All, without a single exception, had received a good education, and many of them were known in Europe for their talents and their acquirements.

The other colonies had been founded by adventurers without family; the emigrants of New England brought with them the best elements of order and morality--they landed in the desert accompanied by their wives and children.

But what most especially distinguished them was the aim of their undertaking.

They had not been obliged by necessity to leave their country; the social position they abandoned was one to be regretted, and their means of subsistence were certain.

Nor did they cross the Atlantic to improve their situation or to increase their wealth; the call which summoned them from the comforts of their homes was purely intellectual; and in facing the inevitable sufferings of exile their object was the triumph of an idea.
The emigrants, or, as they deservedly styled themselves, the Pilgrims, belonged to that English sect the austerity of whose principles had acquired for them the name of Puritans.