The settlement of Louisiana was for many years a series of unsuccessful attempts. That of Georgia, though perhaps it cannot be called a success from the commencement, furnishes that which is still better, a beautiful chapter in the history of humanity.

At the period of which we are now writing, England acknowledged the principle avowed by Locke and Shaftesbury in the Grand Model Constitution of Carolina, that the protection of property was the end of government; hence petty theft, whatever the incitement might be, was punished by the gallows, and the jails were filled with small debtors, whom the law condemned to life-long imprisonment. The hard and hapless case of these unfortunate men attracted the attention of the benevolent, and a commission to inquire into the state of the jails throughout the kingdom was formed. Of this commission was James Oglethorpe, a member of the British parliament, “a man of an heroic mind and a merciful disposition, in the full activity of middle life,” at once a scholar and a soldier. He had served in the British army, and under Prince Eugene, was present at the siege of Belgrade; his most marked characteristic, however, was that of active philanthropy, and as founder of a state, he holds a distinguished place in American history beside William Penn and the pilgrim fathers.

In 1728, Oglethorpe besought the interference of parliament on behalf of the sufferings of those whose only crimes were misfortune and poverty; nor did he rest until “from extreme misery he had restored to light and freedom multitudes who, by long confinement for debt, were strangers and helpless in the land of their birth.” His benevolence, however, did not confine itself alone to these; he designed to provide an asylum also for persecuted Protestants of all nations, who might, in the New World, freely worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience. A scheme of this kind could not lack advocates in England. The king, George II., favoured the design; the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts lent it aid; and parliament advanced its objects by a grant of £10,000. On the 9th of June, therefore, a charter was granted to Oglethorpe and others, which constituted the country lying between the Savannah and Altamaha and westward to the Pacific Ocean, the province of Georgia. This country was to be held for twenty years, under the guardianship of a corporation, “in trust for the poor.” The seal of the corporation bore on one side a group of silk-worms at their labour with the motto, Non sibi, sed aliis—not for themselves, but for others—thereby expressive of the disinterested intention of the originators, who refused to receive for their labours any temporal advantage or emolument whatever. The reverse side represented the genius of Georgia, with a cap of liberty on her head, a spear in one hand and a horn of plenty in the other. The reported wealth and beauty of this land of promise awoke the most brilliant hopes for the future.^[33]

Oglethorpe sailed from England in November, 1732, with his little band of liberated captives and oppressed Protestants, amounting in number to about 120 persons, and after a voyage of fifty-seven days, reached Charleston. Immediately after his arrival in the New World, he proceeded up the Savannah river, and landed on a high bluff, called Yamacraw, which he at once selected as the site of his capital, the Indians being induced to give it up to the strangers through the agency of Mary Musgrove, an Indian woman, who had married an English trader; and there Savannah now stands. At the distance of half a mile dwelt the Yamacraws, a tribe of Creek Indians, who, with their chief, Tomo-chichi, at their head, sought alliance with the strangers. “Here is a little present,” said the red man, stretching out before him a buffalo-hide, painted on the inside with an eagle’s head and feathers; “the eagle’s feathers are soft, and betoken love; the buffalo’s hide is warm, and betokens protection. Therefore, love and protect our little families.”

Oglethorpe received with kindness these friendly demonstrations.

It was on the first day of February, when the little band of colonists pitched their tents on the banks of the river. Oglethorpe’s tent stood beneath four tall pine-trees, and for twelve months he had no other shelter. In this beautiful region was the town of Savannah laid out, according as it stands at the present day, with its regular streets and large squares in each quarter of the town, whilst through the primeval woods a road was formed to the ground which was to become a great garden, intended as a nursery-ground for European fruits and the wonderful natural products of America.

Such was the commencement of the commonwealth of Georgia. The province became already, in its infancy, an asylum for the oppressed and suffering, not only among the people of Great Britain, but in Europe itself. The fame of this asylum in the wilderness rang through Europe. The Moravian brethren, persecuted in their native land, received an invitation from England of a free passage to Georgia for them and for their children, provisions for a whole season, a grant of land to be held free for ten years, with all the privileges and rites of native English citizens, and the freedom to worship God in their own way. This invitation they joyfully accepted.

On the last day of October, 1733, with their Bibles and hymnbooks, with two covered wagons, in which were conveyed their aged and their little children, and another wagon containing their worldly goods, the little evangelical band set forth in the name of God, after prayers and benedictions, on their long pilgrimage. They sailed up the stately Rhine, between its vineyards and ruined castles, and thence forth upon the great sea in the depth of winter. When they lost sight of land, and the majesty of ocean was revealed to them, they burst forth into a hymn of praise. When the sea was calm and the sun rose in his splendour, they sang, “How beautiful is creation! how glorious the Creator!” “When the wind was adverse, they put up prayers; when it changed, thanksgivings. When they sailed smoothly with a favouring gale, they made holy covenants, like Jacob of old; when the storm raged violently, they lifted up their voices and sang amid the storm, for to love the Lord Jesus gave great consolation.”

Thus they arrived at the shore of the New World. Oglethorpe met them at Charleston and bade them welcome; and five days afterwards they pitched their tents near Savannah. Their place of residence was to be yet further up the country. Oglethorpe provided them with horses, and accompanied them through the wilderness. By the aid of Indian guides and blazed trees, they proceeded onward, till they found a suitable spot for their settlement. It was on the banks of a little stream, and both were called by them Ebenezer. Here they resolved to build their dwellings, and to erect a column in token of the providence of God, which had brought them safely to the ends of the earth.

The same year was the town of Augusta founded, which soon became a favourite resort of the Indian trader. The fame of Oglethorpe extended through the wilderness, and in May came the chiefs of the eight tribes of the Musgogees, to make an alliance with him. Long-king, the tall old civil chief of the Ocanos, was their spokesman.

“The Great Spirit, which dwells everywhere around us,” said he, “and which gave breath to all men, has sent the Englishmen to instruct us!” He then bade them welcome to the country south of the Savannah, as well as to the cultivation of such lands as his people had not used; and, in token of the sincerity of his words, he laid eight bundles of buckskins at the feet of Oglethorpe. The chief of the Coweta tribe arose and said: “We are come five-and-twenty days’ journey to see you. I have never desired to go down to Charleston, but when I heard that you were come, and that you were good men, I came down to you that I might hear good things.”

A Cherokee appeared among the English. “Fear nothing,” said Oglethorpe, “but speak freely.” “I always speak freely,” replied the mountain-chief; “wherefore should I be afraid? I feared not when I was among enemies; I am now among friends.” And the settlers and the Cherokees became friends.

A Chocta chief, named Red-shoes, came the following year, and proposed to trade. “We come from a great distance,” said he, “and we are a great nation. The French built forts amongst us. We have long traded with them, but they are poor in goods; we desire that a trade may be opened between ourselves and you.”

The good faith which Oglethorpe kept in his transactions with the Indians, his noble demeanour and bearing, and the sweetness of his temper, won for him the confidence of the red men. He was pleased with their simple manners and customs, and endeavoured to enlighten their minds and to instruct them in the knowledge of that God whom they ignorantly worshipped.

The laws which Oglethorpe framed for Georgia, forbade the introduction both of intoxicating liquor and of slavery. “Slavery,” said he, “is contrary to the Gospel, as well as to the fundamental law of England. We will not permit a law which allows such horrid crimes.” And when later, various of “the better class of people” endeavoured to introduce negro slaves, Oglethorpe resolutely opposed it, and declared, that if slaves were introduced into Georgia, he would no longer concern himself with the colony. He continued steadfast, enforcing his determination by his almost arbitrary power, although many of the planters, in the belief that they could not successfully cultivate the land with white labourers, threatened to leave the colony.

Oglethorpe continued to labour with unabated activity for the well-being and prosperity of the province, extending and securing its boundaries, establishing towns, and regulating the commonwealth. He visited the evangelical brethren at Ebenezer, laid out the streets of their new town, and praised their good management. Within a few years the product of raw silk within this little settlement had increased to ten thousand pounds annually; besides which, indigo had become a staple article of traffic. They also opposed the introduction of negro slaves in the most earnest manner, maintaining that the whites could labour equally well under the sun of Georgia. Their religion united them with each other. They settled their own disputes. Labour was with them worship, and worship the business of their lives. They had peace and were happy.

From the Moravian towns Oglethorpe journeyed southward, passing through narrow inland channels, the shores of which were covered with woods of pine, evergreen oaks, and cedars, which grew down to the water’s edge, and which resounded with the melody of birds. On St. Simon’s Island, fire having cleared the grass from an old Indian field, the streets of Frederica were laid out, and, amid the carolling of hundreds of birds, a fort was constructed on a bluff commanding the river.

The Highlands of Scotland had already sent a company of bold mountaineers, who sought for a home under Oglethorpe’s banner; and Oglethorpe, attired in the highland costume, now sailed up the Altamaha, to visit them at Darien, near the mouth of that river, where they had located themselves.

In 1734, Oglethorpe, after about fifteen months’ residence in his colony, made a voyage to England, taking with him Tomo-chichi and others of the Creeks, to do homage at the English court, and to confirm his report of the friendly relationship with the Indians. In 1736 he returned, bringing with him 300 emigrants, whom he cared for like a father. Reaching the shore, he ascended with his companions a rising ground, not far from Tybee Island, where they all fell on their knees, and returned thanks to God for having safely conducted them to Georgia. Among these was a second company of Moravians, men who had “a faith above fear,” and who in the simplicity of their lives seemed to revive the primitive Christian communities where rank and state were unknown. With this company came also John and Charles Wesley, Charles the secretary to Oglethorpe, and both burning with a desire to become apostles of Christ among the Indians, and to live in the New World a life wholly and entirely consecrated to God. They desired to make Georgia a religious colony. The Wesleys, however, found the sting as well as the trail of the serpent in this religious garden of Eden, and that through the guile of two young and fair women, one of whom early compelled Charles to retire to England, whither he was sent ostensibly as the bearer of despatches. The preaching of John excited the utmost religious fervour, and balls were deserted to listen to his ministry; but “a snare,” as he relates, “was laid to entrap him,” and he became the lover of a young lady, the wooing of whom brought him only embarrassment and vexation. He gave her up, but that did not end his trouble; she married another, and the husband, on the plea of her religious character being attacked, claimed damages at law to the amount of £1,000. The jury returned a verdict in favour of the husband, and Wesley, assisted by the good Moravians, prepared to flee to England. Measures were taken to detain him; but as he himself records, he “saw clearly that the hour was come, and as soon as evening prayer was over, the tide serving, he shook the dust off his feet,” and left Georgia and America for ever.

As Wesley landed in England, he encountered Whitfield just about to embark for Georgia. The main purport of his visit was to establish there an orphan-house, similar to that at Halle. The design was carried out, the institution was founded in the neighbourhood of Savannah; but though it continued to exist during his lifetime it languished and finally was given up after his death. The permanent work which he carried out was somewhat different. In order to collect funds for this orphan-house, he commenced a tour through the colonies, producing wherever he went the most extraordinary effects. At this time a religious reaction was taking place in the New England states. The public mind, having rushed as it were into latitudinarianism from the asceticism and sternness of the rigid Puritan creed and life, now with that natural and necessary reaction which follows every extreme, was going back to the religious enthusiasm, of a former period. The preaching of Whitfield was a spark which fell upon this inflammable material. Crowds followed him everywhere; he preached, and the people, with cries and tears and violent bodily contortions, believed that the Divine grace was born in their souls. A “great revival” took place throughout New England; and controversy, which in Connecticut lasted for nine years, raged between the Old and New Lights.

“During these religious excitements,” says Hildreth, “the Baptists of New England received a new impulse; the sect began largely to increase, and ere long many of the New Light congregations joined the Baptist church. In the middle and southern colonies, the Scotch and Irish Presbyterians, who were being continually increased by additional numbers from the mother-country, kindled into zeal by the preaching of this modern apostle, became formidable rivals to the Episcopal church.” “From this first visit of Whitfield,” continues the same author, “may be dated that organised system of revivals and religious excitements which to this day are in progress of development, and which are not without results upon the moral and intellectual character of America.” Many distinguished schools and colleges owe their establishment to the religious fervor of that period.

Whilst this excitement was going on in the New England colonies, New York was the scene of a cruel and terrible delusion, which almost vied in its horrors with the witch trials of Salem. New York at this time, 1741, contained between 7,000 and 8,000 inhabitants, 1,200 or 1,400 of whom were blacks. The robbery of a house, and the occurrence of nine fires in rapid succession, occasioned a kind of insane terror. The magistrates having offered a reward, pardon and freedom to any slave who would reveal the supposed incendiaries, two women of indifferent character gave information of a plot among the negroes to burn the city, murder the whites, and make one of their own party governor. Incredible as the story was, it gained belief, and great numbers of slaves and free-blacks were arrested. “The eight lawyers of the place assisted by turns on behalf of the prosecutors; the prisoners, who had no counsel, were tried and convicted on insufficient evidence; the lawyers vied with each other in heaping abuse upon the unfortunate prisoners, and the chief justice in passing sentence vied with the lawyers.”^[34] Many confessed to save their lives, and then appeared as witnesses against others. Thirteen were burnt at the stake, eighteen were hanged, and seventy-one transported.

When the general terror had a little subsided, and the public mind, looking more coolly at the whole thing, considered the base character of the informers and witnesses, the reality of the plot was doubted, and the shame of blood-guiltiness rested upon the city.

The same year that Oglethorpe returned from England, he fortified the colony in anticipation of war between England and Spain. For this purpose forts were erected at Augusta, Darien, Frederica, Cumberland Island, near the mouth of the St. Mary’s, and even as far south as St. John’s river, all the territory north of that river being claimed for England. This latter erection led to complaints from the Spanish authorities at St. Augustine; hostilities were threatened; the fort at the mouth of the St. John’s was therefore abandoned, and the St. Mary’s river became from that time the established southern boundary of Georgia.

Again, in 1737, Oglethorpe hastened to England to make there more effectual preparations for the struggle, and returned with a commission as brigadier-general, with a command extending over South Carolina, and bringing with him a regiment of 600 men. He was received with salutes and bonfires at Savannah and every demonstration of joy.

In 1739, war being formally declared, Oglethorpe planned an expedition against St. Augustine. In November of the same year Admiral Vernon took Porto Bello; and the following May, Oglethorpe entered Florida “with a select force of 400 men from his own regiment, some troops from Carolina, and a large body of friendly Indians.” A Spanish fort, twenty-five miles from St. Augustine, surrendered after a short resistance; another within two miles was abandoned; but St. Augustine, when required to surrender, sent a bold defiance. Ships were stationed at the entrance of the harbour to prevent supplies, and every measure was taken to reduce the place. Oglethorpe, enduring all the fatigues and hardships of the common soldiers, in spite of ill health consequent on exposure to perpetual damps, was always at the head of every important action. Great as was his courage and endurance, his conduct as a soldier in an enemy’s country was still nobler; the few prisoners whom he took, we are told, were treated with kindness; the cruelties of the savages were reproved and restrained; not a field nor a house nor a garden near St. Augustine was injured, unless by the Indians.

But St. Augustine resisted; Spanish galleys contrived to enter with provisions; the unsuccess of the English fleet in the West Indies prevented any assistance from that quarter; and sickness at length breaking out among Oglethorpe’s forces, he was compelled in July to return to Georgia.

Two years afterwards, in 1742, the Spaniards invaded Georgia. A fleet of thirty-six sail from Havanna and St. Augustine, bearing upwards of 3,000 troops, entered the harbour of St. Simon’s, an island in the mouth of the Altamaha, landed a number of troops, and erected a battery of twenty guns. Oglethorpe, who was at that time on the island with less than 800 men, exclusive of Indians, spiked his guns and retreated to Frederica, there to await the promised reinforcements from Carolina. From this place he wrote to Savannah—“We will not suffer defeat; we will rather die like Leonidas and his Spartans, if we can but protect Carolina and the rest of the Americans from desolation.” The Spanish general, Monteano, however, unacquainted with the coast and the proper points of attack, wasted his efforts and was defeated in repeated skirmishes. Oglethorpe, still disappointed of aid from Carolina, resolved, however, to make a night attack on one of the enemy’s camps; but his intentions were revealed by a French soldier who deserted. Apprehensive, says Willson, that the enemy would now discover his weakness, he devised a plan to destroy the credit of any information he might give. He wrote a letter to the deserter, desiring him to urge the Spaniards to an immediate attack, or to induce them to remain in St. Simon’s island yet three days, as by that time several British ships would have arrived. The letter, as Oglethorpe intended, was carried to the Spanish commander. The deserter was arrested as a spy, and the utmost perplexity prevailed in the Spanish camp. At that moment, fortunately for Oglethorpe, three small vessels were perceived in the offing, which being supposed to be a part of the expected British fleet, an attack on Oglethorpe at Frederica was determined upon.

All turned out as Oglethorpe wished; one party of the advancing troops were defeated by himself and his Highlanders who marched out of the town to meet them, and another fell into an ambuscade. The scene of destruction was terrible; the ground was covered with dead, and the place to this day bears the name of the Bloody Marsh. The enemy fled with precipitation to their ships, leaving their guns and ammunition behind, and in a few days were sailing to the south, making, however, on their way, an attack on Fort William, where again they were repulsed with loss. The Spanish commander gained so little credit by this expedition, that on his return to Havanna he was tried by court-martial and dismissed the service. Oglethorpe, a week after his deliverance, ordered a general thanksgiving.

Thus was Georgia established and defended; yet were there many discontented and many disaffected within her borders; and scarcely was the war at an end and peace once more within the colony, than Oglethorpe sailed for England to meet and rebut various slanderous charges brought against him, every one of which was disproved. But though he lived till upwards of ninety, he never returned to the colony; joining soon after the army against the Pretender. After Oglethorpe left Georgia, changes were introduced into its laws and administration; the prohibition of rum was removed from the statute-book; and the former somewhat military rule of government was changed, the administration being entrusted to a president and council, who were required to govern according to the instruction of the trustees.

In one respect Georgia fell short of the liberality which might have been expected from her founder; she was closed against “Papists,” although, as regarded the Jews, Oglethorpe was more enlightened than the English trustees of the colony. Among the earlier settlers, a company of Jews coming over, the trustees wrote somewhat in perplexity, that “they had no intention of making Georgia a Jews’ colony,” and requested Oglethorpe, therefore, “to give these Israelites no encouragement.” If he did not encourage them, neither did he discourage them, for they settled at Savannah, opened a synagogue, and the descendants of many of them remain to this day among the most worthy citizens of the place.

With all his noble virtues, Oglethorpe belonged more to the old institutions than to the new; and hence somewhat of feudal usages had been introduced, which led to long-continued discontent. Another cause of discontent was the prohibition of slave-labour. Gradually, therefore, this was relaxed; slavers from Africa visited Savannah, and the laws against them were not enforced; in vain the Moravians opposed slavery as contrary to the Gospel; their religious teachers in Germany, as well as Whitfield, the great apostle of the colonies, “trusted that God would overrule slavery to the Christianising of the slave,” and the Moravians after long opposition yielded. Slaves were at first hired from Carolina for a short period, or during life, and a sum equal to the value of the slave paid in advance. Thus by degrees Georgia became a planting state, with slave-labour like Carolina.^[35]

In 1752, the trustees wearied with the many complaints which still continued against even their amended form of government, resigned their charter to the king, and Georgia became a royal government. The liberties and privileges enjoyed by Carolina were now conferred on Georgia; but the colony did not assume a really flourishing condition until the close of the French and Indian war, when Florida was surrendered to England, and security was thus insured to her frontiers.

In 1737, the eastern boundary of Maine was settled; so also was the southern boundary of New Hampshire, though somewhat to the disadvantage of Massachusetts, who not being greatly in favour with the English parliament in consequence of her pertinacity with regard to the salaries of Burnett and Belcher, had but little countenance to expect from that quarter. Nor was another boundary dispute settled more to her satisfaction in 1741, when the country conquered in the old times from Philip and the Wampanoags, and claimed by Massachusetts under the Plymouth grant, was ceded to Rhode Island after having been a subject of contention between the two states for about 100 years.

We have already related that the Treaty of Utrecht conferred upon a company of English merchants the monopoly of supplying slaves to the Spanish colonies. Whilst this was the case on one hand, the African company of independent traders, on the other, were conveying over thousands of negro slaves to the British colonies. England, says Bancroft, valued Africa as returning for her manufactures abundant labourers for her colonies. The African coast for thirty degrees in extent was traversed for the supply of the human cargo; Africans above thirty and under fourteen were rejected, and very few women in proportion were taken; the English slave-ships were laden with the youth of Africa. Of the horrors of the middle passage we will not speak; suffice it to say, that the loss of life on the voyage is computed to have been, on an average, fifteen per cent.

The number of slaves in the northern provinces was small in proportion to the whites; but in the lowlands of South Carolina and Virginia they constituted the great majority. It is not easy to calculate the number imported into the colonies. In the northern and middle states the negro slaves were employed as domestic servants and agricultural labourers. In New York they amounted to one-sixth of the population, and the slave code of that province was as severe as those of South Carolina and Virginia. In Georgia, as we have said, slavery obtained powerful advocates in Whitfield and his associate Habersham, who, however, soon turned trader. It was on the plea of Christianising the heathen that they founded their argument, and the heart of the poor slaves even in those early days seems to have been a ready recipient of the consolations of religion. There were Uncle Toms even then; for Habersham says exultingly, “Many of the poor slaves of America have already been made freemen of the heavenly Jerusalem.” One circumstance must, however, be observed; slavery was only permitted in Georgia on Whitfield’s argument, and the masters were compelled, by fine, to oblige their slaves “to attend at some time in the Lord’s-day for religious instruction.” And hence, says Hildreth, may doubtless be ascribed the peculiarly religious character of the negroes in and about Savannah. Nor has the old humane spirit of Georgia ceased to exist. Miss Bremer, speaking of this state, says: “I augur most favourably from the freer and happier life of the negroes of Savannah; from the permission which is given them to have their own churches, and where they themselves preach. Besides this, much is done in Georgia for the instruction of the negro slaves in Christianity, for their emancipation and their colonisation at Liberia.”

Christianity, however, could not enfranchise the slave; he might become a freeman of the heavenly Jerusalem, but a human thrall he remained in the earthly America, spite of all that early philanthropists, “enthusiasts,” and abolitionists could say and do; and as regarded the slave-trade, the colonies had no power. England alone must bear the burden of this shame and guilt. The English slave-trade received its greatest impetus from the Assiento treaty. From 1680 to 1700, about 300,000 negroes were shipped from the coast of Africa; from 1700 to 1750, about 2,000,000. The English manufacturers advocated and supported the trade, because it opened to them the African market. In the reign of William and Mary, parliament legislated for the better supply of negroes to the plantations; “and again it declared its opinion in 1695, that the slave-trade is highly beneficial and advantageous to the kingdom and her colonies.” Queen Anne was so decided a patron of the slave-trade, that she herself, as we have said, became a slave-trader, and boasted to her parliament that she had secured to Englishmen a new market for slaves in Spanish America. George II. favoured it; and lastly, in 1749, in order to give the utmost activity to the trade, all monopoly was removed, and free-trade in slaves laid open to English competition; “the slave-trade being,” according to the words of the statute, “very advantageous to Great Britain.” To the credit of Horace Walpole, he saw the iniquity of this traffic, while parliament was throwing it open to the rejoicing manufacturers and merchants; and, according to his account, the English trader at that time conveyed 46,000 slaves every year to the British American colonies alone. So determined was England to thrust this trade upon the colonies, that when any of them endeavoured to check the importation, they were severely reproved. The reason of this was obvious. The colonies were already becoming too independent. “The African slave-trade,” it was asserted by a British merchant in 1745, “was the great pillar and support of the British plantation trade in America.” “If,” argued he, “it were possible for white men to answer the end of negroes in planting, our colonies would interfere with the manufactures of these kingdoms. In such case, indeed, we might have reason to dread the prosperity of our colonies; but while we can supply them abundantly with negroes, we need be under no such apprehension.” And again: “Negro labour will keep our British colonies in a due subserviency to the interests of their mother-country; for while our plantations depend only on planting by negroes, our colonies can never prove injurious to British manufacturers, never become independent of their kingdom.”

So reasoned the England of that day, in the spirit of an arbitrary and utterly selfish policy; and the colonies had no power of resistance.

Before concluding this portion of our history, which may be considered as the early dawn of that day which saw ascend, through suffering and blood, the sun of American independence, a few remarks may be welcome on the life and manners of the colonies.

America could already boast of names which were an ornament to the age. “America may look,” says Willson, “upon the scientific discoveries of Franklin; upon Godfrey’s invention of the quadrant; upon the researches of Bartram, a Pennsylvanian Quaker and farmer, whom Linnæus called the greatest natural botanist in the world; upon the mathematical and astronomical inventions of Rittenhouse, and upon the metaphysical and theological writings of Jonathan Edwards with the greater pride, when it is considered that these eminent men owed their attainments to no fostering care which Britain ever showed for the cultivation of science and literature in her colonies; that these men were their own instructors, and that their celebrity is wholly of American origin.”

As regards the spirit of bigotry and intolerance which we have had such frequent occasion to deplore in the history of New England, a great change had now taken place. Although much puritanical strictness and formality still pervaded New England manners, yet religious zeal had become so tempered with charity, that explosions of frenzy and folly like those of the early Quakers were no longer treated as offences against religion, but as violations of public decency and order, justice being tempered with prudence and mercy, and with a noble justice, also, we may add; for during the administration of Governor Belcher, the Assembly of Massachusetts passed laws making pecuniary compensation to the descendants of those Quakers who had suffered capital punishment in the years 1658 and 1659, and also to the descendants of such as had been the victims of the persecutions for witchcraft in 1693. In 1729, the legislature of Connecticut exempted Quakers and Baptists from ecclesiastical taxes; and two years later a similar law was enacted by the Assembly of Massachusetts.

Notwithstanding the exceeding strictness of the puritanic laws of New England, we are told by numerous writers that the manners of the people were distinguished by innocent hilarity and true politeness. Lord Baltimore, it is said, was agreeably surprised by the graceful and courteous behaviour of the gentlemen and clergy of Connecticut, and confessed that he found the aspect and address which he thought peculiar to nobility in a land where aristocratic distinction was unknown. “The inhabitants of Massachusetts,” says a writer of the time, “were distinguished in a high degree by their cheerful vivacity, their hospitality, and a courtesy the more estimable that it was indicative of true benevolence.” “Men devoted to the service of God,” says another author, “like the first generation of the inhabitants of New England, carried throughout their lives an elevated strain of sentiment and purpose which must have communicated some of its grace and dignity to their manners.”

Of the state of manners and morals in Maryland, Virginia, and the southern colonies, so gratifying an account cannot be given. While the upper classes of the southern people were distinguished for a luxurious and expensive hospitality, they were too generally addicted to card-playing, gambling, and intemperance, while hunting and cockfighting were favourite amusements of all classes. The hospitality of Virginia was, however, a beautiful feature of its life. “The early Virginian colonists,” says the author whom we have quoted above, “remote from crowded haunts, unoccupied by a variety of objects and purposes, and sequestered from the intelligence of passing events, found the company of strangers peculiarly agreeable. All the other circumstances of his lot contributed to the promotion of hospitality.”

The celebrated Jefferson related that, in his father’s time, it was no uncommon thing for gentlemen to post their servants on the main road, for the purpose of amicably waylaying and bringing to their houses any travellers who might chance to pass. Similar bounty is said to have prevailed among the Quakers of Pennsylvania, “where unlimited hospitality formed a part of their regular economy.”

“But whatever diversities of manners, morals, and general condition,” says Willson, “might have been found in the several colonies in the early period of their history, yet a gradual assimilation of character, and a gradual advance in wealth, population, and the means of happiness, were observable among all as we approach the period of the Revolution. It cannot be denied, however, that New England colonial character and New England colonial history furnish on the whole the most agreeable reminiscences. As we approach this period, we behold a country of moderate fertility, occupied by an industrious, hardy, cheerful, virtuous, and intelligent population; a country where moderate labour earned a liberal reward; where prosperity was connected with freedom; where a general simplicity of manners and equality of condition prevailed, and where the future invited with promises of an enlarging expanse of human happiness and virtue.”

Having given this picture of life and manners prevalent in the North American colonies at the period of the Revolution, we must of necessity return to the course of our history, which takes us back about a quarter of a century. At this time, that is from 1720 to 1730, the value of exports from the mother-country to the colonies is stated by Hildreth to have amounted to an annual average of £471,299.