From the year 1606, when Martin Pring and Weymouth first discovered the northern bays of New England, the ships of fishermen had visited their coasts, and by degrees had settled upon them permanent stations. In 1616, Gorges sent to these northern shores a colonising party under Richard Vines, who arrived in the country at the time when that pestilence was raging among the natives which depopulated so great an extent of territory, and which was regarded by the later pious settlers as an interposition of God, who thus “made way for his people by removing the heathen.” Vines and his company marched to the interior, holding familiar intercourse with the dying natives without themselves taking the infection, and finally settled at the mouth of the Saco river, the place being called by them Winter Harbour. The colonists pursued agriculture and fishing: the husbandmen taking up tracts of one hundred acres on long leases from Thomas Vines. It is said that farms are held to this day under these old leases, written in Latin, the tenure being very light—five shillings a year, perhaps, a few days’ work and a fat goose. Nevertheless colonisation was slow, spite of the attractive and poetical accounts of the beauty and desirableness of the country to emigrants, which were circulated in Old England. In 1636, when the first duly organised court was held within the State of Maine, the total number of inhabitants in the five different provinces, including the islands, amounted to about 1,500. The first settlement of Nova Scotia was about contemporaneous with that of Maine. Gorges, who was jealous of the French becoming the ultimate possessors of these northern regions, invited over a number of Scottish emigrants, King James being favourable to the design, and these were planted in Nova Scotia. Having thus slightly reviewed the efforts made to colonise the northern portion of New England, we will return to the colonies of Massachusetts Bay, which, instinct with the element of life, advanced at once into well-organised and flourishing states.