order that the habitation of the wicked be no more seen in Israel; and all thy worldly goods be confiscated, as a compensation to the Indians, for the injuries which they have suffered at thy hands."

"Tantæne animis celestibus ira?" cried the culprit, astonished and indignant at the severe sentence thus communicated to him-"To be set in the stocks, I, Thomas Morton of Clifford's Inn, Gentleman, Lord of Merry-Mount, and Sachem of Passanogessit, my worldly goods to be confiscated, my house to be burned? Wherein, I pray thee, right worshipful governor, consist these mighty offences by me committed against the peace and comfort of the savages?"

“Thou hast unjustly taken a canoe from one of them," said Winthrop," and complaint to that effect hath been entered against thee. Furthermore, it hath been proved that thou hast discharged fire-arms against them and wounded several, for refusing at once to furnish thee with the said canoe, and to row thee therein across the river of Wessaguscus."

"O Jephthah! Judge of Israel! O Minos! Radamanthus ! and all the puisnè justices of Pluto's grim dominion," cried Morton in a whirlwind of eccentric indignation, "is this the jurisprudence practised in the kingdom of the saints? Then may the Lord deliver me into the hands of sinners from this time forth and forever! Now could I find it in my

Silence, silence, thou lewd, impious, blasphemous babbler!" cried Dudley, indignant at the prisoner's boldness.

"I will not be silent," cried Morton, with rising rage, "by heavens! I will tell thee the truth to your grisly beards; my tongue shall wag for once, even if ye bore it with red-hot irons

afterwards."

"Have a care," cried Dudley, word."

"lest thou be taken at thy

"I tell ye," continued Morton, " that it is all one long, ludicrous patchwork, this your list of charges against me. I know your hatred of me; I know ye suspect me; I know ye fear me. Even in the babble of your chamber here have I learned the foul imputations against my fame. Ye suspect me of fostering and encouraging the late Indian conspiracy against the Christians. If I were guilty of such a crime, hanging and quartering were too good for me, but

"Thomas Morton," interposed the Governor, no such charges against thee have been preferred to this court; neither do I, speaking in my individual capacity, entertain any such suspicions concerning thee."

"And so then," resumed the prisoner, "I am really to be punished for cruelty to the salvages, I their sagamore, suzerain, shepherd, pow-wow! Why, the creatures love, reverence, and obey me. They frisk round me like lambs; they will bleat their hearts out with grief when they see my palace in flames,

"Enough of this," interrupted Winthrop; "the court hath declared its sentence. Nothing can alter its resolution. Its decress are binding, and they who are aggrieved by its acts have their remedy at home, but not here within our patent. All present complaint therefore is idle, and I counsel thee in the most friendly manner not to aggravate thy offence by unnecessary recalcitration and recrimination."

"Aye, I suppose I should go down upon my marrow bones," persisted Morton, "and offer humble and hearty thanks that ye have left my head upon my shoulders, or at least my ears upon my head, after the atrocious crimes of which I have been convicted and condemned without a trial. But I promise ye that the bowels of the land shall be stirred for this; the king and council shall hear of it, and may my soul perish in everlasting

"Take him away, take him away, he blasphemeth," roared

the deputy.

"Remove the criminal at once," added Winthrop, gently but decidedly.

And with this the men-at-arms led the Lord of Merry-Mount into confinement.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE GENERAL COURT.

IT was the middle of October.

An autumnal day, such as

exists only in the western hemisphere, was shining upon Shawmut, or, as it must now be designated, Boston.

The stately groves, which adorned without encumbering the picturesque peninsula, the scattered trees of colossal size which decorated its triple hills, wore the gorgeous drapery of an American fall. Unlike the forests of the older world, which, thinly clad in their beggar-weeds of brown and russet, stand shivering and sighing in the dark and misty atmosphere, the monarchs of the western soil had arrayed themselves in robes of Tyrian purple and crimson, scarlet and gold, and like reckless revellers in some plague-struck city, attired in all their carnival bravery, and beneath a vault of crystal radiance, were awaiting the destroyer's stroke. The recent pilgrims from the older world, wandered through these glowing and glittering woods with admiring eyes. The forests seemed like the subterranean groves with which the African enchanter charmed Aladdin, where rods of blossoming rubies, and boughs overladen with topaz, emerald, sapphire, and diamonds, dazzled the eye with their luxuriant and intertangled magnificence, and where every footstep fell upon countless heaps of crushed but sparkling jewelry. Or, as the eye rested upon some hill, covered from base to summit with its radiant foliage, where every prismatic color seemed flung at random in one confused and gaudy mass, a vagrant fancy might have deemed it nature's mighty palette, with all the blent and glaring colors wherewith she paints the rainbows, myriads of which seemed

struggling and wreathing themselves through the forest branches. to float into the cloudless heavens.

There is no power in language to represent, certainly not to exaggerate, the brilliancy of an American forest in autumn. The precise reason for the peculiarity which the foliage exhibits, has never been satisfactorily ascertained, but every species of tree and shrub seems to have a tint peculiar to itself. Upon that memorable morning, which may be called the birth-day of the Massachusetts metropolis, the woods which decorated the promontory, or covered the chain of hills which encircled it, were still virgin from the axe, and were robed in all their natural glory. The oak still retained his foliage undiminished, but every leaf, though green in the centre, was edged with scarlet, and spotted with purple; the sumac, bare and leafless, lifted its crimson crest; the grape vines hung around every cliff festoons of clustering coral; the red maple, first to be transfixed with the frost-arrow, stood with every leaf crimsoned in its blood; the hickory looked like a golden tree transplanted from some vegetable mine, as it displayed its long leaves of pale metallic yellow; the birch looked like a flaming torch, fit for the hand of autumn's goddess, when seeking through the world her ravished Proserpine; while mingled with and contrasting solemnly with all, the dark pines held on high their plumes of fadeless green.

Such was the scenery which surrounded the infant village of Boston. Since the date of the last chapter, nearly all the inhabitants, accompanying the governor, most of the magistrates, and the minister, Mr. Wilson, had removed to the triple-headed peninsula, leaving only seventeen male inhabitants at the opposite promontory of Charleston.

Blaxton, who claimed the whole of Shawmut, both by grant and by occupation, had however himself invited the settlers thither, having been touched by their sufferings, and, as it then seemed, the inadequacy of their first location to supply their