The colonists of the province of New Hampshire, which at first included Vermont, possessed very largely these qualities which I have ascribed in part to the intermingling of distinct races. Many of them were strong men, born amid the turmoil and strife of other countries, fleeing here for refuge from oppression, or more often for the purpose of enjoying full liberty of opinion, religious and political. Here they were surrounded in their every-day life with conditions of the strongest excitement because of the incursions of savage foes. Every faculty of mind was on the alert, and every function and sinew of the body was called into constant and intense endeavor to support life and defend themselves, their wives, and their children. Thus they lived in that state of “mental and physical excitement” which I have claimed causes the transmission of the best faculties of the parents in the fullest development of their offspring. They dwelt in an atmosphere of continual warfare for almost two hundred years, no generation escaping either an incursion of savages at their doors, or a general war. Does not history show that such conditions have in all times made braver, stronger, and more capable founders of states?
In 1620 King James had established a council of forty noblemen, knights, and gentlemen for the planting and governing of New England, in America. Their territory extended from the fortieth to the forty-eighth degree of north latitude. This was the origin of all the grants of the country of New England. The charters issued in those times show no knowledge of the country, for even its geographical boundaries by lakes and seas continually interlaced each other.
Mason, a sea officer and prominent member of the council, obtained, in 1621, an immense tract extending from Salem on the sea around Cape Ann to the Merrimack River, and to the farthest head thereof, with all the islands lying within three miles of the coast. This grant was named “Marianna.” In 1622, another grant was made to Mason and Gorges of all the lands between the Merrimack and Sagadahoc, extending back to the Great Lakes and “River of Canada.” This grant was called “Laconia.” So little was known of the continent that it was supposed the “River of Canada” (the St.
