smit to
posterity; and those who are curious of tracing the history of the human
mind, may remark how far its several singularities coincide in different
ages.

Certain zealots had erected themselves into a society for buying in of
impropriations, and transferring them to the church; and great sums of
money had been bequeathed to the society for these purposes. But it was
soon observed, that the only use which they made of their funds was to
establish lecturers in all the considerable churches; men who, without
being subjected to Episcopal authority, employed themselves entirely
in preaching and spreading the fire of Puritanism. Laud took care, by
a decree which was passed in the court of exchequer, and which was much
complained of, to abolish this society, and to stop their progress.[**]
It was, however, still observed, that throughout England the lecturers
were all of them Puritanically affected; and from them the clergymen,
who contented themselves with reading prayers and homilies to the
people, commonly received the reproachful appellation of "dumb dogs."

* State Trials, vol. v. p. 74. Franklyn, p. 839.

** Rush. vol. ii. p. 150, 151. Whitlocke, p. 15. History of
the Life Sufferings of Laud, p. 211, 212.

The Puritans, restrained in England, shipped themselves off for America,
and laid there the foundations of a government which possessed all
the liberty, both civil and religious, of which they found themselves
bereaved in their native country.

But their enemies, unwilling that they
should any where enjoy ease and contentment, and dreading, perhaps, the
dangerous consequences of so disaffected a colony, prevailed on the king
to issue a proclamation, debarring these devotees access even into those
inhospitable deserts.[*] Eight ships, lying in the Thames, and ready to
sail, were detained by order of the council; and in these were embarked
Sir Arthur Hazelrig, John Hambden, John Pym, and Oliver Cromwell,[**]
who had resolved forever to abandon their native country, and fly to
the other extremity of the globe; where they might enjoy lectures
and discourses of any length or form which pleased them. The king had
afterwards full leisure to repent this exercise of his authority.

The bishop of Norwich, by rigorously insisting on uniformity, had
banished many industrious tradesmen from that city, and chased them
into Holland.[***] The Dutch began to be more intent on commerce than on
orthodoxy; and