had been a hundred years before. By the Delaware the Quakers were gathered in such numbers as to control all legislation, and to prevent serious innovations upon the simple methods of civil and social organization introduced by Penn. On the northern bank of the Potomac, the youthful Frederick, the sixth Lord Baltimore, a frivolous and dissolute governor, ruled a people who still conformed to the order of things established a hundred and thirty years previously by Sirs George and Cecil Calvert. In Virginia, mother of States and statesmen, the people had all their old peculiarities; a somewhat haughty demeanor; pride of ancestry; fondness for aristocratic sports; hospitality; love of freedom. The North Carolinians were at this epoch the same rugged and insubordinate race of hunters that they had always been. The legislative assembly, in its controversies with Gov

ernor Dobbs, manifested all the intractable stubbornness which characterized that body in the days of Seth Sothel. In South Carolina there was much prosperity and happiness. But there, too, popular liberty had been enlarged by the constant encroachment of the legislature upon the royal prerogative. The people, mostly of French descent, were as hot-blooded and jealous of their rights as their ancestors had been in the times of the first immigrations. Of all the American colonies Georgia had at this time least strength and spirit. Under the system of government established at the first the commonwealth had languished. Not until 1754, when Governor Reynolds

assumed control of the colony, did the affairs of the people on the Savannah begin to flourish. Even afterwards, something of the indigence and want of thrift which had marked the followers of Oglethorpe still prevailed in Georgia. Nevertheless, after making allowance for all these differences of colonial character, a considerable degree of American unity had been attained; inter-colonial relations were well established; and the people were far less antagonistic and sectional than they had been.

In matters of education New England took the lead. Her system of free schools extended everywhere from the Hudson to the Penobscot. Every village furnished facilities for the acquirement of knowledge. So complete and universal were the means of instruction that in the times preceding the Revolution there was not to be found in all New England an adult, born in the country, who could not read and write. Splendid achievement of Puritanism! In the Middle Colonies education was not so general; but in Pennsylvania there was much intelligent activity among the people. Especially in Philadelphia did the illustrious Franklin scatter the light of learning. South of the Potomac educational facilities were irregular and generally designed for the benefit of the wealthier classes. But in some localities the means of enlightenment were well provided; institutions of learning sprang up scarcely inferior to those of the Eastern provinces, or even of Europe. Nor should the private schools of the colonial times be forgotten. Many men-Scottish reformers, Irish liberals, and French patriots-despising the bigotry and intolerance of their countrymen, fled for refuge to the New World, and there by the banks of the Housatonic, the Hudson, the Delaware, the Potomac, the Ashley, and the Savannah, taught the lore of books and the lesson of liberty to the rugged boys of the American wilderness. Among the Southern colonies Virginia led the van in matters of education; while Maryland, the Carolinas, and Georgia lagged behind. Previous to the Revolution nine colleges worthy of the name had been established in the colonies. These were Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, Princeton, King's (now called Columbia), Brown, Queen's (afterwards called Rutgers), Dartmouth, and Hampden and Sydney. In 1764 the first medical college was founded, at Philadelphia.

Of the printing-press, that other great agent and forerunner of civilization, the work was already effective. As early as 1704 the Boston News-Letter, first of periodicals in the New World, was published in the city of the Puritans; but fifteen years elapsed before another experiment of the same sort was made. In 1721 the New England Courant, a little sheet devoted to free thought and the ex

tinction of rascality, was established at Boston by the two Franklins -James and Benjamin. In 1740 New York had but one periodical, Virginia one, and South Carolina one; and at the close of the French and Indian War, there were no more than ten newspapers published in the colonies. The chief obstacles to such publications were the absence of great cities and the difficulty of communication between distant sections of the country. Boston and Philadelphia had each no more than eighteen thousand inhabitants; New York but twelve thousand. In all Virginia there was not one important town; while as far south as Georgia there was scarcely a considerable village. To reach this widely scattered population with periodical publications was quite impossible. Books were few, and of little value. Some dry volumes of history, theology, and politics were the only stock and store. On the latter subject the publications were sometimes full of pith and spirit. But notwithstanding this barrenness of books and general poverty of the resources of knowledge, it was no unusual thing to find at the foot of the Virginia mountains, in the quiet precincts of Philadelphia, by the banks of the Hudson, or in the valleys of New England, a man of great and solid learning. Such a man was Thomas Jefferson; such were Franklin, and Livingston, and the Adamses-men of profound scholarship, bold in thought, ready with the pen, skillful in argument; studious, witty, and eloquent.

Nothing impeded the progress of the colonies more than the want of thoroughfares and easy communication between the different sections. No general system of post-offices or post-roads had as yet been established; and the people were left in comparative or total ignorance of passing events. No common sentiments could be expressed-no common enthusiasm be kindled in the country-by the slow-going mails and packets. The sea-coast towns and cities found a readier intercourse by means of small sloops plying the Atlantic; but the inland districts were wholly cut off from such advantages. Roads were slowly built from point to point, and lines of travel by coach and wagon were gradually established. To the very beginning of the Revolution the people lived apart, isolated and dependent upon their own resources for life and enjoyment. When in 1766 an express wagon made the trip from New York to Philadelphia in two days, it was considered a marvel of rapidity. Six years later the first stage-coach began to run regularly between Boston and Providence.*

* It is remarkable to note how tardily the attention of a people will be turned to the building of roads. Thus, for instance, in so old a country as Scotland there were no great thoroughfares constructed until after the Scotch Rebellion of 1745.

Before the Revolution the Americans were for the most part an agricultural people. Within the tide-water line of Virginia the lands were divided into estates, and the planters devoted themselves almost exclusively to the cultivation of tobacco. Farther inland the products were more various: wheat, maize, potatoes; upland cotton, hemp, and flax. In the Carolinas and Georgia the rice crop was most important; after that, indigo, cotton, and some silk; tar, turpentine, and what the hunter and fisherman gathered from the woods and streams. New York, Philadelphia and Boston were then as now the great centers of trade; but commerce was carried on in a slow and awkward manner, wholly unlike the rushing activity of more recent times. Ship-building was one of the most important colonial interests. In the year 1738 no less than forty-one sailing vessels, with an average burden of a hundred and fifty tons, were built and launched at the ship-yards of Boston. New England was the seat of whatever manufacturing interest prevailed in the country. But all enterprise in this direction was checked and impeded by the British Board of Trade, whose stupid and arbitrary restrictions acted as a damper on every kind of colonial thrift. No sooner would some enterprising company of New England men begin the building of a factory than this officious Board would interfere in such a way as to make success impossible. So jealous was the English ministry of American progress! If, previous to the Revolution, any colonial manufacture was successfully established, it was done against the will of Great Britain, and in spite of her mean and churlish opposition.

Such were the American colonies-such the people whose budding nationality was now to be exposed to the blasts of war. These people, whose ancestors had been driven into exile by the exactions of European governments and the bigotry of ecclesiastical power, had become the rightful proprietors of the New World. They had fairly won it from savage man and savage nature. They had subdued it and built States within it. They owned it by all the claims of actual possession; by toil and trial; by the ordeal of suffering; by peril, privation, and hardship; by the baptism of sorrow and the shedding of blood. No wonder that patriotism was the child of such travail and discipline! No wonder that the men who from mountain and sky and river, from orchard and valley and forest, from the memories of the past, the aspirations of the present and the hopes of the future, had drank in the spirit of Liberty until their souls were pervaded with her sublime essence,-were now ready when the iron heel of oppression was set upon their cherished rights, to draw the vindictive sword even against the venerable monarchy of England!

PART IV.

REVOLUTION AND CONFEDERATION.

A. D. 1775-1789.

THE

CHAPTER XXXVII.

CAUSES.

HE war of American Independence was an event of vast moment, affecting the destinies of all nations. The question decided by the conflict was this: Whether the English colonies in America, becoming sovereign, should govern themselves or be ruled as dependencies of a European monarchy. The decision was rendered in favor of separation and independence. The result has been the grandest and most promising example of republican government in the history of the world. The struggle was long and distressing, though not characterized by great violence; the combatants were of the same race and spoke a common language. It is of the first importance to understand the causes of the war.

The most general cause of the American Revolution was THE RIGHT OF ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT, claimed by Great Britain and denied by the colonies. So long as this claim was asserted by England only as a theory, the conflict was postponed; when the English government began to enforce the principle in practice, the colonies resisted. The question began to be openly discussed about the time of the treaty of Aix-laChapelle, in 1748; and from that period until the beginning of hostilities, in 1775, each year witnessed a renewal of the agitation. But there were also many subordinate causes tending to bring on a conflict.

First of these was the influence of France, which was constantly exerted so as to incite a spirit of resistance in the colonies. The French king would never have agreed to the treaty of 1763-by which Canada was ceded to Great Britain-had it not been with the hope of securing American independence. It was the theory of France that by giving up Canada on the north the English colonies would become so strong as to renounce their allegiance to the crown. England feared such a result. More than once it was proposed in Parliament to re-cede Canada to France