Читать книгу The Popham Colony - Ballard Edward - Страница 4

Under the above caption there was printed in the Boston Daily Advertiser of the 11th instant, over the signature of "P.," what purports to be a review of Prof. Patterson's Address at the Celebration of the two hundred and fifty-eighth Anniversary of the Planting of the Popham Colony, at Sagadahoc.

At the first reading of this somewhat curious review, I supposed the writer had intended to throw ridicule on the Popham celebrations, and all concerned in them; but, on a closer perusal, I concluded that he has, to the extent of his abilities, really undertaken to overthrow the whole history of that settlement, and all that has been written about them, by the force of his arguments.

He commences his theme by ridiculing the "Popham Memorial," the "Vindication of Gorges," and some other publications; but without attempting to reply to any part of them. He next goes on to tell us that Mr. Patterson is a scholar, has been a Professor at Dartmouth College, and is now a Member of Congress; and then commences his onslaught by stating, that on that spot (Sabino) a colony of convicted criminals landed in 1607, more than half of whom deserted the next December, and the remainder left the next spring, after committing the most shocking barbarities on the Indians; and refers to Williamson's History of Maine, and Parkman's Pioneers, – neither of which authorities justify any such statement; and, although trying to ridicule some of Professor Patterson's sentiments, charges him with branching off into a subject that has no relation to the question at all.

Leaving the thirty odd pages of the Address without any remarks, he attacks a letter, written as a reply to an invitation to be present on that occasion, in which the writer notices the building of a ship by the colonists, as a fact of some importance, which, all the writers on that expedition say, took part of the colonists to England. But let us follow him through his many wild and unsupported assertions relating to that vessel. And here it may be proper to say, that the letter does not endorse the authors of the Popham Memorial, or any part of their theory, but at the outset expresses a dissent to many of the claims made by those writers, and refers almost entirely to the ship and its history. This reviewer, after some grand denunciations, finally concentrates his arguments into three stately propositions.

First, that the vessel never was built, because there was not time, and also that there was not over ten carpenters, or forty persons, in all the colony to do it, – while we know that since that day vessels of five times her size have been built with half that force, and in much less time, in that immediate vicinity. Second, that there was no need of a vessel; and third, that she was built of green pine, and no one would wish himself in her; and so the idea that she made the voyage is absurd. Now this is exactly the famous kettle argument over again, with results just as conclusive.