themselves of all that deference which man, by his nature, has for the opinions of those who are constituted in eminent stations; and whose dignities, wealth and magnificence, seem to command respect. The intellects of the Americans being therefore perfectly free upon this topic, they exercised the same liberty of thought upon other subjects unconnected with religion, and especially upon the affairs of government, which had been the habitual theme of their conversation, during their residence in the mother country. The colonies, moro than any other country, abounded in lawyers, who, accustomed to the most subtle and the most captious arguments, are commonly, in a country governed by an absolute prince, the most zealous advocates of his power, and in a free country the most ardent defenders of liberty. Thus had arisen, among the Americans, an almost universal familiarity with those sophistical discussions which appertain to the professions of theology and of law, the effect of which is often to generate obstinacy and presumption in the human mind; accordingly, however long their disquisitions upon political and civil liberty, they never seemed to think they had sifted these matters sufficiently. The study of polite literature and the liberal arts having already made a remarkable progress in America, these discussions were adorned with the graces of a florid clocution; the charms of eloquence fascinated and flattered on the one hand the defenders of bold opinions, as, on the other, they imparted to their discourses greater attraction, and imprinted them more indelibly on the minds of their auditors.

The republican maxims became a common doctrine; and the memory of the Puritans, and of those who in the sanguinary contentions of England had supported the party of the people, and perished for its cause, was immortalized. These were their apostles, these their martyrs: their names, their virtues, their achievements, their unhappy, but to the eyes of the colonists so honorable, death, formed the continual subject of the conversations of children with the authors of their days.

If, before the revolution, the portrait of the king was usually seen in every house, it was not rare to observe near it the images of those who, in the time of Charles I. sacrificed their lives in defense of what they termed English liberties. It is impossible to express with what exultation they had received the news of the victories of the republicans in England; with what grief they heard of the restoration of the monarchy, in the person of Charles II. Thus their inclinations and principles were equally contrary to the government, and to the church, which prevailed in Great Britain. Though naturally reserved and circumspect, yet expressions frequently escaped them. which manifested a violent hatred for the political and religious

establishments of the mother country. Whoever courted popular favor, gratified both himself and his hearers, by inveighing against them; the public hatred, on the contrary, was the portion of the feeble party of the hierarchists, and such as favored England. Al things, particularly in New England, conspired to cherish the germs of these propensities and opinions. The colonists had few books; but the greater part of those, which were in the hands of all, only treated of political affairs, or transmitted the history of the persecutions sustained by the Puritans, their ancestors. They found in these narratives, that, tormented in their ancient country on account of their political and religious opinions, their ancestors had taken the intrepid resolution of abandoning it, of traversing an immense ocean, of flying to the most distant, the most inhospitable regions, in order to preserve the liberty of professing openly these cherished principles; and that, to accomplish so generous a design, they had sacrificed all the accommodations and delights of the happy country where they had received birth and education. And what toils, what fatigues, what perils, had they not encountered, upon these unknown and savage shores? All had opposed them; their bodies had not been accustomed to the extremes of cold in winter, and of heat in summer, both intolerable in the climate of America; the land chiefly covered with forests, and little of it habitable, the soil reluctant, the air pestilential; an untimely death had carried off most of the first founders of the colony: those who had resisted the climate, and survived the famine, to secure their infant establishment, had been forced to combat the natives, a ferocious race, and become still more ferocious at seeing a foreign people, even whose existence they had never heard of, come to appropriate the country of which they had so long been the sole occupants and masters. The colonists, by their fortitude and courage, had gradually surmounted all these obstacles; which result, if on the one hand it secured them greater tranquillity, and improved their condition, on the other it gave them a better opinion of themselves, and inspired them with an elevation of sentiments, not often paralleled.

As the prosperous or adverse events which men have shared together, and the recollections which attend them, have a singular tendency to unite their minds, their affections and their sympathies ; the Americans were united not only by the ties which reciprocally attach individuals of the same nation, from the identity of language, of laws, of climate, and of customs, but also by those which result from a common participation in all the vicissitudes to which a people is liable. They offered to the world an image of those congregations of men, subject not only to the general laws of the society of which

they are members, but also to particular statutes and regulations, to which they have voluntarily subscribed, and which usually produce, besides an uniformity of opinions, a common zeal and enthusiasm.

It should not be omitted, that even the composition of society in the English colonies, rendered the inhabitants averse to every species of superiority, and inclined them to liberty. Here was but one class of men; the mediocrity of their condition tempted not the rich and the powerful of Europe, to visit their shores; opulence, and hereditary honors, were unknown among them; whence no vestige remained of feudal servitude. From these causes resulted a general opinion that all men are by nature equal; and the inhabitants of America would have found it difficult to persuade themselves that they owed their lands and their civil rights to the munificence of princes. Few among them had heard mention of Magna Charta; and those who were not ignorant of the history of that important period of the English revolution, in which this compact was confirmed, considered it rather a solemn recognition, by the king of England, of the rights of the people, than any concession. As they referred to heaven the protection which had conducted them through so many perils, to a land, where at length they had found that repose which in their ancient country they had sought in vain; and as they owed to its beneficence the harvests of their exuberant fields. the only and the genuine source of their riches; so not from the concessions of the king of Great Britain, but from the bounty and infinite clemency of the King of the universe, did they derive every right; these opinions, in the minds of a religious and thoughtful people, were likely to have deep and tenacious roots.

From the vast extent of the province occupied, and the abundance of vacant lands, every colonist was, or easily might have become, at the same time, a proprietor, farmer, and laborer.

Finding all his enjoyments in rural life, he saw spring up, grow, prosper, and arrive at maturity, under his own eyes, and often by the labor of his own hands, all things necessary to the life of man; he felt himself free from all subjection, from all dependence; and individual liberty is a powerful incentive to civil independence. Each might hunt, fowl and fish, at his pleasure, without fear of possible injury to others; poachers were consequently unknown in America. Their parks and reservoirs were boundless forests, vast. and numerous lakes, immense rivers, and a sea unrestricted, inexhaustible in fish of every species. As they lived dispersed in the country, mutual affection was increased between the members of the same family; and finding happiness in the domestic circle, they had no temptation to seek diversion in the resorts of idleness, where men

too often contract the vices which terminate in dependence and habits of servility.

The greater part of the colonists, being proprietors and cultivators of land, lived continually upon their farms; merchants, artificers, and mechanics, composed scarcely a fifth part of the total population. Cultivators of the earth depend only on Providence and their own industry, while the artisan, on the contrary, to render himself agree able to the consumers, is obliged to pay a certain deference to their caprices. It resulted, from the great superiority of the first class, that the colonies abounded in men of independent minds, who, knowing no insurmountable obstacles but those presented by the very nature of things, could not fail to resent with animation, and oppose with indignant energy, every curb which human authority might attempt to imposa

The inhabitants of the colonies were exempt, and almost out of danger, from ministerial seductions, the seat of government being at. such a distance, that far from having proved, they had never even heard of, its secret baits.

It was not therefore customary among them to corrupt and be corrupted; the offices were few, and so little lucrative, that they were far from supplying the means of corruption to those who were invested with them.

The love of the sovereign, and their ancient country, which the first colonists might have retained in their new establishment, gradually diminished in the hearts of their descendants, as successive generations removed them further from their original stock; and when the revolution commenced, of which we purpose to write the history, the inhabitants of the English colonies were, in general, but the third, fourth, and even the fifth generation from the original colonists, who had left England to establish themselves in the new regions of America. At such a distance, the affections of consanguinity became feeble, or extinct; and the remembrance of their ancestors lived more in their memories, than in their hearts.

Commerce, which has power to unite and conciliate a sort of friendship between the inhabitants of the most distant countries, was not, in the early periods of the colonies, so active as to produce these effects between the inhabitants of England and America. The greater part of the colonists had heard nothing of Great Britain, excepting that it was a distant kingdom, from which their ancestors had been barbarously expelled, or hunted away, as they had been forced to take refuge in the deserts and forests of wild America, inhabited only by savage men, and prowling beasts, or venomous and norrible serpents.

The distance of government diminishes its force; either because, in the absence of the splendor and magnificence of the throne, men yield obedience only to its power, unsupported by the influence of illusion and respect; or, because the agents of authority in distant countries, exercising a larger discretion in the execution of the laws, inspire the people governed with greater hope of being able to escape their restraints.

What idea must we then form of the force which the British government could exercise in the new world, when it is considered, that the two countries being separated by an ocean three thousand miles in breadth, entire months sometimes transpired, between the date of an order, and its execution?

Let it be added also, that except in cases of war, standing armies, this powerful engine of coercion, were very feeble in England, and much more feeble still in America; their existence even was contrary to law.

It follows, of necessity, that, as the means of constraint became almost illusory in the hands of the government, there must have arisen, and gradually increased, in the minds of the Americans, the hope, and with it the desire, to shake off the yoke of English superiority.

All these considerations apply, especially, to the condition of the eastern provinces of English America. As to the provinces of the south, the land being there more fertile, and the colonists consequently enjoying greater affluence, they could pretend to a more ample liberty, and discover less deference for opinions which differed from their own. Nor should it be imagined, that the happy fate they enjoyed, had enervated their minds, or impaired their courage. Living continually on their plantations, far from the luxury and seductions of cities, frugal and moderate in all their desires, it is certain, on the contrary, that the great abundance of things necessary to life rendered their bodies more vigorous, and their minds more impatient of all subjection.

In these provinces also, the slavery of the blacks, which was in use, seemed, however strange the assertion may appear, to have increased the love of liberty among the white population. Having continually before their eyes, the living picture of the miserable condition of man reduced to slavery, they could better appreciate the liberty they enjoyed. This liberty they considered not merely as a right, but as a franchise and privilege. As it is usual for men, when their own interests and passions are concerned, to judge partially and inconsiderately, the colonists supported impatiently the superiority of the British government. They considered its pretensions as tend