It was a bleak-looking and discouraging coast which lay before them. Nothing met the eye but low sand-hills, covered with stunted trees down to the margin of the sea. At first no suitable locality for a settlement could be found; but at length they selected a spot where the soil appeared to be good, with "delicate springs of water." On December 22, 1620, the pilgrims landed--stepping ashore upon a huge boulder of granite, which is still preserved as a memorial of that event. The cold was so excessive that the spray froze upon their clothes till they resembled men cased in armor. They had been badly fed on board the ship, which, together with exposure, caused sickness to prevail among them. Every second day a grave had to be dug in the frozen ground. The care of the sick and the burying of the dead, sadly hindered their work; but the building of their little town went on. When Spring arrived there were only fifty survivors, and these were sadly enfeebled and dispirited. Upon an eminence beside their town they erected a structure which served a double purpose. The upper story was used for a fort, in which were placed six small cannon. The lower story served for a meeting-house and school-house. The pilgrims had already drawn up and signed in the cabin of the _Mayflower_, a document forming themselves into an organized government, to which they unanimously promised obedience. Under this constitution they elected John Carver to be their first governor. It is true they acknowledged King James, but they left no very large place for his authority. {132} [Image: Landing of the Pilgrims.] {133} They had experienced what despotism was, and they determined from the first to be a self-governing people. In memory of the hospitalities which they had received at the last English port from which they had sailed, this colony took the name of Plymouth. The years which followed the settlement of Plymouth was a time through which good men found it bitter to live. Charles I., was upon the throne of England. William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, was the king's right-hand man for dealing out persecution. Whoever refused to perform the religious ceremonies commanded by Laud was forthwith imprisoned. A Scotch clergyman named Leighton, was publicly whipped, branded on the cheek, had one of his ears cut off and his nostrils slit, for calling Laud's ceremonies the inventions of men. Many others were treated in a similar manner. Meanwhile John Hampden, the incorruptible patriot, was arrested for not paying an unlawful tax. A greater than he--his cousin, Oliver Cromwell--was leading his quiet, rural life at Huntington, not without many anxious and indignant thoughts about the evils of his time. He walked over his fields and along the streams,