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termined the nature of the law and government established, "and their self-relying and undaunted spirit," says a French writer of the time, was strongly manifest in every colony which they planted in the New World." Two of the English colonies, at this period, figure pre-eminently, comprising within themselves, in fact, the history of the colonisation of the United States. The first is that of Virginia, then a vast and undefined territory, curtailed, at various periods, of its proportions, coming at last to be regarded as a small and definite dominion, and then alienating its outlying territories until they became provinces, or States, in themselves. Virginia, however, was not the representative of European colonisation in America. The leaven of the New England immigration leavened the whole of that world, and assimilated the heterogeneous elements of which it had been composed. It has been said, with a measure of truth which can with difficulty be weighed, that "had the fanaticism of the New England Puritans never existed, it may safely be asserted that the United States would not have been called into being." But, while Virginia was established by a set of daring, enthusiastic, and even chivalrous adventurers, affected by the leading inspiration of Raleigh, Maryland, the second colony in the march of the new Dominion, was a Catholic province, and the centre of religious toleration. Lord Baltimore, far from guarding his territory against any but those of his own persuasion as he had, in fact, renounced for himself and his successors all arbitrary power, by establishing and acknowledging the legislative franchises of the people-took from them, to some extent, the hateful privileges of intolerance. Massachusetts, likewise, was in a great degree the offspring of religious enthusiasm, or freedom, and gave birth to a number of free communities. singular contrast with both of these were the ecclesiastical constitutions of the two Carolinas, of which, in their integrity, scarcely a vestige now remains. Such a state of things, however, existed when the six hundred Congregational Churches of New England were preparing, at the period now spoken of, to champion their rights of worship. Yet it does not appear that these had been openly, formally, or officiously assailed.

In

There

were those amongst the statesmen of the mother country who, in spite of all bickerings, relented in their rigour when they saw the dauntless old spirit asserting itself, on the other side of the Atlantic, with equal pride and courage as in the days that preceded the Commonwealth. They could not, in conscience, refuse liberty of thought and worship to the Congregational Churches of

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New England; they could not, in harmony with the feelings really nourished in their hearts, repudiate the young and wild communion of the forests, in the benefits of which the red men, in fact, were partakers, although the invasion and even extirpation of their independence had commenced a hundred years before.

We are now very nearly approaching, be it remembered, the great American War of Independence, when a gradual and steady advance of population and civilisation, in the oldest colonies -those of New England and Virginia-was taking place, and when a novel and singular state of society was being created. The number of people multiplied, often, in a ratio disproportionate to the extent of the occupied and settled land. This may be partially owing to the communal habits, if they may be so termed, which still lingered in the mother country, and travelled with its children whithersoever they drifted; for in that time the traditional village life had not been altogether superseded in England, and took root generously in the favourable soil of the Continent of Columbus. Probably, however, these characteristics may have been caused more by the prevalent dread of the Indians, who hovered in the young colonies, and effectually checked the tendency to emigration by cutting off stragglers from the main body; also, again, by the unsettled ownership of land, as disputed between divers European powers. powers. It is curious to observe how, with regions of boundless fertility and extent within their reach, the early Puritans-leaving a lesson which their descendants of a hundred years later disregarded— toiled and multiplied, for some generations, within the narrow boundaries, and on the ungrateful soil, of the older New England States. There was nothing, among them, of that propensity, attributed to the disciples of Wakefield, of abandoning old ground for new. But the curses and the blessings of prosperity, and of a precocious age, were already upon them. Nature, in their deserts, had lost her youthful aspect. The wild animals were beginning to depart, and the class of huntsmen and trappers to disappear. Timber, even in those woody settlements, had become expensive, and coal-mines were talked of. "Even the abundant waters of the wilderness," cried, rather than said, a scion of that fresh civilisation, "are diminishing: the streams flow more scantily and more sluggishly, from the destruction of the covers which once sheltered and preserved the springs." Yet, to an observer familiarised with the aristocratic institutions and monumental wealth of Europe, the New England States, so far back as 1764, looked less like old

societies than like young ones which had "lived fast," and exhibited every external sign of decay, without, however, the relics of an old family or an old estate.

These observations, it should be interposed, have a somewhat retrospective application, though they are essential to a full appreciation of the picture, as we would draw it, before the panorama widened towards the issues of the grand colonial and Imperial war; widened and darkened, indeed, because there was a black chapter to be opened yet before the fact of American Independence blew bright and free, like a flag, in the face and in the sight of the world. It is a social and a political picture, indeed, rather than a historical one, which has now to be painted. The professors of Puritan principles in New England had always been the staunchest champions of provincial liberty; and, possibly, their favourite policy of blending religious with political ordinances was was rather prudentially advocated than sincerely espoused by the strong and rising party which regarded every object as of secondary importance in comparison with the exaltation of popular power, and the promotion of American Independence. This was the phrase current generally in 1764. A restless and A restless and expanding public spirit had been created. No fewer than five printing presses-and it was a marvel for that time—were in constant employment at Boston. Within the limits of the original Plymouth territory, however, there still remained upwards of nine hundred Indians. In the island of Nantucket, about three hundred and fifty of this race were yet to be found. In Duke's County, belonging to the same province, there remained three hundred; while at Natick only thirty-seven of the aboriginals survived. Still, nearly a thousand continued to occupy, or infest, Connecticut. Nothing is more striking, in the annals of the struggle between the Old and New World, than the juxtaposition of the official declaration that "nearly one thousand Indians continue to occupy lands within the territory of Connecticut," with the statement that, within the same period, "more than a hundred bears were killed in one district of the county of Hampshire, in Massachusetts."

In this epoch, the inexhaustible colony of Maryland, as a prolific parent of wealth, opulence, power, and fame to come, stood conspicuously in the front. The proprietary authority still subsisted in the family of Lord Baltimore; and though it was not, as contemporary histories admit, exercised with that sordid and illiberal policy which challenged so much hostility against a kindred institution in Pennsylvania, it seems to have

been, in a sense, isolated and suspected. An early law of Maryland prohibited the importation of felons from the parent State. But the law, no doubt, had fallen into desuetude; for, in the chronicles of English judicial transactions, Maryland is more frequently particularised than any of the other colonies as the one to which felons were conveyed. In 1768 the proprietor himself was in danger of being included in the annual cargo of convicts from England, and compelled to reside as an exiled felon in the very country wherein he possessed the privileges of a feudal sovereign. Omitting some details unnecessary to be dwelt upon, this part of our North American story is worth remembering. Frederick Calvert, Lord Baltimore, descended from the original proprietor of Maryland, had some pretensions to scholarship; was a wit, as that term ran through the coffee-house society of those times; blasphemed in a tone which, whatever the satirists may pretend, was never fashionable in England ; escaped hanging through a technicality; and was a ruffian in the deepest sense of that term. "It is impossible to doubt," writes Grahame, "that the character and conduct of this nobleman, whom the people of Maryland were compelled to recognise as their proprietary sovereign, produced on their minds an impression very remote from respect for the institutions and supremacy of the parent State." The title, however, which, if Lord Baltimore did not disgrace it, he certainly did not exalt, became extinct at his death, at Naples, in 1771. He be queathed his rights over the province of Maryland to his natural son, Henry Harford, who was then a child at school, and whom the subsequent rupture between Great Britain and America prevented from ever deriving any advantage from the bequest.

North Carolina, in 1763, is said to have contained nearly a hundred thousand white inhabitants They were not, however, at this period so pros perous as to render them as contented as they for merly were, and this, no doubt, in consequence of the injustice and rapacity under which they had long suffered. Nevertheless, their share in the calamities resulting from the Indian wars was, comparatively speaking, a small one. With much that was fortunate and respectable, North Carolina contained a more numerous body of indigent and dissatisfied freemen than existed in any of the other British settlements, or perhaps in all. Education was universally neglected; the laws commanded little or no respect; the executive officers were almost destitute of authority; and neither in courts of criminal law, nor in courts of equity, could justice be obtained.

In South Carolina, a different perspective was opened. That province, which had continued to advance in growth, notwithstanding the burdens of the war, reaped an ample and immediate share of the advantages resulting from the Peace of Paris. Consequently, upon an act of its Assembly, which appropriated a large fund for the payment of bounties to industrious labourers from Great Britain and Ireland, and to all foreign Protestants resorting to the province within three years, and forming settlements in the interior, vast numbers of emigrants, from Germany, England, Scotland, and especially Ireland, eagerly embraced the prospect, and became citizens of the New World, in South Carolina. In 1765, the province contained 150,000 inhabitants, of whom, according to a corrected calculation, 85,000 were slaves. Most of the free inhabitants were in easy circumstances, and not a few possessed great accumulations of wealth. The three most creditable historians, or chroniclers, as they may be better styled-Holmes, Williamson, and Hewitt-concur in this, that there were in South Carolina, in the year 1764, more persons possessed of between five and ten thousand pounds sterling than anywhere else among the same number of people. In point of rank, all men regarded their neighbours as their equals, and a spirit of benevolence pervaded society. The planters, as in some tropical Arcadia, were distinguished by their hospitable dispositions, their sociable manners, and the ample cheer of their tables. Almost every family (as Grahame records) kept a one-horse chaise; and some maintained the most splendid equipages that even England could furnish. All the new literary publications in London were regularly transmitted to this province. Hunting and horse-racing were the favourite amusements of the men; and assemblies, concerts, balls, and dramatic representations, ran in a perpetual succession.

In the meanwhile, what was the public economy, or, in other words, the public existence, of the period we have been considering? We have a very fair illustration of it in the States of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. From 1756, when the State of New York contained about 100,000 white inhabitants, until 1771, no Census was taken within its borders; but, at the latter date, the population is recorded as having increased itself by one half.

No data exist, however, by means of which the positive facts can be ascertained. Nevertheless, it is well-established that the advance of population in this province was repressed by the monopoly which a few opulent planters had obtained of enormous tracts of land, which reduced many

emigrants to the necessity of becoming tenants instead of proprietors, and prompted many more to abandon their original purpose of settling in New York, and to extend their emigration to provinces where land could be obtained on more reciprocal terms. No authentic statement is upon record concerning the population, about 1774, of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, or Georgia, nor, in fact, for any time previous to the outbreak of the great American revolution. But all these States or colonies, as they may now be indifferently called, had proportionately enlarge! their growth; the Treaty of Paris had promised them security; they were safe from marauders along the frontiers, and from privateers upon the high seas. Throughout the State of Pennsylvania, affairs flourished beyond the most brilliant hope. In the year 1760, the Quakers formed about a fifth part of the population of Pennsylvania. The inhabitants of the town of New York are described as, at this period, almost wholly engaged in commercial pursuits, varied by lavish expenditure and festivity. An injurious influence was perhaps

exercised on the manners and habits of New York

then in a sort of old infancy, if the phrase may be allowed-by the number and variety of the adventurers (employing that term in its true, or Arabian, sense) who flocked to New York in the hope of making fortunes, just as those did who sought, in the days of Warren Hastings, to strip the peach-fruit from the Pagoda-tree.

With reference to the settlement of Georgia, the details, as related on both sides of the ocean, are singularly interesting. The young provincial community, destitute of commercial credit, and uncommonly exposed to hostile molestation, had hitherto evinced only a feeble and languid capacity of progress; but after the commencement of the conflict, and still more after its conclusion, its rise became singularly rapid. Among other emigrants who formed a valuable accession to the population of Georgia, about this time, were a number of Quakers, who, under the conduct of Joseph Mattock, a member of that religious community, founded a settlement some thirty miles from the young township of Augusta, to which, in honour of the Governor who so actively promoted its establishment, they gave the name of Wrightsborough. Mattock, says Grahame, "was acknowledged the chief magistrate of this settlement, and continued to preside over it, with patriarchal grace, till a very advanced age." Burnaby, who was accustomed to the grandeur and comfort of England, remarked that all the elegant. and even the luxurious, points of wealth were

displayed in the American provinces. In the houses of some of the inhabitants of New Jersey he found specimens of art-works copied from the canvasses of the greatest masters, in every age, of Europe. In a journey of twelve hundred miles, through America, this traveller did not meet a single individual who solicited alms from him. The peasantry in general regarded the British troops with an aversion justified by their original conduct, and unaltered by their subsequent successes against the common enemy; and many paid dearly, for the attentions which they lavished on the British officers, in the corruption of their own manners, and the exaggerated representations of their wealth and luxury which were transmitted to England. American hospitality, stimulated to the highest pitch by the presence, the rank, and the services of so many British visitors, overflowed in ostentatiousness; and thus did the New World learn a lesson in manners from the Old.*

It is a remark of Burnaby, that "America was destined to be the mistress of the world." Another, by Farmer, author of "A View of the Policy of Great Britain," is to the effect that "nothing but common and imminent danger, or violent oppression, could make the colonies unite." And yet before the conclusion of the long war, the mighty pleader, Pratt, afterwards so justly

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celebrated as Lord Camden, said to Dr. Franklin:"For all that you Americans say of your loyalty, I know you will one day throw off your dependence upon this country, and, notwithstanding your boasted affection for it, will set up for independence." Franklin replied, "No such idea is entertained in the minds of the Americans, and no such idea will ever enter their heads unless you grossly abuse them." "Very true," replied Pratt; "that is one of the main causes which I see will happen, and which will produce the event." It must have been apparent, however, to all who have followed the course of this History that a desire for independence-a movement, more or less conscious, in that direction-a hope, a vision, an aspirationto some extent even a resolve to separate from the mother country on the first favourable opportunity -had long distinguished the statesmen and popular leaders of New England, and especially of Massachusetts. A suspicion of the same tendency attaches likewise to Virginia; and in the younger settlements, where men led free and almost savage lives in the face of rugged Nature and ferocious foes, a disposition to throw off external rule was frequently made manifest. Everything led up to separation; all the forces, longings, jealousies, and ambitions of the age, pointed with bloody fingers to the unnatural struggle that now came raging on.

WITH the advancing summer of 1774 the American colonies were seen to be in a position of defiance towards the parent State which nearly amounted to a rupture. The resolution of Massachusetts to call a General Congress had been well supported by the other provinces, though not, in some quarters, without a degree of dissent which indicated the existence of opposing parties; and it was obvious to the most indifferent observers that union would not be

* Grahame, Book X., Appendix 3.

wanting in the struggle of the colonies with the great Empire from which they had proceeded. The feeling of antagonism was extended beyond questions of taxation, and of political and judicial powers. In a provincial convention which she held during the summer, Virginia took in hand the great evil of slavery, and in a way which did her honour. Jefferson, unable by ill-health to attend this convention, sent a paper of criticisms and suggestions, to be read to the delegates, wherein he enumerated the several grievances from which the colonies