In the reign of king James (and the first of the name,)
George Summers, with Hacluit, to Chesapeake came,
Where far in the forests, not doomed to renown,
On the river Powhatan[D] they built the first town.[E]
[D] James River, Virginia.—Freneau's note.
[E] James Town.—Ib.
Twelve years after this, some scores of dissenters
To the northernmost district came seeking adventures;
Outdone by the bishops, those great faggot fighters;
They left them to rule with their cassocks and mitres.
Thus banished forever, and leaving the sod,
The first land they saw was the pitch of Cape Cod,
Where famished with hunger and quaking with cold
They planned their New-Plymouth—so called from the old.
They were, without doubt, a delightful collection;—
Some came to be rid of a Stuart's direction,
Some sailed with a view to dominion and riches,
Some to pray without book, and a few to hang witches.
Some, came on the Indians to shed a new light,
Convinced long before that their own must be right,
And that all who had died in the centuries past
On the devil's lee shore were eternally cast.
These exiles were formed in a whimsical mould,
And were awed by their priests, like the Hebrews of old;
Disclaimed all pretences to jesting and laughter,
And sighed their lives through, to be happy hereafter.
On a crown immaterial their hearts were intent,
They looked towards Zion, wherever they went,
Did all things in hopes of a future reward,
And worried mankind—for the sake of the Lord.
With rigour excessive they strengthened their reign,
Their laws were conceived in the ill-natured strain,
With mystical meanings the saint was perplext,
And the flesh and the devil were slain by a text.