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It should be noted that the Puritan colonization of New England took place
in a comparatively brief space of time, during the twenty years from 1620
to 1640. Until 1640 persecution drove the Puritans to New England in
multitudes, but in that year they suddenly stopped coming. "During the one
hundred and twenty-five years following that date, more persons, it is
supposed, went back from the New to the Old England than came from the Old
England to the New," says Professor Tyler. The year 1640 marks the
assembling of the Long Parliament, which finally brought to the block both
Archbishop Laud (1645) and King Charles I. (1649), and chose the great
Puritan, Oliver Cromwell, to lead the Commonwealth.
ELIZABETHAN TRAITS.--The leading men in the colonization of Virginia and
New England were born in the reign of Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603), and they
and their descendants showed on this side of the Atlantic those
characteristics which made the Elizabethan age preeminent.
In the first place, the Elizabethans possessed initiative. This power
consists, first, in having ideas, and secondly, in passing from the ideas
to the suggested action. Some people merely dream.
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