3. It was otherwise ordered in Maryland. "No person within this province," ran the earliest law of the colony, "professing to be a Christian, shall be in any way troubled or molested for his or her religion, or in the free exercise thereof." Due consideration also was shown to the rights of the natives. The first act of the governor was to purchase land from the Indians, and with their consent he took possession of a village, which he named St. Mary's. The settlers then went resolutely to work, learning all they could from the natives, whose goodwill it was easy to gain by presents of cloth and axes, of hoes and knives. The Indian women taught the wives of the new comers to make bread of maize; the warriors of the tribe gave many valuable hints in hunting and fishing. Thus the foundation of Maryland was peacefully and happily laid. In six months it advanced more than Virginia had done in as many years. 4. In the course of the next hundred years such progress was made in building up a new English nation on the other side of the Atlantic, that no less than thirteen flourishing colonies, including the three already mentioned, were established in what is now the United States. But as these colonies have long ceased to form part of our empire we do not propose to give here any further details respecting them. We cannot, however, but feel proud of the fact that the great American nation has sprung mainly from our race, that it speaks our language, that its laws are based on ours, and that it inherits our love of justice and freedom. 5. Whilst the colonies that have since grown into the United States were taking root, our countrymen settled in some of the American islands, which have since become valuable possessions. An English vessel bound for Virginia, when it was an infant colony, happened to be wrecked on one of the Bermuda islands. The _Bermudas_ form a cluster of a hundred small islands, and in one of the recesses of the inland sea, which they enclose, is a splendid harbour with an entrance so narrow as to render it beyond the reach of attack. Seeing the value of these islands as a secure refuge for our shipping in the North Atlantic, the shipwrecked mariner took possession in the name of King James, and ever since they have remained in our hands as a military post and naval station of no mean importance.