft injuftice, and breach of faith. As to the difference between Old and New-England freeholds, lawyers and cafuifts may have fuch to fay; but by tracing matters to their original, it will be found that the greatest part of thofe eftates called freeholds, and the tenures of corporations, are only founded upon the grants of princes, and the charters of fovereigns. When royal charters are granted, which are underflood to give a title to certain privileges of freedom it is alfo understood that this freedom is the fame in all parts of the fame empire; and that though there is no new government granted, yet all the new privileged fubjects have as good a right as the old ones, to enjoy the fame freedom. The colonists, by going to America, were not freed from the jurifdiétion of the British parliament, nor did they pretend to any fuch liberty; but they imagined that when they were made free by charter, that a foundation was laid, for their having some share in the legislature. All acts of parliament are certainly binding upon every part of the empire; but this arifes from either an expreffed or implied reprefentation of the subjects in parliament: and though the king cannot give a charter to abolish acts of parliament, he may, notwithstanding, according to the laws, give a new qualification to fubjects, to make them a part of the fame legiflature. The colonists who were freemen of the empire were bound by the laws thereof; but in fo far as they were freemen, they were also entitled to a fhare in the legiflarure; to refuse them the latter, would be loofing them from all obligation to the former, or fubjecting them to an arbitrary power, against which they had no re medy. The first colonists feem to have had but very indifferent ideas of civil and religious liberty; for the colony of Maffachusetts bay confined their civil liberty to their church-members, and permitted none to a fhare in their government, who were not joined members in their congregations. And with regard to religious freedom, they were exceedingly narrow minded, and instead of tolerating people of different fentiments, they perfecuted the innocent Quakers with unrelenting rigour. They were, no doubt, much fretted and chagrined in their tempers, with the ufage they had met with in their own country; and had imbibed the temper of the times, which was very far from being mild. It does not appear that their profeffed principles taught them the practices they founded upon them, but their behaviour was rather a perverfion of their principles. They, through long op. preffion, had acquired a fournefs of temper, and a folemnity of manners, of which their religion and whole behaviour was feafoned; fo that their religion was more under the government of their manners, than became the purity of their profeffion. The people were much to be blamed, though their religion. deferves commendation. It was a boisterous age in which they lived, and it could not well be expected that men who had fuffered fo many hardships and feverities would be exceeding mild in their tempers. The people who at this time emigrated to America, were generally of two forts: fuch as fled from perfecution, on account of their religion; and fuch as were influenced by the love of worldly advantage: Thefe, as their motives were different, frequently pursued different measures to obtain their ends. But every reader of their hiftory must confefs that an unanimity was maintained beyond what could have been expected, in fuch fingular circumftances. The force of religion was fuch a bond of union in the minds of the majority, that amidst all the various jarrings and contentions which happened among them, they never proceeded fo far as to come to any confiderable rupture. They bore one another's infirmities, and overlooked many faults, which in ordinary cafes they would not have done; their mutual hardships cemented them together, and made them fhew compaffion to each other, as ftrangers in a foreign land. After the government, together with their first charter, were removed from England to the colony, they began to increase exceedingly faft; perfons of rank and fortune not only patronized them, but bore them company into the wilderness of America. The Lady Arabella Johnfton, and feveral others of rank and condition, forfook their own native homes, and croffed the Atlantick, where they might enjoy the free exercise of their religion. Their governor, John Wintrop, Efq; and their deputy-governor, Thomas Dudley, Efq; were men of character and abilities, who did not leave England for the fake of gain, but to maintain a good confcience: they poffeffed all the enjoyments in their native country that most people are fond of, but they wanted liberty of confcience, which is one of the greatest enjoyments. They therefore committed their lives and their fortunes to the mercy of winds and feas, for the hope of enjoying liberty in a country they never faw, and where they could promise themfelves nothing but hardships and difficulties. A fleet of eleven fhips, of which the Arabella was the admiral's fhip, a veffel of three hundred and fifty tons, landed fafe in New-England in the mid dle of July 1630. Two thousand paffengers came over in this fleet, carrying with them as much of their fortunes as they could command, with all things they thought neceffary for the climate in which they defigned to fettle. Soon after their arrival, Lady Arabella died of a diftemper which he had contracted in the voyage, to the great grief of her friends, and of the colonists; and many of the company were likewise carried off by diseases common to the climate. There were two things which at this time alarmed them greatly; fcarcity of provifions and fear of the Indians: fcorching droughts had in a great measure confumed the fruits of the ground; fo that the neceffaries of life became exceedingly scarce, and the whole colony were in danger of perifhing. From this fear. they were happily delivered, by the arrival of feveral fhips from Ireland, laden with various forts of provifions, which fupplied their neceffity for the prefent, till more fupplies could be provided. The fame providence that delivered them from the dread of famine, removed alfo their other ground of fear. A most dreadful plague, together with the fmall pox, had fwept away nine out ten of the natives, fo that the few that remained, fled from the infection, to more diftant places of the country. Thefe new fettlers after their arrival, did not confider the patent of the King to be a fufficient title to give them poffeffion of the lands of the original natives; they therefore, before they pretended to poffefs any tracts of ground, made a lawful purchase thereof from the true proprietors, and paid them a price for what they afterwards poffeffed. To reafon, it is an high abfurdity, for a king of Britain, or any other fovereign, to pretend to give charters of right to other people's poffeffions, becaufe fome |