Speaking of swords, I am reminded that the first duel in New England was at Plymouth, in the year 1621. It was between Edward Doty or Doten, and Edward Leister, servants of Steven Hopkins. They fought with sword and dagger, like their betters, and were both wounded. Having no statute against the offense, the Pilgrims met in council to determine on the punishment. It was exemplary. The parties were ordered to be tied together, hand and foot, and to remain twenty-four hours without food or drink. The intercession of their master and their own entreaties procured their release before the sentence was carried out. [Illustration: THE OLD COLONY SEAL.] In the front of the court-house is a mural tablet, with the seal of the Old Colony sculptured in relief. The quarterings of the shield represent four kneeling figures, having each a flaming heart in its hands. On one side of the figures is a small tree, indicative, I suppose, of the infant growth of the plantation. The attitude and semi-nude appearance indicate an Indian, the subsequent device of Massachusetts, and are at once significant of his subjection, hearty welcome, and ultimate loyalty. The colony seal is said to have been abstracted from the archives in Andros's time, and never recovered.[173] Its legend was "Plimovth Nov-Anglia, Sigillvm Societatis," with the date of 1620 above the shield. The union with Massachusetts, in 1692, dispensed with the necessity for a separate seal. I saw, in the office of the Register, the records of the First Church of Plymouth, begun and continued by Nathaniel Morton to 1680. The court records, as well as the ancient charter, on which the ink is so faded as to be scarcely legible, are carefully kept. But the compact, that august instrument, I did not see, nor is the fate of the original known. Its language bears an extraordinary similitude to the preamble of the Constitution of the United States, in its spirit and idea. The name of the king is there in good set phrase; but the soul of the thing is its assumption of sovereignty in the people. See now how King James figures at the head and the tail of it, and then look into the heart of the matter: