The Knight of the Golden Melice

The Knight of the Golden Melice

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John Turvill Adams
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Title: The Knight of the Golden Melice A Historical Romance
Author: John Turvill Adams

Release Date: June 23, 2005 [eBook #16114]
Language: English
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THE KNIGHT OF THE GOLDEN MELICE

A Historical Romance
by
JOHN TURVILL ADAMS
The Author of "The Lost Hunter."
New-York: Derby & Jackson, 119 Nassau-Street. Cincinnati: W.H.
Derby & Co.
1857

"One ... calling himself ... Knight of the Golden Melice."
_Winthrop's History of New England._

Alles weiderholt sich nur im Leben; Ewig jung ist nur die Fantasie:
Was sich nie und nirgends hat begeben, Das allein veraltet nie!
Shiller.

TO H.L.A.
To whom but to yourself; my H., should I dedicate this Romance,
which may be said to be the fruit of our mutual studies? With what
delight I have watched the unfolding, like a beautiful flower, of your
youthful mind, while instead of indulging in frivolous pursuits, so
common to your age, you have applied yourself to the acquiring of
useful knowledge as well as of elegant accomplishments, none but a
parent can know. Accept what I have written, my darling, as a tribute to
a love which makes the happiness of my life.
J.T.A.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
He cast, (of which we rather boast,) The Gospel's pearl upon our coast,
And in these rocks for us did frame A temple where to sound His name.
O let our voice His praise exalt Till it arrive at Heaven's vault, Which
there perhaps rebounding may Echo beyond the Mexic bay. Thus sang
they, in the English boat, A holy and a cheerful note, And all the way to
guide their chime, With falling oars they kept the time.
_Andrew Marvell's "Emigrants in the Bermudas."_
The beginning of the 17th century is an interesting epoch in American

annals. Although the Atlantic coast of that vast country now comprised
within the limits of the United States and Canada had previously been
traced by navigators, and some little knowledge acquired of the tribes
of red men who roamed its interminable forests, no attempt at
colonization worthy of the name had succeeded. The principal, if not
the only advantage derived from the discovery of North America, came
from the fisheries of Newfoundland and Labrador, frequented mostly
by the adventurous mariners of England, France and Spain. In these
cold seas, to the music of storms howling from the North Pole, and
dashing with ceaseless rage the salt spray against the rocky shore, they
threw their lines and cast their nets, at the same time enriching
themselves, and forming for their respective countries a race of hardy
and skilful sailors. The land attracted them not. The inducements which
led to the more speedy conquest and settlement of South America by
the Spaniards, were wanting. Gold and silver to tempt cupidity were
not to be found, and the stern, though not inhospitable character of the
Northern tribes was very different from the imbecile effeminacy of the
Southern races. The opposition likely to be encountered was more
formidable, and the prize to be won hardly proportioned to the hazard
to be incurred. While, therefore, the atrocious Spaniards were enslaving
the helpless natives of Peru and Mexico, and compelling them by
horrid cruelties to deliver up their treasures, the wild woods of all that
region to the north of the Gulf bearing the name of the latter country,
continued to ring to the free shout of the tawny hunter. Not that
attempts had not been made to obtain footing on the continent, but they
had all failed by reason of the character of the emigrants, or the want of
support from home, or of a thousand other causes reducible to the
category of ill luck, bad management, or providential determination.
But the 17th century introduced a new order of things, beginning with
the arrival of the first permanent colony on the coast of Virginia in the
year 1607, indissolubly associated with the name of the chivalrous
Captain John Smith; followed in 1614 by the occupancy of the mouth
of