They were not inferior men, in respect to their _civil standing in the community_. They did not proceed, generally, from the lower orders of society--the poorer artisans and the laborers. They belonged, mostly, to the middle and respectable ranks of English society. A few were classed with the higher orders, but not to the same extent as was the fact with the settlers of Virginia, if we may judge from the list of names and titles of several emigrants of the different colonies. In respect to a worldly, chivalrous bearing and spirit of adventure, New England and Virginia differed--the latter were eminent in this respect, but never were men more truly brave than the fathers of New England; in moral courage, they were unrivalled. Like other adventurers, they manifested their undaunted spirit in relinquishing their comfortable homes, in braving the dangers of the deep, in encountering the horrors of a wilderness, in incurring the risk of famine and pestilence, and in frequently combatting a fierce savage foe. There were as extraordinary traits of martial heroism displayed among the pilgrims of New England, when called forth by the necessity of circumstances, as can be found in the history of any of the American colonists, though this was not a characteristic in which they gloried. The exploits of Miles Standish, of Plymouth, and John Mason, of Connecticut, might be ranked among the most striking exhibitions of courage on record. Of Standish, it is remarked, by an old historian, that "he was allied to the noble house of Standish, in Lancashire, and inherited some of the virtues of that honorable family, as well as the name." But the high bearing and courage of the planters was eminently of a moral kind. Unlike their Virginian neighbors, they suffered no misrule in their settlements. If any threatened for a time, they promptly put it down. Their courage was seen in resisting evil among themselves. They feared not to put their laws into execution. They were characterized by a healthful, vigorous public spirit, consenting to sacrifice their own individual interest for the general good. They thus manifested a noble nature, the product of principle, if not of birth.