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Edmund Roberts. Esq.

is requested to accept these Volumes. as a small, memorial

of the regard. of the Author.

1

AN

HISTORICAL MEMOIR

OF THE COLONY OF

NEW PLYMOUTH.

VOL. I.-PART THE FIRST.

FROM 1620 TO 1641.

BY FRANCIS BAYLIES.

BOSTON.

HILLIARD, GRAY, LITTLE, AND WILKINS.

M DCCC XXX.

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Be it remembered, that on the sixth day of May, A. D. 1930, in the fiftyfourth year of the Independence of the United States of America, Francis Baylies of the said district, has deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as author in the words following, to wit:

An Historical Memoir of Plymouth Colony. Vol. I.-Part the first.-From 1620 to 1641.— By Francis Baylies.'

In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, 'An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of naps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned;' and also to an act, entitled An act supplementary to an act, entitled "An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned;" and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints.' JNO. W. DAVIS,

Clerk of the District of Massachusetts.

BOSTON CLASSIC PRESS-I. R. BUTTS.

PREFACE.

SOME of the towns which were once included within the ancient colony of New Plymouth, contain at the present day a population more numerous than the whole population of that colony at any time during the first twenty years of its existence.But no small commonwealth, not even a Greek republic, ever afforded to history in so short a period, so many materials alike interesting and instructive.

In the earliest period, the colonists of Plymouth are to be considered rather as a voluntary association of independent individuals, than as subjects of the crown of England receiving protection, and yielding allegiance.

Their history may properly be divided into four periods.

During the first they enacted laws, entered into treaties, made war and peace, and exercised all the powers of sovereignty almost escaping the notice of the English government.-They were alone in a wide wilderness, and they assumed sovereign power from necessity rather than choice :- this period is full of events:- difficulties with the natives;-domestic factions ; religious quarrels ;-repeated attempts to obtain a royal charter, and a continued effort to save themselves from the desolations of war, and the sufferings of famine.

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