I DEDICATE THIS BOOK.




PREFACE.


This book contains the substance of the lectures originally given at
the Washington University, St. Louis, in May, 1887, in the course of my
annual visit to that institution as University Professor of American
History. The lectures were repeated in the following month of June at
Portland, Oregon, and since then either the whole course, or one or more
of the lectures, have been given in Boston, Newton, Milton, Chelsea,
New Bedford, Lowell, Worcester, Springfield, and Pittsfield, Mass.;
Farmington, Middletown, and Stamford, Conn.; New York, Brooklyn, and
Tarrytown, N.Y.; Philadelphia and Ogontz, Pa.; Wilmington, Del.;
Chicago, 111.; San Francisco and Oakland, Cal.

In this sketch of the circumstances which attended the settlement of New
England, I have purposely omitted many details which in a formal history
of that period would need to be included. It has been my aim to give the
outline of such a narrative as to indicate the principles at work in
the history of New England down to the Revolution of 1689. When I was
writing the lectures I had just been reading, with much interest, the
work of my former pupil, Mr. Brooks Adams, entitled "The Emancipation of
Massachusetts."

With the specific conclusions set forth in that book I found myself
often agreeing, but it seemed to me that the general aspect of the case