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 provinces 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, inexhaustable 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 agreeable 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 impose.

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 horrible 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 tending to reduce them to a state little different from that of their own slaves; thus detesting, for themselves, what they found convenient to exercise upon others.

The inhabitants of the colonies, especially those of New England, enjoyed not only the shadow, but the substance itself, of the English constitution; for in this respect, little was wanting to their entire independence. They elected their own magistrates; they paid them; and decided all affairs relative to internal administration. The sole evidence of their dependence on the mother country, consisted in this that they could not enact laws or statutes, contrary to the letter or spirit of the English laws; that the king had the prerogative to annul the deliberations of their assemblies; and that they were subject to such regulations and restrictions of commerce, as the parliament should judge necessary and conducive to the general good of the British empire. This dependence, however, was rather nominal than actual, for the king very rarely refused his sanction; and as to commercial restrictions, they knew how to elude them dexterously, by a contraband traffic.

The provincial assemblies were perfectly free, and more perhaps than the parliament of England itself; the ministers not being there, to diffuse corruption daily. The democratic ardor was under no restraint, or little less than none; for the governors who intervened, in the name of the king, had too little credit to control it, as they received their salaries, not from the crown, but from the province

itself; and in some, they were elected by the suffrages of the inhabitants. The religious zeal, or rather enthusiasm, which prevailed among the colonists, and chiefly among the inhabitants of New England, maintained the purity of their manners. Frugality, temperance, and chastity, were virtues peculiar to this people. There were no examples, among them, of wives devoted to luxury, husbands to debauch, and children to the haunts of pleasure. The ministers of a severe religion were respected and revered; for they gave themselves the example of the virtues they preached. Their time was divided between rural occupations, domestic parties, prayers, and thanksgivings, addressed to that God by whose bounty the seasons were made propitious, and the earth to smile on their labors with beauty and abundance, and who showered upon them so many blessings and so many treasures. If we add, further, that the inhabitants of New England, having surmounted the first obstacles, found themselves in a productive and healthful country, it will cease to astonish, that, in the course of a century, the population of the American colonies should have so increased, that from a few destitute families, thrown by misfortune upon this distant shore, should have sprung a great and powerful nation.

Another consideration presents itself here. The fathers of families, in America, were totally exempt from that anxiety, which in Europe torments them incessantly, concerning the subsistence and future establishment of their offspring. In the new world, the increase of families, however restricted their means, was not deemed a misfortune on the contrary, it was not only for the father, but for all about him, that the birth of a son was a joyful event. In this immensity of uncultivated lands, the infant, when arrived at the age of labor, was assured of finding a resource for himself, and even the means of aiding his parents; thus, the more numerous were the children, the greater competence and ease were secured to the household.

It is therefore evident, that in America, the climate, the soil, the civil and religious institutions, even the interest of families, all concurred to people it with robust and virtuous fathers, with swarms of vigorous and spirited sons.

Industry, a spirit of enterprise, and an extreme love of gain, are characteristic qualities of those who are separated from other men, and can expect no support but from themselves; and the colonists being descended from a nation distinguished for its boldness and activity in the prosecution of traffic, it is easily conceived that the increase of commerce was in proportion to that of population. Positive facts confirm this assertion. In 1704, the sum total of the commercial exports of Great Britain, inclusive of the merchandise destined for her colonies, had been six millions five hundred and nine thousand pounds sterling; but from this year to 1772, these colonies had so increased in population and prosperity, that at this epoch

VOL. I.

3

they of themselves imported from England to the value of six millions twenty-two thousand one hundred and thirty-two pounds sterling; that is to say, that in the year 1772, the colonies alone furnished the mother country with a market for a quantity of merchandise almost equal to that which, sixty-eight years before, sufficed for her commerce with all parts of the world.

Such was the state of the English colonies in America, such the opinions and dispositions of those who inhabited them, about the middle of the eighteenth century. Powerful in numbers and in force, abounding in riches of every kind, already far advanced in the career of useful arts and of liberal studies, engaged in commerce with all parts of the globe, it was impossible that they should have remained ignorant of what they were capable, and that the progressive development of national pride should not have rendered the British yoke more intolerable.

But this tendency towards a new order of things did not as yet menace a general combustion; and, without particular irritation, would still have kept within the bounds which had already so long sufficed to restrain it. During a century, the British government had prudently avoided to exasperate the minds of the colonists: with parental solicitude, it had protected and encouraged them, when in a state of infancy; regulating, afterwards, by judicious laws, their commerce with the mother country and with foreign nations, it had conducted them to their present prosperous and flourishing condition. In effect, in times immediately following the foundation of the colonies, England, as a tender mother, who defends her own children, had lent them the succour of her troops and her ships, against the attacks of the savage tribes, and against the encroachments of other powers; she granted immunities and privileges to Europeans who were disposed to establish themselves in these new countries; she supplied her colonists, at the most moderate prices, with cloths, stuffs, linens, and all necessary instruments as well for their defence against enemies as for the exercise of useful professions in time of peace, and especially such as were required for clearing the lands, and the labors of agriculture. The English merchants also assisted them with their rich capitals, in order to enable them to engage in enterprises of great importance, such as the construction of ships, the draining of marshes, the diking of rivers, the cutting of forests, the establishing of new plantations, and other similar works

In exchange for so many advantages, and rather as a necessary consequence of the act of navigation, than as a fiscal restriction, and peculiar to commerce, England only required the colonists to furnish her with the things she wanted, on condition of receiving in return those in which she abounded, and of which they had need. The Americans were therefore obliged to carry to the English all the commodities and productions which their lands abundantly supplied,