Though the mist hide it forever, forever, "The matins sweet from the far-off town The vespers were hushing the twilight down The volume is a very pretty one, and speaks well for Western printing and taste. It is to be reprinted here by Hurd and Houghton. 7.-1. The Popham Colony. A Discussion of its Historical Claims. With a Bibliography of the Subject. Boston: J. K. Wiggin and Lunt. 1866. 8vo. pp. 72. 2.- Boston Daily Advertiser, September 1, 1868. Popham Celebration, 1868. 3. Brunswick Telegraph, September 4, 1868. Popham Celebration, 1868. It is now six years since a new wonder appeared in the cosmography of our early New England history. The wise men of the East were the first to discover it, and, leaving their lumbering and shipbuilding, they followed the strange spectacle until it appeared to them to stand over a rocky peninsula at the mouth of the Kennebec River. Here they assembled, a great multitude which no man has numbered, on the 29th of August, 1862, and, with the solemn ritual of the Church of England, a formal oration, toasts, set speeches, and clam-bake, they celebrated the nativity of colonization on these New England shores. It is little to the purpose of the present inquiry that historical inquirers in other localities did not see the appearance we have alluded to, or that some resident observers regarded it as a meteor soon to burn itself out, and others as a will-o'-the-wisp to lead the unwary into bogs of delusion. Living beyond the charmed circle which was favorable for observation, our testimony respecting the fact and nature of this phenomenon would have little value. To the Eastern astrologers it was as plain as a pike-staff. It is also a matter of history that the Maine Historical Society has made the 29th of August a memorial day, and that, under its auspices, celebrations have been held upon the "sacred spot" on each recurring anniversary since 1862, at a season of the year when the baleful influence of the dog-star is in the ascendant. The proceedings of the first celebration fill a volume of 512 pages; and a bibliography of the literature on the subject, printed in 1866, contains the titles of ninety-eight pamphlets and separate articles, pro and con, which had been printed up to that time. The precise condi tion of the tally at the present moment we are not able to state. There seems to be no abatement in the interest in, or the attendance on, these celebrations from year to year; and as they afford a broad margin for honest and courteous difference of opinion, and an incitement to historical inquiry into the verities and traditions of New England colonization, we have every reason to congratulate our Eastern friends that they have fixed upon an anniversary which they may call their own, and to express the hope that Popham-Day may never be stricken from their local calendar. These celebrations are usually attended by some fifteen hundred or two thousand persons. A generous hospitality welcomes visitors from abroad; and an excursion to Popham is one of the most delightful that can be made on our New England coast. It was a great oversight in the Pilgrims, for which we can hardly excuse them, that they did not make their landing in the dog-days, instead of the winter solstice. In that event, memorial exercises at Plymouth might have been perpetual. In April, 1606, King James I. granted by charter to two companies the continent of North America, from the thirty-fourth to the forty-fifth degree of latitude, all of which was then called Virginia. This territory was to be divided into nearly equal portions, the London Company taking the southern portion, and the Plymouth Company the northern. Sir John Popham, Lord Chief Justice of England, was the principal patron of the North Virginia scheme. Colonies were sent out by both these companies about the same time. The South Virginia Colony arrived at Jamestown in April, 1607; and the North Virginia, or Popham Colony, at the mouth of the Kennebec in August of the same year. The Southern Colony, after many vicissitudes, effected a permanent settlement; the Northern Colony made a sudden and complete failure. The latter company consisted of about one hundred and twenty persons, under the command of George Popham, brother of the Chief Justice. They landed near the site of the modern Fort Popham. Here they built a fort, rude dwellings, and a storehouse. On the 15th of December one of the vessels which brought them over set sail for England, and seventy-five of the colonists took this first opportunity that presented itself to abandon the enterprise and go back to their native country. The forty-five persons who were left behind spent a wretched winter, quarrelled with the Indians, lost their storehouse by fire, and, when the vessel returned in the spring with provisions, they also deserted the spot. "And this," says the chronicler who has given the fullest account of the matter, "was the end of that northerne colony uppon the river Sachadehoc [Kennebec]." These, in brief, are the main facts respecting the enterprise which are not disputed. There are questions connected with these facts on which there is a difference of opinion, and the discussion of these constitutes what is called "The Popham Controversy." Among these questions are the following. Was this a settlement, or only one of the many early and unsuccessful attempts at colonization? If a settlement, was it, as is claimed, the first settlement on the shores of New England? In what respect are its claims superior to those of Gosnold's company, who landed at Cuttyhunk, on the south shore of Massachusetts, in 1602, where they built a fort and a storehouse, and remained several months, and, returning to England with a valuable freight, gave the most favorable accounts of the country? What was the character of the main body of these Popham colonists? Were they honest men? or were they culprits, "men endangered by the law"? Were they any better material than was sent to Virginia, concerning which Thomas Fuller, in "Holy and Profane States," says: "If the planters be such as leap thither from the gallows, can any hope for cream out of scum, when men send, as I may say, Christian savages to heathen savages?" Were these Popham men better than those who were taken out by the French adventurers about this period, and were picked up from the jails of Paris, "criminals of any sort, except those convicted of treason, or counterfeiting the king's currency"? (Hazard, I. 21.) Such being the universal mode of colonization at that time, is not the burden of proof on those who advocate the importance of the Popham Colony to show, if they can, that the Popham men were of a better class? Was Chief Justice Popham a man likely to engage in any high or honorable undertaking? or was he, as his biographers intimate, the vilest wretch that ever disgraced the judicial ermine? Did he obtain his elegant estate of Littlecote Hall in Wiltshire by compounding felony? Did he, as Aubrey says, "stock or plant [Northern] Virginia out of all the jails of England"? What did Popham's biographer, Lloyd, mean by saying, "He first set up the discovery of New England to maintain and employ those that could not live honestly in the Old"? To whom did Lord Bacon, who was a promoter of colonization in America, refer, when he wrote on Plantations in 1625: "It is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of people, and wicked, condemned men, to be the people with whom you plant; and not only so, but it spoileth the plantation; for they will ever live like rogues, and not fall to work, but be lazy, and do mischief, and spend victuals, and be quickly weary, and then certify over to their country to the discredit of the plantation"? What relation, if any, did the Popham Colony have to subsequent and successful settlements, the Plymouth and the Massachusetts VOL. CVII. - NO. 221. 43 Bay Colonies? Did it promote or discourage schemes of colonization? Why is it that not a person connected as a colonist with the Popham attempt ever engaged in a subsequent undertaking, as did Gosnold and his companions? Unless some connection can be shown between the failure of Popham and the success of Plymouth, what is there to be proud of in the former? Was it not the most fortunate event in the history of Maine, that her soil was saved from a feudal tenure by the ruin of Chief Justice Popham's schemes? What single name of any moment has this Popham affair given to history? Shall we be told that we have the name of Richard Seymour, the chaplain ? What do we know of Richard Seymour, the chaplain, except that he preached two sermons, and read prayers on sundry occasions, once in the presence of some Indians, who, not understanding a word that was said, listened with "great reverence and attention"? At this period the common clergy of the Church of England had sunk so low in the social scale, that "Queen Elizabeth," says Macaulay (I. 328), “issued orders that no clergyman should presume to marry a servant-girl without the consent of the master or mistress,”—and that "the chaplain was the resource of a lady's maid, whose character had been blown upon, and who was therefore forced to give up hopes of catching the steward." Have not the rhetorical statements of the Popham orators been too highly colored, as in the opening sentence of the oration at the first celebration: "We commemorate to-day the great event of American history"? or the commencement of Senator Patterson's oration in 1865: "This [Fort Popham] is hallowed ground"? Is it true, that, as a political event, the Plymouth settlement was not of the slightest consequence or importance (Poor's Vindication of Gorges, p. 72)? that "Plymouth was a nursling of Maine" (Popham Memorial, p. 49)? or that "Massachusetts even may look back with gratitude, as she beholds the fostering hand of Maine, as an elder sister, watching at the cradle of her own infancy (Ibid. 152)? These questions might be extended without limit; but the specimens we have given show the direction and scope of the controversy. Since the opening celebration in 1862, when Professor Emory Washburn and Mr. John Wingate Thornton, two invited guests from Massachusetts, entered their protests against the authority of the new gospel of Popham, the former in felicitous badinage, and the latter in rugged and ungracious facts from history, no one from abroad, unless he was a trimmer or a believer in the new dispensation, has been asked to speak at the annual gatherings of the faithful, till the present year. Professor Washburn's address, after a correspondence with the speaker, and his disavowal of an intention to ridicule the claims set up by the Maine Historical Society, was admitted to a place in the "Popham Memorial." This honor, however, was denied to Mr. Thornton, and hence the "Memorial" contains no intimation that he made an address or was present. The speech was subsequently printed in the Congregational Quarterly for April, 1863, and soon after in a pamphlet entitled "Colonial Schemes of Popham and Gorges," with copious notes, justifying from historical sources the views the speaker had expressed at the celebration. Mr. Thornton's references and citations were so thorough and exhaustive, that little additional matter has been or can be gleaned on the subject. Professor Washburn, in the course of his remarks, said: "He came here determined, let what would happen, to protest against everything that denied that Plymouth was the true hive of the Universal Yankee Nation.' He confessed, however, he had been utterly disarmed by the courtesies he had shared here to-day, and he would no longer protest against anything; and if anybody were to insist that Noah's ark landed on one of these hills, and would get up a celebration like this to commemorate it, he would volunteer to come and take part in it, without doubting it was true." (Memorial Volume, p. 157.) Mr. Thornton's unacceptable remarks may be illustrated by the following extracts : .... "The [Popham] enterprise was invested with all the material strength which wealth and hope of gain could devise. There seems to have been no physical defect, and we must look to the inward bruise' for the latent causes of its inevitable failure. . . . . At Sagadahoc, disappointed hopes of gain and unmanly fear lowered the red-cross flag of St. George, and the well-supplied ships of relief returned to England freighted with stories of suffering from the lips of strong men; while at Plymouth, where more than half the number were women and children, and where the spring flowers fell on the graves of their governor and more than half their company, there was not one weak heart. . . . . Have we not reason, Mr. President, in this review, to lift up our hearts with devout gratitude to Almighty God, that by his Providence the founding of our institutions was left to nobler men, with nobler thoughts, — to the English Puritans?" The principal orator of the occasion, Mr. John A. Poor, commenced his oration by a clear statement of what the Maine Historical Society claims. "We commemorate to-day the great event of American history. We are assembled on the spot that witnessed the first formal act of possession of New England by a British colony under the authority of a royal charter. We have come here, on the two hundred and fifty-fifth anniversary of that event, to rejoice in the manifold blessings that have flowed to us from that act, place on record a testimonial of our appreciation of the value of that day's to |