History of New Hampshire, from its first discovery to the year 1830, etc

Front matter

HISTORY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, FROM ITS FIRST DISCOVERY T., THE YEAR 1830; WITH DISSERTATIONS UPON THE RISE OF OPINIONS AND INSTITUTIONS, THE GROWTH OF AGRICULTURE AND MANUFACTURES, AND THE INFLUENCE OF LEADING FAMILIES AND DISTINGUISHED MEN, TO THE YEAR 1874; I)V EDWIN D. SANBORN, LL. D., Professor in Dartmouth College. MANCHESTER, N. H. : JOHN B. CLARKE. 1875- Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1875, by JOHN B. CLARKE, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. Mikrob Orncs: JOHN B. CLARKE, MANCHESTER, H. H.

Preface

. The best historian is he who represents with the greatest fidelity the life and spirit of the age he describes. It is not sufficient that what he records should be true " for substance ; " it should be relatively as well as absolutely true. " History," says Cicero, "is the light of truth." As truth is immuta ble, we should naturally infer that an impartial historian, like Thucydides, might write "for eternity;" but, while the facts of the past remain un changed, the opinions of succeeding generations concerning them are modified by the progress of knowledge. Hence all history needs frequent revision. The oldest records receive the severest criticism. The study of the Sanscrit language has shed a flood of light on the affinities and migrations of early nations. The mythologies and traditions which connect the Orient with the Occident have fallen before the victorious march of comparative philology.

The interpretation of the Rosetta stone, the Ninevite slabs and the Babylonian cylinders has restored the lost records of Egypt and Mesopo tamia. The labors of Champollion, Lepsius, Layard, Rawlinson, Smith and Cesnola have made monumental records more valuable than existing history. Every generation receives a new version of old traditions respecting classic lands. Greece and Rome often appear in a new dress, and the public ap proves of these antiquarian researches. Modern history is subjected to the same searching analysis. Readers of the present day are not satisfied with the estimate which historians have placed upon the English, French and American Revolutions. The motives of men are now deemed better indices of character than their actions. The progress of nations depends more upon opinions and institutions than upon sieges and battles.

The camp and the court yield to the imperial sway of new ideas. The rise of Puritanism, in the age of Elizabeth, left a deeper impression upon English history than the dispersion of the Spanish Armada. The rise of Methodism better deserved the notice of the annalist than the battles of Marlborough. All writers of history must, therefore, look for the origin of great events in the current opinions of the age when they occurred. Impressed with these convictions, the writer of the following pages has attempted to reproduce the history of New Hampshire and trace its institutions, social, political and religious, to their true origin. The influence of illustrious men, of distinguished families, of dominant parties, of prevailing creeds, has been carefully investigated and briefly portrayed. The progress of the state in arts, arms and learning has not been overlooked.

Public opinion seems to call for a new history of the state, i. Because all the histories previously written are out of print. 2. Because no ex isting history covers the entire ground. 3. Because the progress of events has thrown new light upon the past. 4. Because the history of New Hamp shire is rich in deeds of daring, suffering and heroism surpassing fable. 5. Because the men of every age require the records of the past to be re vised for their use. TABLE OF CONTENTS. i Chapter I. Characteristics and Symbols of Different Epochs of Civilization, 9 Chapter II. Causes of European Enterprise in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries ii Chapter III. The Agents of Modern Enterprise 13 Chapter IV. The Results of Modern Enterprise 14 Chapter V. Aborigines of America, 17 Chapter VI. Title to the Soil 22 Chapter VII.

English Chartered Companies 24 Chapter VIII. Colonies Ancient and Modern, 25 Chapter IX. Early Explorers of the New England Coast, . . -27 Chapter X. Proprietors of New Hampshire, 29 Chapter XI. First Settlers of New Hampshire, 32 Chapter XII. Political and Pecuniary Condition of the Plantations from 1631 to 1641 40 Chapter XIII. Social Condition of the Early Colonists, . . -47 Chapter XIV. Early Laws of Massachusetts, 49 Chapter XV. Early Laws of New Hampshire 51 Chapter XVI. Early Churches of New Hampshire 53 Chapter XVII. Elements of Popular Liberty, 55 Chapter XVIII. Condition of New Hampshire after its Union with Massachusetts, 5S Chapter XIX. Moral Epidemics, 60 Chapter XX. Philip's Indian War, 65 Chapter XXI. Revival of Mason's Claim, 74 Chapter XXII. Organization of the New Government, . . .76 Chapter XXIII.

Administration of Justice in the Early History of New Hampshire, 81 Chapter XXIV. Administration of Cranfield 83 Chapter XXV. Government under Dudley and Andros, . . . 87 Chapter XXVI. King William's War 89 Chapter XXVII. Civil Policy of New Hampshire during King William's War, 94 Chapter XXVIII. Queen Anne's War 97 Chapter XXIX. Administration of Governor Shute CONTENTS. VI Chapter XXX. Emigrants from Ireland I03 Chapter XXXI. Origin of the Militia System, . . . . . IH Chapter XXXII. Lieutenant-Governor Wentworth's Administration, . 118 Chapter XXXIII. New Hampshire an Independent Royal Province, 118 Chapter XXXIV. King George's War "9 Chapter XXXV. Revival of Mason's Claim 128 Chapter XXXVI. The Representatives of New Towns, . • -129 Chapter XXXVII. The Last French War, *3° Chapter XXXVIII.

Close of the War and Return of Peace, . . 141 Chapter XXXIX. Controversy about the Western Boundary, . . 143 Chapter XL. Origin of the Revolutionary War, '44 Chapter XLI. Officers and Ministers in New Hampshire in 1768, . 151 Chapter XL1I. Origin of Dartmouth College, ... .152 Chapter XLIII. Early Settlements in Cohos, 156 Chapter XLIV. The Wentworths in New Hampshire, . . .160 Chapter XLV. Commencement of Hostilities with England, . . 165 Chapter XLVI. The Battle of Bunker Hill, 167 Chapter XLVII. Formation of a New Government 169 Chapter XLVIII. Movements of the Army under Washington, during the year 1776, ... . 172 Chapter XLIX. Secession in New Hampshire during the last Century, 174 Chapter L. Military Operations in 1777 : Battle of Bennington, . . 182 Chapter LI. Capture of Burgoyne, 186 Chapter LII.

Employment of Savages by the English, . . . 188 Chapter LIII. Congregationalism in New Hampshire, . . . 191 Chapter LIV. Rise of Different Denominations, ..... 196 Chapter LV. Insufficiency of the State and General Governments previous to the Adoption of the New Constitutions, . 198 Chapter LVI. Treatment of Loyalists, 200 Chapter LVII. Heavy Burdens Imposed on the People by the War, and the Consequent Discontent, .... 203 Chapter LVIII. Captain John Paul Jones, 206 Chapter LIX. General John Sullivan, 207 Chapter LX. The New Constitution and the Parties Formed at its Ratification, 209 Chapter LXI. Condition of New Hampshire after the Adoption of the New Constitution, 213 Chapter LXII. Lands Held by "Free and Common Soccage." . . 217 Chapter LXIII. Internal Improvements 218 Chapter LXIV. Administration of President Bartlett, . . . 224 Chapter LXV.

Corn-Mills and Saw-Mills 225 Chapter LXVI. Administration of John Taylor Gilman, . . . 228 Chapter LXVII. The Early Farm-House with its Furniture and Surroundings, . . 2TS Chapter LXVIII. Development of Political Parties 234 Chapter LXIX. Political Influence of the Clergy of New Hampshire, CONTENTS. VII Chapter LXX. Puritan Influence in New Hampshire, .... 245 Chapter LXXI. Internal Condition of New Hampshire from 1805 to 1815 247 Chapter LXXII. Causes of the Second War with England, . . 249 Chapter LXXIII. Record of New Hampshire during the War for Sailors' Rights 252 Chapter LXXIV. The Hartford Convention 258 Chapter LXXV. Domestic Affairs in New Hampshire Preceding and During the War for "Sailors' Rights," . . . 259 Chapter LXXVI. Restoration of Peace 263 Chapter LXXVII. Dartmouth College Controversy, .... 268 Chapter LXXVIII.

The Caucus System 286 Chapter LXXIX. The Toleration Act 287 Chapter LXXX. Decline of "The Era of Good Feelings," . . 2S9 Chapter LXXXI. Local Matters in New Hampshire during the Administration of Monroe and Adams, . . . 292 Chapter LXXXII. Character of Hon. Benjamin Pierce, . . . 300 Chapter LXXXIII. Population of New Hampshire at Different Periods, 302 Chapter LXXXIV. Money Coined and Printed, 303 Chapter LXXXV. Discovery and Settlement of the White Mountain Regions, ........ 307 Chapter LXXXVI. The Rivers of New Hampshire, . . . .311 Chapter LXXXVII. Climate and Scenery of New Hampshire, . . 317 Chapter LXXXVIII. The Isles of Shoals, 323 Chapter LXXXIX. Influence of Distinguished Families in New Hampshire, 326 Chapter XC. The Livermore Family, 328 Chapter XCI. The Pickering Family 329 Chapter XCII.

The Weare Family, 331 Chapter XCIII. The Bartlett Family, 334 Chapter XCIV. The Webster Family 335 Chapter XCV. The Bar of New Hampshire, 33S Chapter XCVI. Jeremiah Smith, 339 Chapter XCVII. Ezekiel Webster . 340 Chapter XCVIII. Daniel Webster 342 Chapter XCIX. Ichabod Bartlett, 343 Chapter C. Levi Woodbury 345 Chapter CI. Common School Instruction 346 Chapter CII. Academies 352 Chapter CHI. Agriculture, 357 Chapter CIV. Commerce of New Hampshire, 362 Chapter CV. The Press 364 Chapter CVI. Banks 366 Chapter CVII. Manufactures CONTENTS. Chapter CVIII. Railroads, 378 Chapter CIX. Geology of New Hampshire, 399 Chapter CX. The Flora and Fauna of New Hampshire, . . . 404 Chapter CXI. Undecided Questions in New England History, . . 405 Chapter CXII. Proper Names in New Hampshire

Chapter I. Characteristics And Symbols Of Different Epochs Of CIV Ilization

The temple and the palace are the true symbols of the earliest civilization known to history. The king and priest occupy the foreground of every old historic picture. The king holds the key of power ; the priest the key of knowledge ; and the com mon people are their slaves. The sculptured temples of Elora, the buried palaces of Nineveh and Babylon, the magnificent ruins of Karnac and the pyramids of Egypt are all monuments of royal and sacerdotal oppression. Fear and force then ruled the world. The Greeks are the only people of all antiquity that made reason supreme in government and religion, and thus raised the masses of their population from bondage to free dom. They worshiped beauty in the works of nature and in the creations of the imagination, and embodied their lofty ideals in sculpture, painting, architecture, poetry, oratory and philosophy.

For a time their bema and theatre became the represen tatives of human progress. Their culture was the inheritance of the race ; for they have been the teachers of all succeeding generations. The light of their civilization shone on Rome. Reason once more triumphed over brute force. Horace says : "When conquered Greece brought in her captive arts, She triumphed o'er her savage conquerors' hearts ; Taught our rough verse in numbers to refine, And our rude style with elegance to shine." Rome absorbed the blood and treasure of the nations and made herself, through war and law, the mistress of the world. For twelve hundred years, the camp and forum were the symbols of her civilization. In the days of her decline Christi anity became a ruling power in the earth ; and during the dark ages the monastery and castle embodied the power and wisdom of Christendom.

The history of the monk and the baron is the real history of Europe for a thousand years. In England, be tween the conquest, A. D. 1066, and the reign of Ring John, during a period of one hundred and fifty years, five hundred and fifty-seven religious houses, of all kinds, were established. Hen ry VIII. confiscated three thousand religious houses that yielded revenue ; and the castles in his reign were probably as numer ous, for eleven hundred and fifteen were built in the brief reign of Stephen. The population of England was then about two and a half millions. The religious houses were all richly en dowed. They owned large landed estates, commodious and im posing buildings, with respectable libraries, when a manuscript was worth more than a small farm. A single monastery has been known to feed five hundred paupers daily for years.

At that time there was no other provision for the poor. The castles of the nobles were impregnable fortresses, surrounded by walls and moats, and defended by squadrons of mailed war riors. The feudal system regulated the tenure of land. The king and his liege lords owned the entire territory of the king dom ; hence the large landed estates of the English nobility, which are often equal, in extent and population, to one of our counties. The conquering Normans ruled with an iron sway, in church and state ; and the conquered Saxon served with abject humility, in war and peace. When the monastery and castle lost their imperial power cannot now be accurately de termined. "It is remarkable," says Macaulay, "that the two greatest and most salutary social revolutions which have taken place in England, that revolution which, in the thirteenth century, put an end to the tyranny of nation over nation, and that revolution which, a few generations later, put an end to the property of man in man, were silently and imperceptibly effected.

They struck contemporary observers with no surprise and have received from historians a very scanty measure of attention. They were brought about neither by legislative regulation nor by physical force. Moral causes noiselessly effaced, first the distinction be tween Norman and Saxon, and then the distinction between master and slave. None can venture to fix the precise moment at which either distinction ceased." The gentle influences of the gospel proved to be more potent agents of reform than mailed barons with their retainers, or Cromwell with his "ironsides." Soon after the union of the Norman and Saxon and the abolition of serfdom, the popular mind in Europe was stimulated to in tense activity, by the invention of printing and the mariner's compass, by the revival of classical learning and the formation of the modern languages.

From these causes arose the reformation which gave birth to the Puritans, who founded in the wilderness "a church without a bishop and a state without a king" and, from that hour, made the school-house and "meeting-house" the symbols of modern civilization. Before these modest representatives of American progress the temple and palace, the camp and forum, the monastery and castle, all bow down, like the sheaves in Joseph's dream, and make obeisance.

Chapter II. Causes Of European Enterprise In The Fifteenth And Sixteenth Centuries

Europe owes her love of liberty to the Greeks, her obedience to law to the Romans. On the shores of the Ægean Oriental despotism first met, upon the battle-field, European independence. The right triumphed ; and Marathon is dear to us to day, because there the cause of humanity was vindicated. Had the setting sun, on that memorable day, gilded the victorious banners of Persia, Grecian art, literature, oratory and liberty had never existed ; and, for the next two thousand years, Zoroaster and the Magi, instead of Socrates and the philosophers, might have been the educators of our race. The history of Marathon and Yorktown will never lose their interest, down " To the last syllable of recorded time ; " because a contrary result, in either case, would have changed the destinies of the world. They were decisive battles in the history of freedom.

The same is true of the battle of Zama, where Roman civilization won the victory for the advancing ages, and made Rome the world's lawgiver. All ancient history ter minates in the "eternal city ;" and from it all modern history takes its departure. Rome has conquered the world three times: by her army; by her literature ; and by her jurisprudence. Her last victory was the chief of the three. Roman literature has developed modern mind ; Roman law has governed it. For nearly a thousand years after the irruption of the Northern barbarians, Grecian literature was but little studied in Western Europe. Constantinople was its home. After the fall of that city in 1453, her scholars were exiled ; and learning followed the course of the sun. The seer of that day might have used, by prolepsis, the words of Berkeley : " Westward the course of empire takes its way.

" The revival of learning awoke the European mind to intense ac tivity. The noble ideas of Grecian liberty and Roman law took root in a virgin soil and brought forth abundant fruit. With this new-born zeal for study came additional means of gratifying it. An obscure German, by the invention of movable types and the press, rendered the universal diffusion of knowledge possible. Next to the invention of letters stands that of printing. It has enlarged indefinitely the bounds of knowledge and given a new impulse to everything great and good in modern civilization. "If the invention of ships," says Lord Bacon, "was thought so noble, which carrieth riches and commerce from place to place, how much more are letters to be magnified, which, as ships, pass through the vast seas of time and make ages so distant to par ticipate of the wisdom, illuminations and inventions, the one of the other.

" Prior to the use of types, it required nearly a year's labor to copy a bible ; and the price of such a manuscript varied from two hundred to one thousand dollars of our money ; and that, too, when its value ■was ten or twenty times as much as it now is. Some German mechanics and a wealthy goldsmith nam ed John Faust, of the city of Mentz, in quest of gain, invented and executed this great work of human progress. The Bible was the first book printed. It was offered for sale, by Faust, in Paris. So astonished were the Parisians to find numerous copies of the bible, exactly alike, that they accused the seller of employing magic in their multiplication. He was supposed to be in league with the Devil! Strange that the loyal subjects of the Prince of darkness should have so mistaken their master's character.

Faust was imprisoned, as a magician, and was only released on confession of his valuable secret. This is supposed to be the origin of the popular legend, entitled: "The Devil and Dr. Faustus ; " or, as he is called by the illiterate, " Dr. Foster. " It was a copy of this bible which kindled Luther's zeal for reform in the church. He first saw it, in the monastery of Erfurt, where he was in training for a monk. Dr. Staupitz, a man of rank in the church, happened to be there inspecting the convent and, ob serving Luther's admiration of the discovered bible, gave him the copy for his private study. He read it twice in course of every year. He wrote thus of it : " It is a great and powerful tree, each word of which is a mighty branch; each of these branches have I shaken, so desirous was I to learn what fruit they every one of them bore, and what they would give me.

" This was one of Gutenberg's private copies of the Latin Vulgate. It could be read only by scholars. It was printed about 1450, with metal types, every one cut separately, with the imperfect tools then in use. It was a folio of six hundred and forty-one leaves. Schoeffer, the associate of Gutenberg, introduced cast types and thus perfected the art of printing. The study of the bible made Luther the champion of the reformation. He em bodied his new opinions in ninety-five theses, which he nailed to the door of the church of Wittenburg ; and some one has said, very justly, that the blows of his hammer shook all Christendom. Thus, an Augustine monk, denouncing the corruptions of Ca tholicism, introduced a schism in religion and changed the entire foundations of human government. Civil liberty was born of religious liberty.

Nearly contemporary with the publication of the bible was the practical use of the mariner's compass. That property of the magnet which gives polarity to the needle was known several centuries before the discovery of America. But navigators were slow to employ this unerring guide in traversing the seas. The French and Italians both claim the invention of the com pass, which opened to man the dominion of the sea. "The common opinion, " says Hallam, "which ascribes the discovery [of the polarity of the magriet] to a citizen of Amalfi, in the fourteenth century, is undoubtedly erroneous." It was, with out dispute, in general use during the fifteenth century, by the Genoese, Spaniards and Portuguese. Soon after the discovery of America, Vasco de Gama sailed round the " Stormy Cape, " opened a new passage to India and changed the whole commerce of the world.

The story of his perilous voyage, "married to immortal verse, " still lives in the Epic of the Portuguese Cam oens. These potent causes, the revival of classical learning, the invention of printing and the compass, and the reformation in the church, all contributed to awaken the common mind in Europe, to give new force and intensity to public opinion, and to impart increased energy to national enterprise.

Chapter III. The Agents Of Modern Enterprise

Men of action and men of thought have existed in all ages. In the oriental world, the men of action became warriors ; the men of thought, priests. The sculptured slabs that lined the walls of the temples and palaces of buried Nineveh and Baby lon show us nothing of Asiatic life but sieges and battles, pomps and sacrifices. The blood of men flows upon the field, the blood of beasts upon the altar ; enslaved people come before their rul ers laden with tribute and offerings. In Greece, the cradle of liberty, and in Rome, the birth-place of law, men of affairs and men of reflection appeared as statesmen and philosophers, con suls and jurisconsults. In the dark ages, the baron and monk controlled the people in "body, mind and estate. " After the decline of feudalism, the abolition of serfdom and the rise of free cities, political power was centralized ; and hereditary mon archs became its representatives.

With the emancipation of mind, by the revival of learning and religion, came improved agriculture, enlarged commerce and multiplied manufactures. Then, monarchs, merchants and mechanics became the originators of great enterprises and the heralds of material progress. Mon archs lent their names, merchants their funds and mechanics their hands to the discovery and settlement of a new world. Mechanics built and manned the ships, merchants furnished supplies and wages, and monarchs gave charters and patents to the explorers and colonists. These royal parchments were about as useful to the navigators and pilgrims as were the gilded figure heads that adorned the prows of their ships. Yet, as society was then constituted, they were as necessary to successful enterprise as " the cunning hand and cultured brain" of the artisan, or the gathered treasures of merchant princes.

Rings furnished neither men nor means, yet they claimed the lion's share of the profits. Isabella is a noble exception to the parsimonious and mercenary character of European rulers. Her wise and generous patronage of Columbus shines out, amid that night of ignorance, like a solitary star through the rent clouds of a midnight storm.

Chapter IV. The Results Of Modern Enterprise

In the infancy of science, as in that of the church, " not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, were called." The inventors, discoverers and explorers of the world have been found oftener among artisans and sailors than among scientists and philosophers. Such were Watt and Arkwright Fulton and Stevenson, Franklin and Morse. Columbus poor and friendless, leading his little boy through the streets of' Mad rid, beseeching one monarch after another to become god father to the progeny of his teeming brain, and finally receiving, from the generous queen, a suit of clothes to render his presentation at court possiole, shows, very plainly, that the kingdom of science, like the kingdom of Heaven, "cometh not with observation. " " Genius finds or makes a way. " The eloquence of the veteran sailor won the ear of royalty, and a woman became the sole patroness of the most memorable mari time enterprise in the history of the world.

A continent was discovered. But the main land was not first reached by Col umbus. The American continent was discovered by English merchants. The parsimonious Henry VII. gave a patent to John Cabot, a Venetian merchant living at Bristol, empower ing him and his three sons to sail into the Eastern, Western or Northern sea, with five ships, at their own expense, to search for new lands and undiscovered treasures. The avaricious king, who contributed nothing but his sign manual to their commis sion, required these private adventurers to pay into his exchequer one fifth of all their profits. Such kings deserve to be remembered as examples of unmitigated selfishness. The Cabots reached the continent nearly fourteen months before Columbus on his third voyage touched upon the main land. A new patent was issued, in 1498, to John Cabot, less favorable to the explorer than the former; and "the frugal king was himself a partner in the enterprise.

" Sebastian Cabot, one of the bravest, noblest and purest of England's sons, explored the whole northern coast of America from Albemarle Sound to Hudson's Bay, in latitude 67°3o north. The ocean was his home. Pie followed the seas for half a century, and in extreme old age was so fond of his profession that his last wandering thoughts and words revealed his ruling passion. The fame of these first explorers of the New World kindled a love of adventure in all the states of Western Europe. The great monarchs of that age suspended, for a time, their thoughts of war and indulged in dreams of avarice. They were eager to occupy the lands, to work the mines and appropri ate the fruits of a continent which private enterprise had revealed. They issued patents, commissioned captains and furnished ships for new discoveries.

Italians, Portuguese, Spaniards, French and English swarmed in all the waters that wash the eastern coast of North America. Like insects in the summer's sun, "a thousand ways Upward and downward, thwarting and convolv'd, The quiv'ring nations sport. " For a time, the fame of Columbus was eclipsed. Slanderous tongues defamed his character, envious rivals wore his laurels, cruel hands manacled his limbs, ungrateful sovereigns withheld his reward, and an Italian adventurer gave his own name to the new continent. Scarcely one of earth's great benefactors has been more unkindly treated than Columbus. Death, which usu ally extinguishes envy, did not wholly silence rival claims. OH traditions have been revived to rob him of the originality of con ceiving as well as executing this great plan of discovery.

From very remote times there existed rumors of an unexplored land beyond the pillars of Hercules. Greek and Roman writers made frequent allusion to it. Plato, 400 B. C, speaks of an island larger than Lybia and Asia, called Atlantis, far off in the ocean, which was suddenly submerged by an earthquake. The Car thaginians and their ancestors, the Phœnicians, were the most distinguished navigators of all antiquity. There can scarcely be a doubt that the Phœnicians sailed round the Cape of Good Hope ; but that abates not one tittle of the glory of Vasco de Gama, who performed the same exploit more than two thousand years later. Tradition also reports that Hanno, the Cartha nian, sailed westward from the Pillars of Hercules for thirty days in succession ; but, unfortunately, there is no existing record of his voyage.

The historian Ælian, 200 b. c, contains an extract from Theopompus, a writer in the time of Alexander the Great, in which he alludes to a continent in the West, densely populated and exceedingly fertile, with gold and silver in unlimi ted abundance. In a work ascribed to Aristotle similar allus ions are found. Seneca, the Roman philosopher, uttered a kind of 'prophecy of its future discovery. He wrote : "The time will come, in future ages, when the Ocean will loosen the chains of nature and a mighty continent will be discovered. A new Tiphys [or pilot] will reveal new worlds and Thule shall no longer be the remotest of lands. " This was a happy conjecture which time has confirmed. The earlier traditions were chiefly composed of such stuff as dreams are made of, and belong rather to the realms of imagin ation than history.

The Northern nations of Europe, in the dark ages, can furnish better claims to priority of discovery. The Scandinavians, from their earliest history, were all seamen. The Northmen were the terror of all Europe long before they became its conquerors. The Saxons, Jutes and Angles, in their native homes, were pirates. They came in ships to England in the fifth century. Invited by the Celts as allies, they remained as rulers. The Danes, some centuries later, imitated their ex amples, and for a time governed the island. Some eight or nine hundred years ago, the Norwegians repeatedly visited the American continent. This assertion, like every thing old, is questioned ; yet the preponderance of evidence seems to con firm it. These old sea-kings visited and explored all the northern shores, from Greenland to Rhode Island, and possibly still farther south.

They wintered, repeatedly, in a land which they named Vmland, or wine land, from the abundance of grapes that grew there. These were brave old vikings, who deserve a better name than that of pirates. That word, however, from its etymology, may yet raise them to the rank of explorers. Ban croft rather discredits the Icelandic historian who claims this discovery for his ancestors. He says : " The nation of intrepid mariners, whose voyages extended beyond Iceland and beyond Sicily, could easily have sailed from Greenland to Labrador ; no clear historic evidence establishes the probability that they accom plished the passage. Imagination had conceived the idea that vast uninhabited regions lay unexplored in the West ; and poets had declared that empires beyond the ocean would one day be revealed to the daring navigator. But Columbus deserves the undivided glory of having realized that belief. "