The _first_ charge is, that "a colony of convicted felons landed here in 1607." Now who believes this? We who live in the valley of the Kennebec have always supposed, that faith is belief founded on evidence; and that all other demands on faith, if answered, are credulity. What is the evidence that the charge is true? Not a particle. The only pretence of proof is the casual remark of Sir William Alexander, who says of these colonists,--of course he means the laboring part of their number, and not the ten in authority,--that they went to these western shores, "as endangered by the law, or their own necessities." But was there no other law than that against social crime? Contemporaneous history shows that their _endangerment_ proceeded from the statutes against vagrancy. At that time, in consequence of the state of the country, a poor man could hardly avoid their grasp. Surely poverty was no crime. Gorges sought persons of this necessitous class to aid in carrying forward his noble purposes of colonization.[3] While history is the best comment on language, the five words of Sir William are entitled to its explanation. True charity never requires us to give the worst interpretation, when the circumstances allow the best. Here they require it. It is most unfortunate for the truth of the charge about the felons in the colony, that Chalmers--than whom no man has had a longer and better opportunity of searching the British State Papers of this period, and who has the credit of being reliable as to facts--says the law for the transportation of convicts was not enforced till 1619; and Bancroft says, that, when they were enforced, "it must be remembered, the crimes of which they were convicted were chiefly political. The number transported to Virginia for social crimes was never considerable; scarcely enough to sustain its pride in its scorn of the laboring population; certainly not enough to affect its character."[4] If there had been any convicts in the Kennebec Colony, it would be fair to infer from this declaration, that they were "chiefly political" offenders, and "certainly _not numerous enough to affect_ its character." But Chalmers says there was no transportation of any class of the guilty till 1619.[5] Therefore there was none to Sagadahoc; and for the additional and better reason than his statement, that the law has not yet been shown requiring transportation as a punishment for moral guilt, during the time of the incipiency, continuance and end of the Popham Colony. Convicts could not be transported without a law. Any charge, therefore, as about the felons of the colony, is injuriously brought against the memory of the helpless dead.