THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS VOLUME I THE AMERICAN COLONIES 1583-1763 First Edition, 1908 Second Edition, revised and reprinted, 1910 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS VOLUME I THE AMERICAN COLONIES 1583-1763 BY A. WYATT TILBY LONDON CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LIMITED ign PREFACE THIS book is in no sense a history of the English people in their own island. The home life of our country, both before and after the foundation of the colonies and pro- tectorates, has been adequately treated by a host of previous writers : the colonial field, on the contrary, remains almost untracked, or marked out only in portions, by men who have written with different aims, seen events from different points of view, sketched in different perspective and painted without reference to the relative importance of their small foreground to the rest of the landscape. It has seemed to me that the whole of our imperial career, as it has sprung from one small group of islands, so it can best be treated as one series of connected events to use a well-worn simile, as a drama which, though its various acts take place in every con- tinent and on every ocean, still preserves the fundamental unity that even the constant shifting of the scene does not obscure. The present work is an attempt to carry out that idea. The course of our history in other lands has often forced me to step outside the strict limits of the title. It would be impossible to understand our empire in India without some slight notice of the Indians themselves previous to their discovery by Europeans, and the Portuguese and Dutch explorers there ; it would be impossible to understand 1015187 VI our history in America without mentioning the Spanish and French empires that preceded and for a long time over- shadowed the English colonies ; the record of South African life is not that of English alone, but of English and Dutch together. Even in Australasia, which occupies a unique position in having afforded a footing to no other white race, the aborigines played a part in the early history of the colonies that cannot be passed over. The question, indeed, of the contact of a white race with coloured peoples in all parts of the world, which calls imperatively for treatment in a work of this kind, is, upon the whole, the most difficult one to treat impartially. It is almost impossible to pick the way clearly through the trade statistics, official reports, missionary experiments and political prejudice which obscure a scientific treatment of the greater problems at issue. I have resolutely excluded that mass of detail which makes many modern histories so unreadably long, that the narration of events takes more time than their action. After all, there are other things in life than the study of the past ; the present and the future may also claim a little attention. But it has been my first principle that no settle- ment of the English-speaking people overseas should be left unnoticed ; and my second that the actors in the great drama should, as far as possible, speak for themselves from the records they have left behind records that too often lie buried under an accumulation of library dust which tells that the sleep of the heroes they commemorate has seldom been disturbed by inquirers of the present generation. And while giving due notice to the long wars which in one sense founded our empire, I have concentrated more attention on that peaceful development of our institutions and society PKEFACE vii which form its true basis and make it worth having, in a widely different fashion from either the Roman Empire of ancient history or the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages, or indeed any previous empire that the world has seen. A. WYATT TILBY. BIRSTWITH, YORKSHIRE, 31st December 1907. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION THE publication of a new edition, in what I hope may prove a more convenient form for reading, has given me the oppor- tunity of correcting one or two errors that crept into the first issue. The whole work has been very carefully revised before being reprinted, and some paragraphs have been entirely rewritten. Several friends and some critics the two characters are not necessarily separated in person have urged me to add footnotes containing more information than it is possible to give in the text as to the original sources on which the nar- rative rests. I must own that I am not greatly enamoured of the footnote, which is apt to resemble the proverbial poor relation by interrupting the flow of conversation at incon- venient moments ; nor is it always easy, in these days when the materials are accumulating so rapidly, to specify the exact ingredients and composition of every dish upon the menu. It may ensure the honesty of the cook ; it may also provoke indigestion. However that may be, I have given the leading references, somewhat briefly when the ground has been well covered by previous writers and the facts are clear ; in more detail when the subject is controversial or the quotation difficult to identify. And this plan I propose to follow in the remaining volumes of this work. A. WYATT TILBY. ROYAL COLONIAL INSTITUTE* LONDON, July 1910. viii CONTENTS PACK PREFACE v PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION viii BOOK I THE NEW WORLD. 1415-1624 CHAP. i. THE FIRST EMPIRE 1 n. THE LATIN ERA OF CONQUEST. 1415-1588 ... 10 in. THE ENGLISH SEA-KINGS. 1558-1600 .... 24 ^iv. THE MERCANTILE COMPANIES 38 v. THE IMPERIAL SPIRIT IN ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE . 44 vi. VIRGINIA. 1584-1624 50 BOOK II THE PURITAN EMIGRATION. 1583-1660 i. PURITANISM IN ENGLAND. 1583-1649 .... 61 n. THE FIRST PURITAN COLONIES. 1620-58 ... 65 HI. PURITANISM TRIUMPHANT. 1649-58 .... 84 iv. THE CAVALIER COLONIES. 1624-60 .... 90 v. THE FALL OF PURITANISM. 1660 . . . . . 98 vi. THE WEST INDIES. 1605-1805 104 BOOK III THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD-STRUGGLE. 1588-1713 i. THE Loss OF SPAIN'S SUPREMACY. 1588-1700 . . 123 n. THE RISE OF FRANCE. 1594-1663 131 in. THK DUTCH EMPIRE. 1572-1689 ..... 139 iv. THE SECOND SCANDINAVIAN EPOCH. 1611-1718 . . 152 iz THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS BOOK IV THE AMERICAN COLONIES. 1658-1740 CHAP. PAGE i. NEW ENGLAND AND NEW YORK. 1658-1740 . . .157 n. PENNSYLVANIA. 1680-1740 186 in. THE SOUTHERN PLANTATIONS. 1660-1740 . . .196 iv. THE FRENCH COLONIES. 1663-1740 .... 210 v. ENGLAND IN THE WEST. 1740 218 BOOK V THE EVOLUTION OF A LARGER SYNTHESIS. 1713-63 i. THE PEACE OF EXHAUSTION. 1713-42 .... 246 n. THE GENERAL WAR. 1740-63 250 in. THE WAR IN AMERICA. 1740-63 259 iv. ENGLAND AS A WORLD-POWER. 1763 278 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS BOOK I THE NEW WOELD: 1415-1624 CHAPTER I THE FIRST EMPIRE CUT off from the continent of Europe by a narrow but ever restless arm of the Atlantic, the British Islands seem marked out by nature itself for a different destiny from Tne isolation that of the mainland. In large measure such has of England, been their fate during the twenty centuries that our written history goes back. If the continental peoples have been separated from each other by race, by language, by modes of life that were mutually repellant, they know no geographical divisions more formidable than great rivers and mountain ranges. Communication, if insecure during un- settled times, and restrained by the arbitrary hand of petty tyrants or by laws that hindered all development, was at any rate less terrible by land than by sea. The ideal of a restored and universal Roman or German Empire, unsatis- factory and often in abeyance as it was, at least provided some slight bond of sympathy between the nations, or the tribes that were being slowly forced into national consciousness. And great movements of conquest, of thought, or of religion passed at times over the continent and produced transitory feelings of fellowship. But from nearly all such influences England stood aloof. A 2 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVEKSEAS For long periods there was no regular communication with the mainland. The imperial idea appealed little to the English, and few efforts were made by the great European monarchs to induce them to enter the continental confederation, either by conquest or alliance. The continental countries were conquered and reconquered. In England, on the other hand, with the exception of the one great revolution at the Norman Conquest which has profoundly modified our history, there have been no successful foreign invasions. In ecclesiastical matters, if the distance from Rome prevented the knowledge of some of the papal scandals, it at the same time prevented any very fervent adherence to the doctrine of Catholic unity. The people were prob- ably as religious as any other mediaeval nation ; but they were always quick to defend their political freedom from priestly encroachments. The spirited action of king and parliament prevented them from sinking to be mere fiefs of the Holy See. As a result of this severance from the great course of continental life, there grew up a character differing in many respects from that of the neighbouring nations. If we see its disadvantages in a narrowness of thought that has too often shown itself in an utter want of sympathy for foreigners and all things foreign, in a complete alienation from the manners and customs of other lands, at the same time we recognise its compensations in a severely practical spirit that has overcome difficulties which seemed insuperable, and above all in a jealous defence of that personal liberty which has so often been lost in Europe. From the earliest times of which we have record, this severance stands out as a noteworthy fact. When Gaul and Spain became provinces of the Roman Empire, the language of the conquered was lost in that of the conquerors. In the later Teutonic conquest of those countries, Latin remained the popular speech, and it is now the basis of modern French THE NEW WORLD 3 and Spanish. In Britain, on the contrary, the Roman civilisation was an exotic. When the falling fabric of empire warned the rulers back to Italy after four centuries of dominion, the aboriginal British people still spoke the same language that Julius Csesar had heard on his first landing. The Saxon invaders, the forefathers of our own England, left hardly a trace of the older inhabitants in the east and south of the island. The British tribes retreated westwards to Wales, Cornwall, and Strathclyde, or even to Scotland or Ireland ; where in remote hamlets the Celtic dialects are still spoken, as pathetic survivals as the Basque in Spain, or the Wendish in Germany. 1 The antipathy between the new Saxon and the older Briton was shown in the severity of the struggle and the thoroughness of the conquest. In every subse- TheUniflca . quent step that has led to the political unity of tion of the British Isles, the same feeling has broken out : ^s 1 * 1 " 1 - in Wales in the terrible wars of the Plantagenets, as well as in the popular rhyme that still speaks of Taffy, the Welshman, as a thief, and calls the miserable rogue of the racecourse a welsher ; in Scotland in the yet more merciless wars, in the long jealousy between the two countries, that continued even after political union had come to pass a jealousy shown in Smollett's novels and a hundred savage sarcasms of Dr. Johnson ; a feeling that has now sunk happily to harmless raillery on either side. In Ireland, the problem has been graver. Conquest there brought no fusion of race or alliance of interest ; it was but a prelude to the embittered strife that many centuries have not ended. Yet, relentless massacres as they often were, it is in these wars against her neighbours that we see the first true ex- pansion of England. It was not always the mere lust of 1 In common with many other invaders, however, the Saxons appear frequently to have spared the aboriginal women for their own service and enjoyment ; while those male captives whose lives were not forfeited were condemned to slavery. 4 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS victory that made her aspire to dominion. Often as the love of adventure has caused war, other reasons go to the making of empires. Two opposing monarchies confined in narrow compass become a mutual menace, and are enough to force the more active or better placed people to subdue their neighbours. The safety of the one great state is thus secured, where two divided are defenceless. It was this lesson that Spain partly learned under Ferdinand and Isabella, that France learned about the same period, and that Germany and Italy put off with such evil result to themselves until the middle of the nineteenth century. This was the idea that lay at the root of the Plantagenet schemes of conquest : England was constantly threatened on both sides, and her civilisation, defective as it was, was at least better than that of Scotland or Ireland. But neither in conquest nor in government was the success of the English remarkable for several centuries. Only Wales was thoroughly subdued before Tudor times ; both Scotland and Ireland, despite a nominal allegiance, were practically independent. The first plantations had been established in America before the Scottish and English crowns were united. >' Virginia was already flourishing before the English colonisation of Ulster. The primitive townships of New England were rising from the wilderness while the rest of Ireland was still defiant. Y It would seem, therefore, that that talent for rule which is sometimes assumed to have been inborn in the English character was acquired after long struggles rather than an inherent faculty. Like the English constitution, it was developed gradually : and although the slow advance towards union of the British Isles, and the almost equally slow growth of our early western colonies and the first trading-stations in India contrasts unfavourably with the meteoric success of the Spaniards and Portuguese at the same period, the per- manence of the results achieved are more than compensation THE NEW WORLD 5 when we compare the present condition of the British and Latin colonies all over the world. While, however, the descendants of Henry n. were making slow advance in unifying the government of the British Isles, a more ambitious dream began to influence their The Firgt actions. The old possessions of the Plantagenets English in France still belonged to the kings of England ; Em P ire - and from these as a foundation on which to base a scheme of continental conquest, was evolved the vision of an English empire in western Europe, in contradistinction to the German Empire of middle Europe. In part the ideal was realised : Edward in. owned many of the finest provinces of France, and the armies of England were victorious both in Spain and Flanders. For generations rulers and people alike cherished the hope of placing Britain at the head of the west : but the first overseas empire of England was shattered by a woman. Our ill-gotten possessions in France were captured by Joan of Arc ; only the one miserable outpost at Calais remained a century longer as the last memorial of the imperial dreams of the Plantagenets. The attempted conquest of France has sunk to a mere non-resultant episode in our history. But as we turn away wearied from the record of war and carnage we note the real progress shown by town and borough in England itself in increasing freedom, as king or lord was forced to grant charters of liberties in return for supplies to carry on the foreign expeditions ; in growing prosperity as the long internal peace continued, while Saxon and Norman forgot their old animosity and united into one race of English ; in the beginnings of art and learning, as cathedral and abbey rose over the land, and universities and schools were founded ; in the first signs of a great literature, as poet or historian told of previous times or the life that lay around them. But the literature of the country was as yet little save imitation from the French. With the one exception of 6 Chaucer, our language can boast no great original writer > previous to the renascence. In culture and general refine- ment, indeed, the continent was ahead of England. The influence exerted by France, in particular, on our civilisation was profound, and but a sorry return was made for it in the long misery of the Hundred Years' War into which our kings plunged both nations. If in refinement, however, England was far behind her neighbour, the personal liberty and security that was to be her greatest glory had already begun to appear. The long fight for freedom was seldom relaxed, and throughout almost the whole course of our history the same increasing purpose shows. The liberties of other mediaeval states were lost one by one. The Italian republics, the first to rise, were also the first to fall, as they sold themselves to local tyrants, purchasing peace, material prosperity, and the utmost development of their culture at the price of their freedom. The ultimate result was seen in a servitude under foreign masters that only the nineteenth century was able to throw off. The liberties of France went down before the cool policy of her kings, which again gave power and wealth to the upper classes. For centuries she was at the head of Europe : but the price was too great, and the long terror of the Revolution was necessary before the evil system could be abolished. The old rights of Spain were crushed by Charles v. and the Inquisi- tion ; and despite the resources of the new world, the country has been slowly dying since. The rich burghers and the turbulent democracy of the Flemish cities were both en- > chained by Philip n. ; and the deserted streets of Bruges and Ghent are to this day eloquent of the oppressor of the sixteenth century. But while continental liberty was falling everywhere save in the free cities of Germany and Switzerland, England clung through good and evil to her freedom. It is not the aim of this work to review the unceasing struggle with royal or THE NEW WORLD 7 ecclesiastical or local tyrant, which left England, at the close of the Middle Ages, in the words of Commines, ' among all r which intellectual men were looking that the one shadowy hint of the whereabouts of Utopia places it in the new lands that Latin daring had recently discovered. While the tales of wonder that were brought back by travellers fired the English imagination to adventures which culminated in the exploits of the Elizabethan sea-kings, more serious men were already dreaming of a freer, more self-developed life in America dreams partially realised a century later when the first English colonies on the Atlantic seaboard were founded. 10 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS THE LATIN ERA OF CONQUEST: 1415-1588 * THE Utopia shows that the attention of England had been directed to the new world. But in the discoveries themselves * Englishmen had little or no part. The appeal of Columbus to the court of Henry vn. was disregarded. Before the reign of Elizabeth, the Cabots were the only English navigators of note, and they were of Italian descent. In Holland, too, where we found our greatest rivals at a later date, it was the same. Persecution had not yet forced the Dutch to form themselves into an independent commonwealth, and to snatch the rich prize of sea traffic from their former masters. The earliest of the great world-voyages were made by the Latins. The new countries were all taken by them. The enormous wealth of the new world all fell into their hands. The Latins, indeed, who had inherited the older culture of Greece, had been the leaders of Europe since Europe had had The Latin an y civilisation at all : and it was natural that to Supremacy, them should come the first profits of the extension of that civilisation overseas. While the Roman Empire stood, the Latin peoples alone possessed culture ; even when it was destroyed, it was from them and their religion that the new civilisation was evolved. The faith and the government of the Middle Ages were alike Latin ; the mediaeval ideals were of Latin origin. When the northern barbarians flung them- selves on Rome, with a passionate envy of the riches and the 1 The leading authorities for this period are the narratives of the Portuguese and Spanish mariners in Kerr's Collection of Voyages, Hakluyt and the valuable publications of the Hakluyt Society, Hunter's unfinished History of British India, and Washington Irving's Columbia and his Successors. Many of the original Portuguese authorities are mentioned by Hunter. The epic of Portuguese discovery is written at length in the Lusiad. For Spanish history, Prescott and Robertson ; Prescott describes the conquests of Mexico and Peru in detail. The original Spanish authorities are discussed in his notes. THE NEW WORLD 11 beauty of the south, the Christianity of the Latins stemmed the tide of invasion. It became the defence of the weak against the strong. Its priests were necessarily drawn from the subject Latin race, for among them were the only remains of knowledge. Their sympathies were with the oppressed, for they were of the oppressed. They were opposed to brute force, for they had none themselves ; their only power lay in moral suasion. And through the long darkness of the early Middle Ages, the first true work of colonisation, and thence of civilisation, came from the settlements of the Latin monks. They supplied the rulers of the Church ; from time to time the more fervent spirits went forth from the cloisters to spread the faith among the unconverted. And if Christianity with its hierarchy and visible head at Rome was the spiritual ideal of the time, the revived Latin empire supplied the political ideal. The influence of the Church, though perfect in theory to subdue the passions of man, was often of little effect. Seldom able to rely on military power, and frequently forced to oppose those who possessed it, the Church could only depend on the hold that her doctrines had on the world at large. It was here that the need for a strong political power was felt ; a power like that of the Roman Empire, hard and merciless, able to crush all opposition in obedience to the unceasing cry for peace ; a power vested in one man, the emperor of the universe such a little universe as Europe then knew. The new empire came, and the firm rule of the great German monarchs at its head forced some show of order on the turbu- lent kings and princes under them. The hand of the oppressor was a little stayed, and the first steps taken towards a new Roman Empire, that should be no unworthy successor of the old. But the day of continental unity had passed away for ever ; the day of national unity was not yet : it was the intermediate epoch of small republics. Bitterly as it was regretted by men 12 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS like Dante, who saw only the turbulence and fickleness of petty states, and were blind to the inevitable crushing out of individuality by the imperial system as it was then under- stood, the change was necessary. There was too little in common between Germany and Italy for one sovereign to rule both countries. The strongest monarch could only obtain a partial unwilling obedience. The death of the emperor frequently meant the temporary demise of the empire. As a magnificent theory, it survived for centuries ; as a fact, it was extinct before the Middle Ages passed away, save as a pretext for some ambitious ruler to enlarge his territories. Again the old form of government came to the front ; and again the Latins showed the way. The imperial system failed by reason of its very vastness : the small republic offered better safeguards for life and property. As a free man in a free town, the merchant or artificer was in a better position than his fellow under the Empire. He had a voice in the affairs of the hour ; the road for ambition lay open : the success of his city was his success, nay, sometimes his very existence. The Empire sank beneath its own weight, while the republics amassed wealth from the growing commerce of the age. But after a time, these too failed. They rested on too narrow a basis : internal weakness was increased by the jealousy of rivals ; sudden riches brought danger from leading citizens ; and the free cities fell one by one under the rule of tyrant or oligarchy. Yet, as it became evident that the republic could not fully meet the needs of Europe, another and more permanent force appeared, creating new divisions of peoples, which in most cases are still strongly marked to-day. Until near the close of the Middle Ages, there was no real sentiment of national union. To an adherent of the Empire, Europe was a commonwealth ruled by emperor and pope. The Venetian or Florentine, on the other hand, ignored the interests of Italy as a whole ; his state, to which alone he owed allegiance, was Venice or Florence. The citizens of THE NEW WORLD 13 Barcelona and Seville had little in common ; they had not yet realised that a peninsula cut ofi from the rest of Europe was made for political unity. The world, in fact, had hardly advanced beyond local rule. From primitive days, when every one's hand was against his neighbour, men had come to co-operate within the limits of their own town or province ; but beyond this, they were strangers, and as strangers, enemies. Indeed, the difficulties of travel, the constant war and rapine, and the unending tumults of the day, rendered this distrust inevitable. But, as trade progressed, the merchant was no longer at the mercy of the knight, a creature to be plundered at will : the advance of military science made the knight himself less powerful. The long wars and invasions of France forced the people to some kind of unity, although divisions were ever breaking out again. Similarly, racial and religious resentment against an alien creed and kingdom on their soil united the Christians of Spain. But the springs of the rising spirit of nationality went deeper than the political exigencies of the times. They lay in the fact that the feud between Roman and German, between conquered and conqueror, which had long been slowly dying, was now extinct. Continual war, occasional intermarriage, and the need for common defence against invaders of whatever race, had done their work. There was no more a race question ; there was hardly a serious belief in the imperial question. And in the new Europe that we see at the close of the Middle Ages, it was still the descendants of the old Roman stock who were predominant. In Spain, in France, and Italy, the three provinces of the ancient world-empire that had been the scene of the contest, it was the conquerors and not the conquered who had lost their individuality and their language. In all those lands on the continent where the Roman eagle had ruled, the German tongue was no longer spoken. It was the Latin, corrupted indeed but still essenti- 14 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVEESEAS ally Latin, that was understood by all. Still the language of the north and east of Europe, German had gone down before Latin in every place where Latin was the mother tongue, even as the descendants of Goth, Frank, and Vandal had lost their individuality among the peoples they had conquered. And the new Latin dialects crystallised into new languages, when in the rising literature of each country, new poets showed the rare beauty of the forms that had been evolved from the common speech. There was a fresh awakening to the splendour of life and the value of the old culture, as Greek and Roman letters were again studied. The hand of the Church lay less heavy on independent thought, as her influence declined through the scandals of papal schism and clerical immorality. The old imperial belief in the one world-ruler became still more impracticable as the wars that were waged in its name con- tinued. The little republics that had defied great monarchs became of less importance as they sold themselves to local princes. A few strong kings by brilliant wars and unblushing deception crushed the liberties of their subjects, thus making themselves masters of great countries and furthering the consolidation of warring provinces into a national unity that later developed into national sympathy. While this revolution was in gradual progress some daring seamen of Latin race, venturing into the unknown outer The ocean, discovered the further coasts of Africa, the Di^bveiies, Indies, and America. The impulse to exploration 1415-98. came from the interruption of the mediaeval trade routes which the Turkish conquests in eastern Europe had closed ; for when Indian produce could no longer be brought overland by caravan, or across the water by lagging barques which hugged the shores from Indus to Suez, it was necessary to discover an alternative way for commerce. Attempts were made to find a new path overland, but every enterprise was beaten back by failure ; and when at length the ancient legend was recalled that a passage to Asia existed round the THE NEW WORLD 15 south of Africa, the young Prince Henry of Portugal, who had been inspired by the recent capture of Ceuta from the Musal- ma'ns in 1415, consecrated the rest of his life to geographical discovery. In the teeth of the popular objections that his policy took valuable men away from the kingdom, that the sea was too perilous, and that the countries which his mariners discovered were so burnt up by heat as to be worthless, the Prince persevered. Progress was slow, for no Mediterranean galley could live in the Atlantic, and it was long before he was able to construct a satisfactory sailing vessel. Even then imper- fect nautical instruments and the imagined terrors of the outer ocean compelled the seamen to follow the coast as closely as possible. But the Prince was upheld by the triple force of a crusading zeal against Isla'm, by the hope of gain, and by the desire of spreading Christianity among the heathen and infidel nations of the earth. And wherever his explorers landed, crosses were erected in token of their faith, and the Prince's motto Talent de bien faire, the resolve to do greatly was inscribed as a sign of the dominion of Portugal. But the goal for which they sought was India, not Africa. The Portuguese touched but the fringe of the dark continent, and cared nothing for it or its inhabitants. Although Prince Henry's hopes were shared by his sailors, it was not until the route to India was open that there was any popular enthusiasm for foreign adventure. The possession of Africa, which was theirs by the double right of papal bulls and undisputed claim, aroused little interest ; the impulse was ever onwards. For thirty years after Henry's death in 1460, the Portuguese seamen penetrated further and further south along the seemingly interminable coasts of Africa. But when the Cape of Good Hope was once rounded, the way was less uncertain. At Mozambique the natives were found trading with the Moors of India, ' buying from them silver, linen, pepper, ginger, rings, pearls and rubies, and from a country beyond, 16 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS gold/ Their appetite thus whetted by a sight of the treasures of the East, the Portuguese pressed forward to Mombasa, a trading city of Arabs, of pure and mixed blood, with rich, well-dressed inhabitants, and especially ' women clothed in silk, gold, and precious stones/ From that port it was necessary to strike out boldly across > the great open expanse of the Indian Ocean : and at length, on 20th May 1498, the first European vessel to reach Asia cast anchor before Calicut. On that epochal day the European invasion of Asia began. Almost from the moment that they set foot in India the Portuguese followed a definite policy. The royal treasury The derived profit in plenty from each voyage. But Empire 1 *" peaceful gain alone was not enough, nor was it 1*98-1680. perhaps feasible. The Arabs, hereditary foes of all Christendom as well as rivals in trade, had been encountered in the east African ports ; and the trade of India soon proved to be in their hands. Enmity between the two races was instinctive : ' Devil take you, what brought you here ? ' said an Arab merchant to the Portuguese when they first landed at Calicut. Despite the strangeness of the new scenes ' If this be Satan, I worship God/ cried one on his first visit to an Indian temple the Europeans took the upper hand almost from the first. A bitter war was waged, in which religion, commerce, and empire became oddly mingled forces. The Portuguese rose to the idea of converting the whole of India to Christianity, of concentrating all the traffic of the East in their own hands, and of dominating Asia to the exclusion of rivals of whatever race or creed for all time. And the adherents of so militant a faith as Islm were not backward in defending their preserve when temporal profit and spiritual advantage both depended on the victory. In no case was quarter given. The Portuguese attempted THE NEW WORLD 17 to hide their real weakness by terrorising the East with a display of ruthless barbarian strength. In 1502, for instance, Vasco da Gama cut off the ears, hands, and noses of eight hundred captives, which he sent, heaped up among dead leaves, to an Indian prince to make curry of. The teeth of prisoners were knocked down their throats with staves. A high-caste Indian who was suspected of being a spy was out- raged by having the ears of an unclean animal sewn to his head. An Arab merchant was flogged until he fainted ; his mouth was then filled with dirt, and covered with a piece of bacon an abomination to a Musalman. Captives were blown from guns, and the enemy ' saluted with their fragments/ Even women were not respected by the chivalry of the West, when they belonged to an alien faith in a foreign land. The hands and ears of some female prisoners were cut off 'to take off their bracelets and earrings to save time/ But those Portuguese who suffered a like fate when they were defeated, were revered as having died the martyr's death for their religion and country. Up to a point, indeed, they succeeded. Affonso Albu- querque, the most able of their leaders in the East, drove the Arab traders out of many of the Indian ports, , . J _, r Its Decline, conquered or made treaties recognising European overlordship with many of the rulers of the Indian mainland and the southern archipelago, and even looked further east and opened up relations with China and Japan. Over a large part of the Indian Ocean the Portuguese be- came supreme. But the effort was too great, the nation too small ; and the first European domination of the East, if that indeed can be called domination which never at its zenith reached more than a few miles inland, passed away almost as quickly as it rose. The holy war, which with all its fanaticism had something not far removed from nobility in its inception, degenerated into a mere struggle for plunder and booty. The love of B 18 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS exploration, in which adventure was the chief and often the sole reward, sank to a striving for illicit profit at the expense of the royal treasury. And the first generation of hardy pioneers was succeeded by the listless magnificence of the second, which made Goa, the Portuguese capital in the East, ' a centre of idleness and immorality J whose memory still lingers dimly to this day. Some indication of the change can ** be seen in Albuquerque's dying words. ' In bad repute with men because of the king, and in bad repute with the king because of the men, it were well that I were gone/ he cried in 1515 ; ' I have finished all my troubles without seeing any satisfaction of them/ A rich traffic had promised with China and Japan : but from both countries the Portuguese were expelled, because they could not restrain their plundering instincts or propa- gandist zeal. Although their king styled himself ' lord of the conquest and navigation of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and the Indies/ his name was known to few in those wide realms, and his servants on the spot were venal and corrupt. In the year 1552 the civic authorities at Goa sent a petition to Lisbon declaring that ' in all India there is no justice, either in your viceroy, or in those who are to mete it out/ The one object was the ' gathering together of money by every means. . . . There is no Moor will trust a Portuguese. . . . Senhor, we beg for mercy, mercy, mercy. Help us, Senhor ; help us, Senhor, for we are sinking/ " But no help came. Portugal was already exhausted by the dual effort of discovering and founding an empire on the other side of the earth ; and while she had by no means exterminated her enemies, other nations in the West had begun to look to the orient with longing eyes. They cared nothing for the war of Catholic against infidel, under which pretence JT the struggle in the East still masked itself : as protestant 1 There is a most interesting picture of the decay of Goa in Manucci, Storia do Mogor, THE NEW WORLD 19 heretics, the Dutch and English laughed at the papal bull which a century before would have been respected in every country of Europe ; while as enemies of the neighbouring Spanish empire which now towered above the greatness of Portugal until Lisbon became a mere satellite of Madrid, they were ready to attack both powers on sea and land. With the prophetic instinct of a dying poet, Camoens, the one Portuguese writer whose fame is universal, foresaw the coming downfall of his country. He had spent the greater part of his life wandering among her possessions in Africa and Asia, and his epic tells the whole story of her maritime glory ; but when he expired at Lisbon in 1579, a neglected, broken-hearted man after years of privation, he exclaimed, ' The world shall witness how dearly I have loved my country. I have returned, not merely to die in her bosom, but to die with her/ The year after his death Portugal was annexed by Spain, and all her vast protectorates incorporated with the dominions of Philip n. Spain too had won an empire from the unknown world : and with larger resources from which to draw at home, and less opposition to fear in the newlands that she claimed, ^ e & anish she was able to maintain her territories, if not her Empire, supremacy, when Portugal had finally sunk to a u92 1588 - power of the third rank in Europe and the impotent owner of some undeveloped colonies in Africa. Inspired by the same hope of finding India that had carried the Portuguese round the Cape of Good Hope, Christopher Columbus took service under the King of Spain ; and sailing westwards across the Atlantic in the year 1492, he landed on the island of San Salvador in the West Indies. Under the impression that the dream of his life had come true, he proceeded to explore the archipelago, hoping and indeed expecting to find a speedy proof that these were indeed the Indian isles of the eastern seas. He died without discovering 20 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS his error ; but Spain reaped immediate advantage from her new possessions. . , , In 1493 the town of Isabella was founded on the isle < Hispaniola-the first European settlement in the west* world ' five years later, Trinidad had been seen, the Orinoco was known, and a colony established at San Domingo Further voyages took the Spaniards along the coasts of Venezuela, Colombia, and Brazil; and from that time discovery Con- tinued unchecked, until in 1519 Magellan rounded ^ South America After another three years, Cano accomplished the unprecedented feat of sailing round the world. Peru was soon open to the explorers ; a still more daring adventurer reached Papua Others travelled as far north as California ; one intrepid band crossed the Andes, and navigated the Amazon from source to mouth-a difficult feat even at the PI The firsT object of the discoverers was to secure the new lands for their own country. Possession was taken m the name of the King of Spain wherever they touched : and despite the ingratitude of their master, who doomed his most faithful servants to imprisonment or even death on thei return, they remained true. A loyalty that can stand that /test can stand any test; and Spanish loyalty was justly celebrated as the most unquestioning m the world But the haughty spirit that was obedient to the , tang ; was y pitiless when it encountered strangers. When the French attempted to found a colony in. Florida they were destroyed by the Spaniards, not because they were Frenchmen, but * because they were heretics and enemies of God. And when the English appeared in Spanish waters they were branded as pirates as well as heretics. The natives of Hispamola were sent to Europe as slaves. Those that ?^ **** TJ if forced to labour, under pain of torture ; and m 1517 the nrst patent was granted for the importation of negroes to assist them In accordance with the custom of the age, they were THE NEW WORLD 21 compelled to confess belief in the religion of their masters ; and the machinery of the Inquisition was at once set in motion in the new world. As the natives of Hispaniola died so rapidly under Spanish rule that within a few years the original stock was extinct, the holy fathers had need to haste in the work of conversion, lest perchance some of the heathen committed to their keeping should knock at the gate of heaven in vain. The suffering of the natives would have been great enough had they merely been deprived of their lands and the fruits of their unaccustomed toil ; but it was intensified by the callousness of the Spaniards, and the terrible cruelties of which they showed themselves capable. There was as yet no sense of the duties and responsibility that devolve on a power- ful race when it comes into contact with a weak : the battle was wholly to the strong. A few years after the western continent was discovered Mexico had been conquered by Cortes and Peru by Pizarro ; and the ability and courage of the two commanders only brings out in stronger colours the ruthless savagery with which they compassed their ends. The one Spanish colony founded by peaceful means failed through the jealousy of a neighbouring settlement ; and the good bishop Las Casas, who saw and deplored the brutality of his countrymen, left America in despair. The splendour of their achievements in exploration, and the magnificent daring that carried the Spaniards round the world in small frail ships, or into the interior of an unknown continent without knowledge or trustworthy information, gives a romantic glamour to their exploits that blinds us to the hideousness of the settled policy of the pioneers as a whole. There was no attempt at conciliation of the aboriginal inhabitants ; far less was there any of that finer diplomacy, by which the French often trained their native subjects to willing co-operation. 22 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS Some measures, indeed, were taken by the home administra- tion to mitigate the severity of the pioneers. Franciscan monks were sent out to convert the natives to Christianity. Soon after Las Casas had published his Brief Relation of the tragic events in America, a series of laws was passed to protect the ^"defenceless beings whose cause he championed. His treatise in 1542 was followed by a declaration from Charles v. that the aborigines were to be treated as free men and not slaves. And in the year 1551 universities were founded at Mexico and Lima. ^ But all such steps were in vain. Wherever the precious metals were found, they were exported to Spain ; and the king would do nothing to hamper a supply which enabled him to pursue vast schemes of ambition in Europe. The great empire which Philip n. was endeavouring to found by sub- verting public freedom and religious liberty failed in the end to rivet its chains on the other countries of Europe, and left Spain ruined and exhausted ; but the wealth which he squandered in the attempt was obtained at the cost of the blood of thousands of those to whom the Christianity and the civilisation of Europe had alike proved a curse. The conquest of the feeble native kingdoms of the two Y Americas had not proved difficult ; but it is by settlement, and not by conquest, that a country is permanently subdued. The number of those who crossed from Spain to America was relatively small, and few indeed made their homes there. The majority of emigrants went to get rich, and having done so, they returned to Europe. Thus the Latin colonies, in the west as in the Orient, had no real root : and though the weakness of the native opposition, and the ability of many of the Spanish governors, kept the imperial provinces obedient to the reigning dynasty for more than three centuries, there was no political life. The Spaniards who were entrusted with the administration, as well as those whose work it was to attend to the mines and the produce THE NEW WORLD 23 of the soil, were frequently endowed, indeed, with considerable strength of character. But all the vices that were sapping the national life at home throve unchecked in the outer provinces ; and the result was utter stagnation. There could be no advance where such conditions prevailed ; and although the natural wealth of the colonies gave them for long a seeming prosperity, the inability of the people to develop anything but the most rudimentary form of industry made them in the long run far less important than lands favoured by nature in a less degree, but inhabited by an active diligent race. 1 The seeds of decay thus already existed when the Spanish Empire was at the zenith of its splendour; but its magnificent extent, its seemingly overpowering strength, and the greatness of its commerce east and west, prevented the decline from becoming visible for many years. The first sign that it not omnipotent was the successful revolt of Holland, and the English victory over the Armada in the year 1588 ; but even then it was long before men could believe that an internal cancer was eating away the world- wide heritage of Philip 11., and for more than a century rivals shrank from touching it, lest vitality should still lurk in some of the members that during life had inspired such terror. 1 Almost the last words of Simon Bolivar, who died a disillusioned, broken-hearted man after fighting for the liberation of Latin America from Spain in the nineteenth century, show how little national feeling had taken root in the Spanish colonies. ' Those who have served the revolution,' he said, ' have ploughed the sea-. The only thing to be done is to emigrate. These countries will inevitably fall into the hands of an uncurbed multitude, to pass later into those of tyrants of all colours and all races.' There was more truth in the prediction than in those of most disappointed men. 24 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS CHAPTER III THE ENGLISH SEA-KINGS : 1558-1600 l WITH the loss of Calais and Guisnes in 1558 fell the last of the old English possessions abroad. ' The chief jewel of the realm/ as Queen Mary styled it, was taken by surprise ; and from that day to this England has had no continental empire. She has occupied isolated towns, as hostages from allies, as Havre from the Huguenots, Flushing and Ostend from the Dutch Republic, in the time of Elizabeth, and Dunkirk under Cromwell ; the succession to the throne brought a long con- nection with Hanover ; the vicissitudes of politics forced the armies of England to fight in all parts of the continent ; islands have been taken, ceded, or lost, as Heligoland and Minorca : but there has been no serious attempt to build up a second empire in Europe, after the disastrous failure of the first. At the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, nothing indeed seemed more improbable than that England should develop into a great power, especially into a great colonial power. The whole of the new world was claimed by Spain and Portu- gal ; they were in actual possession of a large part of it. They were secured in their possessions by decrees from Rome, which were respected by the greater part of Europe, and by a very large number of people in England itself. Both Spaniards and Portuguese had shown themselves invincible on sea and land. The names of Vasca da Gama, Albuquerque, Columbus, Cortes, and Pizarro, were justly world-famous. The treasures of the new lands poured into Madrid and Lisbon. By diplo- macy and marriage Portugal was brought under the rule of 1 Hakluyt and the publications of the Hakluyt Society are indis- pensable for this period. Purchas his Pilgrimmes, and Kerr's Collection of Voyages are valuable as additional authorities, and Captain Mahan's works are useful for the doctrine of sea-power. For England herself at this time Froude's History, which must be used with caution as a partial view of the age, and J. R. Green. THE NEW WORLD 25 Spain. Internal dangers to the state there seemed none. Civil fc" liberties had been crushed by Charles v. Heresy was stamped * out by the Inquisition. The sentiment of the people, loyal, brave, and generous, with a passionate devotion to Catholic king and Catholic religion, furnished a seemingly inexhaust- ible supply of men and money for the extension of dominion. The position of England was very different. The death of Mary found the nation with neither fleet nor army. The treasury was empty. Of the empire that the Plantagenets had endeavoured to consolidate little remained. France was not merely independent and hopelessly lost, but a dangerous enemy. Every project for a union between Scotland and England had utterly failed, and the old enmity was carefully nursed by Mary Stuart. Four centuries of conquest and tyranny had reduced Ireland to despair, and the very English settlers in the sister island of ten joined the natives against their own countrymen. In England itself religious feeling ran high and divided the nation into warring camps; the social strife was still unmitigated ; the natural resources of the land were not yet developed ; discontent with the policy of the government and its failure both abroad and at home were everywhere rife. In the whole of Europe there was only one less likely rival to the majesty of Spain than England, and that was Holland. But these two nations possessed a hardy and daring race of seamen, both ready to take advantage of the Latin discoveries, both longing for the adventures and the rewards which were to be found in the new lands, and none of them at all disin- clined for a fight. The ' sea-dogs ' who came from the coasts of England and Holland, pouring out of their little fishing villages on rough Devon and Dorset or flat Zeeland shores, loved the wild free waters and the wild free life they gave ; and though the rulers of the two countries might fear the. vengeance of Spain if her territories were attacked, the Latin supremacy which held the world in thrall only added further zest to the efforts of their seafaring subjects. 26 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS It was these men who laid the foundations of that second English Empire overseas, the small beginnings of which first moved the jealousy of Spain as the sixteenth century neared its close. # The first Tudors had, indeed, already attempted enterprises overseas. Under the command of Henry vn., John Cabot, a The First navigator of Italian descent residing at Bristol, English had received a patent, dated 5th March 1496, grant- Exp orers. -^ ^ y m an( j ^jg ' three sons and their heirs and deputies to sail to all parts, countries, and seas of the east, west, and north at their own cost and charges with five ships ; to seek out, discover, and find whatsoever islands, countries, regions or provinces belonging to the heathens or infidels were hitherto unknown to Christians ; and to subdue, occupy, and possess all such towns, cities, castles, and islands as they might be able, setting up the royal banners and ensigns in the same, and to command over them as vassals and lieutenants of the crown of England.' In spite of such enormous paper privileges, however, nothing was done by the recipients, and on 13th February 1497, a new license was granted them. The Cabots then fitted out an expedition, and sailed westwards, expecting to find no land between England and China. But on 24th June the island of Newfoundland was discovered, called by them the First-Seen Land, or from the religious festival of the day, St. John's, which still survives in the name of the capital. The Cabots then touched the American mainland which Columbus himself had never reached and coasted along the shore ; but seeing no channel that should lead westwards directly towards China, they abandoned the attempt and returned home. 1 1 There has been a long controversy as to the actual spot at which the Cabots touched on the mainland, and it has even been questioned whether they succeeded in reaching Newfoundland at all. The whole dispute has been well summed up by M. Harrisse, a French scholar, who has made an exhaustive examination of the evidence, with the remark : ' The unbiassed critic does not know, has no means of knowing, and probably never will know, exactly where Cabot landed in 1497 and 1498. THE NEW WORLD 27 The apparent failure did not discourage Henry. Another charter was issued in 1502 ; and should any country be discovered and taken, ' it is our will/ said the king, ' that men and women from England be freely permitted to settle therein, and to improve the same under the direction of these grantees, whom we hereby empower to make laws/ This, the first colonial charter in our annals, possesses an *" interest of its own, but it came to nothing. The men to whom it was granted had not capital enough ; merchants did not yet see that their profit lay in supporting such enterprises ; and the king himself, who was so anxious for new dominions, and from his great wealth the one best able to give^assistance, merely granted the empty privilege, and bore the smallest t share in the expense. His successor, however, took more practical steps. The beginning of the British Royal Navy may be dated from the year 1512, and the Corporation of Trinity House was estab- lished in the same year. In 1516, Sir Thomas Port, Vice- Admiral of the fleet, and Sebastian Cabot, made a voyage to South America : in 1516, 1527, and 1536 further efforts were made by the king's orders to discover the North- West Passage, and in the last expedition a colony was also projected. But again there was no result at all ; it was private enter- * prise that first did anything. 1 In the year 1530 Captain 1 A pathetic letter is in existence, from Lord Edmund Howard to Cardinal Wolsey, which shows that those in authority did not always take advantage of the offers made of service overseas. 'I would trust,' wrote that nobleman when in disgrace, ' to do acceptable service ; and liefer I had to be in his grace's service at the furthest end of Christendom, than to live thus wretchedly, and die with thought, sorrow, and care. I may repent that I was ever a nobleman's son born, leading the sorrow- ful life that I live. ... I am informed that there shall be a voyage made into a new-found land with divers ships, and captains and soldiers in them, and I am informed the voyage shall be profitable to the King's grace. Sir, if your grace think my poor carcase anything meet to serve the King's grace in the said voyage, for the bitter passion of Christ be you my good lord therein ; for now I do live so wretched a life as ever did gentleman being a true man. I have nothing to lose but my life, and that I would gladly adventure in his service, and to get somewhat toward my living.' The haughty Cardinal returned no answer. 28 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS William Hawkins, of Plymouth, the first of those Devonshire mariners who have so glorious a name in our naval history, went to Guinea seeking for elephants' teeth, and thence sailed onward from West Africa to Brazil. *From that time till 1580, when Portugal and her possessions fell to Spain, there was a continual trade to Africa for ivory and gold-dust. 'i/But the internal troubles in England caused a lull in the voyages of trade and discovery ; and for some years our annals of oversea adventures are almost bare. Some indications may, however, be noticed that the outer world was not altogether forgotten. One of the first acts of Edward vi. was to en- courage the English fisheries off the Newfoundland coasts, which had now become of considerable importance ; and it is pleasant to notice that the services of the Cabots were not forgotten, since in 1549 Sebastian was pensioned. In 1551 the first English ships traded to Morocco ; and two years later an expedition was sent out overland to discover the north- eastern passage to China and India. Of the three ships that then sailed under the command of Willoughby, two were wrecked, and Willoughby himself was frozen to death : but Chancellor in the third arrived at the castle of Archangel, and proceeding inland on sleighs, visited the Czar at Moscow. He was granted important privileges, and from this journey sprang the trade with Russia, and the first of the great mercan- tile companies. What had been done as yet was very little. So far the English were merely traders on sufferance, and small ones The Menace at that. It was during the Elizabethan era that from Spain. a new dare-devil spirit entered into the whole nation. The menace from Spain grew daily darker, as the queen coquetted with the proposals of Philip n. Her people, proud, haughty and overbearing to a fault, inflamed with the religious passions of the time, resentful of the disgrace and persecution that Mary had brought on her country, envious of the unknown splendour of the new world, and jealous of THE NEW WOKLD 29 those riches which were drawn from both Indies but in which they had no share, were ready to risk their lives and fortunes in a combat with the sovereign who represented the forces of Catholicism, wealth and despotism allied in an overpowering degree. Elizabeth hung back for a time from open conflict, but the men of the western counties, whom she had compli- mented as ' born courtiers and with a becoming confidence/ were already forcing her hand. The English Channel became infested with privateers, ' sea-dogs ' in the language of the time, sea-kings as later ages have loved to call them, who preyed on the Spanish maritime traffic and assisted the French and Dutch protestants against the tyrant whom all abhorred. A little later they carried the contest to the West Indies, setting the pope's bulls at naught and laughing to scorn the remonstrances of Philip. If they were taken, they were thrown into the dungeons of the Inquisition, ' laden with irons, without sight of sun or moon/ tortured or starved. If, as happened more often, they were victorious, they brought the Spanish vessels laden with riches into English ports. vThe supremacy of the Latins was no longer uncontested on the high seas ; and Philip was soon to be *" openly derided as ' a colossus stuffed with clouts/ %/Longer voyages were again undertaken in the endeavour to find a better route to the Indies and to secure Tne search territory for England herself. 1 But it was still f r India, the elusive North- West Passage to the orient for which our navigators sought. On 7th June 1576 Martin Frobisher, a Yorkshireman, left London, and the next day, ' being Friday about twelve of the clock we weighed at Deptford and set sail all three of us and bore down by the Court, 2 where we shot off our ordnance 1 In the year 1553, a Treatise of the New India was published by one Richard Eden, to induce Englishmen to ' make attempts in the New World to the glory of God and the Commodity of our Country. ' New India, in the language of the times, was America. 2 Elizabeth frequently held her courts at Greenwich. 30 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVEKSEAS and made the best show we could ; her majesty beholding the same commended it and bade us farewell with shaking her hand at us out of the window/ After rounding Scotland and sailing west and by north, they presently sighted Labrador. Here they met ' people like to Tartars, with long black hair, broad faces and flat noses, and tawny in colour, wearing seal- skins, and so do the women, not differing in the fashion, but marked in the face with blue streaks down the cheeks and round about the eyes.' But they had no success in their quest, and soon returned home. The next year Frobisher went again, hoping to find the route beyond America, which continent was still supposed to be ' an island environed with the sea/ Still they dis- covered no channel ; instead they brought back expectations of gold. Spiders had been noticed, ' which, as many affirm, are signs of great store of gold/ The hopes endured for long, in spite of the homely wisdom of one member of the expedition, who wrote that, if stones looked as gold, ' so likewise doth the sand in the bright water all is not gold that glistereth/ ^t was this thought of treasure that upheld many, and often caused ruin to the early English colonial enterprises ; to get rich quickly after the manner of the Spaniards was ambition of all. Kichard Hakluyt, the contemporary historian of early English maritime adventure, alone was wiser. Pondering the discoveries of the age and the oppor- tunities opening out for his countrymen, he sketched the true policy for a settlement that was disregarded indeed in his time, but perforce adopted later, when colonising was undertaken by men of a different stamp from the brilliant Elizabethan mariners. ' The first seat/ he remarked, is ' to be chosen on the seaside, so as you may have your own navy, within bay, river, or lake, in a temperate climate, in sweet air, where you may possess always sweet water, wood, sea-coals or turf, with fish, flesh, grains, roots and herbs. And for mines of gold, THE NEW WORLD 31 silver, copper, quicksilver or any such precious thing, the wants may be supplied from some other place by sea/ His advice was of no effect : the third expedition of Frobisher set out in 1578, still looking for gold. It returned disheartened a few months later, having met terrible storms, in which at least once the mariners ' continued all the dismal and lament- able night plunged in perplexity/ and later encountered ' a hideous fog and mist/ There was little that they discovered, save a country they named affectionately West England, and a cliff which ' for a certain similitude we called Charing Cross/ In what the similitude lay was not explained. But with the natives they were disgusted, ' since they defile their dens most filthily with their beastly feeding and dwell so long in a place until their sluttishness loathing them, they are forced to seek a sweeter air/ -But the triple failure of Frobisher did not discourage other navigators. John Davis, a gentleman of Dartmouth, also made three voyages to the north-west, but he too found nothing save a dreary land, sufficiently characterised by the name he gave it of Desolation. Yet he was still convinced that there was ' no doubt the north parts of America are all islands/ 1 The storms and fogs which baffled our seamen had already claimed their victims. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, another mariner of Devon, had sailed for Newfoundland in 1583, expecting to establish there a prosperous settlement, to civilise the savages, and to bring employment home for the ' many decayed towns ' which existed in England itself. He took 1 John Davis, who had been as near the arctic pole in his three north- western voyages as any man of the Elizabethan age, was convinced that the evil land of Desolation which he had discovered was but the un- promising precursor of better regions further north. He argued that at the pole the climate must be delightful, and that the people there ' have a wonderful excellency, and an exceeding prerogative above all nations of the earth . . . for they are in perpetual light and never know what darkness meaneth, by the benefit of twilight and full moons.' The prose of fact corrects the poetry of imagination ; and the pleasing theory of Davis was abundantly disproved by the sufferings of later arctic explorers. 32 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS possession of a place where was ' iron very plentiful, lead and somewhere copper ; I will not aver of richer metals, albeit more than hope may be conceived thereof/ But disasters came, and the pioneers returned. ' I will not/ cried Gilbert, when danger closed in on them, ' forsake my little company going homeward, with whom I have passed so many storms and perils ' : and his last recorded words, spoken shortly ^before the vessel went down, were, ' We are as near to heaven by sea as by land/ The exploration of the bleak northern shores of America bore rich fruit in after centuries, when the Hudson's Bay Company ruled and traded between the Arctic and the far Pacific ; but the earlier years of English enterprise in those parts contained nothing but disaster. The riches of the Indies had been the magnet which had drawn our seamen to search for the passages of the North-East and the North- West ; and when they failed to make their way through the im- penetrable ice-fields of the Arctic regions there was nothing left but to enter the magic ocean where Spain seemed secure, or to abandon the hope of oriental wealth. Trade with the Portuguese had long been permitted and found profitable ; but no English vessel had yet reached the East. The Spaniards, too, it had been remarked, ' were always unhappy in the north and the French usurpers in our right/ England was already claiming as her own that part of America which Cabot had discovered, although her efforts to found a New England there had all ended in disappointment. Such enterprises could hardly move the wrath of Spain. It was the incursion of Francis Drake into the southern seas that opened Philip's eyes to the menace from England. The most famous of all the Devonshire mariners, who had come from the quiet inland town of Tavistock, had already sir Francis seen service in the Dutch, French, and West Indian Drake, 1577. Caters, ' making much money by playing the sea- man and the pirate/ In the year 1572 his imagination was THE NEW WORLD 33 fired by a distant sight of the Pacific from Panama, when ' he fell on his knees and prayed God that he might one day navigate those waters ' ; but for some time the opportunity he sought did not come. At length, however, in command of five small vessels of a hundred down to fifteen tons each, Drake departed from Plymouth with elaborate secrecy ' about five of the clock in the afternoon of 15 November, 1577/ on the first attempt made by an Englishman to circum- navigate the globe. After a storm which forced them to put back for repairs, the adventurers again proceeded south, and soon found them- selves in the open ocean, with ' nothing but sea beneath us and air above us to be seen, as our eyes did behold the wonderful works of God in his creatures which he had made innumerable both small and great beasts/ Proceeding with good fortune, ' as if we had been in a garden of pleasure, April 5 we fell in with the coast of Brazil ' ; later, after a desperate struggle with the elements in the Straits of Magellan, they entered the sea, ' called by some Mare Pacificum, but proving to us rather to be Mare Furiosum/ One ship returned to England ; the others were lost, save only Drake's Golden Hind, which had first been called the Pelican, and which now seemed in truth as ' a pelican in the wilderness/ Still they pressed on, provisioning at Valparaiso, meeting the Spanish fleet of thirty vessels at Lima, and presently overtaking the great treasure ship that sailed once a year to Cadiz, laden with provisions, jewels and stones, plate, gold, silver, ' and the like trifles. We gave the master a little Linen and the like for those commodities ; he hastening somewhat lighter than before to Panama/ This good business done, they proceeded joyfully on their way, touching at California to repair before venturing across the great waste of the Pacific, and staying there long enough to discover the gold which was not worked for some three hundred years more. Narrowly saving themselves from c 34 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS shipwreck on the coast of Celebes, they rounded the Cape, and dropped anchor again in Plymouth Sound on 26th September 1580. The spoils Drake brought home exceeded a million and a half sterling. He was received with general enthusiasm throughout the country ; Elizabeth wore the jewels he had captured in her crown ; and when Philip demanded his surrender, the queen knighted him in cool defiance. Such insolence was too much for the King of Spain to bear. He had long planned an invasion of England, and now he The Armada began to build a mighty Armada that should s^-Mwer 811 con( l uer the first protestant state in Europe once 1588. for all. But the news of its preparation brought Drake again to the front. Sailing from home with a fleet of thirty small vessels, he burned the Spanish storeships and galleys at Cadiz, and would have attacked the Armada itself had he not been restrained by orders from England. But he had ' singed the King of Spain's beard ' : and the Armada itself was met next year with the same fearlessness. Its defeat belongs to English history ; but the results of the fight were incalculable in their bearing on our colonial empire. From the day when ' the feathers of the Spaniard were plucked one by one,' the balance of maritime power was transferred from the south to the north ; it was no longer the Latins, but the English, who were first on the water. Had the Armada not been defeated, it is not too much to say that there would have been no English colonial empire. The American colonies, even if they could have been planted, would have been at the mercy of the nation that for the time being controlled the Atlantic ; alone they must have remained j far too feeble to resist. The fate that overtook the Dutch, Swedish, and French colonies in North America is proof enough of what would have happened to the English had England not been supreme at sea. And without that supremacy it would have been madness to attempt the conquest of India ; THE NEW WORLD 35 even commercial transactions with the East would have been precarious. The trade of the United Kingdom would have been confined to the United Kingdom alone. The market for its manufactures would have been merely the two islands and the European continent ; no possibility would have ex- isted for the race to expand over the whole of North America and Australasia, no opportunity for British rule to domi- nate Africa, or to reach out victoriously to the ends of the earth. At the time of Elizabeth, the meaning of sea-power was not indeed fully understood, or its theory at least not fully enunci- ated ; but the instinct of the nation guided it aright. The**"" lesson of its necessity was forgotten by the next two genera- tions ; but Cromwell put it in the forefront of his policy. Again neglected by the Stuarts after the Restoration, the nation at large was still conscious of its importance, and during the great wars of the eighteenth century it became part of the general principles of national polity. It is not our province to follow one by one the deeds of the English sea-kings. From every port of the south and west, both small and great, our mariners now put The sea- forth to explore the world, and to extract some Kin s s - profit, recognised or illicit, from the new lands of the earth. Ruthless daring men roamed the seas, such as Cavendish, who wrote that ' I navigated alongst the coast of Chili, Peru, and Nueva Espane, where I made great spoils ; I burnt and sunk nineteen sails of ships, small and great. All the villages and towns that ever I landed at I burnt and spoiled ; and had I not been discovered upon the coast I had taken great quantity of treasure/ They were pirates, but the nation gloried in their piracy ; and their deeds spread terror in all the Spanish ports and throughout the two Americas. Perhaps the most typical of all the achievements of all that race of heroes was the fight of Richard Grenville off the Azores. The Revenge, that had been employed on service 36 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS to Virginia, and was Drake's flagship against the Armada, was lying at anchor in the summer of 1591 with other vessels near the Azores, looking out for the Spanish treasure-fleet. But when the Spaniards appeared, the English had already waited six months ; the forces were unequal, and many of our sailors were sick or on shore. It was, therefore, felt that an attack could not in prudence be ventured on. Gren- ville, however, ' utterly refused to turn from the enemy, alleging that he would rather choose to die than to dishonour himself, his country, and her majesty's ship, persuading his company that he would pass through the two squadrons in despite of them/ The fight then ' beginning at three o'clock in the afternoon, continued very terrible all that evening/ the Spaniards attempting to board, ' but were still repulsed again and again, and at all times beaten back into their own ships or into the seas.' The whole night the fight continued, and as ' the day increased, so our men decreased ' ; the plight of the Revenge was desperate ; ' all the powder to the last barrel was now spent, all her pikes broken, forty of her best men slain, and the most part of the rest hurt ; the masts all beaten overboard, and all her tackle cut asunder.' But Grenville was still undaunted. Though wounded in the head, he refused to surrender, calling for the carpenter to split and sink the ship, saying that they would ' yield themselves unto God, and to the mercy of none else ; but as they had fought like valiant, resolute men, they should not now shorten the honour of their nation by prolonging their own lives for a few hours, or a few days.' Some demurred, since the Spaniards promised generous terms : Grenville was overruled, and taken aboard the Spanish admiral's ship, where he was treated with great honour ; and dying, on the third day, said at last, ' Here die I, Richard Grenville, with a joyful and quiet mind, for that I have ended my life as a true soldier ought to do, that hath fought for his country, queen, religion, and honour ; whereby my soul most joyful departeth out of this body and THE NEW WORLD 37 shall always leave behind it an everlasting fame of a valiant and true soldier, that hath done his duty, as he was bound to do.' In such words, and in the account of the hero given by Ralegh, is enshrined the whole spirit of the sea-kings. Gren- ville was but one of the many who roamed the waters, and the same character belonged to all. A touch of not unjustifiable V vainglory that is seldom absent from men strong in action ; a love of the wandering Life they led for its own sake, a pride in their country, a firm belief in its destiny, an exaggerated contempt for foreigners, an unlimited confidence in their own capacity, combined with great natural abilities and a necessary unscrupulousness that generally ensured success ; carrying out their conception of duty and honour to the death ; gener- ous though shrewd, haughty and free, courteous and light- hearted ; such were the sea-kings one and all. Even in the early days of the Newfoundland fisheries the English had been considered the masters in those waters, and their exploits had by now made them feared in every port on both sides the Atlantic. The year after the Spanish Armada was defeated, Drake besieged Corunna, and drove back a Spanish army on Spanish soil. He was at length repulsed with heavy loss, mainly through the energy of a brave Galician woman who raised the whole countryside against the invaders ; but so great was the terror inspired by his coming that the body of Saint James, the patron saint of Spain, was removed from the neighbouring cathedral at Santiago, and hidden from the unholy hands of the English heretics. Elsewhere prizes and treasure were captured every day. When Philip n. threatened a second Armada, Cadiz was sacked, the ships in its harbour destroyed, and the provisions and munitions of war fired. In 1595 a descent was made on the West Indies ; Drake and Hawkins lost their lives, but not before they had done enormous damage to the Spanish possessions. 38 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS In America the way was now clear for colonisation. The voyages of Baffin and Hudson opened up the bays of Northern Canada. Continuous efforts were made to plant a settlement in Virginia. The African trade increased with every year, and the son of Hawkins set out boldly for the East in the Daintie. The sea-kings of Devon had done their work ; the road to the Indies was free at last. CHAPTER IV THE MERCANTILE COMPANIES l WITHIN the space of a few years the English sea-kings had carried their flag from the bleak, misty shores of Labrador to the scrub of the African coast, and onwards to India and the eastern isles. The plunder of four continents was brought home by them to excite the wonder of rustic and Londoner alike. They broke the enchantment that held the Spaniards invincible. They laid the foundation of British supremacy on the water. But glorious as these achievements were, it is not by such that a nation becomes great and powerful. They destroy others ; but they effect little themselves. The sea- kings pointed the direction ; another body of men, and another system of polity, founded the colonies and depend- encies. The mercantile chartered companies are not indeed peculiar to Britain ; almost every nation has had recourse to the joint- stock principle at one time or other. But it is in Britain that they have developed to the fullest extent. The enormous power of the East India Company, the Hudson's Bay Com- pany, the African Chartered Companies of our own day, might 1 Authorities. Primarily Macpherson's History of Commerce. Many of the charters and other documents are in Hakluyt. J. R. Green treats the industrial development and the social legislation of the age fully. THE NEW WORLD 39 be envied by many a prosperous European state ; and it is in the formation of these and kindred associations that we shall find the means that made the empire possible. Trading associations and guilds had been common enough in every country during the Middle Ages, when enterprises that were too large for one man to undertake were Growt j 1 of naturally financed by several. The commercial British republics of Italy and Germany, the cities of Belgium, and the depots established everywhere by the Hanseatic league, were at bottom nothing but societies of merchants collected in one central spot by the conditions of trade, and loosely banded together for safety. In England, commerce advanced rapidly when the accession of the Tudors brought stable rule ; but even before that time, when the Portuguese mariners first began to explore the outer world, English trade had grown sufficiently important to move the jealousy of the great Hanseatic league, and a state of open war frequently existed between the merchants of the rival countries. From year to year the trade of England extended, and a nation which had hitherto been unable to supply its own wants began to export its manufactures abroad. In 1498 a treaty was made with Riga, which shows that the Baltic was open for English traffic. A few years later the first direct business was done with the Levant ; it was from this source that currants and tulips were first intro- duced into England. In 1513 a consul was appointed for one of the Grecian islands. London, Southampton, and Bristol took a leading part in the Mediterranean trade, exporting woollens, cloths, and skins, and receiving in return silk, rhubarb, wine, oil, cotton-wool, Turkey carpets, galls and Indian spices. In 1552 the English commercial interest was strong enough to secure the abolition of the exclusive privileges which the Hanseatic traders had possessed ; and the following year the first of the great trading companies was established. 40 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS Some London merchants formed themselves into an association with a capital of 6000 in 240 shares of 25 each, to discover the north-eastern passage to the extreme orient. In 1554 they were incorporated under the style of the Company of Merchant Adventurers, who were to have one governor, and twenty-eight of the ' most sad, discreet and honest fellows, four to be called consuls, and the other twenty-four assistants/ Among various privileges, they were permitted to conquer such infidel lands as they might find. It was in the first voyage made under their direction that Willoughby perished and Chancellor reached Archangel : The Russia an( l after the Czar had granted trading concessions company, to the latter, the Company was generally after- wards called the Russia Company. But the merchants, although they obtained a good profit on their transactions, still looked to Asia as their ultimate goal, and fitted out several expeditions to sail northwards towards China, all of which came to nothing. To the south, however, they had more success. Their agents sailed down the Volga and did business in Persian and Indian goods ; at one time they hoped to reach China through Persia, and expected all eastern trade to come overland. In 1566 they were granted a monopoly of English commerce with Russia : and although this was revoked in later years and the Czar allowed other nations to trade in his dominions, the Company continued to nourish. The success of the Russia Company inspired other ventures. In 1562 Captain John Hawkins began to trade in slaves from other com- Guinea to America, and ten years later this was panics. legalised by a treaty with Portugal : a Guinea Company was afterwards formed. In 1579 a monopoly was granted to merchants trading to the ' East-lands/ or countries surrounded by the Baltic, in order to compete with the Hanseatic league : this, however, was not a joint-stock enterprise, but conducted on the principle that everybody belonging to the association should take his own risk. In the THE NEW WORLD 41 same year, the Sultan allowed English merchants to buy and sell in Turkey as freely as other nations ; and the Levant trade, which had languished since the accession of Queen Mary, at once revived. In 1581 a Turkey Company was formed, which brought Mediterranean and oriental produce to England, rendering those commodities much cheaper than before. The merchants of this corporation soon carried their cloth and tin from Aleppo to Bagdad, down the Tigris to Ormuz and so on to Goa, attempting to trade with India by a different route from that which the Russia Company had used. It is possible they would have accomplished much had not the East India Company come into being twenty years later. The aim of almost every explorer, and the hope of almost every mercantile company, was to reach the Indies. For that object expeditions had been fitted out and The search large sums of money spent, as yet with no result. for laAi& - But in 1580 Drake returned from his voyage in the eastern seas. The year before, Thomas Stevens, the first Englishman to arrive in India, had sailed thither from Lisbon ; and his letters describing the orient soon drew attention at home. In 1583 a party of three merchants proceeded overland. In 1588 Cavendish cruised in the Indian Ocean. In 1591 Raymond and Lancaster visited the East; and it now became evident that the all-sea route was really the safest, cheapest and most direct. Accordingly in 1599 Elizabeth sent John Mildenhall as her envoy to the court of the Great Mughal to apply for trading privileges. He was opposed by the Spaniards and Portuguese. But the East India Company was already formed : and after a few years the Asiatic trade was a regular feature of London business. The transactions with Asia fall to another chapter of our history ; but we may note that for some decades there was little to distinguish the East India Company from other trading associations, whether the Russia, the Levant, or the 42 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVEKSEAS Virginia Company that took over American colonisation from Kalegh. The development of the empire overseas rested financially almost solely on the mercantile companies : for .the proprie- company tary colonies were seldom, save in the case of Rule. Maryland and Pennsylvania, of much importance, and the proprietors often made over their rights eventually to a company. The rule of the latter brought both advantages and disadvantages ; but the balance was generally and substantially favourable. It is natural that, as business men, the shareholders looked for a profit : and easy as it is to blame them in this respect, one must not condemn them too severely if they sometimes showed impatience at the lack of dividends. There was, it is true, frequently a measure of shortsightedness in their policy, due partly to apparent prudence and partly to lack of imagination ; but on the whole the administration was generally economical and efficient, which would very probably not have been the case had the British Government assumed control. And the continual agitation for dividends, if it often resulted in injustice and occasionally reacted to the disadvantage of the company itself, at any rate prevented that most fatal symptom of all in colonial rule, stagnation. In future chapters, we shall have so often to mention the faults of the companies that it is well to insist somewhat emphatically here on their good features. The conquest of India was practically complete before the East India Company was abolished. Nearly all the American colonies were established by British Chartered Companies. The de- velopment of Africa has lain very largely in their hands. Australasia does not owe so much to them, but neither the Commonwealth nor New Zealand would have been so pros- perous had not British capital found its way there in as great a measure, albeit in a slightly different form. The security of the empire admittedly rests on sea-power ; THE NEW WORLD 43 its worth in the world springs from the broad basis of freedom on which each colony is founded : but capital is essential to open out new lands, and that has been supplied during three centuries by an unbroken succession of commercial associa- tions, whether under their old title of Merchant Adventurers or under their present style of Chartered Companies. The economic theories current in the sixteenth century V restricted trade to some extent, but many of the statutes passed to regulate commerce were powerless to do anything more than cause inconvenience. Sumptuary laws were made : yet those who could afford the condemned articles continued to use them ; only people not rich enough to transgress the enactment obeyed it. The sumptuary laws, for instance, *' seem to have made not the slightest difference in the imports of Indian luxuries. Far more serious obstacles to trade were the difficulties of communicating between one place and another, the risks of travelling and transport, the loss on exchange, and the small amount of either floating or tied-up capital in a country. But Elizabeth was interested in the expansion of trade, and did all in her power to further it. The gentlemen at court held shares in every new enterprise, as well as the merchants who lived over their shops in the City of London. The offices of Lombard Street soon became too small for the volume of commerce, and in 1567 Gresham founded the Royal Exchange. The Companies brought goods from the ends of the earth, and when Antwerp fell to the Spaniards under Alva, much of the traffic that had been concentrated in that wealthy port was transferred to the Thames. Behind all the romance and adventure of the age, in fact, there was a practical commercial spirit, that looked for solid gain as well as glory ; and it was the combination of daring on the high seas with sound business at home that brought success. 44 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS CHAPTER V THE IMPERIAL SPIRIT IN ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE IF it is in the exploits of the sea-kings who first carried the flag of England far and wide, that we see the beginnings of New Englands overseas ; if it is in the first transactions of the Russia Company, the Levant Company, and the East India Company that we see the beginnings of our industrial empire : it is still through the works of the great writers who flourished at the close of the reign of Elizabeth that we can best understand the new spirit which then came over the nation at large. The new literature is full of allusions to the new world. The industrious Hakluyt was engaged in preparing his collection of voyages. In the intervals of legal work and scientific research, the philosopher Bacon pictured an ideal commonwealth in the south seas. The satirist Hall included among his subjects some adventurers trading to Guinea for gold, a glance at the expeditions to that rich but deadly country ; and in another place he pictured how ' The sturdy ploughman doth the soldier see, All scarfed with pied colours to the knee, Whom Indian pillage hath made fortunate ' : probably not an uncommon sight in the last years of the sixteenth century. In 1599 a book was published with the quaint title, characteristic of the age, of ' A Mastiff Whelp, with other ruff iland-like curs fetcht from amongst the Anti- podes, which bite and bark at the fantastic humourists and abusers of the time. Imprinted at the Antipodes, and are to be bought where they are to be sold.' The great dramatists, reflecting every detail of the life around them, have many scattered sentences which tell of the interest taken in the lands where Englishmen were be- ginning to show their face, and even to fight for common THE NEW WORLD 45 rights with the discoverers. In Marlowe's Faustus the general sentiment was expressed : ' Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please, I '11 have them fly to India for gold, Ransack the ocean for orient pearl, And search all corners of the new-found world For pleasant fruits and princely delicates.' The power of Spain, the ever-present cloud that darkened the prospect but added yet another touch of romantic daring to every expedition, is noted in, ' Make all nations to canonise us, As Indian moors obey their Spanish lords,' and again, ' The golden fleece, That yearly stuffs old Philip's treasury.' The strangely mingled fact and fiction related by the new discoverers shows in the sentence, ' When it is winter here with us, in the contrary circle it is summer with them, as in India, Saba, and further countries in the East ' : inaccuracies natural to an age whose geography was less defined than its theology. Ben Jonson has similar allusions in The Alchemist. ' Come on, sir. Now you set your foot on shore in Novo Urbe ; here 'a the rich Peru : and there within, sir, are the golden mines, great Solomon's Ophir.' . . . ' I '11 purchase Devonshire and Cornwall and make them perfect Indies/ . . . ' My meat shall all come in, in Indian shells, dishes of agate set in gold, and studded with emeralds, sapphires, hyacinths and rubies.' . . . ' To be of power to pay an army in the field, to buy the king of France out of his realms, or Spain out of his Indies.' In the same author's Silent Woman, a character who is utterly ruined is told that his knighthood ' shall not hope to repair itself by Constantinople, Ireland, or Virginia,' shrewd gibes at the crusades against the victorious Turks, the confiscation of the Irish estates, and the hopes entertained from Ralegh's new colony. In almost every drama are allu- 46 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS sions to the might of Spain, the fabulous wealth of the new world, exaggerated or mistaken accounts of which were brought back by gallants, and satires on the contented self-praise of those same gallants, who remain caricatured in the braggart Bobadil to the end of time. Shakespeare often touches on the same topic. Falstafi discourses of his inamorata in the Garter Inn at Windsor, declaring that the Merry Wives are ' a region in Guiana, all gold and bounty. They shall be exchequers to me : my East and West Indies, and I will trade with them both/ The political aspect of the day is mentioned in the Comedy of Errors as, ' America, the Indies, all o'er embellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declined their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain, who sent whole armadas of carracks > to be ballast/ The extension of geographical knowledge is made the subject of a telling comparison when vain Malvolio is said to ' smile his face into more lines than are in the new map, with the augmentation of the Indies/ The spirit of unrest, always strong in the English people, but especially so in Elizabethan days, is naturally illustrated. Shakespeare had himself felt the impulse in his quiet Warwick- shire village before he came to London. He speaks of the feeling three times, in each case in the earlier plays, and in each case with approbation : in the Two Gentlemen of Verona we hear that ' Home-keeping youth have ever homely wit,' and again that ' Some to the wars to try their fortunes there, Some to discover islands far away ' have gone : and in the Taming of the Shrew is mentioned ' Such wind as scatters young men through the world, To seek their fortunes further than at home, Where small experience grows/ The adventurous spirit that ran in the blood of the sea-dogs ran, not in their blood only, but in all England of that day. But there is a deeper tone of patriotism in Shakespeare. While he laughs at the credulity that could rush to see ' a THE NEW WORLD 47 dead Indian,' or exposes unsparingly the tavern gallants, Bardolph, Nym, and Pistol, types not merely of the French wars of Henry v. but of the lower class adventurer of his own and all time, he still, in the higher moments of his drama, speaks of England with a faith in her destiny, a reverence for his country and her people, that had been absent in all earlier writers. Even in Chaucer, living in the midst of the great French war, there are only the half-loving, half-cynical accounts of the people around him ; there is no hint of the fierce love of country that breaks out in Shakespeare in such utterances as, ' Come the three corners of the world in arms, and we shall shock them ; naught shall make us rue, if England to herself do rest but true/ or the softer accents of ' This precious stone set in the silver sea ' : and again in ' Remember, sir, the natural bravery of your isle : which stands as Neptune's park, ribbed and paled in with rocks unscaleable and roaring waters, with sands, that will not bear your enemy's boats, but suck them up to the topmast/ But it is not merely in isolated utterances in the plays that we notice the change from Chaucer to Shakespeare. The historical dramas teach patriotism in a still fuller sense. Their whole tendency is to paint an England true to herself, united against enemies, strong under one king, and ruled justly by him in co-operation with his nobles. Yet Shake- speare's loyalty to the crown was of that sturdy type which can allow that rebellion is justified by ill-doing. The lesson of ' England to herself do rest but true/ taught in King John is carried further in Richard the Second ; England would not have rested true to herself had she been content with one who was not worthy of her. The ideal of Elizabethan times is shown in the warlike spirit of Henry the Fifth : and in the magnificent closing lines of Henry the Eighth, if indeed they are by Shakespeare, we can see the hopes of future great- ness overseas that were already showing their first-fruits. 48 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS Cranmer's last speech, after telling of the fame that was to be Elizabeth's, speaks of James the First : ' Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine, His honour, and the greatness of his name, Shall be, and mark new nations : he shall nourish, And, like a mountain cedar, reach his branches To all the plains about him : our children's children Shall see this, and bless heaven.' y It is, however, from Spenser that we learn the most of the feelings that moved the England of Elizabeth. Shake- speare was the poet of all times and of all people ; his dramas have the world for stage and mankind for actors. But Spenser was the poet of England only, and his works have been little known beyond his own country. All the serious- ness, the faith in righteousness and moral purity that marked the puritans before conflict had narrowed and soured them, mix strangely in his works with the classical culture of the renascence, the marvels of the new world, and the chivalrous z ideals of the old. To Spenser the contest between England and Spain, between Elizabeth and Mary Stuart, between protestant and catholic, was not merely one of force against > force, of culture against culture, of faith against faith. It was a contest of right against wrong, of truth against untruth, of God against devil : and the Faerie Queene is the epic of the struggle. The same aUusions to the riches of the new world are found in the magnificent music of his stanzas ' Dainty spices fetch from farthest Ynd ' . . . * Deck't with pearls which th' Indian seas for her prepare ' but such allusions are merely incidental. The whole poem indeed is one long allegory ; and in every book, as the great fight of good against evil continues, we can identify the characters of the times, idealised from the stern political struggle into immortal verse. The dreams of a larger England that Shakespeare had break out again in Spenser : THE NEW WORLD 49 ' But a third kingdom yet is to arise Out of the Trojan's scattered offspring That in all glory and great enterprise Both first and second Troy shall dare to equalise.' and once more in, 'Rich Oranoaky, though but kuowen late And that huge river which doth beare his name Of warlike Amazons, which doth possesse the same Joy on those warlike women, which so long Can from all men so rich a kingdom hold ! And shame on you, O men ! which boast your strong And valiant hearts, in thoughts less hard and bold Yet quaile in conquest of that land of gold. But this to you, O Britons, most pertaines To whom the right hereof itself hath sold The which for sparing little cost or paines Loose so immortal glory, and so endless gaines.' Of Queen Elizabeth he recounts with pardonable flattery : ' In wildest ocean she her throne doth reare That over all the earth it may be seene. . . .' His hopes were destined to be realised, although not in the way in which he dreamed. The expansion of England, of which Spenser sang, which his friend Ralegh planned, and which great seamen like Drake made possible, had actually begun with the defeat of the Spanish Armada. The English of Elizabeth's day were in numbers but a feeble folk, though their spirit was great. Had Spenser lived three centuries later, under a queen even more loved than Elizabeth, he would have found that the cod fisheries off Newfoundland, the expeditions to Virginia, the efforts to reach India, had de- veloped into the greatest empire that the world had seen, more extensive than the Latin empire of his own day, more extensive than that earlier Latin empire whose stern rule first brought peace and order to Europe. It was Tennyson who, in his love of country and loyal devotion to his queen, not less than in his poems of the D 50 chivalrous ideals of older days, became the only real successor > of Spenser in our literature. The earlier poet uttered the im- perial sentiment of his day ; the later, seeing the empire of which Spenser had dreamed built up, not only as Spenser had hoped, through loyalty to monarch, but too often in the teeth of persecution, political and religious, and in despite of party feuds and the fury of opposing factions ; conscious also that ' the old order changeth, yielding place to new/ and that the thoughts of the Elizabethan era were not those of the Victorian, could still sing, in words that echo back the Faerie Queene : ' The loyal to their crown Are loyal to their own far sons, who love Our ocean-empire with her boundless homes For ever-broadening England and her throne In our vast Orient, and one isle, one isle That knows not her own greatness : if she knows And dreads it we are fall'n. . CHAPTER VI VIRGINIA: 1584-1624 THE first edition of the Faerie Queene, published in 1590, is dedicated to ' the most Mightie and Magnificent Empresse Elizabethe, by the Grace of God queene of England, France, and Ireland.' The later edition of 1595 is dedicated to the ' queene of England, France and Ireland, and of Virginia.' The change in the dreaming poet's dedication of his great work to his royal mistress shows the change through which England 1 Authorities. Bancroft's History of the United States. Doyle's English in America. A Travell into Virginia Britannia, published by the Hakluyt Society. Hakluyt and Purchas are invaluable. The records of the Virginia Company still exist, as also the pamphlets inspired by the interest of the time in the earliest English colonial enterprise. Many of the latter will be found in Arber's English Scholar's Library, where are also the complete works of Captain John Smith, whose writings are indispensable for this period. THE NEW WORLD 51 herself had passed. The title to France was still claimed ; 1 and it reminded men of the old continental empire, as the fleur-de-lys in the arms of King's College, Cambridge, tell its students to-day of the dead past in which that empire was a living fact. But if the sovereignty of France was still claimed, though the reality was gone for ever, the later dedication shows the beginning of the second English empire which was destined not to fail. The disastrous adventures which accompanied the founda- tion of Virginia still move us in the pages of Richard Hakluyt. When he turned to the ' sweete studie of the history of cos- mographie,' he found that the English adventurers, though they might be as brave as the Latins, had indeed explored the world, but ' not with the like golden success, not with such deductions of colonies, nor attaining of conquests as their rivals/ Too long had they searched the barren north ; and now it was ' high time for us to weigh our ancre, to hoist up our sails, to get clear of these boistrous, frosty and misty seas, and with all speed to direct our course for the milde, lightsome,' temperate and warm Atlantic Ocean.' The result was Virginia, and the beginning of the English dominion in America. Sir Humphrey Gilbert had lost his fortune and his life in the attempt to found a colony in Newfoundland in the year 1583; another gentleman of Devon, his half- slrWalter brother Walter Ralegh of Hayes near East Bud- Ralegh and leigh, was already filled with the same ambition vir lnia - of enlarging his country by the acquisition of territory over- seas. To the fulfilment of that ambition Ralegh was to dedi- cate the remaining years of his life ; passing by successive stages of diminishing fortune from the brilliance of the hopes which bade fair to be realised in the foundation of Virginia and Guiana, through the losses and disappointments of middle 1 The claim of England to the kingdom of France was not formally resigned until the treaty of Amiens in 1802. 52 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS age, when every scheme seemed fated to go awry, towards the last sad end when a brave and honourable gentleman met an unworthy doom upon the block. 1 The ready wit and courtly presence of Walter Ralegh secured him the favour of his queen ; and he used that favour for the worthy purpose of expanding her realm. On 24th March 1584, he obtained letters-patent from Elizabeth, granting to him and to his heirs ' free liberty to discover barbarous countries, not actually possessed of any Christian prince, and inhabited by Christian people, to occupy and enjoy the same for ever ' ; and any colony that he founded was to submit to English law, to acknowledge the English crown, and its people were to possess every privilege which belonged to the freemen of England. With more prudence than the earlier adventurers had shown, Ralegh equipped two ships, under the command of Captains Arthur Barlow and Philip Amidas, to report on the promised land. The voyage was successful ; and on their return, the account of the travellers was enticing in the extreme. The soil was fertile, the natives friendly ; it was a region of fresh flowers and wild grapes. Thus fortified in his desires, Walter Ralegh, whose knighthood probably dates from this period, at once made preparations for a settlement. On 9th April 1585, the first emigrant fleet for Virginia bore out of Plymouth Sound on its way westwards. The seven vessels, which were under the command of the great Sir Richard Grenville, ranged from the Tyger, 140 tons, and the Lyon, 100 tons, to little craft of less than half that size ; and in these frail bottoms the hundred or so men who were destined to found a new England in America began their voyage across the Atlantic. The fleet arrived safely at Wokeken on 27th July ; four weeks later Grenville returned home. The enterprise seemed well begun. 1 For the last failure and death of Ralegh, see vol. iv. bk. xii. ch. i. THE NEW WORLD 53 But almost from the day of their arrival misfortunes pursued the settlers. Ralph Lane, who was in charge of the colony, was a daring spirit and a brilliant soldier ; but he insisted on exploring the interior, and hoped for ' the dis- covery of a gold mine/ The settlers themselves, in the words of one of their number, ' had little understanding, less dis- cretion, and more tongue than was needful or requisite. Because there were not to be found any English cities, nor such fair houses, nor at their own wish any of their accustomed dainty food, nor any soft beds of down or feathers, the country was to them miserable, and their report thereof according.' There were too few labourers and too many ' gentlemen ' among them, and industry therefore languished. And inter- course with the natives was no longer amicable ; misunder- standings arose and treachery existed, probably on both sides. The provisions that had been supplied ran short, and the settlers had done little to cultivate the soil ; they, like their leader, had been too much occupied in hunting for treasure to sow any crops. Lane, indeed, had maintained a bold front, ' undertaking to remain, rather to lose our lives, than to defer the possession of so noble a kingdom to the queen, our country, and our noble patron, Sir Walter Ralegh ' ; but the whole colony was in despair after a few months ; and when Drake's fleet put in at the settlement in June 1586, the people unani- mously demanded to be taken back to England. With their return the failure of Ralegh's scheme was evident ; but the gallant knight would not abandon hope. ' I shall yet see it an English nation/ he remarked doggedly i as he prepared another expedition. But further parties were sent out without better success, and they met with a worse fate. Many were massacred by the redskins ; none succeeded in founding a colony. Ralegh himself spent forty thousand pounds in the enter- prise : but at length, sick at heart with his failure, he made 54 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS over his rights in America to others. And for a time Virginia now suffered eclipse ; for the attention of England became concentrated on Asiatic trade, while the project of planting a new nation in the far west was forgotten. But not for long. The merchants of London took up the work which was too great for any private man ; and early in The Virginia ^ e new re ^8 n ' on -^h April 1606, the Virginia Company, Company received its patent from James I. On the first day of the following year two ships and a pinnace containing 143 emigrants left for America. The voyage was long and tedious ; but the fleet sighted Cape Henry at length on 16th April, and four weeks later a spot was chosen for the capital, which was called Jamestown. But all the old troubles were again to be experienced. The city was founded on unhealthy ground. Sickness carried away forty, and only six healthy men remained in the fort. Dissensions within, and difficulties with the natives outside, had already made the prospects almost hopeless, when James- town was burnt down. It was rebuilt ; but after three years had passed, so little progress had been made that less than fifty acres were under cultivation. The colony was only saved from destruction by Captain John Smith, that extraordinary man whose exploits have Captain made him a hero of romance and a type of the John smith. d ar i n g an ^ careless but able adventurer of the age. John Smith, of Willoughby near Alford, in Lincolnshire, had wandered all over Europe without much success as a soldier of fortune from 1598 to 1604 ; and when the expedition to Virginia was planned, he determined to join it. He was imprisoned on the voyage out, on the supposition that he intended to declare himself ruler of the new colony ; and for some time his reputation lay under a cloud. But when the troubles with the redskins first occurred, it was to him that the settlers looked, and not to their in- competent leaders, to extricate them. His own life was saved, THE NEW WORLD 55 as the story goes, by Pocahontas, the daughter of the native king, who intervened on his behalf when her countrymen had Smith in their power ; and in the end he was able to conclude a treaty of friendship, and to turn the attention of the colony to more useful pursuits than the hunt for gold. A half-humorous, half-melancholy picture of the condition of Virginia at this time has been preserved. ' When the ships departed, there remained/ it was said, ' neither tavern, beer-house, nor place of relief but the common kettle. Had we been as free from all sins as gluttony and drunkenness, we might have been canonised for saints. . . . Our drink was water ; our lodgings, castles in the air. With this lodging and diet, our extreme toil in bearing and planting palisades so strained and bruised us, and our continual labour in the extremity of the heat had so weakened us, as made us miserable. Fifty in this time we buried. From May to September, those that escaped alive lived upon stur- geon and sea-crabs/ From this wretchedness Smith rescued the people ; but his term of office was short, and an accident compelled him to return home. When he recovered, he did not again settle in Virginia. He seems to have had, not unreasonably, small faith in its prospects ; the roving disposition once more asserted itself, and Smith wandered from the Bermudas and the West Indies to New England, the country which he preferred above all others, and back again to London. But his day as a pioneer was over, and his last years were spent, with the versatility of the true Elizabethan, in writing histories of the colonies, in publishing warnings and hints for the inexperienced who emigrated thither, and in giving evidence before the royal commission on American affairs. His motto ' To Christ and my country a true soldier faithful servant ' declares the man ; the account of him given by the clerk of the council at Jamestown shows how much his work and character had done for Virginia in her day 56 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS of distress. ' In all his proceedings/ wrote the clerk, he ' made justice his first guide, and experience his second : ever hating baseness, sloth, pride and indignity more than any dangers ; that never allowed more for himself than his soldiers with him ; that upon no danger would send them where he would not lead them himself ; that would never see us want what he either had, or could by any means get us ; that would rather want than borrow, and starve than not pay ; that loved actions more than words, and hated falsehood and cozenage more than death ; whose adventures were our lives, and whose loss, our deaths.' Their deaths indeed ; for misfortunes again settled on Virginia after his departure. The next governor was in Continued weak health, and altogether incapable ; Ms Misfortunes, successor was autocratic, and although under Ms rule affairs improved somewhat, men fled from him in terror for protection to the natives ; when they were recovered, they were tortured. On his departure, a still worse fate was in store. The new governor treated the planters as slaves ; the profits went neither to them nor to the Company, but were diverted into his own pockets. A more unpromising beginning for an oversea empire could not be imagined. But the cause of the failure lay on the surface. The English were absolutely without experience of colonial enterprises. The sea-kings, men to whom ad- venture and the imminent deadly breach were as the very breath of their being, were unable to settle down to the monotonous daily toil that alone founds a new state. They loved the wild life of the high seas, the sudden attack of an enemy, the fierce fight, the plunder and the booty. But on land, they had no thought save for treasure. ' No talk, no hope, no work, but dig gold, work gold, refine gold, and load gold/ is the description of them by a contemporary in Virginia. THE NEW WORLD 57 Such were the first men who went to America, under the auspices of Ralegh. The second, who were emigrated by the Virginia Company, were not more promising. They consisted largely of the victims of economic distress in England, whom the law branded as rogues, and who in fact frequently seem to have deserved their legal title ; many were ' profane, notorious, and full of mutiny : their bodies so diseased and crazed that not sixty of them may be employed upon labour/ The vicious idea that lay at the root of much English colonial enterprise for centuries was thus exemplified in the very first settlement abroad ; it was intended that the basis of the state should be convicts. 1 An absurdly strict legislative code was drawn up for use in Virginia. To calumniate the king, the Company, any books published by their authority ; to root up any crop maliciously or kill poultry or cattle ; to traffic privately with ships visiting the country ; to blaspheme, or omit church attendance on Sunday : the punishment was uni- formly death. To omit daily worship was to incur six-?" months in the galleys. Such a system worked its own abortion, since it could not be enforced. All discipline was relaxed, and the settlers would not labour, for they had small interest in prospering. They played bowls in the streets of Jamestown, while the houses crumbled. They sowed practically no corn. At one time, there were but sixteen days' stores in hand ; at another, 1 With his usual wisdom, Lord Bacon condemned the transportation - of convicts in unmeasured terms as ' a shameful and unblessed thing, for they will ever live like rogues, and not fall to work, but be lazy, and do mischief, and spend victuals, and be quickly weary, and then certify over to their country, to the discredit of the plantation.' The best that could be said for the system was said by Hakluyt : ' If we would behold with the eye of pity how all our prisons are pestered and filled with able men to serve their country, which for small robberies are daily hanged up in great numbers, we would hasten and further, every man to his power, the deducting of some colonies of our superfluous people into the temperate and fertile parts of America.' The worst that could be said for the system was that it failed either to reform the convicts or to profit the colony. 58 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS there were not even hogs or horses to eat. A famine killed a hundred and fifty settlers. Once the colony would have been totally abandoned, had not supplies arrived from England ; later a conspiracy was set on foot. The Virginia Company itself was unfitted for the work it took up. It was cumbrous in theory and almost unworkable in practice. It consisted originally of two bodies : the London merchants who proposed to establish a plantation between the thirty-eighth and forty-fifth degrees of north latitude ; and the west-country gentlemen and traders, whose sphere was from the thirty-fourth to the forty-first degrees. A resident council of thirteen afterwards in- creased to twenty-five were to govern in accordance with the king's instructions ; but in fact one man secured pre- ponderance. There was naturally constant friction between Virginia and London. The Company expected immediate dividends ; they instructed one governor to discover either a lump of gold, a passage to the south seas, or the lost settlers who ^'remained from Ralegh's last expedition. As the two former did not exist, and the latter existed no more, he was un- successful ; but the Company did not cease to press for results. They expected to make England, ' this little northern corner of the world, to be in a short time the richest storehouse and staple for merchandise in all Europe ' : but they forgot that although the East India Company and the Levant Company could be successful in transactions with already rich and populous lands, Virginia was still a wilderness. The corpora- tion was reconstructed in 1609 and 1612 ; but at one period they were utterly disheartened, and subscriptions were 15,000 in arrear. The interest that had been aroused at home again died down : the colony became the butt of the stage, and a fit subject for the cheap wit of the pot- house. THE NEW WORLD 59 Affairs were in this wretched condition when a crown- ing disaster fell upon Virginia. The redskins MaaBacre attacked the settlements, and had massacred intrigue, 347 men and women before the English re- ^n^/the" covered sufficiently from their surprise to repel company's them. Even then the warfare on the side of the whites was desultory ; the harvest was neglected, and scarcity and sickness again devastated the land. Meanwhile the jealousy of Spain was at work. The royal court of Madrid had long watched the English attempts to found a western empire with suspicion : but so low an opinion did the Spanish government entertain of her ability, that for some years they expected Virginia would be again, and this time finally, abandoned. When they saw that despite hard- ships, lack of success, and continual misfortune, the colony continued to exist, their opposition became more menacing. Unfortunately James i. readily listened to their remonstrances, in his desire to arrange a marriage with the Spanish dynasty. The Company were accordingly harassed by demands from the crown ; they were compelled to undertake the sale of Spanish tobacco in addition to their own, and their contribu- tion to the revenue was increased. But this was merely a preparation for their final abrogation. In the year 1623 they were summoned before the privy council, under thirty- nine counts of indictment ; and on 24th July 1624, their patent was annulled in the courts of law. From that Virginia was under royal control. But already the colony had its own institutions. On 3rd July 1619, by the order of the Virginia Company, the first meeting of an assembly of burgesses took place at Represen ta- Jamestown. It was a sign that the representative tive Govern- idea which lay at the root of the English con- ment ' stitution was strong enough to bear transplantation to America ; it showed that the principle of self-government would find its place in the English colonies overseas. 60 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS The new Assembly was not long before it obtained and exercised power. It modified the harsh, illiberal penal code in many respects ; more important, in the years 1623, 1631, 1632 and 1642 it claimed that it alone had the right of imposing taxes. Aristocratic as was the society of Virginia, in sympathy with the monarchy as were most of the settlers, the young colonial parliament never permitted the least invasion of any of the functions it had inherited from its English prototype. It is thus with peculiar reverence that we must look at the ruined village on the James Kiver which to-day alone marks >f the first capital of Virginia. The beauty of modern Richmond may move us, and the memory of the hardships it endured in the Civil War of 1861 as headquarters of the southern states may recall many an interesting reminiscence ; the older city of Williamsburg, the centre of colonial life and the fashionable society of Virginia when Virginia was still a colony, reminds us of the almost regal power of the eighteenth century gover- nors, and the gay functions at which the rich planters of the % time attended ; but the forgotten settlement at the mouth of the James River, which never prospered during its brief existence, which witnessed so many vicissitudes and disasters, and which was finally destroyed and deserted, is memorable for all time as the first capital of the first colony of the English people overseas, and the seat of the first parliament founded by them outside their own proper land. BOOK II THE PURITAN EMIGRATION: 1583-1660 CHAPTER I PURITANISM IN ENGLAND : 1583-1649 WITH the passing of Elizabeth there passed away also the spirit of her age. There were no more sea-kings. Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher had gone. Ralegh still lingered superfluous on the stage, till a dishonourable death overtook one of the truest men of any era ; but he outlived his time. The old love of adventure had vanished, or it found no longer a legitimate outlet. The human interest in life and mankind at large that made the ' merrie England ' of Shakespeare and his brother dramatists, was likewise passing away. There was to be no more of that broad tolerance which had been the tradition of the new learning from the days of Erasmus and More, and which Elizabeth might have preserved in religious matters had not political events forced her hand. The deep sympathy with everything human which inspired the great writers, that gives us the speculations of Hamlet, the vows of Romeo, the agony of Lear and Othello, the perfidy of lago, the courage of Hotspur, and the incomparable gallery of fools from Toby Belch and Ague-cheek to Shallow and Slender, died out in the reign of James i. The love of the theatre still indeed existed among the citizens of London and their wives and apprentices, who could yet laugh at the mock heroism of The Knight of the Burning Pestle ; but the stage itself had become corrupted, and the indecency and bloodshed which 61 62 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS disgusts us in such writers as Ford and Webster is some- thing different from the occasional coarseness and tragic cata- strophes which the too sensitive modern palate expurgates in Shakespeare. The interest indeed of the times was changing. Where the intellects of the Elizabethan era had been occupied with Puritanism the relation of man to man, the greatest intellects in England. un d e r the first two Stuarts were occupied with the relation of man to God. As the renascence in England died away before puritanism, the intellectual loss was compensated by the moral gain : but a narrower spirit of exclusiveness grew up, fostered by persecution and the long civil strife, that at times startles the student with the sourness of its orthodoxy, its terrible limitation of vision, and the spiritual tyranny it set up in place of the older tyranny it had torn down. Yet in this revolution England was but taking her part in the great religious struggle throughout Europe. The Thirty Years' War in Germany, the Huguenot wars in France, the longer trials that made an independent nation in Holland, find their counterpart in England rather in the rise of the puritans than in the half-political, half-religious reform of the Anglican Church under Henry vm. The early years of the Reformation in England were unmarked by the events that accompanied the general reformation in Europe. There was no popular revolution. Tine Church was moulded by the bands of politicians ; and the policy of the Tudors was to keep it in subjection, by insisting on the royal supremacy, by ' tuning the pulpits ' to their views, by depressing the power of the clergy, and appointing as bishops creatures of the government. The nation remained at heart Catholic, while the Church took its cue from the king. 1 1 A striking remark made by Giovanni Michiel, the Venetian Ambassador to England in the time of Mary, indicates the prevailing apathy in religious matters. ' The example and authority of their sovereign can do anything with them. . . . They would do the like by the Mahometan or Jewish creed were their king to evince a belief in it, THE PURITAN EMIGRATION 63 But the persecution of Mary and the open Bible worked a change. The burnings and tortures in Smithfield rilled the people with disgust at a religion that could perpetrate such atrocities. From catholic they became protestant ; and as the words of the Bible touched them more and more, the real reformation began and puritanism became a living force. The more thoughtful and enthusiastic realised that the Church of England was a compromise ; and they wished to carry out the work of reformation to its logical end. The Calvinists of the continent were unfettered in the lands where Calvinism was acknowledged : the puritans, who came gradually to accept the name at first thrown at them in derision, wished for the same freedom at home. But Elizabeth and her government would have none of it. They saw the danger that sprang from warring religious sects abroad ; and above all they felt it necessary that England should have internal peace, if she were to make headway against her enemies. The puritans were therefore oppressed both by queen and Church. They found, too, but little sympathy at first among the people. ' I had as lief be a Brownist as a politician/ cried honest Ague-cheek ; and the Brownists were the first and strongest sect of the puritans. They were assailed with ridicule in the plays and satires of the day ; with the exception of Spenser, indeed, none of the great Elizabethan writers were in sympathy with their conception of life. Yet they increased ; and at the close of Elizabeth's reign the puritan congregations were far larger than twenty years before. When James i. endeavoured to force orthodoxy on them, he succeeded only in exasperating them, and in identify- ing puritanism still more with the great party that was accommodating themselves -to anything, but more willingly to such doctrines as gave them hope, either of the greatest liberty and license in their mode of life, or of some profit. ' The opinion was not very flatter- ing, and was probably somewhat exaggerated ; but it was not altogether untrue, in spite of the martyrs of Smithfield. 64 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS struggling for political liberty. 1 When his son Charles tried to bring the whole country under civil and ecclesiastical tyranny, he provoked the great rebellion that lost him his crown and life ; and the leaders of that rebellion were puritans^ With the change in England we have directly little toj do. But from the puritans of England sprang the New Puritanism England colonies of America ; and the history of in America, those colonies epitomises much of the history of the English people in America. Despite the protection of Elizabeth, the guidance of Ralegh, and the poetic benediction of Spenser, Virginia had not prospered much ; and although in later years its advance was considerable, it still, in its leisured wealth and aristocratic institutions, reproduced too nearly the conservative mode of thought in England to stand for much in the history of America. The greatest patriot of all in the United States was indeed a Virginian : but the large estates, the negro slavery, and the comfortable ease which both assured militated against any such characteristic development in Virginia as the ' plain living and high thinking ' of New England or the rough but ' strenuous life ' of the early western states. Vr On the other hand, New England has been to America what England has been to the United Kingdom, what Paris has been to France, what Prussia has been to Germany. ' Other states have been useful members : New England has been the head and brain. From New England have sprung American education and American literature ; the citizens of those states bore the burden and heat of the day in the Imperial Civil War of 1776 ; in the second Civil War of 1861 the gener- ous impulse of freedom, emanating from New England, freed the negro slaves ; in the industrial development of the con- tinent, the same states led the way, until the little villages and 1 Lancelot Andrewes, the Bishop of Winchester at this time, was a tolerant man as the age went ; but when he was accused of allowing error 15 to exist in England, he was able to defend himself with the answer, ' We have this very year burnt two anabaptists. ' THE PURITAN EMIGRATION 65 townships that were founded in the seventeenth century became the enormous manufacturing cities of the twentieth In the pleasant lazy lands of Virginia and its off-shoots in the southern states, ' a land in which it seemed always afternoon/ there has been the tranquil, unprogressive existence that one associates with ages long since passed ; but in college and university, m mill and factory, in the restless forward impulse that marks every department of life in New England and the sister states, we find the key to the real history of America. CHAPTER II THE FIRST PURITAN COLONIES: 1620-58 THE grand remonstrance of the English House of Commons against ^the tyranny of the Stuarts was passed in November 1641. ' Had it been rejected/ said Cromwell as he left the House, ' I would have sold to-morrow all that I possess and left England for ever/ His exclamation reveals a thought that had sustained the puritans throughout the whole contest. Had the struggle for freedom been hopeless in England itself, there were still other refuges. While the protestant churches existed on the Continent, the English reformers, who were all in sympathy with the hard dogmatic Calvinism of Germany and Holland, were sure of a welcome. JjMany religious bodies had already made their home abroad when the storm became too severe in England itself. The fugitives were kindly received, as brethren who had suffered for the true faith, even as the Huguenots had been received a 1 Authorities. Mainly Doyle and Bancroft: the former is a little unsympathetic the latter too rhetorical and effusive? he one s a corrective of the other. Both mention many original writer! who may onsulted for fuller details than the plan of this work allows. Of A *f ? " W ar the m 3t im P rt *nt ; his writings are essential. A mass of materials has grown up around the Winthrops there is a ?raphy under the article John Winthrop in the Dictionary or Biography. Justin Winsor is also useful. I 66 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS generation before in England itself, and were again to be received two generations later. But the congregations of independents who fled to Amster- dam and Leyden still loved their country and longed to return to her bosom. After their early difficulties abroad were sur- mounted they could indeed ' raise a comfortable living ' and were able to enjoy ' much sweet and delightful society and spiritual comfort together ' ; but they were always conscious that they were strangers in a strange land. Some of the Dutch customs displeased them. The looseness with which the Sabbath was observed filled them with dislike. They had no wish to remain the guests of Holland for ever, and there were no prospects for their sons abroad. But freedom to exercise their religion and to carry out their views was essential, wherever they might go ; and since there was no longer any hope for this in England, their thoughts turned naturally towards the new world. About the year 1590 some independents, ' falsely called Brownists/ had petitioned Elizabeth for permission to go The Puritans to ' a foreign and far country to the west/ hoping in America, somewhat vaguely there to ' settle in Canada and greatly annoy the bloody and persecuting Spaniard in the Bay of Mexico.' Nothing came of the idea ; but some seven years later an attempt was made to found a colony in America. Its failure did not daunt the puritans : at Leyden they were full of schemes to found their little common- wealth in the newer, freer world. In what country it should be they were not decided. Some spoke of Guiana, others of the lands belonging to the Dutch West India Company, others again of Virginia. All three projects fell through. The first was too hazardous. The second was as much a foreign country as Holland itself. The third was tried but did not succeed. And to the diffi- culties inherent in every colonial enterprise were added, in the case of refugees, certain obstacles peculiar to themselves. THE PURITAN EMIGRATION 67 They were a poor community ; they had no capital save the paltry surplus from their labour. They had to overcome the opposition of both Crown and Church, before they could receive any concession to settle in a province claimed by England ; and to such a province they were determined to go. It was at this time that their attention turned to the country north of Virginia. There had been repeated attempts and as many failures early in the seventeenth century at colonising the district that was vaguely known as Northern Virginia. In the year 1614 Captain John Smith had visited, explored and named the desolate wilderness that has now been converted into the richest and most prosperous part of the United States. On his return home, he published a pamphlet on New England. The name which he had given was generally adopted, and in 1620 a new patent was given to the Plymouth Company to develop the American territories between the forty-fifth and forty-eighth degrees of north latitude. The Company received the right to legislate, to expel intruders by force of arms, and to take all profits from the monopoly of trade with those parts after a tax of not more than 4 per cent, had been paid to the Crown. More important than these details from the puritan point of view, no condition was laid down as to the religious belief of the immigrants. Negotiations were opened, and it was decided that the independent refugees in Holland should make their home in New England. By a prudent arrangement, part of the colony remained for a time at Leyden. {Eventually those who were to leave sailed from Delfts- haven in July 1620, amid ' floods of tears ' and a mutual ' lifting up our hands to each other and our hearts ^ he pu gr im ijfor each other to the Lord our God/ On 5th Fathers, August, some hundred and twenty men, women 3 ind children left Southampton in two small vessels, the \ Mayflower of 180 tons, and the Speedwell of 60. The latter 68 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVEKSEAS was forced to put into Dartmouth, and after a second trial was condemned at Plymouth as unseaworthy. Some of the congregation now abandoned the voyage, and others were rejected as unfit ; the total number of passengers who finally sailed in the Mayflower was about a hundred. 1 At length on 6th September, the little vessel finally departed from England. The passage was bad and lasted thirteen weeks. It was not until 15th December that the travellers landed, first at Cape Cod, and after further consultation at a spot that was already vaguely known as Plymouth. The emigrants, whom later ages have loved to remember as the Pilgrim Fathers, kept to the name in memory of the last place at which they had touched in England : and in the little seaport that lies thirty-seven miles from Boston may to-day be seen the Forefather's Eock which still marks the traditional spot of their landing, as on the rough Barbican quay of the older Plymouth in Devonshire a stone yet bears the word ' Mayflower ' and the date of her departure. Thus was the first of those seaports founded which commemorate in their names the beautiful western town and harbour of England whence so many emigrants have set sail ; in the words of a nineteenth-century son of Connecticut, Elihu Burritt, this was the earliest namesake of ' Plymouth ! old Plymouth ! Mother of full forty Plymouths up and down the wide world that wear her memory in their names, write it in baptismal records of all their children and before the date of every outward letter, this is the Mother Plymouth, sitting by the sea/ But the troubles of the emigrants had but begun with their HardsM s l an( ^ n g- The 7 ear was far advanced before they left England, and the voyage had delayed them so long that it was already mid-winter before they arrived. There were no houses in the wilderness, and they had few 1 A complete list of the travellers in the Mayflower is given in Brad- ford's History of the Plymouth Settlement, which contains a full account of the early hardships of the Pilgrim Fathers. THE PURITAN EMIGRATION 69 materials with which to build. Their food was bad and scanty. They could not hunt on account of the season, and they could not fish as they had no tackle. They were attacked by cold and ague. Half of them died. At one time there were but seven who were not ill. But the puritans were no common men. To the courage of a race that has seldom shown itself lacking they added an unswerving trust in God and the practical ability that was strongly characteristic of the middle classes of England. They had come prepared for hardships. ' It is not with us as with other men/ wrote one of them, ' whom small things can discourage or small discontentments cause to wish themselves home again.' They were ' well weaned from the delicate milk of the mother country, and inured to the difficulties of a strange land/ L Above all religion upheld them. ' We are knit together as a body in a most sacred covenant of the Lord, of the violation thereof we make great conscience, and by virtue whereof we hold ourselveJLstrictly tied to all care of each other's good and of the whole/J Through the long winter they did not lose heart. ' It snowed and did blow all the day and night and froze withal ' ; they saw ' men stagger by reason of faintness for want of food '; after the first stock of maize was discovered, they found ' no more corn, nor anything else but graves.' Even when the summer came there was little improvement. After three years, ' they knew not at night where to have a bit in the morning/ Fresh emigrants arrived, and disputes arose. Not all who had come in the Mayflower were worthy : there were a few thriftless and lazy members who took selfish advantage of the communistic principles on which the colony had been founded. Accordingly a modified system of private holdings was instituted : but this again was unsatisfactory, since the properties were changed annually, and the idle reaped what 70 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS they had not sown, while the industrious man was deprived of the fruits of his labour and compelled to begin again. In 1624, however, the land was allotted in perpetuity ; and three years later partnership was dissolved with the Plymouth Company by mutual agreement. The first settlement in New England was at last independent. The settlers had already shown that industrious spirit which has turned the eastern part of the modern United industrial States into a land of factories. They had learnt Progress. to cultivate maize from the redskins, and had imported horned cattle from England ; a cow and two goats were given to every thirteen persons in the general division of property. The community was based on agriculture, trade and fishing. In 1623 a pinnace was purchased to buy corn and beavers from the natives ; but here they had been fore- stalled by the Dutch of the New Netherlands : a little later, however, they found a market among other tribes. Saltworks were established without success. In 1627 a permanent station was established at Buzzards Bay, and trading houses for traffic with the redskins of the north about the same time. Relations with the Dutch were friendly, and there was seldom trouble with the various native tribes of redskins : the French colonists in Canada, however, looked with suspicion on those who were rapidly becoming their rivals, and in 1631 attacked a New England trading house. Although the pilgrims had thus advanced far from their earlier helplessness, their numbers were still small. In 1624 social con- there were but a hundred and eighty inhabitants dition. i n Plymouth ; five years afterwards, when further emigrants arrived from Holland, there were three hundred. The severe climate and the hardships of life killed off the weak ; some also were discouraged and returned to England. Early marriages and large families were the rule among the settlers, but the lack of comforts caused a heavy death-rate among the / children. By the process of ruthless weeding-out which took THE PURITAN EMIGRATION 71 place here and indeed everywhere among the puritan colonists, a race of strong and masterful men was created, that later times knew in the wiry indefatigable Yankee. A spirit of exclusiveness also operated to keep away intend- ing settlers. It is not probable that many cavaliers wished to dwell among ' the elect of God/ they preferred rather the easier morals and brighter life that was becoming characteristic of Virginia ; but the puritans themselves were averse from receiving strangers. When an emigrant ship was driven ashore at Plymouth, a few that ' carried themselves very orderly ' were suffered to remain ; the rest, being ' untoward people/ were sent on to the south. And the discipline to which all alike were subjected was harsh. Those who wished to become householders had first to obtain the approval of the governors and council ; churchgoing was compulsory, and agreement with the narrow tenets of the religious creed enforced. An attempt was made to keep all the settlers in one town, but failed naturally as the colony grew in size; a second and a third town were built, but not without grave misgivings at the possibility of laxness, as increasing distance from Plymouth made control less easy. The severity, however, was pleasing to the stern puritan spirit. ' Let it not be grievous unto you/ one had written from England, ' that you have been instrumental intolerance to break the ice for others. The honour shall be punt^n yours to the world's end ' : and while they loved settlers, their new home and still remembered the old in their hearts and prayers, the puritan settlers did not relax by one jot or tittle the form of worship for which they had sacrificed all their possessions. They had revolted in order to find freedom : yet others who afterwards came to share their asylum in America found that they were still ignorant of the first principles of toleration. Persecution as bitter was indulged in by the puritan as by the Anglican Churchman, and with this added horror, that whereas the Anglican had 72 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS some culture and some reverence for the beautiful in art and life, the puritan had none. From his existence the beautiful was now resolutely excluded as a danger and a delusion ; a dark and melancholy orthodoxy was all that his creed allowed. He looked with an eye of scorn that was seldom disguised on practically every form of art, he banned the theatre as immoral, he detested dancing as an unnecessary pleasure, he looked with suspicion at any attempt to render life more agreeable, especially pouring out the quintessence of acrid wrath on all who wished to alleviate the rigid observance of Sunday. The strength of the influence exerted by the puritan on our national life is shown by the survival of some traces of this feeling among ourselves to-day. But doubtful as the pilgrims at Plymouth were at times of their own brethren, they were utterly scandalised by other neighbours who arrived. From Merrymount, an independent cavalier settlement in the vicinity, it was reported with horror that the people ' frisked like fairies or rather furies ' round the maypole, and that ten pounds worth of strong liquor was drunk in one morning. Of more real seriousness was the fact that the revellers sold guns and ammunition to the aborigines. Barren as the coasts of New England seemed to men accus- tomed to the fertility of Virginia, the pilgrims were not the only settlers in the north : and although the roysterers at Merrymount were not true settlers, a fresh wave of immigra- tion soon founded other states, where as yet only a few solitary fishermen found shelter. The surrounding country was by now explored, and a description of it had been published by Purchas; the Plymouth Company still claimed the monopoly of the coasts, and despite the protests of the English Parliament, their claim held good. The first emigrants had already arrived in Maine : these, however, were royalists who unsuccessfully attempted to found the colony of New Somerset, Near by, the beginnings of New Hampshire were seen when Portsmouth and Dover THE PUEITAN EMIGRATION 73 were established. Here again little progress was made ; in 1653 the former town did not contain sixty families. Patents for colonisation were granted by the king as lavishly as baronetcies, and there were continual disputes between those who received conflicting concessions. But it was not to such causes that the great colony of Massachusetts owed its rise. The government of Charles i. had quickly shown itself more arbitrary than that of his father : and the puritans of England again turned to America as a land of The Found- refuge. White, a puritan minister of Dorsetshire, ^fi^^ts had conceived the design of a further settlement 1628. in 1625 ; the puritan congregations of Lincolnshire were debating similar projects at the same time. The idea de- veloped, and three years later a territory was purchased, lying between three miles south of the Charles and three north of the Merrimac rivers, stretching westwards from the Atlantic indefinitely as far as the Pacific. Some hundred emigrants were sent out under Endicott, one of the directors of the scheme and a puritan who was selected as a ' fit instrument to begin this wilderness work.' In 1629 a greater expedition followed, of two hundred men, who were determined to leave ' the corruptions of the English Church ' behind, and to take ' only the best ' with them to America. As the coast faded from sight, they cried, ' Farewell, dear > England ' : few of them saw their native land again. The charter of Massachusetts neither affirmed nor denied religious liberty. In the absence of any stipulation, there is little doubt that both the king and Archbishop Laud intended the Anglican Church to be set up at some future date : the puritans were equally determined not to allow it. ' It would be a sinful violation of the worship of God/ declared a minister during the outward voyage. The new country was to be a land of godliness, which the Lord Himself might contemplate with pleasure ; it was to 74 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS have no Romish superstitions, no episcopal ceremonies, but the pure doctrine of the open Bible. The settlers hoped to conciliate, perhaps even to convert, the redskins. ' Particularly publish that no wrong or injury be offered to the natives/ ran the directions ; they were to avoid ' the least scruple of intrusion/ The very seal of the colony showed their expectations : a redskin stood erect with an arrow in the right hand, and his motto was, ' Come over and help us/ The practical spirit which underlay all the actions of the puritans appeared in the declaration that ' no idle drone may live amongst us ' ; the colony, to survive and prosper, must have none but workers. Those whose morals were unsatis- factory were left behind. Every puritan family in England could by now discern ' a special hand of providence in raising this plantation ; their hearts were generally stirred to come over/ A descrip- tion of New England was published, and three editions of the work were sold in a few months : the one thing that held men back was the fear lest it was wrong to flee from persecution. This allowed, there was no more hesitation. The stern religious enthusiasm against which the king was later to fight helplessly showed in words such as those winthrop, which Winthrop, a young puritan of East Anglia, MalsachV* addressed to his father. ' I shall call that my setts. country where I may most glorify God, and enjoy the presence of my dearest friends. Therefore, herein I submit myself to God's will and yours, and dedicate myself to God and the company, with the whole endeavours both of body and mind/ The entire life, indeed, of the man shows how completely he, his family, and those who accom- panied them, relied in every matter on divine guidance. When still in England, and living with his young wife in his native county of Suffolk, he ' covenanted with the Lord ' to give over shooting, and was persuaded of the evilness of THE PURITAN EMIGRATION 75 drinking healths and the ' creature tobacco.' Later, when grave trouble came upon the puritans, he was one of the chief forwarders of the emigration scheme. ' My dearest wife,' he wrote in 1629, ' I am verylye persuaded that God will bring some heavy affliction upon this land, and that speedylye. ... If the Lord seeth it will be good for us, he will provide a shelter and a hiding-place for us. ... Evil times are coming when the church must fly to the wilderness.' And in much of his subsequent correspondence with his wife, '< whom with a tender affection unusual in the reserved puritan he addresses as ' mine own dear heart,' ' mine own sweet self,' or ' my love, my joy, my faithful one/ the same practical piety breaks out. And on his arrival in the new world, while strug- gling against great difficulties, he was still content. ' We now enjoy God and Jesus Christ,' he wrote, ' and is not that enough? I thank God I like so well to be here as I do not repent my coming. I would not have altered my course though I had foreseen all these afflictions.' In the year 1630 some fifteen hundred persons crossed the If Atlantic. In 1631, when the hope of religious Boston city, freedom again seemed about to dawn at home, 163e - there were but ninety : but in 1632 there were two hundred and fifty. From that time the tide was steady. True it is that a few returned, but these were the weaklings and those easily discouraged ; their desertion was no loss to Massachusetts. Most of those who remained were of a good courage ; ' Our v hearts,' they said in a message to the brethren at home, ' shall be a fountain of tears for your everlasting welfare, when we shall be in our poor cottages in the wilderness.' The settlers of 1628 had founded the city of Salem : the real metropolis of New England was begun two years later at Boston. Named in memory of that old town on the Y Witham in Lincolnshire, from which so many of the puritans had come, the city of Boston in America quickly became the 76 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS headquarters of the sect now that it had found a refuge over- seas. Its situation was advantageous ; it was on ' good land, affording rich cornfields and fruitful gardens ' ; it had ' sweet and pleasant springs ' ; the harbour was convenient ; the climate, though severe, was healthy. At first, indeed, there were many hardships with which to contend. If numbers of the colonists had died at Salem and Charlestown, their survivors saw others, ' weekly, yea, almost daily, drop away before their eyes ' in Boston. Their habita- tions were only hovels and tents. There was a scarcity of food. But the dogged nature which had deserted home and country for religion triumphed over all ; within a few years Boston was the most prosperous town in the new world, far ahead of that Plymouth where the Pilgrim Fathers dwelt in isolation, and larger already than Quebec and Jamestown. If its manufactures date only from a time near our own, and its fame as a literary centre but from last century, yet the germs of both may be seen in the earlier puritan settle- ment : of the first, in the spirit of industry and enterprise which they brought with them ; of the second, in the love of education which induced them to establish schools for their children almost before the necessities of life were secured. The democratic feeling inherent in puritanism, which afterwards made Boston the centre of American political disaffection, was in evidence from the beginning. Winthrop was the first governor of the colony ; but he, though as we have seen a strong believer in the principles for which he had emigrated, had no trust in the rule of the people. His view is well expressed in his own terse words. ' The best part of a community is always the least, and of that least part the wiser are still less.' This, however, was quite out of touch with the general sentiment, and after a struggle a new governor was appointed. Yet it would be incorrect to speak of Massachusetts as a THE PURITAN EMIGRATION 77 democracy ; it was rather a theocracy. There was neither Catholic priest nor Anglican parson ; but the puritan minister was equally tyrannical and desirous of power. The religious feeling of the colony supported him ; a sermon was the remedy for every ill and an integral part of every debate. Nor was there any religious tolerance in the laws. In 1631 it was enacted that nobody should be a freeman of Massachusetts unless professing membership of a church. Those who disagreed were persecuted and practically outlawed. The nonconformist was as rigid in his insistence on conformity as those from whom he had dissented. One at least revolted from the harshness of the system ; and Massachusetts had not been settled a decade before it became the parent of other colonies. Roger Rhode Williams, ' a young minister, godly and zealous/ island, was little over thirty years of age when he crossed the Atlantic. His intellect was as clear as his enthusiasm was ardent. In a few months he was loved by the people of Salem and Ply- mouth : but the court of Boston looked askance at his views. Nothing was more natural, for he taught a principle which corresponded in great measure with that of the Quakers a half-century later. To him the dictates of conscience were sacred, and it followed logically that tolerance was essential : ' the doctrine of persecution,' he declared, ' for cause of con- science is most evidently and lamentably contrary to the doctrine of Christ Jesus/ The magistrates were alarmed ; a long examination of the heretic was made. It was an axiom that outward profession could secure inward godliness, but to Williams this seemed only an encouragement of hypocrisy. The court remained undecided ; but when he received an invitation to return to Salem the other ministers raised an agitation. They de- nounced as worthy of banishment those who thought that a magistrate ' might not intermeddle even to stop a church from apostacy ' ; they blamed the people of Salem ; and, 78 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS that punishment might wait on disobedience, they contrived that some land which was claimed should be withheld from the refractory parties. As that did not suffice, and Williams remained firm, the town was disfranchised. Salem submitted, and he was exiled. Already he had planned another colony, where true freedom might rule ; and the outcome was Narragansett Bay, or Rhode Island, as it is now known. The first settlement had to be abandoned, since it proved to be within the precincts of Plymouth ; it was Governor Winthrop himself who sug- gested that the unoccupied lands on the Narragansett would be suitable. Williams accepted ' his prudent motion as a voice from God ' ; and in June 1636, he embarked with five companions in an Indian canoe. These were the sole pioneers of the new state. The site for the capital was soon chosen ; the first primitive dwellings in the city of Providence were put up. All were busy ; Williams was not only spiritual but temporal head of the settlement ; and he was occupied ' day and night, at home and abroad, on the land and water, at the hoe, at the oar, for bread.' Others joined the democratic colony, and after the early inevitable hardships had been bravely faced and con- quered, it became as firmly established as any of the other American settlements. The small size of Rhode Island was its chief difficulty ; its independence was not preserved without a struggle against more powerful neighbours ; and since it possessed no charter it had no legal rights. To remedy the irregularity Williams went to England in 1643 ; and there, warmly befriended by Sir Henry Vane and the Long Parliament, his request was granted. A shadow, indeed, still hung over the little colony ; and although no resentment was felt against the people of Massachusetts Williams on one occasion risked his life among the redskins on their account there was always the fear of absorption by them. It was even noticeable more THE PURITAN EMIGRATION 79 than a century afterwards, when the articles that united the thirteen independent states were being drawn up. Williams would not accede to the natural desire of his people that he should become their governor ; but he remained among them until his death at Providence in 1683. It was his pride that, within the state he had founded all men were equal, and that there was true liberty for the soul as well as for the body. The assembly of the people met under an oak or on the seashore at beat of drum, or when summoned by the herald ; and if it was noted for ' headiness and tumults/ if party feuds were as strong as in England, equally strong was the love of order typical of the race. As to this latter, the records of Rhode Island are emphatic. ' Our popularitie shall not, as some conjecture it will, prove an anarchic, and so a common tirannie ; for we are exceeding desirous to preserve every man safe in his person, name, and estate.' Such was their language in 1647 ; in 1654 their contentment appears in an address of gratitude to Sir Henry Vane, to whose intervention their preservation was ascribed. ' We have long been free/ they declared, ' from the iron yoke of wolvish bishops ; we have sitten dry from the streams of blood spilt by the wars in our native country. We have not felt the new chains of the presbyterian tyrants, nor in this colony have we been consumed by the over-zealous fire of the (so-called) godly Christian magistrates. We have not known what an excise means ; we have almost forgotten what tithes are. We have long drunk of the cup of as great liberties as any people that we can hear of under the whole heaven/ ., If Rhode Island was as much a protest against puritanism as puritanism had been against episcopacy, the new settlement on the Connecticut River was of orthodox puritan The Found- growth. The rich country there had been an object of desire from the day of its discovery, and the English less, were but just in time to prevent its occupation by the Dutch. 80 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS Trading houses had sprung up at the mouth of the river in the years after 1630. In the autumn of 1635 sixty men, women, and children marched westwards through the forests from Boston ; and although many died by the way and many turned back, there were still enough left to organise a govern- ment. Next spring a greater company arrived, travelling over the same route, carrying their goods with them and driving their cattle before them. For the white man it was untrodden country through which they came ; they waded through streams that now give power to factories, they crossed the swamps that now are drained and the sites of cities : their path was shown by the compass through a virgin land. The redskins proved hostile, but were easily defeated ; at least one tribe was annihilated. The external danger thus averted, Connecticut advanced quickly. Three townships were soon planted, among which was Hartford, the future capital. A considerable trade in furs was anticipated and realised, and agriculture soon made headway. The settlers brought with them the industrious habits of the puritans ; they were equally imbued with the democratic tendencies of the creed. With each successive settlement it seemed that liberty was enlarged. Population was the basis of representation ; a vote belonged to all who had taken the oath of allegiance to the commonwealth ; the magistrates and legislators were elected annually by ballot. In every- thing essential Connecticut was a republic. Meanwhile Massachusetts continued to prosper. In Win- throp's journal we can trace its history almost from day to day, from the political and religious disputes of the times down to such small matters as ' a house near the Wear at Watertown, made all of clapboards, burnt down by making a fire in it when it had no chimney ' ; or the discovery of ' great store of eels and lobsters in the bay ; two or three boys have brought in a bushel of great eels at a time, and THE PURITAN EMIGRATION 81 sixty great lobsters.' Occasionally a wet summer mined part of the crops, as in 1632, when the corn was ' much shorn down close by the ground with worms/ and there were ' great store of musketoes and rattle-snakes ' to beware of. The following year harm was done by ' the spoil our hogs had made at harvest, and the great quantity they had eaten in the winter, there being no acorns ' : but ' the people,' we are told, ' lived well with fish and the fruit of their gardens.' But in spite of such troubles, and of epidemics ' John Sagame died of the small-pox, and almost all his people ; above thirty buried in one day ' is one entry by Winthrop the number and comparative wealth of its inhabitants quickly made Massachusetts the chief of the New England colonies. Nothing shows its strength better, indeed, even in those early years, than the rapidity with which it became the parent of fresh settlements, while making continual progress itself. The New England colonies were by now firmly established. But no mutual tie yet bound them together ; each was an isolated republic with its own independent govern- The united ment and independent governor. Massachusetts New^ng-** was distinct from Plymouth ; Connecticut from land, 1643. Rhode Island. The northern settlements that later formed the nucleus of Maine and New Hampshire soon acknow- ledged, it is true, the authority of Massachusetts ; but to all intents and purposes they continued separate states. Boundary disputes were not rare. Yet there was a general community of interest ; the broad basis of every colony was puritanism. Outside dangers, when they threatened, threatened all alike. The probability of French aggression from the north and Dutch aggression rom the south now became evident. The redskins were not formidable foes ; their attacks had been easily defeated, md the general policy of the English was to make friends rith them ; but savages are fickle, and their sudden uprising F 82 might destroy a colony. There was nothing now to be feared from England, for the royalists were being chastened ; the Lord had succoured His own, and the ' people of Israel ' were conquering the ungodly : but even at that, it was felt that union in New England would be no disadvantage. The first proposals for a general confederation were made by Massachusetts in 1638, and renewed in 1642. Some would and some would not come in ; Maine was excluded, ' because they ran a different course from us, both in their ministry and civil administration/ Few details of the negotiations have survived : but in 1644 agreement was reached ; and from that time the official title of the confederation, which included Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and the adjoining Newhaven, was 'The United Colonies of New England/ It is thus that we notice the beginnings in America of that synthetic unionist movement which, allied or opposed to the analytic and disruptive movement, makes or destroys empires. It was the first working there of a principle that we shall constantly discover as we follow the advance of the English people overseas, and it is interwoven in the history of every race. The interplay of the two forces correctly adjusted, makes for progress ; the too great preponderance of one or other ends in destruction. The earlier movement is analytic, since men require freedom to develop ; the new colony, which at bottom is the outcome of this necessity, seeks complete liberty and isolation. But if it lives, and other colonies are planted in the neighbourhood either by it or by the mother state, the advantages of a common agreement become evident : and according to the political ability of the leaders and people, or according as external conditions are menacing or favourable, this will change into an alliance, a confederation, or a prac- tically complete fusion. In Europe and the older lands, where counties have been amalgamated into provinces, pro- THE PURITAN EMIGRATION 83 vinces into kingdoms, and kingdoms into empires, the process has been carried out by rough hands, mostly at the cost of war, and often against the popular wish. In many, it is at the present day the subject for increasingly violent dis- agreement, as nationalist feeling awakens ; and a forced synthetic movement is succeeded by an exaggerated analytic or disruptive tendency. 1 It has generally been the good fortune of English emigrants to enter into possession of a new land, where the synthetic movement may spring naturally from their own needs, and as such contain the elements of permanence : developing from the early phases of two or three settlements into great powers like the United States, the Dominion of Canada, the Australian Commonwealth ; perhaps even leading up in the future to a general union of all the English states throughout the world into one vast federated democratic empire. The people of the United Colonies of New England, however, were far from ideas such as these. Their union was hardly even the germ of the later American Republic. The territorial jurisdiction of each settlement was preserved as before. No two colonies could unite without leave of the confederates, and no new confederate could be admitted save by consent of all. Two commissioners were to represent each colony ; the president or chairman was to be elected from among them. All the public charges were to be levied by contributions levied on the colonies : each colony was free to raise its contribution as it thought fit. A vote of six commissioners was binding ; if no agreement was reached, it had to be referred back. Annual meetings were to be held in each colony in rotation, Massachusetts having two in succession, as being the most important of the partners. It is noteworthy that in all these arrangements there was no t reference to the mother country, and nothing shows better 1 The recent examples of Russia, Scandinavia, and Austria-Hungary are sufficient proof. 84 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS the feeling of complete independence which animated the Tne inde- puritan colonies. The court party in England Jf New had h P ed to de P se ' Kin Wintliro P ' ; but the England. Civil War at home hindered any interference with America. And the leaders of the Commonwealth under Cromwell were in full sympathy with colonial aims. In other ways, too, the independence of New England was shown. The general court of Massachusetts declared that ' our allegiance binds us not to the laws of England any longer than while we live in England, for the laws of the Parliament of England reach no further, nor do the king's writs under the great seal go further.' Few references to English control are made in Winthrop's annals of the colonies. Indeed, there was no control : the struggle between roundhead and cavalier at home prevented it. For several years longer the colonies of New England were left free to develop on their own lines ; and that freedom was not without its influence on their descendants in the great civil struggle that split the empire in twain a century and a half later. CHAPTER III PURITANISM TRIUMPHANT : 1649-58 1 THE fortunes of the Civil War in England, which had inclined at first to the King, veered round later to the Parliament. Marston Moor and Naseby were decisive. Charles i. was taken, imprisoned, and after due trial executed. The army triumphed ; but behind the army stood the puritans : the soldiers themselves were puritans. The government was officially puritan. The monarchy was abolished, and an act 1 Authorities. Green's History, S. R. Gardiner, and Carlyle's Crom- well. THE PUKITAN EMIGRATION 85 was passed which declared ' That the people of England and of all the dominions and territories thereunto belonging are, and shall be, and are hereby constituted, made, established and conformed to be a commonwealth and free state, and shall henceforward be governed as a commonwealth and free state by the supreme authority of this nation, the repre- sentatives of the people in Parliament, and by such as they shall appoint and constitute officers and ministers for the good of the people, and that without any King or House of Lords.' The republic was a new experiment in our history : the effort to build up a ' nation of God/ which was the ideal of the highest puritans, was a new experiment in all history, save for the parallel of the Jews, from whom the puritans themselves took their inspiration. The eleven years of the Commonwealth were among the most prosperous that England had seen. Oliver Cromwell was the natural head of the republic : and first as The Com- soldier, afterwards as statesman, he served his monweaith. country well. Order was restored at home ; and then, as his invincible army defeated the Scots and Irish, the internal danger to the state died away. The royalists were crushed and deported to the West Indies or Virginia : the government visited with a stern hand sedition against itself ; insurrection, whether of cavalier or fanatic reformer, became impossible. On a superficial view, it at first seems that there was no more liberty under Crom- well as protector than under Charles as king : but in fact the difference was enormous. If the Commonwealth relied, as all governments must rely, ultimately on force, it was at least based on justice : and large ideas of freedom were current under a government that employed Milton for its secretary, that justified its acts to the European nations through his writings, and allowed a license hitherto unknown in speech and publishing. It is pathetic to notice the efforts to return to the older constitutional ideas, in the Parliament's offer of 86 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS the crown to Cromwell, in Cromwell's own creation of a House of Lords. There was evident in this an honest and dis- interested endeavour to give the country a solid foundation, and, safe from the attacks of enemies at home and abroad, to secure a good measure of progress for the future. For the first time, too, England had a colonial policy under Cromwell : and her name, which had sunk low in Europe Cromwell's during the late civil strife, was again respected colonial and ^7 f re ig n nations when the Protector controlled Policy. the national affairs. His heart went out, and the heart of all puritanism went out, to the emigrants who had gone to America when there seemed no hope of religious freedom in England. The heroism of the Pilgrim Fathers and the other congregations which had followed them westwards was dear to those who fought and conquered tyranny at home. ' We shall have the people driven into wildernesses/ burst out Cromwell to Parliament in 1654, ' as they were when those poor and afflicted people, who forsook their estates and inheritances, where they lived plentifully and comfortably, were necessitated, for enjoyment of their liberty, to go into a waste howling wilderness in New England where they have, for liberty's sake, stripped themselves of all their comfort, embracing rather loss of friends and want than be so ensnared and in bondage/ ' Many of our brethren/ he cried again in 1655, ' forsook their native countries to seek their bread from strangers in the howling wilderness/ In the last year of his life his indignation was still burning. ' Driving them to seek their bread in the howling wilderness ! As was instanced to our friends who were forced to fly for Holland, New England, almost anywhere to find liberty for their conscience/ Among all the difficulties that surrounded the Common- wealth at home, there was still time to attend to American affairs, and to help the settlers by encouragement or advice. It is on record that ' the Parliament, Oliver among and before THE PURITAN EMIGRATION 87 them, had taken solemn, anxious thought concerning propagat- ing of the gospel in New England : and among other measures passed an Act to that end, 27 July, 1649/ And Cromwell corresponded with ' his esteemed friends ' at Boston and in Rhode Island ; he intervened actively in the boundary disputes that troubled the colonies. A few years later, when the inaction of the Restoration period had done much to lessen the influence of England, Pepys remarked in his diary, ' Cromwell did value those places, and would forever have made much of them ; but we have given them away for nothing ' ; and although he refers by name to Nova Scotia only, the contrast between the policy of the Protector and that of Charles n. was scarcely less evident in any other of the western settlements. The key, indeed, to Cromwell's policy at home and abroad lies in his remarkable speeches to Parliament. In those noble utterances, which are full of practical good sense and rough eloquence the uncut gems of oratory he discussed his hopes and plans for the regeneration of England. ' If any shall but desire to lead the life of godliness and honesty, let him be protected.' He enunciated a doctrine as startling to his own puritan comrades as to the cavaliers. ' Sir, the state, in choosing men to serve it, takes no notice of their opinions ; if they be willing faithfully to serve it, that suffices/ He made himself the political head of the protestant faith in Europe, and the old hatred of Catholic Spain was revived under the Commonwealth in all its intensity. The Stuarts had truckled to the court of Madrid ; Cromwell, on the other hand, set himself to humiliate it. In his speech on 7th September 1656, he explained his objects to Parliament. ' When they (the Long Parliament) asked satisfaction (from Spain) for the blood of your poor people unjustly shed in the West Indies and for the wrongs done elsewhere ; when they asked liberty of conscience for your people who traded thither satisfaction in none of these things would be given, but was 88 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS denied. I say, they denied satisfaction either for your messenger that was murdered, or for the blood that was shed, or the damages that were done in the West Indies. No satisfaction at all : nor any reason offered why there should not be liberty given to your people that traded thither. Whose trade was very considerable there and drew many of your people thither. We thought, being denied just things we thought it our duty to get that by the sword which was not to be had otherwise ! And this hath been the spirit of English- men/ The gauntlet was thrown down to the proud champion of Catholicism ; and something of the spirit of Elizabethan The Spanish ti mes > only sterner and less wayward, showed again and Dutch in the conflict that ensued. Jamaica was taken, and the British flag was victorious in the West Indies and the Mediterranean, while the admirals of the Commonwealth recalled the old successes of the sea-kings. The war with Spain was to the majority of Englishmen essentially a religious war ; the war into which Cromwell entered with Holland bore a different character. The two nations were striving with each other for the mastery of the sea and control of the trade routes east and west : * and the keenness of the commercial rivalry which was engendered thereby was shown by the new Navigation Laws of England. Their enactment made war inevitable : but the Protector did not shrink from a conflict with the great protestant power of the Continent. If the Spanish war partook of the nature of a crusade, the alliance with Cardinal Mazarin of France and the rupture with the Netherlands, which had sheltered the puritan refugees in the day of trouble, showed that 1 The real meaning of the struggle was thoroughly understood both in England and Holland. In a despatch written at this time, the Dutch authorities warned their colony at Cape Town that the English were bent on appropriating all the trade, as well as the sovereignty and property of the high seas, to themselves. The despatch is quoted in Theal's History of Gape Colony. THE PURITAN EMIGRATION 89 Cromwell recognised that the days of religious struggles had ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The national and mercantile struggles of the modern era were beginning. It was, in fact, the lesson of sea-power that was again enforced in both wars. Neglected as the fleet had been during the half-century that had elapsed since the Stuarts came to the throne, other nations had encroached on the supremacy that Drake and his fellows gave to England. But with the triumphant cruise of Blake all danger from Spain passed away ; the submission of Holland secured English preponderance in the north ; and Cromwell saw no menace in the growing strength of France. Morally, it is true, both wars were absolutely unjustifiable, the Dutch more conspicuously than the Spanish ; yet the cloak of religion was used, and apparently without any intentional hypocrisy. ' The Lord Himself,' wrote Cromwell, ' hath a controversy with your enemies ; in that respect we fight the Lord's battles.' Without disputing his theory, or either his good faith or good intentions, it must be admitted that his policy was conspicuously successful. For a time, the spirit of conquest flamed out triumphant, kindled by religious and patriotic passion into victory ; and the last year of the Commonwealth reflected a blaze of glory on its. ruler. During the next thirty years of shame and suffering under a legitimate king, thoughtful men sometimes remembered the height to which England had reached when her destinies were directed by the simple and unpolished farmer whom fate had drawn from his quiet fields in marshy Huntingdon to the palace at Whitehall. ' God knows,' he had exclaimed once, when the burden seemed too heavy, ' God knows I would have been glad to have lived under my woodside, and to have kept a flock of sheep, rather than to have undertaken this govern- ment.' But the devotion claimed by his country was freely 90 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS given : and when the disease which had often attacked him struck a fatal blow, almost his last words were, ' I would be willing to live to be further serviceable to God and His people, but my work is done ! Yet God will be with His people ! ' CHAPTEE IV THE CAVALIER COLONIES : 1624-1660 IF puritanism wrecked the monarchy and its adherents at home, it had little effect in the colony of Virginia. The settlers there had not moved so quickly, and the old Eliza- bethan spirit was not extinct. There was an enormous differ- ence between the Virginians, aristocratic to the core as the Elizabethan age had been, and the New Englanders, reared in the democratic tendency of the puritan system, and forced by their very difficulties and weakness to accentuate the equality of man and man. We have followed the fortunes of Virginia during the first generation of its people ; we must now trace its history till a period when it too became a land of refuge, not for the persecuted sectary, but for the polished and haughty cavalier. The dissolution of the Virginia Company in 1624 brought the colony under the direct control of the Crown. James I. Virginia, intended to remodel the administration now that 1624 - matters were in his own hands, but his death shortly afterwards prevented any interference ; and in the reign of Charles I. there was little change in the form of 1 Authorities. Doyle, Bancroft, and Justin Winsor as before, with the sources mentioned by them. For the Bermudas, the volume in the Hakluyt Society's series, and Lefroy's exhaustive works. The West Indies as a whole I have reserved for a later chapter ; but in the case of the Bermudas, and other small isolated countries, it is convenient not to break the continuity of the narrative. I have therefore given their history from the beginning until the present day under one head. THE PURITAN EMIGRATION 91 government. In 1633 twelve commissioners were appointed to take over the royal authority ; otherwise things continued as before. The great civil struggle in England prevented attention from being given to the settlements overseas, and accordingly Virginia was for some years to all intents and purposes an independent state. There is apparently little of importance to record during the next two decades. The spirit of unrest that was evoked at the abrogation of the charter was quelled by a few men of firm character. Some time later, when it was proposed to revive the Company, the suggestion met with disfavour among the Virginians ; for the Crown, as it hap- pened, had left them in peace, while the Company had always been troubled about its dividends. In 1644, after many years of peace and seeming friendship with the redskins, the white settlers were attacked, and some three hundred of their number massacred ; the rising was, however, put down without difficulty, and the native king captured. But in fact the emptiness of Virginian annals merely conceals the solid progress which the colony was making. It was now securely founded. There were few Its difficulties with the British government. Rela- Progress, tions with the natives were generally pacific, and the whole- some principle of the minimum of intercourse between the white man and the red was adhered to. The well-meant idea of introducing Christianity met with little sympathy, and was tacitly abandoned as impracticable. The great local industry of the place was now on a firm footing. The cultivation of tobacco, which had become the staple crop of the colony, advanced steadily ; and although attempts were made to limit it, and to introduce other pro- ducts, they all failed in face of the increasing market for the divine narcotic in England. So large a part, in fact, did tobacco play in the material progress of Virginia, that at one time it was even recognised as currency among the settlers. 92 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVEESEAS The population, which in the year 1628 was less than three thousand, had grown by 1635 to nearly five thousand ; and the houses of the whites now extended seventy miles inland along the banks of the James Eiver. But unfortunately a large proportion of the people was of an unsatisfactory char- acter, for the transportation of criminals and debtors from England was still adhered to. They became naturally the serfs and labourers of the landed proprietors ; the proprietors them- selves already possessed the large estates, and led the easy lives that are so outstanding a feature of Virginian history. More gratifying than any other feature was the upgrowth of a local patriotism, a love of their new country and homes, which shows that the first period, when men emigrated to become rich and to return to the motherland, had given way to the time when Virginia was looked upon as a lasting abode. The letters that were sent to old friends in England no longer dwelt on the miseries and afflictions of the wilderness ; the richness and delights of the land were now emphasised. There was already the beginning of an unconscious national senti- ment among the second generation of Englishmen in America. But if the Virginians were loyal to their own country, they were not less loyal to the throne of England ; and the execu- ItB tion of Charles I. in 1649 brought out their royalist loyalty. sympathies in full force. Already three puritan congregations had been compelled to leave a soil that was sacred to the Anglican Church, whose interests were bound up with those of the king ; and it was not in vain that the cavaliers of England looked for assistance from the cavalier colony of America in their struggle against the roundheads. When the news of the abolition of the monarchy of England was known in Virginia, the Colonial Assembly immediately recognised the right of Charles n. to the throne, declared that commissions derived from the Crown were still valid, and for- bade any justification of the recent proceedings in England THE PUKITAN EMIGRATION 93 as treason. In addition, a resolution was passed that whoso- ever should ' go about by irreverent or scandalous words or language to blast the memory and honour of the late most pious King, deserving of altars and monuments in the hearts of all good men/ was to be punished. Speedy action was taken by the new government in England to quell so dangerous a loyalty. The Commonwealth sent out two ships to subdue the colony, and on condition that their submission was recognised as voluntary, the American royalists gave way. From that time, many a needy, broken cavalier from England made his way towards Virginia, to recruit his fortunes there among a more sympathetic society than was left at home. They came merely till the evil days had passed away : but when the monarchy was restored in England, those who had been successful did not again return. Among the old families who emigrated were the Washingtons of Westmoreland, one of whose descendants a century later fought bravely in the cause of liberty against the throne his ancestors had succoured. To the north of the Potomac another settlement had already been planted, differing in its principles both from Virginia and ' New England. The former was strongly Maryland, cavalier and episcopal ; the latter as strongly 1632 - roundhead and puritan. Maryland was neither. The colony, whose name commemorates the queen of Charles i., was founded on a system of complete toleration ; no religious test was to be imposed on any member of any Christian community within its borders. ' No person within this province profess- ing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall be in any ways troubled, molested or discountenanced for his or her religion, or in the free exercise thereof.' The idea was far in advance of the seventeenth century, and it was not arrived at till after a curious series of events had taken place. When Calvert, first Lord Baltimore, became a Roman Catholic in the reign of James i., he was 94 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVEKSEAS forced by his conversion to abandon public life ; but he did not lose the favour of the English government, and received as a gift large territories in Ireland and Newfoundland, with almost complete control over the latter. A small settlement was begun there in 1623 ; but it was opposed by the French of Acadia and the New Englanders. Against these the settlers whom Baltimore had sent out made a successful stand ; it was only the severity of the climate which forced them to abandon the country. Baltimore now hoped to found his plantation in Virginia ; but here he was met by an uncompromising demand for the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, which it was impossible for a Catholic to take. In the result, his people left America : but he did not yet give up hope. Finally, in April 1632, he received from the king a grant of land north of Virginia, with a charter that left him free on every point, save that the places of worship were to be dedicated and consecrated after the ecclesiastical laws of the Anglican Church. Hardly was the concession given when he died. His son took up the work ; and it was largely to the peculiarities of his character that Maryland owed those special features which distinguished her from the neigh- bouring colonies of America. He had more freedom of action than others interested in oversea settlement, since his territory was proprietary, not chartered or under royal rule as Virginia had been. And the grant which conferred Maryland on him was so carelessly worded that it gave him the right of making laws after con- sulting with the freemen, but omitted to state what constituted a freeman ; it permitted him to make ordinances of his own will when the emergency of the colony required it, leaving him judge of what constituted an emergency ; but at the same time it nullified the result by stipulating that in such a case no man should be affected as to his life or goods. No taxes were to be levied by the Crown. THE PUK1TAN EMIGRATION 95 Under these auspices, the first party of three hundred emigrants sailed for America, in charge of Leonard Calvert, younger brother of Baltimore. They consisted for the most part of agriculturalists and craftsmen ; and to the fact that more labourers were taken than ' gentlemen/ may be attri- buted the prosperity that marked the annals of Maryland from the beginning. There were both protestants and catholics among them. The voyage began on 22nd November 1633, and after some time had been spent in the West Indies, they arrived in Mary- land at the end of the following February. A site was chosen on the northern shore of the Potomac, in the midst of a charming and fertile country. ' Nothing was wanting which might serve for commerce or pleasure/ ran the report they sent home ; corn was exported to New England in the first year of the colony ; the only fault to be found with the soil was that it was too rich. From the beginning there was nothing to hinder material progress ; increasing immigration only increased the general wealth ; and relations with the redskins remained mostly amicable. The early history of Maryland, indeed, is almost devoid of incident ; nothing but its constitutional de- velopment and the boundary disputes with Virginia claim attention. Its frontier overlapped that of Virginia for more than a hundred miles ; and a protest was quickly addressed to the Crown by the older colony against the infringement of its rights. But no satisfaction was given : the two communities were merely exhorted to live in friendship ; and after some time, the main point in dispute was decided in favour of Maryland. This was the isle of Kent, which had been included in the Virginia concession, and indeed partly peopled from Virginia. After a sea-fight, the isle remained in the hands of Baltimore ; but the ill-feeling and jealousy that were con- spicuous for many years all along the southern frontier found 96 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS no echo in Maryland itself or in the relations with its northern neighbour, New England. With wealth and toleration assured, the one thing needful in Maryland was liberty. But the acts of its first Legislative its Con- Assembly were all annulled by Lord Baltimore in stitution. 1635 | i n revenge, the laws which he sent over were also all rejected by the colonists three years later. The Legislative Assembly, however, was not established on a firm footing ; for while at the beginning every freeman attended, proxies were afterwards accepted ; and when elections were instituted one settler who had voted in the minority claimed a seat, on the ground that he was not represented. In 1642 the governor reverted to the old system of primary attendance ; but eventually the regular system of election was instituted, and in 1647 a division into two chambers was made. 1 Closely allied with Virginia in its history were the lonely islets seven hundred miles to the east in mid- Atlantic on the The Ber- wa ^ ^ England. They had been discovered about mudas, 1609- the year 1511 by one Juan Bermudez, a Spanish explorer ; but since then they had remained uninhabited and almost unknown. A disaster first brought them under the notice of England ; for in 1609, when the Virginia fleet under Sir George Somers was wrecked in the Archipelago, that captain was so greatly enamoured of his involuntary discovery that he proposed to found a settlement there. Somers died prematurely ; but the Virginia Company took up his project, and eventually a Bermuda Company was formed. A governor was appointed to the islands, immigrants arrived, and supplies were sent thither. Fortifications were erected against the Spaniards, tobacco and potatoes sown, and an attempt was made to acclimatise the silkworm. 1 Already some legislative experiments had been tried. In 1639 general legal and criminal codes were passed, in striking distinction to the carelessness of Virginia, where the old English common law had been accepted as sufficient. 97 In 1614, as many as four hundred and forty settlers came to the island. Unfortunately the usual difficulties arose. The Company were dissatisfied that they had little immediate return on their capital. The first governors were incompetent ; the people were turbulent ; crime was common. The tobacco traffic, which provided the revenue and even the currency of the islands, was full of fraud. Dissensions in the community were many ; the governor and parson were always at strife ; on one occasion, when the latter was upbraiding some of the congregation for gazing at women, the former called out in church, ' And why not, I pray, sir ? Are they not God's creatures ? ' But after a while the conditions bettered. A division into parishes was approved, and in 1620 a Legislative Assembly was constituted, thus forming the second English parliament overseas. A few years later the Bermuda Company, ' that ungrateful company,' as the early historian of the islands stigmatises it, had its charter abrogated, and the Bermudas prospered still more. The adventures of the little ocean colonies had meanwhile made a strong appeal to the imagination of England. There are frequent allusions to the Bermudas in our literature. In the last and most delicate of his comedies Shakespeare introduced the dainty Ariel, saying, ' Once thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew from the still-vexed Befmoothes.' Waller recounted the battle of the summer-islands, ' Ber- muda wall'd with rocks who does not know ? . . . Heav'n sure has kept this spot of earth uncurst, To show how all things were created first/ His poem is full of inaccuracies and is now deservedly forgotten ; but Andrew Marvell's song is still celebrated : ' Where the remote Bermudas ride In ocean's bosom unespied From a small boat that rowed along G 98 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS The listening winds received this song : " What should we do but sing his praise That led us through the watery maze Unto an isle so long unknown But still far kinder than our own ? " But this extraordinary enthusiasm was hardly justified. The Bermudas were fertile, but they were small. Their natural wealth was exaggerated ; in tobacco they could not compete with Virginia. At the present day, however, they support six thousand whites and ten thousand blacks, while their perfect climate has brought them into favour as a health resort for Americans. They are likewise valuable as a base for the British navy in the Atlantic. Officially classed as belonging to the West Indies until 1834, the Bermudas have ranked as a separate colony since that time ; and they now possess a curiously complicated constitutional apparatus. Their affairs are administered by a governor with a nominated privy council of six members, a legislative council of eight members with a president appointed by the governor, and a legislative assembly of thirty-six members returned by the nine tribes or parishes into which the inhabited islands are divided. Very many of the larger provinces of the empire are less amply provided with govern- mental machinery than this tiny spot of British territory, whose total extent is not more than twenty miles square. CHAPTER V THE FALL OF PURITANISM: 1660 ' ON 3rd September 1658, while a terrible tempest was raging over England, Oliver Cromwell passed away, and the office of Protector of the Commonwealth fell to his son Richard. 1 Authorities. Green's History, Burnet and Clarendon : Milton, Bunyan, and the general literature of the period. THE PURITAN EMIGRATION 99 But the younger Cromwell possessed neither the indomitable spirit nor the religious fervour of his father. Oliver had cried in the battle of Dunbar, ' Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered ! Like as the mist vanisheth, so shalt Thou drive them away ! ' and to the stern soldier it seemed that his enemies were indeed the enemies of the Almighty. His son, on the other hand, had little preference for the puritan party. ' Here/ he said once to a malcontent, ' is Dick Ingoldsby, who can neither pray nor preach, but I would trust him before you all/ The fearless leadership that could alone have kept the puritans in power was wanting in a man of this calibre ; and the restoration of the old Stuart line to the throne took place on 30th May 1660. The tide of loyal reaction apparently swept all before it. After a rule of eleven years, official puritanism was dead, and the social history of the next half century The Reatora- showed how vain had been its attempt to build up tion - a whole nation into a ' people of God.' l The immorality of the court of Charles n., and the vicious life of most of the aristocracy, disgusted common decency. The Restoration dramatists were impure and licentious. Their plays dealt with no subjects other than seduction and adultery ; their wit, often meretriciously brilliant, was nearly always filthy. 2 The public life of the day was corrupt. Every statesman was a traitor ; every member of parliament had his price. The Anglican Church sank low ; the clergy preached the doctrines of divine right and passive resistance assiduously until their own liberties were touched : and then they revolted. But 1 John Dryden's couplet remains the best description ever penned of Restoration England : ' A very merry, dancing, drinking, Laughing, quaffing, and unthinking time. ' 2 It must be admitted that they have paid the full penalty of their crimes against decency. Congreve and Vanbrugh are not less witty than Sheridan ; but the latter holds the boards, while no theatrical manager careful of his reputation would venture to revive the earlier comic writers. 100 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVEKSEAS they raised no voice against the excesses of the day ; the acts of the king seemed good in their eyes. Their motto might have been the idle couplet of the fickle poet and royalist parson Herrick, which reveals so much of the feeling of his order during the seventeenth century : ' How am I bound to two ! God who doth give The mind : the king, the means whereby I live.' The same hatred against the puritans was shown every- where. The bodies of the greatest men of the Commonwealth were dug up and outraged. The ministers of religion were driven from their parishes and forced to beg their bread. The Restoration playwrights could not be bitter enough against the party that had closed the theatres. They reviled the puritans as ' sneaking cowardly company : fellows that went to church, said grace to their meat, and had not the least quality about them/ * The long epic of Hudibras echoed the feeling in every line. Bitterly are satirised those ' Who build their faith upon, The holy text of pike and gun ; Decide all controversy by Infallible artillery : And prove their doctrine orthodox By apostolic blows and knocks.' The drawl, the whine, the upturned eyes, the Biblical allusions, the hypocrisy, the narrowness, the cant of puritan- Puritanism * sm were mercilessly ridiculed ; and if ridicule asaPerma- could have killed, puritanism would have died a ce ' quick and unlamented death. But it did not. Its noblest work was done after the Restoration. The poet Milton, freed at length from his official duties, blind and disappointed, turned in the evening of his life to the com- position of his great epics. And John Bunyan wrote the best 1 See The Provoked Wife, produced in 1697. The hatred of the puritans outlasted the first generation of playwrights after the Commonwealth ; but it would hardly have been so bitter had not puritanism still been a powerful force in England. THE PURITAN EMIGRATION 101 religious allegory of all time in the very years when Wycherley was delighting a different taste with the foulest plays in the English language. Nothing makes us realise the true magnificence of puritanism better than the contrast between the dissolute life of the upper classes in the later Caroline period and the figure of the old poet, meditating in his house at Finsbury, or the tinker in Bedford gaol, tormented by doubts of his salvation, and picturing Christian with his load of sin struggling through the Slough of Despond, tempted now by Mr. Facing-both-ways and anon by Mr. Worldly Wiseman. But the mark left by puritanism on our literature was small in comparison with its influence on our national life. Nothing but official puritanism was ousted by the Restoration : the time-servers, the Drydens who could write one ode in praise of Cromwell and another a few years later in praise of Charles, of course changed with the political weather-glass ; but the great body of the puritan party, the sincere members of the congregations that had already been tried by adversity, remained true to their creed. And to this hour puritanism has survived as a strong force in England, working generally in silence, often little noticed, but ready to burst forth at the call of a religious revival, the hint of civil wrong, or a suspicion of moral evil. In many a northern cottage or factory town, the old spirit of the Ironsides still exists unimpaired, in its fervour, its narrowness, its love of truth, its blunt outspokenness. This was the raw material which lay ready to the hands of the Methodists when they first began to preach ; this it is which has formed the main strength of the various dissenting sects. If puritanism was not dead in England, it was equally tenacious of life in America. Every farmhouse in New England sheltered a puritan family ; Boston was in a centre of puritan culture. And the Yankee of America - the eastern states has continued in his old faith until to-day. 102 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS The novels of Nathaniel Hawthorne show how universal was the creed. The Scarlet Letter and The House with the Seven Gables depict the quiet pietism that it developed, when freed from the civil strife that had given it both grandeur and hardness. In The Courtship of Miles Standish we see its sweeter aspects. The sombre muse of Bryant was sternly puritan. The songs of freedom of both Whittier and Lowell echo the sentiments of the Pilgrim Fathers. Puritanism, indeed, might claim to be the unofficial creed of America, so profoundly has it influenced the life of the republic. Alike in its worthy and unworthy aspects, the work- ing of puritanism is visible in America. The hatred of sexual immorality that is one of the most hopeful signs for the future of the United States is a direct legacy of the creed that abhorred any ' defilement ' of the ' human tabernacle ' ; the prudery into which it degenerates when it clothes the nakedness of piano legs and forces a conscious blush at the mention of certain unsavoury but obvious facts of life is equally a mani- festation of the same spirit run mad. . . . The witch-burning that blots the early history of New England is typical of the absolute reliance on the words of the Bible, and especially of the Old Testament, that distinguished puritanism. Its influence, too, is shown in the very names of the towns that dot the map of the eastern states. Concord, Providence, Salem, Canaan and Babylon were obviously founded by men to whom holy writ was the breath of life. The puritan love of simplicity in religious worship has always been steadfast. More than two hundred years after the Pilgrim Fathers had debarked at Plymouth, one of their descendants, then a consul of the United States in England, attended the Easter Sunday service in York cathedral. He remarked in his diary that ' the spirit of my puritan ancestors was strong within me, and I did not wonder at their being out of patience with all this mummery, which seemed to me THE PURITAN EMIGRATION 103 worse than papistry, because it was a corruption of it/ So strong had remained the enmity to that church of which Charles I. and Laud had been the members and the favourite martyrs, that to Nathaniel Hawthorne the noble and pathetic liturgy, the magnificent organ whose tones resound through the vast dimness of the great northern temple, the fresh young voices of the choir chanting the triumphant paschal hymn, conveyed nothing ; it was but ' mummery/ 1 But if puritanism continued in both hemispheres as a living force, it was no longer paramount. England was no nation of saints ; it never became the peculiar people after God's own heart that Cromwell had hoped to see. The spiritual tyranny that had for the moment seemed possible under the Commonwealth died away ; and the latitudinarian school of thought, which furnished the most brilliant theolo- gians of the next century, eventually conquered the whole country. Once again a change came over the problem that the English intellect set itself to solve. As the renascence gave way to puritanism, so the latter again made place for science. The ' spiritual strivings ' of the seventeenth century have grown very dim to us : the wrestling with God and the conflict with the devil have assumed other forms in our modern world. But the change did not come about until puritanism had done its work : in the political state, by ending once for all the possibility of a despotism over the English people ; in the inner national life, by infusing a deeper moral feeling and a higher thought among all classes. 1 See the interesting diary and notebooks of Nathaniel Hawthorne. 104 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS CHAPTER VI THE WEST INDIES : 1605-1805 ATHWART the sober annals of puritan England the brilliant West Indian campaign which Cromwell planned falls like a shaft of crimson sunlight on a sea of grey ; but while the war which made Jamaica a dependency of the Commonwealth in the year 1655 was but one of many against the mighty power of Spain in the outer world, it was the first that gave Britain an important tropical protectorate to rule, and secured for her a definite place among the nations that were to control the destinies of the West Indies. The wealth and beauty of that vast chain of islands had, it is true, fascinated Europe ever since Columbus had first set foot in Hispaniola, and believed he had at last discovered a nearer route to the far east of Asia. The West Indies were thought to be ' things more divine than human ' in London ; and other nations Spain, France, Holland, Sweden and Denmark proved not less enthusiastic than the English, and likewise coveted a share. The value of the islands was ex- aggerated, while that of America was not yet realised ; and the chequered history which has gathered round about every rock and sandbank in the great archipelago shows how ruthless and unceasing was the struggle for its possession. But during the first century that they were known to Europe, the West Indies were the monopoly of Spain. The islands were the private property of Castile. The northern coasts of the neighbouring continent of South America were known as the Spanish mainland, a term which later became contracted into the celebrated ' Spanish main.' And the 1 There are hundreds of writers on "West Indian history ; I have mentioned the leading authorities in vol. iv. bk. xii. ch. ii. The slave trade is discussed at length in bk. xiii. ch. iii. THE PURITAN EMIGRATION 105 attempts of other nations to secure a footing, if that expression is not too imposing for their puny efforts on those shores, were feeble and intermittent. The English appeared there in 1516, but achieved nothing of importance ; and the beginning of our direct connection with the West Indies was in 1562, when Hawkins inaugurated the slave trade. Sir Francis Drake carried fire and sword through the islands, but no settlement was contemplated during the Elizabethan age. Other countries had done as much, or as little. The French had ventured into the Caribbean seas about the year 1528, and the Huguenots had founded colonies in Brazil and Florida, two countries whose history is closely related to that of the West Indies. But in both cases they had failed. The Dutch, again, had a few pioneers in Guiana, but they limited them- selves wholly to commerce ; in the words of an old writer, they were ' in perpetual alliance with ready money, be it English, French, or Spanish/ The Spaniards, therefore, were hardly disturbed in their monopoly before the seventeenth century : but there were already signs that they would not long be suffered to remain in such peaceful security. The unbounded ' riches of the Indies ' had fired the imagination of Europe, and nobody could yet distinguish very accurately between the true Indies of the East, and those thus named by mistake in the West. The Spaniards, too, had not been colonisers, but conquerors. They had sought for gold, and for gold only. They had left the smaller islands untouched, occupying merely the more important. And in the hunt for wealth the Spaniards had made slaves of the aboriginal inhabitants, while under their harsh rule the native races were practically exterminated. To replace the latter the hardier negroes had been introduced from Africa : and it was whilst plying the trade of shipping these as slaves from Africa that the English first conceived the idea of planting a colony in the West Indies. 106 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS In the year 1605, ' an English vessel called the Olive in her return from a voyage to Guinea, touched at this island of Barbados, Barbados, and landing there some men, they set 1605. U p a C ross/ Such is the short and simple account of the earliest definite claim made by the English for those islands which they were to have so hard a struggle to obtain and to keep. To this day Barbados is the most English in character of all the West Indies ; but for the moment the attempt to found a colony there came to nothing. It was not until the year 1625 that the first settlers arrived ; and meanwhile in 1623 St. Kitts had been taken possession of by both French and English. Of neither does much record survive, but both nations seem to have been successful in the enterprise, for the English colony extended to the neigh- bouring islands of Nevis and Barbuda in 1628, and to Antigua and Montserrat in 1632 ; while the French were evidently not discouraged, since they formed a West India Company in 1625, and soon had colonies, or at any rate depots, in Guade- loupe, Martinique, Dominica, St. Lucia, Grenada, and at Tortuga in Haiti. Barbados itself was claimed by various English proprietors ; and since the Stuarts had no objection to giving successive grants of the same land to different applicants, the rights were often transferred, and not seldom in dispute. At times, indeed, there were rival colonies of English on the island, each equipped with its own governor, and contradictory commands were issued from the two different camps. But in spite of the factions thus caused, the place was prosperous. By 1636 the population was some six thousand : regular divisions into parishes were soon planned out, each provided with parson, churchwarden, and school. The planters were mostly cavaliers, staunch supporters of the Anglican Church ; and when the monarchy was abolished at home they showed their displeasure openly. They submitted perforce to Cromwell in 1652 ; but the THE PURITAN EMIGRATION 107 next year they declared themselves ready to separate from the mother country, and to model ' this little limb of the Commonwealth into a free state/ The scheme was im- possible, for apart from England offering a ready market for their produce, they received considerable benefits from the puritan government. Before the time of Cromwell, too, the English had only been allowed in the West Indies on suffer- ance ; the capture of Jamaica in 1655 made them a power to be feared and even respected. An abundant supply of cheap labour was also secured to Barbados, since the Irish rebels who had been crushed in the stern campaign of Cromwell, and the prisoners who were captured after the battles of Worcester and Salisbury, were transported thither. More important, perhaps, even than this was the cessation of quarrels among the old proprietors, for their authority fell with that of the Stuarts ; and all the English colonies were directly ruled from London under the Commonwealth. So much was this advantage felt that when the proprietors claimed their own again at the Restoration in 1660, the settlers refused to admit their right. Pamphlets of complaint were published by the islanders, entitled The Groans of the Planta- tions, and eventually the patentees were glad to accept in compromise a perpetual export duty of 4| per cent. a tax that was not abolished till 1838. But the power of Spain declined as the seventeenth century advanced, and other nations began to seize her commerce and her possessions ; yet none were strong enough to control what they had taken. Spain herself could not revenge the injuries done : and with her authority waning every day, and other countries holding merely insignificant islands, and holding them insecurely at that, there was nobody to police the West Indian seas. An inevitable attraction drew thither all the wilder spirits of the time. English, French, and Dutch sailors alike cruised 108 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS in the waters around the Gulf of Mexico ; and the privateers of each nation, known variously as buccaneers, filibusters, or freebooters, all had the same object in view : to enrich themselves by breaking down completely the show of monopoly still held by Spain. They were not interfered with by their own proper governments, since their marauding expeditions were to the advantage of all save those whom they attacked. And indeed they were soon too strong to be interfered with. Having established their headquarters at Tortuga in Haiti in 1630, the French colony founded on that island ten years later was only allowed to exist on condition that it did not molest their calling. It did not. The continual onslaughts of the buccaneers paralysed the Spaniards in America. They were not ordinary enemies, who could be bought off by bribes, privileges, or treaties ; for, with the love of adventure and of riches easily and law- lessly gotten, they could obtain all they wanted with little trouble. They were, in fact, the descendants of the sea-kings, brilliant and daring as the Elizabethan navigators who had poured out of Devonshire and the ports along the English Channel, and degenerate more by force of circumstance than for any other reason. The policy of the two first Stuarts was all for alliance with Spain, when the whole instinct of the nation was for war. The betrayal and execution of Ralegh was the last of a series of acts which showed /that there was no longer any approval at home for brave deeds done abroad. And a spirit the very antithesis of the Elizabethan spread over England as puritanism grew in strength. But the sons of the sea-kings still needed an outlet for their energies, and since they could not find it in England, they became buccaneers in the West Indies. There was again to be enjoyed the struggle against the historic foe of their country ; but the new calling tended to develop all their bad, and to atrophy all their good qualities. The romance of ad- venture continued : but there was no more queenly approval, THE PURITAN EMIGRATION 109 no return in triumph to be knighted at court, to be worshipped by the people, to play the part of careless hero in the metropolis. It was no longer possible to feel that a crusade was being waged against the enemies of the protestant faith. With the finer aims thus lacking, attention was concentrated on the booty and the rapine, features that with Drake and Grenville had been the mere accessories. To the buccaneers it became more and more the chief, and at last the sole object of their life. As the unemployed workman sinks at last into the unemployable, so did the Elizabethan mariner of the magnificent type of Frobisher sink into the buccaneer, while still keeping many of the old noble qualities ; and after a generation or two the buccaneer sank further into the out- lawed pirate, whom it was the common interest of every nation to put down. But when Oliver Cromwell revived the war with Spain, there was no place for buccaneers in the puritan host ; and the capture of Jamaica by England in the year 1655 was in fact the beginning of the end of the era of lawlessness in the West Indian seas. The American plantations had submitted to the Common- wealth, ' without any other damage or inconvenience/ as Clarendon confessed, ' than the having citizens and inferior persons put to govern them, instead of gentlemen, who had been entrusted by the king in those places/ The little island of Barbados, however, was too prosperous to be greatly discontented with the revolution : it was ' much the richest colony, principally inhabited by men who had retired thither only to be quiet, and to be free from the noise and oppressions in England ; having served the king with fidelity and courage during the war, and that being ended, made that island their refuge. Having now gotten good estates there (as it is incredible to what fortunes men raised themselves in a few years), they were more willing to live in subjection to that government at that distance, than to return to England.' 110 The royalist historian himself thus bears testimony to the good results of Cromwell's rule : and it was therefore to Barbados, as the chief British possession in the West Indies, that the puritan fleet was directed in 1655, under the com- mand of Venables and Penn, the father of the great Quaker. They attacked Hispaniola as ordered, but were foiled, as much by the climate as by the enemy' two and a half days in the woods and uneasy passages, and in the terrible heat of that country's sun, where they found no water to drink ' but, not to return home empty-handed, they attempted and took Jamaica on 10th May, ' a place fruitful in itself, and abounding in many good provisions, and a perpetual sharp thorn in the sides of the Spaniard.' Disappointed as Cromwell was at the failure to capture Hispaniola ' he committed both Penn and Venables to the Jamaica, Tower, and could never be persuaded to trust either 1665. O f them again ; and could not, in a long time, speak temperately of that affair ' he was not the man to neglect a new possession. Many thought it was useless and too far away ; the Protector immediately perceived one of its main advantages. It was a splendid base from which to continue the war with Spain, and as such he used it. The Restoration of the Stuarts restored the Stuart policy of friendship with Spain, but Jamaica was not ceded. In- stead, it became a place of refuge for the puritan soldiers, as Virginia and Barbados had been for the cavaliers. And within a few years its population was of a most heterogeneous description. From the first the English had fraternised with the older inhabitants, the majority of whom were Spaniards. It was not long before a small number of Jews added themselves to the trading class. Some Swiss and French Huguenots and Moravians also arrived from Europe ; and on the failure of the Darien enterprise in 1699, the unlucky Scottish settlers came over from Panama. The great want of the island was cheap labour, and the THE PURITAN EMIGRATION 111 usual expedients to obtain it were tried. In the time of the Commonwealth, instructions were given in Scotland to apprehend the ' idle and vagrant,' and to ship them to Jamaica. Those who were captured after the Rye House plot, after Sedgmoor, and after the Pretenders' invasions of 1715 and 1745, were mostly sent thither. Unlike Barbados, which was so emphatically English that at one time a law was passed forbidding the immigration of any Irish settlers, Jamaica desired Celtic inhabitants, and by an order in council issued by the Commonwealth in 1656, a thousand young men and the same number of young girls were sent over from Ireland. Settlers from Nevis and the other neighbouring isles sought to better their fortunes in Jamaica, and often succeeded in doing so. But still the cry was for cheap labour ; and since that of the ' mean white ' class was invariably unsatisfactory, whether in Virginia or the West Indies, recourse was naturally had to the importation of African negroes. How rapidly their numbers grew is shown by the census returns. In 1675, there were 7768 whites and 9504 negroes in Jamaica ; in 1768 there were 17,000 whites and 167,000 negroes ; and in 1800 there were 30,000 whites and 300,000 negroes. With the means of cultivation thus assured, the island developed quickly, and the planters became richer year by year. By the middle of the eighteenth century, a West Indian heiress with a fortune of thirty thousand pounds was as much a stock figure of the London stage as the wealthy East Indian merchant, and it was almost as desirable to marry a girl from the former country as to have an uncle in the latter. At first the chief product of Jamaica was cocoa, with indigo and hides as important but secondary industries. Coffee was introduced in 1734 ; guinea grass a few years afterwards ; and in 1795 there were imported for cultivation from Asia the breadfruit, the mango, the China orange, the cocoanut, and plums. 112 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS But long before this the cultivation of the sugar-cane had become the staple of Jamaica, and the source of great wealth both to the planters of the island and the Bristol merchants who imported it. Jamaica sugar fetched prices half as high again as that from Barbados ; and it was naturally grown in much larger quantities on the larger island. As easy a road to riches as could be found by an Englishman of the Georgian epoch was to own an estate in Jamaica ; and, by appointing an agent, it was not necessary for him always to live there, although there were many who loved the country and made it their home. But regular industry was not the only source of income possessed by Jamaica. It was by far the largest British colony in the West Indies, and its capitals soon became the metropolis for all our enterprises, lawful or unlawful, in that part of the world. At Spanish Town were the headquarters of the planters : Port Royal was the centre of a very different traffic. ' Always like a continental mart or fair/ as the latter city was described, it was thither that the buccaneers brought their spoils ; and the prizes taken from the Spaniards and other nations were all exhibited on the quays. Efforts were made indeed to suppress privateering in 1675, but it soon revived ; and even the destruction of Port Royal by earthquake in 1692 did not entirely stop the traffic. So long as it was possible to gain a living from piracy, a living hazardous and adventurous it is true, but attractive to many for that very reason, so long did buccaneering continue : and so long as Jamaica found it profitable as well as the buccaneers, no very serious steps were taken to put it down. But in spite of its prosperity, Jamaica had many a crisis to go through : its history, like that of most of our tropical possessions, seems to partake of the intensity of the climate ; for while the colonies in temperate lands show a more equable progress, and have seldom touched the extremes either of poverty or of wealth, those nearer the equator have undergone THE PURITAN EMIGRATION 113 every vicissitude. And though the fertility of their soil has made them rich, the ravages of nature and of man have frequently destroyed much that industry has created. It was not long before the unhealthiness of Jamaica became a proverb : the fatal yellow fever was feared by every sailor who touched there and by every planter ; and Smollett warned people in one of his novels against ' that ill-fated island which has been the grave of so many Europeans/ Earthquakes, too, were not rare, and were generally followed by fire. Two awful catastrophes of this kind destroyed Port Royal and many thousands of its inhabitants. In addition, Jamaica was attacked by the French in 1691 and 1702. And the enormous number of slaves was a standing danger when- ever control over them was at all relaxed. Many were the risings that were suppressed, and when the French were massacred by their slaves in San Domingo there was a serious danger that the revolt would spread to Jamaica. No trouble was experienced from the aborigines, for the Spaniards had already exterminated them : but when the island was captured by the English, the negro Tiie Maroon slaves who belonged to its former owners hid them- wars - selves in the interior. An attempt was made to conquer them : but the up-country was mountainous and covered with tropical forest ; the British soldiers were intent on plunder, and soon mutinied, and it was found impossible to penetrate the fast- nesses to which the negroes had retreated. The failure was a legacy of ill for Jamaica. From it sprang the disastrous Maroon, or mountain, wars, the first of which began in 1694, only a few years after two great slave rebellions had been suppressed. It continued till 1739, when negotia- tions brought about a temporary peace, which only empha- sised our inability to conquer the free blacks. Their success naturally reacted on the slaves in the plantations, and the unrest and rebellions among the latter doubtless fomented the H 114 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS discontent of their fellows in the interior. Money was voted and other offers were held out to induce them to submit, but without avail. Many further wars took place, and indeed it would hardly be incorrect to describe the country as being in a state of chronic war. In the year 1796 some six hundred free blacks were captured and shipped to Nova Scotia and afterwards to Sierra Leone ; and the war of 1801 was terminated by employing bloodhounds to track the insurgent negroes. In 1842 those who remained in the island were given the full rights of British citizens : but they still remained irreconcilable. Jamaica would not have been a British colony had it not had its constitutional disputes and parliamentary crises. Jamaican Cromwell died before he could institute the civil ttonanjis- government he had planned : and it was not till putes. 1664 that the first Legislative Assembly of thirty members was called together. Their names have been pre- served, but they did little that was noteworthy, and they were probably not very different in character from the great majority of the planter class. The first event of importance came in 1678, when it was evident that Charles n. wished to introduce the despotic methods of the Stuarts in the colony, since he sent out instructions that the Poyning's Act, which had been passed by the English Parliament in the reign of Henry vn. with sole reference to Ireland, should apply to Jamaica. Such arbitrary conduct could not for a moment be tolerated, especially as it was accompanied by a code of laws, one of which would have had the effect of securing a permanent revenue to the Crown. On protest being made from the colony, the king gave way : but he took a petty revenge, for few of the statutes passed by the Jamaican Legislature received the royal consent, and it was further declared, with a fine disregard for constitutional doctrine, that ordinary British law did not hold in the island, unless it was specially so laid down in each individual statute. THE PUKITAN EMIGRATION 115 The controversy was carried on until the next generation, when in 1728 a final settlement was arrived at, by which the Crown gave up all points in dispute, on consideration of re- ceiving an irrevocable revenue of 8000 per annum. With the opening of the eighteenth century there was a gradual change in the fortunes of most of the West Indian islands, and not least in those of Jamaica. It Kingston was destined to be the most brilliant epoch of Indian* 81 their history. The buccaneers were dying out, society, and the last tinge of romance in their career died also as their successors became mere pirates, who could not be acknowledged any longer by European governments under the pretence that they were privateers. With the destruction of Port Royal they lost their base of operations ; and when the new capital of Jamaica grew up at Kingston, they were no more strong enough to enforce the old privilege of using it as a storehouse. Kingston, in fact, became a city of merchants and the centre of Jamaican trade, soon after its foundation by the refugees who fled from the wreck of Port Royal ; and after the year 1703 it grew rapidly in importance, until in 1755 the seat of government was transferred there for a time, although the influence of the planters removed it again to the rival capital of Spanish Town. Kingston was soon a larger and wealthier place than Port Royal had ever been, and its riches were for the most part gained by less dubious means. As the chief English city in the West Indies, it became the home station for those merchants who were already establishing themselves at Belize, and laying the foundations of the colony of Honduras ; it was also the port of call for others, less important perhaps as yet, who were trading with that mainland to the south where the fabled El Dorado was supposed to be, and preparing the way for the colony of British Guiana. From both of these Kingston drew its profit : in ad- dition, the sugar exported to, and the manufactured goods 116 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS imported from England, were loaded and unloaded upon its quays. But ' war/ it was said, ' has ever been the best friend of this town ' ; and in the great struggles between the European powers for the West Indies, Kingston was at once the centre from which the British navy started off on its expeditions against other islands or the Spanish possessions of the main- land, and that to which it returned with its prizes. When Havana was plundered in 1762, the whole of the booty was brought to Kingston, and this was but the most valuable of a series of captures. During these years, the social life of the place attained a distinction which it possessed neither before nor since. The brilliant and careless existence of the planters knew few troubles, for their profits were secure, and there was hardly a whisper yet of negro emancipation. The market was good, and apparently it would remain so for ever, for the com- petition of sugar-beet was unknown. The Maroon wars and the slave revolts were dangers to which men had become accustomed. What was lacking to their amusements was supplied by the officers stationed in Jamaica ; and a certain zest of excite- ment was added to life by the kaleidoscopic variety of changes in the political situation around them. Island after island passed from hand to hand, as the sea-power of England, Holland, France, or Spain waxed or waned in turn ; the recall of a squadron might mean the loss of an archipelago, and the unexpected arrival of a cruiser cause the capture of a whole group of foreign colonies. As the British power spread in the Caribbean Sea, it was Turks is- no rare event for the sons of those who had land, 1678. founded one island colony x to migrate and found another elsewhere. Such was the origin of the settlements 1 Detailed accounts of each of the British West Indian Islands will be found in vol. iv. bk. xii. ch. ii. THE PURITAN EMIGRATION 117 on Turks Islands and Caicos, where from 1678 traders from the Bermudas paid annual visits to obtain the rich deposits of salt. Driven out by the Spaniards in 1710, they returned the next year ; attacked by the French in 1764, an indemnity was demanded at Paris, and paid. From that time a British agent resided on the islands as governor, and they may thenceforward be considered as recognised possessions of the Crown. The numberless islands and islets known as the Bahamas were also generally colonised from the Bermudas, the American mainland, and Britain. Apparently formed of The Baba- the sand and debris washed down from the Gulf mas > 1629 - of Mexico, they seemed less valuable to Europeans than the rest of the West Indies, and accordingly remained in British hands without much dispute. Granted to the company which colonised Carolina, they were not regularly occupied, and soon became a resort of pirates. It was difficult to dislodge the hordes who took refuge there; but this was eventually done, and regular government was established in 1718. The Windward and the Leeward Isles were more stoutly contested. Their extraordinary beauty, their extreme fertility, and the belief that they contained mineral wealth, y^ Wlnd . made them objects of desire to every nation ; and ward isles, 1 C9Q their history is one succession of revolutions. Of the three islands, St. Vincent, Grenada, and St. Lucia, which compose the former group, the first was chiefly inhabited by natives ; the second was for long a French possession ; a mere list of the changes of allegiance forced on the third gives a better idea of the tremendous conflict in West Indian waters than any number of battle-scenes. Discovered by the Spaniards in 1502, it belonged to them by virtue of their monopoly for over a century. When their power began to decline, it was taken by the French in 1635 ; from them it was seized by the English in 1639. The next year the whole settlement there was 118 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS massacred by the Caribs, the fiercest and last remaining of the West Indian aborigines. Deserted awhile, it passed again to the French in 1642 ; in 1663 it was attacked and captured by the English for the second time. Restored by treaty in 1667, it had over a century of repose, during which it prospered greatly. Untouched during the wars of the earlier part of the eighteenth century, probably because it seemed too strong to attack, it was captured by Rodney in 1782, but restored the following year. In 1794, however, it was once more seized, and ruled by England till restored in 1802. Its capture in 1803 brought it finally into British hands. Such are the annals of a typical small island in the West Indies, during the period when anything larger than a rock in those parts seemed worth the despatch of a squadron. Of the Leeward Isles, there is little different to be said. Antigua, so called from a church at Seville, with its depend- The Leeward encies of Barbuda and Redonda, the round island ; isles. gt. Christopher or St. Kitts ; Nevis, with snow- capped peak rising direct out of its tropical waters ; Mont- serrat, named in memory of the mountains near Barcelona ; Dominica, so called from being discovered on a Sunday ; the innumerable Virgin Isles, that owe their title to the legend of St. Ursula and the eleven thousand virgins : all alike were won and lost many times during the century and a half that the struggle continued. In curious contrast to the fury of the fight for most of the islands was the somnolent solitude that overlay Trinidad. Trinidad, A Spanish possession where Spanish indolence 1797. prevailed, inaccessible from the sea on three sides, and altogether more like the most northerly part of South America than the most southerly of the West Indies, Trinidad was troubled by none save the echoes of the struggle. Spanish in government, its settlers were mostly French : there was little national sentiment on the island, and it passed to England in 1797 with hardly an effort at resistance. THE PURITAN EMIGRATION 119 The long series of wars which consolidated British power in the West Indies belongs rather to naval than colonial history. Beginning with the desire to wrest that The Naval from Spain which Spain had never thoroughly struggle, conquered, the first blows were struck by Ralegh, Drake, John Smith and their fellows of the Elizabethan age. That epoch ended with the death of the queen ; and our seamen, denied at home, became buccaneers. The Latin monopoly was already threatened by the terror of the sea-kings : the buccaneers destroyed it altogether. But they did little to set up any stable government in its place, while the Dutch were already trading peaceably and the French undertaking colonisa- tion in the neighbouring districts. The rich families of England who bought concessions from the first two Stuarts were the real founders of British power in the West Indies. The Commonwealth came : and Cromwell, while sympathis- ing with neither buccaneer nor cavalier, neither disturbed nor encouraged them, for they were doing England's work over- seas, albeit in a different manner from that favoured by puritanism. He carried on the war against Spain independ- ently of them ; and if he failed to take Cuba, he captured Jamaica, the future capital of the British West Indies. The Stuart Restoration brought back the old timorous policy : but the buccaneers, although fallen from their former splendour, waxed prosperous and still kept Spanish influence low in the western seas. A few islands were added as uncertain possessions of the empire ; but with negro slavery introduced on a large scale, those few became rich. Meanwhile France had risen into a great European and colonial power : henceforth the struggle was against her as well as Spain. A naval conflict, that hardly ceased for over a hundred years, raged in the Caribbean Sea. Its commence- ment, as frequently happens in our wars, was unfortunate ; Admiral Benbow failed ignominiously in 1702 to do the work 120 required of him. But the nation was determined. Although Scotland lost heavily in the Darien project, and England in the South Sea scheme, neither country could be deterred. The attacks on Carthagena failed : but among all the glorious victories of the Seven Years' War, that of Rodney in the West Indies was not the least conspicuous. At the Peace of Paris in 1763 the capture of many of those islands was con- firmed ; but on the outbreak of the Imperial Civil War all was again in jeopardy. Yet when the fate of the whole empire trembled in the balance, the swift and decisive blows that Rodney struck in the West Indies in the years 1780, 1781 and 1782 again saved England from complete disaster. Once more there was peace for a while ; but in the terrific final struggle with France the West Indian seas again resounded to the cannon of Nelson, Abercrombie and Moore. Not one of the plantations on the islands was secure during the years that Napoleon was supreme in Europe ; but after the battle of Trafalgar had at last given Britain the mastery of the ocean, they were seldom subjected to further attack. Trafalgar, in fact, ended the contest for the West Indies. Those beautiful lands had been known to Europe for more Peace and than three centuries, and during all that time they Misfortunea. na( j seen no thing but war. They had been the focus of European politics. Every nation had striven to conquer them. When peace was concluded, Spain still possessed the pearl which repeated attempts had not been able to snatch from her jealous hands ; Cuba floated the red and yellow flag for another ninety years. But if Spain held the finest, England had the largest share. France had likewise some rich de- pendencies, while Holland and Denmark maintained their own small settlements. A peace that was to be permanent now dawned upon the West Indies. The seas that had been sacred to the adventurer. THE PURITAN EMIGRATION 121 the buccaneer, and the warship, were to know nothing more exciting than the sailing or steam packet, the commercial traveller, the missionary, and the globe-trotter. But by a strange paradox, the West Indies were more prosperous in war than in peace. The victory that brought them security sealed their doom. The most brilliant period of their history was over ; it proved also the more flourishing ; and the clouds were already gathering that have never since been wholly dispelled. Newer and larger areas of production opened out elsewhere. The sugar-cane, the source of most West Indian wealth, was shortly to be supplanted by the sugar-beet. The excellence of the tobacco grown on the islands was indeed unapproachable anywhere ; but other countries improved and extended their crops. If the products of the West Indies were thus menaced on the one hand, the means by which those products were supplied were menaced on the other. The treatment of the negro slaves, and the whole question of slavery, was taken up in Europe. In spite of protests from the planters that their ruin was certain, emancipation of the negroes was insisted on by the British Government : and whatever view we may take of the rights and wrongs of slavery, it must be admitted that the planters did not in this instance exaggerate more than men inevitably do when their livelihood is threatened. The French had already been driven out of Haiti by their slaves : and Europe was watching, with hopes destined to be rudely shattered, the experiment of a negro republic in that island. The shadow of approaching disaster lay over all the West Indies. The famous French phrase, ' Perish the )r colonies rather than perish a principle,' had gone forth : the principle of freedom for the negroes and their equality with the whites was about to be essayed by all the colonising powers ; and if it cannot be said that the West Indies have perished since that principle has been introduced, it must be allowed 122 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS that, whether it springs from the abolition of slavery or the adoption of Free Trade by Britain a few years later, or from both causes combined, they have perished as an economic factor in the world's industry. During a cen- tury their star has declined : and the remainder of their history offers little but gloom a gloom that is the more depressing when contrasted with the brightness of their past, and the ideal beauty of their situation. BOOK III THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD STRUGGLE: 1588-1713 CHAPTER I THE LOSS OF SPAIN'S SUPREMACY : 1588-1700 THE close of the Middle Ages in Europe was marked by three great events. When Constantinople was taken by the Turks in the year 1453, the West was again awakened to the danger of being crushed beneath the civil and religious despotism of an alien race. Forty years later, the discovery of America and the new routes to the Indies more than compensated for the loss of the Greek empire. And mean- while the renascence was slowly spreading from Italy into every country that had any pretence to civilisation. The peril from Islm proved illusory. The Turks were ex- hausted by their last great 'effort ; and although they made many more incursions westwards, one even so far as Vienna, they were always driven back, and the hatred and fear with which they were regarded changed gradually to contempt, as the power of the Crescent declined. 1 Authorities. Prescott and Robertson are still useful as showing the internal state of the country. There is an invaluable chapter on the decline of Spain in Buckle's History of Civilisation. The modern history of Spain exists only in fragments ; Coxe's Bourbon Kings is the best for the English reader ; and Major Hume throws light on the last century. Cervantes gives an inimitable picture of the life of his country in the time of Philip in. ; Calderon, whom Sismondi calls the poet of the Inquisition, and Lope de Vega have an endless series of dramas. Despite Napoleon's dictum to the contrary, Lesage's Oil Bias may be taken as an accurate description of Spain in the generations after Don Quixote. 123 124 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS The effects of the renascence, mingling with, attracted to or repelled by the reformation in religion, were different in R different countries, illustrating curiously the dis- cence in tinctions of race and thought in Europe. Europe. j n jt, a } Vj where liberty was already dead, the lustre of the liberal arts hid the tyranny and depravity of her princes. In the land which had conserved more of the ancient traditions than any other, the enthusiasm for classical learning reached its highest point under the patronage of splendid despots. But the wisdom of its scholars was of a temper coldly intellectual ; there was no moral or religious reformation. The denunciations of Savonarola fell helplessly against the indifference of Florence, as he died the martyr of a ruined cause ; the moral decadence of Venice and Naples was then, as now, cloaked with the fatal gift of beauty that has been vouchsafed the whole peninsula. The lower people were untouched by the renascence ; the upper classes, having thrown aside the old garment of faith, donned no new one. And the outer contrast of palace and hovel was and is still deepened by the inner contrast of careless disbelief and unquestioning devotion, of haughty pride and pathetic servility. In France, the religious indifference of Italy mingled with the religious fervour of Germany, as renascence and reforma- tion clashed against the older Catholicism and each other. Civil war that developed into anarchy invaded the land. Patriotism hid her head ; liberty was lost. The political ruin which disunion brought upon Germany might have been the fate of France had not Henry of Navarre, with a cynicism worthy of Montaigne, changed his religion as the price of his kingdom. But with the abandonment of the Huguenots by the king, France as a, whole came slowly round to the old belief, and the strength of Catholicism was probably deepened by the bitter struggle. Yet the scoffers were not subdued ; side by side with the untroubled faith that exists to the BEGINNING OF THE WORLD STRUGGLE 125 present day in Brittany and Quebec there grew up the doubters. Weak at first, and as in the case of Descartes not daring openly to deny ecclesiastical doctrines that conflicted with their own theory, and perhaps at all times mostly composed of these whose indifference to all but gaiety and enjoyment did not compel them to quit the established creed, this party, uncon- scious of being a party, had a very direct connection with the school of philosophic doubt that in the eighteenth century owned Voltaire for its master mind. In Germany, the renascence was swamped by the religious reformation and the dissensions it induced. In Holland, slowly emerging from the struggle for existence, the fierceness of the contest produced a marriage of convenience between the two forces the only instance in Europe at that time of two such incompatible partners being linked together in a mutual toleration. In Spain, where the dead hand of the Inquisition crushed all freedom of thought, there was still art and music, and romance and beauty and faith, while the theatre The internal under Calderon and Lope de Vega rose to a condition of magnificence that was only equalled in England. Spam- Cervantes has left us a perfect picture of his country, and in the glorious history of Don Quixote the life of Spain passes before us as though we ourselves had lived at La Mancha by the side of that pattern knight. One sees the grandees in their pride, the Moriscoes and their love for their native land, the high carriage of the ' old Christian/ the all-pervading Inquisi- tion, the ballad-loving people still singing of the defeat of the French at Roncesvalles, the hill banditti, the pirates at sea, the travelling actors with puppet players and dancing apes, the company assembled at inns, the host sometimes eating with his guests, the proverbs of the country of which Sancho had such an inexhaustible stock, the traffic and riches of the Indies, the slave trade and shipping of negroes, and the wages of the common people, Sancho receiving his two ducats a 126 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS month and food as a farm labourer, his daughter Sanchica earning her eight maravedi a day by making bone-lace, the painter with his two ducats for painting the king's arms on the gate of the city hall. . . . But the fair flower of Spanish progress was killed by the Inquisition and the false ideas of honour and chivalry that had spread through the land. As all inducement to philosophy and thought was repressed, philosophy and thought them- selves died out ; and in the catalogue of great men who have influenced the higher life of Europe, we look in vain for the name of a Spaniard. It may seem, at first sight, that the intellectual condition of a nation has little bearing on the part it plays in the politics of the world. The defeat of the Spanish Armada would probably not have been avoided had Medina Sidonia been an ardent Calvinist and Drake a believer in transubstantiation. But in fact the mental efficiency of a people has a very direct relation to the forces they are able to bring to an international struggle. It was not merely a coincidence that Greece pro- duced no masters under the Roman rule, that Roman literature died as the empire sank into ineptitude, that Italian literature flourished with Italian commerce, and that both fell from their supremacy together. It is no fanciful connection that one traces between the reception given by the different countries of Europe to the renascence, and the forces they were able to bring to that great contest for the mastery of the world which began with the third great event that marks the close of the Middle Ages the discovery of America and the new route to India. Of those discoveries Spain and Portugal had obtained almost the monopoly ; and that monopoly was secured them The External ^ v ^ e P a P a l bull. In Europe itself, the posses- Splendour of sions of the King of Spain were considerable ; when he succeeded in uniting Spain and Portugal he seemed irresistible. Champion of the Catholic faith BEGINNING OF THE WORLD STRUGGLE 127 throughout the world, Philip n. endeavoured to enforce a double political and religious tyranny on every nation. For a time it seemed that he would succeed. Italy was cowed before him ; a large party in France worked in his interest and was paid from his treasury ; England was tied by his marriage with Queen Mary ; the Netherlands revolted, but Belgium fell before his armies ; the German confederation was always divided, and his influence there was paramount ; the Turks were defeated in the great naval battle of Lepanto ; a constant crusade was maintained against Isl&m in Africa. But the prize of universal empire was not for Spain. The foundations were destroyed, while the superstructure grew ; and the country sank from the chief to one of the Her Decline least among the European powers. In 1571 the *** Defeat, victory at Lepanto saw the nation at the zenith of its fame. The following year the Netherlands rebelled. From that time Holland, though hard pressed and devastated by Alva, was independent ; but it was eighty years before Spain would acknowledge the freedom that defied her. The accession of Elizabeth had severed the English connection with Philip ; in 1588 the defeat of the great Armada broke the spell of Spanish maritime supremacy, and the attacks of the English and Dutch became more persistent. The unwieldiness of the leviathan was shown in the next decade, when the Spanish treasure fleets were seized upon the high seas, and the shipping in the home ports was plundered and burnt. ' That is the string,' said Leicester truly, ' that touches the king indeed/ The death of Philip n. in 1598 removed the careful toiler who had directed the machine of government ; and the Spanish historians themselves date the decline of their country from the close of his career. He was the last of the great kings who attended personally to affairs of state. His successors were utterly incapable : ignorant, infirm of purpose, and debauched, they were superstitious in the extreme, overawed by the Roman Church in every thought, and controlled by 128 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS their ministers of state in every action. Philip in. and Philip iv. were as contemptible as the rois faineants of France ; Charles n., the last of his line, was scarcely more human than Caliban. In a land where the monarchy was everything, the whole nation was reduced to the last extremity with its disorganisation. Portugal revolted in 1640 ; and with her defection the last chance of uniting the whole peninsula under one central authority vanished. It was now that the evil results of the internal policy which had been pursued were visible to the world ; although, by a strange blindness, they were hidden from the Spaniards themselves. The renascence had been welcomed in every other country ; in Spain alone was it crushed. The reforma- tion had shown its head for a few years only ; the Inquisition soon stamped out every vestige of the new thought. But the mission of the Inquisitors was cordially approved by the people at large, for the new thought was not orthodox ; and in Spain, what was not orthodox was doomed. The scientific theories and discoveries that opened out new vistas to other nations were expelled from Spanish soil ; they also were not orthodox. The threadbare scholastic theology of mediaeval doctors was held in higher esteem than the conjectures of new philosophers. Bacon and Descartes appealed to reason and not to the voice of the Church ; and having thus committed the unpardonable sins of innovation and rebellion, their teaching could find no footing in a nation which placed its creed before its intellect : the dry skeleton to which Catholicism had reduced the system of Aristotle was preferred in its place. Modern physicians discarded the old medical formulas, and thus spared and prolonged some lives whose end their remedies had formerly hastened ; but their innovations were received with disfavour in Spain. It was better to be killed by an orthodox attendant than to be cured by one of unsound faith. The sarcasms of Gil Bias on the Castilian doctors have moved the laughter of the rest of the world for two centuries ; but their quackery BEGINNING OF THE WORLD STRUGGLE 129 was esteemed in Spain, since their theological dogmas were above reproach. When a nation is thus reactionary in thought, its political condition will not be more advanced. The orthodoxy that is demanded in theory will be insisted on in practice. The settled maxim of Philip n. had been, ' It is better not to reign at all than to reign over heretics ' ; and the merciless bigotry that developed among the whole people left neither Jew, Musalman nor protestant in the land. The decay of Spain during the seventeenth century was in marked contrast to its previous flourishing condition. The population of Madrid diminished by half ; other towns suffered as heavily. Burgos, says one observer, lost every- thing but its name : to this day it has not recovered. When the Moriscoes were expelled in 1609, none were left to raise the crops of Granada and Valencia : the country suffered the horrors of famine and its invariable accompaniment, plague. Manufactures ceased ; mining was discontinued ; agriculture was almost forgotten. The belief that manual labour was derogatory had grown up among all classes until industry died. The people could not have paid the taxes, even if they would. Philip ii. had exhausted the wealth, not only of his own land, but of his oversea possessions, with endless wars and intrigues ; before his death he was forced to repudiate his debts ; under his successors national bankruptcy became unavoidable. The army was unpaid and unclothed ; the navy almost ceased to exist ; and the seamen were no longer the daring navigators of the days of Columbus and Cortes. The people were unable to defend themselves ; the govern- ment were unable to do it for them. But though destitute, ignorant, famished, and humiliated, they were orthodox ; and therefore content. Other nations, which had not silenced the voice of reason at the bidding of their priests, had risen, and were ready to snatch the mastery of the world from the paralysed hands that I 130 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS held it. In 1704 Gibraltar, the gate not only of Spain but of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, fell into English hands ; and though the Pillars of Hercules, the old boundaries of knowledge, still appear on the coins of the kingdom, the impregnable rock they represent is forbidden soil to Spanish feet. Abroad, the empire was falling to pieces, now that the central authority had gone. The same colonies were indeed still subject to Spain and Portugal. The same monopoly of trade was claimed ; the same evil colonial system was in vogue, which had compelled the planters to root up their vines and olives, lest their products should compete with those of the mother country ; the same miserable policy of keeping the natives in ignorance and superstition, and of subjecting them to extortion and tyranny, was pursued as of old. But the monopoly of trade could not be enforced, and it produced endless smuggling and disastrous wars : and during a period of two centuries, until the crowning humiliation of the war with the United States in 1898, Spain lost one possession after another by conquest or revolt in the stern struggle for the mastery of the world. In whatever quarter she was attacked she was defeated ; by whatever people she was assaulted she was worsted. The decline of Portugal was less rapid, though not less marked. As the Spanish monopoly in America shrank The Decline from the lordly supremacy of the sixteenth century of Portugal. a mere assertion of the rights secured by the papal bull, so the Portuguese lost little by little their influence in Asia and Africa. Even when they again secured their independence, they could not regenerate their people. The great era when their seamen roamed the world, when their generals conquered the most distant lands, when Camoens sang the national glory, had passed away for ever. The arrival of the Dutch and English in the Indian seas was fatal to them. By 1593 the tide had begun to turn. In BEGINNING OF THE WORLD STRUGGLE 131 that year the English took Pernambuco. In 1622 the Portu- guese lost Ormuz ; in 1637 they were defeated by the Dutch in Bengal ; in 1640 they were driven from Malacca, a blow from which they never recovered ; in 1658 their last stronghold in Ceylon was captured. Another twenty years and they had lost Malabar, St. Thome, Macassar and the Coromandel coast. In the eighteenth century they could not even protect them- selves against the natives. The Marathas subdued them in Basseia. It was there, a few miles from Madras, that they had built the cathedral of St. Joseph, a century and a half before, when at the height of their power ; and the traveller can see the ruins to-day a dwelling-place for bats and jackals, and a melancholy reminder of a lost empire. Of the reasons for its loss, one of the national historians himself says, ' Perfidy presiding over almost all compacts and negotiations, conversions to Christianity serving as a transparent veil to covetousness, these are the fearful pictures from which we would desire to turn away our eyes. It was to this moral leprosy, to these internal cankers, that Gaspar Correa chiefly alluded, and to which Diego da Gonto attributed the loss of the Indies, saying that they had been won with much truth, fidelity, valour and perseverance, and that they were lost through the absence of these virtues/ CHAPTER II THE RISE OF FRANCE : 1594-1663 l As Spain sank gradually from her predominant position, a new and brighter star arose in Europe. Under the wise 1 Authorities. The Histoire de la Nouvelle France, by Charlevoix, is a complete but not always trustworthy record of the French in America ; it may be supplemented by L'Escarbot's New France, and Champlain. Garneau is also useful, and Sagard's History of Canada. Parkman is the most brilliant English writer on the subject, and Kingsford should be consulted. For the French in India, see vol. ii. bk. vi. ch. iv. 132 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS government of Henry of Navarre, France emerged from disaster. She was freed to a great extent from the religious strife which the reformation had caused. Restored to a comparative internal peace, she was again able to give atten- tion to the culture in which her inhabitants have ever asserted their superiority. The French renascence, only less brilliant than the Italian, broadened out into a national movement that stretches with an almost unbroken record of great works from the day of Montaigne to our own. The artistic sense of the nation found its proper outlet ; and as Italy was degraded and devastated by foreign armies and domestic discord, France became more truly the home of the muses. It is, however, with political developments that we are here concerned. The conflicts of the Middle Ages had pre- vented France from attaining the national unity and national feeling that we find in England during the same period. Unfortunate in being always the scene of war, whether amongst her own nobles or attacked by the English, France had not progressed constitutionally as far as her island neighbour. The power of her aristocracy was greater ; in- deed, at times the nobility were stronger than the king. No national consciousness was possible while such was the case : and, in addition, the influence of the people was smaller, and they were less in sympathy with their rulers. But the wonderful vitality of the French nation, its phoenix- like power of rising victorious from what seems to be utter destruction, which has so often astonished the world, was strongly marked during the reigns of Louis xi. and Francis i. The ostentatious part taken by the latter king in European affairs could not have been attempted without a vigorous nation at his back. He was overshadowed by his great rival, the Emperor Charles v. ; and the religious troubles of the times and the personal incapacity of his successors again kept France in a lowly position. But despite bad government and theological dissensions that descended to civil war, the BEGINNING OF THE WORLD STRUGGLE 133 nation progressed as a whole ; and already might be seen the beginnings of a New France overseas, the foundation of an empire in the west which for two hundred years rivalled that of England, and ultimately left a permanent mark upon modern America. Yet the man who exercised the greatest influence on the making of modern France was Richelieu. Cold, hard, reserved, with no intimates save a mysterious priest Richelleu named Father Joseph and a favourite niece ; and French occupying a position that was always insecure, u ty ' Cardinal Richelieu was an ideal type of the ecclesiastical politician at his best. In the gallery of the world's statesmen he stands among the select few who have controlled and have not followed the circumstances of their epoch. Con- tinuously in office from 1624 till his death in 1642, his power was almost unlimited, and the king's trust in him was implicit, in spite of the incessant cabals and intrigues of opponents. He gave France the unity she needed. He found the Huguenots forming a state within a state ; and his whole policy was to make the state itself supreme. He crushed their liberties, but gave them religious toleration ; and within a generation the Huguenots were among the most loyal of the sons of France. Local independence, whether of prince or noble or municipality, he put down with a stern hand everywhere. All administration was centralised in Paris ; and with the strong man's love of work Richelieu centralised it in his own hands. Towards the close of his ministry he declared to the king, ' When your majesty resolved to admit me to his council and to a share in his confidence, I can say with truth that the Huguenots divided the state with the monarchy, that the nobles behaved as if they were not subjects, and that the chief governors of pro- vinces acted as if they had been independent sovereigns. . . . I then undertook to employ all my energy and all the authority 134 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVEESEAS that you were pleased to give me to ruin the Huguenot faction, to humble the pride of the nobles, to recall all your subjects to their duty, and to exalt your name to its proper position among foreign nations/ He saw, indeed, that only with a king who was supreme could France have internal peace ; and it is no disgrace to him that he did not attempt to foster the States-General and to enlarge the old parlia- mentary institutions of the country. The political medicine that ensures national unity can seldom be combined with the strong tonic of popular freedom. In foreign politics Richelieu's genius also shone. He began the system of aggrandisement at the expense of the Richelieu small surrounding states which characterised ^nsf 16 ^ French policy for more than a century. In his France. steps Maizarin and Louis xiv. walked more feebly after he had gone. From his day to a time near our own Fiance was the arbiter of Europe, in that with her rested the question of peace or war. Overseas as well as in Europe, Richelieu protected the interests of his country. He endeavoured to secure some share of the oriental traffic that was now becoming important, and to that end he founded the French East India Company. In America he saw the weakness of the infant French colonies, and did his best to assist them. Alone he could do little, but his attention was at any rate better than the utter neglect that had previously been shown by the rulers of France. For the beginning of the New France that was now growing up in Canada, we must look back a century in the history of New France, the mother country. In the reign of Francis I. 1534-1663. curiosity had been aroused by the marvellous discoveries of the Spaniards in the West ; and Breton fisher boats had quickly made their appearance off the coast of Newfoundland. The king was seized with the idea of claiming part of America for himself, and employed Verrazano, an Italian navigator, to undertake exploration for that purpose. BEGINNING OF THE WORLD STRUGGLE 135 The voyage was made in 1524, but nothing came of it ; it was fittingly reserved for an inhabitant of France to lay the foundation of the new French empire in America. Ten years after Verrazano's expedition Jacques Cartier, a Breton fisherman from St. Malo, sailed across the Atlantic and came within sight of the bleak and lonely island of Anticosti. Attracted by the prospect of further discoveries, he repeated the voyage in 1535, when he explored and named the St. Lawrence, penetrating as far as the island where Montreal now stands. Near the site of the present city of Quebec the first tempo- rary settlement was made. As winter drew on, the hardships inseparable from pioneering work began to be felt. Sickness and scurvy claimed many lives ; there was little food and no proper means of securing it. And when the next spring came at last, it was but a small company that reached St. Malo again. Cartier published a report of his experiences, but it contained nothing remarkable : ' he spoke but of pigmies, black men, red men, and wild beasts ; there were few marvels and no gold/ In the opinion of most people at that day, the latter con- sideration alone was enough to show that Canada was worth- less. But for all that, the dominion of France had begun in America : the cross which Cartier had brought as an emblem of sovereignty was a true symbol. A viceroy was now appointed ; but beyond building a fort and looking for a passage to India he did little. His death a few years later and the renewed outbreak of war in Europe put a stop to all colonial enterprise for a time. A chance allusion to Canada in the Heptameron, 1 however, is a proof that the West was not forgotten : but the next French settlement overseas was one of Huguenot refugees in 1 See the sixty-seventh of those salacious novels. When I was an ingenuous youth, it surprised and disconcerted me to discover that the Heptameron was written by a woman ; but since I have enlarged my acquaintance with modern fiction, I can no longer force a blush at the minor indecencies of Margaret de Valois. 136 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS Florida. The sadness of their fate has rescued the short existence of their colony from oblivion. The religious war was carried into the new world by the zealots of Spain ; and in 1566 the French Huguenots were massacred, ' not because they are French/ declared the Spaniards, ' but because they are heretics land enemies of God/ Revenge was quickly taken, and the French left it on record that they killed their foes, ' not because they are Spaniards, but because they are traitors, robbers, and murderers/ Yet after several attempts, the project in Florida had to be abandoned, and for nearly half a century subsequently nothing further was done in Canada. At length in the year 1598 the Marquis de la Roche, a Breton, obtained a patent to colonise New France ; and under the guidance of Samuel Champlain, the greatest pioneering genius among the many that France has produced, a settle- ment was begun. On 3rd July 1608, the city of Quebec was founded ; but so slow was its advance that after five years it consisted only of a fortified post at the foot of the cliff and a few cabins. Its population was under fifty, of whom four were Franciscans. For twenty years there were constant hardships to be undergone. The little colony was frequently on the verge of extinction. No help was forthcoming from the king. The English attacked and took Quebec in 1629, during the war between the two countries : and so low was the place reduced that, in the words of one of the British officers, ' There was not in the sayde forte at the tyme of the rendition of the same, to this examinator's knowledge, any victuals, save only one tub of bitter roots/ Quebec was restored with the other French possessions in Canada and Acadia on the conclusion of peace, but already Richelieu had reformed the colonial administration. In 1627 a company of one hundred associates, with himself at the head, took over the government of Canada. The company BEGINNING OF THE WORLD STRUGGLE 137 lasted till 1663, when the second period of French colonisation began with the assumption of supreme and direct power by the royal house. The peculiar lines upon which the early French settlements were conducted were by that time fully apparent, and their origin may be traced back to the first voyage of EellKionB Jacques Cartier. Far different from the vulgar influences hope of finding new sources of wealth which ani- mated Francis i. and Verrazano, Cartier's journey had been as much a religious mission as an adventurous quest. True to the deep Catholic feeling which is still noticeable in every village of his native Brittany, his emblem was a cross. Much of the terror of the wilderness to himself and his com- panions was the possibility of their dying unshriven. When Champlain crossed the Atlantic, he was accompanied by monks. French priests soon went on long expeditions to convert the natives. Jesuits lived with the tribes in remote forests. Ladies left their homes in France to become nuns in the rude convent at Quebec. By the direction of Richelieu, only Catholics were allowed to settle in Canada. The first bishop of New France arrived in 1659, when the whole popula- tion of Quebec was still less than six hundred. Montreal, where the first permanent settlement took place in 1642, was known as the city of Mary. The names of holy men were given to the capes and bays. The very river was called after a saint. Quebec was full of churches and religious houses. And there was enthusiasm at home for the lonely outpost of the true faith ; the eldest daughter of the Church had planted a new branch in the far west, and it was hoped to make Canada into a great Catholic community, and to convert and unite the redskins under French control. It was a magnificent dream, and in part it was fulfilled. The missionaries understood instinctively how to deal with the people to whom they preached. There were no forced conversions, such as those by which the Spaniards had 138 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS baptised thousands of Mexicans in a day ; there was none of the religious indifference which the English mostly displayed ; it was by gentle persuasion and argument, occasionally by a simple miracle, that the French priest convinced his hearers. The objection raised by one of the Huron tribe to the foreign creed shows the way in which it was sought to win them. ' Do you not see,' said the native, ' that we inhabit a different world from yours, and there ought therefore to be another paradise for us, and consequently another way by which to arrive ? ' The sincerity of the missionaries is proved by the protest they made when brandy was sold to the natives. ' They have brought themselves to nakedness, and their families to beggary. They have even gone so far as to sell their children to procure the means of satisfying their raging passion. I cannot describe the evils caused by these disorders to the infant church. My ink is not black enough to paint them in proper colours. It would require the gall of the dragon to express the bitterness we have experienced from them. It may suffice to say that we lose in one month the fruits of the toil and labour of thirty years/ So strove the missionaries to plant their creed in Canada. New France became a religious community, filled with the spirit of mediaeval Catholicism, and ennobled by the self- sacrificing efforts of holy men, who often laid down their lives in the wilderness, forgetful of themselves in their cause, regretting only that they were spared no longer to be of service to their Lord. Something of the atmosphere they brought from the old world still lingers in the city of Quebec. For a century and a half Canada has been in English hands : modern energy palpitates in Toronto and Winnipeg ; Montreal has long lost its ancient tranquillity ; industry is developing everywhere under the strenuous conditions of the present day. But in Quebec, the one American city which recalls the older cities BEGINNING OF THE WORLD STRUGGLE 139 of Europe, the past is not yet dead. Some quarters in the first French town in America remain almost untouched by the enormous traffic of the river-highway and the railroad that runs direct to the Rockies ; and in the Ursuline convent, the Hotel Dieu, the Basilica, and the Seminary are the best and most enduring monuments to the founders of that New France overseas, which it was hoped by the dreamers at home in old France would bring civilisation into the wilderness and eternal salvation to its inhabitants. CHAPTER III THE DUTCH EMPIRE: 1572-1689 l THERE seem few less likely spots for the seat of an empire than Holland. An express train can now traverse the kingdom from east to west in three hours ; the greater part of the land lies below the level of the sea. Centuries ago the waves broke in upon the northern provinces, and the shallow Zuyder still covers what was once an inhabited country. Elsewhere the soil has been improved by scientific culture into fertile, profitable farms ; a complicated system of canals is at once the means of irrigating the land and distributing its'produce, and too often of perfuming the immediate neigh- bourhood. Comfortable farmhouses dot the country, and picturesque towns appear every few miles ; the whole aspect is one of quiet prosperity. There is at first sight little to indicate its ancient greatness, in the Holland which the passing traveller or casual tourist sees to-day. The slow- moving, phlegmatic population give no sign of the heroism which made the Dutch an unconquerable people, albeit the 1 Authorities. For Holland itself, Motley's works on the Netherlands ; Bancroft and Justin Winsor give a full account of the colonies in America, and refer to the original Dutch authorities. The latter may be consulted in the libraries at The Hague and Amsterdam. 140 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS dogged spirit of the northmen still exists behind the placid features of the modern Hollander. In the sixteenth century, when the protestant Netherlands were ruled by the catholic Hapsburgs, its people were sub- jected to the tortures of the Inquisition, under the auspices of the Most Christian King. Fifty thousand persons were put to death before the year 1566. In the following six years, when Alva was viceroy of the Netherlands, he boasted that he had exterminated eighteen thousand heretics, besides a still greater number who were slain in battle. Had he and his master been as successful as they hoped in enforcing obedience on their recalcitrant subjects, there is little doubt what would have been the ultimate result. Holland would have sunk, even as Spain sank, into the slumber of orthodoxy that knows no waking; the slumber that acquires indeed priestly approval, but entails atrophy in every faculty that makes for progress and an advancing civilisation. Happily for Holland, its people were of sterner stuff. In 1572 they rebelled ; and from that moment the history The Fight f * ne Dutch empire begins. It seemed indeed a for Freedom, contest of mice against men, this revolt of the poorest province in the enormous realm which Philip IT. ruled. Every battle was lost, every campaign failed. The Spanish troops were irresistible ; the Spanish treasury was full. Ultimate freedom appeared impossible. William the Silent, the leader of the infant republic, had already prepared a scheme for transplanting his people bodily to America, there to find, as the English puritans found in the next generation, the liberty that was denied in Europe. And as year after year wore away, the Belgian provinces returned to a dis- honourable obedience ; under the generalship of Alexander Farnese, they were now used as headquarters for the army that was to reduce Holland. But the tactics of that soldier, brilliant as they were, his perfidy, unexampled as it seems in the light of his BEGINNING OF THE WORLD STRUGGLE 141 despatches, effected nothing. The assassination of the Prince of Orange while ascending the stairs of the Stadhuis of Delft made no difference to the determination of the people. Slowly the tide began to turn. The enemies of Philip were assisted by England and France ; and now the Dutch and English found the advantage of their seamanship, as they attacked the Spaniards on the water. ' All the maritime ' heretics of the world/ said Champigny in 1590, ' since heresy is best suited to navigators, will be banded together, and then woe to the Spanish Indies, which England and Holland are always threatening/ The next few years proved the truth of his words. ' I dare be bound/ wrote Elizabeth's representa- tive in Holland, ' if you will join with Treslong, the States- Admiral, and send off three score sail to the Indies, we will force him (Philip) to retire from conquering further and to let other princes live as well as he/ When Drake burst into the charmed circle of the Spanish power, he discovered how weakly defended were the highways along which the treasure- ships came, and both Dutch and English then realised that the essential point was to prevent the arrival of supplies from the new world. ' While the riches of the Indies continue/ wrote Leicester to Burghley, ' he (Philip) thinketh he will be able to weary out all other princes : and I know by good means that he more feareth this action of Sir Francis Drake than he ever did anything that has been attempted against him.' The Dutch had already sent out nine war vessels to cruise off the Cape Verde Islands for the homeward-bound Spanish fleet from America, with orders if they missed it to proceed to the West Indies. But the defeat of the Armada in 1588 was the beginning of the end. If Spain retracted none of her pretensions, it at least became evident what those pretensions were worth. The campaigns against Holland continued ; but the death of Farnese four years later deprived Philip of his most able general ; ruined and unsuccessful, Philip himself 142 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS died soon afterwards of a loathsome disease. Still the war dragged on : nothing now, however, could shake the steadily increasing power of the Dutch Republic. That republic was the first in modern Europe, and it embodied a principle new to the world. William the Silent had already impressed the necessity of religious toleration on his people : and a noble announcement by the States- General in 1587 declared that they would ' respect the differ- ence in religious opinions ; and leaving all churches in their freedom, they chose to compel no man's conscience a course which all statesmen knowing the diversity of human opinions had considered necessary in order to maintain fraternal harmony/ Had the Dutch done nothing else, to have intro- duced religious toleration into the working of the state, in advance of all other nations, would have been their sufficient glory to the end of time. But in fact Holland was fast becoming a centre of culture, as well as of freedom and commerce. The school of artists that has made Dutch painting celebrated throughout the world was beginning its great career. This was the epoch of the greatest of their poets. Splendid editions of the classics were produced by their printers. Grotius, the first inter- national lawyer, was born in Delft the year before William the Silent met his death in that pleasant city, in which the lime-trees overhang the quiet waterways as if brooding on the eventful past. In the next age Spinoza thought out his vast shadowy philosophy in Amsterdam and The Hague. The siege of Leyden was no sooner raised than the citizens commemorated their resistance by the foundation of a uni- versity. The issue of the struggle was yet uncertain ; even Barneveld, the head of the state, assured the ambassador of France in 1603 that the Dutch were becoming desperate, and were capable of totally abandoning the country and finding an asylum beyond the seas. But the university of Leyden is still standing, and as one strolls to-day through the old- BEGINNING OF THE WORLD STRUGGLE 143 fashioned streets of the town, or maybe wanders along the dunes that lead to the adjacent fishing village of Katwyk, where the pitiless North Sea beats in vain against the great dyke, the memory involuntarily goes back to the days when the Spanish armies covered the land. Their standards now hang in the church at Leyden ; the thumb-screw and the rack in the Havanna Poort museum at The Hague are the darker relics of their cruelty. Instead of the political servitude and the religious inquisition that would have resulted from submission, the Dutch founded a new nation, a new culture, and a new empire. Commerce made the empire possible ; the seamen made the commerce possible. The hardy Frisians and Zeelanders were men of the same breed as the English sea- -me Dutch kings. They attacked and plundered the Span- Empire, iards ; they penetrated as far north as Spitzbergen, as far south as Australia. True to the old unconquerable Teutonic stock from which they sprang, they dared everything. The history of their voyages reads like a romance of the Vikings. In 1595 they made a descent on India, and obtained a footing in Java, from which they have never been dislodged. In 1598 they captured Mauritius : and a description by Wytfliet of ' Australis Terra ' as ' the most southern of all lands ' leads to a belief that they had already reached, or at least seen in the distance, the great southern continent. In 1603 they seized Colombo ; a year later their ships visited Macao, where the Chinese, faithful to the policy of isolation which they have ever pursued, refused to trade. In 1605 the Dutch touched the coast of Australia, to which they gave the name of New Holland ; in 1616 Dirk Hartog visited it again, and two years later Captain Zeachan dis- covered the land of Arnhem and part of Van Dieman's Land. In 1622 further discoveries were made on the south-west coast of Australia ; and in another twenty years Jan Tasman was making his great voyages in the southern seas. 144 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS It was at this great period of expansion and national energy that Descartes, studying quietly in Holland, remarked in a letter that every day he saw people returning from the anti- podes. The Dutchman, in fact, had taken the world for his home, and was no longer bound by the little provinces that made his country and the narrow seas that surrounded it. While the navigators were thus exploring the ends of the earth, the merchants who remained at home were not less active. The trade that had belonged to Antwerp in the Middle Ages was gradually transferred to Rotterdam and Amsterdam, as well as to London. Increasing commerce alone enabled the Dutch to support the war with Spain. Companies were formed to trade with the East and West Indies : intercourse was opened with Japan, and a rivalry that lasted a century and a half now began with the English in India. On the conclusion of peace with Spain in 1609, a secret clause in the treaty guaranteed Holland freedom of trade with the Indies. The Dutch now established factories at every available mart in Asia ; and, as was inevitable, the commercial tie soon developed into a political one, and they became masters of colonies and protectorates. They practically destroyed the Portuguese power in the East : many of the great islands of which they took possession, such as Java, Sumatra, and Borneo, are prosperous at the present day under their rule ; and Batavia, which they founded in 1618, has ever since been the capital of their Indian dominions. In 1651, they estab- lished a settlement in South Africa, founding a port of call at the Cape on the way to and from India. Holland was a world-power a hundred years after it had been but an in- significant corner of Europe. It was not to be expected that the English, now also begin- ning their career as colonisers and traders, should see such redoubtable rivals grow so rapidly in might with unmixed pleasure ; and the same feelings animated the Dutch in their BEGINNING OF THE WORLD STRUGGLE 145 turn, as they felt the British competition become more severe every year. The two nations had, it is true, been allied against Spain, when Philip n. menaced both. The protestantism of the Netherlands, and especially the uncompromising Tlle Wars Calvinism that had taken root there, had inspired with the puritans of England with affection ; the ns Brownists and other sects had found a refuge in Leyden ; and Holland was the temporary retreat of the Pilgrim Fathers. The republicanism of the English Independents likewise saw an example of success in Holland, which, joined as it was with a rebellion against episcopacy and ritual, found peculiar sympathy among' the party that was struggling at home against the policy of Charles and Laud. But while these reasons made for friendship between the two foremost protestant powers of Europe, there were other and graver reasons for dissension. The age was one of transition, and the religious crusades of the sixteenth century were beginning to give way before the industrial strife of the next epoch. Newer and more material forces were coming into play ; and in the evolution of a larger political synthesis theological dogmas were neglected. The rivalry of English and Dutch on the seas and in the east quickly grew to acute enmity, and it culminated in 1623 in the Amboyna outrage. 1 This was indeed smoothed over by arbitration and the payment of compensation ; but from that time until the revolution of 1689 united the two countries, there was little intermission in a struggle that endangered every foreign settlement of both peoples. Amusing evidence of our jealousy, and at the same time of our respect for the prowess of the Dutch, peeps out at times in the old English comedies. ' Take care of the Hollanders : your ships may leak else/ cries a character in Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, one of the last plays acted before the puritans 1 See vol. ii. bk. vi. ch. iii. K 146 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS suppressed the theatre : and even so late as 1717, an irate merchant in A Bold Stroke for a Wife exclaims, ' The devil 's in that nation : it rivals us in everything/ Neither Dryden nor Cowper have a good word for the ' heavy Hollander/ And the Dutch on their part by no means despised their enemy. ' English sailors may be killed but they cannot be conquered/ admitted De Witt after a stern fight ; and the whole long conflict proved that it was as true of one side as the other. 1 The rivalry between England and Holland in India, and the later contest between Briton and Boer in South Africa, The Dutch feM t other chapters of this work ; the ill-fated in America. Dutch colonies in America may properly be treated here. When Henry Hudson, the British navigator who had taken service with Holland when no further opportunities offered in England, discovered the great bay that now bears his name, it was believed that it furnished an open passage to the southern ocean ; and that, together with a knowledge of the riches of the West Indies and the profit derived by other nations from America, determined the Dutch to embark on transatlantic enterprise. The formation of the Dutch West India Company was de- layed by negotiations with Spain, and the first vessel for that service was not fitted out until 1623 ; but already in 1609 Hudson had reached Cape Cod, naming the district New Holland : and on 3rd September of that year his ship, the Crescent, anchored within Sandy Hook. He sailed up the beautiful river to which his name has since clung, until he passed the spot where the present city of Albany stands ; and on his return to Europe he gave an encouraging account of the magnificent land of forest and mountain that he had discovered. In the same year the Dutch East India Company fitted out an expedition to trade 1 On the other hand, in an old English sea song of 1666, quoted in Naval Songs and Ballads, is the expression : ' What Amsterdamnable cowards are these ! ' BEGINNING OF THE WORLD STRUGGLE U7 with the natives near the Hudson River, which proved profitable ; it was repeated a twelvemonth later, and some rude hovels were erected in 1612. Such was the beginning of the city of New York, which for another half-century was called New Amsterdam, as the Dutch metropolis of the West. The States-General of Holland gave a four years' monopoly to those who discovered new countries ; and a number of merchants quickly entered into partnership to extend the American trade. It was probably in 1614 that the first fort was erected at Manhattan Island, and in another year there was a station at Albany. As yet, however, these were trading depots pure and simple, similar to those possessed by European companies in India ; no families had emigrated, and beyond the precarious traffic with the redskins, there was no foundation for a colony. In this manner things continued for some years. At length in 1621, when the internal troubles of Holland had died down, the Dutch West India Company was incor- porated, with the enormous rights of a monopoly of commerce and colonisation on the African coast from the tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope, and in America from the Straits of Magellan to the extreme north. The great impetus which this new movement gave to Dutch enterprise was immediately apparent. Stations were opened on the Dela- ware, in New Jersey, at Hoboken, on Staten Island, on Long Island, and in Connecticut. But the Company cared nothing for the possession of colonies : it aimed only at dividends, and these accrued as yet chiefly from the capture of Spanish vessels in the Atlantic. Not all the stations were successful. The settlers on the Delaware perished ; others found themselves in continual difficulties. The Dutch right to certain places was disputed : the Swedish colonies were planted in territory claimed by Holland, and although they eventually went under, the Dutch themselves had to retreat before the English on the 148 Connecticut River. Despite the good relations with the Pilgrim Fathers ' our children after us/ said the latter, ' shall never forget the good and courteous entreaty which we found in your country, and shall desire your prosperity for ev er ' there was considerable commercial jealousy between the two peoples in America, which increased after Massa- chusetts was founded : and the English principle that colonisa- tion and not discovery constituted possession, soon rendered the relations with Holland strained. It is of profound interest, not merely to the student of colonial history, but to the statesman who seeks the safe path of imperial rule, to observe that every nation The Vicious -i , T Dutch save one engaged m oversea enterprise started colonial with a ready-made system. The one exception was England ; and her colonies, as distinct from protectorates, alone have survived. This does not mean that all systems are wrong ; it certainly does not mean that the haphazard English method, or lack of method, is right. The Dutch and French systems have generally been successful in dealing with lands where there was already a large native population to be governed, although it may fairly be claimed that the English also have been more successful in that direction than both Holland and France together ; but it is in the work of planting fresh branches of the state, in the work of colonisation in the true sense, that the English have succeeded where others have failed. The cause lies on the surface. The colonies of the French, the Dutch, the Portuguese, and the Spaniards, were founded primarily for the aggrandisement of the mother country. Wherever the interest of the oversea settlements conflicted with those of the parent state, it was the former that gave way. The colonies were governed from Madrid or Amsterdam by governors of Madrid or Amsterdam for the benefit of Madrid or Amsterdam ; we have borne the cost, ran the argument, to us shall come the profit. BEGINNING OF THE WORLD STRUGGLE 149 The argument was specious, but it was false. If the colonies were to be nothing but trading stations, it might be allowed, although with limitations, as the head office of a business house has the undoubted right to control the minor establish- ments : but if the colonies were to become new branches of the state, if they were to have vitality and a solid foundation, they must have freedom of action. The most enlightened and liberal burgher of Amsterdam could not know the needs of New Amsterdam so well as the average citizen of the latter ; he should therefore have refrained from dictating its policy. The utmost he could do with advantage was to advise, to suggest, to hint ; even that required rare tact and foresight : and even if he could not rise to the idea of a colony, but con- fined himself to the hope of a dividend-paying trading station, he should still have recognised that the men on the spot could often direct his business better for him than he could himself on the other side of the ocean. It is true that the same narrow idea often appeared in England ; but it was seldom paramount. The Virginia Company tried it, but the Company went down, and not Virginia. Proprietors tried it ; they lost their concessions, while the colonies they founded prospered. The parliament and the Crown both tried it later ; and they it was who lost. The English colonies were not indeed definitely founded with the intention of giving them local control over their local affairs : but local control had been ingrained in the whole idea of English rule for centuries, and it could not be abandoned when American enterprise began ; the settlers ordered their own affairs almost from their first arrival, whether it was directly permitted, connived at, ignored, or flatly forbidden by those who were nominally their rulers. It was this that in one way more than compensated for the lack of system and many of the abuses in English colonial enterprise ; the vitality and freedom of the dependencies amply recompensed them for the neglect which the Imperial Government generally showed 150 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS them. It may be said that not all men are fit to govern themselves. Granted : they are also not fit to found a colony. From the first the Dutch in America were surrounded by prohibitions. The West India Company had the monopoly The Fail of trade and absolute power over its possessions. America ^ 8 was ^ e case a ^ ^ e ^ a P e ^ Grcl Hope and at 1664. Batavia, the people counted for little, while the profit was everything. A cautious, prudent policy was adhered to. The directors indeed encouraged emigration, for ' population was known to be the bulwark of every state.' They saw too that ' farmers and labourers, foreigners and exiles, men inured to toil and penury/ were the men to be assisted ; and all the persecuted sects in Europe flocked to the New Netherlands. Absolute honesty was insisted on in the administration : Stuyvesant, the governor, was charged ' to keep every contract inviolate ' ; he was cen- sured for tampering with the coinage, for interference with the merchants, and with the religious belief of the people. As regards the latter, at least, there was liberty. ' Let every peaceful citizen,' wrote the directors, ' enjoy freedom of conscience ; this maxim has made our city the asylum for fugitives from every land ; tread in its steps, and you shall be blessed.' The colony, therefore, was flourishing, and a time was looked for ' when your commerce becomes estab- lished, and your ships ride on every part of the ocean, throngs that look towards you with eager eyes will be allured to embark for your island.' It was to become the granary of Holland, a refuge for the fatherland in time of distress, a land of plenty for the new generation. But beneath the prosperity of the colony were grave dis- contents. The inhabitants of New England were pressing more and more forward, and ousting the Hollanders ; but the directors of the Dutch West India Company were timid : ' war/ said they, ' cannot in any event be for our advantage/ BEGINNING OF THE WORLD STRUGGLE 151 and it would certainly have reduced their profits. From the New Englanders, however, the example of political liberty was taken ; and the Dutch began to agitate for their own provincial parliament. Here, however, the directors were adamant. The governor had no faith in ' the wavering multitude ' ; ' the directors would never make themselves responsible to subjects ' ; the laws were to be made by the directors and council. ' Evil manners produce good laws for their restraint, and therefore the laws are good/ ran the pronouncement of the authorities : ' if the election of magistrates be left to the rabble, every man will vote for one of his own stamp, the thief for a thief, the smuggler for a smuggler, and fraud and vice will become privileged.' The answer was the stock one of autocracy ; but it fell on the wrong soil. The people refused to pay taxes not levied by their consent ; the Company in- sisted, but it availed nothing. The Dutch settlers saw with envy the freedom of the neighbouring English colonies. They were not averse from union with them. Their land on the south was claimed by Lord Baltimore for England. The puritan settlements on the north were still encroaching. Stuyvesant complained at Hartford ; it was replied that the charter of Connecticut extended to the Pacific. ' Where then is New Netherlands ? ' asked the Dutch ambassador. With cool indifference came the answer, ' We do not know/ The West India Company was naturally indignant at the usurpation, and resolved to defend its rights, ' even to the spilling of blood.' But it was without the support of the people who had settled under it ; for although the directors gave way so far as to grant a legislative assembly, it was now too late. ' I have not time/ wrote Stuyvesant, ' to tell how the Company is cursed and scolded/ There were rumours of invasion from New England, which soon took place in fact ; and though the governor planned 152 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS resistance, the burghers protested at his attitude, and framed articles of surrender. So passed the New Netherlands into English hands : so ended the Dutch empire in North America. The whole coast from Maine to Florida belonged to England from the year 1664 onwards. CHAPTER IV THE SECOND SCANDINAVIAN EPOCH, 1611-1718 1 AMONG the records that tell us of the life of our ancestors, some of the most important are the sagas of the north, which show us the faith, the rude ideals of that hardy stock which swept the earth, fearless, proud, and barbarous ; imbued with the electric spark of courage that could dare the elements and defy the gods ; contemptuous of death and its black terror ; careless of the world and all within it, save only the last great shame of slavery. . . . These were the men who burst like the tempest from their frozen north, and with the Germans, their cousins, ended in one vast avalanche of ruin the older civilisation. Their arms reached Sicily and eastern Europe ; some tribes entered Africa and were remembered later only in the legend which pictured a kingdom of white men in the tropics. Their descendants, still untamed, brought destruction on France ere they settled in Normandy : the Danes ravaged all England. Their colonies extended far across the ocean. The Faroe Isles, whose inaccessibility and cheerlessness seem to ofier footing but to the cormorant and penguin, were seized by 1 Authorities. The materials for the obscure Scandinavian colonies are scanty, in English at least. Bancroft has a short description of New Sweden ; Justin Winsor has further information ; the Swedish and Danish East and West India Companies are only mentioned in the various English works dealing with those countries. BEGINNING OF THE WORLD STRUGGLE 153 the northmen ; Iceland, still more inaccessible and still more terribly lonely, was the seat of their most extensive and most advanced settlement. But this was not yet enough. They were established in Greenland ; if tradition and modern excavations speak true, they were the first European discoverers of America. The whole of the arctic seas were the haunt of the northmen ; there they wandered at will, happy in the rough waters which matched their character so well. For centuries it lasted, the freedom, the irresponsibility, the plunder ; and then came the first great union of the north. It was the dream of a mighty prince to bring Scandinavia, the British Isles and the distant colonies of the northmen under one authority. It was the earliest attempt to impose order on the countries which had perforce been left out of the view of Charlemagne and Otho, when they endeavoured to reincarnate the Roman Empire. For a time there seemed a possibility of success ; and under the wise government of Cnut, an unwonted peace reigned in the north. But the idea of a Scandinavian empire died with him. His followers on the throne were little better than beasts ; and England shrank from union with such men as Harthacnut. She was too far from Denmark and too advanced, even under Saxon rule, to be tied permanently to those countries on the Baltic from which her own population had sprung : the Vikings were still too wild to understand anything of a central authority ; and the first empire of the north passed like the dream that it was. But, as the centuries again went by, something of the influence that was forming tribes into nations in central and western Europe reached Scandinavia. The kings extended their sway little by little over the chiefs ; allegiance became more than nominal. Even Iceland, the home of the malcon- tents of Norway and one of the most flourishing republics of the Middle Ages, submitted. With many a set-back to the old age of rebellion, many a gap in the chain of authority, the 154 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS idea of a settled rule progressed until in 1389 Norway, Sweden, and Denmark all acknowledged the same monarch ; the latter country, then as always, taking the lead. But the union was again dissolved : and the Scandinavian synthesis that seemed probable has never been accomplished. The interest of the northern lands of Europe and their history lies for us in the colonies they founded. They too The entered into the competition for America and American India. From the days of Gustavus Adolphus to colony. those of Charles xn. there was a remote possibility that Scandinavia might become one of the world-powers. Had not the first essential of union at home been lacking, the efforts which were then put forward to found a colonial empire might not have proved fruitless. In the absence of that union, the second Scandinavian epoch, which began brilliantly enough, does no more than furnish a curious and little known chapter of history that has left few traces on the map to-day. Gustavus Adolphus was attracted by the prospect of planting colonies in America, and a Company was incorporated New Sweden, i n 1626 that was to be governed by the royal 1626-55. council. Men were invited to come ' from all the nations of Europe ' ; and the proposal awakened the imagination of the protestant world, to whom it was to furnish a refuge from the persecution that was inevitable if the catholic counter-revolution continued to make way. To Gustavus, New Sweden seemed the ' jewel of his king- dom/ and considerable pains were taken to secure its success. Slavery was forbidden, in an age when slavery was recognised in almost every European colony ; for ' slaves/ it was said, ' cost a great deal, labour with reluctance, and soon perish with hard usage ; the Swedish nation is laborious and in- telligent, and surely we shall gain more by a free people with wives and children.' On this basis New Sweden was founded ; and full of hope, two vessels of Swedes and Finns arrived in Delaware Bay in 1638. Land within the limit of BEGINNING OF THE WORLD STRUGGLE 155 the present state of Delaware was purchased from the natives, and Christiania Fort was built. More immigrants arrived within the next decade ; all seemed prosperous. The colony extended, and the nucleus of a town arose where Philadelphia was to stand some years later ; those settlers of a different nationality who were already in the country either submitted to Sweden or removed. The colony, however, was founded on land claimed by the Dutch of the neighbouring New Netherlands ; it was subject to the rivalry of the New Englanders : and when Sweden in a few years lost much of her authority in Europe, her offspring in America were also attacked. In 1653 there were only two hundred men, women and children in the colony ; and the mother country was unable to help them in any way, or indeed to communicate with them. ' The settled families/ wrote the governor, ' do well, and are supplied with cattle. The country yields a fair revenue. ... It is now five and a half years since a letter was received from home/ Two years later New Sweden was conquered by the Dutch. The inhabitants remained in possession of their its conquest estates, and continued to enjoy the fruits of their Dutch, industry : but the idea of a Swedish empire in the West had vanished. The Swedish East and West India Companies also did not last long. Sweden was already exhausted by the pro- tracted European strife, and from this time drifted FaU ? the Scandina- into the back currents of the world's history, vian Empire. The effort to become a great power had been too severe for the strength of Scandinavia ; and the cause of the failure lay in the want of union at home, and the waste of life in the wars abroad. At the end of the nineteenth century, Denmark, the heart of what might have been, and one day still may be a confederation, preserved as forlorn relics of the past, Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroes in the north. Santa Cruz in the West Indies she had owned since 1643 ; St. 156 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS Thomas since 1671 ; and St. ^Fohn since 1717. Sweden had lost everything ; and although thousands of Scandinavians have emigrated to America, and although they have been among the most useful settlers in the West, it has been their fate to lose their nationality among that sister race of English to whom the political power of the continent has fallen. BOOK IV THE AMERICAN COLONIES: 1658-1740 CHAPTER I NEW ENGLAND AND NEW YOEK : 1658-1740 THE fall of puritanism brought with it the fall of the imperial ideas that animated Cromwell. In the royalist reaction which followed, the desire to wrest the new world from Spain, and to make England mistress of the seas, was again lost. Charles n. had other schemes on hand. A bribe from Louis xiv. was more important to the merry monarch than the greatness of his country. With an inimitable lightness of heart, he could forget the honour of his people at the kiss of a courtesan ; he would leave affairs of State to dally with a prostitute. He followed the primrose path : it was doubtless pleasant enough. . . . Nevertheless, the vagaries of a king can neither make the earth stand still nor a free people turn from its onward course. The thirty years that the Stuarts were at the court of White- hall after the Restoration, years of shame as they were for England at home, were full of progress in the colonies. They 1 Authorities. There is a vast collection of historical literature on the subject. Bancroft, Doyle, and Justin Winsor are the chief authorities, as before, with the original writers mentioned by them. The collected works of the elder Winthrop are still useful, as throwing light on the early years of New England : the Life and Letters of his son, who also became governor of Massachusetts in due course, are a less complete guide to the next generation. The works of Increase and Cotton Mather are full of interest for the period of the native war and the witch-burn- ing : Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography outlines, rather coldly, the life of the early eighteenth century. 157 158 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS saw an extension of British power in Asia, as Bombay was acquired and the East India Company placed on a firm footing ; they saw an increase in the African slave trade which, however disgraceful, still accorded with the moral notions of the age : and more important, they saw an enormous advance in America. A charter was granted to Carolina, a vast tract of land which included not only the present northern and southern states of that name, but also Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Missouri, Louisiana, Arkansas, and part of Florida, Texas, and Mexico. And while almost the whole of what is now the ' solid south ' of the United States was thus marked out for English influence, Pennsylvania was added in the east and its capital Philadelphia founded. Further north, the great corporation of the Hudson's Bay began operations : New York, the future commercial capital of the North Ameri- can continent, passed finally into English hands ; and the settlements in the New England district continued to flourish. The social life of the latter colonies had already assumed a distinctive form. The people were no longer exiles when Life in New the Commonwealth was established in England. England. At last, they said, the justice of the Lord had over- taken the false prophets; the wolves in sheep's clothing were driven forth from the flock of the faithful ; the seducers of the righteous were hiding under the robes of the scarlet woman ; the promised land, the goodly land flowing with milk and honey, the land specially prepared for the favoured of the Almighty, was now open for the sojourn of His chosen people. Every minister offered up thanksgivings of unctuous praise ; every stern old settler who had battled his way through the hardships of the early years of Massachusetts felt his heart beat quicker when he knew that the tyrants had fallen who had forced him to emigrate from the ' dear England ' of his childhood. The saints of God had conquered. But when the Restoration came, New England anticipated with sorrow a return of the evil days. The puritans had THE AMERICAN COLONIES 159 reason to dread the royalist revenge ; they feared lest they might be disciplined into the surrender of some of their rights. Charles n. soon showed his interest in colonial affairs ; and it was some time before the colonists could be reassured, especially since the king was lavish in granting to courtiers territories already incorporated by charter. But meanwhile the settlements advanced : and as the first generation of native-born Americans grew to manhood there were naturally some changes in their outlook on political life. It seems probable that a good deal of the original resentment against the English Government vanished when there was no longer a personal grievance with each individual ; but equally so a good deal of the affection for England herself must also have vanished. The feeling of independence which had been shown in the federation of the colonies was generally main- tained ; and there were many disputes as to the extent of British authority. Alater English writerof 1731 remarked that ' New England has shown an uncommon stiffness in affairs ' ; and he had already begun to speculate about the possibilities of rebellion, in the fatal spirit which believes that ' a small squadron of light frigates would entirely cut off their trade,' and the matter be ended thereby. 1 In spite of almost republican institutions, the governments of New England were in reality theocracies ; the ministers of religion were the most powerful men in the com- US Religious munity. There were occasional signs, indeed, of a Condition, reaction against them : in 1646, for instance, a law was drawn up to relax the condition which required every freeman to be a churchgoer. But it seems not to have passed ; and some time after, a few who petitioned for the right of unconditional citizenship were tried and punished. Religion pervaded every action ; there was still the feeling 1 See The Trade and Navigation of Oreat Britain Considered, showing that the surest way for a nation to increase in riches is to prevent the im- portation of such foreign commodities as may be raised at home. The pam- phlet is anonymous. 160 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS that New England was ' a refuge for the people of Israel ' ; and while no tolerance was granted to Catholic or episcopalian, the puritans were equally strong against unorthodox forms of dissent. The Quakers met with a bitter reception when first they came to America. This, however, cannot in fairness be alleged solely against the puritans, since the Anglicans even in the little colony of Bermuda were also enemies of the disciples of Fox. But the puritan, having won freedom for himself, was in no mood to grant it to others : he was at least as dogmatic in defence of the tenets for which he believed he had divine authority as the Anglican or Catholic. The sentiments of the community may be judged from a book published in the year 1645. It was written indeed by a minister of religion, but it was popular for very long among all classes. ' It is said,' wrote the author, ' that men ought to have liberty of their conscience, that it is persecution to deter them from it. I can rather stand amazed than reply to this : it is an astonish- ment to think that the brains of men should be parboiled in such impious ignorance. He that is willing to tolerate any religion, or discrepant way of religion besides his own, unless it be in matters merely indifferent, either doubts of his own, or is not sincere in it/ Such sentiments might have won praise from a Torquemada or a Dominic ; they were incongruous among those who had The increas- rebelled in order to obtain liberty of conscience. to^dera^e 7 But tne intolerance so openly expressed and so Views. unequivocally accepted was, however, not only a sign of the narrow views of the people. It was also a proof that the new latitudinarian school of thought had already made itself felt. Henceforth the struggle in New England was between strict puritanism and those who wished either to compromise, or to allow fuller religious liberty, or by recognising other sects to destroy the absolute ascendency which the clergy of the dominant belief then exercised. THE AMERICAN COLONIES 161 All those who were discontented naturally joined forces. There were some who had always adhered to another creed, in spite of the political disfranchisement it involved. There were some who were dissatisfied with the doctrines officially taught. There were some who hated the general restrictions and the rigid puritan rule of life. There were some, but pro- bably few, who were influenced by the abstract considerations raised by men like Jeremy Taylor in England. Together they made a considerable number, although far from equal to those holding orthodox views. But the latter did not increase as time went on ; the former did. The lamentations of the clergy thirty years later shows that the progress of the seceders was considerable. They were branded by the synod as ' the corrupting gangrene, the in- fecting spreading plague, the provoking image of jealousy set up before the Lord, the accursed thing which hath provoked divine wrath, and doth threaten further destruction/ The increasing strength of the language used by the clergy marks the gradual decay of their power ; and the persecution and burning of the witches was practically the last open attempt to enforce their authority, by emphasising the literal inter- pretation of the Bible and playing on the fears of the less intelligent among the people. The treatment of the witches, however, throws such a strong light on the state of opinion in New Puritan England that it is advisable to dwell upon it Fanaticism, with fuller detail than upon other events apparently more important. It is obvious from the mass of evidence which has accumu- lated as to the belief in witchcraft and demonology in different countries, that most of the unhappy creatures who were accused of being possessed by evil spirits, or of having made a compact with the devil, were either insane or were suffer- ing from a physical malady or psychic abnormality which produced the outward symptoms of insanity. The people of L 162 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS the Middle Ages, strongly imbued as they were with the miraculous conception of the universe, naturally believed that the person thus afflicted was in league with evil spirits ; and in their panic they took the most appalling measures to rid themselves of one who, on their theory, was an extreme danger to the community. Not until knowledge had ad- vanced considerably could the baselessness of the theory be proved ; indeed it still lingers in some obscure parts to-day. Protestantism was in itself essentially no more rationalist than Catholicism : the Scottish presbyterian, the English independent, the New England puritan were at bottom as strong believers in miracles as the Spanish Catholic and the Orthodox Russian. The intervention of the superhuman powers for good or evil was an article of faith with all ; and it exists, though certainly in a modified form, among them still. The modern scientific conception of the universe would then have been thought as impious in Boston as in Rome. In addition, the puritan dwelt in an atmosphere of religion as pronounced as that which prevailed in seventeenth-century Scotland. His belief gave him strength to resist civil oppres- sion in England and to found colonies in America ; but as there is no strength without its corresponding weakness existing in the same body, his reliance on divine aid in his own projects made him equally ready to see the work of the devil in the designs of other men. And the monotony of his life, from which all forms of pleasure had been resolutely excluded, left him liable to break out with peculiar violence whenever human nature asserted itself. His lapses from the moral code were rare ; but when he fell, as he fell from a greater height than other men, so he fell also to a greater depth ; and since the public sentiment of the community exercised a strict supervision, he was forced to become a hypocrite as well. When once civil freedom was secured and the danger of attacks from the aborigines died away, the sole form of THE AMERICAN COLONIES 163 excitement that entered into the life of the puritan was of a religious character ; and neither the strength of his convictions nor the general soberness of his thought could prevent that fanaticism which all experience teaches is the inevitable outcome of such conditions. In the case of Massachusetts, a pastor named Cotton Mather was the direct cause of the campaign against witch- craft. In 1688 he proclaimed that ' there are x^e witch- multitudes of Sadducees in our day : a devil, in burnings of Massa- the apprehension of these mighty acute philoso- chusetts, phers, is no more than a quality or distemper ; "88-92. men count it wisdom to credit nothing but what they see and feel ; they never saw any witches ; therefore, there are none/ But according to the clergy, an instance of witchcraft had already occurred in Boston, which was ' food for faith ' ; and the age ' was a debauched one ' because it did not believe in the manifestation. The sermon of Cotton Mather on the subject was printed and widely circulated : its author declared that he would look on ' the denial of devils, or of witches ' as the sign of ' ignorance, incivility, or dishonest impudence/ Till now New England had remained generally indifferent ; but in a year or two the book produced its effect. Mather was determined to rekindle the religious enthusiasm of the land : ' I obtained of the Lord/ said he, ' that He would use me to be a herald of His kingdom now approaching/ The outbreak came in 1692. The minister of Salem village denounced his native servant as a witch. Another woman, probably suffering from melancholia, was likewise accused. Mather prayed for ' a good issue ' ; the admissions of the wretched prisoners were published by him as ' the assault of the evil angels upon the country, as a peculiar defiance unto himself/ Other accusations were made ; many people were examined and committed. The magistrates, however, were reluctant to convict, and the juries at times could not agree. But the clergy were not content with such results. Even 164 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS though the trial was unfair ' I have confessed things contrary to my conscience and knowledge/ wrote one of the witnesses, ' through the magistrates' threatenings and rny own vile heart ' it was in vain. The prisoners were executed. ' There hang eight firebrands of hell/ said a minister as he passed the bodies swaying on the scaffold. Some twenty persons were put to death ; over fifty were tortured or terrified into confessing their imaginary crimes. Still Mather was not satisfied. He hoped ' to lift up a standard against the infernal enemy ' : he asked for accounts of the trials that would convince ' one that believed nothing reason- able ' ; he promised to ' box it about among his neighbours till it comes he knows not where at last.' By the autumn of 1692, he was ready with a book on the Wonders of the Invisible World, which he thought should raise ' a pious thankfulness to God for justice being so far exercised among us/ The danger for the whole community was now great. Charges of witchcraft could be launched against anybody in malice or enmity, and those charges it was extremely difficult to disprove. To appear as a witness was an easy way of gaining fame. But a reaction had already come. ' We know not who can think himself safe/ said the inhabitants of Andover, ' if the accusations of children, and others under a diabolical influence, shall be received against persons of good fame/ The terror gradually died away. 1 Mather continued in his delusions ; but his power had gone. And as if in punishment for his obsession by religious mania, later in life he was himself troubled by doubts : he confesses in his diary that he had 1 England cannot claim to have been any more enlightened than New England as regards the belief in witches and witchcraft. Between the years 1649 and 1685 over three hundred persons were tried for witch- craft in England ; and so late as 1716 two women were hanged at Hunt- ingdon 'for raising a storm of wind by pulling off their stockings, and making a lather of soap in a basin in league with the devil.' The belief in witchcraft lingered on in remote country districts until the end of the nineteenth century. THE AMERICAN COLONIES 165 ' temptations to atheism, and to the abandonment of all religion as a mere delusion/ The mental agonies which the wretched man must have undergone were a fitting penalty for the misery he had brought upon others. The failure of Mather's efforts proves that New England, however provincial and however isolated it might be from the world of thought, was yet moving in the same Social Re- direction as other countries. The clergy were ^j^ 118 indeed obeyed ; but they could not now go England, beyond certain Limits. A remark by Mather that in a ' country whose interests are remarkably inwrapped in ecclesiastical circumstances, ministers ought to concern themselves in politics/ would not have been made unless they were losing their general grip of affairs. Nevertheless the sour traditions of puritanism remained strong during the whole seventeenth century. The hard Calvinist doctrines were everywhere enforced. The law that church-membership was essential to citizenship was unaltered till 1662 ; and even then it was the conditions of church- membership that were relaxed, and not the law itself, and that only at the instance of the English Government. As might have been anticipated, there were those attempts at legislative restriction that are the mark of a mind honest perhaps, but limited and narrow to a degree. In the elder Winthrop's time, there was a serious discussion among the elders whether the women should be allowed to wear veils. In the year 1634, the use of gold and silver girdles, hatbands, belts, ruffs, and beaver hats was prohibited. In 1651 this was extended to gold lace and great boots, which were confined to the families of magistrates and those possessing two hundred pounds a year an enormous sum in New England in those days. Amusements were rigidly repressed. Dramatic perform- ances, dice, card-playing, shovel-board, masquerading in vizors, and health-drinking were forbidden. The wearing of long hair by men was not allowed, since it was both forbidden by holy 166 writ and a relic of the godless habits of the English cavalier. Dancing was prohibited in inns, although generally allowed elsewhere ; if hardly considered expedient, it could not be condemned as unlawful, since it was mentioned in the Bible. A system of public penance, reminiscent of the Middle Ages in Europe, was introduced. He who ' behaved contemptu- ously towards the word preached or the minister thereof,' was labelled a ' wanton gospeller/ A convicted drunkard was forced to walk about carrying a large red letter D. The woman who had been incontinent with a redskin had likewise to bear the figure of her paramour cut out in red cloth on her sleeve. 1 Liars were punished, first by fine, afterwards by flogging and disfranchisement. And the legislators of New England did not stop here. They admonished all and sundry whom in their exalted wisdom they thought required it. A woman was cautioned for ' wanton going in company of young men ' : a man was warned to take heed of his ' light carriage.' The wonder is that he was able to be cheerful at all in such dismal society. What the legislature lacked, the discipline of the Church was ready to supply ; and a formidable discipline it was, enforced by the pastor, teachers, elders, and deacons, who were doubtless assisted by the righteous busy- bodies that nourish exceedingly in every community. A rate was levied in each township for the maintenance of the minister as great an intolerance as some of those against which the puritans had rebelled in England. It used to be asserted by too zealous protestants that the detestable assumption of superhuman power and knowledge Superstition ^7 the c l er gy was confined to those of the Catholic and Super- faith. The truth is that it is an error inci- sm. ( j en ^ a j O ^g w h o i e profession when not checked by public opinion ; it lurks equally beneath the cassock of Rome and the black gown of Geneva. The presbyterian was 1 Readers of Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter will remember a kindred instance, terrible in its cruelty. THE AMERICAN COLONIES 167 as ready to see the wrath of heaven called down on the un- faithful as any papist wonder-worker whom he denounced ; the New England minister was behind neither. The sermons of Cotton Mather are full of signal warnings. He records that when an English girl was carried off in a canoe by redskins, the soldiers were afraid to fire at the natives, lest they might hit the girl. ' The Lord will direct the bullet/ cried a minister, and no harm was done. It was a serious portent when some mice were found to have eaten Winthrop's copy of the Anglican prayer book, leaving the Bible untouched. On one occasion, when two men went gathering oysters, they were washed out to sea and drowned by their own carelessness ; it was attri- buted to the fact that one of them had spoken blasphemously a short time previously. When two antinomians were over- taken by a loathsome disease, it was not ascribed to natural causes, but to the fact that they were not puritans. It is a melancholy thought that human credulity could accept, and in some places can still accept, such teaching, in spite of the plain words of Christ Himself to the contrary. Enough has been said to show that in New England religion was still one of the chief, or perhaps even the chief, affair of life ; but it could now seldom degenerate into real fanaticism, and it became increasingly less likely that it would do so. The terrible doctrines of Calvin became less appalling as they grew more familiar ; but it is significant that the growing number of suicides was noticed by the legislature in 1660. Yet the fiery faith of earlier days was changing slowly into a gentle and even pleasing belief, that eventually made some approach to toleration of other creeds, although the laws against idolatry, blasphemy, and heresy continued for long on the statute-book. But freedom of thought, if still trammelled, was not crushed. In the agitation against witchcraft it is possible to see the result of a consciousness among the clerical element that their influence was declining, and a violent attempt to restore and increase their authority. The fact 168 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS that they failed in the end to establish a permanent theocracy shows that New England had secured not only political freedom, but would in the end secure religious liberty as well. The natural human emotions, in short, were beginning to emerge from the torpor to which religious intemperance had condemned them. A chill monotony inevitably overlay New England social life, when such were its conditions. And in addition the difficulties of communicating between town and town were very great. The postal service, although better than that in the southern colonies, was miserably inadequate. There could be little society, and in any case there was little scope for social gifts. Perhaps even more significant than the absence of any but theological books from the colonies was the absence of musical instruments : the only one of which any mention can be found during this period in the whole of New England are some Jew's harps among a trader's stock. As they do not occur in the inventories of any houses of the day, there is nothing to show that he succeeded in selling them. But puritanism or rather the unlovely thing it had become, not that grand ideal which inspired Spenser and Education Milton carried within itself the seed of its own in New destruction. The love of education had remained strong in New England, if the love of literature and art had vanished. One of the first acts of the settlers was to erect a school in every township. In 1636 the general court of Massachusetts granted four hundred pounds for the establishment of a grammar-school, and the sum was equal to a whole year's taxation of the province. The result was the foundation of Cambridge University. The next year John Harvard bequeathed to the college a sum of seven hundred pounds and his library of two hundred and sixty books the latter almost as valuable a gift as the former. The university syllabus included Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and the kindred languages, classics, geometry, moral philosophy, logic and THE AMERICAN COLONIES 169 natural science. In 1638 the first printing-press was sent out by the recently founded Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts ; and the same year a complete translation of the Bible in one of the native languages was published in itself no mean achievement. The rapidity with which the country was advancing com- mercially is best shown by a few examples. The first vessel built in New England crossed the Atlantic in 1638 ; industrial by 1665 the inhabitants of Massachusetts possessed Advance. 192 ships of various sorts and sizes. In the same year there were more than twenty sawmills on the Piscataqua River. Timber and tar were exported, as well as fish and furs. Rough cloth was manufactured ; Boston contained a few weavers and spinners, coopers and shoemakers, and in 1650 a goldsmith. Although the people did not look for gold-mines, they knew that there was iron in the colony ; and in 1643 Winthrop formed a company to work a foundry. One of the earliest difficulties had been the scarcity of currency : payment was generally made in goods. Corn was legal tender in each colony, and in addition, wampum in some parts, fish or beaver in others. Wages and prices were regulated for a time by the community without success. But in 1652 a mint was built in Massachusetts without refer- ence to England, and from that time the inconvenience of the lack of money grew gradually less. ' The poor/ it was stated, ' live by their labours and great wages proportionately better than the rich by their stocks, which, without exceeding great care, quickly waste/ The failure of negro slavery to take root in New England left the white workman independent, and enhanced the dignity of his work. The colonies were generally and increasingly prosperous. The towns were growing larger, and the houses more sub- stantial. In Boston, at least, the latter were frequently made of brick, while glass played a greater part in their construction than before. The population grew steadily ; 170 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS even when emigration no longer flowed from England, the natural yearly increment was large. The puritan colonies produced a race of sound rather than brilliant men. If it would be too severe to call them mediocre, there was at least no man of sufficiently outstanding ability to be much remembered two centuries later. Pious and God-fearing, yet withal keenly intent on trade and the material profits of this world, the Yankee emphasised the practical ability of his English forefathers, while losing perhaps some of their never too conspicuous idealism. &t:As the great peaceful revolution making for religious toleration in New England was thus gradually consummated, T&e New the social life of the colonies continued with little system 1 change save that occasioned by natural and orderly i860. ' development during the next century, until the years immediately preceding the wars with France ; but politically the restoration of the Stuart line brought a new epoch for all the dependencies overseas. A new colonial system was now inaugurated. The system that had at first been adopted for the colonies if it can be called a system was taken from the earlier English empire in Europe. The old French duchies had not been interfered with by Parliament, but were considered the special pre- rogative of the Crown, or rather of the Kings and the Privy Council. In this manner Jersey and Guernsey claim to the present day that they are independent of the jurisdiction of Westminster. Calais was the one exception, and that city received direct representation. The same principle of royal authority was originally ex- tended to the American colonies. But in the upheaval of the Civil War at home, the colonies necessarily fell to the control of Parliament, and at the Restoration, it would not wholly abandon them. In 1660, however, Clarendon formed a plan, that eventually resulted in the constitution of a ' Council of Foreign Plantations/ ' to sit apart for the most particular THE AMERICAN COLONIES 171 inspection, regulation, and care of the foreign plantations/ In 1672 this Council was amalgamated with the council of trade, and henceforth known as the ' Council of Trade and Plantations/ Three years later, however, the Board was abolished. But when the Revolution of 1688 had done its work, it was seen that some Board was necessary to regulate imperial affairs overseas. In 1695 the Council was therefore revived, and it continued with little alteration till 1781, when the revolt of the colonies made its utter inadequacy visible. As a specimen of its work, it may be mentioned that one of the ideas animating it was to consider ' how noxious and unprofitable persons may be transplanted to the general advantage of the public and commodity of our foreign planta- tions/ This was the vicious thought that underlay all our colonial administration until the middle of the nineteenth century, when the Australian agitation against the transporta- tion of convicts finally stopped it. Apart from this, the new Board would have filled a most useful place, had the statesmanship of the age been capable of devising a colonial system satisfactory enough colonial to satisfy both the mother country and the Aspirations, , , J . T . . Jealousies, dependencies. If its failure was conspicuous andDis- almost from the first, it must be remembered in union - excuse that no nation has yet discovered a final solution. A colony that has any vitality is naturally enterprising : it is proud of its success, it reaches forward to further under- takings, and it hopes for further liberty ; it has its local patriotism and local aspirations, quite distinct from the im- perial ideas that may also stir it profoundly. It is jealous of its honour and its reputation : its very consciousness of the contrast between its present unimportance and its future possibilities makes it the more assertive. It is hard enough to reconcile its aims with those of a distant parent without occasional disputes and disagreements. 172 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS But if such is the case to-day, much more was it difficult to form a basis of government that gave the greatest amount of local freedom and the greatest amount of security to the empire at large in the seventeenth century. On the one hand, the people of New England were of unbending material ; they were still resentful that their fathers had been ' driven out into the wilderness ' : they had a legitimate and hereditary distrust of the Stuarts. On the other hand, the British Government saw, and it is to its credit that it did see, that the anomalies in colonial administration could not continue. Neither Company nor proprietary rule was ultimately satis- factory. The independent colonies were too weak to stand against an outside enemy ; and the probabilities of foreign interference became more evident every year, as the struggle for power in Europe broadened out into a struggle for the new world as well. The colonies were none too friendly among themselves. There was an ancient feud between Virginia and Maryland. The four New England colonies, although at the convention of 1643 they were ' all desirous of union and studious of peace/ and although they ' readily yielded to each other in such things as tended to common utility,' still found many subjects of disagreement. The preponderance of Massachusetts was gall- ing to the others ; her disproportionate contributions and allowance towards the general defences were galling to Massachusetts herself. During a boundary dispute with Connecticut in 1650, feeling ran so high that import and export duties were imposed as a penal measure. The general union was maintained for many years ; but Rhode Island was not included, and that colony remained an object of suspicion and jealousy to the rest. When the conquest of New York was accomplished that province required constant super- vision. To the north the settlers in Maine and New Hamp- shire were a cause of trouble ; other parties of pioneers were reaching out still further and claiming Acadia. And in the THE AMEKICAN COLONIES 173 west, the English were penetrating the forests towards the Ohio. Again, in Africa and India there were important national interests to be safeguarded, that could by no possibility be looked after by the merchants directly interested. The Restric- The 'Council of Foreign Plantations' would JjJJJUS thus have had a difficult task, had its members Trade, and the king been possessed of the most exalted wisdom, the most delicate tact, and supreme practical ability. As it was, however, the statesmanship of the Restoration period was remarkable for none of these gifts. Both the good deeds and the bad deeds of the Council irritated the colonists : the former by demanding the removal of those religious restric- tions which puritan sentiment believed to be necessary ; the latter by imposing commercial restrictions which fettered the development of American trade. The unwise manner in which both were insisted on did much to alienate New England: and the outstanding feature of its history for many years is the struggle against the encroachments of the British Government. The Navigation Act of Cromwell was expanded into a com- plete system; but it was an evil system for the colonies. Cer- tain fixed duties were imposed on colonial imports and exports. No vessel was to trade with the colonies in any way unless it belonged to an English subject, and three-fourths of its crew were English. No foreigner was to trade either as factor or merchant. A later ' Act for the Encouragement of Trade ' hoped for ' the keeping of the plantations in a firmer depend- ence on the kingdom of England, rendering them yet more beneficial and advantageous in the employment and increase of English shipping and seamen, and vent of English woollen and other manufactures and commodities, making this king- dom the mart and staple, not only of the commodities of the plantations, but also of the commodities of other countries and places/ To that end no European goods might be brought to the colony unless first landed in England. 174 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS Only two exceptions were permitted to this system ; and in 1672 the laws were carried still further, by the imposition of duties on goods passing from one colony to another. Had the system been strictly enforced, it would have strangled American trade ; it was treating the colonies on the evil principle that Spain had introduced a principle whose failure should already have been apparent. Massachusetts protested in vain. It took its stand on the firm ground that, being unrepresented in the British Parliament, no taxes could legally be imposed : but when no countenance was given to this view, the justice of which could not be disputed, the practice of smuggling became general, and the most determined efforts of the British Government could not stop it. On other points likewise the Council at home strove to have its way. In 1664 a commission was appointed to Political inspect and administer New England ; but the MttiNew 106 comm i ss i ners were badly chosen, and did little England. more than annoy the colonists and cause some scandal. Massachusetts flatly refused to allow the use of the Anglican Church prayer-book, or to admit the right of appeal to a superior tribunal in England in legal dis- putes r . and although the former may partly be put down to theological animus, the puritans were justified in fearing the effect of episcopacy obtaining a foothold in their country, seeing what its record had been in England since the Restora- tion. And as regards the legal appeal to England, the manner in which the law was administered under the Stuarts was more than enough to induce the ^colonies to abide by their own tribunals. A further attempt was made to set up the royal arms in the colonial courts of law, to have writs run in the king's name, and to march the train bands under the royal colours. Such efforts were hardly less irritating to the colonies than those acts of the Council which may be approved in principle, THE AMERICAN COLONIES 175 but condemned in fact as an interference with the rights of what had long been self-governed states. The Quakers were protected for a time, but for a time only : \ the king was proclaimed, but it was specially ordered that \ his health should not be drunk, as a concession to puritan scruples. The right of coining money stood over awhile ; other matters in dispute were left open, and it was declared that nothing would be done until the colonies had been heard in their own defence. In 1666, however, a circular letter was addressed to each of the northern colonies announcing that further action was about to be taken ; but the war with Holland prevented the king from attending to such matters for some years. But feeling in New England had also changed a good deal, and that not for the better. There was now a tone of servility in the communications, that sounds The Charter strangely from the sons of Winthrop and his ofMassa- . ' J . T , . ,, chussetts fellow-emigrants. It is true that an anonymous annulled, writer called Phileroy Philopatris spoke in the 1683 - old manly style when he declared that ' it is doubtful whether any bond unites the colonies to the Crown, save the charter : the colony as it stands is a gain to the Crown, and nothing can make it more so ; if the king uses force, cui bono to those who can withdraw inland ? AD help that the people have hitherto received is from God, not man ; (they may) make a shift to live poorly without much trade/ rather than lose their freedom. But such was not the prevailing style. On his accession, Charles n. was saluted as David in addresses of congratulation, and fulsome flattery was indulged in. Some twenty years later, a servile letter to the king begged him, ' like a god on earth,' to ' permit his poor people to enjoy the liberties that they have purchased at so dear a rate/ It is difficult to realise that the men who held such language were the descendants of those who had rebelled against oppression. 176 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS Happily a more healthy tone soon prevailed, and the history of Massachusetts shows no repetition of such weakness. It was merely a passing phase, whose cause may partly be as- cribed to the fear that the infant industries of the country might be ruined, partly to the inevitable reaction that comes after civil strife, partly to the desire to live peaceably that was becoming characteristic of the New Englanders, and in great measure to the disagreements among themselves, which caused a dissolution of the union of the four colonies, and numerous petty jealousies and boundary disputes. At any rate, after years of recrimination with the English Govern- ment, a writ of Quo Warranto was issued against Massachusetts in 1683, calling upon the colony to appear on behalf of its charter. All hasty projects for a compromise failed, as they were bound to do, since the proceedings were a farce : and the charter was annulled. Thus was lost the chief instrument of New England liberties : but its loss must be ascribed solely to the insane attempts of the Stuarts to introduce despotism within the empire. A general campaign had been started against charters and corporations at home and abroad ; and when the City of London had its privileges abrogated, no colony could hope for safety. But happily liberty does not dwell in the script but in the determination of the people ; and so long as the old will to be free remained the guiding principle of the English nation at home and overseas, it was in vain that Charles and his successor James tried to impose their yoke. For a time, indeed, Massachusetts made little resistance. The country seemed stunned by the blow, and it had not yet fully recovered from the aboriginal war of 1676. So long a time had passed since the natives had shown a disposition to rise, that the English in America had forgotten The Native the danger. The laws relating to the sale of fire- war, 1676. arms were relaxed ; the white settlements were scattered far and wide. Some native converts had been made THE AMERICAN COLONIES 177 to Christianity ; much trade that was mutually beneficial was carried on. The puritan could honestly declare that his record was generally clear of ill-treatment or oppres- sion. His ancestors had had fewer skirmishes with the natives than the French or the Virginians ; there seemed no reason why he should fear attack. But in fact there was a very real reason why the redskins were uneasy. Year by year the numbers of the English increased. Year by year the natives diminished. They were already far fewer than the whites ; in power they had long been a negligible quantity. Some of them were driven further back as their lands were purchased ; some of them were hemmed in as the colonies extended. They saw their ancient patrimony disappearing : and in comparison, the compensating advantages, of educa- tion, of religion, of protection, and of alliance, were obviously small. It is little wonder that as the tragedy of their peaceful, but merciless extirpation, dawned on them, they endeavoured to make one last great effort to save the race. It was in the autumn of 1675 that the war began, against the wish of the native king ; and it continued for a year. The result was a foregone conclusion : but the guerilla attacks, the surprises, the ambushes, the sudden onslaught and the quick retreat of the redskins, kept the colonists at bay. The English were fearful of the tortures to which they or their children might be put if captured ; the wretched Cotton Mather did his best to create panic by seeing visions and portents : but when the tide turned, the misery of the abor- igines was complete, as they were driven from wood to wood into the interior, till they at last took refuge in a cedar swamp, or any obscure hiding-place they might chance to find. ' We will fight these twenty years,' said one of the chiefs, ' you have houses, barns, and corn ; we have nothing to lose/ But the contest was hopeless ; the natives were disunited. Some had remained true to the English allegiance they had M 178 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS sworn ; there was treachery among the rebels ; and they had few arms and not much provisions. But when the war ended in their submission, New England was no more the same prosperous country for a while. Entire villages had been destroyed in Massachusetts ; Providence was fired, Warwick was no more. The little townships of Maine and the north were in ruins. There were few families throughout the whole country that had not to mourn the loss of one of their members a father or son slain in the fight, a mother or her child attacked and killed while remaining defenceless at home. Yet the war showed the strength of New England as nothing else could have done. At its conclusion, it was certain The last that no attack from the natives would annihilate stuart ne colonies ; and the victory had been won with- Tyranny and the Revolu- out the help of a single soldier from England. tion, 1686-91. ]^ ew England was therefore self-contained and self-supporting. As such, and with its sturdy stock of settlers, it was evident that the spirit of independence would again grow strong : although there might be hesita- tion when the charter was revoked, and a wish not to proceed to extremities while peaceful remedies seemed still possible, a permanent denial of liberty was out of the question. Randolph, the English emissary who was em- ployed immediately after the war to enforce obedience and to put down smuggling, had found himself baffied ; Andros, who arrived in 1686 to carry out the inflexible will of James n., had no better success. The latter was invested with almost absolute power. He could appoint or remove members of the Council at his pleasure. With their consent a purely nominal provision, since he could appoint his own puppets he could enforce laws and taxes, and control the militia. He was to encourage the Anglican Church. He was to sustain his authority by force. He was to denounce the meeting of a municipality for deliberation as THE AMEKICAN COLONIES 179 a riot or sedition. The dark and bigoted mind of the king, which with evil ingenuity had recognised its most potent enemy, had further devised a restriction still more galling : no printing-press was to be tolerated. The colonists, in the scriptural phraseology that was their natural language, lamented that ' the wicked walked on every side, and the vilest men were exalted ' : for Andros was a fit tool for his master. ' Do not think,' said one of the judges he appointed, ' that the laws of England follow you to the ends of the earth.' It was useless to plead the charter, for it was null and void. It was useless to plead the rights of freedom : ' You have no privilege/ said one of the Council, ' but not to be sold as slaves.' The Anglican Church service was performed. The schools, which had been the pride of the country, suffered neglect and decay. Additional taxes of a penny in the pound, and a poll-tax of twenty pence, were imposed. The customs duties were increased. ' Our con- dition is little better than absolute slavery/ wrote one in- habitant of Massachusetts ; and what applied to the leading colony applied to all. They submitted indeed for a time : they could do nothing else. But when in April 1689, news of the fall of the Stuarts reached New England, the citizens of Boston at once rose against Andros. The old form of government was restored during the interregnum, and there was ' a general buzzing among the people, great with expectation of their old charter/ In September 1691, the new charters arrived. The danger henceforth for the colonies was not that the despotic rule of the monarchy should be introduced : it was rather the commercial than the political classes Further in England that were to be feared. It is true that commercial their influence was exerted through Parliament ; RestrictioI1B - but the post-revolution parliaments were strongly intent upon commerce. The growing manufacturing interests at home were seeking out fresh markets everywhere for their 180 goods : but above all they wished to be assured of the colonial monopoly. Sir Josiah Child, in a ' Discourse on Trade/ showed how much England would lose if the colonies started their own factories ; a few years later, one of the governors of Connecticut was alarmed at the increase of trade in that colony, and he reported that ' if allowed it will soon appear to be a mighty prejudice to the consumption of the manu- factures of England, which I hope England will never allow of.' Further taxes were accordingly devised, whose main result was again an increase of smuggling. The first causes of the rebellion seventy years afterwards were already working when the legitimate development of the empire was thus hampered : the essential doctrine of imperial maintenance, that only by the free action of each component part can the whole be held together, was not yet discovered. The problem was, however, complicated by another diffi- culty. The Council of Foreign Plantations thirty years continued before na d seen the necessity of unifying the Jealousy and colonies, and since then the situation had become more urgent. The struggle with France had begun in Europe ; it would evidently continue for many years. French encroachments were becoming more serious in America. Yet practically nothing had been done to unify the colonies. James n. had indeed placed them under a single jurisdiction, but the arrangement had fallen to pieces as soon as it was made. The colonies of New England were indeed populous and progressive. Massachusetts had some 50,000 inhabitants, Connecticut more than 20,000, Rhode Island over 7000, and the independent settlements of New Hampshire and Plymouth a smaller number. But with divided interests and divided policy they could do little against the united power of France. They saw the cloud that overhung them : but the natural distrust which had been engendered through the action of THE AMERICAN COLONIES 181 the Stuarts kept them from accepting any plans put forward by England : their own internal disagreements prevented them from formulating a successful scheme of their own. England in the one case, Massachusetts in the other, would have had too great a voice, if not actually the controlling voice, in the destiny of the country : and neither plan could be ac- cepted unless all other means failed. That the problem was not insoluble must be granted by all who believe to-day in the federation of the greater British Empire of the twentieth century : but it was insoluble to a nation animated with the ideas of the Georgian times ; it was insoluble to a nation which thought it could restrict its people overseas as they had never been restricted at home, to a parliament which thought it could tax those over whom it had no authority, to merchants who thought that the colonies existed mainly for their own pecuniary advantage. Meantime, while New England was becoming gradually more able to relv on its own resources, the British Tne New York Government tried its hand at consolidating the colonies, colonies of the New York district. Taken by conquest from Holland, there was still a residue of Dutch and Scandinavian settlers in the pleasant lands watered by the Hudson and the Delaware, which now form the states of New York, New Jersey, and Delaware. It had been agreed in the articles of surrender that the customs, the religion, the possessions and the munici- pal institutions of the inhabitants should continue as before. Little did they know how much trust could be put in the word of a Stuart. For a time indeed all was quiet. The name of Manhattan was changed to New York, and Port Tlle stuart Orange became Albany, in honour of the Duke of Tyranny York and Albany, afterwards James n. But all a * ain - power was centred in the hands of the Governor and his council ; and that power was used in the same fashion that had brought about the Civil War in England, and was later to 182 bring about the Revolution of 1688. ' The method for keeping the people in order is severity, and laying such taxes as may give them liberty for no thought but how to discharge them/ Such were the instructions sent by Governor Lovelace to his subordinates in 1669 ; and when protest was made it was censured as ' scandalous, illegal, and seditious, alienating the peaceable from their duty and obedience/ and the offend- ing addresses were publicly burnt before the town-house of New York. Unfortunately for the Stuarts, the two nations of all others least able to stomach tyranny were the Dutch and the English ; and when the war broke out in 1673 between England and Holland, the province of New York reverted to the latter without striking a blow. At the peace fifteen months later, all conquests on either side were restored. From that time the provinces of the New York district remained uninterruptedly in British hands, and their history till the Imperial Civil War partakes of the character of the New England colonies in the struggle against the despotism both of king and parliament. It was still the wish of James n. to consolidate all the northern colonies : but the means by which he attempted to carry out a justifiable and statesmanlike policy were unjustifi- able in the extreme ; and they miscarried grievously when tried on the stifl-necked population of New York and New England. To the Stuarts, consolidation meant uniformity : but the northern colonies were not ready for the former, and no English settlement has ever submitted to the latter. Even a hundred years later, when the spirit of local patriotism was beginning to advance into a more general national American patriotism, it was only with constant friction that the colonies could co-operate : at the end of the seventeenth century it was out of the question. But the ignorance of James II. was shown as much in his THE AMERICAN COLONIES 183 dealings with America as with England : in both he followed the same path, hoping to restrict the people where the cry was ever for more liberty, and to introduce Catholicism where protestant feeling was most uncompromising. Andros, the governor of the New York provinces after their final incorpora- tion as British colonies, was responsible to nobody save his master ; and though reactionary and narrow-minded, he was an honest man. He advised James to concede repre- sentative institutions to the inhabitants of Long Island, since they claimed it as the inalienable right of Englishmen : but James himself disliked popular government of any sort, and he replied to Andros, ' I cannot but suspect assemblies would be of dangerous consequence ; nothing being more known than the aptness of such bodies to assume to themselves many privileges, which prove destructive to, or very often disturb, the peace of government, when they are allowed. Neither do I see any use for them. Things that need redress may be sure of finding it at the quarter sessions, or by the legal and ordinary ways, or, lastly, by appeals to myself. However, I shall be ready to consider of any proposal you shall send/ But there was no denying the people : if New Jersey could not plead its right to possess its own parliament under the royal seal of the colony, it fell back on the old privileges of Englishmen : ' the great charter of England/ it was said, ' is the only rule, privilege, and joint safety of every free-born Englishman/ The same dangers threatened Massachusetts as New York and its neighbours ; and two events helped to draw the middle and northern colonies closer together. The sc^g^ The bonds of common suffering, it might have been Refugees, said, became the beginnings of the bond of national union. Like New York, Massachusetts was menaced by the arbitrary rule of the Stuarts in these years ; all the settlements on the coast felt the danger of French encroachments at their rear, and all had reason to fear the native peril. 184 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS By treaties and trade with the latter the menace was averted, although it hovered over British America like a black cloud over the water for many years subsequently ; but the French difficulty was more serious. Another point that made for mutual goodwill was the fact that, as New England owed its prosperity to the religious refugees who had been driven from England by the Stuarts, so did New Jersey owe much of its prosperity to the Scottish refugees whom a continuance of persecution under Charles n. also drove thither. The Cameronians were cruelly hunted from Scotland, tortured and executed if caught ; the whole sect was to be extirpated. ' It were better/ said Lauderdale, ' the country bore windle straws and sand-larks than bore rebels to the King/ There was no more any hope of freedom for Scotland, when the libertine Charles n. determined on introducing episcopacy ; and his policy was carried out with ruthless vigour by his successor. The Cameronians looked abroad, as the puritans had done : and from the year 1682 the same tide of emigration flowed to America as half a century before. In the ' gallant, plentiful ' land of New Jersey, where nature was kind, even to providing ' brave oysters ' and ' brooks with curious clear water/ the Cameronians found a home ; and after the turmoil through which they had come, it seemed to them that heaven had indeed opened out before them. Peace and plenty were the characteristics of the place in which they made their homes : there was ' not a poor body, or one that wanted/ New Jersey was described as a ' terres- trial Canaan ; the inhabitants were blessed in their basket and in their store ; they were free from pride : and a waggon gave as good content as in Europe a coach : their home-made cloth as the finest lawns : the doors of the low-roofed houses, which luxury never entered, stood wide open to charity and to the stranger/ The Cameronians were in most respects as good pioneers as THE AMERICAN COLONIES 185 the puritans had been. They were of the same hard, un- bending material, loving toil for toil's sake, caring little for the refinements of life, or for what men cast in a lighter mould would call its pleasures. Their religion gave them faith to build their homes in the wilderness, believing that God would provide for them as His predestined and elect saints both in the present and the future ; and the strength of character which had prevented them from bowing the knee to an auto- crat in their own country was not likely to desert them when it became necessary to strike a blow for freedom in another. All the schemes that were floated about this time for in- dependent Scottish colonies went astray, whether in Panama, Nova Scotia, or elsewhere ; but in New Jersey the Scots became part of a province that had already received its first shaping from other hands : and while preserving their own distinctive nationality, the entire burden of responsibility did not fall upon them. As is the case with the Germans of modern times, they failed at first in the original work of colonising, but they proved excellent citizens in a community that was founded by men with more experience. For the rest, New York was settled by emigration from England or New England, and its annals contain few special features that call for comment. The old Dutch families held aloof from the newer English and Scottish arrivals : and while the colonies were still in a state of infancy, there was nothing to mark out New York City as the future capital of America. It remained merely the port of the province, as Boston was the port of Massachusetts. After the Eevolution of 1688, the history of New York and - New England runs in parallel lines, and may be considered as one. The fall of Andros at Boston was received with joy by the people of both provinces, for it seemed to mark the end of tyranny. But their hopes were only partially justified. From the British Crown there was indeed little more to fear : the enemyhenceforth was the British Parliament, and it proved 186 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS no less subversive of the liberties of the colonies than the Crown had been. But when this factor become evident, the struggle had already assumed another phase. It was beginning to enlarge into the demand, half-unconscious as yet, for complete independence ; but the demand was checked by the danger that France would in a few years wipe out the whole of the British states in the new world. CHAPTER II PENNSYLVANIA: 1680-1740 l WHILE puritanism was yet struggling for the mastery in England, the founder of a new religious sect was born. During The Quakers the early days of the Commonwealth the first of the in England. Quakers or Ranters, to give them the derisive name by which they were commonly known, became notice- able ; but it was not until the Restoration swept the country with a tide of reactionary loyalty that their peculiar doctrines drew attention ; and some years passed before the heavy hand of the Anglican Church was laid on them. They were certainly the weakest, and probably the poorest, of the nonconforming bodies ; their creed of non-resistance, their consistent love of peace, and their generally inoffensive mannerisms, 2 would seem as if they should have been immune from the attacks directed by zealous episcopalians on other 1 Authorities. The Journal of George Fox, the autobiography of Baxter, and the works of Penn relate the early history of the Quakers in England. There are many accounts of the persecution to which they were subjected : the best is, perhaps, the Sufferings of the People called Quakers, printed in London in 1680, and signed by Penn and others. Penn's life is told by Hepworth Dixon. The history of Pennsylvania is given at length in Bancroft and Justin Winsor : other original sources are mentioned by them in detail. 2 Some of the more enthusiastic converts, however, revealed a good deal more than the doctrines they professed by running about naked in the streets ; an exhibition of the inner man that was somewhat too intimate even for the Restoration period. THE AMERICAN COLONIES 187 dissenters. But it was the misfortune of the Quakers to inspire an unreasoning hostility both in England and America ; and the early annals of the Society of Friends contain little more than continual sufferings, relieved by the one splendid achievement of the establishment of Pennsylvania. The apostle of the new movement was George Fox. His career was in essentials that of most religious reformers. In common with them, he saw visions, he dreamed dreams ; in common also with them, he felt he had a special call from God to regenerate mankind. His ideas were accepted by the lowly and the simple ; and a few insignificant congrega- tions soon held what was prophesied would become the universal faith of the world. There have been so many. . . . In an age when theology was the medium through which new views of life were expressed, the Quaker at length at- tracted the notice of the government. If the puritans prided themselves on being the ' peculiar people,' and were full of the pride of spiritual exaltation, the Quakers made a larger appeal to all mankind. Their emissaries were despatched to convert the Turk and the Pope, even to the mythical Prester John. Their success in these strange missions was not equal to their faith ; but they showed by their acts that they were as firm in their belief as the puritans. ' They are a people/ confessed Cromwell, ' whom I cannot win with gifts, honours, offices, or places.' In the days of Charles n. the gaols were filled with Quakers. Their contempt for human authority and human ceremonies brought them into constant trouble ; their peculiar dress and form of speech rendered them con- spicuous ; they were styled ' an abominable sect ' by acts of parliament ; their principles were declared to be ' inconsistent with any kind of government.' Yet they alone, of all the forms of religious belief, recognised in practice the virtue of toleration ; while combating the errors of others, they never descended to persecution. Among 188 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVEESEAS all the various shapes which Christianity has assumed, the Quakers seem to have assimilated most of the spirit of Christ, and to this day they have departed the least from His teaching. America was still a land of refuge for the persecuted sects of the old world, and thither they flocked. But here again they were outcasts. In Massachusetts they were examined on the charge of heresy, and either banished or whipped and imprisoned. As they continued to enter that province, a deterrent act was passed sentencing them to death. It had no effect, and four were hanged. In Virginia, they were fined for absence from the Church of England under the Elizabethan statute, and were forbidden to hold their own meetings. A burgess was expelled, ' because he was well affected to the Quakers ' : many were cited before the courts as recusants. ' Tender consciences/ said one of them, ' must obey the law of God, however they suffer/ The only answer he received from the magistrate was, ' There is no toleration for wicked consciences/ In Maryland they were fined and imprisoned, although not for their religious belief, but for refusing to undertake military duty. In New Jersey it was the same. The fanatical element among them, which was blown about by every wind of doctrine and attracted by every new scheme of faith, had certainly committed some excesses, such as to insult the con- stituted magistrates and ministers, and at times to run naked in the streets ; but the punishment was altogether dispro- portionate. The age, however, did not understand tolera- tion : and it is the peculiar glory of the Quakers that at a time when the theory was hardly enunciated, they put it into practice. With the example of others before them, it was natural that the idea of founding their own state should arise. The A Quaker first outcome was West New Jersey. The whole state, 1674. district of New Jersey had been English only a few years, but the danger of Swedish and Dutch colonisation THE AMERICAN COLONIES 189 now existed rfo more, and the French were yet far away. So suitable did it seem that the western part was bought in 1674 for 1000 : next year the first company of Friends sailed up the Delaware River, and laid the foundations of Salem, ' the home of peace.' The basis of Quaker society was democratic freedom. ' We lay a foundation/ ran the message of the proprietors, ' for after ages to understand their liberty as Christians and as men, that they may not be brought into bondage, but by their own consent ; for we put the power in the people/ For the rest, the first laws followed the common English tradition ; but on two points they were in advance of the time. There was no imprisonment for debt, and the orphan was to be educated by the state. A spirit of mutual help pervaded the community. ' You that are governors and judges,' directed a letter from England, ' you should be eyes to the blind, feet to the lame, and fathers to the poor ; that you may gain the blessing of those who are ready to perish, and cause the widow's heart to sing for glad- ness/ These merciful principles were everywhere faithfully adhered to by the society. Meanwhile amicable relations were entered into with the aborigines ; Quaker and redskin greeted each other as brothers. The colony prospered, and in November 1681, the first legislative assembly was convened. West New Jersey was eventually reunited with the rest of the district in 1702, and no longer remained an absolutely Quaker community : but a far greater colony of the Friends had already been founded by William Penn. If George Fox was the spiritual father of Quakerism, William Penn was its political genius. A son of the admiral who captured Jamaica, of comfortable means, p e nnsyi- with a career at the Stuart court open and all vania > 168 - the gaieties that awaited a beau of the Restoration period to entice him, the young man with the sweet serious face which 190 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS was curiously similar to that of Milton was 'converted to Quakerism at the age of twenty-three by hearing a sermon in Ireland. He was turned out of doors for his foolishness by his father, and imprisoned in the Tower of London by the ministers of State. The punishment was of no effect : Penn's time was occupied by writing religious works, one of which, entitled No Cross, No Crown, has still a certain vogue. Later he travelled abroad : on the death of Admiral Penn he was a rich man ; soon afterwards he married. He was concerned in the promotion of the West New Jersey scheme : but many years previously he had been occupied with planning ' the holy experiment of planting a religious democracy in the new world ' : even at Oxford he had medi- tated on it. And the time now came to carry out the idea in full. Penn had purchased East New Jersey, but this was extensively settled by puritans, and therefore unsuitable for the new project. After much opposition, he obtained a charter in 1680 for the territory west of the Delaware, to which the king himself gave the name of Pennsylvania. Penn has left a record of the event in his own words : ' After many waitings, watchings, solicitings, and disputes in council, my country was confirmed to me under the great seal of England. God will bless it and make it the seed of a nation. I shall have a tender care of the government, that it be well laid at first.' The spirit in which he intended to rule is shown by a letter to his new subjects. ' You shall be governed by laws of your own making, and live a free, and if you will, a sober and industrious people. I shall not usurp the right of any, or oppress his person. ... In short, whatever sober and free men can reasonably desire for the security and improvement of their own happiness, I shall heartily comply with/ The territory included a population of Swedes, and probably some Dutch and a few Englishmen. The first company of THE AMERICAN COLONIES 191 emigrants brought full instructions with them. The redskins were conciliated by a letter of friendship. The proposed system of government was made public. A free society of traders was organised. The ' free colony for all mankind ' was thus begun : shortly afterwards, in October 1682, Penn himself arrived. Addressing his people and visiting the neighbouring states occupied his first weeks in America ; a little later a treaty was concluded with the natives, the details of which are still preserved by a beautiful tradition. ' We meet/ said Penn to them, ' on the broad pathway of good faith and good will : no advantage shall be taken on either side, but all shall be openness and love. I will not call you children, for parents sometimes chide their children too severely ; nor brothers only, for brothers differ. The friendship between you and me I will not compare to a chain, for that the rains might rust or the falling tree might break. We are the same as if one man's body were to be divided into two parts : we are all one flesh and blood/ The response was simple and sincere. ' We will live/ said the natives, ' in love with William Penn and his children, as long as the moon and sun shall endure/ The compact of peace was kept, as it was made, in good faith : the spot where the conference was held is still marked by a monument in Philadelphia. The capital city of Pennsylvania had already been the subject of anxious thought to the founder of the colony. It was to bear the mark of the Quakers : it must be in a convenient and healthy position, accessible to trade by land and water ; yet withal it was to be different from the towns of the old world. It was to have none of their crowded narrow ways, their insanitary conditions, their slums, their dens of vice : it was to be ' a greene country town/ each house surrounded by a garden, each street a broad avenue, running parallel with and at right angles to the others. The love of order and comfort 192 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS which characterised the Society of Friends was to be main- tained in its very plan. All these conditions Philadelphia fulfilled. The site, in Penn's own words, was ' not surpassed by any one among all the many places he had seen in the world.' Early in the year 1683, the first streets were marked out ; by August, a few cottages had already been built. Two years more, and it contained some six hundred houses, a school, and a printing- press. From the day of its foundation Philadelphia prospered. Pleasant suburbs grew up ; the Swedish settlers were located in their own quarter of Southwark, the Germans in German- ' town. There was soon a large foreign population ; the oppressed sects of all Europe flocked thither. Ideally situated at the mouth of the Delaware River, midway between the northern colonies and the southern plantations, Philadelphia was for long the real metropolis of British America. The busy manufacturing city of to-day, surpassed in size only by New York and Chicago, has indeed little in common with the home of the Friends established by Penn. The enormous riches of the colony attracted many besides Quakers ; as industry developed, the distinctly religious element became less and less important. If modern Philadelphia has slums, it is because every other commercial centre throughout the world has them also : but it is a sad commentary on the futility of human aspirations that the ' city of brotherly love ' has been degraded into one of the most notorious examples of municipal corruption : ' hell with the lid off ' is a twentieth-century American phrase for a place which it was hoped would be the abode of democratic justice and equal rights. This, however, was mercifully hidden from Penn : when he returned to England in 1684 he could say that ' things went on sweetly/ and his parting message to his colony ran, ' Thou, Philadelphia, the virgin settlement of this province, THE AMERICAN COLONIES 193 my soul prays to God for thee, that thou mayst stand in the day of trial, and that thy children may be blessed : dear friends, my love salutes you all/ On the death of George Fox seven years later, his thoughts also were with his people ; almost his last injunction was to ' mind poor Friends in America.' But the colony was now firmly established. Its boundaries were settled. Its trade increased. Slavery in a modified form was introduced ; after much debate, it was provided that black servants should be freed at the end of fourteen years' service. The prosperity of Pennsylvania was too secure to be endangered by the disputes that arose ; but practical diffi- culties soon became apparent. The Quaker regulated his conduct by the inspiration of the inner light : and as the sect was not exempt from the usual number of foolish adherents, some remarkable results of the promptings of conscience were shown. The scandal of a heresy or schism was narrowly avoided ; but in the progress of time enthusiasm was sobered. Though still retaining all that was good in the system of Fox, the exuberant excrescences of behaviour which had character- ised the apostle of the movement were dropped one by one. As they approached nearer to the common run of humanity, the Quakers kept some of their old observances as a tradition : at the present day, they are very few and very old-fashioned members who don the distinctive costume ; and their differ- ence from other creeds is most noticeable in the generally high standard of morality which is maintained. A more serious subject of disagreement in America related to the government of the colony. It was proprietary, yet it had a free constitution. From such an arrange- Quaker ment only friction could arise, even under the Government, mild sway of Penn, and with the most friendly disposition on the part of the settlers. At the English Revolution of 1688, however, his possessions were confiscated, since he had been an adherent of the Stuarts ; N 194 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVEKSEAS and Pennsylvania passed under royal control. Shortly after- wards it was restored, but Penn found that the people had meantime got out of hand. His first act, indeed, had given them self-government ; his one reservation had been the right to some unoccupied lands. Nothing could revoke that, nor did he wish to do so : but the ingratitude and calumnies of his enemies embittered his later days. An old man, wearied by the turmoil of change in England, he returned to Pennsylvania in 1699 to see for the last time the fruits of his life-work. His wife was dead. Has fortune was gone. Of his children, one was too weak to live ; another was a rake, and brought scandal on the family name. His second marriage, though apparently happy, was one of con- venience only. His family grew weary of the colony, and all returned to England. Penn himself remonstrated gently with his people. ' I went thither/ he said, ' to lay the founda- tions of a free colony for all mankind. The charter I granted was intended to shelter them against a violent and arbitrary government imposed on us ; but that they should turn it against me is very unworthy and provoking ; especially as I alone have been at all the expense. I assure thee that if the people would only settle 600 a year upon me as governor I would hasten over. . . . Cultivate this among the Friends.' The remonstrance was of no avail ; they would do nothing, and the last years of the great Quaker passed quietly till his death in 1718 at his country house in England, playing with and instructing the children of his second marriage. The conduct of the Pennsylvanians, it must be admitted, was none too amiable. At the same time, it is easy to criticise their harshness ; it is less easy to remember that they were uncompromising with Penn, not as a man, but as their pro- prietor. It was an anomaly for a free people to be under a proprietor ; a proprietor, moreover, who had resigned his rights Jand declared in favour of the liberty of his subjects. THE AMERICAN COLONIES 195 And Penn was personally popular : on his second arrival at Philadelphia he had an enthusiastic reception. The struggle for complete independence continued under his successors. The settlements were prosperous and con- tinually extending ; but the unappropriated land belonged to the proprietor. Here then was a fruitful theme for disputes. ' Popular zeal raged as high there as in any country/ wrote the agent in 1729 : ' liberty and privileges are ever the cry/ The spirit of unrest was never still : there was ' a most licen- tious use of thinking, in relation to those powers, most in- dustriously inculcated and fomented/ There could not indeed be any peace while the chain remained. The Quaker was at bottom of the same stuff as the puritan. Though he detested war, and would not allow an armed force in his territories, yet the danger of French encroachment on the Ohio at his rear converted him to a modified belief in the righteousness of military defence. The pressure that was to draw the American colonies together was already felt as the first generation of native Pennsylvanians grew to manhood. The struggle for full liberty to act and expand had begun. The disturbance, however, was as yet concealed beneath the surface, and the people were unconscious of the forces that were fermenting in their minds. When Benjamin Frank- lin came to Philadelphia in 1723, he found a happy and con- tented community. Its customs were somewhat different from those of his native Boston ; it was probably richer he noticed with astonishment the cheapness of bread and the astute young New Englander, by attending steadily to his business through a long series of quiet years, at length amassed a fair competence and gained the respect of his adopted city, without giving an indication in the earlier part of his auto- biography that either politics or national rivalries ever troubled the idyllic if somewhat monotonous repose of the peaceful colony. 196 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS CHAPTER III THE SOUTHERN PLANTATIONS: 1660-1740 * THE Restoration of the Stuart line, which was received with horror and prophesyings of evil in New England, evoked nothing but joy in Virginia. ' True as the dial to the sun, although it be not shined upon/ were the cavaliers overseas, as well as at home ; and they were happy to hear that he whom they had always recognised as their lawful sovereign had come into his own at last, that the men who had wrecked Church and State were in hiding from vengeance. The annals of both Virginia and Maryland during the century after the Restoration show a peaceful progress seldom inter- rupted. There were no more searches for gold on the part of the settlers. The misfortunes which had pursued Ralegh till the last ' day of a tempestuous life, drawn on to the very evening, those inmost and soul-piercing wounds ever aching while uncured ' which he lamented, no longer troubled the men who made their homes in the colony he had founded. The treasure city of Manoa in Guiana for which he had searched in vain was left to the Spaniards to find ; it was a different and more contented existence that the planters led. A marked distinction had been noticeable from the first between the social life of the northern and southern cbkqiies. That distinction was now further emphasised, and Slavery. a peculiar tone was given to the south by the adoption of negro slavery. 2 1 Authorities. Primarily Doyle, Justin Winsor, and Bancroft. There are many references to the foundation of the Carolinas in the English political writings and memoirs of the closing seventeenth century : Georgia in the same fashion interested the times of George n. Curious side-lights on the latter colony may be found in the valuable Journals of Wesley. ' Carlyle's Frederick the Great details the cause of the foreign immigration thither. 2 A general account of the African slave trade and the system of slavery adopted in the American colonies will be found in vol. iv. bk. xiii. ch. iii. 197 Slavery had been known to the Spanish provinces in America for a century ; and it was successful in those islands of the West Indies which belonged to England. The earliest arrival of slaves at Jamestown in Virginia is recorded in 1620 ; and though for a time they increased but slowly, they eventually drove out almost all the white labour of the colony. The small proprietors could not live when the great land- owners cultivated their estates cheaply by means of negroes ; the majority of the white servants were unable to compete against the blacks ; and the lower classes of the colony were generally not of high character, being drawn mostly from the criminals and failures of England. In their place the negroes offered an economical and efficient substitute ; and despite the efforts that were made to introduce indentured white labour by means of bounties, the slaves continued to be imported. Experience has since proved that slavery will drive out free labour wherever it is tried ; and the Virginians could hardly be blamed for taking up a system which offered them such advantages, even had it run counter to the moral ideas of the age, which it did not. In addition, they were practically encouraged by the Colonial Board which sat in London. They had been at first supplied from England with rebels, beggars, and vagrants ; kidnapped children, runaway apprentices, and fugitives from justice often arrived. These, however, were naturally un- satisfactory, and the legislature attempted to stop the traffic, which furnished a lucrative living to many Bristol shipowners. It died a natural death when negroes were imported ; and since both Charles n. and his brother were members of the Royal African Company, which was interested in the tranship- ment of slaves, there were no questions raised as to the number a Virginian landowner should employ. So successful, in fact, did the institution of slavery prove, that it spread into Maryland, while it existed in Carolina from 198 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVEKSEAS the beginning, and in Georgia within a few years of its founda- tion. As each of the other southern states was founded, slavery was introduced into them, until it became part of the settled order of things, that remained undisturbed until the civil war of 1861. Whatever its ultimate effect might be, slavery brought immediate prosperity to the south. And it also perpetuated Life in the an ^ deepened the aristocratic feelings which had south. always been more or less in evidence. The Virginian planter became the local lord, with far more influence than the nobility possessed in England. There were no towns beyond the capital, and no hotels ; but the boundless hospitality of the planters provided the traveller with all that was needful. The planters were the magistrates of their districts, and the greater landowners were very autocrats. To say that they abused their power at times is merely to admit that they were human beings : but, upon the whole, unless self-interest tempted them strongly, their actions were moderate and benevolent. Tobacco remained the staple industry of the colony, although efforts were made to introduce other crops : often, indeed, it was the sole currency. There were no manufactures, and everything was imported from England ; the popularity of Virginian tobacco in Europe furnished ample funds for the purchase by the planter of the luxuries of the day. The rich settlers were men of culture, and generally sent their children to be educated in England, or at least engaged a tutor to come over ; the negroes were kept in ignorance, and the poorer whites, who gradually diminished and degenerated into the ' mean white ' of a later day, had hardly any knowledge save what they picked up by chance, and probably seldom felt the need of it. t-^The houses of the rich were improved from log cottages into large and rambling wooden mansions, of a rude magnificence and comfort, such as Thackeray describes as belonging to the THE AMERICAN COLONIES 199 Warringtons : * these were surrounded at a distance by the huts of negroes and dependents. The chief occupation of the gentry was to look after their estates ; and their recreations were much the same as those of their forefathers in England, hunting, fishing, and other sports. An occasional ball or dance, a journey to Jamestown or later to Williamsburg, perhaps even to Phila- delphia or New York, an expedition into the forest, or, twice or thrice in a lifetime, a voyage to England such were the landmarks in the existence of a southern proprietor. The political history of the two colonies of Virginia and Maryland offers few points of interest or importance ; their gradual development, which from its being un- noticed by the people of the times, has not been recorded, would be of far more worth than the acts of the legislative assemblies or the squabbles with neighbours. The war with Holland, which terminated in the taking of the Dutch possessions in America, threatened dangers that were not realised. More serious was the last insurrection of the redskins in 1676, which was not got under without the English malcontents also raising a rebellion, in the course of which Jamestown was burnt. The unscrupulous policy of the Stuarts after the Restoration, in granting whole territories to court favourites, was resisted, and inefficient and dishonest governors did much to alienate the colonists from their attachment to the Crown. When the Revolution of 1689 came, it was accepted without regret, and the new capital of Williamsburg was named after William in. It was there that the first college of the southern colonies was inaugurated with much pomp, as a university worthy to rank with those of the old world : but a description of it some thirty years later by one of its own fellows indicates 1 See The Virginians, which still remains the best picture of southern colonial life in the eighteenth century. 200 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS that its usefulness was limited. It was said to be ' a college without a chapel, without a scholarship, and without a statute ; a library without books, a president without a fixed salary, and a burgess without electors.' It remained, in fact, the mere parody of a university : the headquarters of American learning were in New England. Virginia had the apparatus of education without the thing ; Maryland had neither. The colony, indeed, was even worse provided with towns than its older rival. The capital till after the Restoration was at St. Mary's, and consisted of some thirty houses straggling along the river, standing each about three hundred yards apart. Not until 1696 was Annapolis constituted a city, and to this day it has not ten thousand inhabitants. There could be nothing but rural life in a land whose main industry consisted in the cultivation of tobacco ; even the road to the capital was for many years only indicated by notches on the trunks of trees, and a reward was offered for every wolf that was captured. Maryland followed Virginia in the introduction of slave labour, though in a less degree, as the climate was more favourable to the whites : in other ways, the likeness to its southern neighbour became closer. The proprietorship of the Baltimores, which if mild, had been absolute, was checked by the Stuarts, and abolished by William in. : and when it was afterwards restored, their personal influence was gone. But the religious tolerance which they had established had already been the means of attracting many settlers : Quakers and puritans from England, Huguenots from France, sectaries from the protestant countries of the north of Europe and from Bohemia ; all arrived, and all were received with indul- gence. As, however, the protestant atmosphere grew stronger, bigotry came by its own : the Catholics who had founded the colony were disfranchised, their creed proscribed, and their . teachers forbidden. Thus did Maryland, which had been in THE AMERICAN COLONIES 201 advance of the seventeenth century on one of the main points of freedom, fall behind its own record at the bidding of the Anglican Church when the eighteenth had already placed religious belief beyond the pale of political interference. The outburst of colonising energy after the Restoration, which was responsible for the Council of Foreign Plantations in England and the foundation of Pennsylvania, The caro- had another result in the establishment of the two Unas 1663 - Carolinas in the south. The district had already been marked out for settlement in the time of Charles I., in honour of whom it received its name ; but for many years only a few scattered huts marked the country between the Roanoake and the Gulf of Mexico. Its real development began with the charter granted to eight courtiers of Charles n. in March 1663, by which they acquired the territories from the southern frontier of Virginia to the river St. Mathius in Florida. In 1665 the grant was extended, so that it included all the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific between twenty-nine and thirty-six and a half degrees north latitude. Such an enormous territory was more than an empire in itself ; but the proprietors were men of large ideas, and almost their first step showed how great were their expectations. The sagacious and unscrupulous Shaftesbury, perhaps the most typical of that detestable race of statesmen evolved by the Restoration, was one of the patentees ; and he called in John Locke, the foremost philosopher of the age, to frame the constitution of Carolina. The intentions of both were doubtless good ; the result was neither good nor evil ; it was simply abortive. The funda- mental fact that laws are born of local conditions and to suit the necessities of local society was forgotten, as it was two centuries later in a similar case in New Zealand. The colony of Carolina was to be divided into counties of equal size ; it was to contain four political orders the pro- prietors, the landgraves, the caciques, and the commons. 202 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS It was to be provided with^a parliament, it was to guarantee toleration ; it was to possess a court for the superintendence of the press, and another for the consideration of ' ceremonies and pedigrees/ of ' fashions and sports.' Its theory was indeed perfect : but it had the misfortune to be launched in an imperfect world. In consequence, it North was a dead letter from the first, and whatever Carolina. interest it may have for political thinkers as a specimen of the highest and most liberal thought of the later seventeenth century, it had no influence on American history. Only one of the ' fundamental constitutions ' was put into force in North Carolina, and that was the one allowing each pro- prietor to nominate a deputy. The only laws made were : 1. That for five years no man should be sued for debts con- tracted out of the colony. 2. That all settlers should for one year be exempt from taxes. 3. That a simple declaration of mutual consent in the presence of the governor constituted a legal marriage. It is unnecessary to point out what a significant index these statutes give to the state of society and morality in North Carolina. For the rest, the history of the colony is a blank. Its only emergence from obscurity is the chronicle of a rebellion, an outrage, or a native war ; its rulers were dishonest, its pro- prietors were absentees, and its settlers were generally vaga- bonds or adventurers, refugees from Virginia or the Barbados. Eventually in 1729 it was converted into a Crown colony. The one relief in the dreary annals of North Carolina is the record left by George Fox of his visit there. The Quaker George Fox missionary had been travelling in Virginia and Carolina, Maryland, and in the year 1672 he determined to 1672. see the place where some of the refugees of his sect had gone to avoid persecution. The country he crossed was wild and difficult. ' Our way to Carolina grew worse, being much of it plashy and wet, and pretty full of great bogs and swamps ... . we were commonly THE AMERICAN COLONIES 203 wet to the knees . . . and lay abroad a-nights in the woods by a fire/ Yet he found means to deliver his message. ' Many did receive us gladly ... so acceptable was the word of truth in that wilderness country . . . the people were tender, and much desired after meetings . . . the world's people were taken with the truth/ With a few companions, he crossed the fearsome district known as the Dismal Swamp, where mournful forests of cypress and cedar droop and sob over the land for miles. Seventeen years later, Fox remem- bered the lonely settlers he had visited in a circular letter addressed to the brethren from England. But the peaceful Quakers were never many in number, and they soon lost what influence they might have had when a less desirable class of settlers appeared. It was licence rather than liberty that reigned in North Carolina, and the colony was the least progressive of any in America. There was no regular minister of religion before 1703. No church was built till 1705, and no proper court-house existed before 1722. The first printing-press was set up in 1754. There were no towns ; Raleigh, the present state capital, was only founded many years afterwards, and it is still little larger than an overgrown village. Yet the people were content ; and if we are to believe the annalist of the place, they thought themselves the happiest on earth. The inhabitants had been drawn chiefly from Virginia, and only the least successful and the least enterprising seem to have come from the premier colony. J Better results attended South Carolina. The proprietors were more careful to keep control over it than they had been over North Carolina. Most of their rules were south caro- just, and many were far-seeing. Unlimited squat- Una> 167 - ting rights were forbidden. The class of men to be admitted, and the products to be grown, were carefully regulated. Towns were to be laid out, in order that there might be one central place for administration and trade, the want of which was so greatly felt elsewhere. 204 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS The first inhabitants of the colony came from England and Barbados. It had been intended to bring settlers from Ireland, but the state of that country had improved so greatly that the inducement to emigrate was no longer sufficient. It was the West Indians who formed the backbone of South Carolina, and they brought with them a firm belief in the advantages of negro slavery. The colony accordingly soon became the stronghold of the system. The first immigrants, who arrived in 1670, settled at Albe- marle Point, afterwards called Charlestown. This site, however, proved unsuitable, and the capital was removed to its present position in 1680 : from which time it gradually grew in importance until it became the second city of the south. The richness of the soil was at first a disadvantage, for the bounty of nature discouraged human toil ; and tobacco, which seemed the most likely crop, was practically monopo- lised by Virginia. When cotton was once introduced, however, there was a steady advance ; and if the supply of negroes ran short, slaves were made of the redskins. The colony was several times involved in war on this account : in the conflict of 1716, two hundred of its people were killed ; but it was in vain that the proprietors attempted to put a stop to the kidnapping of the natives. Industrial progress was generally steady, but it was r hampered by political troubles. Fresh arrivals came from New York ; French Huguenots and Scottish presbyterians also reached Carolina, and the proprietors at one time sent over a number of Irish paupers, who were far from welcome. Such a conglomeration of races engendered jealousy : there were internal dissensions, inflamed by religious disputes. Other troubles came ; an expedition against the pirates who infested the coasts, and the native wars, burdened the colony THE AMERICAN COLONIES 205 with a heavy debt. Once a rebellion was raised against the proprietors, which was unsuccessful ; but after a time they became so detested that the Popular Association which was formed proclaimed the authority of the Crown to be supreme. The proprietors did not protest, and indeed all the advantages which they had hoped to reap from the Carolinas had resulted in nothing : the Crown could not well refuse the allegiance which was voluntarily offered, even if it had wished ; and thus the revolution was effected in 1719 which brought South Carolina under the same authority as the sister states of America. The process of unification had already begun. The last of the southern plantations founded directly under British auspices was Georgia ; and its history is in some respects more animated than the dreary records of The Found- the Carolinas. Its inception was due to a recogni- ^^L^ tion on the part of one man of the evils which negro 1732. slavery imposed, and of the wrongs suffered by the social outcasts of England and the religious outcasts of the continent ; and, as such, the early years of Georgia form a noble effort and a magnificent protest that unhappily proved fruitless in the end. The names of Oglethorpe and Wesley are indissolubly linked with Georgia, as are those of Fox with Carolina and Penn with the Quaker colony. James Oglethorpe, of whom Pope spoke as flying ' from pole to pole/ had already greatly distinguished himself in English public life and the continental wars, when, in middle age, he began to investigate a question which afterwards occupied Howard the condition of the prisons. The judicial system of the day, full as it was of injustice, had no greater blot than the scandalous method by which a petty theft was punished with hanging, while a debtor was condemned to prison until he paid or died : the prisons themselves were horrible and pestilential holes, managed with no regard to decency : the law gave no opportunity to procure 206 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS release, save by the intervention of friends. A debtor has few friends, and they are seldom less likely to come forward than at the moment he is incarcerated. Those ' who by long confinement were strangers and helpless in the country of their birth ' were to have a new start in a new country where their helplessness could not be mocked at ; and the protestants who were persecuted by the royal house of Austria were also invited to come freely. A charter was granted in June 1732, for the colony of Georgia ; parliament contributed 10,000 : the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel lent assistance : all the British philanthropy of the age was aroused. In November Oglethorpe sailed for America with some 120 emigrants : and soon after their arrival the capital of Sa van- its pmian- nah was founded. In a few months the town of thropic Aims. Augusta was laid out, followed by Frederica ; and before this the first of the Moravian refugees had arrived. Their simple faith, reminiscent of a quieter puritanism, had carried them safely through the fresh scenes and the dis- comforts and strangeness of a voyage ; and they became peaceful and industrious citizens of the new state. The redskins were friendly. The work of Oglethorpe was everywhere appreciated. The governor of South Carolina declared that ' he nobly devotes all his powers to serve the poor, and rescue them from their wretchedness/ ' He bears a great love/ wrote the Moravian pastor, ' to the servants and children of God . . . others would not in many years have accomplished what he has brought about in one.' Within a decade Georgia was a prosperous colony ; and it was said with truth in London that ' no settlement was ever before established on so humane a plan/ The founders of Methodism were attracted ; the two Wesleys sailed thither in 1735, in order, as they said, ' to save our souls ; to live wholly to the glory of God/ Their first service showed the eagerness of the people, who ' crowded into the' church, THE AMERICAN COLONIES 207 received the word with deep attention, and seriousness after- wards sat on all their faces/ But disappointment came ; Wesley gave offence, and being unable to preach to the redskins, who had not ' the least desire of being instructed/ he returned to The England. Oglethorpe remained for some years ; but even before he left, environment claimed slavery. Georgia for its own. He had been almost the first to see the dishonour of slavery ; it was his boast that ' the misfortune if not the dishonour of other plantations, is absolutely pro- scribed ' in Georgia. It was to be a white man's country, and such it remained for a few years. But the example of Virginia and the Carolinas was too strong : three years had not passed before several ' of the better sort of people in Savannah ' petitioned the trustees ' for the use of negroes/ Permission was sternly refused ; and several, believing success impossible on the old conditions, prepared to leave the colony. A little later, however, they had their way. Oglethorpe had gone ; and the opposition of the Moravians was overcome, on the ground that if the slaves were taken ' in faith, and with the intention of conducting them to Christ, the action will not be a sin, but may prove a bene- diction/ Even Whitefield, the evangelist, pleaded for their introduction. Eventually, slave ships from Africa sailed regularly for Savannah, and Georgia became a slave state with little to distinguish it from its neighbours. Each of the southern colonies had sprung from a different impulse. Virginia was the child of the Elizabethans. Mary- land was the forerunner of an age of toleration. The Sonth- The Carolinas represented in miniature the ern colonies. greedy and the philosophic forces that mingled grotesquely at the Restoration. Georgia, again, was the firstfruits of the philanthropic eighteenth century. The four differed funda- mentally from each other at their foundation and for many 208 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS years after ; yet did the chain of circumstance envelop them, and a common want produce a common interest. Tobacco was the product of the two first ; rice and cotton of the two last. For all, negro labour was cheaper and better than white : and negro labour accordingly was procured. A further tie that bound them together was a common danger that now threatened from without. The French were blocking the way inland : the Spaniards prevented expansion southwards, and indeed claimed the very soil on which they stood. The great colonial wars were at hand, which taught all the English dependencies in America to sink their differ- ences for a time, and stand together. And in these wars vanished almost the last of the distinctions which had been so carefully planned : the southern colonies already formed the nucleus of the ' solid south ' that nearly wrecked the United States a century later. On the whole, the English colonies had been materially successful during the century and a half they had been in The Scottish ex i s ^ ence 5 an( ^ * ne 7 were now firmly rooted, settlements, Far different was the result of the first Scottish attempt at an establishment overseas : the disasters that overtook the settlement at Darien were irretrievable. One small band of ten families that had established itself in South Carolina as the pioneers of Scottish colonisation was wiped out by the Spaniards in 1680, but this did not discourage a magnificent enterprise that was formed shortly afterwards. An act passed by the Parliament at Edinburgh in 1695 established a company that was to trade to Africa and the Indies. Designed expressly to compete with the English East India Company, it at once caught the imagination of the Scots, and ' subscriptions sucked up all the money in the country/ The project was well formed ; and on the advice of Paterson, the foremost financier of the age and the founder of the Bank of THE AMERICAN COLONIES 209 England, it was decided to erect a house of trade on the isthmus of Darien or Panama. Panama and Suez are the natural meeting-places of east and west : but whereas the latter is now the world's highway, a peculiar fatality has followed the former and kept it out of its heritage. It was at Panama that the Spanish explorer ' stood silent upon a peak ' as he first saw the vast Pacific in the distance, and understood dimly something of its importance ; and here the Scottish traders, who had sailed from Leith in the summer of 1698 amid the envious cheers of their friends, landed to lay the foundation of the New Caledonia of which they had dreamed. At first all went well. Two cities were planned, to be called New Edinburgh and New St. Andrews. The institu- tions of the old country were to be grafted on the new ; a branch of the Presbyterian Church was to establish the faith of New Scotland overseas. But provisions ran short ; sickness and disorder ensued, and after nine months, the attempt was abandoned. Three vessels re-embarked the remaining weak and hopeless settlers, not knowing whither they should sail or where they might find a refuge. A second and a third expedition were as unfortunate. The enmity of Spain was aroused, and they were forced to capitulate. The Company was bankrupt, and the people disheartened. The early history of Virginia had been almost exactly reproduced in the outcome of the Darien scheme, but the promoters of the latter enterprise were unable to contribute further. Such was the dismal end of the first Scots colony. For many years it seemed likely to be the last ; it was long before the nation discovered that its genius for pioneering was at least equal to that of the English. 210 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS CHAPTER IV THE FRENCH COLONIES: 1663-1 740 l THE hundred associates of Richelieu's company had dwindled to forty-five before Canada came under the royal control of the Kings of France in the year 1663. The colony had, in- deed, been scandalously neglected by its earlier masters, and despite the high ideal of founding a new Christian realm in the West, the power of France in America still rested on a basis y as uncertain as it was narrow. Monks and nuns are not the best pioneers, nor is the cloister the fittest training-ground for the settler who is to make his home in a new country. But the chief difficulty which faced the French colony on the St. Lawrence was the lack of population. In the year The 1QQQ the city of Quebec had been in existence weakness for over half a century ; yet the total number of )f Canada. -^ inhabitants was less than six hundred. It is true that the government of Louis xiv. at once took active steps to secure a considerable increase of settlers in the pro- vinces of New France. The king himself paid every year the cost of emigrating some three hundred men ; and when after a few years there were many men but hardly any women in Canada, the deficiency was quickly supplied from France. Happy indeed must have been the lot of the young ladies who were now sent out to Canada by a paternal administra- tion, for they were immediately chosen and wedded by the expectant bachelors not against the feminine will, it was 1 Authorities. Charlevoix and the other writers mentioned in the previous section on the foundation of the French empire in America. The westward and southern movement along the Mississippi towards Louisiana is treated by Bancroft and Justin Winsor. The history of the Scottish failure in Acadia is given in full in the Correspondence of Sir William Alexander ; this, however, with Newfoundland, and the Hudson's Bay Company, I have reserved for the general history of Canada in the third volume. THE AMERICAN COLONIES 211 duly provided by enactment ; and the day after the wedding, ' the governor caused the couple to be presented with an ox, a cow, a pair of swine, a pair of fowls, two barrels of salted meat, and eleven crowns in money.' Further even than this did the state go, in its desire to increase the scanty population. A system of rewards and punishments was instituted ; a girl who married under the age of sixteen was presented with a bounty derived pre- sumably from the tax that was levied on men who would not marry at all. If ten children were born of any union, a yearly pension of three hundred livres was given to the parents, which was increased to four hundred when the twelfth child arrived. As the scheme provided for no more, it may be assumed that a dozen children were considered the limit of a citizen's duty or capacity. But even with such inducements, the whole population of "' Canada in 1688 was only 11,249. In other ways also the colony was weak. Aristocratic institutions had been implanted advisedly by the founders. The system of land tenure was mediaeval. The proprietor held directly from the king ; the peasant held of the pro- prietor, and his possession was clogged by the provision that he must pay part of the rent in produce, that he must grind his corn at the proprietor's mill, bake his bread in the pro- prietor's oven, pay the proprietor one fish in every eleven, and give one or two days' labour in every year to his master. Independence thus checked found no outlet through freedom ' of government. When one of the viceroys instituted the old French custom of convoking in assembly the three orders of nobles, priests and people, he was rebuked from Versailles ; and the experiment was not again tried. The trade of the colony was small. It consisted chiefly in the purchase of furs from the redskins : and the merchants of New England were competing for this traffic more strongly every year. 212 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS The danger from without hung threateningly over New France. The efforts of the missionaries had not removed the enmity of the aborigines, and their attacks were constantly dreaded at Quebec. In 1682 the settlement on the isle of Montreal was invaded by the native tribes ; two hundred men, women, and children were killed or taken away to the torture. Nor was New France free from the convulsions of nature. In 1663 Quebec suffered severely from an earthquake ; to a superstitious nun of that city ' it seemed to be the eve of the day of judgment . . . the conversions were extraordinary ; one ecclesiastic assured me that he had taken more than eight hundred confessions/ And in the year 1682 the capital was destroyed by fire. The colonists were not even agreed among themselves. There was a constant feud between the Governor and the Jesuits ; mutual complaints and recriminations were sent home by each vessel that sailed. The judicial code was too severe and too much in evidence : the list of punishable offences was read out every Sunday at the church door. Many of the settlers would not remain in the colony under these strict conditions, but escaped to the forests, where they laughed at the discipline that could not reach them. And many thought common agriculture beneath them. With such disadvantages and such sources of weakness, it would not have been astonishing had Canada remained Expansion utterly stagnant, and fallen sooner or later a prey westwards. o fa e redskins. It is a splendid testimony to the ability of the few leaders, not merely that they retained the colony as long as they did, but that to a great extent they ruled the natives, and for many years seemed to have laid the foundations of an empire that would eventually embrace nearly the whole of the northern continent. At what date exactly the dream of an enormous New France came, or to whom it first came, it is impossible to say ; THE AMERICAN COLONIES 213 it probably developed gradually, as one outpost after another was established in the wilderness. The territories that were claimed in 1672 are vaguely indicated by the appointment of Frontenac as Governor of Canada, Acadia, Newfoundland, and the other countries of Northern France. The Hudson Bay had already been claimed in 1656, and an empty ceremony was often repeated in token of possession. Acadia had been taken by the English, and given by James i. to a Scottish favourite with the title of Nova Scotia ; restored and again taken, it was given back to France in 1667. Authority was also claimed over Newfoundland. But the most significant move was made westwards into the interior of the continent. In that direction the first act of the royal government had been to send out a punitive expedition against the Mohock tribe. When peace was restored, the Jesuits again began their work among the natives. Mission stations were established at Sault Sainte Marie, at La Pointe on the western end of Lake Superior, at Green Bay on the foot of Lake Michigan, at Michilimackinac between the Michigan and Huron. Such stations could easily be altered, as at a later day they were altered, into forts. And when about this time intelligence was received from the natives of a great river that flowed southwards, an expedition was fitted out to trace it and its course. In 1673 the Mississippi was found and traversed as far as its junction with the Arkansas. The king expressed approval : ' We have nothing more at heart/ he wrote, ' than the exploration of this country, through which to all appearance a way may be found to Mexico.' And from that day the extension of the French possessions in America was sedulously striven for. The occasion produced the man. La Salle, a native of Rouen, was one of those extraordinary leaders who appear at times among every colonising people. Of the same type as V Cortes, as intrepid as the English adventurers who crossed 214 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS Australia and Africa, he possessed in addition a faculty as dangerous as it is valuable, which has been vouchsafed in peculiar degree to the French. He was animated by the same vast designs of conquest that Dupleix had in India : with no assistance from home, and with scarcely any to be looked for from the settlements already established, he hoped by his own personal exertions to found an empire. Both La Salle and Dupleix went far to realise their ambition, but both eventually failed and ruined the cause they had thought to advance. 1 The first expedition of La Salle left Canada in 1678. After terrible privations, and the discovery that some of the French The Found- stations in the West had been destroyed by the Louisiana natives, he sailed down the whole length of the 1682. Mississippi, reaching the Gulf of Mexico in 1682. A cross was set up bearing the arms of France, and the district was called Louisiana in honour of the king. Returning to Paris, La Salle was received at court with more sympathy than had been shown him in Canada. Help was given : it was arranged that a fort should be established at the mouth of the river, and it was anticipated that the enormous new territory would be at least as great a source of wealth to France as Virginia to England. But a second expedition was wrecked on an unhealthy malarial coast far from the river, and La Salle and his followers were reduced to the last extremity. When all hope of success had vanished, he determined to penetrate northwards through the unknown lands that lay between them and Canada. The explorers travelled long across prairie, swamp, forest, and savannah ; and it is probable that Quebec would have been 1 The tragic fate which overtook them has made their names memor- able : a project essentially similar has in a later day only covered its author with deserved ridicule. Jacques Lebaudy, self-styled emperor of the Sahara, was in many respects the same stamp of man as La Salle and Dupleix. He also had the great plans of foreign conquest and dominion : but in his case au entire absence of common sense and an utter lack of proportion made him seem rather the hero of a comic opera than a subject worthy serious consideration. THE AMERICAN COLONIES 215 reached in safety had not a member of the band treacherously shot La Salle as he still pressed onwards. The province of Louisiana, as the name was understood in the seventeenth century, applied to the whole of America west of the Mississippi, in the same indefinite FrencQ manner that the term Carolina was used in colonial England to cover the continent as far as the Pacific. p Uc y- But for years after the death of La Salle, nothing was done to develop it ; in 1700 none save a few Canadian emigrants had settled on the site of New Orleans. It was not till 1717 that the city itself was founded. All this time, however, the French were extending their power in America, and it is significant of the national tendency that their policy, directly contrary to that pursued by the English, was almost exactly the same as that which they afterwards set on foot in India. The English mixed as little as possible with the natives, and only enlarged their settlements when the growth of population made it necessary. The French, on the other hand, were not secure at Quebec and Montreal, yet they gradually extended their line of stations or forts along the great lakes and down the Mississippi and Ohio. They cultivated friendly relations with the redskins. They cherished the hope of gallicising them, and finally of uniting them in one great confederation under French direction, to be used in expelling the English altogether from America. For to that it had now come. The old enmity was not forgotten in the new world. At first, indeed, there had been the semblance of friendship. The New Englanders Its Anlmus had proposed in 1648 to make an eternal treaty against of peace with Canada irrespective of the exist- g ence of peace or war between England and France in Europe. But the endeavour was fruitless. Ill-feeling already existed between the puritans and Catholics of neighbouring English and French colonies, and the friction was embittered by the keen competition for the fur-trade. The native tribes 216 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVEKSEAS were incited by one side to attack the other ; and neither French nor English can plead innocence in this respect. The English settlements meantime were increasing in population more quickly than the French, while the vast pro- jects of the French in the West filled the English with fear, and became a direct inducement to a closer union of the northern and southern Atlantic states. And when the French began to expand southwards from the north, while the English expanded westwards from the east, it was evidently only a question of time before the inevitable collision occurred in the interior of the continent. As early, indeed, as the first decade of the eighteenth century, it was clear to far-seeing men that there could be no agreement between England and France in America ; one nation must drive out the other, since each menaced the other's existence. The decisive struggle was averted for some years longer ; and meanwhile the fortunes of Canada and Acadia con- industnai tinned with little change. Adventurers fled to Progress of the woods as of old ; the peasants increased in Canada. number, and extended the lands under cultivation. Flax and hemp were grown. Cloth-weaving was carried on. Leather, grain, oil, and fish were exported to France. After the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, an insecure peace settled on Canada for thirty years : and although Newfound- land, Hudson Bay, and Acadia were now lost to France, hope f_ was always entertained of their restoration. The total population of French America increased, but slowly : in 1710 it was little more than fifteen thousand. About thirty years later, a traveller tells us there were hardly seven thou- sand inhabitants in the city of Quebec ; but Montreal was almost as large. Life, however, was happy. ' In the American colonies social under the British/ remarked a traveller at this conditions, time, ' there is a wealth which the people seem not to understand how to use ; but in New France there is THE AMEEICAN COLONIES 217 poverty hidden under an air of ease which does not seem forced. The English amass riches, and spend nothing un- necessarily ; the French enjoy what they have, and often make a parade of what they have not/ The richer men in- dulged in a round of gaiety ; the pleasures of the capital were a rude copy of those at Paris. Side by side with the convents and the churches which told of the old missionary spirit, there existed the dissipated upper class whose license and depravity had much to do with the eventual loss of the colony. On the other hand, the industrious country people were the real backbone of Canada, and, except where they were in close proximity to the British settlements, they had but small part in the growing feeling of enmity to England. Far from their own Normandy, where the lazy Seine meanders among orchards and meadows, where stately cathedral and quaint mediaeval city vary the placid landscape with old romance, the French farmers had found a peaceful home in the West. They were not yet concerned with the great wars. Some of the fire of their race was lost in the new abode ; isolated alike from the progress and the factions of their fellows, they lived and were forgotten. Idyllic was their retreat from the tumults of the larger world, and for years it was almost unbroken. Then the tempest broke, as France and England contended for the mastery ; and in the struggle hundreds of peaceful homes were ruined. The inhabitants of Acadia were driven out ; its very name was obliterated. But in the curious old villages of Quebec the traveller can still see the life of the first French settlers ; and the tragedy which destroyed Acadia has been immortal- ised by Longfellow, as he recounts the fortunes of Evangeline and her lover. Other relics of the French empire are yet visible in North America : in the narrow streets and decorated houses of New Orleans, in the names of St. Louis, Detroit, and Louisiana ; but the language, the customs, and the 218 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS doctrines of old France exist alone in the homesteads of Eastern Canada. They were the first and the only permanent Gallic colonies across the Atlantic. CHAPTER V ENGLAND IN THE WEST: 1740 1 Two hundred years after its discovery by Columbus, America was still in the leading-strings of Europe. There was not a single independent state in the whole continent. But Europe as a whole took little interest in the West. In England men spoke vaguely of ' the plantations ' ; the stay-at-home citizens of France occasionally heard of a far-away, shadowy New France ; the Spaniard claimed his monopoly and made his fortune by questionable means. But it cannot be said that any man thought of the western continent as a factor of the greatest importance in the future history of the world. By far the greater part of America was still unexplored. Scientific expeditions of discovery did not yet exist. The European colonies, though generally prosperous, were mainly situated along a narrow strip of coast ; and for long the 1 Authorities. The materials for this section may be found in the colonial state-papers, in the memoirs and letters of American and English writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and in the recognised histories, many of which have been indicated in previous chapters. The constitutional history of the connection between Great Britain and the colonies, as also the constitutional history of the colonies themselves, is unfortunately in a very fragmentary and unsatisfactory state, and has generally to be sought in the records of each colony in turn. Seeley's Expansion of England and the works of J. A. Froude may be usefully consulted in this connection. Happily recent publi- cations show that, so far at least as Canada is concerned, the void will soon be filled ; an official series of colonial records is being published at Ottawa, and Egerton and Grant's Canadian Constitutional Develop- ment summarises this aspect of the Dominion's history in pre-federation days. It may be hoped that other colonies will follow so excellent an example. THE AMERICAN COLONIES 219 vaguest ideas prevailed as to the general conditions, resources, and extent of America. One who had been to Virginia about the year 1611 ' supposed there may be found the (Descent into the south sea ... so meeting with the doubtful north-west passage which leads into the east of China/ The soil was ' lusty and very rich ' ; the settlers expected crops of tobacco, cotton, wool, potatoes, pines, oranges, and French vines, while the old delusive hope of treasure had not been abandoned ; ' sure it is that precious metals have there been found.' It was many years before any suspicion of the agricultural possibilities of the interior and west were entertained. And the mere fact that the early settlers expected to find the precious metals which were afterwards discovered in Nevada and California proves nothing, for they expected to find treasure wherever they went. The names of the British colonies at the rebellion in 1776 show how little the English movement had gravitated westwards. And when the geo- graphy of a land is almost unknown, its ultimate possibilities cannot be greatly appreciated. But steadily, remorselessly, albeit slowly, the white man was advancing his settlements. The aborigines were every- where being displaced ; yet they were still a formidable enemy and a powerful ally. In England, the American redskin, or Red Indian as he was popularly called, was known and caressed as an interesting barbarian, after Pocahontas had moved the The American admiration of London in the time of James I. Aborigines. Many attempts were subsequently made to convert the American tribes to Christianity ; but all were doomed to failure, and Pope could depict with truth ' the poor Indian, whose un- tutored mind sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind/ The colonists themselves generally troubled little about the natives ; it was early discovered to be a sound maxim, that the less the intercourse between them the better were the rela- 220 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS tions. Acts of treachery were infrequent, taking into con- sideration the mutual ignorance, the traditions of the redskins, and the natural distrust of the settlers. It may be said generally that there was a desire to deal justly with the original inhabitants, conspicuously among the New Englanders and Pennsylvanians ; with the southern planters the feeling was less in evidence. 1 There was even a sincere wish to purchase the land from the natives ; but this, however honourable in intention, had small result in practice, since the natives did not understand the value of that which they had to sell, and were ignorant of the worth- lessness of the gifts presented to them ; while the English undertook a more or less speculative enterprise, and the uncultivated territories they acquired had a merely potential value until developed by European labour. The aborigines, however, are of very secondary importance in the history of America. Ethnologically they are an enigma ; and if we disregard the attributes with which romance has too plentifully bedecked them from the days of Captain John Smith to Fenimore Cooper, we shall find them a race far removed indeed from the lowest people in a wild state, but perhaps in some respects almost as far from the highest. While different tribes had very different attain- ments and characters, as a whole they proved themselves incapable of advancing along their own lines, or of assimilating the civilisation of a superior nation. In many ways curi- ously similar to the Maories, they stand perhaps as a whole on a lower level than the New Zealanders. Their stoicism, like that of many another undeveloped nation, proves merely the absence of a highly strung organisation. They could not combine against the common European foe ; on the contrary, they fell a prey to the invader by allying themselves with the 1 It was a common proverb among the English colonists in America that 'the only good Indian was a dead Indian.' But the diseases which the white man brought with him were as. fatal to the aborigines as his guns and his liquor. THE AMERICAN COLONIES 221 French or English, and thus they frequently wasted their strength against each other. They had no settled habitations, and had scarcely advanced beyond the nomadic state. Their conception of religion, though vaguely magnificent in a shadowy fashion, was hardly so high as the Maori. Their literature, as expressed in such songs and epics as survive, was certainly less beautiful ; and their language, so far as can be judged, less melodious. On the whole, the national stock was less vital. But the progress of America is not concerned with the redskins, except in so far as their disappearance indicates the advance of civilisation. It is the growth of The European the European colonies that is important. Six colonies, nations had planted settlements in the West; but by the year 1740 two, Holland and Scandinavia, had already lost theirs. Of the other four, the condition of the Spanish and Portuguese lands remained stationary. The French on the whole were successful in Quebec, and its subsequent history to the present day shows that the foundations of this province of New France were well and truly laid. Conspicuous ability was manifested in dealing with the natives, who were often induced to serve under the Bourbon flag. The St. Lawrence was a natural highway, and a line of forts stretched along that river and through the interior down to the Gulf of Mexico. A chain was thus formed which marked out the whole of western and northern America for the French. Unfortunately for them, the extension westwards was undertaken without due thought for the frail basis on which Quebec rested, and the am- bitious policy ultimately led to their ruin. No sign of this, how- ever, was apparent in the year 1740 : rather did it seem that they would control the whole continent within a few decades. The English colonies were situated somewhat differently. If they had no magnificent river which opened up The English the interior they had at any rate a seaboard colonies, with many harbours that were ice-free the whole year. 222 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE VERSE AS Communication with the interior was difficult, and not often undertaken ; but if here the French had the advantage, the English were better connected with Europe, while the mari- time supremacy of Great Britain rendered her colonies safe from naval attack. But among themselves, the English in America were disunited. There was an utter lack of homogeneity ; there was little sympathy between the members of one community and another. The Virginian planter laughed at the Penn- sylvanian Quaker and looked with contempt at the puritan townsman of New England. The latter, on the other hand, hated the looseness and gaiety of southern life. The differences between the various English colonies could hardly be better illustrated than by the influence they exerted Education on ^ e intellectual life of the community. Though and mteiiec- the rich settlers of Virginia were cultured and tual Life. polite, they had no love for education, or at least no wish to see it imparted to their inferiors. ' I thank God/ wrote the governor of that province in 1671, ' there are no free schools or printing, and I hope these hundred years, for learning has brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them and libels against the best government. God keep us from both.' In any case, the form of society, the dubious character of the lower class whites, the status of the negroes, and the scattered nature of the plantations, would have made education a matter of difficulty in the south ; when allied with a spirit such as this, it became practically impossible. The first college was not founded at Williamsburg till 1692, by which time the puritan institution at Harvard was more than half a century old. But indeed the puritans had always loved instruction. ' When New England was poor, and they were but few in number, there was a spirit to encourage learning.' A law was early Passed, that ' none of the brethren shall sufier so much THE AMEKICAN COLONIES 223 barbarism in their families, as not to teach their children and apprentices so much learning as may enable them per- fectly to read the English tongue/ It was ordered that ' every township, after the Lord hath increased them to the number of fifty householders, shall appoint one to teach all children to write and read ; and where any town shall increase to the number of one hundred families, they shall set up a grammar- school : the masters thereof being able to instruct youth so far as they may be fitted for the university.' Learning thus became a tradition in New England ; and the success of the modern Yankees may in great part be deduced therefrom. The standard of education was often higher than in England itself, and it reached a much greater number of the people. But, for all that, nothing original was produced in the higher fields of intellectual work. The plant, so carefully sown and so tenderly watered, had not yet borne fruit. In thought, indeed, the colonies were still absolutely under the dominion of England, and the golden age of art which the philosophic Bishop Berkeley prophesied in the empire of the west showed no signs of existence. Tame and frigid imitations of the classics, the usual works of devotion, and an occasional inadequate news-sheet, repre- sented the intellectual life of the English across the Atlantic : there was no indication whatever that such masterpieces as Evangeline and Thanatopsis would be produced in America. The catalogue of a seventeenth-century book shop in Boston is enough to show the literary taste of the community. Most of the Latin classics were there, but none of the Greek ; there was one play by Fortunatus, although Shakespeare was still tabu ; the Pilgrim's Progress was included, but not Milton : Drayton and Fletcher were allowed, as well as Fairfax's translation of Tasso ; sermons furnished the greater part of the stock. The books that were read in the south were probably lighter in character, but it may be surmised that they were 224 fewer in number. It was not until some time after the Revolution brought complete independence that American literature existed ; the natural soil had first to be conquered before intellectual culture could have any being. But the difference between north and south was shown in religious profession as well as in the system of education and the different standard of taste : and here again the north had the advantage, or so at least it seemed to an observer as acute as Lawrence Washington, who wrote in his diary, ' Pennsylvania has flourished under that delightful liberty, so as to become the admiration of every man who considers the short time it has been settled. This colony (Virginia) was greatly settled in the latter part of Charles i.'a time and during the usurpation by the zealous churchmen ; and that spirit which was then brought in has ever since continued, so that except a few Quakers we have no dissenters. But what has been the consequence ? We have increased by slow degrees, whilst our neighbouring colonies, whose natural advantages are greatly inferior to ours, have become popu- lous/ The contrast between north and south was in part caused by climate, in part by the class of men who formed the popula- Differences tion, and in part by different modes of life. The between differences were fundamental, and although they Northern and southern were bridged over during the war with France colonies. an( j ^he Revolution, they were by no means extinguished, or even rendered invisible during those conflicts. ft They flamed out again in 1861, and it would be idle to pretend that they have since died out. But in the year 1740, if the main distinction between north and south was already clearly fixed, the differences between the individual colonies on either side were becoming less marked. Virginia, Maryland, Carolina, and Georgia generally stood together, recognising the first as their head ; Massa- chusetts was the natural leader of the New England colonies, THE AMEKICAN COLONIES 225 with Boston as a central and convenient capital ; while the intermediate group of Pennsylvania, the Jerseys, and New York, partook in some degree of the charac- teristics of both, with a few special features of their own that had been introduced by the foreign element which still survived. The main distinction between south and north may be roughly stated as slavery and non-slavery. The whole question of the forced labour of inferior races will Negro come up for treatment later in this work : 1 but it slavery, must be remembered here that slavery was only introduced in Virginia and the sister states after white labour had proved unsatisfactory ; and once introduced, the negroes spread rapidly. They were not, however, .unknown in the north, but they never gained any permanent or secure footing in New England. Their success in the south was mainly due to the advantage they obtained over the whites from the climate. The white landed proprietors were practically forced to become slave- owners, once the system was thoroughly introduced ; for although probably few had any real objection to cheap labour of whatever colour, Georgia was founded on a non-slavery basis, but was obliged later to come into line with the other southern plantations. In the north, as has been said, slavery gained no real hold. Pennsylvania was the dividing line, with some, but not by any means a majority of the richer Quakers ItBAbsence owning slaves ; there were a few cases in New in the England, but both the public feeling of those Nortl1 - colonies and the climatic conditions were against the system. Legislation was passed in Massachusetts to prevent the increase of black servants ; but this was not on account of the injustice of the system to the negroes, the consciousness of which affected the north so profoundly during the nineteenth 1 See vol. iv. bk. xiii. ch. iii. P 226 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS century. It would be difficult to find any trace of such a feeling before the Revolution. The reasons for which the north disliked the introduction of negroes were quite other, and at least as well founded. It was felt that they lowered the general standard of life ; and along with a certain amount of perhaps inevitable pre- judice, it was recognised that the presence of an alien popula- tion, economically inferior if not absolutely inferior in all respects, was a danger to the community which should be avoided. A healthy instinct compelled the New Englanders to do their utmost to keep the race pure. Intermarriage with the native tribes was utterly repugnant to them, although that could not altogether be stopped ; there were some few instances where the white and redskin were mated. But intermarriage or illicit intercourse with the negroes could be avoided by preventing their arrival ; and thus the New Englanders were saved from any of that racial admixture and contamina- tion which was so disastrous elsewhere. In later times the soundness of their position has been demonstrated, and it has developed into a great ideal in Australia, where the purity of the race is jealously guarded and its improvement striven for ; but it is curious to notice that this question, of supreme importance to a nation that was to spread into every quarter of the world, was tackled and solved by one of the first offshoots from the mother country. The English expansion westwards in America was undertaken more largely by the people of New England than by the southerners : and although this may be due in part to their springing from a more vigorous stock, and living in a more bracing climate, it must also be allowed that no race tainted with the blood of a completely alien and inferior stock would have been able to show the indomitable energy which subdued a continent within a century. In the year 1740, however, the River Ohio was the extreme THE AMERICAN COLONIES 227 west, and few pioneers indeed had reached so far. What is now the city of Pittsburg was then a French fort. The vast stretches of country that lay beyond were track- i -11 j j 1.1. v- The West. less wastes, still sacred to the bison ; never a European hunter had yet ventured on the Kansas prairie. The wealth of which Ralegh and his gallants had dreamed lay hidden unsuspected in distant Nevada and Colorado. And the true pathway to the Far East for which the sea-kings had ventured and lost their lives lay, not through a narrow channel or open ocean, but across thousands of miles of wild and trackless country, where as yet there was no route, and where indeed the engineer more than a century later achieved success only in the face of terrible difficulties after his enter- prise had been scouted as impossible. The English population lay along the Atlantic coast ; but in the townships of New England where the majority dwelt, one of the most noticeable differences between THe Eastern America and Europe had already appeared. cities - The cities of New England were laid out on a regular system. In the old world they had grown haphazard, as occasion required ; in the new they were planned. The change was exemplified in the first settlement of the puritans, as described by a Dutch visitor who saw Plymouth in the year 1627. That city stood upon rising ground, separated from the sea by some twenty yards of sand, and was formed of two streets crossing each other at right angles. At the point where they met was the governor's house, and in front lay an open space, guarded by four cannon, one commanding each way. The houses were substantial log huts, enclosed with a palisade all round, and destined later to be embowered in orchards. There were four entrances to the town, three of which were guarded by gates, while the fourth was sufficiently protected by the sea. On a hill at the rear stood a building, that was used alternately as a fort, a public storehouse, and a place of 228 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS worship. To the south was arable land, divided into small patches of corn, and further to the rear was the common pasture, the same ' mark ' that still survives in some English villages. Boston, the first city founded in English America that was destined to become important, had, it is true, the straggling streets that are associated with old European towns ; but Philadelphia again was laid out in squares and angles by Penn. The convenience of the plan, and the limitless space which men had at their command, soon brought it into general use ; and it spread into all the new lands which the white man settled, as well as into some of those older lands which he conquered, or from which he came. Many of the American cities impressed European visitors by their lack of finish, but the gibes which were cast at the inhabitants were quite uncalled for. Rather should it have been a matter for praise that so much had been done in so little time. At the period of which we speak, however, there were no signs of the astonishing growth that has since characterised America. The colonial capitals, however flourishing, depended entirely on trade ; they had few factories, and those few were small. It is the development of the means of communication that has been the main factor among many other causes in accelerating American growth : the facilities, or rather the lack of facilities of transport, were the same at the fall of the Roman Empire and at the rise of the English. Not until near the middle of the nineteenth century did any change take place ; America before that time was both dependent on, and isolated from, Europe. It is undoubtedly the function of history to picture the life of past ages, as much in the home and the streets as in the court and the parliament. Unfortunately, the historian must be diffident as to the possibility of success ; the social life of the past is far more elusive than its politics. The latter is merely a question of industrious digging ; the former THE AMERICAN COLONIES 229 is one of a vanished atmosphere. Nevertheless, an attempt to vignette two aspects of American life in the eighteenth century may be permissible. The Virginian planter lived a life of rough plenty, in many respects similar to that of the English landed proprietor from whom he had sprung. His house was not xhe South- so elaborate as the Tudor or Queen Anne mansion em Banter, of the mother country ; it was a long, low, comfortable build- ing, open to the air as the climate required, with verandahs all round. The owner was essentially an aristocrat, having in place of white servants and tenants a number of slaves to cultivate his estates and attend to his house ; these lived in huts or cottages at some distance. It was both a duty and a pleasure to dispense hospitality to every comer ; but society was limited, as the plantations lay at some distance from each other ; George Washington, for instance, hardly met his relatives once a year. It was at Williamsburg that the gay functions of the colony took place, and there the legislature held its session : at other times the planter was occupied in the care of his estate, in writing to his agent in England, or in sport. He had shooting, hunting, and fishing in plenty ; an excursion to the backwoods, where a few settlers were disputing the country with the redskins, furnished him with adventure. In these expeditions, a hard but enjoyable life was led : ' Every one was his own cook/ says Washington ; ' our spits were forked sticks, our plates were large chips ; as for dishes we had none/ At home, there was comfort, plenty, and leisure ; but any- thing that was not produced on the estate had to be imported from England. When they required a simple book on agriculture at Mount Vernon, or a machine for rooting up trees, both had to be obtained from the motherland. To visit England in person was the wish of every proprietor, or if he could not go himself, to send his sons there to complete 230 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS their education. He brought up his children on the stiff English model then in vogue, even to the stately form of parental address ; he copied English customs, or rather they had never become strange in Virginia. The colony was loyal. There was as yet no sign of inde- pendence, or of any wish for it. England was still spoken of as home, as it is to-day in Tasmania and New Zealand. The best example of the affection that was felt for England is the man who afterwards became the leader of the revolt against her ; the best example that we have of southern life in one of its most pleasing phases is in the biography of that same man who founded the American Republic. In the north the feeling was different. The Virginian indeed loved Virginia as much as the New Englander loved New England ; but he loved England as well with The Yankee. the sentiment that springs naturally from a rever- ence for tradition and the past. The New Englander, on the other hand, possessed a very subdued affection for the mother country which many of his ancestors had left in anger ; and the handicap of the tariff laws, which weighed far more heavily on him than on the Virginian, did not greatly help him to realise the blessing of forming part of the empire. But his life was not unpleasant to him. If he lived in the country, his farmhouse was simple but commodious, plain but comfortable. If he lived in a town, his house would be of brick or wood according to his means, containing little beyond the necessaries of life, and generally less comfortably furnished than those of the south. His interests lay in trade or his farm : he was always ready for a bargain ; he was concerned in the local religious or political happenings, often taking an active part in both. Like the Virginian, he awaited with extreme interest the arrival of the English packet and the London newspapers, and he had one or two local newspapers at home, which kept him acquainted with the affairs of the province. Beyond this, THE AMERICAN COLONIES 231 he had few thoughts. He lived in a stern but homely atmo- sphere ; he was not particularly intellectual, and his mind was confined in orthodox channels. Keenly discussing the local preachers and their doctrines, as is still done in the more religious villages of the remoter part of England at the present time ; fearful of but ready to combat a French invasion, jealous of interference from, but perhaps on the whole proud of the old country, he was engrossed in a some- what petty round. He did his duty well as he understood it, and was faithful to the everlasting laws of heaven as they had been fixed by puritan divines. The oversea states of the empire were thus generally prosperous, and they already bade fair to develop into new nations. At the same time the danger that BritlBll France would overwhelm them was growing ever Colonial greater. The duty of the mother country towards PoUc 3 r ' them was therefore clear. If she valued her colonial posses- sions, she was bound to protect them from the enemy which threatened their ruin ; and she was equally bound to assist their development by every means that lay in her power. The government of these colonies should have absorbed some of the best energies of the best class of Englishmen ; there should have been a spirit of mutual sympathy between the English in America and the English in England ; an imperial ideal should have been the guiding-star of the states- men of the communities on either side of the Atlantic. In part, indeed, the duty was fulfilled. England protected her colonies successfully from France : but as regards any further interest in their welfare, she proved but an indifferent mother ; and by her neglect and injustice she had already sown the seeds of that great disaster which has divided the English race for ever. As we trace the constitutional history of the connection between the American colonies and England, we shall have to confess with shame that the fault which caused the dis- 232 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS ruption lay at the door of England rather than of the colonies : and we shall notice presently that it sprang mainly from the prevailing ignorance and indifference concerning the colonies at home, and from that lack of sympathy and imagination in the national character whose results have so often to be deplored in our history. England had indeed no settled policy in the development of her colonies, and she was content to have none. No English statesman save Cromwell before the time of the elder Pitt had risen to the idea. A cynical observer might even now declare that Britain has not, and never has had, a colonial policy, and although the assertion would not be strictly accurate, it would contain enough truth to make it difficult of contradiction. Even at the present day continuity in colonial policy is not an accepted doctrine of the state, nor can it be until there is a clearer conception of what is meant by the term ; and mean- while we have the spectacle of one British ministry undoing the work of its predecessors, throwing old settlements into the melting-pot, scoring petty points over its rivals in opposi- tion by some miserable sacrifice of imperial interests to the wire-pullers of the hour. . . . The earlier colonies, whether proprietary or chartered, possessed various rights and ; privileges : but these latter Early were none of them too seriously regarded by the colonial Crown that guaranteed them. The divine right to break their word, to confiscate property, and to alienate lands that had already been settled, was zealously guarded by the Stuarts ; nor was there any attempt to formulate a principle of rule before the Council of Foreign Plantations was inaugurated by Clarendon. When that failed, an effort was made by James n. to unify the colonial administration. Within certain limits, this would have been an excellent step ; but the last of the Stuarts was the worst man possible to initiate such a system. .His main idea was to crush the liberties of his American subjects, but it too THE AMERICAN COLONIES 233 failed miserably. The Revolution of 1688 in England there- fore came at a time of absolute chaos so far as colonial administration was concerned. We shall see in a later chapter * that England did not under- stand the splendour of the empire that had fallen to her. Yet in a sense she valued her conquests, her settlements, Th her ' plantations/ The modern imperial ideal was of the indeed lacking. There was no conception of a ColonieB - confederation of self-governing sister states, all of whom were responsible for their own acts, and each of whom had that voice in an imperial council as to the general policy of the empire which was consonant with its importance within it. Such an idea would have been ridiculed as preposterous by British statesmen previous to the outbreak of the Imperial Civil War in 1775. England, in fact, valued her colonies for three very different reasons : as a handy place to which criminals, rebels, and unfortunates might be transported ; as the source of a steady revenue ; and as a fresh market for her growing industries. The first reason was continually in mind, and it became a tradition in that department of the state which was charged with the administration of colonial affairs. The i. Trans- unemployed of England were sent to Virginia, portation. the oldest of the American colonies, in the last years of Eliza- beth. The puritans, as rebels against the Anglican Church, were contemptuously granted permission to go to Massa- chusetts in the reign of Charles I. The defeated royalists and Irish rebels were sent to the West Indies by Cromwell after the Civil War. The founders of Carolina shipped off the unfortunates of the Restoration period to their estates. The advisers of Charles n. were happy to be free of the Quakers when Pennsylvania was founded. The captives who were taken in the risings of 1715 and 1745 were sent to Jamaica. It was an easy way to be rid of a burden, and the habit was 1 See bk. v. ch. iv. 234 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS too deeply rooted to be lightly eradicated. The first use to which Australia was put was to send convicts to Botany Bay ; the Falkland Islands were considered valuable on account of the ease with which they could be turned into a remote and inaccessible prison ; Tasmania was polluted with the foulest scum of our gaols ; and when the eastern colonies of Australia revolted against the system, West Australia was looked upon as a convenient dumping ground for the off-scourings of England. Not until the middle of the nineteenth century was it accepted as a sound doctrine that each province of the empire should provide for its own criminals within its own boundaries, and even then the idea was only received in England because the colonies refused to accommodate any more such unwelcome immigrants. For the mother country transportation furnished a cheap and simple solution of a difficult problem ; her failures troubled her no more. But the policy merely shifted the burden on to the shoulders of others, who naturally and with good cause resented it. The labour of criminals and paupers was un- satisfactory, and dear at any price. The hope that they would abandon old habits in a new country was generally illusory. Their presence was a standing danger, and the fear of a mutiny or a conspiracy was never absent from the place in which they were domiciled. Their existence lowered the whole social tone of a colony ; and while professional criminals brought with them the habits for which they had been exiled, those paupers who were not strong enough to gain a living in England were seldom fitted to earn their bread in the rough and strenuous pioneer work of a new colony. Of so little use was the presence of both that they were nearly always super- seded immediately slave labour was introduced. Thus the first reason for which England valued the planta- tions was founded on a misconception both as regards the methods to be taken with criminals and paupers, and the use to THE AMERICAN COLONIES 235 which a colony should be put. The second reason, that a steady revenue could be obtained from possessions overseas, was even more false in the sense in which it was understood. If there is one principle of the British constitution about which there is no doubt, it is that no taxation can be imposed without representation. Yet the colonies were not represented either directly or indirectly in the British Parliament ; there was neither Colonial Con- ference nor Imperial Council in which they could express their views ; their protests were disregarded, and censured as impertinence or disloyalty. It must be remembered that the principle was not finally conceded in England itself until after the Civil War with Charles I. : but, had Britain had her way, the liberties she had won for herself would never have been conceded to her colonies. This was the chief cause among a number that presently brought about the Imperial Civil War ; it was the main reason for the innumerable disputes that took place between England and America before the rupture. 1 The question of taxing the colonies is involved with the third reason for which they were prized at home. The oversea possessions of England, if not avowedly 3. New existing in the eyes of British statesmen entirely Markets - for the profit of the mother country, as was the case with the colonies of France, Holland, and Spain, were at any rate looked upon by the English people as valuable mainly in that they furnished fresh outlets for our trade. The Navigation Acts of Cromwell, and the extension of his policy which was continued after the fall of the Commonwealth, restricted their commerce, and the tendency was to increase the re- strictions. The underlying idea was that British products should possess a monopoly of the colonial market ; the corollary, that colonial products should receive compensating 1 The whole question of colonial taxation is discussed at length in Vol. iii. bk. ix. 236 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS preference in the British, market, was not always considered of such importance. It was regarded as just that Britain should possess the advantage in commerce, in return for the protection granted by the British flag to the colonies, and in view of the fact that the burden of maintaining the empire fell upon England alone. On a narrow view of the case, this might be correct ; although it should have been remembered that any law which hinders national development will always be un- popular, and will act as a focus of disaffection among those whom it hampers. It would be impossible, truly, to put too high a value on the services rendered by the British fleet to the colonies during the long wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries ; without that, they would have been attacked continually by France and Holland. It was solely due to the supremacy of Britain at sea that the colonies were never cut off from communicating with each other and with England. The British army was naturally not of so much use, since it was small and generally engaged in European operations. But if the British fleet protected the colonies, the blow it struck at the enemies of the empire was frequently delivered on the other side of the ocean. The colonists knew little of this, and it is natural to depreciate services of whose extent one is ignorant. They were mostly more alive to the danger from the French in Canada than from the French upon the high seas, because the fleet could not protect them from the former, and it did from the latter. Practically the entire inland defence of the colonies was usually undertaken by the colonists themselves : yet they were expected to pay the mother country for a protection which was often invisible ; and no attempt was ever made to provide them with a reason for, or, what was of more importance, a voice in, the payment. An extraordinary instance of the haphazard manner in which the empire was built up is afforded by the fact that THE AMERICAN COLONIES 237 no system of imperial defence had been worked out. The general responsibility of England to care for her offspring was admitted ; with the more readiness perhaps on the mother's side since she derived considerable profit from the commercial relations with them. The general principle that the colonies should be to some extent under British control was also recognised both by them and Britain ; with the less alacrity on the colonial side since Britain was apt to push that authority to excess, and rarely to manifest any other interest in her possessions than in the amount of cash or goods they sent over. There was, as we shall see, an almost universal ignorance of the ' plantations ' in Great Britain. Although most educated men knew that sugar came from Jamaica, tobacco from Virginia, and neither from New England, there were few who understood that different systems of government were required in the different colonies. The unification scheme of James n. allowed for no difference of administration between Carolina and Massachusetts. Again, any importunate favourite of a minister was con- sidered good enough to be sent out as a colonial governor : there could be no better illustration of the contempt with which the colonies were regarded than the worthless men who were thought capable of ruling them. The scandals caused by the venality and incompetence of the king's representatives in his dominions overseas were frequently distressing, and they must have been a severe trial to the loyalty of his colonial subjects. They were to a certain extent nullified by the carelessness of his ministers at home, who seldom read, and hardly ever acted upon, the querulous, grumbling despatches written by colonial governors ; but then neither did they attend to the complaints, legitimate or illegitimate, of the colonists themselves. So far as there was any British policy in imperial matters, it was one of studied neglect. It was allowed in time that 238 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS the colonies had the right to legislate in regard to their own internal affairs, subject to the general approval of the British Parliament ; but peculiar ideas prevailed as to what con- stituted those internal affairs. They were not to develop their industries too much, since it was believed that this would be at the expense of British commerce ; they were not to trade directly with foreign countries, since this would have been at the expense of British ports and shipping : and they were not permitted to fix the amount of their contributions to the imperial exchequer. Some examples have already been given of the friction which arose from these restrictions ; a few further instances may be adduced. In Virginia it was complained that ' the Administra- (legislative) Assembly concluded itself entitled tive Friction. to a jj fa e r i gn t s a nd privileges of an English Parliament ' ; and in consequence the Governor reported the existence of ' faction in the civil government ' ; he saw ' schism creep into the Church ' ; and ' pernicious notions, fatal to the royal prerogative, were improving daily/ This was in the oldest colony, that had always been remarkable for loyalty. There was a rebellion in Carolina : ' every one did what was right in his own eyes, paying tribute neither to God nor to Caesar ' ; and the Governor could not consider ' a country safe which had such dangerous incendiaries ' within it ; the people ' refused to make provision for defending any part of their country/ unless ' they could introduce into the govern- ment the persons most obnoxious for the late rebellion/ In 1695, the men of Delaware would have ' their privileges granted before they would give any money/ This was an un- heard-of demand, and was refused accordingly ; the colonists therefore convoked the Assembly of their own right, and were told in 1697 by the Governor in consequent reproof, ' You are met, not by virtue of any writ of mine, but of a law made by yourselves/ THE AMERICAN COLONIES 239 The citizens of Pennsylvania had a good understanding of their rights : in 1693 they declared that ' we know the laws to be our laws, and we are in the enjoyment of them ; the sealing does not make the law, but the consent of Governor, Council, and Assembly/ The Governor of the colony was unpopular, and he complained that ' My door was never shut, but it was avoided, as if it were treason for the Speaker, or any representative, to be seen in my company during your session/ In the New York states it was as bad. Queen Anne dis- liked the freedom of the press : ' great inconvenience may arise by the liberty of printing/ and nothing was allowed to be published without a licence. But the fundamental principle of liberty had been laid down in New York in 1691 : ' no tax whatever shall be levied on his majesty's subjects in the province, or on their estates, on any pretence whatso- ever, but by the act and consent of the representatives of the people in general Assembly convened/ So strong was the feeling here that in 1697 the Governor complained to the legislators of the province, ' there are none of you but what are big with the privileges of Englishmen and Magna Charta/ Some time later they were censured as ' very unmannerly ; there was never an amendment desired by the council board but what was rejected : it is a sign of stubborn ill-temper/ In 1712 the Governor of New Jersey burst out petulantly, ' I am used like a dog ; I have spent three years in such torment and vexation that nothing in life can ever make amends for it/ Although the Crown always strove to limit the colonial charters, the colonists insisted on their strict interpretation. ' To give the command of the militia/ it was said in 1693, ' to the Governor of another colony, is in effect to put our persons, interests, and liberties entirely into his power : by our charter, the Governor and Company themselves have a commission of command/ A Governor wrote home in 1703, ' This vast continent will 240 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS never be useful to England till all the proprietary and charter governments are brought under the Crown/ The year before, it had been said, ' This country (Massachusetts) will never be worth living in, for lawyers and gentlemen, till the charter is taken away/ We may fittingly close with the scene that took place in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1693. ' I will not/ said the king's representative from New York, ' set my foot out of this colony till I have seen his majesty's commission obeyed/ As it was being read, the drums of the local train-band began to beat. ' Silence ! ' ordered the Governor. ' Drum ! drum ! I say ! ' cried the captain of the band, and then, turning to the Governor, ' If I am interrupted again, I will make the sun shine through you in a moment/ The Governor was compelled by this audacious threat to return to his own pro- vince. In such a way did the colonists show their jealous spirit when their rulers endeavoured to deprive them of their rights, and to place them under the command of another province, in defiance of their charter. In rare cases a good Governor was appointed : in this category may be placed the one who stated on taking up office, ' I will pocket none of the public money myself, nor shall there be any embezzlement by others/ That the declara- tion should have been made at all is indictment enough of the system of appointment. Broken-down gentlemen, needy adventurers, poor hangers-on of great families, composed the general run of the Governors sent out to the American colonies ; and we cannot wonder if such men looked at their position rather as a means of restoring their fortunes than as a public duty, and only considered the interests of the colonies in a very perfunctory fashion. If the Americans objected, as they generally did with vigour, complaints were sent home that sedition was rife, that conspiracy was in the air, that the king's authority was flouted, and that a rebellion was at hand. The general fate THE AMERICAN COLONIES 241 of such despatches was to be docketed unread ; but if they were read, and the minister responsible for the administration of the colonies found time to attend to the matter, a stern, harsh Governor of the Andros type was sent out, with in- structions to repress the evil spirit that reigned in the planta- tions. The inevitable consequence was a further loosening of the bonds of empire. While it was looked upon as exile, and mostly as unwelcome exile, to be appointed governor of a colony, first-rate men could not be obtained for the post ; in general it would be placing an extreme value on their abilities to call them even third-rate. That the American colonies were not easy to rule may be granted. It is not easy to found and retain an empire. That there were peculiar difficulties to be faced in governing America properly may be also admitted. The man who could preside with dignity and social grace over the sporting and pleasure-loving planters of Virginia would have been un- fitted for the stern religious and commercial population of New England. It required a diplomat to smooth over the racial differences among the settlers of various nationalities in New York ; a quiet, peaceful being with pietist tendencies would have been popular among the Pennsylvanians. Such men could have been found in England, but there seems to have been no attempt made to put the right man in the right place. Each colony had a strongly marked individuality, and it was absurd to send the same official indifferently to Jamaica or Connecticut. There were inevitable jealousies between the rival American settlements. The individualism that is so strongly char- acteristic of the English people gave rise to Th6 essentially the same situation as afterwards synthetic appeared again in the early history of Australia, when New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania resembled anything but brethren dwelling together in unity. The Q 242 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS characteristic might be traced back to the first kingdoms in England itself, when Mercia, Wessex, and Northumbria strove mercilessly in turn for separate independence and the overlordship of each other. It was a relic, indeed, of that old love of isolation and freedom which led each hamlet in our first ancestral homes on the Elbe to guard itself with hedge or wall or forest belt, beyond which no stranger dare come without formal announcement of his presence on pain of death. But if each new settlement of the race has begun in isolation and jealousy of its neighbours, there has always been mani- fested later a contrary tendency leading to a union or con- federation of all the separate states. It was so in England under the last of the Saxon kings. It was so in Canada when the Dominion that was founded in 1867 linked up the north of the American continent from Atlantic to Pacific. It was so in India when successive Viceroys centralised the ad- ministration of the provinces into one empire. It was so in Australia, when on the first day of the twentieth century a united Commonwealth of the whole continent was pro- claimed ; and it was so again in South Africa eight years later. It was so in America when the United States emerged triumphant from the struggle with Great Britain. In each case but the last there was no break in continuity, and there need be none. The ordered progress that is the great glory of English history has never been interrupted, save in the one instance when the Empire was divided against itself. And even in that one instance the synthetic movement towards partial colonial union was visible for many years before the outbreak of the Imperial Civil War. The southern provinces of British America were already being drawn together by the similarity of their industrial conditions, which were all based on negro slave labour. The northern provinces likewise felt the stirrings of mutual sympathy ; their ancestors had all been refugees, and the THE AMERICAN COLONIES 243 younger generation were all wishing to turn the potential riches of the soil into tangible wealth, but the harsh com- mercial laws of the mother country prevented them. North and south were indeed strongly opposed to one another in feeling, but in the middle as a buffer came the more cosmo- politan New York states. Every politician of the middle eighteenth century should have seen that a confederation of all the colonies must sooner or later have been formed ; and it should have been the business of British statesmen to provide that that confedera- tion came about naturally in the process of time, and was not forced by external events ; above all, it should have been their business to see that when it came, the American colonies remained within the Empire, and were not driven outside it. British statesmen, however, did nothing of the sort. They ordered where they should have advised. They repressed where they should have conciliated. They abused, most unjustifiably, the cowardice of the Americans, when they should rather have praised the courage that was shown by the New Englanders in the invasion of Canada. By such means they effectually completed the work of alienation ; and the colonies, albeit with many jarrings, with much conflict of interests, and after a disastrous war, seceded from the Empire. We may cast a hasty glance forward at British colonial policy as it has been since that time. Almost immediately there was an improvement. Within a very few The Policy years of the loss of America a constitution was ^odem given to Canada, thanks to the liberal school of Empire, thought which saw that self-government was as necessary for the English overseas as for the English at home. Federa- tion was encouraged, sometimes with excessive zeal ; the liberties of the colonies were emphasised, occasionally in a tone which seemed to indicate that Britain would be glad to see the imperial connection severed altogether. ' Friends indeed, but better friends if we were parted,' was the burden 244 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS of many speeches ; there was a disposition to enlarge on the burdens of empire and to forget its advantages. But a great step forward was made when the first Colonial Conference was called in the later years of the nineteenth century : it was a further advance when the idea naturally developed into an Imperial Council : it will be a still greater evidence of progress when that idea has taken full root among our peoples. The ideal of British imperial policy at the beginning of the twentieth century was the exact opposite of that which obtained when the American colonies revolted : it was elastic where it formerly was fixed ; it gave freedom ungrudg- ingly where in the old days chartered rights were denied ; it accepted no contributions save voluntary ones where revenue used to be exacted. Too often, indeed, the ideal was not reached. Too often, it must be confessed, did those whom the swing of the electoral pendulum had placed in power at home misunderstand the basis of colonial rule. British politicians at home were sometimes apt to forget that the British Parliament had no more right to interfere in the internal affairs of the colonies possessing responsible government than those colonies had to interfere in the affairs of the mother country. From motives doubtless well meant but certainly mistaken, they were known to advocate a paternal rule over the colonies, which they would have been the first to resist had they themselves been colonists. There was even yet at times a disposition to overlook the wide distinction between the oversea states of the empire, between the colonies with responsible, representative or Crown govern- ment, and the great protectorates populated by alien races. The first we may advise as a sister ; the second we may counsel as a mother does a daughter on the verge of woman- hood ; the third we must rule, lovingly but firmly, as a parent does a child whose career is yet undecided, but whom it is THE AMERICAN COLONIES 245 hoped will be trained to walk firmly in the footsteps of its guardian. But with the reservation that among many persons at home ignorance of the outer empire is still colossal ; with the acknowledgment that even now we frequently show a lack of sympathy with colonial aims ; with the admission that we sometimes push to illogical lengths principles which may be suited to Britain, but would be detrimental elsewhere : with these shortcomings granted, it must be admitted that the ideal of empire has advanced immeasurably from what was considered good enough for the colonies immediately before the great American wars of the eighteenth century. BOOK V THE EVOLUTION OF A LARGER SYNTHESIS: 1713-63 CHAPTER I THE PEA.CE OF EXHAUSTION : 1713-42 THE Peace of Utrecht in 1713 gave a breathing time to Europe. At a period when nations were more often at war than at peace, a few years' truce it can hardly be called by a different name acquired importance as a means of recupera- tion. The terrific struggles, protracted from one decade to another, wore out every one but the kings and generals whose trade it was. To them a peace was a little longer holiday than usual before the next campaign. The plan of this work enables, or rather forces us to dismiss in a few sentences, projects, negotiations, and cam- paigns that held the attention of mankind for years. The internal affairs of Europe are not our concern ; nevertheless, it is convenient to summarise those events on the continent which had so great an influence on the outside world. The justification of the War of the Grand Alliance was the over- powering strength of France, which pressed upon the other members of what one may be pardoned for calling the common- wealth of Europe. The justification of the War of the Spanish Succession was the fear of the union of the French and Spanish crowns on one head or in one family a scheme that remained a favourite one at Paris, even under the Second Empire in the nineteenth century. Both wars 246 EVOLUTION OF A LARGER SYNTHESIS 247 closed with the Peace of Utrecht in 1713 ; and in both the decision was deferred till a later period. France was still a menace to her neighbours ; the Court of Madrid was still under her influence. The long duel with England was yet to come. The struggle that was concluded at Utrecht was but one of a series ; but it was the first of a new series. The older struggles of the Middle Ages had been important Thfl C(m only as they affected the states which waged tinentai them. The wars of the Reformation, of which stru && le - religious differences were the real cause, had come to an end. The wars of which that of the Grand Alliance was the first, were political struggles : and if not national in the sense in which the word is used at present, they were at least national in the sense that a higher ideal of nationality was produced as they continued their weary course through the century. As we look back on them, we can see what was hidden from most of the participants at the time : the evolution of the larger synthesis which has resulted in the great homogeneous powers of the modern world, in place of the little states of the Middle Ages. The people of the different nations concerned had indeed small voice in the matter. The disputes of the time were conducted with little or no reference to the popular wish if indeed it can be conceded that there was a popular wish, or that it could find expression. Provinces were carved out as suited the convenience of diplomats. Rulers were given to states, of whom the inhabitants had never heard. Monarchs undertook the government of people, of whose language, thought and sentiment, they were ignorant. Nations seemed made for the king, not the king for the nation. But still, in the wars of the eighteenth century, united nations were being hammered out of a number of jarring provinces as the iron is hammered out of its original shapeless mass on the anvil, unconscious of the higher end to be achieved, but 248 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS perhaps painfully conscious of the inconvenience of the process. . . . In another sense, the struggles of the time come in a different category from those of the preceding ages. In them it was The world- decided who was to develop the outer world, struggle. it was s till an open question what nation was to take the lead in colonising America ; it was still an open question what nation would secure most permanent influence in Asia. Africa, it may be remarked in passing, was as yet considered of small importance. Australia was almost unknown. But the European struggle was no longer confined to Europe : the wars now touched every quarter of the world where the white man had settled ; the statesman had now to think not only of Paris and London, but of Quebec and Boston, of Pondicherri and Bombay. In places, indeed, the struggle had already begun. The weaker combatants had gone to the wall. The Scandinavian colonies in America had been conquered by the Dutch ; the Dutch in their turn had fallen before the English. But the main contest was yet to come, both in the east and west, and the whole eighteenth century was occupied with its decision. But when Europe as a whole seemed likely to plunge again into war, England at first held as much as possible The Peace of aloof. The one thing needful was rest. The Exhaustion, country had been one of the chief parties in the recent international struggle. There had been unceasing turmoil at home for nearly a century. The Stuart dynasty had brought nothing but civil strife. The danger of invasion from without and conspiracy within yet hung threateningly. The ' Bloodless Revolution ' had not brought the millennium in its train ; and a large party still wished to undo the work of 1688. An exhaustion that seemed to produce utter stag- nation crept over the land. There are few years in our history more uninteresting than the first decades of the EVOLUTION OF A LARGER SYNTHESIS 249 Hanoverian princes : yet there are few that have had deeper significance or have laid the seed of more momentous changes. ^ O But for the time England was sick at heart and full of forebodings of impending ruin. The nation lost its high spirit for a while. The accession of the new line, peaceful and assured by Parliament as it was, was not received with enthusiasm ; and the first two Georges occupied a more precarious position on the throne than can well be realised after the lapse of two hundred years. The strife of parties, the constant struggle between whigs, tories, and Jacobites, the low state of political and public morals, reduced the whole people to temporary inertia. The system of subsidies to petty German states, of hiring their soldiers, of importing regiments of Hanoverians, of Dutch, of Hessians, whenever danger occurred, lessened the self-reliance of the nation. Predictions of the loss of liberty and of commercial bankruptcy were heard on every side. In all the memoirs of the age the same sentiment is ex- pressed. In 1745, Henry Fox wrote, ' England is for the first comer. . . . The French are not come, God be thanked ! But had five thousand landed in any part of this island a week ago, I verily believe the entire conquest would not have cost them a battle/ Horace Walpole thought it ' time for England to slip her cables and float away into some unknown ocean ' ; and his feeling was shared by Chesterfield. ' Whoever is in or whoever is out/ says the latter, ' we are undone both at home and abroad ; at home by our own increasing debt and expenses ; abroad by our ill-luck and incapacity. . . . We are no longer a nation. I never yet saw so dreadful a prospect/ Through these years of depression the ship of state was steered by Robert Walpole. Coarse, materialist, and a scoffer as he was, he kept the peace steadfastly for twenty years, when peace was most needed ; and that is the main, and indeed sufficient, justification of his rule. The one great measure of reform that he introduced was unpopular. He saw 250 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS that its enforcement would lead to bloodshed; and accordingly the Excise Bill was dropped. He would have no part in schemes of colonial taxation. ' I have Old England set against me/ said he, ' and do you think I will have New England likewise ? ' His domestic policy was one of inactivity ; and at that period at least it was the best. The commercial spirit that was growing up in the nation asked only to be left alone. And abroad Walpole gave all his efforts to the maintenance of peace. The alliances that he made were always to guard against war ; he would hear nothing of schemes of aggression and conquest. But the popular temper was slowly rising during the later years of his ministry. The quarter-century of quiet had had its effect. Even in 1734, the peace then reigning was declared at the general election to be ' tame tranquillity/ This was at the time only the factious cry of opposition ; but it gradu- ally became the cry of the nation, which Walpole was power- less to resist. Yet he held to his post despite the clamour against his policy, which grew greater every week : he refused to give way until the last moment ; and when the public joy at the announcement of war with Spain broke out uncontrolled, he exclaimed bitterly, ' They may ring the bells now ; before long they will be wringing their hands/ It was, in fact, the beginning of a general conflagration that in a few months was raging equally in Europe, Asia, and America. CHAPTER II THE GENERAL WAR : 1 740-63 l FOR years before the wat actually broke out in 1739, there had been a feeling of pronounced irritation between 1 Authorities. Stanhope, Lecky, and Carlyle's Frederick the Great. Anson's Voyages for the great expedition round the world. EVOLUTION OF A LARGER SYNTHESIS 251 Spain and England. The position of Britain had grown stronger in the West Indies, and she was more ready to protest against the monopoly of South American trade which Spain still claimed. From their scattered possessions in those islands, the English buccaneers had attacked and raided unceasingly all the Spanish colonies. It is true that they were disavowed at home ; but nothing was done to stop their depredations. From the West Indies too the merchants of England had built up an illicit trade with the towns on the South American coast. Various restrictions had been imposed by the treaties of 1667 and 1670 ; and finally in 1729 the South Sea Company was allowed to send one ship annually to trade with the Spanish colonies. But the rule was constantly evaded. The one ship indeed appeared ; but it was always attended by other vessels at a distance, which supplied it with fresh goods, as its original cargo was unladen. Thus the limitations became of little effect ; British merchandise was sold everywhere in South America, while the Spanish revenues suffered accordingly. Smuggling was extensive all along the coast. Spain complained with reason of the breach of faith : but the Government in London was unable to do anything, if indeed it had the desire. The Spaniards then introduced a system of coast patrols to detect illegitimate trade : but these sometimes exceeded their right, and insisted on search- ing British vessels on the open seas ; occasionally ships were unjustly detained and the men severely treated. Actions of this character gave colour to such complaints as that of Captain Jenkins, which finally set England on fire. Early in the year 1738, Jenkins was examined as a witness at the bar of the House of Commons. He had been master of a trading sloop in Jamaica, and apparently engaged in the illicit trade with South America. His vessel was boarded and searched by a Spanish coastguard. No proofs of smuggling were discovered. Nevertheless the captain was 252 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVEKSEAS outraged. One of his ears was torn off ; and he was bidden, according to his own statement, to take it to King George, and to tell his majesty that were he present, he would be treated in the same fashion. For seven years the gallant Jenkins had nursed his wrong, carrying about the precious ear wrapped in cotton-wool. But once his story was told, all the grievances of the British against Spain were focussed into one irresistible demand for war. With a court as tenacious of its rights as that of Madrid, and a mercantile nation as enterprising as the British, the dispute would in any case have been difficult enough to settle ; but it was complicated by two other grievances which Spain had against us. The boundaries of the new English colony of Georgia were not recognised by her ; and the right of British traders to cut logwood on the Bay of Campeachy was denied. Walpole still endeavoured to maintain peace ; but the Opposition stigmatised his conduct as cowardly. They told harrowing tales, some of which may have been true, of the wrongs of English sailors, plundered, tortured, imprisoned in dungeons, compelled to work in foreign dockyards, confined in irons, their bodies a prey to loathsome vermin, their souls a prey to not less loathsome Jesuits. The people as a whole grew wild for war. When it became known that a convention had been arranged between the two countries, by which Spain agreed to pay 95,000 in full settlement of British claims, and still adhered to the right of search, the indignation was intense, and Walpole bent before it. War was declared by England on 19th October 1739. With the end of the peace he had guarded the influence of Walpole was gone. His enemies were too strong for him. The Spanish His health and cheerfulness deserted him. He war, 1739. clung to office for two years more, but could do little else than be carried on by the wave of popular feeling : and at the end of January 1742, he resigned. EVOLUTION OF A LARGER SYNTHESIS 253 Meanwhile the war had been waged with varying fortunes. The Spaniards were content with defence. They could do little more, for although the political state of the nation had improved under a system which raised foreigners to the chief places in the state, the previous century of decay and the long struggle of the Succession War had left an ineffaceable mark. England, however, had fitted out two expeditions, both of which were directed against South America. One under Admiral Vernon sailed in July 1739 for the West Indies. In November it captured the unimportant fortress of Porto Bello after two days' siege. ' They found more danger and difficulty in demolishing those works than in taking them/ says a contemporary. The squadron then returned to Jamaica, and waited a year for reinforcements. When these arrived, Carthagena was attacked in 1741, but un- successfully : and after this repulse, a fatal tropical sickness which laid the troops low ended all hopes of any further advance. The other expedition under Anson achieved more brilliant results, but no permanent conquest. Indeed, the latter was hardly expected, since the admiral's instructions ^^.g were merely to sail round Cape Horn and plunder voyage, Peru. After delays in England, and fearful ] storms when passing Tierra del Fuego, scurvy broke out : and when the fleet put in at the island of Juan Fernandez the place in which Alexander Selkirk had taken refuge, and Defoe had been wrongly supposed to celebrate as the abode of Robinson Crusoe it was in such a pitiable condition that the whole squadron seemed doomed. But Anson was not the man to turn back. Only three vessels and 335 men were now left ; but with this small force he took many rich merchantmen, seized the town of Paita, and plundered the coast. His great scheme to capture the galleon that sailed annually from Manila to Acapulco failed ; 254 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS but nothing daunted, he struck directly across the Pacific. His ship, the Centurion, was now the only one remaining : scurvy again appeared ; and when they at length arrived in the Ladrones, the total strength of men capable of service was reduced to eleven. They were thousands of miles from home, in an ocean dominated by the enemy, with the nearest British possession but a trading station in India. Yet amid all the difficulties and obstacles that surrounded him, Anson did not falter. The Centurion was repaired ; but a gale carried her away while the commander and crew were on shore. In a Spanish vessel of some fifteen tons, which they had seized on their arrival, they determined to make the best of their way to Macao, a friendly Portuguese settlement six hundred leagues distant on the coast of China. Fortunately they were spared this last trial. The three men who were on board the Centurion when she was blown out to sea managed to steer her back to port, and in their old ship, they reached Macao. The Portuguese and Chinese there were both timid of giving help. A little plain-speaking, however, decided them. Anson declared that he was at once able and ready to destroy the whole navigation of Canton, if assistance were refused ; that his men, long inured to hunger when no food was to be found, could not be expected to starve in a land of plenty ; and that should they be reduced to cannibalism, they would prefer a plump well-fed Chinaman to their emaciated comrades. The argument was immediate and effective, and sufficient supplies were obtained to enable the Centurion to put to sea. Shortly afterwards the Manila galleon with five hundred men and a million and a half of dollars was captured ; the prisoners were landed in Canton, and the long homeward voyage was begun, the prize in tow. The Cape of Good Hope was rounded ; no further misfortunes befell ; and in June 1744, after an absence of three years and nine months from England, Anson cast anchor at Spithead, having circum- EVOLUTION OF A LARGEK SYNTHESIS 255 navigated the globe, attacked the Spaniards east and west, and retrieved the conduct of what was otherwise a disastrous and laxly-waged war. In the interval the contest had developed into a general European struggle. Again the cannon ruled the continent. Frederick of Prussia invaded Silesia ; French armies appeared in Germany. The allied British European and Hanoverian troops took part against them. War - 174 *- ' A ridiculous situation/ wrote Horace Walpole, ' we have the name of war with Spain without the thing, and war with France without the name/ The position was soon to be rectified. In 1744 the French Government concluded an alliance, offensive and defensive, with Spain ; in March they declared war. To counteract this, a new quadruple alliance was formed between England, Holland, Austria and Saxony. Four land campaigns were conducted with no great advantage to either side : at sea England was more successful. But people had become weary of a long strife that led nowhefe. The ministers were incapable. The finances were disorganised. ' Money/ wrote Chesterfield, . ,, * ' , Peace, 1748. was never so scarce in the Uity, nor the stocks so low . . . twelve per cent, is offered for money, and even that will not do/ At length in 1748 the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle concluded peace on the basis of mutual restitution by the powers of all conquests in all parts of the world ; and a few years of precarious tranquillity were thus gained. But the questions at issue were not settled : and in 1756 the Seven Years' War began. England entered into the contest dispirited and fearful of disaster. Yet the next years were years of triumph in all parts of the world, such as her arms had never The first Pitt. before known. One man alone made that triumph possible, and that man was William Pitt. ' I know that I can save the country/ he cried, ' and I know that no one else can/ 256 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVEESEAS His boast was justified. He was full of zeal, and ' he was possessed/ says one who knew him, ' of the happy talent of transfusing his own zeal into the souls of all those who were to have a share in carrying his projects into execution ; and it is a matter well known to many officers now in the House, that no man ever entered the earl's closet who did not feel himself, if possible, braver at his return than when he went in/ To those, indeed, who heard him speak, he seemed a being of another species. He poured out denunciation, invective, sarcasm, plans, schemes for the future, and defence of the past, in one resistless stream. There was, indeed, a great gulf fixed between him and his contemporaries. His haughty spirit disdained the corruption of the day, the traffic in boroughs, the buying and selling of votes, the political bribes. He refused the perquisites of office, which the most noble stooped to secure. ' My hands are clean/ he cried, when at- tacked, ' none of it sticks to them/ If Pitt drew his power from his oratory, he did not use his tongue to flatter the mob. The City of London idolised him, but he rebuked it sternly when it demurred to the demand for fresh troops. When Wilkes came into popular favour, Pitt would give him no countenance. At a later time, when England was seized with madness, and attempted to discipline the colonies, Pitt's voice was the strongest in opposition. If any man could have prevented their secession, it was Pitt ; so said the Americans during the war, so dis- covered the English afterwards when too late. It was Pitt who first saw the necessity of reforming the East India Company. While other factions were disputing, sometimes honestly, more often dishonestly, that great statesman's eagle eye took in the whole horizon. Other politicians have too often considered their aim in life accomplished when they enter office ; Pitt considered his not more than begun. If he was loved at home, he was feared and hated abroad. EVOLUTION OF A LARGER SYNTHESIS 257 It was recognised that he was the man who inspired his country to victory, that his was the magic voice which could carry unprecedented votes for supply through parliament, that his was the eye which could discover genius in an obscure young soldier like Wolfe, and fearlessly raise him to command. ' It is worth two victories to us/ exclaimed a Frenchman who heard of Pitt's dismissal from office. The first results of the war on the water were not, indeed, particularly brilliant. Minorca was lost ; an expedition was sent against Rochefort with no result, and , *; ' Tne Seven another against Cherbourg. The king remarked Years' war, of the latter with the blunt common sense 1756-63 - that was often noticeable in the Georges, in the absence of finer qualities, ' I never had any opinion of it ; we shall brag of having burnt their ships, and they of driving us away/ Our failure indeed in all offensive tactics on the European continent might have been taken by the superstitious as a sign that the old English empire of the Middle Ages had passed away for ever with the loss of Calais anything that seemed like an attempt to renew it was destined to defeat. On the high seas the war was waged with vigour, and its net results indicated accurately enough the relative position of France and England. In 1758 we took or destroyed 16 of their warships, 49 privateers, besides 104 merchant ships, and 176 neutral ships ; while they took from us 3 warships, 7 privateers, and 300 merchant ships. Thus it may be said without boasting that in seamanship we proved ourselves superior ; in captures of peaceful shipping we were bound to suffer most, our merchant vessels being much more numerous than those of France. But in the following year the results of Pitt's policy were fully seen. In January arrived news of the conquest of Goree ; in June of Guadeloupe ; in August of the victory of Minden ; in September of Lagos ; in October the capture of Quebec was known ; in November the defeat of the French invaders off 258 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS Quiberon. The splendour of such continued successes produced their effect at home. Horace Walpole sitting in leisured ease amusing himself with his correspondence, his bric-a-brac, his versifying, wrote in his usual lively manner, ' One is forced to ask every morning what victory there is, for fear of missing one/ Two years later came a repetition on a smaller scale a St. Martin's summer of conquest. Belleisle and Dominica were taken, and Pondicherri fell. It was the last stronghold of the French in India ; and with its capture ended their Asiatic empire. Their American empire had already vanished. But the rule of Pitt was nearly at an end. Spain was now bound to France by a ' family compact/ and had agreed to declare war against Britain in May 1762. When information of this new enemy arrived in London, Pitt was anxious to declare war with Spain at once, to get in the first blow. ' On this principle/ said he, ' I submitted my advice for an immediate declaration of war to a trembling Council/ But the Cabinet would have none of it. Earl Granville, the president, replied obstinately, ' Though he (Pitt) may possibly have convinced himself of his infallibility, still it remains that we should be equally convinced before we can resign our understandings to his direction, or join with him in the measures he proposes/ On 5th October 1761, Pitt resigned ; but he soon had the satisfaction of seeing the policy he had advocated forced upon his successors. The language of Spain grew more menacing : a conflict became inevitable ; and England issued her declara- tion of war on 4th January 1762. That year all the Caribees and Havana fell before Rodney in the west ; in the east the Philippines were taken ; on the high seas millions of dollars of Spanish merchandise and bullion were captured. Thus the victories that Pitt had inspired graced the councils of his unworthy successors : as the indefatigable Horace Walpole wrote. ' The single eloquence of Mr. Pitt, like an EVOLUTION OF A LARGER SYNTHESIS 259 annihilated star, can shine many months after it has set ; I tell you it has conquered Martinique/ But in one respect the new Cabinet was radically different. Bute, the Prime Minister, was determined on peace. He had already abandoned Prussia, the ally of Britain : and he soon opened the negotiations that ended in the signature of the Treaty of Paris on 10th February 1763, the main provisions of which were connected with the great colonial war whose events we have now to narrate. CHAPTER III THE WAK IN AMEKICA : 1740-63 l THE war which broke out in 1740 quickly spread beyond the limits of Europe. It developed into far more than a mere contest between two or three ruling families, European that could be ended at the will of those families. Rivalry It became a struggle between all the colonies and Overseas - dependencies that had been planted by European nations overseas. In India the French were endeavouring to found an Asiatic empire and to expel the Dutch, English, and Portuguese traders. In America they were endeavouring to 1 A whole library of writers may be cited as authorities for this chapter, and many of the events which I have had to compress into a paragraph have furnished material for several volumes. Irving's Life of Washington should be consulted for the Virginia campaign ; Justin Winsor and Bancroft are also useful in this connection. Pitt's Corre- spondence is essential ; it should be read in conjunction with Corbitt's brilliant study of England in the Seven Years' War ; and Fortescue's History of the British Army. Carlyle's Frederick the Great goes to the root of the matter, in spite of occasional small inaccuracies ; Parkman's Montcalm and Wolfe is perhaps the best detailed account of the struggle in Canada. For long the standard work, it has been partly superseded by the official documents, printed in six volumes, on The Siege of Quebec, by A. G. Doughty ; many of these are incorporated in Major Wood's The Fight fen- Canada, an excellent work in small compass. Bradley's Fight with France for North America covers much the same ground, with great literary charm. 260 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS extend their forts and settlements throughout the great west, in a way that would cut off from their English rivals any possibility of advance. And the colonists and settlers on either side, both east and west, were jealous of their neighbours, and forward in planning and revenging acts of enmity. The world-struggle, in fact, had come to a head : the question that now hung in the balance was whether America was to be French or English, whether the first power in Asia was to be France or England. That question could only be decided by the god of battles ; and to the god of battles it was referred. There had been many disagreements before it came to war. Acadia had been taken and retaken ; Quebec had been be- sieged, captured, and restored more than once. New England had often been menaced by the French Canadians; Florida was an equal battleground between Spain, France, and Britain. All the English colonies along the Atlantic coast of North America were hampered by the French expansion at their rear. The English would have been brought to a standstill had the French been able to complete their plan of building a line of forts along the River Ohio. The French forts, on the other hand, would have been useless had the English continued to expand their trade. The weaker rivals of the two nations had, indeed, already been expelled. Both Sweden and Holland had lost their possessions a century back. Despite the possession of Mexico and California, Spain hardly counted as a political force in North America. The contest therefore lay between France and England only ; and the expulsion of the lesser colonising powers had cleared the ground for its decision. The English colonies had the advantage in population, in The English wealth, in independence, in initiative. But they cofonTeT* were not united as were tne French. Their compared, means of attack were beneath contempt. The French, on the other hand, had good troops, ably com- EVOLUTION OF A LARGER SYNTHESIS 261 manded. There were no contradictory authorities among their colonies ; New France was one state. But within they had to contend with dishonesty and disaffection ; if the enormous extent of their territory was imposing, it was French only in name, and the original colonies had been weakened by the projects of expansion in the west and south. And while the relative strength of France and England in Europe was apparently equal, the latter had an advantage in sea-power that told tremendously in the struggle for America ; and the French, as was afterwards proved, were only able to wage war inefficiently and weakly in the new world. But for years before the actual struggle the danger of French expansion in the interior of America had hung like a storm- cloud over the English settlements on the coast. The extra- ordinary ability of a few pioneers made the progress of France in the unknown lands of the west seem terribly real to the people of Massachusetts and Virginia. At no time, indeed, were the inhabitants of New France numerous, or their pro- jects more than the shadows of dreams ; at no time was their hold of the vast territories they had penetrated secure. But there was genius in their policy of expansion : and if they failed in the end, they failed only because genius cannot succeed when it is neglected and despised by those who should support it. Their empire was magnificent in its proportions, in some of its leaders, in many of its ideals ; but it had no foundation, and it fell eventually before the English colonies, which were divided among themselves, which before Washington pro- duced no man of conspicuous ability, whose main thought was to live peaceably and comfortably, and whose people would have left the forests and rivers of the great west un- explored for many years more had not the French forced them either to conquer or be conquered. The earliest impulse towards French colonisation in the far west had been religious as well as commercial or political. 262 A spirit of missionary enthusiasm, such as had inspired the monks of mediaeval Europe, forced the French emissaries The French ^ ^ ne Catholic faith to penetrate the American Empire in wilderness in the seventeenth century. To Champ- ca " lain, the first great governor of Canada, ' the salva- tion of a soul was worth more than the conquest of an empire/ Others saw visions of the glory of martyrdom, and not infrequently the missionaries suffered death at the hands of those redskins to whom they had offered the gift of eternal life. ' What shall I render to Thee, Jesus, my Lord, for all Thy benefits ? ' cried one of them : ' I will accept Thy cup, and invoke Thy name/ was the answer he gave to his own question ; and the cup of mortal sacrifice was drunk by many. They never flinched from a fate that was always possible : Lallemand, one of their number, was stripped naked, smeared with rosin, and burnt ; but before he expired he exclaimed to the companion who was about to be scalped, in words that recall Latimer's last encouragement to Ridley at the f stake, ' We are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men/ One, a Jesuit, was murdered for baptiz- ing a native infant ; another, who trusted only ' in the providence which feeds the little birds of the desert, and clothes the wild flowers of the forests/ wrote to a friend that ' in three or four months you may add me to the memento of deaths ' : and in truth he never returned. The work at times seemed hopeless, for the natives would not be taught. ' Our life/ it was said, ' is passed in roaming through thick woods, in clambering over hills, in paddling the canoe across lakes and rivers, to catch a poor savage who flies from us, and whom we can tame neither by teachings nor by caresses/ But courage never deserted the devoted men ; and, armed only with crucifix and breviary, the French missionaries continued to plunge into the wilderness, not knowing what or whom they might meet. The way was hard, EVOLUTION OF A LAEGEE SYNTHESIS 263 but they loved it. ' In these vast, uninhabited forest regions, where in twelve days not a soul was met, a journey where there was no village, no bridge, no ferry, no boat, no house, no beaten path, and over boundless prairies, intersected by rivulets and rivers, through forests and thickets filled with briers and thorns, through marshes, where we plunged some- times to the girdle/ in such scenes, hitherto unknown to the white man, the French missionaries passed their lives, and unwittingly opened the road to European settlement. But the first generation which thought only of the Church was followed by a second which thought of the state as well. The first missionaries had taught the redskins nothing but the gospel. Their successors taught it with a political bias : it was complained by the British colonists that the French ' persuaded these people (the natives) that the Virgin Mary was born in Paris, and that our Saviour was crucified at London by the English/ The inevitable result followed. Religion gave way before politics : and at the same time that the sons of the French farmers of Quebec were leaving their homes for the more profitable trade in furs bought from the redskins of the forest, the missionaries were becoming the ambassadors of an earthly as well as a heavenly king. In neither instance did they have much real success. 1 By such means were laid the foundations of the colonies of Illinois, Ohio, and Wisconsin, as from one lonely its outward outpost after another were flown the lilies of Magnifi- cence, but France. The condition of those first inland Real weak- stations was as primitive as that of the earlier ness - English settlements on the coast. Even the commandant's 1 The same political bias in missionary teaching was discovered by Richard Spence the botanist in South America, as related in his post- humous notes. ' I have been gravely told by a Jibaro Indian in the Andes,' he states, ' that France and England were two towns, standing on opposite banks of a river, the people on the left bank being Christians, and those on the right heathens a piece of ethnology derived from the teaching of Catholic missionaries.' I am not sure that our own mission- aries have always correctly distinguished the kingdom of heaven from the British Empire. 264 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS house at Illinois, says Charlevoix, was but a sorry one, and was only called a fort from its being surrounded with an indifferent palisade ; and all the rest were in much the same condition. From Illinois, however, great hopes were at first entertained of silver, copper, and lead mines ; and when these failed, there was still agriculture. But the missionary glory altogether departed from New France when it was given over to a commercial corporation : and the chartered companies licensed by the Bourbons were far less competent, and they pursued a far less statesmanlike policy, than their British competitors. The dreary records of Louisiana under a trading corpora- tion will be sufficient illustration of the decadence of French The Failure colonisation. The vast territory at the mouth of in Louisiana. ^ e Mississippi was given over to a Company, in whose thoughts religion played but small part ; tobacco, rice, and indigo seemed more profitable and more certain products to eighteenth century Paris than the conversion of the abori- gines. But under incompetent management, they were not : and the history of Louisiana proves the weakness of a colonial policy into which free settlement and free development hardly entered. None but criminals were sent over by the Company ; they were all ' the scum of Europe, which France had, as it were, vomited forth into the new world/ The whole population consisted of convicts, vagrants, and women of low character ; the very troops were made up of deserters from the royal army. The administration of the Company was bad to a degree which has rarely been paralleled. ' The unfortunates who were sent to Louisiana/ it was reported, ' had to brave not only the insalubrity of the climate and the cruelty of the savages, but in addition they were kept in a condition of oppressive slavery. They could only buy of the Company at the Company's price. They could only sell to the Company for such sum as it chose to pay ; and they could only leave the colony by permission of the Company/ When the condition of the settlement at EVOLUTION OF A LAEGEK SYNTHESIS 265 last became too scandalous the French Government resumed control in 1733 : but it is not recorded that there was much improvement. On the contrary, it was stated that in Louisiana ' a child of six knew more of raking and swearing than a young man of twenty-five in France/ There was no moral tone in the community at all, nor could there be in a society composed of such refuse : and since appeals were still sent to France for food, it is evident that, even in a physical sense, the colony had no foundation. But the English did not know the fundamental weakness of New France ; they perceived only the imposing nature of the superstructure. They saw the forts which New France were being built at their rear ; they could not see y g the the factions within. They feared the success of Bourbons, a French alliance with the natives ; they did not know that the French colonists suffered at least as severely from native depredations as the English. And in spite of the activity of the missionaries only an infinitesimal number of the redskins had been converted to Christianity ; in spite of the activity of the French diplomats, few tribes had been won over to the imperial Bourbon dream. And the Bourbons themselves did little for their dominions in America. They sent advice, but not assistance. The enormous sums that Louis xv. squandered on his courtesans might have gone to strengthen the forts on the Arkansas and the Mississippi ; the men whom he sent to die in fruitless European wars might have been used to consolidate the French empire in the West : but they were not. The French pioneers in Canada received little help from home : even during the last desperate crisis, when Montcalm was appealing for aid in the defence of Quebec lest New France should be totally con- quered, he received only the promise of a few hundred men and a supply of munitions for the campaign. It was indeed ' the little which was precious to those who had nothing/ as he remarked ; but it was not enough. 266 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS Yet in spite of their real weakness, which was only hidden from others, the French continued to expand. Throughout The struggle * ne wno ^ e ^ ^ ne ^ Ta ^ na ^ ^ the eighteenth century, for Ohio, the British colonies had to fear the descent of native tribes, who had been instigated by their rivals to harry the peaceful fields and townships of Massa- chusetts and Pennsylvania : and that cruel method of war- fare, in which mercy was unknown and quarter was never given, was equally resorted to on both sides. With the means of enlarging their possessions cut off in the rear, with their very homes threatened, the English grew nervous of their safety ; while with the knowledge that the English colonies were increasing in population and wealth every year, the French became more and more determined to cut them off from the vast countries of the interior. The inevitable collision occurred at last in Ohio. The earlier operations of the war which broke out in 1740 had been confined to the old battle-ground of Nova Scotia and the neighbouring lands : but when the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was concluded in 1748 no peace was recognised between the French and English in America. An English Company was formed in the year 1750 to develop the territories border- ing on the Ohio River ; but the French claimed that district for their own. They insisted ; and the British Government was urged by the English colonists to seize the land in dispute by force. But in the weak condition of the British administra- tion at the time, the accounts of French encroachment were treated as fables ; it was suspected that they were simply stories circulated to force the Government to aid the none too prosperous Ohio Company. For the present, therefore, the Cabinet took no steps ; England was not at war with France in Europe, and it appeared foolish to pursue a course which might lead to war in America. But the British colonies were less . backward. Raiding parties, composed of the adventurous sons of the great planters EVOLUTION OF A LARGER SYNTHESIS 267 of Virginia, penetrated the forests at their rear, nominally on hunting expeditions, and warned the French against establishing themselves in the British territory of The E^^ the Ohio. The French answered by the construe- Repulsed, tion of Fort Duquesne in 1754. Its existence at 1764 * once became a direct menace to the British, for it cut them off from the far side of the Alleghany Mountains ; it was one more link in the great chain of defence which would soon stretch from Quebec to New Orleans. Six years previously, the French commander at Detroit had received the order ' to oppose peremptorily every English establishment not only at Detroit, but on the Ohio or its tributaries, by warning first, and then by force, if warning do not serve/ With both sides claiming the same territory, and neither willing to give up its claim at the bluster of opponents, deeds soon took the place of words. In the preliminary skirmish of the war which at once ensued on the building of Fort Duquesne, we first hear the name of George Washington, at that time a land-surveyor twenty-two years old, and the leader of a small band of colonial levies. His party were the aggressors ; shots were exchanged, and Washington fell back. The Virginians threw up entrench- ments, which were named Fort Necessity ; but they were no match for the French, and they were forced to retreat on 1st July 1754. They were in the utmost peril ; it was with difficulty that the French could restrain their native allies from butchering the whole party. Even as it was, the horses and cattle of the English were destroyed, and the wounded men had to be carried through the tangled undergrowth of the forest on the backs of the survivors ; and when the dismal return march was at last accomplished, there was not a single British flag left in the great valley of the Ohio to mark our claim to that region. Nor did the prospect seem likely to improve. The British colonies became suddenly curiously apathetic. New England, 268 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS which had always been foremost in opposing the French, made no sign of moving. The Quakers of Pennsylvania were Their Dis- by their creed bound to disapprove of war : and amUMs"" "* ^ ne s ^ong foreign element in that state could not agreements, be expected to feel any great impulse of enmity towards the French ; for the Swedes, the Dutch, and the Germans who formed a large part of the population of Pennsylvania were already living under a foreign power. Maryland, as usual, was indifferent to anything occurring beyond her own frontiers ; while in Virginia, which from her geographical contiguity naturally had a greater interest in the future destiny of Ohio, the failure of Washington caused discouragement, and its people seemed to find more pleasure in disputing points of constitutional procedure with the Governor than in organising the defence of the colony. The very fact that he was alive to the danger of French encroach- ment and urged them to take the necessary steps to prevent it, seemed to make them the more determined not to vote supplies. For once, however, Dinwiddie, the unpopular Governor, understood the situation better than the colonists ; and, seeing that nothing would be done in Virginia itself, he appealed to England for aid. His request was answered by the despatch of two regiments under the command of General Braddock. The scandalous Braddock's g oss ip of London hinted that the latter would Expedition, never have been appointed to the post at all, had it not been for his importunity in begging to be placed on active service, in order that he might pay his gambling debts ; and in truth his reputation, even as a man about town, was not spotless. Satirised in one of Field- ing's comedies as Captain Bilkum, he was perhaps more celebrated for his intrigues with actresses than for any emin- ence in his profession ; and though his bravery was beyond dispute, an obstinate prejudice of assumed superiority, too common at that day in England, and for long after, prevented EVOLUTION OF A LARGEK SYNTHESIS 269 him from accepting the advice of the colonists as to the best plan of operations against the French, while he sneered at their militia in a way that was not politic, even had its inferiority to the regulars justified him, which it did not altogether. Even now it was only with the greatest difficulty that a start was made. The colonists still refused to co-operate, and Virginia had some reason to fear an insur- FurtherDe . rection of the slaves. Petty jealousies were still feat of the rife. Many of the regular troops were of bad Engli811 - character, while the colonists were not yet ready to take the field. At length it was arranged that the French should be attacked at four separate points of their dominions ; and Braddock started at the head of twelve hundred men in the chief expedition, which was to be directed against Fort Duquesne. Utterly ignorant of redskin methods of forest warfare, the British troops reached Monongahela on 9th July 1755, where an ambuscade had been prepared for them by the French and natives. Unaware of this, Braddock was taken entirely by surprise, and attacked by the redskins, who remained hidden ; by this means were the flanks of his army thrown into disorder, and as soon as the main body of men came up, they too were nonplussed by the impossibility of fighting an invisible foe. The pitched battles of European campaigns had prepared them for no such situation ; and after two hours' stubborn but hopeless resistance, they turned back in panic- stricken retreat. Braddock bravely tried to persuade his men to form again into line ; but in the long grass and dense thickets of the forest, harassed by a foe whom they could feel and hear but not see, it was not feasible to bring them again into fighting order. Several horses were shot under Braddock, and at last he was badly wounded. Carried away with the retreating army, he lingered a few days, and then died, saying with his 270 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS last breath, 'We shall know better how to deal with them next time/ His body was buried before dawn, in the track over which the army was to pass, in order that the trampling of the soldiers' feet might obliterate the grave, and thus save the corpse from desecration by the natives. The other expeditions against New France likewise failed, and the general depression which had overhung Britain and her colonies of late was intensified. The outbreak of the Seven Years' War in 1756 for England and France had been nominally at peace while Canada and the British American states were attacking each other found Britain still un- prepared. The whole nation feared disaster ; even Pitt wrote that he dreaded to hear from America. That year and the next passed without decisive events ; Montcalm, the new French general in Canada, was extremely The Position cau ti us > and in any case a defensive policy was of the French all that he could pursue. For, in spite of the n ana a. b r jHj anC y of the French successes on the Ohio, and the menacing attitude which they had assumed in America, there was little real ground for optimism in their position. The discontent of the Canadians with their govern- ment had not diminished with the passage of years. The farmers were defrauded by the corrupt official company with which they were forced to deal, and which they nick- named in hate and derision ' la friponne/ The bureaucracy was of the same unworthy type that then prevailed in the : mother country. Vaudreuil, the Governor of the colony, distrusted Montcalm, and Montcalm in his turn distrusted the Governor. There was little money in the treasury, and little help to be had from France ; few preparations could be made for the coming struggle. Yet the Canadian winter season of 1757-8 passed in the usual round of thoughtless gaiety ; never had the provincial society of Montreal and Quebec been more brilliant, or more given over to festivity, than during these last two years of the EVOLUTION OF A LARGER SYNTHESIS 271 French dominion. If New France was weak, there was no sign that any attacks more formidable than those of the inexperienced Washington and the inept Braddock would have to be met ; and such attacks Montcalm could justly despise. But Pitt was now supreme in the British Cabinet, and his influence radiated fresh hope among his countrymen throughout the world. He had thought out a new pitt , B plan plan of campaign against the French in America : of cam- and the three expeditions which were to attack paign> 1758> their western empire began operations in 1758. One under Abercrombie indeed failed ; but Louisbourg, the great French fortress on Cape Breton Island, fell before Amherst, while a cautious Scottish soldier, John Forbes, marched against Fort Duquesne. He led his men slowly by a new route over the Alleghanies, dallying on the way in order to tire out the natives who hung upon the line of march. The latter object he achieved ; the savage allies of the French departed ; and such tribes as he met were conciliated by a treaty of peace, and the promise of friendship with ' their cousins the Highlanders/ Taken ill on the march by a ' cursed flux,' Forbes directed operations from a litter : but when he arrived at Fort Duquesne, it was already abandoned by the French. For Montcalm had found it necessary to recall all the garrisons which had held the chain of outposts that shut in the English colonies, in order that Canada itself might be defended : he had seen the change that Pitt had made in the conduct of the war, and taken his measures accordingly. Forbes altered the name of Fort Duquesne to Fort Pitt, whence it has become the Pittsburg of to-day ; and returning to Phila- delphia, he died a few months later of the disease which had attacked him on the march. The next year, 1759, the way was free for the completion of Pitt's daring plan, the general advance on Canada. Am- 272 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS herst, a man as cautious and staunch as Forbes, was made The cam- Commander-in-Chief. It was arranged that he paign of should march on Ticonderoga and Crown Point, capture those places, and thus reach the St. Lawrence. Other commanders were to take Fort Niagara, and having done so, were to pass down Lake Ontario, securing Montreal by the way, and then to press on to the combined attack which the whole army was to make on Quebec, being there joined by the naval expedition which was to be sent up the river from Louisbourg under General Wolfe. The combination failed, owing to the difficulties of working together in so vast a country ; but each individual leader succeeded in the work that had been allotted him. The fall of Fort Niagara divided the middle of Canada from the west ; and Amherst still advanced slowly from the south. But the hand that struck the fatal blow against the power of France in North America was not his. John Forbes and Amherst had undermined New France. Yet the impregnable fortress of Quebec still remained untaken ; and while the Bour- bon flag continued to fly from its ramparts, the Bourbon empire in the West remained a living thing ; injured indeed and weakened, but with terrible powers of resistance, and possibly of recuperation, still lurking within it. The man who had been selected by Pitt to attempt the capture of Quebec was an industrious and painstaking young General officer of thirty-two years, whose reputation had Wolfe. hitherto hardly extended beyond the immediate circle of the army. James Wolfe 1 had been born in the sleepy Kentish village of Westerham in 1727. Weak and delicate when a child, his health forced him to give up an early plan of going to the West Indies ; and while he was able eventually 1 The biography of Wolfe has been written by Wright, Bradley, Beckles Willson, and Salmon. The first is now superseded by the dis- covery of fresh material ; the second I have not examined closely. The third is very full, and contains much hitherto unpublished material ; the fourth is a useful monograph in short compass. EVOLUTION OF A LARGER SYNTHESIS 273 to enter the army, his entire life was a struggle with disease. ' My strength,' he wrote as a youth, ' is not so great as I imagined ' : his whole correspondence, indeed, is full of references to his suffering. But, although physical infirmity imposed a severe handicap, and reserve draped him with a cloak of modesty, he was ambitious withal. Singularly lacking as he was in the power of self-expression, on the rare occasions when Wolfe's ambition got the better of his reserve, it was exaggerated until it ap- peared incongruous gasconade ; at times his modesty seemed affectation. Horace Walpole, who had seen him in a boasting mood, sneered that ' the world could not expect more from him than he thought himself capable of performing ' : but the true Wolfe was seen in a letter to his mother, in which he complained that it was ' a very great misfortune to this country that I, your son, who have, I know, but a very moderate capacity, and some degree of diligence, a little above the ordinary run, should be thought, as I generally am, one of the best officers of my rank in the service/ He owned himself ' a whimsical sort of person ... at times arrogant and vain ' ; military routine was irksome to him ; ' the care of a regiment/ he wrote, ' is very heavy, exceeding trouble- some, and not at all the thing I delight in ' : yet he came through the European campaigns of the earlier war with credit, and his name was soon known as that of a useful soldier. He was full of enthusiasm, and the mistakes of the campaign against France in 1757 sickened him. ' We blundered most egregiously/ he said, ' on all sides, sea and land ; .no zeal, no ardour, no care and concern for the good and honour of the country/ With the advent of Pitt to power, however, England recovered her nerve ; and Wolfe now found his opportunity. He accepted a commission to join in the attack of 1758 against Louisbourg, though disease was ever clutching him tighter ; ' I know the very passage threatens my life, and that my constitution must be utterly ruined and undone/ s 274 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS were his words : but when that fortress was brilliantly captured, a result in no small part due to his ability, he still recommended ' an offensive daring kind of war,' and promised Amherst that ' if you will attempt to cut up New France by the roots, I will come back with pleasure to assist/ He returned to England for the last time at the close of the American campaign of 1758, ' in a very bad condition both with the gravel and the rheumatism.' Wolfe was dying, and he knew it ; but when Pitt offered him command of the forces in the next year's operations against Quebec, he resolved to accept the appointment. At his last interview with the heads of the British Government, excite- ment overcame him ; the strange fit of boasting again ap- peared, as he drew his sword and bragged of his ability to conquer the French. Pitt was distressed, and perhaps for a moment doubtful of the wisdom of his choice : but he knew his man, and Wolfe sailed for America. To those without the prescience of Pitt, it seemed a hazard- ous thing to place the conduct of the most important and most difficult campaign of the war in the hands of a young officer whose days were numbered. But older men had al- ready failed ; and there were no others. The obstacles con- fronting Wolfe were indeed formidable. The navigation of the St. Lawrence was extremely difficult. Quebec was a natural stronghold, and it had been well fortified. The caution of Montcalm, if it unfitted him to be a general of the first rank, was not- out of place when only defence was required. And in spite of the negligence of the French Government, there were 14,000 French soldiers besides redskins in a fortified camp below the city ; while between one and two thousand men were available for the internal defence of Quebec. There were 106 cannon on the city walls ; gunboats and fireships patrolled the river ; and a boom had been stretched across the stream. Only confidence was lacking: : and this Wolfe could not know. EVOLUTION OF A LARGER SYNTHESIS 275 On 6th June 1759, Wolfe sailed from Louisbourg. On 21st June, the masts of the English vessels were first seen from Quebec. Fireships were sent against them, T^ capture but without result ; and the British army of 9000 of Quebec, men was landed safely on the Isle d'Orleans near the city. A constant cannonade was kept up against them from the walls of Quebec without success. Fireships were again sent to burn Wolfe's boats, but the sailors grappled with them and towed them ashore. The British soldiers now occupied Point Levi opposite the city, and poured shot and shell into it ; the non-combatants were forced to leave. So far all had gone well : the real struggle was yet to come. But Wolfe was now sick unto death. ' I know perfectly well you cannot cure my complaint/ he had said to his physician, ' but pray make me up so that I may be without pain for a few days, and able to do my duty ; that is all I want/ His disease seemed about to wreck the expedition : he complained that he was ' hindered from executing his own plan ; it was of too desperate a nature to order others to execute/ A slight improvement took place, but he was oppressed by fears ; ' I am so far recovered as to do business, but my constitution is entirely ruined, without the consolation of having done any considerable service to the state, or without any prospect of it.' One at least of his officers thought his generalship as bad as his health. For weeks the capture of the fortress appeared impossible. One manosuvre after another was tried to draw Montcalm's army from the place where it was entrenched, only to fail. On 9th September, Wolfe wrote a despatch which seemed to despair of victory. A day or two afterwards, the bold idea occurred to him to surprise the Heights of Abraham on the Quebec side of the river, since siege was impossible, and winter was nigh. It was a desperate attempt. If the device succeeded, the city must fall ; if it failed, Wolfe must return to England defeated : 276 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS and there would be no further opportunity for the dying general. But desperate as was the attempt, Wolfe determined to hazard it, and to stake the existence of his army and of New France on a single blow. Feints were made to distract the attention of Montcalm, and boats were collected for the main design. There were not enough, and the army was compelled to cross the St. Lawrence in two divisions. Very early on the morning of the 13th September the attack was begun, Wolfe's last order to the army running that ' the officers and men will remember what their country expects from them, and what a determined body of soldiers are capable of doing against five weak battalions, mingled with a disorderly peasantry. The soldiers must be attentive to their officers, and resolute in the execution of their duty.' The boats dropped down the river ; and not a voice broke the dark silence that comes before the dawn save that of Wolfe. Quietly reciting Gray's Elegy to his companions, he remarked at the close, ' I would rather be the author of that poem than take Quebec/ 1 But land was now reached and Wolfe leaped ashore and began to climb the narrow path leading to the Heights. It was so narrow that no two men could go abreast, and they were forced to pull themselves up by clutching hold of bushes and crags. Toiling terribly, they dragged one piece of artillery with them ; and when morning appeared the army stood in battle array before Quebec. The surprise was complete, but Montcalm hastened to give battle. A steady fire met his raw levies, and at the first advance of the British troops his men gave way. A charge headed by Wolfe broke the French line, and they 1 The conflicting evidence as to the truth of this episode is discussed at length in Major Wood's Fight for Canada. He inclines to believe that the anecdote is authentic, although not necessarily in the form in which it is usually related ; and I am disposed to think that the positive testi- mony in its favour is sufficient to outweigh the objections. EVOLUTION OF A LARGER SYNTHESIS 277 fled. But a ball had pierced the British general's breast., at the very moment of victory, and the wound was mortal. ' Don't grieve for me/ he said to some grenadiers as he fell ; ' I shall be happy in a few minutes. Take care of yourself, as I see you are wounded.' An officer in whose arms he was supported exclaimed, ' They run ! I protest they run ! ' ' Who run ? ' asked Wolfe, rallying feebly. ' The French/ came the answer. At this, related the officer afterwards, he ' raised himself up and smiled in my face.' ' Now/ said he, ' I die contented ' ; and from that moment the smile never left his face till he died. Montcalm likewise had fallen wounded, as the ranks of his army broke into disorder ; and he was borne into the neighbouring Convent of the Ursulines to die. Fail of the The actual battle had lasted twelve minutes. French Five days later Quebec capitulated ; and with its America, 11 loss ended the French empire in America. Mon- 176 - treal indeed belonged to France a few months longer ; but, isolated by the fall of the greater fortress lower down the St. Lawrence, its resistance was hopeless. Many of the French settlements in the backwoods of Ohio and the neighbouring territories had already been captured or aban- doned ; none survived the loss of the parent city of Quebec. Louisiana alone remained, and it alone was not attacked ; the miserable plight of that colony and its inhabitants offered no attractions to the British. Some years more it continued useless and forlorn under France and Spain, neglected by the Bourbons, forgotten in the turmoil of the Revolution, and despised by all. It was finally made the subject of a diplo- matic bargain between Napoleon and the United States. Its existence as a French colony was an anomaly after the capture of Quebec by the British : for, with the exception of the swamps at the mouth of the Mississippi where lay New Orleans, and the torpid possessions of the Spaniards in California and Mexico, the rest of America belonged to England. 278 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS The long struggle of the European nations for the west ended on 13th September 1759, at that spot overlooking the St. Lawrence where stands to-day the monument inscribed, ' Here died Wolfe victorious/ CHAPTER IV ENGLAND AS A WOKLD-POWER : 1763 1 THE Peace of Paris was signed on 10th February 1763, and the Seven Years' War came to an end. In the final The Terms treaty both England and France agreed to refrain of Peace. from taking any further part in the German contest. Minorca was exchanged for Belleisle. The naval works at Dunkirk, which threatened England, were to be demolished. In America, France ceded Canada, Nova Scotia, and Cape Breton, with the stipulation that the Roman Catholics of Canada should be free to exercise their religion, and permission given for such as chose to leave the country and transport their goods within the next eighteen months. The boundaries of Louisiana, which still belonged to France, were defined. The French retained the right of fishing on the coast of Newfoundland and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, together with possession of the small islands of St. Pierre and Authorities. I have drawn much on the memoirs and light literature of the eighteenth century. Lecky and Stanhope are useful for the detailed history of the times ; Green as usual sketches the period with the hand of a master ; its deeper thought is well treated by Sir Leslie Stephen. A complete and excellent account of English industry at this period was published by Sir Henry T. Wood in the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts in April-May 1910. For Scotland, Buckle's examination of Scotch intellect is indispensable as a collection of facts : it is a pity that he unites the advocacy of a special pleader with the professed in- fallibility of the judge, thus making his History of Civilisation distaste- ful to many readers. For Ireland, Lecky and Froude : the latter is unfortunately never absolutely trustworthy in his statements, and must be read with caution. It is probably partiality for a favourite novelist that makes me prefer Barry Lyndon to either. EVOLUTION OF A LARGER SYNTHESIS 279 Miquelon, as a shelter for their fishermen, on condition of never raising any batteries, or maintaining more than fifty soldiers as a guard. The islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique, and St. Lucia were restored ; but Tobago, Dominica, St. Vincent and Grenada remained to England. In Africa the French relinquished Senegal, but recovered Goree. In India they recovered their factories and settlements in Bengal, on condition of keeping no troops and raising no fortifications there. It was further agreed that any conquests in any part of the globe not yet known should be restored without com- pensation. In the event the Philippines were returned to Spain, while Florida was given to England in exchange for Havana : in recompense for which loss to Spain France was to cede Louisiana to the latter. All the Spanish claims on England were rejected. 1 The ambition of France was thus checked and practically the whole of her colonial empire lost. Further, the enormous efforts the nation had put forth, the enormous losses that had been sustained in the upkeep of a powerful army and navy, a court that was wilfully and recklessly extravagant, and an aristocracy whose members outvied each other in expensive display, had exhausted the people and reduced them to pitiable misery. The train was already laid to the powder magazine whose explosion is called the French Revolu- 1 Many opinions have been expressed as to the relative advantages of the Peace of Paris ; and at least one critic has taken me to task for not joining in the chorus of contemporary English condemnation of Lord Bute for his agreement to these terms when better terms might have been obtained. But apart from my own foolish leaning to mercy in judgment, it must be remembered that the French were as dissatisfied as the British, and, like the British, believed that they had been betrayed by their diplomatists ; a French pamphlet of the day re- marks, for instance, that ' When we consider the vile concessions made of our territories, rights, and possessions, what shall we most wonder at the ambition and arrogance of the British Ministry, or the pusillanimity, or perhaps open treachery, of our own?' When both sides are thus angry, it is probable that rough justice is done ; and except for the provisions relating to the Newfoundland fisheries, the British had little reason to complain. 280 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS tion. On the other hand, Prussia emerged from the conflict a great and powerful state, terribly scarred, it is true, and still poorer than France in the aggregate ; but yet the beginnings of German union were seen, which, after another baptism of fire from Napoleon a half-century later, resulted in the formation of a kingdom strong enough to control the other states of central Europe, and, after a further struggle, to unite them into the German Empire of to-day. But these were, in fact, the smaller results of the Seven Years' War. The chief gainer in the contest was Britain. Her arms had been everywhere victorious, and her empire now towered above all others. The Spaniards, the French, and the Dutch had disputed the possession of the known world with Britain and each other. Spain had not only lost her monopoly abroad, but had sunk at home to a dull internal lethargy. France still possessed a few factories in India, a few islands in different places, and some shadowy fishing rights off the American coast. Holland was still a great power, but had fallen from her former magni- tude. Britain alone controlled the sea. To her belonged North America. The future of India lay in her hands ; and through India, of other parts of Asia. Her flag was soon to penetrate into the unknown wastes of the Pacific, and to be supreme in every ocean. Her influence, indeed, was not small in the councils of Europe ; but that was now a secondary considera- tion. With the rest of the world open for the expansion of England, Europe could be left to work out its own salvation, unassisted or unhindered by the British. It is with some curiosity that we turn from the magnificent The England prospect opening out before England, to a view of 1763. O f England itself of that day. The question at once arises, if other nations failed, was England worthy to succeed ? It is always difficult to reconstruct a picture of the past, EVOLUTION OF A LARGER SYNTHESIS 281 without insisting too much on certain points in the develop- ment of a people, which have been especially studied, or which from their prominence force themselves on the historian. And in the eighteenth century this difficulty is more than usually apparent. We are apt to form our conclusions from the great events which lie in the surface, while forgetting the general social progress of which the former are merely par- ticular manifestations. Thus, the corruption of parliament, the venality of voters, the buying and selling of seats, the pocket boroughs with few electors, the large towns with no representation at all, were undoubtedly great evils throughout the whole Hanoverian period, and they are immediately noticeable on the most cursory survey of the times. But they were little in evidence before the Revolution of 1688, and the first Reform Bill of 1832 swept the majority of them away. The two contending parties of the seventeenth century, the puritans and the royalists, were each fairly represented at Westminster at different times. The Long Parliament and the fellow-members of Praise-God Barebones were typical of the former ; the first Restoration parliament, with its frenzied loyalty, did the will of the latter. The franchise, it is true, was restricted: but this seems to have produced few practical inconveniences ; the population of the country was small, and in such unsettled times it grew but slowly. The lower classes were uneducated, and counted for little until puritan- ism, with its religious fervour, seized them, and its system of religious equality elevated their position. But, at any rate, they stood infinitely higher than the villeins of the Middle Ages ; they were not tied to the soil and bound to labour for one master ; they were free men, at liberty to come and go : their cottages were often substantial, and they were not without some of the creature comforts of the age. The fact that they had no vote was probably the smallest of their grievances. The terrible drag of pauperism which reduced nearly a quarter of the population to occasional dependence 282 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS on the poor rates was a far more dangerous feature of the time. The eighteenth century brought a momentous change. The political turmoil of the preceding generations died away. The struggle between king and parliament ended in the complete victory of the latter ; and the incompetence of the first two sovereigns of the Hanoverian line only empha- sised its success. The struggle between the people and the parliament for the possession of their own house had not yet begun. The sittings of the House of Commons were still secret, when all danger of royal interference had passed away. It was forbidden to publish their debates for some years after the Peace of Paris had been concluded. The members' jealousy of their privileges, the want of an influential press, and the lack of means of cnmTnnnip.ati.QTi, were effectual barriers against the co-operation of the country in their proceedings. It was not only to the king that their debates were unknown ; the same precautions kept the people also ignorant. The members had executed the wishes of their constituents well enough in the old days when the Crown had been more powerful than themselves ; but now that the House of Commons rose to the first place in the state it was emanci- pated from the control of both the monarchy and the electors. The members became to a great extent a body of placemen who bought their seats, or were installed into them by a politician who required their votes for his party. The average price for a small borough was 4000 : but Oxford, conscious perhaps of the worth of its historical traditions, would not sell itself for less than 7500, on at least one occa- sion. In the general election of 1761, Sudbury advertised publicly for a buyer. In Pitt's great administration, he refused to touch the work of bribery ; but Newcastle, his nominal chief, pulled the strings that secured him a majority. Thus the corruption of parliament, and the consequent abortion of the representative idea which lies at the root EVOLUTION OF A LARGER SYNTHESIS 283 of the English constitution, is one of the superficial facts of the eighteenth century. It produced an apparent torpor in the whole nation, and it was a material factor in bringing about the Imperial Civil War of 1776. For at least two generations, there was no healthy political public opinion, and no adequate means of expressing it. At one time, indeed, there seemed a danger that parliament would degenerate into an oligarchy, and that the liberties which had been so hardly won would be lost in a general atrophy. Nevertheless, the people saved themselves from such an unworthy fate. The agitation which began with the time of John Wilkes, and ended a century later with the passage of the Reform Bills, showed that the torpor was only temporary. It had been induced by the enormous exertions of the struggle with the Stuarts, and the settlement achieved in 1688 secured a peace which the conservative instincts of the nation hesitated to disturb, until the need for action again became too pressing to be postponed. But great as were the evils produced by the degeneration of parliament, the degeneration itself was caused by, and it was but a symptom of that change coming over The Begin- the country at large, which gradually altered the jUu S jj^| e ' merrie England ' of Shakespeare and the ' godly Age. England ' of Milton into the busy manufacturing England of the Victorian age. That was the fact which lay at the bottom of the difficulties of the eighteenth century, and the solution of the new industrial problems which faced England at that time brought about likewise the solution of the problem of government, that bulks so large on a cursory view of the period. The political instincts of the people were then, as always, sound ; but in 1763 no breath of reform yet stirred the heavy air. The most obvious result of the Revolution of 1688 was the long constitutional peace which it secured. That Revolution marked the end of eighty years of misgovernment and civil 284 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVEKSEAS war. From the accession of William and Mary to our own time there have been rumours and scares of invasions from abroad ; the Old Pretender tried to regain the throne in 1715 and his successor in 1745. But both projects ended in a fiasco : and with these two exceptions there was a profound internal peace. It is true that the European war raged without, and that England was one of the chief participators therein. But the policy of Walpole steered the country clear of danger for twenty years ; and neither the first struggle which ended in the Treaty of Utrecht nor the second which ended in the Treaty of Paris, touched Britain at home. Possessed of freedom and security at home, commerce advanced continually, at times slowly, at times by leaps and bounds. The England of Elizabeth was, notwithstanding its outward magnificence, a poor country. The England of Victoria was, notwithstanding the destitution of the pro- letariat, a rich country. It was the change in the character of industry that worked the transformation. The chartered companies were instru- mental in great increases of trade. Ocean-borne commerce expanded, as England became more and more the mistress of the seas. The navigation laws of Cromwell struck hard at the Dutch ; the wars dealt havoc with the shipping of other nations. And the most significant alteration was about to take place at home in the extension of manufactures and the consequent rise of large towns. At the signature of the Peace of Paris the change was but beginning. The population of England in 1710 had been 5,066,000. In 1780 it was still only 7,814,000. The cities of Yorkshire and Lancashire, that another half-century was to make formidable rivals of London, were yet hardly more than large villages that dotted the desolate moors. The spinster turned the distaff in the country cottage. Hand- labour was everywhere supreme. No mechanical contrivance had superseded the weaver. No great iron-foundries belched EVOLUTION OF A LARGER SYNTHESIS 285 forth their smoke over Sheffield. No enormous docks drew ships to Liverpool Bristol was the chief port for the trans- atlantic trade. No factory hooter disturbed the morning repose of Leeds. No clogs made the cobbles of Manchester streets ring to the tramp of lasses hurrying to the cotton works. The rush of business was unknown in Birmingham. The Black Country of the midlands was still green. Produce was carted slowly and with difficulty over uneven roads by wagon or pack-horse. In the absence of canals, tramways or railways, the cost of transport was often greater than that of the article itself. It was the merchant rather than the manufacturer who had increased the wealth of the country. But the commercial movement had taken hold of the land. The thoughts of the people were all directed to com- merce. A few years after the Seven Years' War had closed, the first of those great inventions that were to revolutionise the world's industry was introduced. In 1764 Hargreaves invented the spinning-jenny. In 1769 Arkwright took out a patent for spinning by rollers. In 1776 Compton constructed the mule. The shuttle and lathe rapidly died out before the competition of such machines. In 1763 Wedgwood produced his first earthenware. Improved means of transport engaged the attention of the Duke of Bridgewater and his engineer, Brindley. In 1766, the Trent-Mersey canal was dug by them and the great trunk navigation system opened. James Watt was employed in canalising Scotland. In 1768 the great Caledonian Canal was begun. And the same Watt was busy with investigations on a medium that has since proved more important than canals and all other means of transport put together. The Greenock engineer was experimenting with the steam engine, which the next generation discovered to be as capable of locomotion as of stationary work. In the year 1767 the old tramway system that had been laid at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1602 was improved by the substitution of cast-iron bars for the wooden rails. Horse-drawn vehicles 286 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS still ran along it, but a long step had been made to the steel tracks of the nineteenth century. The new inventions were not unnaturally attacked by the lower-class workers, who saw in such labour-saving appliances their own loss of employment, and could not see the ultimate advantage to the whole community. But happily mobs can only retard and not destroy the work of genius ; the inventions took their place in the great body of human achievements. Production was immediately stimu- lated, and the cost of the manufactured article reduced. The first factories, as distinguished from manufactories and the old trading depots, erroneously called factories, came into being. The consequent congregation of workers in one place, and the kindred interests engendered by the wants of a large community, founded new towns. The collective wealth of the country now advanced pro- digiously. Nothing shows better the increasing wealth of England even under the old commercial system than the South Sea Bubble. It would not have been such a gamble, and its evil effects would not have been so easily surmounted, had the kingdom not been rich. A century previously it would have been impossible. Again, the drain of continual war could not have been borne had not trade advanced. > The national debt in 1688 was 661,263 : in 1763 it was 122,600,000 : in 1817 it was 840,850,591 ; yet England was far better able to bear the enormous burden of the nine- teenth century than she had supported the insignificant sum of the seventeenth. That the distribution of wealth was uneven need hardly be said. It was the new merchants and manufacturers who English profited most. The growth of the middle class Social Life. j s observable throughout the century, and the improvement in their social condition was continuous. Trade was no longer contemptible when its rewards were so great. Brewers like the Thrales were able to afford a splendid country- EVOLUTION OF A LARGER SYNTHESIS 287 house at Streatham. The slave-shippers of Bristol drew princely incomes from their nefarious trade. Factory-owners like the Peels laid the foundations of their fortune in the mills of the north country. The directors of the chartered companies could bribe members of the Government with enormous sums, and still build palaces from the residue of their dividends. The Jamaica merchant, the dealer in Virginian tobacco, and the retired Anglo-Indian could spend more at Bath or Tunbridge Wells than any aristocrat. The trader's marriageable daughter with a dowry of thirty thousand pounds was a stock figure of every new comedy at the theatre. The voice of the parvenu was heard in our land, from which its enchanting music was destined not again to cease. The higher classes, at the same time, reaped the profit from the increased value of their estates, and the direction of the government, which remained their prerogative ; while the lower people of peasants, farmers and small tradesmen, from whom were recruited the great labouring army of the new industry, seem for a time at least to have worsened rather than bettered their condition. At any rate, for a healthy if hard country life, they substituted existence in the fetid slums of a manufacturing town, or the sunless subterran- ean channels of a mine. Their wages, it is true, were higher ; but expenses were proportionately more. The fiction of a freedom of contract between master and man was upheld by the political economists of the day ; and thus no efforts were made to protect the labourer by legal enactments. The inventions that facilitated manufactures introduced hard- ships, as trades that had been carried on in country cottages by hand labour were superseded. The great mechanical discoveries rendered such competition impossible, and many were driven to want from this cause. But in most cases the privations were temporary, and the permanent advantages far outweighed them. Burke had been enthusiastic when he saw the English 288 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS countryside ; ' Every village as neat and compact as a bee- hive ; the inns like palaces.' Goldsmith in well-known lines lamented the decay of the peasantry. Neither foretold, or could foretell, the prosperity of the skilled artisan of the nine- teenth century, whose grandfather had forsaken the plough for the workshop, and whose father had attended a loom for a pound a week. But it is unfortunate that in our economic ignorance we are unable to see the results of such movements of industry in time to understand and remove their evil effects on the poor ; it is to the latter that the hardships are confined, for those who can take the position of masters feel the benefits of a new wave of commercial progress immedi- ately. As honest Cassio protested, the captain is saved before the ancient in modern phraseology, the capitalist before the labourer : but his simple philosophy, however obvious to the former, brings little comfort to the latter. While the middle class moved thus steadily upward, and the lower, despite temporary hardships, saw the beginning of a new era, the aristocracy underwent little change. The pressure from below made them relatively less conspicuous ; some of their influence was undoubtedly lost : and in com- parison with the nobility of the continent, they had certainly few political privileges. But such had always been the case in England : and the chief sign of their loss of power was the increasing strength of the House of Commons, which rendered the upper chamber much less important. As to their life, it is depicted in the novels of the time. Debauched and corrupt as we must admit it to have been, it still showed an enormous advance on the swinish excesses of the Restoration period. Most of the peers were fast livers, hard drinkers and high players ; yet probably the feature that most strikes the student of the eighteenth century is / neither the vices nor the virtues of the time, but the coarse- ness. The few who, like Horace Walpole, were cultivated, were affected. The majority were not monsters of -wicked- EVOLUTION OF A LAKGER SYNTHESIS 289 ness, and it would be unfair to take the Marquis of Queens- berry, ' wicked old Q./ as a specimen of his class ; neither were they angels of light ; and to do them justice, they were not hypocrites enough to pose as such. But they were often vulgar and commonplace, of the type that Thackeray has pictured so admirably in the Crawleys of Vanity Fair, and the Castlewood family in Tfie Virginians. The same may indeed be said of the whole society of that period. Novels such as Tom Jones and Humphrey Clinker bring home to us the general status of the age better than any historical essay ; and a masterpiece of refined black- guardism such as Peregrine Pickle shows how low was the general standpoint. The ' free quality way ' that was so disconcerting to poor Pamela, the polish of Bath and Tun- bridge, the fine society of the London drawing-rooms, dis- played all the insolence inseparable from imaginary social superiority ; but that may be forgiven as inevitable. The literature of the age faithfully reflects its character. The novelists are realistic enough, and give us a roystering view of the time ; but with the exceptions of Richardson, who is now unreadable, Miss Burney, who is almost forgotten, and Goldsmith, they leave a nasty taste in the mouth. The authors themselves were in wretched condition, and seldom got beyond an attic in Grub Street, or a cellar in Drury Lane. The vivid description that every writer of fiction gives of the Fleet prison for debtors shows how intimate was their acquaint- ance with it. The status of a journalist was even lower. In the biography of that wretched creature Dr. Dodd, it is remarked that at one time he even descended so low as to become the editor of a newspaper as though it was a serious aggravation of his original offence of forgery. Horace Walpole was careful not to acquire the reputation of a literary man, lest it should tarnish his brilliancy as a gentleman : and traces of the same feeling still linger with us to-day, in the supreme popular con- T 290 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVEESEAS tempt for all such literary or scientific pursuits as do not immediately bring a monetary reward. The arts were held in perhaps even lower estimation. Sir Joshua Keynolds could be regaled with honour by the bohemians of the ' Club/ but the calling of an artist or musician was generally considered derogatory to a man of good birth, unless he was satisfied with being the most jejune of dilettantis. Every one will recollect the contempt of good Mrs. Newcome and Lord Farintosh for ' painter fellows ' ; and the musicians of the day were considered as servants rather than as guests in the houses of the great. The universities had likewise lost much of their reputation. Oxford, it is true, was still a hotbed of legitimism and clerical- ism ; but no formidable blasts came from the royalist strong- hold in the eighteenth century, and no great teachers issued from her venerable portals. The peace of apparent death had come upon her. The decline of religion was everywhere evident. The Church of England was sinking lower year by year. The bishops took no interest in their dioceses. Sacred buildings were left to decay, and the services were slovenly performed. The poor parson was a mere hanger-on of the great families, while the rich cleric was often a fox-hunter and a tippler. The Methodists, who kept alive the old puritan thought that was still strong in the body of the nation, were ridiculed. Theological narrowness barred the way for state employment for nonconformists, Catholics, and Jews with the Test Acts. The suggestion of abolishing sectarian religious disabilities led to riots a few years later : and when it was proposed to admit dissenters into the universities, Doctor Johnson replied with a brutal simile of a bull in a flower-garden. Increasing wealth seemed to have brought no inclination y to tackle the old social problems ; most of the abuses indicated by More in his Utopia still continued. The criminal law remained barbarously severe. Men were sentenced to death EVOLUTION OF A LARGER SYNTHESIS 291 for forgery and sheep-stealing. Goldsmith remarked, 'I cannot tell whether it is from the number of our penal laws or the licentiousness of our people that this country should show more convicts than half the dominions of Europe united ' ; the experience of later reformers showed that the system of punishment was to blame. The administration of the prisons was a scandal. And meanwhile the development of industry was bringing about new problems of wages, of housing, and of health, that were hardly noticed and indeed were not acute until the next generation, which had to pay the usual penalty of neglect. The eighteenth century was in fact the beginning of another era for the world ; and England was the first to enter it. The conflicts of religions faded into the past : the industrial epoch, with its commercial wars, its hostile tariffs, its business enterprise, took their place. The first results of the transition were apparently evil ; men seemed to have lost their ideals, and with their ideals their imagination. The ugly clouds of materialism darkened the horizon of thought, and appeared to shut out its higher aspects altogether : Burke lamented that ' the age of chivalry is dead ' ; Carlyle declaimed at large against ledger-bibles and payment in cash as the new golden rule. Ruskin followed in their train, using the whole force of his eloquence against the machinery and the mechanical contrivances of the day. To such men the centuries that had gone showed something nobler ; the advent of bargaining and self-advertisement, which was all they saw in the new movement, was sordid and unworthy. But the change was inevitable ; and if at its first steps we see merely coarseness in the upper ranks, self-satisfied complacency in the middle, and discontent in the lower, it is because the weakening of old forces to which men had been accustomed from time immemorial deprived them of the old hopes, while the new were not yet formed. If, as an indication of the capacity of England to manage 292 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS her colonial empire, we turn from her internal condition to England and her relations with Scotland and Ireland, we shall the Empire. no fc g n( j mU ch room for encouragement. The union of England and Scotland in 1707 into one kingdom of Great Britain had been accomplished without much difficulty, and nobody had seriously proposed to undo it. But the old feeling of enmity was still strong, especially in the south, which seemed to be invaded by lanky, red-haired men with high cheek-bones, an abominable accent, and an indomitable passion for work, that generally ended in their capturing the best positions. 1 The Earl of Bute when premier was disliked as much on account of his Scottish nationality as because he was a court favourite : ' a pert prim prater of the northern race, guilt in his heart and famine in his face/ sang the bitter political satirist Churchill of him. And Dr. Johnson had the indecency to reproach the Scots for the poverty of their country ; he declared that the best road a Scotsman ever saw was the road to England, and that what was food for horses in England was food for men in Scotland. And this was at a time when education in the north was infinitely better than in England, and when the northern philosophers and men of science were becoming celebrated through the world. But nobody has ever reproached the Scots with being unable to take care of themselves ; and beyond a little bad blood, no harm was done. A feeling of mutual respect soon grew up, as the two nations came to appreciate each other's qualities ; and nobody would to-day suspect that Britain had ever contained two implacable and resentful peoples, whose only common sentiment was that they cordially detested each other. 1 The late Professor Blackie is said to have attributed a great part of the material success of Scotsmen to the fact that they had diligently studied the biblical Book of Proverbs in their youth. If this view were correct, I should feel almost inclined to attribute .the original credit for the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway to Solomon rather than to Lord Strathcona. EVOLUTION OF A LARGER SYNTHESIS 293 Far different was the situation in Ireland. That country had not yet emerged from the condition of the Middle Ages. The religious question was still uppermost. Four-fifths of the population were Catholics, and as such they were excluded from any share in the government of their country. Their Church was proscribed. Their creed was insulted. An Anglican priest was set up in their midst ; but he preached, if he preached at all, to empty benches. Nevertheless he drew the revenues. Protestants alone elected for, and sat in, the parliament in Dublin. The Orangeman, whose name has become a byword for theological narrowness, alone made and executed the laws. Their severity and their unfairness would have raised a protest in the court of an Asiatic despot ; but no protest came from the Irish. The spirit of the race seemed broken : and the unhappy Celts, poor, ignorant, and superstitious, received insult and upbraiding from their masters, the rich and prosperous settlers of Ulster, with scarcely a hope of revenge. No remedial measures were applied to alleviate their con- ditions ; no attempt was made to educate them. It would perhaps be unfair to charge the English people with consciously increasing the evil of their condition ; but they must plead guilty to having looked on without protest and perhaps with secret complacency while crimes were perpetrated in the name of England on that brave and unfortunate nation whose destiny was irrevocably placed in the hands of the larger island. The harshness and lack of sympathy in the English character which we note in its relations with Scotland and Ireland was full of danger for the future. The commercialism of the day saw nothing but its own immediate profit ; and that seemed to lie in the restriction of other people's trade. The religion of the day saw nothing but the triumph of its creed ; and that seemed to lie in the oppression of others. The politicians of the day saw little but the good of their party and their purse ; and that seemed to lie in the monopoly of 294 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS power and the largest possible enjoyment of the sweets of office. Glaring as such faults are, when looked at from a more advanced standpoint, England was still in better condition than her continental neighbours. No other country, save Holland, had constitutional government. France was drifting slowly towards revolution. Germany was exhausted and divided, and could not yet boast any such revival of thought as had animated France since the days of Voltaire. Goethe was but fourteen years old at the Peace of Paris. Schiller was still in the nursery. The learning of the country consisted only in the pedantry of Leipzig, and the Gallicism of Berlin. The state of Italy was still worse. Insulted and trampled on by her own petty princes and foreign usurpers, materially poor and intellectually bankrupt, the country had entered on a long slumber that lasted well into the next century. In Spain, the accession of a foreign and enlightened government had galvanised the land into some improvements ; but, as we have seen in a former chapter, the people were dead to all progress. England was therefore in a very real sense, the leading power of Europe. The larger question remained, of her fitness to govern the empire she had acquired. Would the English be able to rise to a sense of their responsibility, as the chief citizens in the first free empire that the world had seen, or were they merely to copy the Romans and the Spaniards, in looking upon outlying provinces as material for plunder and extortion ? The answer is somewhat curious, and interesting as showing the gradual education of a people to higher ideas. The British possessions at the Peace of 1763 lay either in America or India, if we exclude Gibraltar and Minorca as purely military stations, and the, as yet, unimportant African settlements. Within a few years the American colonies had been driven to revolt by a policy of repression, that was EVOLUTION OF A LAEGER SYNTHESIS 295 inaugurated indeed by the king, but was heartily endorsed by the nation at large. The Asiatic provinces, on the other hand, were kept and added to. It is true that the people could not rebel under the stern rule of their masters. It is true that both Olive and Warren Hastings were at times cruel and hard, that the East India Company was grasping, its officers rapacious, and mostly engaged in making a fortune rapidly and returning home. It is true that in England itself there was then a colossal ignorance of oriental matters that would have put to the blush even the present-day ignorance of a self-satisfied Cockney. But the anomaly lies in this. While the American colonists, men of the same blood and tongue as ourselves, were treated as the dirt beneath our feet, and hated because they had dared to exhibit the same love of freedom that had been the cause of England's own greatness, the wrongs of the Indians raised an intense indignation. Both Clive and Hastings were tried for misconduct ; the Company was brought under the control of parliament : and the beginnings were made of a government in the East which has developed into the modern empire of India, with its universities, schools, and hospitals, its marvellous civil service, and its constant endeavours towards betterment, as it introduces railways, canals, granaries, and manufactures. In other words, the English attitude towards America was mediaeval ; towards Asia it was in advance of the age. What and how great was the prejudice against ' the planta- tions/ as the western provinces of the empire were generally called, we shall see better when we come to the The history of the Imperial Civil War. It is enough here to take the evidence which has come down to America, us from the conversations and memoirs of the day words spoken and written by the most intellectual men of the age, with no thought of their preservation. Among the foremost stands Samuel Johnson, the leading 296 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS spirit of the great club which included Gibbon, Goldsmith, and Reynolds, ponderously learned and transparently honest, but illiberal and tyrannical as a Dominican friar, and unable to appreciate anything beyond his own little world of Fleet Street and Streatham. In the inimitable biography of his master, Boswell, whose whole-hearted devotion hardly admits that there were any spots on his literary sun, allows that *t ' his violent prejudice against our West Indian and American settlers appeared whenever there was an opportunity/ What that prejudice was, we have Johnson's own words to show. ' In America there is little to be observed except natural curiosities/ ' The planters of America, a race of men whom I suppose no other man wishes to resemble/ ' So they (the Americans) are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging/ ' I am willing to love all mankind, except an American robbers, rascals, pirates, etc/ He wished to send Rousseau to work in the plantations, as the worst fate that could befall /mm. He was the author of Taxation no Tyranny, in which he ^-defended the claim of England to tax America. He thundered abuse at all who defended the insurgents ; even his biographer admits that ' he attacked the Americans with intemperate vehemence of abuse/ A casual visitor, it is said, could not but be very obnoxious to Johnson, for he was not only a patriot, but an American. At about the same time, two of the king's ministers spoke of the Americans in Parliament as ' arrant cowards/ The ignorance which gave rise to such misconceptions was pro- found. Save those few who had been to America nobody V learned, or cared to learn, anything of the colonies. The diarist Evelyn knew nothing save ' unheard-of stories of the increase of witches in New England, men, women, and children devoting themselves to the service of the devil/ Pepys was little wiser. He mentions Nova Scotia as ' the only place in America that hath coals that we know of ... we are to EVOLUTION OF A LARGER SYNTHESIS 297 give to the king of France : I do not know the importance of it.' Virginia tobacco was celebrated : the Spectator recom- mended it, and Pope thought it better than a bishop's blessing ; but few knew much more about the premier colony. Such was the spirit that animated the most cultured Englishmen of the age, and it was shared by the general body of the nation. It was this that made the policy of George m. and his ministers possible. It was this unfitness for government, this provincialism of ideas, this blindness to the grander horizon that had opened out on England, that brought about the split of empire. Against such a spirit Pitt's warning voice was raised in vain : he was a prophet crying in the wilderness when he exclaimed passionately, ' This kingdom has no right to lay a tax on the colonies. . . . You cannot conquer America ! If I were an American as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I would never lay down my arms never, never, never ! ' England did not yet understand that the freedom she had acquired at so much cost was her most precious gift to her sons ; and, as a consequence of her ignorance, the first and greatest was converted into an enemy. While America had been despised in its weakness and was to be hated in its strength, India had roused a different interest and a greater enthusiasm. It was at first The interest solely in its material sense, as a means of obtaining ** India - wealth, that it appealed to England in a way that ' the plantations ' had never done, since Ralegh's hopes were blasted. Marlowe's bombast of the ' pampered jades of Asia ' reflected the dreams of an impossible luxury current in that age. Milton, in a well-known passage, pictured the prince of darkness ' high on a throne of royal state, which far outshone the wealth of Ormuz and of Ind, or when the gorgeous east with richest hand showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold/ It was not until later that knowledge became more precise, and men could imagine the East without visions of 298 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS untold precious metals in fact, traces of the old idea linger in our popular speech to-day. But as we read the comedies and essays of the century after the Restoration we realise how the commoner com- modities and more striking customs of Asia became gradually familiarised at home, and how employment by the East India Company now presented itself as a new and profitable career to the young men of the age. The costumes and perfumes of the East had already furnished Shakespeare with two of his prettiest images ' Ornament . . . the beauteous scarf, veil- ing an Indian beauty/ and, ' In the spiced Indian air, by night, Full often hath she gossiped at my side : and sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands Marking the embarked traders on the flood, When we have laughed to see the sails conceive And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind/ Milton notices the growing commerce when describing the fleet ' Close sailing from Bengala, or the isles of Ternate or Tedore, whence merchants bring their spicy drugs/ He alludes to ' Ganges or Hydaspes, Indian streams/ the Indus, ' Agra and Lahore of Great Mogul/ and again, ' India and the golden Chersonese And utmost Indian isle Taprobane, Dark faces with white silken turbans wreathed/ In Comus, he speaks of ' The nice morn on the Indian steep/ which had already given Spenser his ' Morrow next appear 'd with purple hayre yet dropping fresh out of the Indian fount/ Herrick turned for a moment from the monotonous cata- logue of his mistresses to mention the ' rough pepper ' and ' the scorched clove ' of the ' eastern Ind ' ; Cowley regretted that fate denied him ' Indian pearl or Persian plate/ And prudent Pepys observed with amazement ' in the hold of an Indian ship, the greatest wealth lie in confusion that a man can see in the world. Pepper scattered through every chink, you trod upon it ; and in cloves and nutmegs I walked above the knees whole rooms full. And. silk in bales, and boxes of copper-plate ... as noble a sight as ever I saw in EVOLUTION OF A LARGER SYNTHESIS 299 my life/ At this time too he first ' did send for a cup of tee (a China drink), of which I had never drank before/ The journals of Queen Anne's time speak of oriental pro- ducts often enough. The Toiler humorously suggests that the East India Company should accept of heroic poems in payment for their sealed bonds. The Guardian was the dread of ' poor Celia, whose wrapping-gown is not right India/ To Dryden India was ' fraught with all the riches of the rising sun,' and Pope knew India as the land of glowing gems. In every drama are scattered allusions to the wealth of the East. Ponderous virtue is made to declare that all the riches of India should not corrupt it. A rich English mer- chant, one is told, ' may make himself a match for the daughter of a nabob/ 1 And Sir Oliver Surface had been in the Indies a long time ' a devilish rich uncle ; the climate has hurt him considerably, the little nabob. He has transmitted bullion, rupees, pagodas, china, shawls, congo tea, avadavats, and Indian crackers/ Shops were opened in London for the sale of oriental goods ; and from sundry hints in the light literature of the day, it may be surmised that these places, which were known as India houses, often served as meeting-places for distressed or sometimes dishonourable lovers. A whole scene in a comedy takes place as ' a frolicsome supper at an Indian house'; 2 while another author remarks that 'it would be proper to nail the tongues of talkativeness to Indian houses/ 3 The diarists of the day are not silent on the subject of India. It would be wearisome to set out at length every mention of the orient that even a superficial acquaintance with the writings of the time affords : but it is noteworthy that there was no exact acquaintance with eastern affairs ; when men came to give fuller details, they generally fell into the absurd 1 The Clandestine Marriage, published in 1766. 2 The Provoked Husband (1727); there are similar references in The Careless Husband (1704). 3 The Guardian, No. 66. 300 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVERSEAS anachronisms that we find in such plays as Dryden's Aurung- zebe. Such allusions, scattered through our literature, prove that India had become something more than a name to the England that heard of Olive's victories ; but they prove nothing more. If the conquests in the East appealed to the nation, it was because of their commercial value ; it was not realised at first that they had a deeper meaning. A few years later, however, the misdeeds of the conquerors roused a storm of indignation ; their conduct was investigated. The East India Company was reformed and brought under the direct control of Parliament : vigilant attention was thence- forward directed to oriental affairs. But there was nothing of the grander imperialism of an after age. It would be difficult to find any trace whatever England's of that spirit in our writers of the first half of the i a k Li eighteenth century. However great the number conscious- of pamphlets specially published on matters ness. relating to India and the colonies, the expansion of England left no mark on her literature. England was in fact unconscious of being a world-power. She did not grasp the full significance of the victories of the Seven Years' War until it was too late. Exultant as the nation was at its success over France, it saw in it nothing more than a victory over an old enemy, and an opportunity for new trade. The American colonies were lost before the true meaning of the empire was understood. The whole country was yet blind to the vast possibilities before it. Its imagination was still sunk in a dull torpor ; it had not completely shaken off the stagnation that ushered in the beginning of the industrial age. But a change was at hand. It was on the great statesmen that the mantle of the prophet and the poet fell. The in- vective, the rhetoric, the passionate appeals of Pitt, Burke and their successors roused the people at last. The parliamentary EVOLUTION OF A LARGER SYNTHESIS 301 oratory of the next half-century rang in the ears of the nation in a way that was never forgotten. The French Revolution stirred conservative England to a fresh renascence of thought. The old ideals that had seemed forgotten were transformed and bettered. There was henceforth a manful combat with the problems that had too long cumbered the earth. The new issues raised by the new order of things were studied and faced. The country entered a fresh era of progress. There was a firm determination to evolve a better civilisation. At home, one reform succeeded another. When the war broke out again abroad into a still greater struggle, the victories of our seamen recalled the old achievements of the sea-kings. The daring nights of the Elizabethan singers were renewed in such writers as Coleridge, Shelley and Byron. The obstinacy that lost America was not repeated. A constitution was given to Canada ; the government of India was improved. Some sense of the responsibility of empire was evoked, as the British flag triumphed everywhere. There was indeed even then no imperialism : neither it nor its bastard progeny, jingoism, came into being until Victorian times ; and our own poets and thinkers, conscious that the ideal is not yet perfect, ever dreaming of a better future, feel sadly how much we still lack, how blind we even now are. They can see the rents and soils on the garment that is so proudly flaunted in the world's market-place ; they can tell that the strength and power of Britain could be more worthily used ; they know that the vital is often for- gotten while the irrelevant is insisted on. The Pax Britannica, that shall replace the Pax Romana of the ancient world, is still far off. The Codex Britannicus, that shall standardise our laws into one great system on a scientific basis, is almost unthought of. The union of the empire is imperfect. The political aspirations of our peoples, good as they are, could be more inspiring. The social life of the whole community could be ampler and higher. The imperialism of the day 302 THE ENGLISH PEOPLE OVEKSEAS could breathe less of the cannon and more of the rule of justice, freedom, and peace ; it could devote less attention to decrying the advance of other races, and more to the true development of our own. But the eighteenth century had nothing of this. The head of gold and the feet of clay were alike wanting. If, however, there was no imperialism as we know it, another feeling sprang up gradually from the commercialism of the time. When a long tranquillity succeeded to the Napo- leonic wars, there was a new sense of the brotherhood of man among the European nations. The old Christian message of peace and goodwill, that had been borne by so many unknown evangelists into the wilderness, received a fuller meaning. For a time, at least, the world seemed on the threshold of the golden age. The splendid illusion of universal concord, more beautiful than the imaginary San Graal of chivalry, appeared ; after centuries of wandering, the promised land seemed at length in sight ... for a little while. . . . END OF VOLUME THE FIRST Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 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