The Helena independent., 1894-11-29

ures, taken In that cabin. supplemented
by after legislation, snatched a world
| from doom.
They were landed. not at New York.
as they had contracted with their ship
master, but upon the ice-clad rocks of
Plymouth. In the dead Of winter.
Sentimentalists have asserted that
the first comers to New England robbed
the Indians OF their lands. This is an
unmitlgated falsehood. The year be-
fore the Pilgrims landed a pestlenee
ragged In that portion OF the country
and dcpOpulated II. A considerable
tract had ben utterly abandoned by the
Indians and the Pilgrims became the
complete and rightful owners thereof.
Their deprivHtions and hardFhips soon
became terrible; numbers fell victims
TO the rigors ~ the new climate until
there We're scarcely enough well ones
10 take care of the sick. In order to
conceal their mortality from the In
dians, they buried their dead at night
in the middle Of the road and walked
over them. For several years they
never went 10 church without shoul-
dered firelocks. with which to repel a
savage foe. Famine made no inroads
upon their integrity. Once. when nearly
| perishing. they found some corn which
| had ben cached by Indians. This they
ate. and when they found the owners
paid them promptly.
Their good habits and temperate lives
| shone out even more radiantly In the
New than In the old World. Within
two generations after landing their
longevity was remarked by Europeans
and their young men and women We're
the finest In the world.
How stand the Pilgrims when com
] ,th.r as.f.nfgtu .f MOI
! icag Let MS see. The jamestown col
ony was made up of decayed gentlemen
and adventurers, who, although living
| in mild climate. were nearly cut of by
| disease, and dggentions. when their
! leader John Smith. was absent few
months.
William Penn's colony had many vir-
! tues. but the Quaker Is no patriot He
| Is Peace nj amy price" man. He
would not. as ala the Puritan, resist for
/ a hundred and fifty years, the encroach-
mrnts Of the Anglican church and state.
/ Oglethorpc'H settlement was colony
Of poor dcbtors-in other words. incapa-
| bles. spendthrifts and dead-bents.
/ They cut no great figure In American
/ history But there was nothing OF the
4 paupcr or advcnturer about the Purl-
/ tan. He desired not 90 enigrnte and
/ would have been only too glad 10 re-
main unmolested In England
! This age demands the truth aud his
| toruns are beginning 90 tell It. There
| fore some hard things must be said
| about the Puritans. They were not free
/ from faults and crimes. Cromwclls =
| Ironsides hnrried ireland until that
/ country WAS a CHASTITY skeleton. They
| tortured and starved the people ana IL
/ was a common practice to hang an
Irish mother and hang her babes
| around her body by her hair, In New
! England the puritnns were the hrst
people to put rum 10 the lips OF the
! red man. They burned holes In Qua-
1 ker tongues and pcrsecuted the Bnp-
| tists Thanksgiying day orntors OF
| New England never tire Of telling us
| how thc Pilgrims came to the wilds
| 81 America. where they could worship
| God according 10 the dictates OF their
own conscience. but there Is "a big grain
/ ~ truth I'm Artemus Wards remark
that they came TO America 10 wor-
ship according Ia their own conscience
and 10 keep other people from doing the
! same" They drove out Roger WI
Hams, which act compelled him to
struggle, IN the dead NJ winter. through
u pnthlcss forest, covered with Two
feot Of snow A few years pass, Be
/ hold the conduct nf Wlllinmsl Some
| friendly natives inform him Of an IN
dian plot 30 wipe out the Plymouth
| colony. Most men would have shld
Let them die. They east out me. win
| my tender wife and children, into "A
bowling wilderness III not raise u
nnEcr" But, mindful of the Injunction
"Forglve your enemies" he walked a
long distance into plymouth and
saved the lives Of the bigotB VINO hhd
driven him from his homo.
Their treatment OF the Ho-callcd