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In 1625 there came one Captain Wollaston, with a gang of indented white
servants, and established himself on the site of the present town
of Quincy. Finding this system of industry ill suited to northern
agriculture, he carried most of his men off to Virginia, where he sold
them. Morton took possession of the site of the settlement, which he
called Merrymount. There, according to Bradford, he set up a "schoole of
athisme," and his men did quaff strong waters and comport themselves "as
if they had anew revived and celebrated the feasts of ye Roman Goddes
Flora, or the beastly practices of ye madd Bachanalians." Charges of
atheism have been freely hurled about in all ages. In Morton's case the
accusation seems to have been based upon the fact that he used the Book
of Common Prayer. His men so far maintained the ancient customs of
merry England as to plant a Maypole eighty feet high, about which they
frolicked with the redskins, while furthermore they taught them the
use of firearms and sold them muskets and rum. This was positively
dangerous, and in the summer of 1628 the settlers at Merrymount were
dispersed by Miles Standish. Morton was sent to England, but returned
the next year, and presently again repaired to Merrymount.

By this time other settlements were dotted about the coast. There were
a few scattered cottages or cabins at Nantasket and at the mouth of the
Piscataqua, while Samuel Maverick had fortified himself on Noddle's
Island, and William Blackstone already lived upon the Shawmut peninsula,
since called Boston. These two gentlemen were no friends to the
Puritans; they were churchmen and representatives of Sir Ferdinando
Gorges.

The case was very different with another of these earliest settlements,
which deserves especial mention as coming directly in the line of
causation which led to the founding of Massachusetts by Puritans. For
some years past the Dorchester adventurers--a small company of merchants
in the shire town of Dorset--had been sending vessels to catch fish off
the New England coast. In 1623 these men conceived the idea of planting
a small village as a fishing station, and setting up a church and
preacher therein, for the spiritual solace of the fishermen and sailors.
In pursuance of this scheme a small party occupied Cape Ann, where after
two years they got into trouble with the men of Plymouth. Several grants
and assignments had made it doubtful where the ownership lay, and
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