Excerpt from Tercentenary of the Landing of the Popham Colony at the Mouth of the Kennebec River: August 29, 1907 At once the company, With others who had already reached the place, proceeded to the meeting-house not far away, on the road from Fort Popham to the site of Fort St. George. Here the literary exercises of the day were held. The audience filled the house. The Hon. James P. Baxter, President of the Maine Historical Society, presided and delivered the opening address. We have assembled on these pleasant shores to celebrate an event of interest to us, not because of its importance to mankind, nor of its material or moral influence upon the welfare of those within the narrower bounds of our own State, nor Of the virtue or heroism of the actors in it, for even the leading spirit in the enterprise, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, places them in a light none too favorable, but because it was the pioneer effort made in good faith by its projectors to colonize our New England Shores, an effort which might have been successful had men of different character been employed to sustain it. So much of a derogatory nature has been said of these men that it seems proper that, keep ing in view the fact that only success earns the diploma of merit, we should try to get as correct a view of them as possible. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.