He went back to the governor, and said, "Here are one hundred and twenty-eight of as fine emigrants as I ever saw." "Well," Governor Carver said, "the capacity of the vessel, as prescribed in the emigrant act, is already exceeded." Miles Standish said, "I think we could let them in." The Governor said, "No, they cannot come in." Miles Standish went back to the gangway, and said, "You are handsome men, but you can't come in;" and they had to stand there, every man and every woman of them. [Laughter.] That is the unfortunate reason why I had no ancestors at the landing of the Pilgrims. [Laughter.] But my ancestors looked westward still. They stayed in England, praying that they might come, and when Winthrop, ten years afterwards, sailed, he took them all on board, and if the little State of Massachusetts has done anything to carry out the principles of the men who landed on Plymouth Rock in 1620, why, some little part of the credit is due to my humble ancestry. [Laughter and applause.] * * * * * BOSTON [Speech of Edward Everett Hale, D.D., at the first annual dinner of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, December 21, 1880. The President, Benjamin D. Silliman, in proposing the toast, "Boston," said: "We are favored with the company of a typical and eloquent Bostonian, identified with all that is learned and benevolent in that ancient home of the Puritans, and familiar with all its notions. In response to the toast, we call on the Rev. Edward Everett Hale."] MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN:--I am sure that there is not a Boston boy who hears me to-night who does not recollect that when he went out to his first Pilgrim dinner, or to see Fanny Kemble or to any other evening dissipation of fifty years ago, the last admonition of his mother was, "We will leave the candle burning for you, John, but you must be sure and be home before twelve o'clock!" I am sure that the memory of this admonition is lingering among our friends now, that we are entering on the small hours, and that I must only acknowledge your courtesy and sit down. I feel, indeed, all along in your talk of hoar antiquity, that I owe my place here only to your extreme hospitality. In these aged cities you may well say to me, "You Bostonians are children. You are of yesterday," as the Egyptians said to the Greek traveller. For we are still stumbling along like little children, in the anniversaries of our quarter-millennium; but we understand perfectly well that the foundations of this city were laid in dim antiquity. I know that nobody knows when Brooklyn was founded. Your commerce began so long ago that nobody can remember it, but I know that there was a beaver trap on every brook in Kings County, while Boston was still a howling wilderness. These noble ancestors of yours had made themselves at home on Plymouth Rock before we had built a flat-boat on any river in Massachusetts Bay. [Applause.]