danger, forbidding your access to this land of promise; but you
heard without dismay; you saw and disdained retreat. Firm and
undaunted in the confidence of that sacred bond; conscious of
the purity, and convinced of the importance of your motives,
you put your trust in the protecting shield of Providence, and
smiled defiance at the combining terrors of human malice and
of elemental strife. These, in the accomplishment of your
undertaking, you were summoned to encounter in their most
hideous forms; these you met with that fortitude, and combated
with that perseverance, which you had promised in their
anticipation; these you completely vanquished in establishing
the foundations of New England, and the day which we now
commemorate is the perpetual memorial of your triumph.

It were an occupation peculiarly pleasing to cull from our
early historians, and exhibit before you every detail of this
transaction; to carry you in imagination on board their bark at
the first moment of her arrival in the bay; to accompany
Carver, Winslow, Bradford, and Standish, in all their
excursions upon the desolate coast; to follow them into every
rivulet and creek where they endeavored to find a firm footing,
and to fix, with a pause of delight and exultation, the instant
when the first of these heroic adventurers alighted on the spot
where you, their descendants, now enjoy the glorious and
happy reward of their labors. But in this grateful task, your
former orators, on this anniversary, have anticipated all that the
most ardent industry could collect, and gratified all that the
most inquisitive curiosity could desire. To you, my friends,
every occurrence of that momentous period is already familiar.
A transient allusion to a few characteristic instances, which