Now, if these facts make the "extraordinary theory," which your correspondent has not ventured to describe, we are ready to take it in all its dimensions, and furnish your readers the proofs, as readily as you will grant your columns. But we are not inclined to shut our mouths, or stop our pens, by the terror of any such words as "false and extraordinary theory," "empty assertion and vapid declamation." We do not ask "Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay gracefully to yield the honors of their exalted position," any farther than "the stern logic of truth" may demand; and we shall not be unwilling to say, that the claims of history are worthy of respect, even among the present dwellers in those ancient and time-honored colonies. As to the remark about "'the Church Colony' of Sagadahoc," that may pass as a piece of pleasantry, though it was a fact.
The question is asked, in regard to the opening sentence of Mr. Patterson's Address, "Why is this hallowed ground?" We had supposed, that any place where religion had held its services continuously, and in connection with important events, might properly bear such a designation. The orator evidently thought so; and his very large audience, out of the thousands assembled on that day, did not once think of a criticism upon the expression. But the question seems to have been proposed, not so much for disputing the religious associations connected with the undertaking, as to bring in _two_ charges against the colonists, of no force whatever against the great purposes of the settlement.
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.