for the general good
of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission and
obedience."

What but a reflection of these words is the memorable preamble to the
Constitution of the United States, framed by the convention of 1787:

"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more
perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity,
provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and
secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do
ordain this Constitution for the United States of America."

What a debt of gratitude we owe to the leaders of that expedition,
Carver, Winslow, Bradford and Standish, who thus planted this colony in
the United States, practically the first after that in Virginia--but
also to the great artist who fortunately came from the shores of the
same England to immortalize, through this beautiful picture, the first
scene in the drama whose culmination is the establishment of the
greatest republic that the world has ever seen!

"There were men with hoary hair
Amidst that pilgrim-band:
Why had they come to wither there,
Away from their childhood's land?

"There was woman's fearless eye,
Lit by her deep love's truth;
There was manhood's brow serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth.

"What sought they thus afar?
Bright jewels of the mine?
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?--
They sought a faith's pure shrine!

"Ay, call it holy ground,
The soil where first they trod;
They have left unstained what there they found--
Freedom to worship God."

FELICIA HEMANS.

FIRST RECOGNITION OF THE AMERICAN FLAG
By a Foreign Government

(_In the Harbor of Quiberon, France, February 13, 1778_)

[Illustration: Copyright, 1898, by Edward Moran.]

VIII.

FIRST RECOGNITION OF THE AMERICAN FLAG BY A FOREIGN GOVERNMENT.

_In the Harbor of Quiberon, France, February 13, 1778._[K]

"When Freedom, from her mountain height,
Unfurled her standard to the air,
She tore the azure robe of night
And set the stars of glory there!
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure, celestial white
With streakings of the morning light."

DRAKE.

Between the time of the landing of the Pi