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perfectly wonderful. His features were constantly calm, placid, and at last bore a bright, even a cheerful expression. His attendants, while bending close towards him, caught occasionally expressions of prayer; his profound acquaintance with the Scriptures enabling him, in this hour of his need, to draw strength and support from that inexhaustible source, where he was accustomed to seek and to find it."

He was buried in Kensall Green Cemetery, in the neighbourhood of London. His son-in-law, John Stewart, and his brother, Thomas Grahame, attended his remains to the grave. His son, also, who had set out from Scotland on hearing of his illness, though arriving too late to see him before he expired, was not denied the melancholy satisfaction of being present at his interment. A plain marble monument has been erected over his tomb, bearing the exact inscription he himself dictated.

These scanty memorials are all that it has been possible, in this country, to collect in relation to James Grahame. Though few and disconnected, they are grateful and impressive.

The habits of his life were domestic, and in the family circle the harmony and loveliness of his character were eminently conspicuous. His mind was grave, pure, elevated, far-reaching; its enlarged views ever on the search after the true, the useful, and the good. His religious sentiments, though exalted and tinctured with enthusiasm, were always candid, liberal, and tolerant. In politics. a republican, his love of liberty was nevertheless qualified by a love of order, - his desire to elevate the destinies of the many, by a respect for the rights and interests of the few. As in his religion there was nothing of bigotry, so in his political sentiments there was nothing of radicalism.

As a historian, there were combined in Mr. Grahame all the qualities which inspire confidence and sustain it; a mind powerful and cultivated, patient of labor, indefatigable in research, independent, faithful, and fearless; engaging in its subject with absorbing interest, and in the development of it superior to all influences except those of truth and duty.

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To Americans, in all future times, it cannot fail to be an interesting and gratifying circumstance, that the foreigner, who first undertook to write a complete history of their republic from the earliest period of the colonial settlements, was a Briton, eminently qualified to appreciate the merits of its founders, and at once so able and so willing to do justice to them. The people of the United States, on whose national character and success Mr. Grahame bestowed his affections and hopes, owe to his memory a reciprocation of feeling and interest. As the chief labor of his life was devoted to illustrate the wisdom and virtues of their ancestors and to do honor to the institutions they established, it is incumbent on the descendants to hold and perpetuate in grateful remembrance his talents, virtues, and services.

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MEMOIRS OF THE PILGRIMS AT LEYDEN.

BY GEORGE SUMNER, ESQUIRE,

FOREIGN MEMBER OF THE GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF BERLIN; HONORARY MEMBER OF THE ARCHEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF MADRID; CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE ARCHEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES OF ATHENS AND OF POICTIERS, ETC., ETC.

THE position and privileges enjoyed by the founders of Plymouth Colony, during their ten years' residence in the Netherlands, would seem to be not very clearly defined. Every one, who has examined this part of the history of our Pilgrim forefathers, must, I think, have been struck by the discrepancies in regard to it, which occur in the different statements that we have before us.

Robertson, Burke (in his European Settlements in America), and many other English writers of less name, represent their condition in any but favorable colors; and the disparaging statements of these authors have, in some cases, been adopted by Americans at home. The principal among these is the learned Chief-Justice Marshall, who speaks of the Pilgrims * as "an obscure sect which had acquired the appellation of Brownists," and which was forced to remove to Leyden. He then continues:-"There they resided several years in safe obscurity. This situation at length became irksome to them. Without persecution to give importance to the particular points which separated them from their other Christian brethren, they made no converts"; and then, as a cause for their removal to America, he asserts, that, "in the extinction of their church, they

* Marshall's Life of Washington, Vol. I., p. 93.

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dreaded, too, the loss of those high attainments in spiritual knowledge which they deemed so favorable to truth."

The sneer contained in this passage was not necessary for the announcement of a historical fact, and it is evident that the Chief Justice has adopted the tone as well as the statement of Robertson. For this passage the author has given no authority, although Robertson, Hutchinson, and Chalmers are referred to as general authorities at the close of the chapter.*

Other writers, again, have represented in somewhat glowing colors the hospitality which was extended to the Pilgrims in Leyden, the unity which reigned among them while there, the attentions shown them by the magistrates, and the honors rendered to the remains of their pastor by the professors and learned men of the University.†

The time has gone by, when the just fame which has been won by those men who planted a nation can be either lessened or magnified by the recital of honors that they may have received in by-gone years; and one may search freely for the truth in regard to them, conscious, that, in developing that, small injury can be done to their

memory.

I know not whether I deceive myself, but I am disposed to believe that much of what has been written in regard to the position in Holland of the founders of Plymouth Colony is erroneous; and that, although they were far

* See Life of Washington, Vol. I., p. 93; also Young's Pilgrims, p. 48, note. ChiefJustice Marshall altered these expressions in a subsequent work, but did not pass, however, without experiencing severe reproaches from others, and particularly from the author of the American Annals, for the opinion he had uttered. "The historian," says Holmes, "who tells us that the Puritans removed from Leyden into the American wilderness because they were obscure and unpersecuted, must not expect to be believed." American Annals, Vol. I., Note XXI.; see also Vol. I., p. 159. In Bozman's History of Maryland, p. 376, is a reply to the author of the Annals, and a defence of the obnoxious expressions of Chief Justice Marshall.

In a work published during the present year at Leipsic, Die Geschichte der Congregationalisten in Neu-England bis 1740, von H. F. Uhden (History of the Congregationalists in New England until 1740), the idea of the author, drawn from the American authorities that he had consulted (among which is Cotton Mather), would appear to be, that the Pilgrims were enjoying, while in Holland, a good degree of worldly prosperity. The author of this book is a clergyman at Berlin, and was one of the deputation sent in 1841-2, by the king of Prussia, to inspect the state of the English church. The book itself was written at the suggestion of Dr. Neander, and, although in a foreign language, will prove, I believe, a valuable addition to our historical literature. The author has drawn largely from Backus, a writer whose candor and moderation seem not to be appreciated in America as they merit.

from exciting, on the part of the Dutch people and magistrates, those feelings of contempt and ill-will towards themselves, the existence of which has been so often charged by their enemies, yet they were equally far from experiencing any excess of kind attention and magisterial favor.

This opinion is the result of some special observations that I have been enabled to make in Holland, and it is the same which, as it strikes me, must be formed by all who examine the writings preserved to us of those who were constantly with the little band, from the time of their quitting England, in 1608, until their arrival in America. The authority of these writings (which have been recently brought before the public in a most excellent form by Mr. Young, accompanied by his valuable notes) is superior to that of any of the different historians who wrote at a later day. While the small, struggling colony was exposed to obloquy in England, and was fighting its way painfully along, against opposition, religious, political, and commercial, it was hardly to be expected that a historian devoted to its interest would neglect to avail himself of any thing which might appear, at that time, to reflect credit upon it. It was not the historian, but the advocate, who wrote. Remembering this, one may perhaps see a reason why "the careful Morton " has at times slightly colored some passages from Governor Bradford's Journal, and why Cotton Mather has drawn in many cases from authorities which Morton must have known, but which he does not appear to have regarded, and has, in other cases, made statements for which it would seem to require more than an ordinary degree of research to find any authority whatever.

I

propose to examine some points in relation to the position of the Pilgrims while in Holland, and particularly the attentions that may have been extended to them by the Dutch people and magistrates.

But first let us see what was their position as shown by the best authority we possess, the writings of Governor Bradford.

Having seen six of their fellow-men-"men of piety and learning -executed in England for their religious belief,

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