The prospects of the colony had so far brightened that Mr. Allerton, who had been sent to England this year, succeeded in raising one thousand dollars at thirty per cent interest. During the year 1625 Captain Wollaston, with thirty emigrants, commenced a settlement at a place they named Mount Wollaston, in the northerly part of Braintree, now Quincy, in Massachusetts. Most of these emigrants were men of low condition, the hired laborers of Wollaston. He soon became discontented, and took a large portion of his servants to Virginia, where he disposed of their labor as best he could. He left a man by the name of Fitcher to guide the labor of those who remained until his return. In the mean time one Thomas Morton, “a pettifogging attorney of Furnival’s Inn, a man of low habits,” succeeded in persuading those who were left to renounce the authority of Fitcher, and to live on terms of perfect equality and freedom, without any laws whatever. He arranged a great feast, and induced the men, in the frenzy of intoxication, to drive Fitcher from the settlement. They then entered upon an astonishing course of rioting and drunkenness. They prosecuted vigorously a trade with the natives, which was forbidden by royal charter, of muskets, powder and bullets. This trade was very profitable. The Indians, eager to obtain muskets, would pay almost any sum for them. Morton taught them how to use the guns, and employed them to hunt, purchasing their furs. Thus they rioted in abundance, and disgraced themselves with the most shameless indulgence in profanity and profligacy. They erected a May-pole, and danced around it with the Indian women. In accordance with these scenes of revelry, they changed the name of the place to Merry Mount. Morton was an Atheist: teaching that this was the only life; that there was no responsibility to God, and that it was the part of wisdom to indulge freely in all one’s desires. This state of things created great alarm, in all the various settlements, which had by this time been established. The Indians, if once supplied with European weapons of war, could easily, by combining, destroy all the colonies. Governor Bradford complains very bitterly of the peril. The Indians had muskets in abundance; they were taught how to repair their muskets when injured; they were furnished with moulds for running bullets of various sizes.