tants, and a company of about one thousand persons. They began a settlement at Charlestown, but soon removed to the neighboring peninsula of Trimountain, which they named Boston, after the English town whence some of the chief emigrants came. The hardships of the first winter, which was a severe one, caused disease to break out among them, and over two hundred died, among whom were Isaac Johnson, and his wife, Arabella. But after this period, the order and industry which prevailed in the colony, the commencement of trade with Virginia and the Dutch at Manhattan (New York), and the rapid influx of settlers, driven away from England by the religious and political persecution which still raged there, laid the foundations of steady growth and permanent prosperity. During the first ten years after the settlement of Massachusetts, about twenty-five thousand persons left their native land to find a home in New England.
The government of the colony was theocratic in many of its features, modified at first by an aristocratic or patriarchal element, which was soon eliminated, however, by the force of circumstances, that set strongly towards republican institutions. The few men of wealth and consideration, who were the leaders of the emigration, naturally strove to retain the chief power and influence in their own hands, and to govern according to their notions of what religion and the word of God required; and in this attempt they were strongly seconded by the ministers of the churches. At first, the people, with the instinctive respect of Englishmen for rank and station, gave way to them, and conferred the whole power of legislation on the governor and the assistants, who were familiarly known as 'the magistrates.'
Even a council for life at one time was instituted, but it continued only for a few years, and the freemen also resumed the power of enacting laws. Still, they were moderate in the exercise of their functions; and persons once chosen to the board of magistrates were usually reäppointed, no one being left out but for some extraordinary cause. Purity of faith and worship was the chief motive for establishing the colony. The people wished to be free, not only from persecution, but from the presence of other sects and from theological controversies. Only such persons were to be admitted to be freemen, or voters, as those who were already freemen should designate; and this privilege was soon confined by law to those who were members of the churches. But as there was little difference among them in point of religious opinion, and as most of the adult males, or at least, nearly all the heads of families, were church members, this exclusive privilege created no general discontent. The magistrates exercised their large powers resolutely to keep out heretics and schismatics, and to maintain religious worship and practice in all their purity. Those who did not agree with them were required to go elsewhere, and establish a colony for themselves. Roger Williams, and some followers of Mrs. Hutchinson, did so, and founded a new settlement in Rhode Island. Others took refuge in New Hampshire; but Massachusetts claimed the land there as a part of her own territory, and from 1640 to 1680, the claim was made good. A few Quakers gave great annoyance by their fanatical and outrageous conduct; they were once and again dismissed, with threats in case they returned. They did come again, and then three of them were hanged. The magistrates, on this occasion, published a defense of their conduct, dwelling especially on the case of Mary Dyre, who was a third comer, and had been once reprieved when already on the gallows, as a proof they desired, not the death,
