England prove unsuccessful. In vain did Dr. Laud obtain an order of court
to put a stop to emigration. There was not a corner of the globe to which
these people would not flee, rather than conform to ceremonies which they
thought savoured of popery and idolatry, and endangered their salvation.

To these disturbances New-England owed its population. Enthusiasm has
often stimulated men to bold and arduous undertakings, and animated them
to perseverance amidst great difficulties. Of this truth the first
emigrants to New-England afford us a striking example. They seemed to bid
defiance to the hardships to which they were exposed, having what they
valued most of any thing in the world, I mean, liberty of conscience.
Amidst cold, hunger, toil, disease, and distress of every kind, they
comforted themselves with the thoughts of being removed far out of the
reach of tyrants, and triumphed in their deliverance from an idolatrous
and wicked nation. Neither the hideous gloom of the thick forest, nor the
ravages and depredations of savage neighbours, appeared to them so
grievous and intolerable as conformity to the that of England, and an
implicit obedience to civil authority.

[Sidenote] Who turn persecutors.

It might reasonably have been expected, that those emigrants who made
New-England their asylum from what they deemed civil tyranny and
ecclesiastical persecution, would have guarded against every degree of
oppression and persecution in that form of government they were about to
establish among themselves. This, however, was far from being the case.
Some of their first laws favour of a degree of persecution and
intolerance unknown in the most despotic governments of Europe; and those
who fled from persecution became the most bitter persecutors. Those who
were found dancing or drunk were ordered to be publicly whipped, in order