John Carver was chosen the first governer, and Miles Standish their military leader, as they had some apprehensions of the savages. Divided into nineteen families, they immediately began to fell trees and construct houses, in which to find shelter against the rigors of winter. But their exposure was necessarily great, and they had but a slender stock of provisions and other necessaries. Sickness came upon them, and during the first five months, they lost more than half of their number.
One of their associates, who had been left behind in England, obtained for them a grant of land from the Company which was now incorporated, under a new charter, as 'The Council established at Plymouth, in the County of Devon, (England,) for the Planting, Ruling, Ordering, and Governing of New England in America.' This grant authorized the colonists to choose a governor, council, and general court, for the enactment and execution of laws. Strictly speaking, however, the Company had no right to give them any thing more than the property of the soil. A charter from the Crown was necessary to complete their political organization; and this they never obtained. But the necessity of the case compelled them to act as if they had received full powers; and their remoteness and insignificance prevented the authorities at home from questioning their right. The agreement which they had signed on board the Mayflower was the basis of their legislation; and for some time, all the settlers came together in a general assembly, to enact the necessary laws. Thus, in its origin, the colony was the purest democracy on earth. Time showed the inconveniences of such an arrangement, and the legislative power was then delegated to an Assembly, composed of representatives from the several towns. Land and other property were at first held in common, the Company in England being entitled to a specified share of the total profits. But this experiment turned out like the similar one in Virginia; finding that industry was discouraged by it, the Colonists succeeded in purchasing, on credit, the share of the London partners. A division was then made of the land and movable property, and henceforth each one reaped the fruits of his own toil. The people were united in religious faith, and wished not to be disturbed by theological controversies; so, when one Lyford, a clergyman of the Church of England, was sent out to them as a suitable pastor, in place of Robinson, who had died at Leyden, they refused him, and exercised their undoubted right of ownership of the soil, by expelling him, and two who adhered to him, Oldham and Conant, from their territory. These banished persons established themselves at Nantasket, just beyond the limits of the Plymouth colonists. The soil around Plymouth was thin and poor, and the people had brought but few worldly goods along with them; thus, the progress of the settlement was slow. Some of their old companions, who had been left behind in Holland, now came out to join them; and a few others, attracted by similarity of worship, and by the prospect of driving a little traffic in fish and peltry, were added to their number. But ten years after the landing at Plymouth, the population numbered only three hundred. Their territory, indeed, was but small, being bounded on the land side by a line drawn northerly from the mouth of Narraganset river, till it met one carried westerly from Cohasset rivulet, 'at the uttermost limits of a place called Pocanoket.'
But encouraged by the growth of this colony, feeble as it was, the Council of New England proceeded to make lavish grants of their remain-*
