In another respect the Dutch and English resembled each other: they
were equally fond of the sea, and of commercial adventures, and hence
were noted fishermen as well as thrifty merchants. And they equally
respected learning, and gave to all their children the rudiments of
education. At the time the great Puritan movement began, the English
were chiefly agriculturists and the Dutch were merchants and
manufacturers. Wool was exported from England to purchase the cloth into
which it was woven. There were sixty thousand weavers in Ghent alone,
and the towns and cities of Flanders and Holland were richer and more
beautiful than those of England.

It will be remembered that New York (Nieuw Amsterdam) was settled by the
Dutch in 1613, and Jamestown, Virginia, by the Elizabethan colonies in
1607. So that both of these colonies antedated the coming of the
Pilgrims to Massachusetts in 1620. It is true that most of the histories
of the United States have been written by men of New England origin, and
that therefore by natural predilection they have made more of the New
England influence than of the other elements among the Colonies. Yet
this is not altogether the result of prejudice; for, despite the
splendid roll of soldiers and statesmen from the Middle and Southern
sections of the country who bore so large a share in the critical events
of the transition era of the Revolution, it remains that the brunt of
resistance to tyranny fell first and heaviest on New England, and that
the principal influences that prepared the general sentiment of revolt,
union, war, and independence proceeded from those colonies.

The Puritan exodus from England, chiefly from the eastern counties,
first to Holland, and then to New England, was at its height during the
persecutions of Archbishop Laud in the reign of Charles I. The
Pilgrims--as the small company of Separatists were called who followed