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 professed to purify itself from its corruptions; having, moreover, suffered severely for their religious faith, might be supposed to have acquired far clearer views of the rights of humanity from their better acquaintance with the Bible, and might be expected to respect the persons and the property of the natives in whose lands they went to settle, more than any that went before them. They went as men who had been driven out of their own country, and from amongst their own kindred, for the maintenance of the dearest privileges and the most sacred claims of men; and they might be supposed to address the natives as they reached their coast in terms like these: "Ancient possessors of a free country, give us a place of refuge amongst you. You are termed savages, but you cannot be more savage than the people of our own land, who have inflicted dreadful cruelties and mutilations on us and our friends for the faith we have in God. We fly from savages who pretend to be civilized, but have learned no one principle of civilization, to savages who pretend to no civilization, but yet have, on a thousand occasions, received white men to their shores with benevolence and tears of joy. What the savages of Europe are, a hundred regions drenched in the blood of their native children can tell; that we deem you less savage than them, the very act of our coming to you testifies. Give us space amongst you, and let us live as brethren."

For a time, indeed, they acted as men who might be supposed thus to speak. The going out and landing in this new country of this band of religious adventurers, have been and continue to be celebrated as the setting forth and landing of "The Pilgrim