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PART I. some time wanted, and the want of which, in such a country, had otherwise been felt very severely. The people, by their being generally freeholders, and by their form of government, acquired a very free, bold, and republican spirit.

"The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in the space of about seventy years, from a beginning of a few hundreds of refugees and indigent men, has grown to be a numerous and flourishing people, a people, who from a perfect wilderness, have brought their territory to a state of great cultivation, and filled it with wealthy and populous towns; and who, in the midst of a fierce and lawless race of men, have preserved themselves with unarmed hands and passive principles, by the rules of moderation and justice, better than any other people has done by policy and arms."--Vol. ii. p. 196.

The "Political Annals of the United Colonies, by George Chalmers," are remarkable for authentic and ample details, and were published in the course of our revolutionary war, under the auspices of the British government. The author displays throughout, the design of discrediting the American cause, particularly the pretensions of New England. He is a witness whom I shall often produce, and whose evidence, when given in favour of the colonies, is entitled to especial weight, not only on account of his political aims. and prejudices, but from the strength of his understanding, the nature of the records to which he had access, and the diligence of his researches. Of the settlement of New England he speaks thus:-

"When New Plymouth consisted only of two hundred persons, of all ages and sexes, it repulsed its enemies, and secured its borders with a gallantry worthy of its parent country, because it stood alone in the desert, without the hope of aid."-p. 494.

Though religious matters engaged much of the attention of the first planters in Massachusetts, they seem to have been extremely industrious in temporal affairs. All their laws had a natural tendency to exclude luxury, and to promote diligence. When the civil wars commenced, they had already planted fifty towns and villages; they had erected upwards of thirty churches, and ministers' houses; and they had improved their plantations to a high degree of cultivation."

"At the same time that these colonists (the people of New England) very prudently preferred the blessings of peace, they were not afraid of the disasters of war. They easily repelled an unprovoked attack of the neighbouring Indians, with a becoming bravery. They soon after made a peace with that people, which does equal honour to their justice and good sense and they long enjoyed all the blessings of a government conducted at once with prudence and vigour."—p. 89.

'Notwithstanding the long train of public disputes with the mother country, New England flourished prodigiously. She promoted successfully the operations of agriculture, she augmented her manufactures, and extended her commerce, and she acquired wealth and population in proportion to the greatness of all these; because the rough hand of oppression had not touched the labours of the inhabitants, or interrupted the freedom of their pursuits.”—p. 416.

2. The composition of the first settlements, particularly that of Virginia, was early, and continues to be, the theme of

much raillery, and serious accusation. The coarse jest, SECT. II. which I have before noticed, has been received and treated in England as an historical fact.* Yet, nothing is better established, than that the Puritans by whom New England was originally inhabited, and successively replenished, were, not only such, in their moral character and domestic habits, as they are described in the quotations I have made, but, for the most part, men of substance, and of a respectable rank in life. In the year 1630, ten ships were sent to Massachusetts from England, with several hundred passengers, many of whom, says Macpherson, in the second volume of his Annals of Commerce, were "persons of considerable fashion." The leader of the congregation of dissidents, who founded the new commonwealth at Plymouth, in 1620, is described, even by the enemies of his sect, "as a person of excellent parts, and of a most learned, polished, and modest spirit."-And it is impossible to read the terse and touching language used by those virtuous exiles, in applying to their intolerant countrymen for a patent, without acknowledging, that they must have been of a superior cast of mind in all respects."They were well weaned from the delicate milk of their

country, and inured to the difficulties of a strange land: "They were knit together in a strict and sacred bond, by vir"tue of which they held themselves bound to take care of the "good of each other, and of the whole: It was not with them "as with other men, whom small things could discourage, or "small discontents cause to wish themselves at home again," &c. &c.

It is accurately stated by Ramsay, that the first settlers of New England in general, had been educated at the English Universities, and were imbued with all the learning of the times; that not a few of the early emigrant ministers possessed considerable erudition; and that numbers of clergymen of this description, came over nearly together, in consequence of the parliamentary act of uniformity, passed in 1662, when upwards of two thousand Puritan ministers were, in one day, ejected

*

"The Americans are the modern Jews, possessing all the qualities of the ancient, under different masks. They pervade every country on the face of the earth, and with the phrases of liberty, morality, and religion, they deceive the most wary, and the most hypocritical. Mr. Fox has had ample experience of the tribes of Israel; let him beware of the refined and complicated cunning of that race, whose Adam and Eve emigrated from Newgate."-Critical Review, third series, vol. iii. 1806.

"The Americans are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for any thing we allow them, short of hanging."-Dr. Johnson-ap. Boswell, vol. ii.

+Colonial Civil History, p. 235.

PART I. from their livings in England.* The Massachusetts plantation may be considered as the parent of all the other settlements in New England. There was no emigration from the mother country to any part of the continent northward of Maryland, except to Massachusetts, for more than fifty years from the birth of this colony.†

Among the one hundred and five adventurers who sailed from England with Captain Newport, in 1607, and founded Jamestown, in Virginia, several officers of high family connexions, and of much personal distinction, are designated by the historians. The first accession of females, to the Virginia settlement, may be cited by the Virginian of the present day, without a blush for his lineage." In order," "In says Chalmers, "to settle the minds of the colonists, and to induce them to make Virginia their place of residence and continuance, it was proposed to send thither one hundred maids, as wives for them: ninety girls, young and uncorrupt,' were transported in the beginning of the year 1620; and sixty more, 'handsome and recommended for virtuous demeanour,' in the subsequent year." Robertson is still more particular in noticing the respectability of these females. The descent from mothers of this character, is at least as reputable as from the "maids of honour" of the court of Charles II.-and the fathers who reclaimed the wilderness and built up a free state, transmitted a blood which might be deemed as pure and noble, as any that runs in the veins of the progeny of the debauched and venal parasites of that monarch. We are told by Robertson, that, in the time of the Commonwealth, many adherents to the royal party, and among these, some gentlemen of good

* Hume notices this transaction, in his History, in the following terms: "However odious Vane and Lambert were to the Presbyterians, that party had no leisure to rejoice at their condemnation. The fatal St. Bartholomew approached, the day, when the clergy were obliged by the late law, either to relinquish their livings, or to sign the articles required of them, declaring their assent to every thing contained in the Book of Common Prayer, &c. A combination had been entered into by the more zealous of the Presbyterian ecclesiastics, to refuse the subscription; in hopes that the bishops would not dare at once to expel so great a number of the most popular preachers. The king, himself, by his irresolute conduct, contributed, either from design or accident, to increase this opinion. Above all, the terms of subscription had been made very strict and rigid, on purpose to disgust all the zealous and scrupulous among the Presbyterians, and deprive them of their livings. About two thousand of the clergy in one day relinquished their cures ; and, to the great astonishment of the court, sacrificed their interest to their religious tenets."—Chapter 63.

Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts-Preface. + Page 46.

History of America, vol. iv.

families, in order to avoid danger and oppression, to which they SECT. II. were exposed in England, or in hopes of repairing their ruined fortunes, resorted to Virginia. Lord Clarendon bears testimony to this fact in his History of the Rebellion. "Out of confidence in Sir William Berkeley, the governor of Virginia, who had industriously invited many gentlemen and others thither, as to a place of security, which he could defend against any attempt, and where they might live plentifully, many persons of condition, and good officers in the war, had transported themselves with all the estate they had been able to preserve."* Chalmers may be quoted to a similar purport, and to the general character of the early Virginians. "The "instructions of Charles I. gave large tracts of land to indi"viduals, men of consideration and wealth, who roused by "religion, or ambition, or caprice, removed to Virginia, and "the population of that colony had increased to about twenty "thousand souls at the commencement of the civil wars.". p. 125.

"The Virginians being animated by timely supplies from "England, displayed a vigor in design and action, which men, "when left to themselves amid dangers, never fail to exert. "They rejected the timid counsels of those, who advised them

to abandon their settlements, and retire to the eastern shore "of the Chesapeake. They not only resisted the attacks of "their implacable enemies, but, with the accustomed bravery "of Englishmen, pursued them into their fastnesses. And

now, for the first time, the aborigines receded from the rivers, and from the plantations around; leaving their op"C ponents in possession of the territories that their swords had "won."―p. 63.

If we turn to Maryland, we may appeal to the same author with equal confidence.

"The first emigration to Maryland, consisting of about two hundred gentlemen of considerable fortune and rank, with their adherents, who were composed chiefly of Roman Catholics, sailed from England in November, 1632."

"The Roman Catholics, unhappy in their native land, and desirous of a peaceful asylum in Maryland, emigrated in considerable numbers. Lord Baltimore laid the foundation of his province upon the broad basis of security to property, and of freedom in religion; granting in absolute fee fifty acres of land to every emigrant; establishing Christianity agreeably to the old common law, of which it is a part, without allowing pre-eminence to any particular sect."-p. 208.

"In order chiefly to procure the assent of the freemen of Maryland to a body of laws which the proprietary had transmitted, Calvert, the

*Vol. iii. p. 706.

PART I. governor, called a new assembly in 1637-8. But, rejecting these with a becoming spirit, they prepared a collection of regulations, which demonstrate equally their good sense and the state of their affairs."p. 211.

6

"The assembly of Maryland endeavoured, with a laudable anxiety, to preserve the peace of the church; and, though composed chiefly of Roman Catholics, it adopted that measure, which could alone prove absolutely successful. The act which it passed, concerning religion,' recited, that the enforcement of the conscience had been of dangerous consequence in those countries wherein it had been practised.' And it enacted, that no persons believing in Jesus Christ shall be molested in respect of their religion, or in the free exercise thereof, or be compelled to the belief or exercise of any other religion, against their consent; so that they be not unfaithful to the proprietary, or conspire not against the civil government: that persons molesting any other in respect of his religious tenets, shall pay treble damages to the party aggrieved, and twenty shillings to the proprietary: That those reproaching any with opprobrious names of religious distinction, shall forfeit ten shillings to the persons injured.”—p. 218.

Maryland derived a part of her population from the other provinces. The Puritans persecuted by the established church in Virginia, the Quakers oppressed by the synod of Massachusetts, and the Dutch expelled from Delaware, sought and found a generous protection, and entire freedom of religious worship, in the Roman Catholic colony. New York was first settled by the Dutch, at the time when they had just shaken off the yoke of Spain; when they displayed national energies and virtues of the highest order, and pursued a more liberal and enlightened policy, with respect to civil liberty, religion, and trade, than any other people of Europe. The emigrants from Holland to North America, brought with them, the characteristic industry and sobriety, the tolerant spirit and sound economics, of the commercial republic. The original population of New Jersey was composed of Swedes and Hollanders, and of emigrants from the northern colonies: That of Pennsylvania needs not be celebrated by a reference to the parent state. The commonwealth, which the wise and humane associates of Penn, the laborious, frugal, and orderly Germans, and the intelligent, active, and generous Irish, formed, and brought to beauty and solidity, in so short a time, is a monument, eloquent enough in itself; a creation, upon which no European writer has looked steadily, without bursting into expressions of admiration. Even the austere loyalty of Chalmers, is relaxed by it, and the following emphatic testimony extorted from his convictions.

"As a supplement to the frame of government for Pennsylvania, there was published a body of laws agreed upon in England by the Adventurers,' which was intended as a great charter. And it does great honour to their wisdom as statesmen, to their morals as men, to their spirit as colonists. A plantation reared on such a seed-plot,