The Expansio7i of E7igland 351 very plainly that we were not in a condition to resist savages allied to the Europeans, who were numerous and expert in firing guns, and who continually infested the lower part of the river. Finally, we had obtained all the information that could be desired in regard to this discovery. All these reasons induced us to decide upon returning ; this we announced to the savages, and after a day's rest made our preparations for it. . . . We therefore reascend the Mississippi, which gives us much trouble in breasting its currents. It is true that we leave it at about the 38th degree, which greatly shortens our road and takes us with but little effort to the lake of the Illinois. . . . One of the chiefs of this nation, with his young men, escorted us to the lake of the Illinois, whence at last, at the end of September, we reached the Bay des Puants, from which we had started the beginning of June. VI. The Settlements in New England and Pennsylvania William Hubbard, who came to New England as a youth and graduated at Harvard College in 1642, thus speaks in his General History of New England of the motives which led the colonists to leave their native land. 1 Discoveries of the north parts of Virginia, being bruited 374. A abroad amongst the western country of Europe, no doubt rather un- . . , , , sympathetic filled the minds of many with expectations of famous planta- est i ma te of tions likely erelong to be erected in those parts of the New the New World. . . . About this time a strange impression was left ^^ists. upon the minds of some religious and well-affected persons of the English nation sojourning in a foreign country, that some place in that remote region might be found out far more convenient for their purpose, that seemed studious for reformation, than hitherto they elsewhere either had or were 1 See above, pp. 225 sq.
