LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 University of California. 
 
 Class 
 
TOO NEAR THE WARPATH 
 
THE HISTORY 
 
 AND 
 
 GOVERNMENT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNITED STATES 
 
 BY 
 JACOB HARRIS PATTON, A.M., Ph.D. 
 
 Author of "Natural Resources of the United States," 
 
 " History of Political Parties," M Popular History 
 
 of the Presbyterian Church," etc. 
 
 AND 
 
 JOHN LrORD, D.D., LX.D. 
 
 Author of "Beacon Lights of History." 
 WITH SPECIAL, ARTICLES BY 
 
 Theodore Roosevelt, James Cardinal Gibbons, 
 
 George F. Hoar, Janies Bryce 
 
 Grover Cleveland and others 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 The University Society 
 
 New York 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 

 turn ROOM 
 
 Copyright, 1876, by J. B. Ford & Company. 
 
 Copyright, 1882, 1891, 1892, and 1901, by Fords, Howard & Hulbert. 
 
 Copyright, 1903, by The University Society. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Elaborate histories of the United States have been ably 
 written, while compends and school histories — well adapted 
 to the place they are designed to fill — are numerous. Be- 
 tween these compends and the works extending from four 
 to twelve volumes there is necessity, as well as room, for a 
 history that shall be sufficiently elaborate to trace the 
 direct influences that have had effect in moulding the 
 character of the Nation and its institutions, moral and 
 political — one that treats more fully of the "Inner Life" 
 of the American people, and so constructed that the reader 
 can obtain a clear conception of the forces that have made 
 the Nation what it is. In accordance with this view, the 
 present work is designed to present, as fully as is consistent 
 with such a plan, those events which are interesting in 
 themselves and characteristic of the times and people. 
 
 While the author has availed himself as much as possible 
 of original authorities, and acknowledges his obligations to 
 the many elaborate United States and State histories, his 
 main effort has been to set forth our story in his own 
 language, wrought into a consecutive narrative, confining 
 himself to the true elements of history — that is, only to 
 those events and principles that have had influence; 
 making, as occasion requires, an informal summary of the 
 less important facts or events, in order to keep perfect the 
 
 vii 
 
 3G84 
 
Till PREFACE. 
 
 thread of the narrative. Among the motive forces, due 
 recognition has been given to the influence of moral truths 
 derived from the Bible, in leading the people to cherish 
 liberty of speech, free institutions, and the general educa- 
 tion of their children. 
 
 The reader has no reason to quarrel with the facts of 
 History; but it is his privilege and duty to deduce from 
 them his own inferences. In these latter days public docu- 
 ments are published to the world; thus the materials for 
 writing history become accessible. By this means the 
 leading facts of the late Civil War are as well known 
 to-day as they ever will be. Some incidents and complica- 
 tions in the careers of individuals will be revealed only 
 when the "Life and Times" of each comes to be written. 
 This latter class of material, unfortunately often largely 
 embellished and explained by, perhaps, unconscious apolo- 
 gies and after-thoughts, may throw light upon personal 
 motives and actions, but will shed little upon the great 
 events themselves. For in that exciting period statesmen 
 groped their way ; no man saw the end from the beginning. 
 The same may be said of the unforeseen consequences of 
 our interference on behalf of Cuba and the war that ensued 
 thereon. An overruling Hand brought about the great 
 result, not by the plannings of men, but in spite of them. 
 
 It is hoped that the intelligent reader will find in these 
 volumes a succinct as well as a comprehensive view of the 
 history of the American people, and of the influential 
 elements that have gone to form their characteristics and 
 their Government. 
 
 J. H. P. 
 
 NeW.York City, June 1, 1901. 
 
A SKETCH 
 
 History, Greatness and Dangers 
 
 AMERICA. 
 
 By JOHN LORD, LL.D., 
 
 Author of "Beacon Lights of History," etc. 
 
OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 S^AUFOR^ 
 
 A SKETCH 
 
 OP THE 
 
 HISTOKY, GREATNESS AND DANGERS 
 OF AMERICA. 
 
 By John Lord, LL.D., 
 Author of " Beacon Lights of History" etc. 
 
 It would be difficult to point out an event in the 
 history of the world followed by more important results, 
 certainly in a material and political aspect, than the dis- 
 covery of America by Christopher Columbus; and as 
 centuries and years roll on, these results appear greater 
 and grander, so that no human intellect can grasp the 
 mighty issues which perpetually arise to view. How lit- 
 tle did the great discoverer anticipate the consequences 
 of his adventuresome voyages! How little conscious 
 was he of the boon he rendered to civilization and the 
 human race ! It was too great to be measured by any 
 ordinary human services. 
 
 Nearly a century passed away before the European 
 mind began to appreciate the true import of the dis- 
 covery. Columbus himself did not imagine the blessings 
 which he had almost unconsciously bestowed. He had 
 no idea even that he had given a new world to Ferdinand 
 and Isabella. He supposed at first that he had reached the 
 eastern shores of Asia — the Zipango of Marco Polo ; that 
 he had solved a great geographical problem of vast com- 
 mercial importance, and was entitled to high reward. 
 Yet it had been the Old and not the New that he was 
 seeking ; while it was the New, that has made memora- 
 ble the year of our Lord 1492. 
 
 In iaking this introductory glance at the history of 
 
X FOUR HUNDRED TEARS 
 
 four hundred years, which Prof. Patton has told in detail, 
 we wish but to mark a few of the great events, the great 
 men and the great elements that have contributed to 
 make that history most notable in the life of the modern 
 world. 
 
 It was not long after Columbus, before the Spaniards, 
 the Portuguese, the English, the Dutch and the French 
 perceived that something strange had been discovered, 
 and successive voyagers made it clear that a new con- 
 tinent had really been opened to the enterprise of 
 European nations ; that it was rich in mines of gold and 
 silver ; that they had only to take possession of it by 
 hoisting a national flag. They found, as their explora- 
 tions extended, that this new continent was peopled by 
 entirely unknown races, in various stages of barbarism 
 or savagery, whose languages no one could understand 
 — tribes inclined to be friendly and peaceable, but 
 revengeful and treacherous if treated unjustly and 
 unkindly. All the various tribes from Mexico to 
 Canada had the same general peculiarities of feature and 
 color, different from any known type in Asia or Africa. 
 What was the origin of this strange race ? Were they 
 aborigines, or did their remote ancestors come from Asia? 
 Their whole history is involved in hopeless mystery. 
 
 Peaceful relations were not long kept up between the 
 natives and the adventurers who sought the new^vorld 
 with the primary view of improving their fortunes 
 Hence the first century of American history is the record 
 of conflicts with Indians, of injustice and cruelty, pro- 
 ducing deadly animosities on both sides, until the natives 
 were conquered and nearly exterminated. 
 
 There were few permanent settlements, but there was 
 great zeal in explorations, in which YespuccJius, Ponce de 
 Leon, % the Cabots, Cartier, De Soto and other famous 
 captains and navigators distinguished themselves, who, 
 on their return home, reported lands of mineral wealth, 
 
OF AMERICAN HISTORY. XI 
 
 natural fertility and great beauty, but uncultivated and 
 sparsely populated. This led to a great emigration of 
 adventurers, chiefly for working the mines. The result 
 was the enrichment of Spain, but not a healthy coloniza- 
 tion on the part of that or any other European nation. 
 
 Nor was the second century of North American his- 
 tory fruitful in those movements and characters which 
 have much interest to the present generation, except 
 that it was the period of colonization. 
 
 Noting particularly the English and French settle- 
 ments, the first in importance was that of Virginia under 
 the patronage of James I of England. He gave to 
 his favorites and courtiers immense territories. He also 
 gave charters to companies of merchants and others more 
 or less favored, who hoped to be enriched, not by mines 
 of gold and silver, but by the culture of tobacco through 
 African slaves. The first settlement was at Jamestown, 
 1607, made chiefly by sanguine adventurers, most of 
 whom were broken-down gentlemen, or younger sons of 
 noble families, who did not know how to work. They 
 were so unfortunate also as to quarrel with the Indians. 
 In consequence they were molested, discouraged and 
 helpless, and their numbers dwindled away by sickness 
 and famine. Though continually reinforced by new 
 arrivals, the Colony did not thrive. In two years the 
 able-bodied men numbered only about two hundred, 
 and only forty acres of land were brought under culti- 
 vation. The Colonists were idle and dissolute. When 
 John Smith, who led the first settlers, returned to 
 England discouraged, there were only sixty men left 
 out of the four hundred and ninety who had arrived 
 at different times. In 1612, under Sir Thomas Gates, 
 three hundred additional Colonists arrived, and year 
 after year their number was again increased, and yet 
 in twelve years the settlement contained no more than 
 six hundred persons. At last the Company in England 
 
Xii FOUR HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 sent over one hundred and fifty respectable young 
 women who became wives of the Colonists, and a better 
 day dawned. In 1619, the London Company granted to 
 the people the right to make their own laws, and the 
 House of Burgesses became the first legislative assembly 
 in the New World, and enacted laws in favor of industry, 
 virtue and good order. In a few years the population of 
 the colony numbered nearly four thousand, chiefly em- 
 ployed in the cultivation of tobacco, then worth on the 
 London docks six shillings a pound. But the people were 
 not all voters. Only those who possessed a landed estate 
 had the right of suffrage. The aristocratic organization 
 of the Colony was not unfavorable to property, since the 
 demand for tobacco continually increased. In a hundred 
 years Virginia was the richest and most populous of the 
 North American colonies; ruled by planters who re- 
 sembled the county gentlemen of England in their 
 habits, their sentiments and their pride. In religion they 
 were Episcopalians, and in their social life they were 
 aristocrats who disdained manual labor, which was done 
 by African slaves 
 
 The next event of importance in American Colonial 
 history was the settlement of New England, by a differ- 
 ent class of men, who sought a home in the wilderness 
 to escape religious persecution. In 1620 the Pilgrim 
 Fathers landed at Plymouth. I need not dwell on their 
 lofty sentiments, their fervent piety, the privation and 
 sufferings they cheerfully endured, exposed to innumer- 
 able dangers, which developed among them extraordin- 
 ary self-reliance and the spirit of liberty. No rich soil, 
 no crops of tobacco rewarded their hard labors. It was a 
 struggle for existence during two generations. But they 
 were brave, industrious, frugal and moral ; they con- 
 quered*aature when she was most unpropitious. Among 
 them there were "no distinctions of rank. They were 
 too insignificant to excite the rapacity of royal govern- 
 
OF AMERICAN HISTORY. XU1 
 
 or& They were chiefly farmers, mechanics and fisher- 
 men who had few wants and ambitious aspirations, with 
 a sprinkling of educated men who took their place 
 naturally as leaders, but all animated by the same senti- 
 ments, among which the fear of God was pre-eminent — 
 a noble race to lay the foundation of prosperity and 
 power. Progress of settlement was slow but sure. There 
 were no drawbacks, as in Virginia. The word sent back 
 by the Plymouth Colony to their Puritan friends in 
 England resulted in a further emigration in 1628, and 
 the founding of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay; 
 and the settlements spread. The Puritans were honest 
 in their dealings with the Indians, with whom they 
 remained at peace until jealousies among the Indians 
 themselves incited war upon the settlers. Then the 
 English fighting blood aroused and conquered a bloody 
 peace, lasting for half a century. After that, expansion 
 brought conflict, and the Indians were driven westward. 
 The New England Colonists elected their own governor 
 and magistrates, and in their town-meetings freely ex- 
 pressed their sentiments. For a hundred years they pro- 
 duced few distinguished men except ministers. They 
 knew but little of what are called fine arts, either music, 
 architecture or painting. No sciences received an im- 
 pulse from them, and no literature except sermons. 
 Socially they were not interesting, being narrow and 
 bigoted and indifferent to amusements. But they all 
 were taught the rudiments of education and independ- 
 ence of mind. In fervent religious life they never were 
 excelled by any people on the face of the earth. Nor 
 in individual sense of duty were they ever surpassed. 
 The difficulty of earning a living on a sterile soil pre- 
 vented the accumulation of property, and perhaps led 
 them to attach undue value to money. Their frugality 
 and poverty made them appear parsimonious. Their 
 whole history is a refutation of the theories of Buckle, 
 
Xfo FOUB HUNDRED YEARS ^ 
 
 as also is life in Scotland, Switzerland and Northern 
 Germany. 
 
 The colonization of Canada (New France) by the 
 French, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Dela- 
 ware, by Dutch and English, resembled in the main that 
 of New England rather than that of Virginia and the 
 Carolinas. But all the colonists, north and south, were ex- 
 posed *to the same outward dangers in the hostility of the 
 various Indian tribes. So far as they have a common his- 
 tory, it was incessant conflicts with the aborigines, on 
 whose hunting grounds the white men encroached, until 
 the Indians were exterminated or driven to the west — a 
 sad record of injustice and wrong to be palliated only by 
 seeming necessity. It was the old story of the warfare 
 between barbarism and civilization. William Penn's 
 experience in successful dealings with the Indians by 
 means of just and equitable negotiation show that the 
 whole black record of the white man's oppression of the 
 Indian has been utterly needless — the outgrowth of greed. 
 
 It was not till the 18th century that the Colonies, 
 whether French or English, can be said to have 
 had any notable history, and even this is meagre — 
 struggles with colonial governors, warlike expeditions 
 through a pathless wilderness, religious persecutions, the 
 extension of frontier settlements, theological quar- 
 rels, political theories, all of which favored growth 
 and development, but which produced no historic 
 names, except of theologians like Jonathan Edwards, 
 No great character arose who gave a new political direc- 
 tion to colonial growth. There were no great events 
 which either interest or instruct us until the Seven 
 Years' War in Europe led to a contest between the 
 English and French settlements, resulting in the fall of 
 Louisburg, through the bravery of New England troops 
 led by Sir William Pepperell, a Kittery merchant, and the 
 conquest of Canada under the inspiration of William 
 
OF AMERICAN HISTORY. XV 
 
 l*itt, when James Wolfe was the hero. It was in this 
 war that the colonists first distinguished themselves, 
 fighting for the mother-country rather than for their 
 own interests ; that Washington, the greatest name in 
 our history, first appeared upon the way, as an aide to 
 the brave, but obstinate and unfortunate, General 
 Braddock. 
 
 The result of this war was to destroy the prestige of 
 English soldiers, and to fan a military spirit in the 
 colonies. It taught the raw American militia self-reli- 
 ance, and incited a passion for national independence. 
 The colouists numbered now nearly four millions of 
 people, wearied by English rule, ambitious to become 
 a nation, and bound together by the ties of interest. As 
 yet no lights in science had arisen except Benjamin 
 Franklin, no distinguished literary men, no poets or his- 
 torians, no great political writers, no lawyers even, ex- 
 cept of local fame. Books were scarce and dear, and 
 newspapers few. There was not a merchant in the 
 country whom we now should consider rich, probably 
 not a single millionaire from Portland to Charleston. 
 The richest men were the planters of Virginia and 
 South Carolina ; and even the foundations of their pros- 
 perity were being undermined by negro slaves and the 
 fall in the price of tobacco — the great staple of Southern 
 industry. The ambitious residences of the planters, 
 built in imitation of baronial halls, were falling into 
 decay, and their vast estates were encumbered and 
 mortgaged, which led to the rise of a class of lawyers 
 for the collection of debts, such as Jefferson and Patrick 
 Henry in their early career, and also to the increase of 
 the yeomanry, neither rich nor poor, among whom was 
 developed the passion for liberty and opposition to 
 royal governors, as seen in the Virginia House of Bur- 
 
 Twenty years of peace followed the Seven ¥6318' 
 
XVI FOUR HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 War, but they were not years of rest. It was a period 
 of agitation and discontent. Political theories inter- 
 ested every class, who now began to catch glimpses of 
 the future extension of the country. It was also a 
 period of great material prosperity. The fisheries of 
 Newfoundland were a source of profit to the people on 
 the New England coast, as well as a colonial trade. 
 Lumber and fish were exchanged in the West India 
 Islands for molasses and rum — a new enterprise, which 
 demoralized as well as enriched. The population at the 
 North rapidly increased. Land was cleared of forests 
 and cultivated from the East coast towns to the Hudson 
 Kiver and beyond ; and the population, chiefly consist- 
 ing of farmers, who still remained poor, was yet 
 independent and intelligent. Beautiful villages arose 
 on the banks of every river and at the base of hills. 
 The fear of Indians passed away. Some fine houses 
 were built in the larger towns, and luxuries to some ex- 
 tent were enjoyed by country merchants and the profes- 
 sional classes. Colleges and academies arose, to which 
 resorted the sons of prosperous farmers. Mechanics 
 acquired skill, and some articles which were formerly 
 imported were manufactured in a rough way. 
 
 But the most marked feature of the time was political 
 agitation and a desire to be free from the mother- 
 country. This, indeed, was not avowed nor every- 
 where desired ; but there was a growing impatience of 
 restraints imposed by the English Government, and the 
 haughty tone of Colonial governors and judges who were 
 appointed by the Crown. In town meetings the prin- 
 ciples of liberty were discussed. Much was written on 
 the imposition of taxes toward the support of the 
 English Government, weakened by the Seven Years' 
 Wai\ The popular orators, like Samuel Adams, James 
 Otis and Patrick Henry, declared that the people could 
 not be taxed without their own consent. Some sup 
 

OF AMERICAN HISTORY. XV11 
 
 ported this doctrine from those abstract rights which 
 appeal to consciousness, and others from the constitutional 
 history of England. Nobody felt the burden of the 
 taxes imposed, but everybody believed that the prece- 
 dent of taxation would be abused until it became oppres- 
 sive. Public sentiment, however, was nearly unanimous 
 that taxation by Great Britain was an infringement on 
 liberties and charters, which were to be defended as sacred. 
 But I am inclined to the belief that opposition to Eng- 
 lish taxation was based on the secret desire to be free 
 from England altogether as much as on fear of oppression 
 — at least, among the leaders of agitation, like John 
 Adams, who clearly saw the inevitable extension and 
 future power of the Colonies, especially if united. The 
 spirit of the Colonists from north to south was aggres- 
 sive, bold, independent, fearless, with a probable ex- 
 aggeration of their military strength, natural to people 
 who lived so far away from the great centres of civiliza- 
 tion, and accustomed to self-reliance amid the dangers 
 which had menaced them for more than a hundred 
 years. 
 
 Hence arose the American Revolution, not merely the 
 most important event thus far in American history, but 
 one of the greatest events in the history of the world, 
 in view of the remote consequences. The Colonists 
 were very poorly prepared for a contest with the great- 
 est power in Europe, but they rushed into it with 
 the utmost enthusiasm ; their earliest resistance was suc- 
 cessful, and the British troops, mostly veterans, were 
 driven from Boston, to the immense astonishment and 
 chagrin of the English Government, who expected a 
 ready submission. Yet resistance would not have been 
 successful if the defence had been made in Europe, with 
 its good roads and means of transportation for regular 
 troops. It was so in America rather by reason of the 
 impassable wilderness which skirted the settlements 
 
XVlii lOUE HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 than the military strength of the Colonists. Nor would 
 independence probably have been then achieved had it 
 not been for the transcendent abilities, patience and 
 patriotism of the leader whom Providence pointed out 
 for them. Though defeated in almost every battle, and 
 driven from one position after another, leading almost 
 the life of a fugitive, with a feeble band, like David in 
 the wilderness, the heroic Washington persevered long 
 after success had given way to crushing disaster, amid 
 great obstacles, with treason among his followers, slan- 
 ders and popular discontents : without money and with 
 scarcely any military equipments for his raw militia, 
 until his cause was won — and won more by his taking 
 advantage of the difficulties which nature imposed on 
 the enemy than by the skill and bravery of his own 
 troops. Without him for a leader, with jealousies and 
 rivalries on the part of generals and politicians, and 
 growing apathy on the part of the people, who, as the 
 war went on, tardily and reluctantly enlisted, and then 
 only for short periods, the contest would have been at 
 least prolonged, like that of the Greek revolutionists; 
 and if France had not come to the rescue — not from 
 sympathy with a struggling people so much as from the 
 desire to cripple its ancient and implacable British foe — 
 the cause might have been given up in despair until 
 fought for again in a succeeding generation. 
 
 The whole conflict to a thoughtful and religious mind 
 has the significance of a providential event, or of mani- 
 fest destiny to those who claim to be philosophical and 
 who cast their eyes on the immense resources which were 
 sure to be developed at no distant day in the unsettled 
 wilderness which stretched from the Atlantic to the 
 Pacific. 
 
 As we speculate on the results of this memorable con- 
 test, we are compelled to notice the special attractions 
 which a free country has held out for emigrants from 
 
OF AMERICAN HISTORY. XIX 
 
 the old States of Europe : the unbounded facilities for 
 the poor man to earn a living and even to become rich ; 
 the increasing openings for enterprise of all kinds ; the 
 vast expanse of public lands to be entered upon; the 
 legal facilities for acquisition, sale and purchase of land — 
 diametrically opposite in policy to the conservative 
 restrictions in the old countries ; the unparalleled 
 and rapid increase of population, doubling every 
 twenty-five years ; the resistless tide of emigration 
 toward the Ohio and Mississippi, and finally to the Pacific 
 Ocean ; the universal sense of security in the new settle- 
 ments, and the feeling of nationality which has animated 
 and united the whole population. 
 
 With political unity and the advance of material in- 
 terests leading to wealth and power, we do not see, it 
 must be confessed, a corresponding progress in morals 
 or eminent attainments in literature and science. The 
 untoward influences retarding this higher growth began 
 very early. The war of the devolution relaxed the 
 social restraints which Puritanism had favored. The 
 disbanded soldiers were neither so temperate nor indus- 
 trious as their fathers, and the vices of drunkenness and 
 profanity became alarming even in the land of steady 
 habits, to say nothing of the looseness in religious 
 opinions. The old Calvinistic divines were succeeded in 
 many parishes by more indulgent ministers who preached 
 short sermons of ethical platitudes, forgot pastoral duties 
 and had a keen eye to professional interests, while many 
 a sturdy farmer added Jamaica rum to his supposed 
 necessities, and ended by putting a mortgage on his 
 paternal lands. 
 
 Scarcely had the United States started on their career 
 of prosperity after their successful struggle with Eng- 
 land when they were exposed to a new danger, from the 
 reluctance of many States to adopt the Constitution which 
 the wisest and greatest statesmen of the land had framed 
 
XX FOUR HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 in Philadelphia, in 1787. John Fiske has well called 
 this " the critical period in American history." There 
 were in the Constitutional Convention every variety of 
 opinion, and incessant debates. There were fifty-five 
 men in all, representing the different States. Among 
 the more illustrious were Franklin, Washington, Hamil- 
 ton, and Madison. Differences arose as to the ratio of 
 representation, the mode of election of President and the 
 powers to be delegated to him, the functions of the two 
 legislative Houses and the election of members, the 
 Federal courts and commercial regulations. There was 
 an obvious antagonism between the North and South, 
 and between the larger and smaller States, as to repre- 
 sentation. There were angry discussions whether slaves 
 should be considered property or persons. Some leaned 
 towards a centralized government, after the manner of 
 monarchical institutions, and others to extreme democ- 
 racy. After four months of toilsome compromises the 
 Constitution was signed, as the best that could be made 
 under the circumstances. And although, at the time, it 
 satisfied no one in all its parts, it has been characterized as 
 the most admirably written constitution ever formulated, 
 at once the simplest, the most elastic, the best adapted 
 to the circumstances for which it was prepared.* 
 
 The next thing was to get it ratified, — but some of 
 the States stood aloof, especially New York. This called 
 out Jay, Hamilton and Madison in a series of able papers 
 fialled The Federalist — an immortal State document, 
 which seemed to turn the balance, and the Constitution 
 was saved, subject to future amendments. 
 
 Then followed the election of President, and such was 
 the universal veneration for Washington, respect for his 
 
 * " As the British Constitution is the most subtle organism which 
 has proceeded from progressive history, so the American Constitu- 
 tion is the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by 
 She brain and purpose of man." — W. E. Gladstone. 
 
OF AMERICAN HISTOET. XXI 
 
 abilities and gratitude for his services, that he was unani- 
 mously elected — the wisest choice that could possibly be 
 made, since the nation was safe under his guidance. 
 
 His administration was not marked by stirring events, 
 but by great sagacity. It was memorable for the forma- 
 tion of the two great political parties which, under dif- 
 ferent names, have since divided the nation, the Federal- 
 ists, and the Republicans or Democrats — the one led by 
 Hamilton and the other by Jefferson. The Federalists 
 aimed at greater centralization of Federal power ; the 
 Republicans — so-named after the French republican 
 clubs — leaned to State sovereignty. The first party was 
 composed chiefly of the professional and educated classes, 
 merchants, and men of high social position ; the second 
 embraced the common people and their ambitious leaders 
 who sought extension of the suffrage — a party which con- 
 tinually increased until political power fell into its 
 hands, never afterward to be lost, until their democracy 
 made itself a tool of the slave-holding aristocracy. Wash- 
 ington received a second election, and when his term of 
 office closed he gladly retired to his beloved Mount Ver- 
 non, and in a few years died, leaving the most unsullied 
 fame that any man of modern times has earned. 
 
 His successor, John Adams, had rendered great ser- 
 vices, both before and during the Revolution, in advis- 
 ing and assisting his countrymen to shake off English 
 domination ; he had been an efficient, though not re- 
 markable diplomatist in Holland, France and England ; 
 and was an honest and patriotic statesman, an industrious 
 legislator, an effective public speaker, a brilliant con- 
 versationalist and letter writer, with the only drawback 
 of a hasty, irascible and disputatious temper, and great 
 personal vanity. He was a Federalist like Washington, 
 and made few removals from office. He retired reluc- 
 tantly from his high position and withdrew to Quincy 
 to nurse his resentments, especially against Jefferson, 
 
XX11 FOUR HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 the successful rival who succeeded him in the Presi- 
 dency, having been elected to it by the Republican or 
 Anti-Federalist party. 
 
 The eight-years' administration of Jefferson, like those 
 of Washington and Adams, was not fruitful in matters 
 of historical interest, but was marked by great public 
 prosperity. Jefferson was a philosopher and a man of 
 peace, and although provoked almost beyond endurance 
 by the injuries which France and England continued to 
 inflict on American commerce, and by the impressment 
 of seamen and hostility to the United States, yet he ab- 
 stained from plunging the nation into war. He made a 
 great mistake in his " embargo," which pleased only 
 those who had no ships to rot on the wharves, without 
 inflicting serious injury on British manufactures, and he 
 made himself ridiculous by his gunboats as a means of 
 national defence. With him anything was better than 
 war. And here he was probably right, considering the 
 defenceless state of the country with all its financial em- 
 barrassments. His great aim was to pay off the national 
 debt, and develop industries. But he was hostile to a 
 national bank and Federal tariffs on foreign goods for 
 protection to domestic manufactures. He threw his in- 
 fluence into measures for the welfare of farmers rather 
 than of manufacturers and merchants. As his party hafl 
 acquired undisputed ascendency, old political animosi- 
 ties died out. Although a Democrat (as the Republican 
 party had come to be called), succeeding a Federalist 
 administration, he made very few removals from office. 
 His policy was pacific and conciliatory, and his popular- 
 ity increased with the national prosperity. He was the 
 most long-sighted of all American politicians, seeing 
 that political power hereafter would be lodged with the 
 common people, and he adapted himself to their wants, 
 their prejudices and their aspirations. 
 
 Though bom on a plantation, he was democratic in his 
 
OF AMERICAN HISTORY. XX111 
 
 (Sympathies. He was no orator like John Adams ; in- 
 deed, he could not make a speech at all ; but he could 
 write public documents with masterly abilities, and was 
 fond of writing letters. His greatest feat was the pur- 
 chase of Louisiana from France, but his administration 
 was most memorable for departing from the policy of 
 Washington and Adams, in breaking away from the 
 courtly formality and dignity of official life and inaugur- 
 ating an era of popular " republican simplicity." The 
 day of strong central Federalism in government gave 
 way to the reactionary Democracy. Jefferson was an 
 original thinker and a natural opponent of authority, 
 whether in politics or religion. For his own epitaph he 
 described himself as " Author of the Declaration of In- 
 dependence and of the statute of Virginia for religious 
 freedom." 
 
 Jefferson bequeathed to his successor, Madison, the re- 
 sponsibility of settling the growing difficulties with 
 Great Britain. Madison was the disciple, admirer and 
 friend of Jefferson, through whose influence he had been 
 weaned from Federalism, which originally he had 
 adopted. He, too, one of the most able statesmen of the 
 times, and one of the most enlightened, would have kept 
 the country from drifting into war had that been in his 
 power. He clearly saw that the nation was unprepared 
 — that it had neither an army or navy of any size ; but 
 the unabated insults of the English government, the 
 continual injuries it inflicted on American commerce, 
 and its haughty and arrogant tone in all negotiations, 
 were infuriating Congress and the American people. It 
 became clear that war was simply a choice of evils — that 
 the nation must either submit to humiliation and dis- 
 honor, or risk disaster, the defeat of armies and the in- 
 crease of the national debt. The war of 1812 was with- 
 out glory on the land, being a miserable series of blun- 
 ders and misfortunes on the part of generals, and with- 
 
XXIV FOUR HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 out results at all gratifying to American pride. And it 
 was also regarded as unnecessary by those who were 
 most injured by naval depredations. It was popular only 
 among those who lived in the interior, and who cher- 
 ished the traditions of Bunker Hill and of Yorktown. 
 Its calamities were indeed partially redeemed by naval 
 successes, which shed renown on such captains as Deca- 
 tur, Barron and Bainbridge. It might have been more 
 successful if the whole people had been united in it, 
 to accomplish a distinctive practical object, as in the 
 French and Indian War when Canada was conquered, or 
 in the Revolutionary struggle for liberty. But it had no 
 specific aims except to vindicate national honor. As such 
 it was not without important results. It convinced Eng- 
 land, at least, that the Americans would no longer be 
 trifled with, and that all future hostilities, whichever 
 way they terminated, would inflict evils without corres- 
 ponding benefits. The war doubtless gave a great stim- 
 ulus to the infant manufactures of the country, and va- 
 rious kinds of industries, since the people were driven to 
 them by necessity, and thus helped to build up New Eng- 
 land in spite of its ruined commerce. The war also scat- 
 tered wealth and inflated prices. All wars have this effect; 
 but it demoralized the people like the Revolutionary 
 War itself, notwithstanding the great bonus it bestowed. 
 Both countries were glad when the war terminated, for 
 both were equal sufferers, and, to all appearances, gained 
 but trifling advantages. In the peace which was con- 
 summated at Ghent, of which John Quincy Adams and 
 Henry Clay were the chief negotiators, nothing was said 
 about the injuries which provoked the contest, but they 
 never were forgotten, and the United States were doubt- 
 less put on a better footing with foreign powers. From 
 that time national progress was more rapid than before, 
 and all classes settled down to peaceful prosperity and to 
 improving their condition. 
 
OF AMERICAN HISTORY. XXV 
 
 The only event of importance which occurred during 
 Madison's administration, after the close of the war, was 
 the cession of Florida to the United States in 1819, ne- 
 gotiated by John Quincy Adams, but opposed by Henry 
 Clay. The latter great man had now become one of the 
 most prominent figures in American politics, and his en- 
 trance upon the political arena marked the growing im- 
 portance of Congress in the domestic affairs of the coun- 
 try at large. From this time the abler statesmen in the Na- 
 tional Legislature obtained by their debates a greater 
 prominence in the public eye than even the Executive it- 
 self. 
 
 This was true especially during the administration of 
 Madison's successor, Monroe, who was more distinguished 
 for respectability than eminent abilities — the last of the 
 " Virginia dynasty." His name has been particularly 
 associated with a declaration made in his message to 
 Congress in March, 1822, that, "as a principle, the 
 American Continents, by the free and independent 
 position they have assumed and maintained, are hence- 
 forth not to be considered as subjects for future 
 colonization by any foreign power." This is known as 
 "the Monroe doctrine," although it should probably be 
 credited to John Quincy Adams, Monroe's Secretary of 
 State. 
 
 During the times of " good feeling " and absence of 
 party animosities which marked the administration of 
 Monroe, two great men, Daniel Webster and Henry Clay, 
 appeared in the halls of Congress destined to make a mark 
 in the domestic history of the nation. And there was 
 one event which happened during the same period, the 
 political consequences of which were of great impor- 
 tance, the work of these rising statesmen rather than of 
 the President. This was the famous Missouri Compro- 
 mise, marking the first conflict between slavery and free- 
 dom — a question which thenceforward dwarfed all other 
 
XXVI FOUR HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 subjects of national interest. Thitherto the great que* 
 tion had been kept in the background, but in 1818 a bill 
 was introduced into Congress proposing the admission of 
 Missouri into the Union, which when it reached the Sen- 
 ate was amended bv Mr. Tallmadge of Mew York, pro- 
 viding that slaves should not De inrtlier introduced into 
 the St^ate. Angry discussions followed, and although the 
 amendment was adopted, the question was not lost sight 
 of, but for two years engaged the in tensest interest of 
 Congress and the public, until in 1821 a compromise was 
 effected by Henry Clay, by which slavery was forever 
 excluded from United States territory north of 36° 30' 
 of latitude, and west of the western boundary of Mis- 
 souri. This admitted Missouri as a slave State, but 
 drew the line of demarcation at that. 
 
 The administration of John Quincy Adams, Monroe's 
 successor, was unmarked by important political events, 
 and he quietly continued the policy of his predecessor, 
 making but few removals from office. He had been a 
 Federalist, but swung round to the Republican or Demo- 
 cratic party. ISTo one since Washington was so little oi 
 a partisan as this President, and no one was ever more 
 conscientious in the discharge of the duties of his office. 
 But he was not popular. Neither his habits nor opinions 
 gained him friends, while they created many enemies, 
 the most implacable of whom was General Jackson, who 
 considered himself cheated out of the Presidency by a 
 supposed coalition between Adams and Clay, on which 
 he harped to the day of his death. 
 
 In 1829 the public career of John Quincy Adams ap- 
 parently closed, but his best days were yet to come as the 
 champion of human freedom in the House of Represen- 
 tatives. His most distinctive trait of character was 
 moral heroism. He had a lofty self-respect which pre- 
 vented him from conciliating foes, or rewarding friends ; 
 an old Puritan, sternly incorruptible, disdaining policy 
 
OF AMERICAN HISTORY. XXVli 
 
 in the inflexible sense of duty and personal dignity, 
 learned without genius, eloquent without rhetoric, ex- 
 perienced without wisdom, and religious without ortho- 
 doxy, yet securing universal respect from his austere in- 
 tegrity and undoubted patriotism, the last of the great 
 statesmen, except the military heroes, who reached ex- 
 alted rank from the services he had previously rendered. 
 The elevation of Andrew Jackson to the Presidency 
 was memorable for a new departure in the political his- 
 tory of the United States. He was a man of remarkable 
 force. Born poor, he had, almost without friends, made 
 his own way, becoming lawyer, Congressman, United 
 States Senator, Judge of the Supreme Court of Tennes- 
 see, volunteer militia officer, Major-General and Depart- 
 ment Commander, and Governor of Florida. He had 
 rendered undoubted services in the war of 1812, especially 
 by his brilliant victory at New Orleans, and he also had 
 shown considerable ability in conflicts with the Indians, 
 which gave him great popularity. But he was accused 
 of being ignorant, prejudiced, unscrupulous, and self- 
 willed. He began his administration by making the 
 members of his Cabinet his tools or clerks, and giving 
 his confidence to a few unofficial admirers, called the 
 " Kitchen Cabinet." So far as he was ruled at all it was 
 by these " machine politicians," whose policy was a divi- 
 sion of the spoils of office. At the start Jackson fool- 
 ishly quarreled with nearly all the members of his 
 Cabinet, because their wives would not associate with a 
 woman of inferior social position who had married the 
 Secretary of War. Next, he turned out most of the office- 
 holders whom his predecessors had appointed, who were 
 not his partisans, on the infamous doctrine : " To the 
 victor belong the spoils," a movement which unfortun- 
 ately became the policy of his successors of all parties, 
 as a party measure. This course cannot be sustained by 
 justice or by argument from experience, either in con- 
 
XXV111 FOUR HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 serving party strength or advancing official efficiency in 
 charge of the national interests. It causes intense 
 hatreds and bitter disappointments. Jackson made ten 
 times more removals in one month than all his prede- 
 cessors had done before him, and this without regard 
 to fitness for office, but avowedly to reward partisans, 
 in a time of intense political partisanship. 
 
 It was not long after his inauguration before Jackson 
 became involved in a quarrel with the United States 
 Bank. The notes of this bank were as good as gold, and 
 it had proved useful in the regulation of the currency, 
 in fact, a necessity which had the confidence of business 
 men throughout the country. Under the pretense that 
 it was an engine of political corruption the President 
 waged an uncompromising war until he effected his pur- 
 pose of crippling it. I need not detail the financial 
 troubles which ensued when the great central bank, 
 the Federal balance-wheel of all money operations, was 
 stopped, and when State banks — called " Pets " — sprung 
 up everywhere, without sufficient capital, to which the 
 public funds were intrusted until they all burst up to- 
 gether in the financial crash of 1837, and the general 
 suspension of specie payments. In justice I must add 
 that this crash was not caused wholly by the winding up 
 of the United States Bank, but largely by an enormous 
 inflation of paper money in the craze for universal 
 speculation, to which everybody was tempted by the 
 prosperity of the country, arising from its rapid settle- 
 ment and development. 
 
 But more important than the President's war on the 
 United States Bank was the compromise tariff of 1833, 
 which led to the greatest series of debates ever seen before 
 in the halls of Congress, and in which Clay, Webster, and 
 Calhouhr were the parliamentary giants. The United 
 States Senate never has had such famous debaters as dur- 
 ing the administration of General Jackson. He seemed 
 
OF AMERICAN HISTORY. XXIX 
 
 to call our all the bitter hostilities which had been buried 
 since the times of Jefferson. The extraordinary ability 
 which was developed at this time in both Houses of Con- 
 gress, but especially in the Senate, was directed to every- 
 thing of national interest. Into all political subjects 
 did statesmen cast their fearless eyes — questions of 
 finance, political economy, internal improvements, manu- 
 factures, commerce, and Indian difficulties. Congres- 
 sional legislation during the memorable eight years 
 of Jackson's rule is exceedingly interesting. The op- 
 position was conducted by the Whig party, successors of 
 the Federalists, friends of the United States Bank, of a 
 tariff iDvolving protection to infant industries, and gen- 
 erally of what the Democrats opposed. The Whig press 
 was wonderfully active, not only in discussing public 
 measures, but in caricaturing public men, especially the 
 President himself, who acted from the counsels of his 
 own will alone, while everybody approved or must sub- 
 mit to the penalty of his displeasure. 
 
 The debates on the tariff settled nothing. What ques- 
 tion of political economy ever was settled, any more than 
 doctrines of theology ! For more than half a century 
 our legislators have attempted to solve this puzzle — 
 whether a tariff should be imposed for revenue only, or 
 for the protection of various industries — but the question 
 was probably never more ably discussed than by Clay, 
 Calhoun and Webster at this period. They showed 
 themselves to be statesmen, like Sir Kobert Peel and 
 Gladstone, rather than mere politicians such as have 
 generally been elected to succeed them. 
 
 There is only one other Jacksonian subject to which 
 the limits of this sketch will allow me to allude, and that 
 is the nullification movement in South Carolina, which 
 grew out of a jealousy of Northern growth and the 
 tenacity of slave institutions, leading to that great parlia- 
 mentary discussion in which Webster and Hayne were 
 
XXX FOUR HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 the combatants. To the credit of General Jackson that 
 movement was summarily put down. In this affair the 
 imperious military president — who was patriotically de- 
 voted to the Union — rendered an important public 
 service, the result of which was to stave off the slavery 
 contest until the country was better prepared for it. 
 Moreover, it must be admitted that, stormy as was the 
 administration of Jackson, and high-handed as were 
 some of his most important measures, the country was 
 seemingly never more prosperous. His sturdy will was 
 serviceable also in favorable settlements of outstanding 
 disputes with foreign nations — France, Spain, Naples 
 and Denmark, besides some important foreign treaties. 
 Nor was the country ever marked by grander popular 
 agitations leading to an enlightened public opinion on 
 national issues. The whole land was aroused with the 
 eloquence of popular orators on almost every subject of 
 human interest, and remarkably separated from ques- 
 tions of mere material welfare — discussions and lectures 
 without end on slavery, on peace and war, on temper- 
 ance, and on every other social reform. The platform, 
 for a time, seemed to be as great a power as the pulpit 
 or the press. The popular discussions of that day pre- 
 pared the way for the higher grade of intellectual speak- 
 ers who not many years after began to appear — the 
 period when great lecturers arose like Everett, Holmes, 
 Emerson, Giles, Beecher, Greeley, Sumner, Phillips, fol- 
 lowed by Chapin, Whipple, Curtis and a host of others 
 whose literary disquisitions were nearly as exciting as 
 harangues on political and social questions. For a 
 generation the platform held its own as a great popular 
 power, and then gradually passed away, like other 
 fashions useful in their day, to be succeeded by maga- 
 zines a*nd periodicals whose highest triumph is at the 
 present time assisted by pictorial art. 
 
 Concerning the strife of parties and the succession 
 
OF AMERICAN HISTORY. XXXf 
 
 of administrations after Jackson, I need say nothing. 
 Ordinary political history, after all, is only a strand in 
 the rope. True history embraces the development of 
 agriculture and manufactures, of science, of art, of litera- 
 ture, of morals, and of religion as well — all social growth 
 — a boundless field, which no historian can fully master. 
 
 The prominent element of interest in the history of 
 the United States, from Jackson to Lincolu, is almost un- 
 written except in statistical tables, and that was, the mar- 
 vellous expansion of the country in every respect. The 
 tide of immigration set in from almost every European 
 nation until it modified all forms of American life. Not 
 merely the poor and the miserable, but the enterprising 
 and adventurous sought the western continent to improve 
 their condition, until the whole country was settled from 
 the Atlantic to the Mississippi. The grain of mustard 
 seed had become a tree for all the birds of the air. With 
 the progress of emigration to the western States all 
 kinds of industry had been developed. The country was 
 getting rich ; the national debt was paid off ; colleges were 
 being planted in every State; the primeval forests, where 
 the red man had roved for a precarious support from 
 his bow and arrows, had become fertile fields ; cereals 
 were exported to Europe to feed starving populations, 
 while peace and plenty reigned in every section of the 
 land. Never was a country more bountifully blessed. 
 The reports of its wonderful fertility, its industrial re- 
 sources, its mechanical inventions, especially in the ap- 
 plication of steam to machinery, navigation and rapid 
 transit, its philanthropical enterprises, its educational 
 movements and its free institutions, reached every corner 
 of the Old World and turned the eyes of suffering peoples 
 to this poor man's paradise, where every facility was 
 afforded for getting an honest living, unmolested by 
 government enactments and the tyranny of caste. 
 
 The accidental discovery of gold in California in 1848 
 
XXXL1 FOUR HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 gave a fresh impulse to emigration, enterprise and 
 ambition. Streams of western-bound transmigration 
 crossed the Plains, passed the Rocky mountains and the 
 great interior basin, and found lodgments all along the 
 route, until the whole continent was opened up to colo- 
 nists, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, with mines of un- 
 told wealth and every variety of fruits and cereals known 
 to civilization ; for the expanse of territory provided 
 every diversity of climate, from seaboard to mountain- 
 top, from the tropics to the ice ; and this vast continent 
 was peopled by a few people, under -a centralized but 
 almost unf elt government at Washington, of whose power 
 the makers of the Constitution j/ad never dreamed. 
 Material life assumed a new aspect, and gigantic fortunes 
 arose far exceeding those known to ancient aristocracies. 
 But there was one dark cloud which, amid this general 
 prosperity, arose upon the horizon, giving intense solic- 
 itude to statesmen in Congress and the people in their 
 assemblies, and this was the agitation caused by the per- 
 sistent growth of negro slavery. This, little by little, 
 entered more and more deeply into the minds of the 
 people, and at last became a new political force of ex- 
 traordinary influence. The eyes of the more thrifty 
 and intelligent part of the nation were opened to the 
 most monstrous absurdity that ever confronted the 
 human intellect: — that from three to five millions of peo- 
 ple were ground down by hopeless and bitter slavery un- 
 der a Constitution which proclaimed unbounded liberty; 
 and, further, that this bondage was intolerable, cruel, in- 
 human, hopeless — that there was no apparent remedy for 
 the most disgraceful injustice under the sun, and that 
 the mere agitation of the subject created bitter animosi- 
 ties among freemen themselves, and threatened National 
 disunion. Gradually all other subjects of legislation 
 paled before the tremendous issues which became obvi- 
 ous to every thinking mind. Even tariffs and internal 
 
OF AMERICAN HISTORY. XXXlii 
 
 improvements, which had been for forty years the 
 leading subjects of discussion in Congress, lost their in- 
 terest in comparison with the mighty evil which appar- 
 ently was to divide the North from the South and make 
 two rival and hostile nations instead of one united power. 
 Congressional and even Presidential elections began to 
 hinge on their connection with the slavery agitation. 
 Those very men whom we now venerate as the most en» 
 lightened and philanthropic of patriots were maligned, 
 slandered and persecuted, because they strove to en- 
 lighten the National conscience as to the evils of slavery. 
 Animosities daily increased between statesmen from dif- 
 ferent sections of the country. The South looked with 
 alarm and hatred upon all who advocated human rights, 
 and with jealousy at the growing power of the free 
 States, while the North beheld with astonishment and in- 
 dignation the outrages which slave-owners inflicted on 
 the most patient and gentle people who ever endured the 
 yoke of bondage, and with apprehension saw them 
 reaching out after more territory, — for, as the thrift- 
 less labor exhausted the soil, slavery must expand or die. 
 Such a state of things could not last amid the mighty 
 commotions of the nineteenth century. The inevitable 
 conflict must come. The blinded South would not listen 
 to reason or humanity, and became the aggressor, with 
 the main object of increasing slave territory and divid- 
 ing the Union. In vain the eloquent memories of Clay 
 and Webster, the adroitness of Douglas and Seward: 
 Southern leaders, like Calhoun and Hayne, had pre- 
 pared the Southern mind for disunion, under the plea 
 of State sovereignty, which Southern politicians had 
 ever advocated, foreseeing difficulties which they dared 
 not openly discuss. The extension and intensification of 
 the contest over Kansas and the new States, the disrup- 
 tion of the Missouri Compromise in the interest of 
 slavery, the growth of the anti-slavery sentiment in the 
 
XXXIV F0TJB HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 North, and the election of Lincoln as President, were 
 skilfully nsed to "fire the Southern heart" to overt 
 rebellion ; the guns of organized State treason at length 
 fired upon the Federal Fort Sumter, and the mightiest 
 contest of modern times was fairly opened. 
 
 It is not my object to present even the outline of that 
 tremendous war, the details of which are narrated with 
 accuracy and candor in the work before us, in the course 
 of which such great names as Lincoln, Grant, Lee and 
 others became prominent and immortal. What can be 
 said in a few sentences of a contest which lasted four 
 years and in which more than a million of men perished, 
 and from five to eight thousand millions of dollars were 
 expended ? The sincere but misguided State patriotism 
 of the South made a magnificent fight, and the triumph 
 of the North was won not so much by superior genius 
 and patriotic fervor as by its overwhelming strength, to 
 which the Southern leaders had been blind because it 
 was latent. 
 
 The life of any one of the prominent generals pre- 
 sents more material for history than the whole military 
 career of Washington, and the short administration of 
 Lincoln more than that of the united lives of all the pre- 
 vious Presidents. Who can present, within the narrow 
 limits of an introductory essay, the patience, the forti- 
 tude, the sagacity and the patriotism of the man whom 
 Providence raised up from humble life to guide the for- 
 tunes of a mighty nation ? And who in a few lines can 
 show the military genius of the great generals who 
 brought the war to a successful issue ? 
 
 What was this issue ? It was the liberation of millions 
 of slaves whose cries of despair had ascended to heaven. 
 It was the wiping out of a National disgrace which in- 
 sulted humanity. It was the preservation of a Union 
 whose mission for good is infinite. It was the final ele- 
 vation of the Southern half of the Anglo-Saxon popula- 
 
OF AMERICAN HISTORY. XXXV 
 
 tion of America to an equality with the triumphant 
 North, and the development of resources which South- 
 ern politicians never dreamed of in the most prosperous 
 period of their old-time power. It was the opening up 
 of Southern territory to trade, manufactures and indus- 
 tries which have almost revolutionized it. It was the 
 burial of a subject of contention which had kept forty 
 millions of people in perpetual conflict, and the removal 
 of which left them free to pursue their wonderful 
 career. 
 
 With the close of the Civil War a renewed and still 
 more marvellous expansion of energies took place in 
 every part of the land, and in every conceivable form. 
 The increase in wealth and industries was perfectly 
 amazing. The mind is bewildered by their contempla- 
 tion. It is like surveying the stars rather than the 
 moon. No intellect can grasp the mighty development 
 in mines, in agricultural wealth, in commerce, in manu- 
 factures, in inventions, in steam navigation, in railways, 
 in the electrical applications of power, in education, in 
 philanthropy, in the erection of churches, in the endow- 
 ment of colleges and schools, in the spread of liberal 
 ideas. Even Canada may practically become an integral 
 part of this great Anglo-Saxon empire. The little 
 mountain stream is now a mighty river whose tribu- 
 taries fertilize millions of square miles of soil as rich as 
 the Babylonian plains. The little sapling at Plymouth 
 Rock is now a tree whose branches conceal the heaven 
 itself. Where is the end to be ? What country has 
 such sublime destinies ? A generation has not passed 
 away since the war without seeing the population of the 
 country doubled, and its wealth, real and personal, in- 
 creased to more than sixty thousand millions of dollars. 
 
 Thus are all events overruled for good. The war, 
 which some thought would exhaust and ruin the country, 
 opened channels of unexpected development. Thus 
 
XXXVI FOUR HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 is Providence prodigal of the sufferings and the lives of 
 men, and still more of their wealth, to bring forth, out 
 of disaster, blessings which could never be foreseen. 
 This is the most impressive lesson which history teaches, 
 seen alike in the struggles of ancient Greece and the 
 conflicts of most modern nations — the everlasting burn- 
 ing of the world-phoenix to send forth undying hopes 
 and, bring about perpetual progress. 
 
 All this is the bright side of the picture. There is, 
 alas ! another side, f raugljfc with great peril, bringing 
 solicitude to every thoughtful mind. 
 
 All countries have peculiar dangers and difficulties to 
 contend with, which sap the foundations of true National 
 prosperity. In the old Roman world disproportionate 
 fortunes, slavery, egotism and social vices undermined 
 the moral health and prepared the way for violence. 
 There was no material on which conservative forces 
 could work. In modern Europe another class of evils 
 give grave solicitude to thinking men. In one country 
 we see hard military despotism, vast standing armies, 
 perpetual preparations for war which divert industry 
 from its legitimate channels. In another country there 
 are popular discontents, socialism, communism, nihilism, 
 threatening the war of classes and the overthrow of 
 established institutions. We see in other quarters com- 
 binations of labor against combinations of capital, fearful 
 to behold, the end of which no mortal can predict. "We 
 notice in some nations an intolerable religious des- 
 potism, paralyzing energies and destroying all indi- 
 vidual independence of mind, and in other countries 
 the opposite evil — rampant infidelity, the destruction of 
 religious faith, lax morality, and an insensibility to re- 
 ligious impressions. Some countries are nearly ruined 
 by intemperance, and others by disgraceful licentious- 
 ness. Wherever we turn our eyes, there is something 
 pregnant with dangers, and, seemingly, almost impossi- 
 
OF AMERICAN HISTORY. XXXV11 
 
 ble to eradicate — all fatal to healthy development ; seeds 
 of ruin ; sources of despair. 
 
 In the United States, with their wonderful growth, 
 unbounded energies, and intense life, there are some 
 peculiar perils which, unless averted, may undermine 
 what is most to be valued ; and they are all the more to 
 be dreaded because they make but little impression on 
 the common mind. 
 
 One of these is the inordinate value attached to mere 
 material wealth. If you discuss the destinies of America 
 with a boastful optimist he will be very apt to speak of 
 the inexhaustible mines of gold, silver, iron and other 
 metals, enough to buy the industries of the whole world, 
 and make the country rich, even if no wheat or cotton 
 were exported to Europe. Or he may point to the vast 
 plains under cultivation, producing grain enough to 
 supply the wants of Europe, after using all we need for 
 ourselves. Or he may enumerate the miles of railway — 
 ten times more than would circle the whole earth, bring- 
 ing every conceivable product of the land to the sea- 
 board. He might enumerate the millions of hogs slaugh- 
 tered in Cincinnati, Chicago and Kansas City, the 
 innumerable cattle which Texas sends to the East, the 
 hogsheads of wine and brandy which enable California 
 to compete with the vineyards of Europe. Everything 
 centres in his eye on material wealth, and the luxuries 
 which wealth secures. When a foreigner travels in this 
 country it is the vast and undeveloped resources of the 
 West which most astonish him. The common eye sees 
 chiefly the colossal production of the country, and glories 
 in the boundless results which are sure to reward miners, 
 agriculturists, and manufacturers alike. It is this ma- 
 terial life in which an immense majority seem to glory 
 as the highest object of desire. Hence the adoration of 
 rich men, the only aristocrats whom society here recog- 
 nizes, and in whom power seems to be centralized. There 
 
XXXVL11 FOUR HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 are philanthropists who found colleges ; but even col- 
 leges are being more and more utilized for science to 
 develop material forces — adapting their supply of learn- 
 ing to the material demands of the age. There are re- 
 ligious people who build churches ; but these must be 
 so expensively constructed and so splendidly decorated 
 that poor people cannot afford to worship in them. 
 Everybody is ambitious to live in a fine house, and the 
 wealthy rival the ancient Romans in the luxury of their 
 tables and the gorgeousness of their furniture. It is 
 these things to which most people " point with pride," 
 as the political party platforms phrase it. Even political 
 aspiration is cast aside for money. This unconscious ad- 
 miration of material power is nearly universal, and is 
 demoralizing, because we put our trust in it as being our 
 happiness and strength. We lean on money more than 
 on friends. In short, it is with most people the object 
 of idolatry; and the further we go from the old seats of 
 ancestral pride, the more universal, the more offensive, 
 and the more vulgar is this worship, permeating all 
 thoughts, and animating existence itself. 
 
 I would not declaim against what is as great an evil 
 in Europe as in America, and was always an evil 
 among all nations. Nor do I suppose that we shall be 
 ruined and wiped out like the ancient Babylonians and 
 Romans. What unknown barbarians can conquer us? 
 We shall neither be depopulated nor exhausted, come 
 what will. The danger is, that we shall be demoralized ; 
 that we shall lose that fervid faith in unseen realities 
 that animated the best of the early settlers ; that the real 
 grandeur of life will be lost sight of ; that we shall be- 
 come commonplace, and that the noblest efforts of phil- 
 anthropists and thinkers will be paralyzed by this undue 
 appreciation of physical development. No doubt the 
 spirit of enterprise, the thirst for accomplishing great 
 deeds, exultation in the power to bring things to pass, is 
 
OF AMERICAN HISTORY. XXXIX 
 
 chiefly the conscious motive of American efficiency ; but 
 men easily deceive themselves. The idol is soon wor- 
 shiped rather than the god it stands for ; the letter is 
 valued above the spirit that created it ; and America is 
 in peril of losing aspiration in sordidness. 
 
 Now, if the discovery of America was intended merely 
 to open a new field for the development of material 
 forces, then Columbus crossed the unknown ocean in 
 vain ; he only opened the way for a renewal of the 
 same old experiments which ruined the ancient world. 
 Doubtless America is destined to eclipse all other na- 
 tions in the splendor of its civilization, and it is also 
 probable that the seat of political power will be in those 
 new States which were a wilderness even fifty years ago. 
 No one can exaggerate the material glories which will 
 blaze in the valley of the Mississippi and away over the 
 prairies, and beyond the mountains to the farther sea. 
 
 And what then ? Grant the most indefinite expansion 
 of wealth and power. Is it to be the old story of Babylon, 
 Egypt, Borne ? What is the uniform lesson of all the 
 ages ? Industry ; wealth ; corruption ; decay ; ruin. 
 No matter how broad and how splendid a mere material 
 civilization may be, it is built upon the sand. What is 
 the body of a man I His soul only — himself — it is, that 
 is precious and immortal. Whatever degrades the soul is 
 a poison which destroys the body. Material glories are 
 likely to blind us as to our true and higher destinies. 
 Make New York a second Carthage, Philadelphia a 
 second Antioch, Chicago a second Babylon, and Wash- 
 ington a second Rome, and we simply repeat the old 
 achievements which ended in dismal failure. There is no 
 reason, drawn from human experience, why this country 
 should escape the fate of all other nations, not in the 
 extinction of their population, but in the extinction of 
 their glories — unless spiritual forces shall arise which 
 will counteract the downward tendency in morals and 
 
XI K)UR HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 spiritual life. If America has a great mission to fulfill 
 she must put forth those agencies and proclaim those 
 ideas which elevate the soul, and which will save other 
 nations also. No stretch of territory, no richness of 
 mines, no fertile fields of corn, no money-making mills, 
 are anything, in the loftiest aspect, if true life has fled. 
 
 And hence it is emancipating ideas and enlightened 
 modes of education at home, and Christian missions to 
 extend our best good to needy nations abroad, which 
 should be the objects of highest aim, if America is to 
 fulfill its peculiar privilege in promoting the elevation 
 and happiness of mankind. The final value of the dis- 
 covery and settlement of America must be established 
 not so much in feeding uncounted millions, to pass away 
 like the leaves of the forest, as in creating new institu- 
 tions and social conditions, which shall spread throughout 
 the world. Thus only can we even conserve the glories 
 of which we boast. 
 
 Another subject of solicitude to a patriotic American 
 is the problem of what shall be done for the emancipated 
 colored people of the South. That is a question peculiar 
 to ourselves, and which we alone can solve. The rapid 
 increase of the colored population may not endanger our 
 institutions or affect the prosperity of the East and 
 West. On the contrary, the unfortunate people whom we 
 freed from bondage, and to whom we, perhaps unwisely, 
 gave political rights, may yet be scattered throughout 
 the land ; and they will inevitably find the political and 
 industrial level to which they become adapted, although 
 social intermixture with the whites seems neither possi- 
 ble nor desirable ; nor will they weaken the resources of 
 the South, but will rather develop them. Yet their 
 condition is most pitiable. Even Fred Douglass, in a 
 lecture on their sad life, intimated, in my hearing, that, 
 in spite of all that had been gained by many of them, 
 the condition of the great mass was not substantially im- 
 
OF AMERICAN HISTORY, jdi 
 
 proved by emancipation — that they were still largely in 
 the power of the whites; that they were still 
 often oppressed, and miserable, ignorant and degraded, 
 and might hereafter, with their rapid increase, become a 
 dangerous element in our civilization. 
 
 Something ought to be done for a people who have 
 been subjected to so great injustice. There is no ap- 
 parent remedy for the increasing cloud of portentous 
 evil but iu their education, to make them citizens whom 
 we fear not ; and who is to educate them ? They must 
 be taught by those who are stronger and wiser. The 
 Southern whites are slow to teach and help them, but 
 at times even insult and isolate the philanthropic teachers 
 who come to save them ; although in many localities 
 these old prejudices are passing away as the whites begin 
 to see the higher worth of intelligent laborers. This is 
 marked, for instance, with regard to the Hampton Insti- 
 tute for Negroes and Indians, some of the best friends 
 of which are Southern men. The material wealth of 
 the Nation must be utilized in their favor — must be 
 turned in a channel of goodness and benevolence. No 
 feeble charity, no pittance of superfluous wealth, will 
 avail anything. Donations large and free, not only of 
 private but of public moneys — not thousands of dollars 
 but millions — should be contributed to give them 
 common schools, industrial training-schools and colleges ; 
 not directly to teach the masses of ignorant and depraved 
 humanity, but especially to educate the better class of 
 them, to raise up colored teachers who can best instruct 
 their fellow-sufferers. 
 
 The boon which Abraham Lincoln conferred upon the 
 slaves as a war measure will not turn out so great a bless- 
 ing as was supposed, until some National aid for their 
 further emancipation from ignorance and brutality shall 
 be appropriated to their education by our National 
 Legislature, as a National necessity. 
 
Xlii FOUR HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 Much the same line of thought applies to the remnants 
 of our aboriginal Indian tribes who, as " Wards of the 
 Nation," might well accuse us of a gross and gigantic 
 breach of trust. The efforts making to educate the 
 Indians, both in private and Governmental schools in the 
 West and in the Hampton and Carlisle institutions in the 
 East, give most encouraging results. They promise to 
 fit these people for a reasonable use of the freedom and 
 responsibity that will be theirs when the Government 
 divides their lands to them in individual severalty instead 
 of by tribes, and when they put their nobler qualities of 
 truthfulness and self-respect to work in the sphere of 
 American citizenship. 
 
 We should not too harshly criticise our uncivilized 
 " inferior races," for we ourselves have much to learn in 
 the practice of Christianity, honesty and common fair 
 dealing, when our Government, legislative and execu- 
 tive together, unites in making a "Chinese exclusion 
 law," in plain contravention of existing treaties. That 
 has been done in the year of our Lord 1892. 
 
 I allude to but one more evil, threatening to sap the 
 moral health of the Nation, and reducing our boasted lib- 
 erty to a scandal and a failure — especially in cities, to which 
 the people are more and more flocking with alarming ea- 
 gerness — and that is, corruption and venality in elections. 
 I will not dwell on this disease, since I see no remedy 
 until the whole moral tone of society is raised, and that 
 is not to be done by machinery. If the integrity of 
 popular elections is destroyed we must be ruled by dem- 
 agogues and bosses controlling the votes of ignorant 
 foreigners. No combinations of capital and occasional 
 bursts of indignant eloquence can remove the evil. It is 
 the most deeply seated and fatal calamity that can possi- 
 bly threaten the friends of Constitutional liberty. If 
 Thomas Jefferson, who was among the first and was the 
 most potent to open the door to universal suffrage, could 
 
OF AMERICAN HISTOBYo xliii 
 
 now see the results of his policy, his bones would rattle 
 in his coffin. All elective governments are liable to this 
 misfortune; but here the intelligent voters and tax- 
 payers are on the one hand so devoted to their private 
 enterprises, and on the other such blind worshipers of 
 the party fetich, that the unscrupulous politician has be- 
 come a professional worker and power. Bribery is no- 
 where so unblushing and disgraceful as in this country, 
 in consequence of which we have incompetent and dis- 
 honest rulers, with their eyes open, not to good which 
 they might do and evils which they might remove, but 
 to the spoils of office. This subject is too painful to en- 
 large upon, but is, nevertheless, mixed up with Ameri- 
 can destinies. It will never be eliminated till intelligent 
 Americans take again a lively interest in public affairs 
 and refuse to be herded at the polls by ambitious party 
 leaders. A beginning of betterment has been made, in 
 the adoption of the Australian method of secret ballot- 
 ing at elections, in many of the States. Public opinion 
 is slowly awakening, and the true citizen may hope for 
 a gradual emancipation from corrupt elections ; but let 
 no one boast of our material triumphs while this 
 abomination exists in the very citadel of our liberties. 
 
 The dangers which some deplore in immigration, in 
 Mormonism, and in Roman Catholicism I fail to see, at 
 least to any alarming extent. Immigration planted the 
 West and developed its industries. Why should not the 
 poor and miserable of foreign lands have a share in a 
 boundless inheritance ? It is not necessary that they 
 should always be ignorant. They are as civilized as our 
 own remote ancestors, and they have as noble aspirations. 
 They have already largely amalgamated with the Anglo- 
 Saxon race. Mormonism is only a spot upon a sun, and 
 must fade away with advancing light unless more deeply 
 impregnated with evil than I am inclined to believe ; 
 while Catholicism has a mission to fulfill among people 
 
Xliv FOUR HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 still enslaved by the dogmas and superstitions o£ tliO 
 Middle Ages. Grasping as the Catholics are of political 
 power, it is because they had none in the countries from 
 which they came, and their new privileges are all the 
 dearer from their former political insignificance. Every 
 succeeding generation becomes more enlightened and 
 more impressible by grand ideas. They are still the 
 most religious, and in some respects the most moral, of 
 all our colonists; and their priests are the most hard- 
 worked and most self-denying of all our clergy — teach- 
 ing, with all their prejudices and ecclesiastical bondage, 
 the cardinal principles of the Christian religion. The 
 Catholics may become a very powerful and numerous re- 
 ligious party, but they never can become a dominating 
 power while faith remains in the agencies which have 
 produced so wonderful a civilization as this, nor could 
 the Pope encroach largely on civil freedom in this 
 utilitarian age, even were he so disposed. Indeed, his 
 recent utterances, as to both French and American 
 affairs, seem to show a sagacious sympathy with the 
 political tendencies of the day. 
 
 No picture can be true which does not show the 
 shadows as well as the lights. We have had to look at 
 some dark ones. But it is to be remembered that Amer- 
 ica is not a completed country. Much of the great 
 prospect is chaotic, confused, unsightly, showing piles 
 of dirt and accumulations of refuse material — like the 
 building-ground of a huge edifice during construction. 
 Such rapid advancement in nation-building was never 
 made before on the earth, because all classes have been 
 free and interested workers. We are in a transition 
 stage, and even approximate perfection is a long way 
 off. We may take courage, however, in the knowledge 
 that not only is our edifice well founded — "broad-based 
 upon a nation's will " — but that, counteracting against 
 the infelicities and tendencies to danger, is a new force 
 
OF AMERICAN HISTORY. 2iV 
 
 arising among the builders — the thoughtful and the de- 
 votional alike — which is making more of conduct than 
 of creed, more of piety than of institutional religion, 
 more of individual character than of ecclesiastical form. 
 This leaven is spreading with wholesome infection, and 
 must find its sphere of work in arousing the multitude 
 of individual consciences of American freemen to loftier 
 standards of life and aspiration, in business, in all kinds 
 of manual labor, in politics, in law-making and law- 
 keeping — briefly, in good citizenship. It is much that 
 a land has been found large and rich enough to raise its 
 people out of the degradation of poverty to a higher 
 plane of physical and social life, for morals and intelli- 
 gence follow that. And there is great hope in the new 
 popular movements in favor of education, — the Chautau- 
 qua Circles for home culture, the University Extension 
 for giving collegiate instruction to non-collegiate youth, 
 the libraries and reading clubs, the societies for polit- 
 ical, literary and socialistic discussion, the literature- 
 classes among women, and a great number of local asso- 
 ciations for self-improvement and for the helping of 
 others, from which radiate newer and better and loftier 
 influences into all ranks of our people — even the very 
 lowest. For among these a fresh zeal of Christian effort, 
 aided by common sense, is carrying the light of physi- 
 cal cleanliness and comfort, together with moral and 
 spiritual light. Moreover 3 the ancient civilizations, 
 whose material greatness toppled them to their ruin, 
 lacked two things that we rely on, free schools and an 
 unfrrammeled press. Frequent political revolt tends to 
 avert the more destructive armed rebellion; and the 
 growing intelligence of our youth, with the atmosphere 
 of free discussion into which they come up, will prove, 
 under the influence of Christianity, a vital force to throw 
 off evil as well as to propagate good. 
 
 I have but a word more to say, and that is on the dig- 
 
xlvi FOUR HUNDRED YEARS 
 
 nity and utility with which the history of tliis great 
 nation is invested. It will not be long before every uni- 
 versity of Europe will have a chair to study and teach 
 the development of our civilization. Such a wonderful 
 progress in a hundred years cannot pass unnoticed by the 
 students of the Old World. Even now the best treatises 
 on our political institutions have been written by a 
 Frenchman, a German and an Englishman, and are used 
 as text-books in our own colleges. The field of Ameri- 
 can history cannot be exhausted any more than our mines 
 of coal. Everyone who writes a school-book or an elab- 
 orate survey of the changes through which we have 
 passed, everyone who collates a statistical table, or writes 
 a treatise or a popular epitome of leading events, is a 
 benefactor. Everyone who paints and analyzes a great 
 character makes an addition to our literature. Even the 
 honest and industrious expert who drags out of oblivion 
 the driest and most minute details, is doing something 
 to swell the tide of useful knowledge in this great coun- 
 try. Especially useful to the hard-pushed student or the 
 busy man must be any reasonably compact record of 
 American life which presents the essential forces and 
 facts that have produced results. Such a work should 
 not only show the annals of political, military and indus- 
 trial growth, but should note the characteristics of the 
 various groups of colonists and the social, religious and 
 civic elements that entered with influence into the form- 
 ative periods of our composite national character. It 
 should give at successive points analyses of the princi- 
 ples of republican government and their American 
 applications — f rom the town-meeting to the highest Fed- 
 eral departments. It should, in brief, show not only the 
 results and processes, but the reasons for them, and thus 
 offer wholesome stimulant to the reader's mind. 
 
 The excellent book to which this is a merely sugges- 
 tive introduction, while it does not startle us by brilliant 
 
' OF AMERICAN HISTORY. xlvii 
 
 creative generalization nor enter upon critical specula- 
 tions on disputed points, makes admirable use of ac- 
 cepted facts. It is clear in style, condensed though 
 interesting in narrative, lofty in tone and truthful in 
 statement. It is rather remarkable for its discriminating 
 selection of events and influential elements to be set 
 forth and for its lucid presentation of them. Professor 
 Patton's account of our Four Hundred Years of American 
 History should have a wide circulation, for it is a 
 valuable contribution to the cause of education and 
 popular instruction. 
 
 John Lord. 
 Stamford ', Coruii., Jime^ 1892. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 VOLUME I. 
 
 SKETCH: 
 
 The History, Greatness and Dangers of America, by John 
 Lord, D.D., LL.D., ix 
 
 LIEF ERICSSON, 
 And other Norse Adventurers, 9. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 COLUMBUS. 
 
 His Discoveries, 12. Misfortunes — Death, 15. Amerigo Vespucci 
 and the name America, 16. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 American Prehistoric Races, 17. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND CONQUESTS. 
 
 South Sea — First Voyage Round the World, 43. Ponce de Leon, 
 44. Florida, 44. Vasquez de Ayllon, 45. Mexico and Peru, 46. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ENGLISH AND FRENCH DISCOVERIES. 
 
 John Cabot discovers the American Continent, 47. His son, Sebas- 
 tian, 48. Voyages of Verrazzani, 49. Voyages of Carrier, 50. 
 Attempts at Settlement, 52. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 DE SOTO AND THE MISSISSIPPI. 
 
 Lands at Tampa Bay, 55. On the Mississippi, 57. His Death, 58. 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE REFORMATION AND ITS EFFECTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE HUGUENOTS IN THE SOUTH. 
 
 Settlement destroyed, 62, 63. St. Augustine, 64. De Gourges, 66. 
 Settlements in New France, 67. Champlain, 68. 
 
 xlix 
 
1 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ENGLISH ENTERPRISE. 
 
 Sir Humphrey Gilbert, 70. The Fisheries— St. John's, Newfound 
 land, 71.' Sir Walter Raleigh, 71. Exploring Expedition— 
 Virginia, 72. Failures to colonize, 73. Contest with Spain, 74. 
 Death of Sir Walter, 75. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE SETTLEMENT OP VIRGINIA. 
 
 London and Plymouth Companies, 78. King James's Laws, 78. The 
 Voyage and Arrival — Jamestown, 79. John Smith; his energy, 
 79. His Captivity, 81. Misery of the Colonists, 82. New Emi- 
 grants, 83. Lord Delaware, 84. Sir Thomas Gates, 85. Poca- 
 hontas; her Capture and Marriage, 86. George Yeardley, 87. 
 First Legislative Assembly, 88. 
 
 CHAPTER X. ; 
 
 COLONIZATION OF NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 First Voyage to, 89. Explorations of John Smith, 90. The Church 
 of England, 91. The Puritans, 92. Congregation of John Rob- 
 inson, 93. Pilgrims in Holland, 94. Arrangements to Emigrate, 
 95. The Voyage, 97. Their prominent Men, 98. A Constitu- 
 tion adopted, 99. Landing at Plymouth, 100. Sufferings — 
 Indians, 101. Weston's Men, 103. Thanksgiving, 104. Dem- 
 ocratic Government, 105. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 COLONY OP MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 A Company organized; Settlement of Salem, 107. The Charter 
 transferred, 108. Boston and Vicinity settled, 109. Roger 
 Williams: his Banishment; he founds Providence, 110. Dis- 
 cussions renewed — Anne Hutcninson; Settlement of Rhode 
 Island, 112, 113. The Dutch at Hartford; Disputes with, 113, 
 Migrations to the Connecticut; Hooker and Haynes, 114. 
 Pequod War, 116. Rev. John Davenport; Settlement of New 
 Haven, 120. Sir Ferdinand Gorges; New Hampshire, 121. The 
 United Colonies, 122. Educated Men; Harvard College, Print- 
 ing Press, Common Schools, 123. Quakers: Persecution of, 124. 
 Eliot the Apostle — the Mayhews, 125, 126. Inner Life of the 
 Colonists, 126. The Tithing Man, 127. The title of Mr., 128. 
 Progress, 129. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 
 
 Slavery— Massacre by the Indians, 130. King James's Sympathies, 
 131. Lord Baltimore, 133. Settlement of Maryland, 134. Clay- 
 
CONTENTS. li 
 
 borne's Rebellion, 135. Toleration— Berkeley, Governor of 
 Virginia, intolerance, 136. State of Society, 137. Aristocratic 
 Assembly, 138. War with the Susquehannas — Nathaniel Bacon, 
 139. Disturbances, Obnoxious Assembly dissolved, 140. James- 
 town burned; Death of Bacon, 141. Tyranny of Berkeley; 
 Aristocratic Assembly; its Illiberal Acts, 142. Deplorable state 
 of the Colony, 143. College of William and Mary, 144. Troub- 
 les in Maryland, 145 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 COLONIZATION OP NEW YORK. 
 
 Hudson's Discoveries, 146. A Change wrought, 147. The Fort on 
 the Isle of Manhattan, 148. Walloons — the first Settlers — Peter 
 Minuits, 149. The Patroons; Van Twiller Governor, 150. 
 Kieft his Successor, 151. Difficulties with the Indians, 152. 
 They seek Protection; their Massacre, 153. Peace concluded, 
 156. Stuyvesant Governor, 157. The Swedish Settlement on 
 the Delaware ; Pavonia, 158. New Netherlands Surrendered to 
 England, 160. The Influence of the Dutch, 161. Settlements 
 in New Jersey; Scotch Presbyterians, 163. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 COLONIZATION OP PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 The Quakers, 164. William Penn; his Education, 165. Obtains a 
 Charter, 167. Lands at New Castle; Philadelphia Founded, 168. 
 Rights of the Indians, 169. German Emigrants, 170. Fletcher 
 the Royal Governor, 171. New Charter granted the People — 
 Presbyterians from Ireland and Scotland, 172. Trials of Penn; 
 his Death— Benjamin Franklin, 173. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 COLONIZATION OP THE CAROLLNAS. 
 
 The first Settlers, 175. Grants to Royal Favorites— The "Grand 
 Model," 176. Settlement at Cape Fear River— Sir John Yea- 
 mans, 177. Emigrants under Sayle, 178. The Huguenots, 179. 
 The People Independent, 180. Churchmen and Dissenters, 181. 
 Rice— Manufactures prohibited, 182. War— Failure to capture 
 St. Augustine, 183. The ruin of the Apalachees, 184. Religious 
 Controversies, 185. German Emigrants, 186. Indian Wars, 187. 
 The People repudiate the Authority of the Proprietaries, 189. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 COLONIZATION OP GEORGIA. 
 
 Founded in Benevolence— Oglethorpe, 190. First Imigration, 191. 
 Savannah — Encouragements, 192. Germans from the Western 
 Alps, 193. The Moravians— Scotch Highlanders, 195. The Wes- 
 leys — Whitefield; his Orphan House, 196. War with Spain, its 
 
xlii CONTENTS. 
 
 Cause, 197. Failure to capture St. Augustine, 198. Repulse of 
 the Spanish Invaders, 199. The Colony becomes a Royal Prov- 
 ince, 200. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 NEW ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES II. AND JAMES II. 
 
 The Restoration, 201. The Commissioners — Progress of Trade, 202. 
 Causes of King Philip's War, 203. Death of Wamsutta, 204. 
 State of the Colony — Attack at Swanzey, 205. Philip among 
 the Nipmucks, 206. Attacks on Northfield— on Hadley, Goffe, 
 
 207. Tragedy at Bloody Brook — The Narraganset Fort destroyed, 
 
 208. Philip returns to Mount Hope to die, 209. The Disasters 
 of the War, 210. James II. — his Intolerance, 211. The Char- 
 ters in Danger — Andros Governor — his Illegal Measures, 212. 
 Charter of Rhode Island taken away— Andros at Hartford, 213. 
 Andros in Jail; the Charters resumed, 214. The Men of influ- 
 ence, 215. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 COMMOTION IN NEW YORK — WITCHCRAFT IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 Leisler acting Governor of New York, 216. The Old Council re- 
 fuses to yield — Sloughter, Governor, 217. Trial and Execution 
 of Leisler and Melbourne, 218. Benjamin Fletcher, Governor; 
 his failure at Hartford, 219. Yale College, 220. The Triumph 
 of a Free Press, 221. Witchcraft; belief in, 222. Cotton 
 Mather, 223. Various Persons accused at Salem, 224. Stough- 
 ton as Judge, and Parris as Accuser, 225. Minister Burroughs, 
 226. Calef 's Pamphlet, 227. Mather's stand in favor of Inocu- 
 lation, 228. Persons put to death as Witches in England and 
 Scotland, 229. The humane Penal Laws in New England, 230. 
 Land Holding in New England, 231. The effect of the Revolu- 
 tion of 1688, 233. Land Holding in Virginia, 234. Education 
 in Virginia, 235. Management of Civil Affairs, 236. Literary 
 Culture in the Middle Colonies and Newspapers, 237. The inner 
 Life in New England and Virginia, 239. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 MISSIONS AND SETTLEMENTS IN NEW FRANCE. 
 
 The Immigrants, 240. The Jesuits; their zeal as Teachers and Ex- 
 plorers, 241. The Chief Ahasistari, 242 The Five Nations, or 
 Iroquois, 243. Father Jogues, 244. The Abenaki s; Dreuilettes, 
 245. French Settlers at Oswego— Father Allouez, 246. James 
 Marquette— The Mississippi, 247. La Salle, 248. His Enter- 
 prise; his failure and Tragical End, 250. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 MARAUDING EXPEDITIONS; SETTLEMENT OF LOUISIANA; CAPTURE OF 
 LOUISBURG. 
 
 Mohawks hostile to the French, 252. Dover attacked: Major Wal- 
 dron, 253. Schenectady burned — the inhuman Frontenac, 254. 
 The Colonists act for themselves — Invasion of Canada, 255 
 
CONTENTS. liil 
 
 Heroism of Hannah Dustin, 256. Deerfield taken; Eunice Will- 
 iams, 257. D'Ibberville plants a Colony on the Paseagoula, 259. 
 Trading Posts on the Illinois and the Mississippi, 260. The 
 Choctaws, 261. Destruction of the Natchez, 262. Attempts to 
 subdue the Chickasaws, 263. King George's War; Capture of 
 Louisburg, 264. The English Ministry alarmed, 266. Jonathan 
 Edwards— The "Great Revival," 267. Princeton College, 26& 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 
 
 The Valley of the Ohio— French and English Claimants, 269. Gist, 
 the Pioneer, 270. George Washington, 271. His Character — 
 His Mission to the French on the Alleghany, 273. St. Pierre's 
 Letter unsatisfactory, 275. Fort du Quesne built— Washington 
 sent to defend the Frontiers, 276. The first Conflict of the War 
 —Fort Necessity, 277. British Troops arrive in America, 278. 
 Plan of Operations— General Braddock, 279. The Army on the 
 March— Captain Jack, 280. The Battle of Monongahela, 282. 
 Death and Burial of Braddock, 284. Dunbar's Panic— The 
 Effects of these Events, 285. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR — CONTINUED. 
 
 The French Acadiens, 288. Their Industry and good Morals, 289. 
 Their Mournful Exile, 290. Expedition against Crown Point, 
 292. The English defeated— Death of Colonel Williams, 293. 
 Repulse of the French— Death of Dieskau— Williams College, 
 294. Kittaning destroved, 295. Montcalm Acts with Energy, 
 297. Fort William Henry taken, 298. Canada Exhausted, 299. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR — CONTINUED. 
 
 William Pitt, Prime Minister, 300. Lord Amherst— Plan of Opera- 
 tions — Louisburg captured, 301. English repulsed — Fort Fron- 
 tenac captured, 302. Washington takes Possession of Fort du 
 Quesne. 303. Pittsburg, 304. The French abandon Ticonde- 
 roga, 305. Wolfe before Quebec, 306. The Battle on the Heights 
 of Abraham, 308. Deaths of Wolfe and Montcalm — their Mem- 
 ories, 309. Quebec Capitulates — Cherokee War, 310. Destruc- 
 tion of their Crops and Villages, 312. Pontiac, 313. Desolations 
 along the Frontiers, 314. General Bouquet, 315. Pontiac'a 
 Death, 316. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE COLONISTS. 
 
 Religious Influences among the early Settlers, 317. Love of domestic 
 Life, 318. Laws enjoining Morality, 319. Systems of Educa- 
 
liV CONTENTS. 
 
 tion; Common Schools, 320. Free Inquiry and Civil Liberty, 
 
 321. John Calvin — The Anglo-Saxon Element; the Norman, 
 
 322. The Southerner; the Northerner — Influences in Pennsyl- 
 vania, 323. In New York — Diversity of Ancestry, 324. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 CAUSES THAT LED TO THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 Restrictions on Trade and Manufactures — Taxes Imposed by Parlia- 
 ment, 326. Writs of Assistance, 327. James Otis — Samuel 
 Adams, 328. The "Parsons' " Case in Virginia — Patrick Henry, 
 329. Colonel Barre's Speech — The Stamp Act, 331. Excite- 
 ment in the Colonies — Resolutions not to use Stamps, 333. "Sons 
 of Liberty," 334. A Call for a Congress; it Meets, 335. Self- 
 Denial of the Colonists, 336. Stamp Act repealed — Rejoic- 
 ings, 337. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 CAUSES THAT LED TO THE REVOLUTION — CONTINUED. 
 
 The English Ministry determine to obtain a Revenue, 339. The 
 Sloop Liberty — A British Regiment at Boston, 341. Articles 
 of Association proposed by Washington, 342. Tax upon Tea, 
 343. The Gaspe" captured, 344. The Resolutions not to receive 
 the Tea, 345. Tea Thrown into Boston Harbor — Its Recep- 
 tion at other Places, 347. Boston Port Bill — Aid Sent to 
 Boston, 348. Gage's Difficulties, 349. Alexander Hamilton, 
 350. The Old Continental Congress— The first Prayer, 351 . The 
 Papers issued by the Congress, 353. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 BEGINNING OP THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 The Spirit of the People, 355. They seize Guns and Ammunition, 356. 
 The Massachusetts Provincial Congress ; its Measures, 357. The 
 Restraining Bill, 358. Conflicts at Lexington and Concord, 359. 
 Volunteers fly to Arms, and Beleaguer Boston — Stark — Putnam, 
 361. Benedict Arnold — Ethan Allen, and the Green Mountain 
 Boys, 362. Capture of Ticonderoga, 363. Lord Dunmore in 
 Virginia — Henry and the Independent Companies, 364. The 
 News from Lexington rouses a Spirit of Resistance, 365. The 
 Second Continental Congress, 367. Its Measures, 368. Adopts 
 the Army, and appoints Washington Commander-in-Chief, 369. 
 
 VOLUME II. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 Battle of Bunker Hill, 372. Death of Warren — Generals Charles 
 Lee and Philip Schuyler, 377. State of Affairs in New York — 
 
CONTEKTS. IV 
 
 Sir William Johnson, 378. Condition of the Anny, 379. Nathaniel 
 Greene — Morgan and his Riflemen, 380. Wants of the Army, 
 381. Expedition against Canada, 382. Richard Montgomery — 
 Allen's Rash Adventure, 383. Montreal captured — Arnold's toil- 
 some March to Quebec, 384. That place besieged, 385. Failure 
 to Storm the Town — Death of Montgomery, 386. Arnold in his 
 icy Fortress, 387. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 WAR OP THE REVOLUTION — CONTINUED. 
 
 Meeting of Congress— Alarming evils, 388. Portland burned— Efforts 
 to defend the Coast, 389. Parliament resolves to crush the 
 Rebels, 390. Henry Knox, 391. Provincial Prejudices — Suc- 
 cess of the Privateers; British Theatricals; Union Flag, 393. 
 Affairs in New York— Rivington's Gazette, 394. Governor 
 Tryon— General Lee in the City, 395. Dunmore's Measures- 
 Norfolk burned, 396. Defeat of North Carolina Tories, 397. 
 Cannon and powder obtained, 398. Dorchester Heights fortified 
 —Boston evacuated, 400. Washington in New York, 402. 
 Numerous Disasters — Retreat from Canada, 403. Horatio Gates, 
 404. A British Fleet before Fort Moultrie, 405. Stormy Pros- 
 pects, 407. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 WAR OP THE REVOLUTION — CONTINUED. 
 
 Independence, Influences in favor of, 409. The Tories — Common 
 Sense, 410. The Declaration ; its Reception by the People and 
 Army, 412. Arrival of Admiral Howe, 413. His Overtures, 
 414. The American Army — Sectional Jealousies, 415. The 
 Clintons, 416. Battle of Long Island, 417. The Masterly Re- 
 treat, 420. Incidents, 421. Howe confers with a Committee of 
 Congress, 422. Nathan Hale, 423. The British at Kipp's Bay, 
 424. New York Evacuated, 425. Conflict at White Plains, 
 426. Loss of Fort Washington, 428. Retreat across New Jersey, 
 429. Waywardness of Lee, 430. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 WAR OP THE REVOLUTION — CONTINUED. 
 
 Discouragements— Howe's Proclamation, 431. Affairs on Laka 
 Champlain, 432. Heroism of Arnold, 433. Capture of Lee, 
 435. Battle of Trenton, 437. Battle of Princeton, 443. Death 
 of Mercer, 444. Washington returns to Morristown, 445. Corn- 
 wallis in his lines at Brunswick, 445. Putnam at Princeton, 
 446. Ill-treatment of American Prisoners, 447. Appointment 
 of General Officers — Medical Department, 448. The Navy, 449. 
 Expeditions — Peekskill — Danbury, 449. Death of Wooster — Re- 
 taliation at Sag Harbor, 451. Schuyler and Gates, 452. Tho 
 National Flag, 453. 
 
in CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 WAR OF THE REVOLUTION — CONTINUED. 
 
 The Interest taken in England and France, 454. Privateers fitted 
 out in Prance, 455. Munitions of War, 456. Howe's Manceuvres, 
 457. Burgoyne on his way from Canada, 457. Ticonderoga 
 captured, 458. St. Clair's retreat, 459. Capture of General 
 Prescott, 460. The Secret Expedition — Germantown, 461. 
 Lafayette, Pulaski and Kosciusko, 462. Aid sent to Schuyler— 
 Howe lands at Elkton, 464. Battle of Brandy wine, 465. Phila- 
 delphia taken possession of, 468. Battle of Germantown, 469. 
 Hessians repulsed at Fort Mercer, 470. Winter at^Valley Forge, 
 471. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 WAR OP THE REVOLUTION — CONTINUED. 
 
 Invasion from Canada — Appointment of General Gates, 472. Jenny 
 McCrea, 473. St. Leger besieges Fort Stanwix, 474. The At- 
 tempt to relieve it, 475. Battle of Bennington, 476. Change of 
 Prospects, 477. Battle of Behmus's Heights, 478. Ticonderoga 
 besieged, 479. Burgoyne surrenders his Army at Saratoga, 480. 
 The Prisoners— Capture of Forts on the Hudson, 482. Schuylei; 
 483. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 WAR OF THE REVOLUTION — CONTINUED. 
 
 Sufferings at Valley Forge, 484. "England disappointed — Concilia- 
 tory Measures of Parliament, 485. The War presses hard upon 
 the American people, 486. Difficulties in Congress, 487. The 
 "Conway Cabal," 488. Baron Steuben, 490. Attempt to in- 
 crease the army, 491. Exchange of Lee ; his Treason, 492. Treaty 
 with France— British Commissioners, 493. Battle of Monmouth, 
 494. Misconduct of Lee, 495. His death, 496. Combined at- 
 tack upon Newport fails, 497. Massacre at Wyoming — at Cherry 
 Valley, 498. Invasion of Georgia, 500. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 WAR OF THE REVOLUTION — CONTINUED. 
 
 Dissensions in Congress, 501. Expedition against the Indians, 502. 
 The War in the South, 503. Marauding Expeditions sent to Vir- 
 ginia, and up the Hudson — Tryon ravages Connecticut, 504. 
 Wayne captures Stony Point, 505. Lee surprises the Garrison 
 at Jersey City — Combined assault upon Savannah, 506. Daniel 
 Boon, 507. George Rogers Clarke; Kaskaskia — Pioneers of 
 Tennessee; Nashville, 508. John Paul Jones, 509. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 WAR OF THE REVOLUTION — CONTINUED. 
 
 Hardships of the Soldiers, 510. British Success at the South, 511. 
 Colonel Tarleton, 512. Charleston capitulates — Defeat at Wax 
 
CONTENTS. I/" 
 
 haws, 513. Rev. James Caldwell, 514. Maraud into Jersey, 
 515. French Fleet at Newport — The Partisan Leaders in the 
 South, 516. Gates in Command — Disastrous Battle of Camden, 
 518. Death of De Kalb, 519. Sumter's Success and Defeat, 520. 
 The Treason of Arnold — Major Andre, 521. Movements of 
 Cornwallis, 523. Colonel Ferguson — The Battle of King's 
 Mountain, 524. Tarleton repulsed, 526. Green iu command — 
 British triumphant in the South — Affairs in Europe?527. Henry 
 Laurens — Dangers of England; her Energy, 528. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 WAR OP THE REVOLUTION — CONTINUED. 
 
 The Spirit of Revolt among the Soldiers, 530. Arnold ravages the 
 Shores of Chesapeake, 532. Battle of the Cowpens, 533. Mor- 
 
 fan retreats ; Cornwallis pursues, 535. Green marches South— 
 tee scatters the Tories, 537. Battle of Guildford Court-House, 
 538. Conflict at Hobkirk's Hill, 539. The Execution of Hayne, 
 540. Battle of Eutaw Springs, 541. Plans to Capture New 
 York, 542. "Wayne's Daring at James River, 543. National 
 Finances — Robert Morris, 544. Clinton deceived — Combined 
 Armies beyond the Delaware, 545. French Fleet in the Chesa- 
 peake, 546. New London burned, 547. The Attack, 548. Corn- 
 wallis Surrenders, 549. Thanksgiving, 550. Number of Sol- 
 diers furnished, 551. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 CLOSING EVENTS OP THE WAR — FORMATION OP THE CONSTITUTION 
 
 British Efforts Paralyzed, 552. The States form independent Gov- 
 ernments — Indian Wars, 553. Massacre of the Christian Dela- 
 wares — Battle of the Blue Lick, 554. Lord North — Commission- 
 ers of Peace, 555. Peace concluded — Dissatisfaction in the 
 American Army, 556. The "Anonymous Address," 557. British 
 Prisoners; the Tories, 558. Disbandment of the Army — Wash- 
 ington takes leave of his Officers, 559. Resigns his Commission, 
 560. Shay's Rebellion, 562. Interests of the States clash, 563. 
 The Constitutional Convention, 564. The Constitution — its Rati- 
 fication, 565. The Territory North-west of the Ohio, 566. Ec- 
 clesiastical Organizations, 567. Fathers of the Republic, 570. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 WASHINGTON'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Reception and Inauguration of the President, 572. An Era in human 
 Progress, 573. The Departments of State organized, 574. Hamil- 
 ton's Financial Report, 575. Congress Assumes the Debts of the 
 Nation — National Bank, 576. Commercial Enterprise — Manu- 
 facturers, 577. Indian War, 578. St. Clair defeated, 579. 
 Wayne defeats the Indians, 580. Political Parties — Jefferson, 
 581. The French Revolution, 582. Genet arrives as French 
 
lv n i CONTENTS. 
 
 Minister — Neutrality proclaimed by the President — Democratic 
 Societies, 583. The Partisans of France — Recall of Genet, 584. 
 The first Settlers of Western Pennsylvania, 585. The Whiskey 
 Insurrection, 586. Special Mission to Great Britain, 587. A 
 Treaty concluded, 588. Other Treaties, 589. Washington's 
 Farewell Address, 590. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 JOHN ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Serious Aspect of Relations with France, 591. Commissioners of 
 Peace, 592. The French Cruisers, 593. The Alien Act— War 
 impending, 594. Washington Commander-in-Chief — Capture of 
 the Frigate L'Insurgente, 595. Peace concluded — Death of 
 Washington, 596. Eulogiums on his Character, 597. The City 
 of Washington becomes the Seat of Government, 598. 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 jefferson's administration. 
 
 The President's Inaugural, 559. Purchase of Louisiana, 600. Pi- 
 rates in the Mediterranean, 601 Burning of the Philadelphia, 
 602. Tripoli Bombarded, 603. Death of Hamilton, 604. Aaron 
 Burr, 605. Opposition to the Navy — Gunboats, 606. The Rights 
 of Neutrals, 607. Impressment of American Seamen, 608. 
 Treaty with England rejected — Affair of the Chesapeake, 610. 
 The Embargo; its effect, 612. The Embargo repealed, 614. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 madison's administration. 
 
 Condition of the Country — Erskine's Negotiations, 615. Depreda- 
 tions upon American Commerce — The Rambouillet Decree, 617. 
 Affair of the Little Belt, 618. Indian Troubles — Tecumseh and 
 the Prophet, 619. Battle of Tippecanoe, 621. The Twelfth 
 Congress — Henry Clay — John C. Calhoun, 622. Foreign Rela- 
 tions, 623. Debates in Congress — John Randolph, 624. An- 
 other Embargo, 627. War declared against Great Britain, 628. 
 West Point, 629. Riots at Baltimore, 630. Operations in the 
 Northwest, 631. Surrender of Hull, 632. Impressment of 
 American Seamen, 632. American Ships in English Ports, 633. 
 Failures to Invade Canada, 634. Missionary Societies, 636. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 i 
 
 madison's administration — continued. 
 
 Vessels of the Navy, 637. The chase of the Constitution — Capture 
 of the Alert, 638. The Guerriere— Incidents, 639. The Mace- 
 
CONTENTS. lix 
 
 donian— The Frolic— The Java, 640. The effects of these Naval 
 Conflicts in the United States and England, 641. Plan of Oper- 
 ations — Harrison advances on Detroit, 643. General Winchester 
 a Prisoner; Indian Barbarities — The Kentuckians fall into an 
 Ambuscade, 644. Repulse at Fort Stephenson — The loss of the 
 Chesapeake, 645. Perry's Victory, 646. Battle of the Thames 
 — Andrew Jackson, 647. Leads an Expedition; its Termination, 
 649. \ork Captured; Death of General Pike, 650. Failures, 
 651. Newark burned, the severe Retaliation, 652. Ravages on 
 Shores of the Chesapeake — Indian War in the South, 653. Jack- 
 son and others in the Field — Battle of the Great Horse Shoe, 
 654. Captain Porter's Cruise, 655. Formation of the Bible 
 Society, 656. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 MADISON'S ADMINISTRATION— CONTINUED. 
 
 The Thirteenth Congress ; its Members, Daniel Webster, 65/. Mani- 
 festo of the British Government, 658. Embarrassments — Com- 
 missioners of Peace, 659. Jacob Brown— Winfleld Scott- 
 Wilkinson unsuccessful, 661. Battle of Lundy's Lane, 662. 
 Battle on Lake Champlain, 665. The British on the Shores of 
 the Chesapeake, 667. Bladensburg, 669. Capture of Washing- 
 ton — Public Buildings burned, 670. Defense of Fort McHenry 
 — Death of General Ross, 671. Bombardment of Stonington — 
 Distress in New England, 672. Debates in Congress, 673. Hart- 
 ford Convention, 674. 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 MADISON'S ADMINISTRATION — CONTINUED. 
 
 Jackson enters Pensacola, 677. New Orleans defenseless — The Brit- 
 ish land, 678. Jackson's Measures of Defense, 679. Battle of 
 New Orleans, 680. The Distress of the Country— The Relief, 
 682. Treaty of Peace, 683. Frigate President captured, 684. 
 War with Algiers, 685. Treaty with the Indians— National 
 Bank— State of Indiana, 686. John Fitch— Robert Fulton- 
 First Steamboat, 687. 
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 monroe's administration. 
 
 A Return to the earlier Policy of the Government, 688. The Presi- 
 dent's Tour in the Eastern States — The Colonization Society, 
 689. Revolutions in the Spanish Colonies — Indian War, 690. 
 General Jackson in the Field — Purchase of Florida, 691. The 
 Missouri Compromise, 692. The Monroe Doctrine — Financial 
 Distress 696. Increase of Tariff— Visit of Lafayette, 697. 
 
 CHAPTER XL VII. 
 
 JOHN QUTNCT ADAMS'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Manufactures and Internal Improvements, 699. Indian Lands in 
 Georgia, 700. Death of the ex-Presidents Thomas Jefferson and 
 
IX CONTENTS. 
 
 John Adams, 701. Free Masonry— Protection to American In- 
 dustry, 702. Debates in Congress— Presidential Contest, 704. 
 
 CHAPTER XL VIII. 
 
 JACKSON'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Appointments to Office, 705. Removal of the Indians from Georgia 
 706. Bank Bill Vetoed— Nullification ; the Causes of, 707. Ex- 
 treme State Rights, 708. Influence of Jefferson's Theories 709 
 Resolutions of '98, 711. Efforts to Secure pure Morals^ 712 
 Ootton Manufacture; its Progress, 713. Far-reaching Policy 
 715. A Protective Tariff, Constitutional, 716. The Twofold 
 Object, 717. Slaves in Mills— Price of Cotton Cloth, 718. The 
 Motives; Views on Labor and Capital, 719. The Production of 
 Wool, 720. The Equalizing Measure, 721. Hayne and Webster's 
 Debate, 722. The President's Proclamation, 724. The Compro- 
 mise Bill; its final Passage, 725. Removal of the Deposits, 726. 
 Effect upon the Country— Indian Wars, 727. Osceola— Death 
 of Judge Marshall, 728. Indemnity for French Spoliations, 729. 
 Influence of General Jackson, 730. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 VAN btjren's administration. 
 
 Apparent Prosperity, 731. The Specie Circular— Distribution of the 
 Surplus Funds— Speculation, 732. The Sub-Treasury, 733. 
 State Indebtedness, 734. 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 HARRI80N AND TYLER'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 The Inauguration, 735. Death of Harrison; Tyler President, 736. 
 Bankrupt Law — The Bank Charters ; their Vetoes, 737. Propo- 
 sition to treat with Great Britain — Insurrection in Canada — The 
 Caroline, 738. Trial of McLeod, 739. Boundary Disputes in 
 Maine — Treaty of Washington, 740. Questions of Visit and 
 Impressment, 741. Exploring Expedition, 742. Texas Coloni- 
 zation ; Struggles, 743. Siege of the Alamo, 744. Davy Crockett 
 — Goliad, Siege of — Massacre of Prisoners, 745. Battle of San 
 Jacinto, 746. Houston President — Question of Annexation in 
 Congress, 747. Texas Annexed — Disturbances in Rhode Island, 
 749. Iowa and Florida become States — Cheap Postage, 750. 
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 
 POLK'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Difficulties with Mexico, 752. General Taylor at Corpus Christi, 
 753. Oregon Territory ; respective Claims to, 754. Settlement 
 of Boundary, 756. Taylor Marches to the Rio Grande — Thorn- 
 ton's* Party Surprised, 757. Attack on Fort Brown, 758. Battle 
 of Palo Alto, 759. Battle of Resaca de la Palma, 760. Mata- 
 moras occupied — Measures of Congress, 762. The Volunteers 
 —Plan of Operations — Mexico declares War, 763. Capture of 
 Monterey, 765. 
 
CONTENTS. l*i 
 
 CHAPTER LII. 
 
 polk's administration — continued. 
 
 l"fie President hopes for Peace — Santa Anna, 768. Hostilities to be 
 renewed, 770. Troops withdrawn from General Taylor — Volun- 
 teers arrive at Monterey, 771. Santa Anna's Plans and Prepara- 
 tions, 772. Taylor advances to Agua Nueva, 773. Battle of 
 Buena Vista, 774. The Mexican Chiefs Urrea and Romero, 788. 
 
 CHAPTER LIII. 
 
 POLK'S ADMINISTRATION — CONTINUED. 
 
 Emigration to Oregon, 790. John C. Fremont; his explorations, 791. 
 Difficulties with the Mexican Governor, 793. American Settlers 
 in alarm, 794. California free — Monterey on the Pacific cap- 
 tured, 795. Commodores Sloat and Stockton — Expedition of 
 Kearney, 796. Santa F6 taken; a Government organized, 797. 
 Doniphan's Expedition, 798. El Paso taken, 800. Chihuahua 
 occupied, 801. An Insurrection; its Suppression, 802. Trial of 
 Fremont, 803. 
 
 CHAPTER LIV. 
 
 POLK'S ADMINISTRATION — CONCLUDED. 
 
 Movement of Troops, 804. Vera Cruz invested, 805. Its Bombard- 
 ment and Capitulation, 806. Santa Anna's Energy, 807. Battle 
 of Cerro Gordo, 808. General Scott at Puebla — His Misunder- 
 standings with the Authorities at Washington, 809. Dissen- 
 sions in Mexico, 812. Scott's Manifesto, 813. Advance upon 
 the Capital, 814. Battle of Contreras, 815. Of Churubusco, 
 816. Attempts to obtain Peace, 818. Conflict of Molino del 
 Rey, 819. The Castle of Chapultepec captured, 820. Santa 
 Anna again in the Field, 822. Treaty of Peace, 823. Condi- 
 tions of the Peace — Discovery of Gold in California, 825. 
 Death of John Quincy Adams, 826. Wilmot Proviso, 827. 
 The Presidential Election— Death of Mr. Polk, 828. 
 
 VOLUME III. 
 
 CHAPTER LV. 
 
 TAYLOR AND FILLMORE'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Discussion on Slavery — Wilmot Proviso, 830. The Powers of the 
 Constitution; their Application in the Territories, 832. The 
 President's Message; its Recommendations, 834. Debate on the 
 Omnibus Bill, 835. Death of Calhoun — Death of President Tay- 
 lor — Fillmore Inaugurated, 836. The Fugitive Slave Law, 837. 
 The Mormons ; their Origin, 838. Troubles — Settlement in Utah 
 — A Disunion Convention, 839. Lopez invades Cuba, 840. 
 Search for Sir John Franklin— Dr. E. K. Kane, 841. Death of 
 Henry Clay; of Daniel Webster; the Tripartite Treaty, 842. 
 
lxii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER LVI. 
 
 PIERCE'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Purchase of the Mesilla Valley, 844. Treaty with Japan, 845. The 
 Kansas-Nebraska Bill; the effects of the Measure, 846. Emi- 
 grants to Kansas, 847. Struggles and Conflicts, 848. James 
 Buchanan, President, 850. The Contest continues in Kansas, 
 851. John Brown, 852. Platforms of Political Parties, 855. 
 
 CHAPTER LVII. 
 
 Buchanan's administration— continued. 
 
 Traits of Character, North and South,. 857. Comparative Intel- 
 ligence in the Free and Slave States, 858. The two Systems — 
 Illiteracy compared, 859. Influences of different, 860. Benevo- 
 lent Operations, 862. Change in the Slavery Discussion, 863. 
 The Abolitionists, 864. Material Progress, 866. Compromises, 
 867. Republican Party, 868. Democratic Convention, 869. 
 The Election, how received, 870. Intent of Personal Liberty 
 Bills — Union Men, 871. Legislatures and Conventions, South, 
 872. Non- coercion; Border States ; Finances, 873. Buchanan'a 
 Message, 874. Fort Sumter, 875. Yulee's Letter, 877. Mr. 
 Lincoln's Journey, 878. Confederate Constitution; Fallacies 
 879. 
 
 CHAPTER LVIII. 
 
 LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 The Inauguration, 880. Effect of the Inaugural, 881. Sumter Bom- 
 barded, 883. The President's call for Volunteers; Responses, 
 885. Spirit of Loyalty, 886. Riot in Baltimore, 887. Confed- 
 erate Congress at Richmond, 888. Loyalty in Tennessee and 
 Missouri, 889. Advance into Virginia; Death of Ellsworth, 890. 
 Proclamations; Instructions to United States Ministers abrond, 
 891. English Neutrality, 892. Big Bethel Skirmish, 893. West 
 Virginia freed of Confederates, 894. Battle of Bull Run, 895. 
 Missouri, 898. Battle of Wilson's Creek; Death of Lyon, 899. 
 Fremont's Proclamation, 901. Kentucky's Legislation, 902. 
 Finances and the Army, 903. Ball's Bluff Disaster, 904. Hat- 
 teras Expedition, 905. Capture of Hilton Head, 906. Soldiers 
 and Money; Mason and Slidell, 907. Battle of Belmont, 909. 
 Battle of Mill Spring, 910. Davis's Special Message, 911. 
 Meeting of Congress; the Union Army, 912. Capture of Forts 
 Henry and Donelson, 913-917. 
 
 CHAPTER LIX. 
 
 Lincoln's administration — continued. 
 
 Burnside's Expedition to North Carolina, 918. Battle of Pea Ridge, 
 919. Capture of New Madrid and Island No. 10, 921. Battle of 
 Pittsburg Landing, or Shiloh, 923-925. Capture of New Orleans, 
 926. Death of Admiral Foote; Battle of River Ironclads, 930. 
 
CONTENTS. lxiii 
 
 Evacuation of Corinth, 931. Plans of Movements on Richmond, 
 932. The Merrimac and Monitor Duel, 933. Contrabands, 936. 
 
 CHAPTER LX. 
 
 Lincoln's administration — continued. 
 
 Movement of the Army of the Potomac, 937. Evacuation of Manas. 
 sas, 938. Yorktown, Siege of, 939. Battle of Williamsburg, 941 
 Sanitary Commission, 942 Excitement in Richmond ; Conscrip 
 tion Law, 943. Generals Banks and Jackson in the Valley, 944 
 The Chickahominy ; Battle of Fair Oaks, 945. Lee in command 
 946. Battle of Cold Harbor, 947. Change of Base, 949. Battle 
 of Malvern Hill, 950. Harrison's Landing, 952. Cedar Moun 
 tain, 953. Second Battle of Bull Run, 955. Lee invades Mary 
 land, 956. Harper's Ferry captured, 957. Battle of Antietam 
 958. Lee retreats, 960. McClellan's slowness; his removal, 961 
 Burnside in command; Battle of Fredericksburg, 962. 
 
 CHAPTER LXI. 
 
 Lincoln's administration— continued. 
 
 Invasion of Kentucky; Battle of Perry ville, 964. Battle of Iuka; 
 Preliminary Proclamation, 965. Opposition; the Slave's Hope, 
 966. Battle of Murfreesboro, 967. Confederate Failures, 968. 
 Sherman on the Yazoo, 969. Capture of Fort Hindman ; Presi- 
 dent's Message, 970. Finances; Northern Industries, 971. Con- 
 federate Finances, 972. Battle of Chancellorville, 973. Death 
 of " Stonewall " Jackson, 974. 
 
 CHAPTER LXII. 
 
 Lincoln's administration — continued. 
 
 Lee's Advance North, 976. Crosses the Potomac, 977. Hooker re- 
 signs; Meade in command, 978. Battle of Gettysburg, 979-984. 
 Lee's retreat, 985. Vicksburg; Victories, 986. Vicksburg and 
 Port Hudson captured, 987. Naval Expedition, 988. The Draft 
 • and Riot, 989. French Protestant Address, 990. Colored Sol- 
 diers—National Banks, 991. 
 
 CHAPTER LXIII. 
 
 Lincoln's administration — continued. 
 
 The March to Chattanooga, 992. The Battle; Chickamauga, 993. 
 Burnside; Knoxville, 994. Battle above the Clouds, 995. Bragg's 
 defeat, 996. Marauders in Missouri, 997. Red River Expedition ; 
 Fort Pillow Massacre, 998. Grant ; Lieutenant- General ; Position 
 of Affairs, 999. Sherman flanks Johnston; he falls back. 1000. 
 Death of Bishop Polk; Kenesaw Mountain, 1001. Hood in com- 
 mand; Battles, 1002. Death of McPherson; Railways broken, 
 1003. ''Atlanta ours;" March to the Sea; The Christmas Gift; 
 Orders, 1004-1005. 
 
lxiv CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER LXIV. 
 
 LINCOLN'S ADMINISTRATION — CONTINUED. 
 
 Grant's choice of Subordinates, 1006. Battles in the Wilderness, 
 1007-1010. Butler at Bermuda Hundreds, 1009. Confederate 
 repulses; Movement to the James, 1010. Early in the Valley, 
 1011. Sheridan in command; his ride, 1013. The Mine; Capture 
 of Mobile, 1014. Outrages in Missouri; Wilmington captured, 
 1015. Hood on the march, 1016. Battle of Nashville; Hood's 
 defeat, 1017. Union Men; Conscript Soldiers; Women, 1018. 
 
 CHAPTER LXV. 
 
 Lincoln's administration — continued. 
 
 Grant's design ; Platforms of Parties, 1019. Second Inauguration, 1020; 
 Disposition of Union Forces, 1021. Lee's Plans, 1022. Battle* 
 Five Forks, 1023. Lee surrenders ; Richmond on fire and occu- 
 pied, 1024. Jefferson Davis captured; Columbia burned, 1025. 
 Johnston surrenders, 1026. The Assassination, 1026. Andrew 
 Johnson; Booth shot — Mr. Lincoln, Grant and Sherman; Inter- 
 view, 1027. Last reviews; Union loss in the Rebellion, 1028. 
 Blockade raised ; Old Flag on Sumter, 1029. Amnesty Proclama- 
 tion; The Kearsarge and the Alabama, 1030. Lord John Rus- 
 sell's Protest ; Louis Napoleon, 1031. Article XIII. ; The Tele- 
 graph, Article XIV., 1032. Reconstruction, 1033-1044. Ne- 
 braska; Impeachment, 1045 Treaty with China; Presidential 
 Election, 1046. 
 
 CHAPTER LXVI. 
 
 grant's administration. 
 
 Pacific Railway; Fifteenth Amendment, 1047. Death of General 
 Lee, 1048. State Rights Influence, 1049. Alabama Claims, 
 1050-1052. Fraudulent Voting, 1053. The Ku Klux, 1055. 
 Suspension of Habeas Corpus— Signal Service, 1056. Fires; 
 Chicago, Boston, 1057. Manufactures, 1058. Railroad Panic, 
 1059. Bill for Resumption— Disturbances in Louisiana, 1060. 
 Indian Question, 1061. State of Colorado— Deaths, 1062. 
 Census of 1870; Election Law, 1063. Centennial, 1063-1064. 
 Presidential Election, 1064. Greeley— Sumner, 1065. Influences 
 binding the Union, 1066. Civil Service Reform, 1068. Political 
 Opinions, 1069. Presidential Election— Electoral Commission, 
 1070. 
 
 CHAPTER LXVII. 
 
 hayes's administration. 
 
 Sketch of Life, 1071. Inaugural— Cabinet, 1072. Civil Service- 
 Railway Riot— Coinage of Silver, 1073. Fisheries Indemnity- 
 Resumption of Specie Payments, 1074. Progress— Platforms 
 of Parties, 1075. Tenth Census— Ratio of "Representatives, 
 1076. Good Influence, 1077. 
 
COHTEtfTS. kv 
 
 CHAPTER LXVHI. 
 
 garfield's administration. 
 
 Sketch of Life, 1078. Senate of the State of Ohio, 1079. In Com- 
 mand in Eastern Kentucky, 1080. In Congress, 1081. Inau- 
 gurated President, 1082. Success of the Finances, 1083. The 
 Assassination of Garfield — Sympathy of the Civilized World, 
 1084. Removal to Long Branch, 1085. Death; Funeral, 1086. 
 Incident, 1087. Training of Citizens, 1088. The Assassinations 
 and their cause, 1090. The Spoils System, 1091. Centers of 
 Population and- Territory, 1092. 
 
 CHAPTER LXIX. 
 
 Arthur's administration. 
 
 Sketch of Life— The two Law Cases, 1093. The second Oath of 
 Office— The Inaugural, 1095. Destructive Fires, 1095. York- 
 town Celebration, 1096. Meeting of Congress and the Message, 
 1097. Progress of the Country, 1098. Arctic Explorations, 
 1098-1100. House of Representatives; Number of members 
 fixed, 1102. Tariff Commission, 1103. Tariff of 1883, 1103. 
 National Banks, 1104. Civil Service Examinations, 1105. 
 Labor Bureau, 1105. National Capital, 1106. Washington 
 Monument, 1107. Morrison Tariff, 1108. Presidential Can- 
 vass and Platforms, 1109. Votes Cast, 1110. Expositions at 
 Atlanta and New Orleans, 1111. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXI. 
 
 CLEVELAND'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Sketch of Life, 1112. Inaugural and Cabinet, 1114. Death of 
 General Grant, 1117. Funeral Services in the U. S., 1117; in 
 Westminster Abbey, 1118. Death of General McClellan, 1119. 
 Auditing the Books of the Treasury, 1120. The Financial 
 Policy, 1121. Revision of Tariff Attempted, 1122. Labor; 
 Arbitration, 1124. Presidential Succession, 1125. Counting 
 the Electoral Votes, 1126. Interstate Commerce Act, 1127. 
 Presidential Candidates and Platforms, 1128. Department of 
 Agriculture, 1128. Admission of States, 1128. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXII. 
 
 HARRISON'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Sketch of Life, 1129. Inauguration, 1132. Inaugural Address, 
 1132. The Cabinet 1133. The Last Centennial Celebration, 
 1134. Ceremonies at Washington's Inauguration, 1135. The 
 Imitations, 1136. The Coming from Elizabethport, 1136. The 
 School Girls, — Religious Services, 1136. Meeting at the Statue 
 in Wall Street, 1137. Military Parade, 1137. Civic Parade, 
 1188. 
 
lxVJ CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXIII. 
 
 THE NATION IN 1789 AND IN 1889. 
 
 Territory of the Union in 1789 and in 1889, 1139. Comparison 
 with Europe, 1140. Diversified Climate, 1141. Essential 
 Productions, 1142. Means of Transportation, 1142. Rates of 
 Railway Fares, 1143. Crude Manufactures and Trade, 1144. 
 National Debts; — Means of Paying, 1145. Condition of the 
 Churches in 1789, 1145. Christian Zeal and Benevolent Insti- 
 tutions, 1146. Little Harmony among the Denominations, in 
 1789, 1146. Era of Theological Discussions, 1147. Anti- 
 Slavery Agitation, 1147. Reverence for Christianity, 1148. 
 Conclusion, — Progress, — Agriculture, 1149. Inventions, 1150. 
 Immigrants, 1150. Results of the Homestead Law, 1151. 
 Young Men's Christian Associations, 1152. Intelligent Voting 
 Assured, 1153. The Press and Libraries, 1154. Authors, 1155. 
 Temperance, 1155. Individual Responsibility, 1156. The Eng- 
 lish Language, 1157. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXIV. 
 
 HARRISON'S ADMINISTRATION RESUMED. 
 
 American characteristics ; retarding influences, 1158. Two Gov- 
 ernments to Support, 1159. Taxation direct and indirect, 
 1159-1160. Tariff Revision— the McKinley Bill, 1160. Rail- 
 road lands reclaimed, 1160. Idaho and Wyoming admitted 
 — The Standard Dollar — Louisiana Lottery, 1161. Financial 
 legislation — the Silver Purchase Law, 1162. Labor legislation 
 — Columbian Exposition— Commerce, 1163. Presidential Elec- 
 tions — Grover Cleveland elected, 1164. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXV. 
 
 Cleveland's second administration. 
 
 The Cabinet, 1165. Political Platforms and the Manufacturers, 
 1166. Extra Session of Congress and President's Message, 1167. 
 Repeal of Silver Purchase Law — Wilson-Gorman Tariff, 1168. 
 Effects of New Legislation— Action of Importers, 1169. Popular 
 Reversal of Opinion in Elections of 1894, 1170. Reciprocity 
 Treaties, 1171. Political Conventions in 1896, 1174. Various 
 Parties, 1175. McKinley elected President, 1176. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXVI. 
 
 Mckinley's first administration. 
 
 Sketch of McKinley, 1177. Inauguration and Cabinet, 1178. Extra 
 Session of Congress— the Dingley Tariff Bill, 1179. Cuban 
 affairs-r Revolution— Spanish oppressions — Blowing up of the 
 Maine, 1179-1181. Strained relations between Spain and the 
 United States, 1182. War preparations, 1183. War— Troops 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 lxvii 
 
 called for, 1184. Dewey destroys Spanish fleet in Manila 
 harbor, 1185. Sampson blockades Cuba and Porto Rico, 1185. 
 Spanish fleet at Santiago — Hobson and the Merrimac — Landing 
 of U. S. Marines, 1186. Land Campaign under Shafter, 1187. 
 The Rough Riders, 1187. San Juan and El Caney, 1188. 
 Spanish fleet crushed — Escaping from Santiago, 1189. Santiago 
 Surrenders — Porto Rico invaded, 1191. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXVII. 
 
 Mckinley's first administration — continued. 
 
 Affairs in the Philippines — Aguinaldo, 1193. Merritt, Greene and 
 Dewey capture Manila City, 1194. Peace Negotiations, 1195. 
 Final Treaty, 1196. Pacific R. R. Bonds, 1197. The Gold 
 Standard Established by Law — Porto Rican Tariff — Hawaii and 
 Alaska, 1198. Political Nominations and Platforms, 1199-1201. 
 Successes of McKinley's Administration, 1201. Re-election of 
 President McKinley, 1202. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXVIII. 
 
 mckinley's second term. 
 
 Inauguration of McKinley and Roosevelt, 1203. The President's 
 Tour to the Pacific Coast, 1204. At the Pan-American Exposi- 
 tion, 1204. His Farewell Address, 1205. His Death, 1210. 
 Sketch of Theodore Roosevelt, 1213. Continuation of the 
 Philippine War, 1215. The War in China, 1221. Independ- 
 ence for Cuba, 1228. The Isthmian Canal, 1231. The Alaska 
 Boundary, 1234. Great Coal Strike, 1235. Our Island Posses- 
 sions, 1237. American Inventions, 1238. President Roose- 
 velt's First Message, 1242. Naval and Military Power, 1244. 
 Gifts of Benevolence, 1246. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXIX. 
 
 roosevelt's administration. 
 
 Important Treaties, 1249. Inheritance of Property, 1249. Inter- 
 national Arbitration, 1250. Articles of War, 1252. Alaska 
 Boundary, 1256. Extradition, 1259. Panama Ship Canal, 
 1259. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXX. 
 
 roosevelt's administration — continued. 
 
 The Presidential Election of 1904, 1263. Chief Declarations of the 
 Platforms, 1264. The Result Compared, 1268. Principal 
 Topics of the Annual Message, 1269. Labor and Capital, 1269. 
 Trusts, 1272. Immigration and Citizenship, 1275. The Agri- 
 cultural Department and Its Work, 1278. Establishment of 
 the Department of Commerce and Labor, 1280. Growth of 
 Cities, 1281. Reciprocity with Cuba, 1281. The Pacific 
 Cable, 1282. The Mormon Question, 1282. 
 
A HISTORY 
 
 AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 LIEF ERICSSON, 
 
 AND OTHER NORSE ADVENTURERS. 
 
 About five hundred years before Columbus landed on 
 Guanahani, one of the Bahama Islands, Lief Ericsson, a 
 Scandinavian, sailed from Brattahlid, now New Herrn- 
 hut, in Greenland, in a due south direction, and after 
 passing over sixteen degrees of latitude, or about 1,100 
 statute miles, sighted Newfoundland, and thence sailing 
 southwest along the coast reached Cape Cod. After- 
 ward other adventurous Northmen made voyages occa- 
 sionally along the same coasts, from the tenth to the 
 twelfth centuries. These explorers landed at several 
 places ; and records show that they attempted to found 
 a colony in a region which they named Yinland. 
 
 The place selected for the settlement is supposed to 
 have been somewhere within the boundaries of the pres- 
 ent States of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, but every 
 trace of the colony disappeared long before the advent of 
 the English upon the same territory. 
 
 Meanwhile, an Icelandic collection of legends or sagas, 
 which treat of these early discoveries, shows that ex- 
 plorations were made even as far south as Florida, in 
 the vicinity of where St. Augustine now stands. 
 
 9 
 
10 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 No marked influence was exerted by these discoveries 
 and partial explorations, however, unless it may have 
 been, as generally supposed, that an account of the voy- 
 ages of Ericsson and others reached Columbus and stimu- 
 lated him in his efforts to obtain the means of making 
 an expedition of discovery toward the "West. 
 
CHAPTEK I. 
 
 COLUMBUS. 
 
 His Discoveries, Misfortunes, and Death.— Amerigo Vespucci, and 
 the name America. 
 
 Foe nearly fifteen hundred years after the birth of our chap. 
 
 Saviour, the great Western Continent was unknown to ■ — 
 
 the inhabitants of the Old World. tm 
 
 The people of Europe had looked upon the Atlantic 
 Ocean as a boundless expanse of water, surrounding the 
 land and stretching far away they knew not whither. 
 This vast unknown, their imaginations had peopled with 
 all sorts of terrible monsters, ever ready to devour those 
 who should rashly venture among them. But the cloud 
 of mystery and superstition that hung over this world of 
 waters was now to be dispelled — a spirit of discovery was 
 awakened in Europe. 
 
 The Azores and Madeira Isles were already known. 
 Mariners, driven out by adverse winds, had discovered 
 them. Tradition told of islands still further west, but as 
 yet no one had gone in search of them. Even though 
 the bold Norsemen did find and touch upon Western 
 shores, the knowledge of them was neither published 
 nor utilized. The attention of the people of maritime 
 Europe was turned in the opposite direction ; they wished 
 to find a passage by water to the eastern coasts of Asia. 
 The stories told by those early travellers, Sir John Man- 
 
 11 
 
12 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap. Seville and Marco Polo, had fired their imaginations ; 
 
 they believed that among those distant regions of which 
 1492 * they wrote, so abundant in precious stones, diamonds, 
 and gold, was the veritable land of Ophir itself. Their 
 intense desire to obtain the treasures of India led to a 
 result most important in the world's history — a result 
 little anticipated, but which was to have a never-ending 
 influence upon the destinies of the human family — the 
 discovery of America. 
 
 There appeared at this time a remarkable man — 
 Christopher Columbus. He was a native of Genoa, one 
 of the great commercial cities of Italy. He had been 
 from his childhood familiar with the sea, and had vis- 
 ited the most distant portions of the world then known. 
 His time and talents were devoted to the study of navi- 
 gation, geography, and astronomy. He read also many 
 books of travel, and it is now thought that he had seen 
 in Iceland or elsewhere the accounts of land visited in 
 the west by the Norsemen, as mentioned in our Intro- 
 duction. He began to astonish his countrymen with 
 strange notions about the world. He boldly asserted 
 that it was round, instead of ■ flat ; that it went around 
 the sun instead of the sun going around it ; and more- 
 over, that day and night were caused by its revolution 
 on its axis. These doctrines the priests denounced as 
 contrary to those of the church. When he ventured to 
 assert that by sailing west, he could reach the East In- 
 dies, they questioned not only the soundness of his 
 theory, but that of his intellect. For years he labored 
 to obtain the means to explore the great western ocean, 
 to prove that it was the pathway to the coveted treasures 
 of the East. 
 
 He applied first to John the Second, king of Portugal, 
 to aid 'him in his enterprise, but without success ; he then 
 applied to Henry the Seventh, king of England, with a 
 similar result. After years of delay and disappointment, 
 
COLUMBUS SAILS FROM PALO& 13 
 
 his project having been twice rejected by the Spanish u^P 
 court, and he himself branded as a wild enthusiast, he sue- , 
 
 ceeded in enlisting in its favor the benevolent Isabella, 1492. 
 Queen of Spain. She offered to pledge her private jewels 
 to obtain means to defray the expenses of the expedition. 
 Thus the blessings, which have accrued to the world from 
 the discovery of America, may be traced to the beneficence 
 of one of the noblest of women. 
 
 After numerous delays and many disappointments, 
 on Friday, the 3d of August, 1492, Columbus sailed from 
 the little port of Palos, in Spain. 
 
 He confidently launched forth upon the unknown ocean. 
 His three little vessels were mere sail-boats compared 
 with the magnificent ships that now pass over the same 
 waters. He sailed on and on, day after day, and at length 
 came within the influence of the trade winds, which with- . 
 out intermission urged his vessels toward the west. The 
 sailors began to fear— if these winds continued, they never 
 could return. They noticed the variation of the compass ; 
 it no longer pointed to the pole, — was this mysterious, but 
 hitherto trusty friend, about to fail them ? 
 
 Ten weeks had already elapsed, and the winds were still 
 bearing them farther and farther from their homes. It is 
 true, there were many indications that land was near ; land 
 birds were seen ; land weeds, a bush with fresh berries 
 upon it, and a cane curiously carved, were found floating in 
 fehe water. Again and again, from those on the watch, 
 was heard the cry of land, but as often the morning sun 
 dispelled the illusion ; they had been deceived by the 
 evening clouds that fringed the western horizon. Now, 
 the sailors terror-stricken, became mutinous, and clamored 
 to return. They thought they had sinned in venturing so 
 far from land, and as a punishment were thus lured on to 
 perish amid the dangers with which their imaginations had 
 filled the waste of waters. 
 
 Columbus alone was calm and hopeful ; in the midst 
 
14 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN" PEOPLE. 
 
 chap. f a u these difficulties, he preserved the courage and noble 
 
 self-control that so dignifies his character. His confidence 
 
 1492. in the success of his enterprise, was not the idle dream of 
 a mere enthusiast ; it was founded in reason, it was based 
 on science. His courage was the courage of one, who, in 
 the earnest pursuit of truth, loses sight of every personal 
 consideration. He asked only for a little more time, that 
 he might prove to others the truth of what he himself so 
 firmly believed. When lo ! the following night the land 
 breeze, fragrant with the perfume of flowers, greeted them; 
 never was it more grateful to the worn and weary sailor. 
 The ships were ordered to lie to, lest they should run upon 
 rocks. Suddenly the ever watchful eye of Columbus saw 
 a light, a moving light ! The alternations of hope and 
 fear, the visions of fame and greatness, or the higher aspi- 
 rations that may have filled his soul on that eventful night, 
 are more easily imagined than described. 
 Frid., The next morning, they saw lying before them in all 
 
 22 its luxuriant beauty an island, called by the natives Guan- 
 ahani, but renamed by Columbus, San Salvador, or Holy 
 Saviour. 
 
 With a portion of his crew he landed. Falling on 
 their knees, they offered thanksgivings to God, who had 
 crowned their labors with success. 
 
 Columbus raised a banner, and planted a cross, and 
 thus took formal possession of the land in the names of his 
 sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella. The awe- stricken 
 natives watched the ceremony from amid the groves ; they 
 thought the white strangers were the children of the sun, 
 their great deity. Alas ! the cross did not prove to them 
 the emblem of peace and good-will ! 
 
 Columbus explored this island — one of the Bahama 
 
 group* — and discovered others, now known as the West 
 
 Indies. Thus he spent three months ; then taking with 
 
 him seven of the natives, he sailed for home. On the 1 5th 
 
 I4M. of March he arrived at Palos. From that port to the court 
 

 jXpdfEKENs/ 
 
HIS THIRD ¥QIAGK. 15 
 
 at Barcelona, his progress was a triumphal procession. He chap. 
 
 was graciously received by the King and Queen, who 
 
 appointed him Viceroy or Governor of all the countries he 1193 
 had or should discover. They conferred upon him and his 
 family titles of nobility, and permission to use a coat of 
 arms. The day he made his discovery, was the day of his 
 triumph ; this day was the recognition of it by his patrons 
 and by the world. His past life had been one of unremit- 
 ting toil and hope deferred ; but in the future were 
 bright prospects for himself and his family. But his 
 title, the object of his honorable ambition, proved the 
 occasion of all his after sorrows. The honors so justly 
 conferred upon him, excited the jealousy of the Spanish 
 nobility. 
 
 From this time his life was one continued contest with 
 his enemies. He made more voyages, and more discoveries 
 in the West Indies. On his third voyage he saw the main- 149S 
 land at the mouth of the Orinoco. It seems never to have 
 occurred to him, that a river so large must necessarily 
 drain a vast territory. He supposed the lands he had dis- 
 covered were islands belonging to Cathay, or Farthei 
 India ; from this circumstance the natives of the New 
 World were called Indians. It is more than probable 
 Columbus died without knowing that he had found a 
 great continent. 
 
 After a few years his enemies so far prevailed, that on 
 a false accusation he was sent home in chains from the 
 island of Hispaniola. Isabella, indignant at the treat- 
 ment he had received, ordered them to be taken off, and 
 all his rights and honors restored. Ferdinand promised to 
 aid her in rendering him justice, and in punishing his ene- 
 mies ; but, double-dealing and ungenerous, he did neither. 
 To the misfortunes of Columbus was added the death of 
 Isabella, his kind and generous patroness. And now he 
 was openly maligned and persecuted. Their work was soon 
 done ; in a short time he died, worn out by disease and 
 
16 HISTOEY OF THE AMEBIC AN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, disappointment. His last words were : " Into thy hands, 
 
 Lord, I commend my spirit." 
 
 1506. His body was deposited in a convent in Spain. Fer- 
 
 dinand, it is said, ordered a monument to his memory. 
 . The justice he had denied him in life he was willing to 
 inscribe upon his tomb, — it was to bear the inscription : 
 " Columbus has given a world to Castile and Leon." 
 
 • The body of Columbus was afterwards conveyed to 
 Hispaniola. After a lapse of almost three hundred years 
 that island passed into the hands of the French. Gene- 
 rations had come and gone, but the Spanish nation re- 
 membered that Columbus had " given a world to Castile 
 and Leon ; " and they wished to retain his remains within 
 their own territories. They disinterred them, and with 
 imposing ceremonies transferred them to Havana in the 
 
 I79k island of Cuba, where they still remain. 
 
 About seven years after the first voyage of Columbus, 
 Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine gentleman, visited the 
 West Indies, and also landed on the eastern coast of South 
 America. On his return he published a glowing descrip- 
 tion of the newly discovered countries. From this cir- 
 cumstance the name America was given to the New 
 World by a German writer on Geography, who may have 
 been ignorant of the claims of Columbus. 
 
CHAPTEE II. 
 
 AMERICAN PREHISTORIC RACES. 
 
 The Origin op the American Indian. 
 
 Who were the first human beings on the American CHAP. 
 continent? How did they get there? In these ques- n> 
 tions we have the twofold aspect of a problem which, 
 from the time of Columbus to our own day, has proved 
 of absorbing interest to every type of mind. The 
 many attempts at a solution of this problem resolve 
 themselves into three distinct theories. The first of 
 them that gained general currency regarded the aborig- 
 inal Americans as descendants of the lost tribes of 
 Israel. This view was certainly stimulating to the 
 imagination, and its very picturesqueness must have 
 contributed immensely to its diffusion. Even the sci- 
 entific and skeptical critic found in the idea an incentive 
 to careful study of the manners and customs of the 
 natives of our continent, in the hope of thus discovering 
 analogies that would lead ultimately to the truth. But 
 science has slowly but surely undermined the founda- 
 tions — such as they were — of this belief, and it remains 
 to-day what it was in the beginning— -a mere assumption t V 
 
 and nothing more. ;. * 
 
 The second theory takes us Jback to one of the famous 
 legends of the ancient Greeks.' This is the legend of 
 Atlantis, an island realm of the western seas, of which 
 Plato gives us a splendid vision in one of his most im- 
 pressive passages. To state this theory in its crudest 
 but simplest form, Atlantis must have been a vast land 
 
 17 
 
 s 
 
18 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 CHAP, area, or series of land areas, extending from Europe to 
 the continent of America. Our remote predecessors 
 were thus afforded a natural bridge over which they 
 crossed by easy stages from the Old World to the New. 
 That some vague tradition of this sort had survived in 
 the minds of men from a very ancient period is beyond 
 dispute. The legend of Atlantis had evidently cast its 
 spell over the imagination of the old Koman philosopher 
 Seneca, inspiring, it may be, his immortal prophecy that 
 mankind would yet discover a new world beyond the 
 seas. The fancy of Columbus had been caught by the 
 boldness of the same vision, and the fabled Atlantis 
 thus became a factor in the achievement of the greatest 
 triumph in the annals of geographical science. Nor is 
 this island continent of Atlantis to be dismissed as a mere 
 creation of the myth-makers. Many able men of science 
 have seen no escape from the conclusion that a bridge or 
 area of land extending across the Atlantic Ocean must 
 have afforded the path by means of which human beings 
 first gained the American continent. Science in this 
 twentieth century does not, to be sure, view the subject 
 in the simple spirit of the old Spaniard who, on the 
 strength of the land-bridge theory, assigned a Celti- 
 berian origin to the Indians. The theory removes one 
 difficulty, but it creates another. What became of the 
 convenient continent between Europe and America? It 
 can scarcely have subsided beneath the waves without 
 leaving a trace of its former presence. Yet every at- 
 tempt to establish even the outlines of the missing conti- 
 nent by sounding the heights and depths of the Atlantic 
 has proved an idle task. Only the most tremendous of 
 natural convulsions could have wiped out a vast land 
 area, between Europe and America. The advanced 
 geological science of our time can find no traces of a 
 submersion on this gigantic scale. Nevertheless, geolo- 
 gists of distinction have maintained that the northern 
 
AMERICAN PREHISTORIC RACES. 19 
 
 bed of the Atlantic was not always covered with water. CHAP. 
 If their view be the right one, man may have left the __ 
 Old World for the New at a time when climatic conditions 
 on the earth were very different from those known to us. 
 We come now to the third and last theory of the 
 peopling of America. The shipping of Asiatic coast 
 dwellers was driven from time to time by stress of wind 
 and weather as far as the Alaskan shore. An involun- 
 tary migration was thus set up from a remote prehis- 
 torical period. A glance at the map shows this view of 
 the case to be an extremely simple one. Nowhere do 
 the continents of the Old World and the New come so 
 closely together as in the Alaskan region. That slender 
 arm known as Bering Strait forms the only division 
 between these mighty areas. Transit from one to the 
 other can have presented no insuperable difficulties even 
 to the most primitive craft. The plausibility of this 
 view is supported by certain resemblances between the 
 American aborigines and Mongolian peoples. Some 
 American races of the Pacific states have characteristics 
 in common with the nations of civilized Asia. There 
 are Chinese legends of a land of Fu-schan which point 
 unmistakably to Aztec civilization, in the opinion of 
 many scientists. Upon these and other considerations 
 is based the theory of a Chinese origin for the first 
 inhabitants of America. But all this ingenious theo- 
 rizing has been unable to withstand the ordeal of more 
 searching investigation. America was certainly not 
 peopled by the Alaskan route within a period during 
 which we can trace even the most ancient Chinese races. 
 Only after the glacial period did the remote northwestern 
 extremity of our continent emerge from the bosom of 
 the Pacific. Such, at any rate, is the conclusion of 
 recent geological science. The first dwellers of America 
 could never have traversed the infinite width of waters 
 stretching in that dim and distant pre-glacial past from 
 
20 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN- PEOPLE. 
 
 CHAP, pole to pole. The bones of many generations of men 
 • were already whitening even then in the soil of the 
 New World. 
 
 This time-worn question has, however, lost much of 
 its importance. The human race in the Old World can 
 not be traced back to a remoter past than the human 
 race in the New. But America was not the cradle of 
 the human race, for the anthropoid apes never made 
 their home there. This much is established by the fos- 
 sil ' i finds. ' ' Yet the theory of evolution cannot dis- 
 pense with the anthropoid apes as the connecting link 
 between man and the lower animals. It is, of course, 
 possible that the first human beings on our continent 
 gained access to it at a time when the divisions of land 
 and water on the earth's surface were as yet totally dif- 
 ferent from those we know anything about. If so, 
 geology will some day be in a position to establish the 
 fact beyond dispute. Meanwhile we can only suspend 
 judgment upon theories assigning an Asiatic origin to 
 America's savage and half -savage peoples. All dis- 
 putes as to whether America's civilization is the out- 
 come of Aryan or of Semitic influences must be indeed 
 idle if man first made his home on this continent at a 
 time when his fellow creatures in the Old World still 
 shared with the brutes the privilege of devouring some 
 fallen carcass, and still found in a natural cave of the 
 mountains their only refuge from the elements. And 
 we know that life's development in the New World was 
 continuous and unaffected by any outside influence, 
 from the age of the mammoth down to the discovery 
 by Christopher Columbus. 
 
 At a later age than that of the mammoth — although 
 
 f even this later age was well within the prehistorical period 
 
 — America already had a considerable population. This 
 
 is shown by the great size and wide diffusion of those 
 
 rubbish-mounds known as kitchen-middens. These 
 
AMERICAN PREHISTORIC RACES. 21 
 
 comprise heaps of fish refuse mingled with the domestic CHAP. 
 utensils and other relics of prehistoric man, all dating • 
 back to the oldest American form of civilization or 
 semi-civilization. Some of the mounds, however, are 
 assignable to as recent a period as the later stone age, 
 beyond which the Indians of eastern South America 
 never advanced. But even the most ancient of them 
 must have been of very slow formation. In many in- 
 stances they are hundreds of feet long and of great 
 height. The elements would certainly have interfered 
 with a rapid accumulation of such masses, which abound 
 along the coasts as well as throughout the interior of 
 North and South America. The fairly dense popula- 
 tion indicated by this state of things is significant. 
 Were Europe and Asia in this remote era inhabited by 
 races as yet never civilized? If so, the evolution of 
 any form of civilization on the American continent can- 
 not have been due to any foreign influence. Former 
 geographical conditions on our continent would not 
 enter into the question in the least. Argument based 
 upon such a theory would be as futile as the speculations 
 of Cortez and Pizarro regarding those twin mysteries of 
 life in the New World — the civilizations of Mexico and 
 of Peru. 
 
 It was reasonable to anticipate that a study of the 
 dialects and traditions of the primitive races of America 
 might throw some light on their origin. But the result 
 is disappointing. The savage in a state of nature is 
 found to have little knowledge and less curiosity regard- 
 ing his own origin. In exceptional cases he may recall 
 the names of both his father and his grandfather. He 
 may even remember where they lived. Anything more 
 than this involves him in a maze of childish fancy. 
 The language in which these primitive Americans con- 
 veyed their few ideas had more elements of permanence. 
 But it was subject, nevertheless, to countless modifica- 
 
22 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 CHAP, tions, arising principally from the introduction of cap- 
 n - tive women into a conquering tribe. For our earliest 
 predecessors on this continent had every instinct of the 
 beast of prey. There is every reason to suspect that 
 cannibalism in its most ruthless form once prevailed 
 throughout the length and breadth of America. Man 
 triumphed over his prey by devouring him and won his 
 wife by stealing her. Such was the order of ideas 
 conveyed by a formless speech which must long have 
 remained but a stage in advance of the uncouth cry of 
 the brute. Rude word-forms, the survivors, it may be, 
 of this period of warfare of " all against all," have 
 been analyzed with infinite patience in the light of lin- 
 guistic science, only to leave the student very often as 
 wise at the end of his labors as he was in the beginning. 
 
 Racial Divisions op the Indians. 
 
 The whole population of the region now comprising 
 the United States can scarcely have exceeded half a 
 million in the time of Columbus. The number is sur- 
 prisingly insignificant in comparison with the vastness 
 of the area. Indeed, the earliest students of the subject 
 concluded that the inhabitants of our portion of Amer- 
 ica must have numbered some millions in the year 1492. 
 We know now that these observers were misled partly 
 by the accounts of the red men themselves, partly by 
 the bewildering variety of dialects that prevailed, and 
 partly by the probabilities of the case. It is possible 
 that the population of North America, in an indefinite 
 prehistoric period, could have been computed by the 
 million. But this population had evidently been declin- 
 ing for a long time — perhaps for centuries. We may 
 attribute this decline, perhaps, to a type of civilization 
 unfitted to cope with the surrounding savagery of the 
 red man. How the red man himself reared the super- 
 
AMERICAN PREHISTORIC RACES. 23 
 
 structure of his peculiar mode of life during the slow CHAP, 
 decline of the prehistoric civilization we can only vaguely 
 conjecture. 
 
 When the Indians of our part of the world came so 
 abruptly into history, their state of culture presented 
 three stages. These stages were not sharply defined. 
 In fact, they tended to shade into one another, although 
 they were sufficiently distinguishable for purposes of 
 study and classification. The most abject of the tribes 
 were in what is called the later period of savagery. 
 They used the bow and arrow, but had no pottery. 
 Tillage of the soil was beyond their capacity. On a 
 higher plane than this were the Indians in the older 
 period of barbarism. They could raise a crop of some- 
 thing resembling maize, they herded together within a 
 circle of hovels, and they fished and hunted in a hap- 
 hazard and disorganized way. We must look to the 
 " village" Indians — those in the middle period of bar- 
 barism — for the highest type of culture on this conti- 
 nent when Columbus reached it. These tribes had an 
 agriculture and an architecture. They were progressing 
 in a definite direction. But they were overcome at in- 
 tervals by the savages of a ruder type, and in the strug- 
 gle for existence they were doomed not to survive. The 
 Indians in the second stage, the older period of barbar- 
 ism, might have made themselves supreme over the 
 whole North American continent had not the arrival of 
 the European changed the whole course of human his- 
 tory in the New World. So much we may infer from 
 their rapid progress along the lines of federation and 
 their capacity for combination in a military sense. 
 
 The half-million Indians of the Columbian period 
 have been differentiated into about a dozen racial stocks. 
 It is true that these twelve nationalities or races were 
 not evident to the first observers, nor is it to be supposed 
 that the lines of demarcation were absolute. This clas- 
 
24 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 CHAP, sification of the native American applies, moreover, 
 • only to those members of the red race dwelling north of 
 what is now Mexico. And while each of these twelve 
 nationalities had features peculiar to itself, all had in 
 common those general traits of person and character 
 which unfailingly denote the " noble red man." The 
 type varied little. A copper-colored skin, prominent 
 cheek-bones, straight black hair, and a keen dark eye, 
 were the universal physical heritage. The funda- 
 mental ideas of these beings were formed on equally 
 rigid lines. All held tenaciously to certain laws of kin- 
 dred, upon which their conception of government and 
 society was founded. Every red man was passionately 
 attached to his particular area of the continent which 
 comprised the "home land" of his people. This 
 attachment was absolute. One nationality seldom, if 
 ever, annexed the domain of another, although they 
 frequently invaded it. These two principles of conduct 
 — reverence for ties of kindred and devotion to the soil 
 — are the grand clues to Indian human nature. 
 
 The Algonquins come first in order of the twelve 
 groupings we have to consider. Their vast domain 
 extended along the coast of the Atlantic from Labrador 
 to South Carolina, stretching inland almost to that 
 4 1 father of waters, ' ' the Mississippi. The Algonquins 
 were fighters who knew not the meaning of fear. They 
 would tolerate no authority but their own within the 
 region they regarded as the land of their race. Our 
 authentic knowledge of them does not go back quite to 
 the Columbian period, but they were among the first 
 red men to come into contact with European civilization. 
 The effect upon their disposition was disastrous, yet 
 sonfe of the noblest and most remarkable types of Indian 
 character were produced by the innumerable tribes 
 making up the Algonquin stock. 
 
 A still more gifted people were the Iroquois, among 
 

AMERICAN PREHISTORIC RACES. 25 
 
 whom we include the Hurons. Ethnologists of dis- CHAP. 
 
 tinction maintain that these tribes are really of the ^ 
 
 Algonquin race. Be this as it may, their lands bounded 
 those of the Algonquins for many miles, especially in 
 the region of the great lakes, and comprised much of 
 the territory within the present State of New York, 
 extending southward, moreover, as far as the mountain 
 region of Virginia. The Hurons and the Iroquois sup- 
 plied the general type of Indian character that enriches 
 the pages of Fenimore Cooper, while their prowess in 
 war has imparted a sanguinary aspect to our colonial 
 history. The Iroquois got their appellation from the 
 French, and they seem to have been divided at first 
 into five tribes, to which was subsequently added a sixth. 
 The " Six Nations " annihilated many tribes in the 
 course of their warlike history. They developed a 
 perfectly framed system of federal union. Their chiefs 
 met in regular council to determine the common policy 
 of their alliance. So well executed were their measures 
 of war and peace that their power became irresistible. 
 These ' ' Romans of the West ' ' would have conquered 
 the new world east of the Mississippi and north of the 
 Ohio, according to Parkman, had the white man deferred 
 his appearance for another hundred years or so. The 
 gift of eloquence was theirs in a marked degree, and 
 the speeches of Logan and Eed Jacket have become 
 classic. 
 
 The land of the Dakotas — third on our list of races — 
 comprised the leagues of billowy prairie that roll west- 
 ward from the Mississippi to the foot of the Rocky 
 Mountains. The Dakotas were known to the French as 
 Sioux, and, as was inevitable in the case of a prairie 
 people, they were renowned hunters of the buffalo. 
 Some of their more eastern tribes had a primitive kind 
 of agriculture, but the Dakotas generally subsisted from 
 the chase. Their physical characteristics were often 
 
26 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 CHAP, strikingly unlike those of all other red men. The color 
 11 and texture of their hair presented variations not met 
 with elsewhere, while in complexion their women ap- 
 proached more nearly to the blonde type than did the 
 squaws of the other North American tribes. They spent 
 more time in their ablutions than seemed proper to the 
 Indian of the coast, and the hair of both males and 
 females was allowed to attain its full growth. There 
 was a reserve in the character of a Dakota squaw that 
 suggested some notion of feminine delicacy; and her 
 attachment to her children is the subject of many beau- 
 tiful stories. The men were magnificent swimmers. 
 They loved personal adornment and were affable in 
 manner. Their cruelty, however, was proverbial. The 
 exquisite tortures they inflicted upon captives were 
 equaled only by the punishments they contrived for 
 themselves. Their purpose in thus testing their own 
 powers of endurance was the same as that of the ancient 
 Spartans. 
 
 The Athabascan Indians formed a northern stock. 
 The possessions of these tribes included much of what 
 has since become the Dominion of Canada, and they 
 hunted even as far northward as Alaska. Their lands 
 also extended considerably within the present limits of 
 the United States, for the Apaches and Navajoes were 
 Athabascans, although some authorities incline to the 
 view that the Apaches were really southerners. The 
 Athabascans generally were a fierce and untamable peo- 
 ple. Some of the tribes lived by fishing. Others are 
 said to have kept slaves. Again, we are assured that 
 many Athabascan clans were mild and gentle until contact 
 with, the white race transformed them. The truth seems 
 to be that the vast territory inhabited by these people 
 was long inaccessible to the trader and explorer. Our 
 knowledge of the Athabascans has, therefore, been 
 meager or conflicting. 
 
AMERICAN PREHISTORIC RACES. 27 
 
 The Esquimaux are the most northern of the races CHAP, 
 within our scheme of classification. Their country n - 
 comprises a thin strip of snow land capping the North 
 American continent. They are at once the most interest- 
 ing and the most repellent of peoples. Small, hairy- 
 faced, dull and dirty, they have always stood apart 
 from the other races encountered by the European in 
 his conquest of the new world. 
 
 The Thlinket tribes lived on the Pacific coast, between 
 the Simpson River and Mount St. Elias. They seem to 
 have been miserable creatures physically, who had no 
 settled mode of life and no particular capacity as hunters 
 or fishers. Some writers consider them a degenerate 
 branch of the so-called Columbian race, which forms 
 one of the most important of our twelve subdivisions. 
 The hunting grounds of the Columbian Indians included 
 the whole of the present states of Washington and 
 Oregon, besides a great portion of the area to the imme- 
 diate north, which is n >w called British Columbia. 
 They are said to have professed especial devotion to the 
 " Great Spirit." Many of the tribes suffered severely 
 from scarcity of food, and subsisted for months at a 
 time upon roots and even grasses. Their chief weapon 
 was a primitive kind of spear, which they did not discard 
 until long after experience with the white trader had 
 developed a certain fierceness in their disposition. 
 Some of the Columbian tribes were expert canoeists. 
 One branch of the race was characterized by a mal- 
 formation of the cranium, produced, it is said, by 
 pressure on the head during infancy. 
 
 The California Indians are seventh in our classifica- 
 tion, their low level of existence calling for no extended 
 notice. The Yumas come next, their home being in 
 southern Arizona and eastern California. 
 
 We have now to consider briefly the very important 
 Pueblos. Not only were they a distinctive stock in 
 
28 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 CHAP, physique and culture, but they are regarded as the sur- 
 vivors of the prehistoric civilization of the North Ameri- 
 can continent. Their territory in the Columbian period 
 can scarcely have exceeded the present limits of New- 
 Mexico and Arizona, although there is much plausible 
 evidence in favor of a more comprehensive area. At 
 the time of their discovery by the Spaniards, the Pueblos 
 had long been in a state of decline ; but even then their 
 superiority to every form of culture north of Mexico 
 was striking. It is as architects that these people make 
 their most powerful appeal to the attention of the student. 
 The famous Cliff Palace in Colorado is an impressive 
 memorial of the antiquity as well as of the splendor of 
 their civilization. It is inferred that this race had been 
 receding for generations before a rising tide of barbarism. 
 Some authorities contend that the Pueblos are the dis- 
 tant kin of the Aztecs. There are certainly many 
 striking similarities between them. The most recent 
 investigation, however, tends to dissipate this idea. 
 Pueblo, it should be noted, means village, and it is as 
 "village Indians" that the Spaniards sought to dis- 
 tinguish them. The village in this instance was almost 
 a town, and the inhabitants, even in their dejected con- 
 dition, represented, as has been observed heretofore, the 
 most advanced culture within the area north of Mexico. 
 The Shoshones were, to adopt their own expression, 
 " a great people." They inhabited a vast and vaguely 
 denned region in the northwest, roaming over the terri- 
 tory now assigned to Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, and 
 adjacent states. The Pawnees dwelt in this region also, 
 the two races having many characteristics in common, 
 although they used different dialects. Taking them to- 
 gether, their lands reached as far south as Texas, and 
 they presented an infinite variety of tribal character, 
 from the destitute root diggers of the mountains to the 
 i * warlike Comanches. ' ' 
 
AMERICAN PREHISTORIC RACES. 29 
 
 Finally, we have the Appalachians, or Muskokis, a CHAP, 
 spirited and intelligent race or series of races. They II - 
 lived in what the American of to-day calls * ' the south, ? ) 
 that is, in the area from the Carolinas to the Gulf as far 
 westward as Louisiana. Some of the most famous tribes 
 in our history, such as the Choctaws, the Creeks, the 
 Seminoles, and the Cherokees, were of this Appalachian 
 stock. All of these peoples were extremely handsome, 
 from the Indian point of view, and very vain of their 
 personal appearance. The first effect of contact with 
 the white man was an epidemic of smallpox, which is 
 said to have ravaged them mercilessly and to have spared 
 but a fraction of their original numbers. All were more 
 or less addicted to fanciful deformations of themselves, 
 and all were proficient in treachery. Some observers 
 credit them with a greater facility in the acquisition of 
 European languages than any other red race displayed. 
 
 Such was the racial aspect of America north of Mexico, 
 in the time of Columbus, or at any rate in a period not 
 much later than his day. This division into twelve 
 families is not perfectly accurate, nor does it receive the 
 sanction of all authorities. But it answers the purpose 
 of classification very well, although another scheme, 
 would lessen the number of distinct races by enlarging 
 the application of the term Algonquin. It may be an- 
 ticipated that scientists will in time discover a simpler 
 system of classification than the vague one prevailing. 
 
 Social and Intellectual Conditions of the Indians. 
 
 The social, moral, and personal relations of the 
 Indians of America, north of Mexico, show the effect of 
 a long and intimate contact with nature. They had no 
 notion of private property in land. Nobody could in- 
 herit anything, in our legal sense of the word. The unit 
 of society was not the family. Even the family was not 
 an institution, for the father had no status as such. 
 
30 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 CHAP. Speaking generally, the tribe, which was sometimes 
 only a small gathering of two hundred persons, was 
 organized on the basis of the clan. This clan was a 
 grouping of individuals under the limited authority of a 
 male member who stood in some relation of kinship to 
 them all. But this kinship was traced almost always 
 through the female line, and marriage within that circle 
 was forbidden, although a man belonging to one clan 
 could marry a woman of another clan. Hence, a cer- 
 tain relationship by marriage was apt to exist through- 
 out all the tribe, but an individual always belonged to 
 the clan of the mother. Occasionally tribes were en- 
 countered with a gentile basis of kinship, descent being 
 reckoned through the male. There was also a system of 
 adoption into a tribe in which relationship was nominally 
 in the female line. The family authority was vested in 
 the eldest member of the circle. Thus an elder 
 brother exacted obedience from a younger. In the tribe 
 at large, however, the governmental authority depended 
 almost wholly upon personal merit, especially in time of 
 war. 
 
 The several clans forming a tribe dwelt together. 
 Their habitations radiated about a common center, but 
 were usually close to one another. The common center 
 was likely to be the rallying place, in which general 
 concerns were discussed. Here the old men and the 
 valiant warriors (herded under one great roof, or, it 
 might be, out in the open) planned war or the hunt, 
 worshiped the ' ' Great Spirit, ' ' or merely frittered 
 away the time. As for the dwellings, they were apt to 
 be constructed of poles, logs, twigs, or sod, according 
 to the resources at command. The sanitary arrange- 
 ments were nearly always most primitive, a fact which 
 explains the general liability of the red man to epidemics. 
 The squaws did the work, while the men fought and 
 amused themselves. But it was not unusual for women 
 
AMERICAN PREHISTORIC RACES. 31 
 
 of forceful character to acquire influence in the council, CHAP. 
 while the more elderly females were sometimes regarded 
 with a kind of veneration. Life was not apt to be dull 
 in the village, for everybody knew everybody else, and 
 the spirit of emulation was keen. 
 
 Dress and personal adornment were among the occa- 
 sions of this emulation. Attire was variegated, the hide 
 of the deer, the hare, the buffalo, and even the snake, 
 contributing some element to the general effect. Shirts 
 and leggings were the conspicuous necessities of the 
 men, and the skins of their four-footed quarry supplied 
 the materials. But softer fabric was available in the 
 6hape of vegetable fibers woven in combination with fur, 
 sinew, and feathers. These materials served the women 
 for skirts — garments which rarely reached the ground. 
 The men had, apparently, little notion of the coat. 
 Their upper garments were sack-like, with holes for the 
 head and arms. The nether garment varied from the 
 loin-cloth supplemented with leggings to an elaborate 
 covering of skin and feathers, which decorated the lower 
 limbs with a porcupine-like fringe. There were, of 
 course, tribes which wore very little at all in the way of 
 attire. Others had different sets of clothes for all the 
 occasions of life, — political, military, and religious. 
 The robe seems to have been used more for ceremony 
 than for service. The use of the moccasin was widely 
 distributed, although the word seems to have been pe- 
 culiar to the Algonquin peoples. This footwear was 
 usually of deer-skin, or some kind of leather, and the 
 sole was soft. So, too, was the upper, which had often 
 much ornament. The head of the Indian was sur- 
 mounted by feathery or hairy contrivances, which be- 
 came more elaborate as the tribe rose in the scale of 
 existence. 
 
 Personal adornment was one of the great concerns of 
 life. The manliest brave did not disdain to give minute 
 
32 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 CHAP, attention to the tattooing of his skin and the painting of 
 his face. The former operation was painful, necessita- 
 ting the employment of darts made of fish-bone or 
 metal. The flesh was pricked in a stabbing manner that 
 inflicted exquisite pain, while the coloring matter had 
 sometimes a poisonous effect that caused death. But 
 the' Indian attached 6ueh great importance to the beasts, 
 birds, suns, or stars stamped indelibly upon his body that 
 the chance of death did not deter him from the practice. 
 These adornments, in addition to their value from the 
 medicine- man's point of view, conferred certain social 
 advantages. Painting was an indispensable requisite of 
 ceremonial intercourse. The males daubed their fore- 
 heads, noses, eyebrows, and craniums, and the females 
 their cheeks. There seems to have been no fixed 
 standard of taste in this matter, except that in war the 
 braves conformed to a type of decoration that apprised 
 the beholder of a state of hostilities. It has been said 
 that the experienced observer could almost read the life 
 history of an Indian by the paintings upon his person, 
 but this could not have applied to the average case. 
 There can be no doubt, however, that a gathering of 
 the clans in the village center was apt to be preceded by 
 an enormous application of paint. 
 
 The personal relations of the tribesmen with one an- 
 other were rather pleasant, on the whole. Their notions 
 of dignity and of social forms were severely adhered to, 
 and the innumerable assemblages to dance, or to sing, 
 or to pray in common, always had a definite order of 
 procedure. They began with an address by some ven- 
 erable elder or recognized chief, but they ended, very 
 oftenj in noise and frenzied excitement. But this was, 
 in a sense, the conventional course of events, especially 
 on religious occasions. "Weird dances, attended at times 
 with self-inflicted violence, formed the leading ceremo- 
 nial element in these rites, and led naturally to the phy- 
 
AMERICAN PREHISTORIC RACES. 33 
 
 sical collapse of all concerned. These performances were CHAP. 
 designed as a formal recognition of certain personifica- ~~* 
 tions of nature, and constituted the only public worship 
 of which the Indians were capable. They seem to have 
 had little inward relation to the individual, and worship 
 was rarely solitary. But other phases of religion were 
 numerous, for the mind of the red man resembled the 
 mind of the ancient Greek in its readiness to attribute 
 personality to the forces and faces of nature. Some 
 tribes made a god of the thunder and lightning, and others 
 of the sun. The winds were brothers, each with his 
 appropriate name. Every beast of the forest was dei- 
 fied in the abstract and was typical of a sentiment or a 
 power. The antelope meant peace to the Dakotas, and 
 the grizzly bear signified war. In nothing was the In- 
 dian's close contact with nature more strikingly mani- 
 fested than in his conception of the supernatural. 
 
 The rites of this many-sided system of personification 
 were not limited to the dance. There were incantations 
 by means of fire and water, accompanied by singing, and 
 addresses to the guardian spirit of the tribe. The bear, 
 the wolf, the eagle, were tokens of this spirit, who was 
 as likely as not to be of a malignant disposition, to be 
 propitiated only by the gloomiest and most hideous prac- 
 tices. This fact contributed immensely to the medicine- 
 man's importance. He was supposed by some of the 
 tribes to hold communication with the spirits of evil, 
 and to be able to reduce them to a state of subjection. 
 Hence his efficacy as a physician. Herbs and roots had 
 a magical rather than a therapeutic value, and experience 
 has not generally sustained the traditional reputation of 
 Indian remedies. The medicine-man was a contortionist 
 of proficiency, and lathered himself into a foam during 
 an important ceremony. This personage, by the way, 
 should not be confused with a sachem, who in many 
 tribes had a quite different authority. The sachem fre- 
 
34 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 CHAP, quently united the character of chief with that of ven- 
 **• erable old man. His authority was supernatural only in 
 exceptional cases, whereas the medicine-man was always 
 something of a magician. The tribes of the western 
 prairies seem to have encouraged the magic of the medi- 
 cine-man in a quite extraordinary degree, and their type 
 of^ religion invested these strange creatures with almost 
 the importance of a sacerdotal caste. It was undoubtedly 
 the function of the medicine- man to interpret the tribe's 
 crude philosophy of life and apply it to the emergencies 
 of every day, — material as well as spiritual. Thus was 
 brought about, probably, the connection between the 
 Indian system of medicine and the Indian system of wor- 
 ship. There is no reason to infer that the medicine- 
 man lacked faith in himself or in his system. He was 
 not always consciously a quack or an upholder of delu- 
 sion. 
 
 The " Great Spirit," of whom so much is made, has 
 occasioned controversy. This being was originally ac- 
 cepted as the Indian's idea of one supreme deity, reward- 
 ing the good and punishing the evil. But later investi- 
 gation leads to the suspicion that the ' ' Great Spirit ' ' 
 and "the happy hunting grounds" may have been read 
 into the Indian's theology through the misunderstand- 
 ings of early travelers and missionaries. On the other 
 hand, many of the tribes revered a single supernatural 
 personality, who was credited with an indefinite suprem- 
 acy over their concerns. The ease with which most 
 tribes accepted the notion of a supreme being from the 
 missionary, has been held to denote that their own pre- 
 vious theology was in line with that idea. The lore of 
 the medicine-men, which ought to decide the point, does 
 not always sustain this theory. There were many gods 
 in their systems, but there was little agreement as to the 
 supremacy of any one. Each tribe had its favorite divin- 
 ity, the tendency being to exalt him until a " great 
 
AMERICAN PREHISTORIC RACES. 35 
 
 spirit ' ' of local jurisdiction was evolved. This object CHAP. 
 of general veneration was represented in an animal form, ' 
 for, as we have observed already, every animal was in 
 the abstract an earthly aspect of some deity. "When, 
 theref ore, a tribe had evolved its ' ' great spirit, ' ' his form 
 in this world was identified with the bear, or the buffalo, 
 or some other available creature, which became the to- 
 tem or object of everybody's superstition. Many savages 
 regarded themselves as descendants of their totem. If 
 this happened to be an elk, they must refrain from mo- 
 lesting that animal, fearing dire penalties. A poisonous 
 serpent has been elevated to the rank of totem, in which 
 case it inspires no dread, except among traitors to the 
 tribe, who must infallibly die of its bite. Many totems 
 were those of a clan rather than of a whole tribe. They 
 were drawn or cut upon the entrances to the dwelling, 
 and in certain cases were tattooed upon the clansman's 
 body. One far western tribe had adopted the head of 
 the buffalo for its totem, another the tail. Again, a 
 totam might inspire such awe that its devotees feared to 
 look at it. Individuals owing allegiance to a common 
 totem had special obligations to one another. This cir- 
 cumstance led to the formation of secret covenants which 
 grew into cults, presided over by the medicine-men. 
 
 The totem, of course, invested the Indian mythology 
 with a peculiar solemnity. Life in the other world was 
 considered a higher type of the life of this world. The 
 red men conceived the gods to have been divided into 
 clans, to meet for common action, and to concern them- 
 selves with the fate of human beings. The gods were 
 
 © © 
 
 shades, but could assume any material form, and their 
 magical powers were infinite. They were occasionally 
 pleased to descend to earth in human shape for the 
 benefit of mankind. Such a character was Hiawatha, 
 the wise, who came down from above before Columbus 
 had reached America. He taught men the ways of 
 
36 HISTORY OK THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 CHAP, wisdom, and at his suggestion the great confederacy 
 ^ of the Iroquois was formed. While the tribesmen were 
 in council, Hiawatha and his beautiful daughter emerged 
 from a canoe, and a mighty wind was heard. The 
 heavens were obscured by an enormous heron, snow- 
 white, which overwhelmed and killed the maiden in its 
 rush and slew itself. Hiawatha grieved for his child 
 but fulfilled his mission, and the Iroquois " became a 
 mighty people." On a somewhat lower imaginative 
 level was the great hero Atatarho, who lived alone in a 
 cave, drinking from the skulls of his fallen foes. He 
 wore garments of living serpents and spent his leisure 
 in meditation, solaced by his pipe, until the Indian tribes 
 about his home made him the chief of their confederacy. 
 Those were the days of ■ ' Gitche Manito, the mighty, 
 the creator of the nations, ' ' or, in less poetic language, 
 of some period of storm* and stress among the tribes 
 reflecting itself in the cosmogony of the medicine-man. 
 Thus the legends involve themselves with the real and 
 the unreal, appearing in many shapes, the delight of 
 the poet and the despair of the scientist. 
 
 Immoderate indulgence in dancing and open-air 
 exercise, varied by eating to repletion, constituted the 
 leading phases of social life to the Indian mind. Out- 
 door games and athletic competitions formed an impor- 
 tant part of the business of life to which much time was 
 devoted. 
 
 Probably the most celebrated of these diversions was 
 a match between two sets of opposing players with the 
 object of carrying or throwing a ball through the ranks 
 of those on the other side. This game was played 
 without any particular rules, nor was there any limit to 
 the number of players. Hand implements not unlike 
 butterfly nets were used in the pursuit of the ball. The 
 match entailed much dodging, leaping and running, 
 and was regarded as a splendid part of the education of 
 
AMERICAN PREHISTORIC RACES. 37 
 
 a warrior, fitting him for the battlefield and giving him CHAP. 
 strength and endurance. A game of this kind would _ 
 not infrequently last the greater part of the day, and 
 was participated in by every able-bodied man in a 
 village, while the rest of the inhabitants looked on and 
 applauded. Such is the origin of the modern game of 
 lacrosse. 
 
 Another spirited game was " snow-snake," a winter 
 sport of immense popularity. A solid layer of snow 
 over all the land, and a long, slender piece of wood 
 curved upward at one end were the requisites of this 
 amusement. The object was to see who could propel 
 the piece of wood farthest over the hard surface of the 
 snow. This looked simple, but it required great deft- 
 ness and muscular power. The stick had to be grasped 
 at the back and shot forward by a movement of the arm. 
 It then glided over the snow, with end curved upward 
 and a tremulous movement that strikingly suggested the 
 serpent.* Some of the braves could, it is said, send 
 the snow-snake a quarter of a mile. There were other 
 forms of this game, which, by means of a wheel-shaped 
 contrivance, could be adapted to the summer season. 
 
 The squaws had their ways of amusing themselves as 
 well as the braves. Among them was football, — not 
 the kind we know, but a game with the object of keep- 
 ing the ball up in the air. This involved energetic and 
 constant muscular exercise. Other games were played 
 with pieces of bone and horn. The players sat on the 
 ground, and the competition was one mostly of skill in 
 tossing. There were also social diversions and forms of 
 amusement in which both the braves and the squaws 
 participated. A circle was formed about a blanket or a 
 fire, while some player inside or outside the ring tried 
 to find a bone or chip that passed from hand to hand. 
 
 It seems clear that Indian character suffered from an 
 inadequate idea of the social value of the sexes to each 
 
38 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 CHAP, other. In general, there was a well-defined difference 
 *** between the work of a man and that of a woman. The 
 notion entertained of woman's sphere may be inferred 
 from the fact that the enslaved prisoner was " degraded " 
 by compelling him to work with the squaws. Women 
 gathered the firewood, tilled the ground, if the tribe 
 happened to be agricultural, hauled the household goods 
 when the village moved to a new site, cooked, and were 
 generally useful. The list of their tasks, it must be 
 remembered, looks much more formidable than it 
 really was, for there were many squaws and no great 
 amount of toil to be done. 
 
 There seem to have been occasions when wives 
 accompanied their husbands on hostile expeditions, but 
 as a rule they stayed at home. The brave could usually 
 dissolve his marriage at any time, but the tendency seems 
 to have been among the strongest tribes towards mon- 
 ogamy. The Hurons had a bad reputation as regards 
 the relations between the sexes, and polygamy was 
 practiced in many tribes. Marriage was not the subject 
 of any definite ethics, but a wife's position was clearly 
 determined, and in her home she was mistress. The 
 wigwam was usually known by the wife's name when it 
 had any designation at all. 
 
 Morally and intellectually the Indian was a contra- 
 diction. He had the instinct of vengeance in an ex- 
 traordinary degree. The pursuit of a foe during many 
 years, and his ruthless slaughter at last, were deemed a 
 moral proceeding. Allusion has been made more than 
 once to Indian treachery. Certain tribes were very 
 proud of their capacity in this direction, as tales told 
 around the camp fire and recorded on high authority 
 abundantly prove. The infliction of torture, under every 
 conceivable circumstance of horror and atrocity, afforded 
 the Indian the greatest of his many inducements to war. 
 With some tribes, in fact, torture was a cult and they 
 
INDIANS ATTACKING A SETTLER'S HOME. 
 
AMERICAN PREHISTORIC RACES. 39 
 
 practiced it with diabolical inventiveness and ingenuity. CHAP. 
 Of benevolence there was seldom any trace, and yet_ 
 this must not be held to deny the existence of kindness 
 within a given circle. The Indian could feel a sense of 
 duty to persons of real or nominal relationship to him- 
 self, but he had little sense of his duty to man as man. 
 His myths and traditions show a kind of savage ethics, 
 with here and there some glimmering of a noble idea 
 obscured by the superstition that overgrows it. His 
 theory of conduct had relation almost entirely to physical 
 consequences. 
 
 The dog was the companion of the Indian when 
 Columbus came, but no other domestic animal was in 
 his service. The buffalo was never tamed. ' JSTor did 
 the red man know what to do with the ores that cropped 
 richly to the surface of the ground he trod. It was as 
 much as he could accomplish to shape a nugget by ham- 
 mering it. Pottery, outside of the Pueblo region, never 
 attained importance, although much serviceable ware 
 was made by hand and decorated tastefully. Food was 
 obtained in variety and often in abundance. The veg- 
 etable kingdom yielded berries, fruits, maize, maple 
 sugar, and even rice of an indigenous wild variety, and 
 wild honey. Fish abounded, but certain tribes would 
 not eat this sort of food. The innumerable creatures of 
 the forest and prairie supplied the larder, and rendered 
 want a consequence only of primitive savagery. 
 
 Every investigator has been surprised by the great 
 number of dialects prevailing among the North Ameri- 
 can Indians. There has been much speculation as to 
 the cause of the phenomenon, some referring it to the 
 isolation of clans and tribes in so vast a space, while 
 others think the mixture of tribes resulting from war- 
 fare and vicissitudes must be held responsible. The 
 folk-lore of the Indians throws little light on this matter, 
 but it greatly illumines every other aspect of the original 
 
40 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 CHAP. American's existenee. It is thought significant of a 
 _____ childish intellectual condition that the animal story is 
 given so much prominence. The bear, the beaver, the 
 buffalo, the coyote, and the grasshopper, were all sub- 
 jects of an infinite number of fables. There seems to 
 be some indefinite connection between this imaginative- 
 ness and the language in which its imagery finds expres- 
 sion. At any rate, a theory of this sort has given a 
 decided impetus in recent years to the renewed study 
 and classification of the folk-lore. The wealth of ma- 
 terial is infinite. Tales of the wars among the buffaloes, 
 of ghostly lovers, and star maids, or of the woman who 
 married a tree, are, in this view of the case, sources of 
 knowledge that may yet dispel much of the darkness in 
 which the history of the pre-Columbian redskin is in- 
 volved. There is but one detail, although it is an im- 
 portant one, upon which anything like agreement pre- 
 vails. The characteristic of the Indian was childishness. 
 He was a child in his wars, in his religions, in the boy- 
 like barbarities of which he was guilty. 
 
 Precisely what the Indians could have had to go to 
 war about prior to the time of Columbus it is difficult 
 to imagine. Their wars nevertheless appear to have 
 been long and bloody. By the beginning of the sixteenth 
 century, the red man had evolved a military code of his 
 own, and, of course, the presence of the white man did 
 not retard his development as a fighter. The u braves " 
 were a recognized element of standing and influence in 
 the Indian village. They were the strongest and most 
 active of the young men . "With more or less regularity, 
 they set forth together or singly in pursuit of the foe. 
 Their weapons on such expeditions were bludgeons, 
 axes', slings, daggers, and scalping-knives. The manu- 
 facture of these implements was inevitably crude, al- 
 though skill of a certain primitive kind was not wanting. 
 But the arrow of the Indian was a work of art. The 
 
AMERICAN PREHISTORIC RACES. 41 
 
 head of the arrow was usually of quartz, or white agate, CHAP 
 or kindred substances, pointed with delicate precision 
 into the acutest of barbs. This was fixed either to a 
 stout quill or to a hardwood stick, or well- weigh ted 
 rush, and the whole steadied for flight, when necessary, 
 by a tail of feathers. The arrow-head was barbed at 
 the back very often to prevent its easy withdrawal by a 
 victim. Sometimes the arrow-head was made of bone. 
 Sinew and thongs secured it to the stick. 
 
 The bow was a long, curved piece of hickory, when- 
 ever that wood was available. Otherwise any suitable 
 material, even buffalo- horns and driftwood, could be 
 made to serve. The string connecting the ends was 
 mostly of gut, and was stretched with no more tautness 
 than would permit the bending of the bow to the full. 
 It was in the terrific force of the recoil thus produced 
 that the deadliness of the arrow's flight originated. 
 Nothing in aboriginal American life was so terribly 
 impressive as the silent flight of a volley of arrows 
 among the foe. The braves aimed from ambush when- 
 ever possible. Their tactics enabled flight after flight of 
 arrows to be poured with consummate skill and rapidity 
 into the very center of a mass of panic-stricken victims. 
 
 The arrows having been discharged, the next move- 
 ment was a rush of the braves upon the enemy, provided 
 the enemy were sufficiently weak and helpless. Then 
 the scalping-knife came into requisition. Scalping was 
 a simple process surgically, but it required much skill 
 and experience to do it neatly and with speed. The 
 brave seized the locks on top of his victim's head, made 
 one round slash with the knife and ripped the skin 
 from the skull. The scalp thereafter might dangle from 
 the belt of the brave, or serve some other purpose of 
 adornment. Its possession conveyed to the savage mind 
 the idea of distinction, and to have many scalps in this 
 fashion denoted a personality of importance. But no 
 
42 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 CHAP, military authority or rank seems to have accompanied 
 these insignia of prowess, although they constituted a 
 weighty claim to preferment in the tribe. 
 
 Having no conception of the regiment, and little 
 imperative need of discipline, the Indians entirely lacked 
 war organization. Their movements were simply planned 
 and cruelly executed. The silence of the forest soli- 
 tudes and the stillness of evening furthered the perpe- 
 tration of every imaginable treachery. The mother and 
 her babes perished as they slept, whole villages were 
 wiped out in a night, and ruin and desolation were 
 everywhere. 
 
 The tomahawk was a battle- ax with a stone head. 
 This head was variously fashioned, sometimes consisting 
 of a wedge-shaped stone, sharpened to a cutting edge 
 and again being merely the pronged fragment of a deer- 
 horn. The weapon thus produced was not unwieldy, 
 and its deadliness was unquestionable. Burying the 
 tomahawk symbolized peace to many tribes, as digging 
 it up was equivalent to a proclamation of war. The 
 Indian learned much from the European regarding war, 
 and he taught much in return, the result being that 
 peculiar form of hostility known in our early history as 
 1 i border warfare. ' ' The red man made, all things 
 considered, a bad ally but a formidable foe. He changed 
 sides at almost a moment's notice, and made peace as 
 readily as he went to war. In some few tribes fighting 
 was the business of a particular clan or clans, but the 
 notion of a military caste was otherwise foreign to the 
 Indian mind. The distinction between officers and men 
 did not exist, the authority of the chief in actual battle 
 having not the slightest relation to the course of events. 
 Here again, however, the influence of the white man 
 asserted itself, and the Indians of the colonial period 
 had done much in the direction of a scientific military 
 system. 
 
CHAPTEB III. 
 
 SPANISH DISCOVERIES AND CONQUESTS. 
 
 Sooth Sea. — First Voyage round the World. — Ponce de Leon. — Florida, 
 Discorery and Attempt to settle. — Vasquez de Ayllon. — Conquest of 
 Mexico and Peru. 
 
 In a few years the Spaniards subdued and colonized the c hap 
 
 most important islands of the West Indies. The poor 
 
 timid natives were either murdered or reduced to slavery. 1606. 
 Unheard-of cruelties in a short time wasted, and almost 
 exterminated the entire race. 
 
 Not satisfied with the possession of these islands, the 
 Spaniards made further discoveries from time to time 
 around the Gulf of Mexico ; they explored the southern 
 part of the peninsula of Yucatan ; they planted a colony 
 on the narrow Isthmus of Darien. Until this time, no 151 & 
 settlement had been made on the Western Continent. 
 
 When in search of gold, Nunez de Balboa, the govern- 
 or of this colony, made an exploring tour into the interior, 
 he ascended a high mountain, and from its top his eyes 
 were greeted with the sight of a vast expanse of water 
 extending away to the south, as far as the eye could reach. 
 He called it the South Sea. But seven years later, Magel- 1520. 
 Ian, a Portuguese mariner in the service of Spain, passed 
 through the dangerous and stormy Straits which bear his 
 name ; and sailing out into the great field of waters, found 
 it so calm, so free from storms, that he called it the Pacific 
 or peaceful ocean. Magellan died on the voyage, but his 
 ship reached the coast of Asia, and thence returned home 
 
 4a 
 
44 HISTOKY OF THE AMEBICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, to Spain by the Cape of Good Hope, thus realizing the 
 
 L vision of Columbus, that the world was a globe, and could 
 
 1512. be sailed round. 
 
 Juan Ponce de Leon, a former governor of Porto Kico, fit- 
 ted out at his own expense three ships to make a voyage 
 of discovery. He had heard from the natives of Porto Kico 
 that somewhere in the Bahama Islands, was a fountain 
 that would restore to the vigor of youth all those who 
 should drink of its waters or bathe in its stream. This 
 absurd story many of the Spaniards believed, and none 
 more firmly than De Leon. He was an old man, and 
 anxious to renew his youthful pleasures ; with eager hopes 
 he hastened in search of the marvellous fountain. 
 
 He did not find it, but in coasting along to the west of 
 the islands, he came in sight of an unknown country. It 
 appeared to bloom with flowers, and to be covered with 
 magnificent forests. As this country was first seen on 
 Easter Sunday, which the Spaniards call Pascua Florida, 
 he named it Florida. With great difficulty he landed to 
 the north of where St. Augustine now stands, and took 
 formal possession of the country in the name of the Spanish 
 sovereign. He sailed to the south along the unknown and 
 dangerous coast, around the extreme point, Cape Florida, 
 and to the south-west among the Tortugas islands. He 
 received for his services the honor of being appointed Gov- 
 ernor of Florida by the King of Spain, — rather an expen- 
 sive honor, being based on the condition that he should 
 colonize the country. 
 
 A year or- two afterward, he attempted to plant a 
 colony, but found the natives exceedingly hostile. They 
 attacked him and his men with great fury — many were 
 killed, the rest were forced to flee to their ships, and Ponce 
 de Leon* himself was mortally wounded. He had been a 
 soldier of Spain ; a companion of Columbus on his second 
 voyage ; had been governor of Porto Rico, where he had 
 oppressed the natives with great cruelty ; he had sought 
 
VASQUEZ DE AYLLON. 45 
 
 an exemption from the ills of old age ; had attempted to chap 
 
 found a colony and gain the immortality of fame. But he 
 
 returned to Cuba to die, without planting his colony or 1512 
 drinking of the fountain of youth. 
 
 About this time was made the first attempt to obtain 
 Indians from the Continent as slaves to work in the mines 
 and on the plantations of Hispaniola or St. Domingo. The 
 ignominy of this attempt belongs to a company of seven 
 men, the most distinguished of whom was Lucas Vasquez 
 de Ayllon. They went first to the Bahama Islands, from 
 these they passed to the coast of the present State of South 
 Carolina, landing at or near St. Helena Sound. 
 
 The natives of this region knew not as yet what they 
 had to fear from Europeans. They were, however, shy at 
 first, but after presents had been distributed among them, 
 they received the strangers kindly. They were invited to 
 visit the ships. Curiosity overcame their timidity, and 
 they went on board in crowds. The treacherous Spaniards 
 immediately set sail for St. Domingo, regardless of the 
 sorrows they inflicted upon the victims of their cruelty and 
 avarice. Thus far their plot was successful ; soon how- 152a 
 ever a storm arose, and one of the ships went down with 
 all on board ; sickness and death carried off many of the 
 captives on the other vessel. Such outrages upon the na- 
 tives were common ; and instead of being condemned and 
 punished, they were commended. Vasquez went to Spain, 
 boasting of his expedition as if it had been praiseworthy. 
 As a reward, he received from the Spanish monarch a 
 commission to conquer the country. 
 
 When he had expended his fortune in preparations, he 
 set sail, and landed upon the coast. Bitter wrongs had 
 been inflicted upon the natives, and their spirit was roused. 
 They attacked him with great vigor, killed nearly all 
 his men, and forced him to give up the enterprise. It is 
 said that grief and disappointment hastened the death of 
 Vasquez. 
 
46 HISTORY OF THE AMEKICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap. The Spaniards were more successful elsewhere. The 
 
 explorers of the west coast of the Gulf had heard of the 
 
 1620. famed empire of Mexico and its golden riches. As evi- 
 dence of the truth of these marvellous stories, they exhib- 
 ited the costly presents given them by the unsuspecting 
 natives. Under the lead of Fernando Cortez, six hun- 
 dred and seventeen adventurers invaded the empire ; and 
 though they met with the most determined resistance, in 
 the end Spanish arms and skill prevailed. Defeated at 
 every point, and disheartened at the death of their em 
 1021. peror, Montezuma, the Mexicans submitted, and their em- 
 1821. pire became a province of Spain. Just three hundred 
 years from that time, the province threw off the Spanish 
 yoke, and became a republic. 
 
 Kumor told also of the splendor and wealth of a great 
 empire lying to the south, known as Peru. Pizarro, 
 another daring adventurer, set out from Panama with only 
 one hundred foot soldiers and sixty-seven horsemen to in- 
 vade and conquer it. After enduring toil and labors 
 almost unparalleled, he succeeded ; and that empire, con 
 taining millions of inhabitants, wealthy, and quite civilized, 
 1581 was reduced to a province. Pizarro founded Lima, which 
 became his capital. He oppressed the natives with great 
 cruelty, and accumulated unbounded wealth drawn from 
 mines of the precious metals, but after a rule of nine years 
 he fell a victim to a conspiracy. 
 
Americus Vespucci 
 
OHA PTER IV. 
 
 BNGUSH AND FRENCH DISCOVERIES. 
 
 John Cabot discovers the American Continent. — Enterprise of his son Se- 
 bastian. — Voyages of Verrazzani and Cartier. — Attempts at Settlement. 
 
 Whilst these discoveries, conquests, and settlements chap 
 
 were in progress in the South, a series of discoveries was [_ 
 
 going on in the North. 149Y. 
 
 John Cabot, a native of Venice, residing, as a merchant, 
 in Bristol, in the West of England, made application to 
 Henry VII., the reigning sovereign, for permission to go 
 on a voyage of discovery. The king gave to Cabot and 
 his three sons a patent, or commission, granting them cer- 
 tain privileges. This is said to be the most ancient state 
 paper of England relating to America. 
 
 As Henry VII. was proverbially prudent in money 
 matters, he would not aid the Cabots by sharing with 
 them the expense of the expedition, but he was careful to 
 bind them to land, on their return, at the port of Bristol, 
 and pay him one-fifth part of the profits of their trade. 
 They were, in the name of the king, to take possession of 
 all the territories they should discover, and to have the ex- 
 clusive privilege of trading to them. 
 
 Bristol, at this time, was the greatest commercial town 
 in the West of England, and had trained up multitudes 
 of hardy seamen. These seamen had become habituated 
 to the storms of the ocean, by battling tempests in the 
 Northern seas around Iceland, in their yearly fishing ex- 
 cursions. It is quite probable they had there heard the 
 
48 HISTOEY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, tradition, that at a remote period the Icelanders had dis- 
 
 '_ covered a country to the west of their island. 
 
 1497. Cabot and his son Sebastian sailed almost due west, 
 
 and before long discovered the American continent, it is 
 supposed near the fifty-sixth degree of north latitude. 
 What must have been their surprise to find, in the lati- 
 tude of England, a land dreary with snow and ice, barren 
 rocks, frowning cliffs, polar bears, and wild savages ! This 
 discovery was made more than a year before Columbus, on 
 his third voyage, saw the South American coast, at the 
 mouth of the Orinoco. 
 
 Thus the Western continent was discovered by pri- 
 vate enterprise alone. The next year a voyage was under- 
 taken for the purposes of trade, and also to ascertain 
 if the country was suitable for making settlements. The 
 king now ventured to become a partner in the speculation, 
 and defrayed some of the expense. Sebastian Cabot sailed, 
 with a company of three hundred men, for Labrador, and 
 landed still further north than at his first voyage. The 
 severity of the cold, though it was the commencement of 
 summer, and the barrenness of the country, deterred him 
 from remaining any length of time. He sailed to the 
 South and explored the coast, till want of provisions forced 
 him to return home. The family of the Cabots derived 
 no benefit from their discovery, as the trade to those barren 
 regions amounted to nothing. 
 
 It is a matter of regret that so little is known of the 
 many voyages of Sebastian Cabot. Around his name there 
 lingers a pleasing interest. He is represented as being 
 very youthful, not more than twenty years of age, when 
 he went on his first voyage. Mild and courteous in 
 his manners ; determined in purpose, and persevering 
 in execution ; with a mind of extraordinary activity ; 
 daring in his enterprises, but never rash or imprudent ; 
 he won the hearts of his sailors by his kindness, and 
 commanded their respect by his skill. Such was the 
 
VOYAGE OF VERRaZZANI. 49 
 
 man who, for more than fifty years, was the foremost in chap 
 
 maritime adventure. He explored the eastern coast of 1 
 
 South America ; sailed within twenty degrees of the North 1497. 
 Pole, in search of the North-Western passage ; and at dif- 
 ferent times explored the eastern coast of this continent, 
 from Hudson's straits to Albemarle sound. 
 
 The Cabots had noticed the immense shoals of fish 1634 
 which frequented the waters around Newfoundland. The 
 English prosecuted these fisheries, but to no great extent, 
 as they continued to visit the Icelandic seas. French fish- 
 ermen, however, availed themselves of the way opened by 
 their rivals, and prosecuted them with great vigor. Plans 
 for planting colonies in those regions were often proposed 
 in France, yet nothing was done beyond the yearly visits 
 of the fishermen. Francis I. was finally induced to attempt 
 further explorations. For this purpose he employed Ver- 
 razzani, a native of Florence, in Italy, a navigator of some 
 celebrity, to take charge of an expedition. This was the 
 first voyage, for the purpose of discovery, undertaken at 
 the expense of the French government. 
 
 Verrazzani sailed south to the Madeira Isles, and thence 
 due west, in quest of new countries. On the passage he 
 battled a terrible tempest, but at length saw land in the 
 latitude of Wilmington, North Carolina. No good har- 
 bor could be found as he coasted along to the south for 
 one hundred and fifty miles. Then turning north, he cast 
 anchor from time to time and explored the coast. The 
 surprise of the natives and that of the voyagers was mu- 
 tual ; the one wondered at the white strangers, their ships 
 and equipments ; the other at the " russet color" of the 
 simple natives ; their dress of skins set off with various rude 
 ornaments and gaudy-colored feathers. The imagination 
 of the voyagers had much to do with the report they made 
 )f their discoveries. The groves, they said, bloomed with 
 lowers, whose fragrance greeted them far from the shore, 
 
50 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, reminding them of the spices of the East ; the reddish 
 
 L color of the earth was, no doubt, caused by gold. 
 
 1634. The explorers examined carefully the spacious harbors 
 
 of New York and Newport ; in the latter they remained 
 fifteen days. They noticed the fine personal appearance 
 of the natives, who were hospitable, but could not be in- 
 duced to trade, and appeared to be ignorant of the use oi 
 iron. They continued their voyage along the then name- 
 less shores of New England to Nova Scotia, and still far- 
 ther north. There the natives were hostile ; they had 
 learned, by sad experience, the cruelty and treachery of 
 white men. Gaspar Cortereal, a Portuguese, some years 
 before, had visited their coast, stolen some of their friends, 
 and sold them into slavery. They were willing to trade 
 for instruments of iron or steel, but were very cautious, 
 fearful of being again entrapped. 
 
 After his return, Verrazzani published a narrative of 
 his voyage, giving much more information of the country 
 than had hitherto been known. On the ground of his dis- 
 coveries, France laid claim to the territory extending from 
 South Carolina to Newfoundland. 
 
 1584. Ten years after, an expedition was sent, under James 
 
 Cartier, a mariner of St. Malo, to make further discoveries, 
 with the ultimate design of founding a colony. His voyage 
 was very successful ; he reached Newfoundland in twenty 
 days ; passed through the Straits of Belle isle ; sailed to the 
 south-west across a gulf and entered a bay ; which, from 
 the extreme heat of the weather, he named Des Chaleurs. 
 Coasting along still farther west, he landed at the inlet 
 called Gaspe, where he took formal possession of the coun- 
 try, in the name of his sovereign. This he did by plant- 
 ing a cross, surmounted by the lilies of France, and bear- 
 * ing a suitable inscription. Continuing his course still 
 further west, he entered the mouth of a great estuary, into 
 which he ascertained flowed an immense river, larger by 
 far than any river in Europe. These explorations were 
 
Sebastian Cabot 
 
VOYAGE OF CAKTIEB 51 
 
 made during the months of July and August. It was now oi *ap. 
 necessary for him to return home. 
 
 His account of the climate as " hotter than that of 1584* 
 Spain," and of the country as " the fairest that can pos- 
 sibly be found ;" of its " sweet-smelling trees ;" of its 
 " strawberries, blackberries, prunes and wild corn ;" its 
 " figs, apples and other fruits," together with his descrip- 
 tion of the great gulf and noble river, excited in France 
 the most intense interest. 
 
 Immediately plans were devised to colonize the coun- 
 try. The court entered into the scheme. Some of the 
 * young nobility volunteered to become colonists. By the 
 following May the arrangements were completed. Cartier, 
 " who was very religious," first conducted his company to 
 the cathedral, where they received the bishop's blessing, 
 then set sail, with high hopes of founding a State in what 
 was then called New France. 
 
 After a somewhat stormy passage, he reached the 
 northern part of the gulf, on the day of St. Lawrence the 153& 
 Martyr, in honor of whom it was named — in time, the 
 name was applied to river also. 
 
 The strangers were received hospitably by the natives. 
 Cartier ascended the river in a boat to an island, on which 
 was the principal Indian settlement. It was in the mild 
 and pleasant month of September. He ascended a hill, at 
 the foot of which lay the Indian village; he was enraptur- 
 ed by the magnificent scene ; the river before him evidently 
 drained a vast territory ; the natives told him " that it 
 went so far to the west, that they had never heard of any 
 man who had gone to the head of it." He named the hill 
 Mont-Keal, Koyal-Mount ; a name since transferred to the 
 island, and to the city. 
 
 This country was in the same latitude with France ; he 
 thought its climate must be equally mild, its soil equally 
 fertile ; and that it might become the home of a happy and 
 industrious people, and this beautiful island the centre of 
 
0& HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 CHAi*. an almost unbounded commerce. He did not know that 
 
 1_ God had sent the warm waters of the south through the 
 
 1535. Gulf Stream to the west of Europe ; that they warmed 
 the bleak west winds, and made the delightful climate of 
 his native France different from that in the same latitude 
 in North America. 1 
 
 A rigorous winter dissipated his visions. His honest 
 narrative of the voyage, and of the intense coldness of the 
 climate, deterred his countrymen from making further 
 attempts to colonize the country. There was no gold nor 
 silver to be found — no mines of precious stones. What 
 inducement was there for them to leave their fertile and 
 beautiful France, with its mild and healthful climate, to 
 shiver on the banks of the St. Lawrence ? 
 1640. Thus it remained for four years. Among many who 
 
 thought it unworthy a great nation not to found a State 
 on the shores of the magnificent gulf and river of the New 
 World, was a nobleman of Picardy, Francis de la Roque, 
 lord of Roberval. He obtained a commission from Fran- 
 cis I. to plant a colony, with full legal authority as viceroy 
 over the territories and regions on or near the Gulf and 
 River of St. Lawrence. These were to be known in his- 
 tory under the ambitious name of Norimbega. 
 
 Cartier was induced by Roberval to receive a commission 
 as chief pilot of the expedition. They did not act in con- 
 cert; both were tenacious of honor and authority, and they 
 were jealous of each other. 
 1540. Cartier sailed the following spring, passed up the river, 
 
 and built a fort near where Quebec now stands. To estab- 
 lish a prosperous colony, virtue, industry, and perseverance 
 must be found in the colonists. The first enterprise, com- 
 
 1 "The quantity of heat discharged over the Atlantic from the watert 
 of the Gulf Stream in a winter's day, would be sufficient to raise the whole 
 column of atmosphere that rests upon France and the British Isles, fr »m the 
 freezing point to summer heat." 
 
 Maury 1 s Physical Geography of the Sea, p. 61. 
 
ATTEMPTS AT SETTLEMENT. 53 
 
 posed of young noblemen and amateur colonists, failed, as chap 
 
 might have been expected. In the second attempt they 1 
 
 went to the other extreme, — the colonists were criminals, 154*. 
 drawn from the prisons of France. 
 
 . During the winter Cartier hung one of them for theft ; 
 put some in irons ; and whipped others, men and women, 
 for minor faults. In the spring, just as Koberval himself 
 arrived with a reinforcement, he slipped off to France, 
 heartily disgusted with his winter's occupation. Koberval 
 remained about a year, and then returned home, perfectly 
 willing to resign the viceroyalty of Norimbega, and retire 
 to his estates in Picardy. After a lapse of fifty years, a 
 successful attempt was made by the French to coloniae the 
 same territory. 
 
CHAPTER Y. 
 
 DE SOTO AND THE MISSISSIPPI. 
 
 chap. The name Florida was given by the Spaniards to the 
 
 entire southern portion of the United States. Their at- 
 
 1539. tempts to conquer this territory had hitherto failed. For 
 some unexplained reason, the most exaggerated stories 
 were told of the richness of the country ; there was no evi- 
 dence of their truth, yet they were implicitly believed. 
 
 The success of Cortez in conquering Mexico, and of 
 Pizarro in conquering Peru, excited the emulation of 
 Ferdinand de Soto. He had been a companion of Pizarro ; 
 had gained honor by his valor, and, in accordance with the 
 morals of the times, had accumulated an immense amount 
 of wealth by various means of extortion. Still it must be 
 said in his favor, that he was, by far, the most humane of 
 any of the Spanish officers who pillaged Mexico and 
 Peru. Foreseeing the endless quarrels and jealousies of 
 the Spaniards in Peru, he prudently retired to Spain with 
 his ill-gotten gains. 
 
 Ambition did not permit him to remain long in retire- 
 ment. He panted for a name, for military glory, to sur- 
 pass the two conquerors of the New World. He asked 
 permission to conquer Florida^ at his own expense. The 
 request was graciously granted by the Emperor, Charles Y. 
 He also received an honor much more grateful to his am- 
 bition ; he was appointed Governor of Cuba, and of all the 
 countries he should conquer. 
 
THE LANDING AT TAMPA BAT. 55 
 
 The announcement that he was about to embark on chap. 
 
 v. 
 this enterprise, excited in Spain the highest hopes, — hopes 
 
 of military glory and of unbounded wealth. Enthusiastic 1589 
 men said these hopes must be realized ; there were cities 
 in the interior of Florida as rich, if not richer than those 
 of Mexico or Peru ; temples equally splendid, to be plun- 
 dered of their golden ornaments. Volunteers offered in 
 crowds, many of noble birth, and all proud to be led by so 
 renowned a chief. From these numerous applicants De 
 Soto chose six hundred men, in " the bloom of life." The 
 enthusiasm was so great, that it appeared more like a 
 holiday excursion than a military expedition. 
 
 He sailed for Cuba, where he was received with great 
 distinction. Leaving his wife to govern the island, he 
 sailed for Florida, and landed at Espiritu Santo, now Tampa 
 bay. He never harbored the thought that his enterprise 
 could fail. He sent his ships back to Cuba ; thus, in imi- 
 tation of Cortez, he deprived his followers of the means to 
 return. Volunteers in Cuba had increased his army to 
 nearly one thousand men, of whom three hundred were 
 horsemen, all well armed. Every thing was provided that 
 De Soto's foresight and experience could suggest ; ample 
 stores of provisions, and for future supplies, a drove of 
 swine, for which Indian corn and the fruits of the forest 
 would furnish an abundance of food. The company was 
 provided with cards, that they might spend their " leisure 
 time in gaming ;" a dozen of priests, that the *' festivals of 
 the church might be kept," and her ceremonies rigidly per- 
 formed ; chains for the captive Indians, and bloodhounds, 
 to track and tear them in pieces, should they attempt to 
 escape ; — incongruities of which the adventurers seemed 
 unconscious. 
 
 They now commenced their march through pathless 
 forests. The Indian guides, who had been kidnapped on 
 former invasions, soon learned that they were in search of 
 gold. Anxious to lead them as far as possible from the 
 
56 HISTORY OE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 neighborhood of their own tribes, they humored their fan- 
 cies, and told them of regions far away, where the precious 
 1540. metal was abundant. In one instance they pointed to the 
 north-east, where they said the people understood the art 
 of refining it, and sent them away over the rivers and 
 plains of Georgia. It is possible they may have referred 
 to the gold region of North Carolina. 
 
 When one of the guides honestly confessed that he 
 knew of no such country, De Soto ordered him to be burned 
 for telling an untruth. From this time onward the 
 guides continued to allure the Spaniards on in search of 
 a golden region, — a region they were ever approaching, but 
 never reached. 
 
 At length the men grew weary of wandering through 
 forests and swamps ; they looked for cities, rich and 
 splendid, they found only Indian towns, small and poor, 
 whose finest buildings were wigwams. They wished to 
 return ; but De Soto was determined to proceed, and his 
 faithful followers submitted. They pillaged the Indians 
 of their provisions, thus rendered them hostile, and many 
 conflicts ensued. They treated their captives with great 
 barbarity ; wantonly cut off their hands, burned them at 
 the stake, suffered them to be torn in pieces by the blood- 
 hounds, or chained them together with iron collars, and 
 compelled them to carry their baggage. 
 
 They moved toward the south-west, and came into the 
 neighborhood of a large walled town, named Mavilla, since 
 Mobile. It was a rude town, but it afforded a better shel- 
 ter than the forests and the open plains, and they wished 
 to occupy it. The Indians resisted, and a tierce battle 
 ensued. The Spanish cavalry gained a victory, — a victory 
 dearly bought ; the town was burned, and with it nearly 
 all their baggage. 
 
 Meantime, according to appointment, ships from Cuba 
 had arrived at Pensacola. De Soto would not confess thai 
 he had thus far failed ; he would send no news until he 
 
DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI* 57 
 
 Had rivalled Cortez in military renown. They now diiected chap. 
 
 their course to the north-west, and spent the following win- 1_ 
 
 ter in the northern part of the State of Mississippi. From 1540. 
 the Indian corn in the fields they obtained food, and made 
 their winter quarters in a deserted town. When spring 
 returned, a demand was made of the Chickasaw chief to 
 furnish men to carry their baggage. The indignant chief 
 refused. The hostile Indians deceived the sentinels, and 
 in the night set fire to the village and attacked the Span- 
 iards, but after a severe contest they were repulsed. It 
 was another dear victory to the invaders ; the little 
 they had saved from the flames at Mobile was now con- 
 sumed. This company, once so " brilliant in silks and 
 glittering armor," were now scantily clothed in skins, and 
 mats made of ivy. 
 
 Again they commenced their weary wanderings, and 
 before many days found themselves on the banks of the 
 Mississippi. De Soto expressed no feelings of pleasure or 
 of admiration at the discovery of the magnificent river, 
 with its ever-flowing stream of turbid waters. Ambition 
 and avarice consume the finer feelings of the soul ; they 
 destroy the appreciation of what is noble in man and 
 beautiful in nature. De Soto was only anxious to cross 
 the river, and press on in search of cities and of gold. A 1541 
 month elapsed before boats could be built to transport the 
 horses. At length they were ready, and white men, for 
 the first time, launched forth upon the Father of Waters. 
 
 The natives on the west bank received the strangers 
 kindly, and gave them presents. The Indians of southern 
 Missouri supposed them to be superior beings — children of. 
 the sun — and they brought them their blind to be restored 
 to sight. De Soto answered them, " The Lord made the 
 heavens and the earth : pray to Him only for whatsoevei 
 ye need." Here they remained forty days ; sent out ex- 
 plorers further north, who reported that buffaloes were so 
 numerous in that region that corn could not be raised ; 
 
53 HISTOEY OE THE AMEKICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, that the inhabitants were few, and lived by hunting 
 * They wandered two hundred miles further west ; then 
 
 1541. turned to the south, and went nearly as far, among In* 
 dians who were an agricultural people, living in villages, 
 and subsisting upon the produce of the soil. 
 
 In this region another winter was passed. It was now 
 almost three years since De Soto had landed at Tampa 
 bay. With all his toil and suffering, he had accomplished 
 
 1542. nothing. In the spring, he descended the Wachita to 
 the Ked river, and thence once more to the Mississippi. 
 There he learned that the country, extending to the sea, 
 was a waste of swamps, where no man dwelK 
 
 His cup of disappointment was full ; his pride, which 
 had hitherto sustained him, must confess that his enter- 
 prise had been a failure. He had set out with highei 
 hopes than any Spanish conqueror of the New World ; 
 now his faithful band was wasted by disease and death. 
 He was far from aid ; a deep gloom settled upon his spirit ; 
 his soul was agitated by a conflict of emotions ; a violent 
 fever was induced ; and when sinking rapidly, he called 
 his followers around him, they, faithful to the last, im- 
 plored him to appoint a successor : he did so. The next 
 day De Soto was no more. His soldiers mourned for him ; 
 the priests performed his funeral rites ; with sad hearts 
 they wrapped his body in a mantle, and, at the silent hour 
 of midnight, sunk it beneath the waters of the Mississippi. 
 His followers again wandered for awhile, in hopes of 
 getting to Mexico. Finally they halted upon the banks of 
 the Mississippi ; erected a forge ; struck the fetters off 
 their Indian captives, and made the iron into nails to build 
 boats ; killed their horses and swine, and dried their flesh 
 for ^provisions. When the boats were finished they 
 launched them upon the river, and floated down iti 
 stream to the Gulf of Mexico. 
 1672. After the lapse of one hundred and thirty years, the Mis- 
 sissippi was again visited by white men of another nation 
 
CHAPTEB VI. 
 
 THE REFORMATION AND ITS EFFECTS. 
 
 From this period we find interwoven with the early his- cha? 
 tory of our country a class of persons who were not mere ^ 
 adventurers, seekers after gold or fame — but who sought 151 y 
 here a home, where they might enjoy civil and religious 
 liberty, and who held the principles of which we see the 
 result in the institutions of the United States, so different 
 in some respects from those of any other nation. This differ- 
 ence did not spring from chance, but was the legitimate ef- 
 fect of certain influences. What has made this younger 
 member of the great family of governments to differ so much 
 from the others ? What were the principles, what the in- 
 fluences, which produced such men and women as our 
 revolutionary ancestors ? The world has never seen their 
 equals for self-denying patriotism ; for enlightened views 
 of government, of religious liberty, and of the rights of con- 
 science. 
 
 When great changes are to be introduced among the 
 nations of the earth, God orders the means to accomplish 
 them, as well as the end to be attained. He trains the 
 people for the change. He not only prepared the way for 
 the discovery of this continent, but for its colonization by 
 a Christian people. Fifty years before the first voyage of 
 Columbus, the art of printing was invented — and twenty- 
 five years after the same voyage, commenced the Keforma- 
 tion in Germany under Martin Luther. The art of print- 
 ing, by multiplying booka, became the means of diffusing 
 
60 HISTOKY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, knowledge among men, and of awakening the human mind 
 
 from the sleep of ages. One of the consequences of this 
 
 1517. awakening, was the Keformation. The simple truths 01 
 the Gospel had been obscured by the teachings of men. 
 The decrees of the church had drawn a veil between the 
 throne of God and the human soul. The priesthood had 
 denied to the people the right of studying for themselves 
 the word of God. The views of the Reformers were the 
 reverse of this. They believed that God, as Lord of the 
 conscience, had given a revelation of his will to man, and 
 that it was the inherent right and privilege of every human 
 being to study that will, each one for himself. They did 
 not stop here : they were diligent seekers for truth ; the 
 advocates of education and of free inquiry. Throwing 
 aside the traditions of men, they went directly to the 
 Bible, and taught all men to do the same. 
 
 On the continent, the Reformation began among the 
 learned men of the universities, and gradually extended to 
 the uneducated people. In England, the common people 
 were reading the Bible in their own language, long before 
 it was the privilege of any nation on the continent.* Thus 
 the English were prepared to enter into the spirit of the 
 Reformation under Luther. Soon persecutions of the Re- 
 formers arose ; with civil commotions and oppressions 
 involving all Europe in war. These troubles drove the 
 Huguenot from France and the Puritan from England, to 
 seek homes in the wilderness of the New World. 
 
 From the Bible they learned their high and holy prin- 
 ciples ; fiery trials taught them endurance. They brought 
 with them to our shores the spirit of the Reformation, the 
 recognition of civil rights and religious liberty. These 
 principles have been transmitted to us in our national 
 institutions and form of government. 
 
 * D'Aubigne'g Hist, of the Reformation, Vol. V. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE HUGUENOTS IN THE SOUTH. 
 
 their settlement destroyed. — The Colony of St. Augustine. — De Gourgw. 
 Settlements in New France. — Champlain and his Success. 
 
 While these contests were going on in Europe between chap 
 
 the friends of religious liberty and the Roman Catholics, 
 
 Coligny, the high-admiral of France, a devoted Protestant, 1562 
 conceived the idea of founding a colony in the New World, 
 to which his persecuted countrymen might flee, and enjoy 
 that which was denied them in their native land ; the 
 inestimable privilege of worshipping God according to the 
 dictates of their own conscience, enlightened by his holy 
 word. 
 
 The French government took no interest in the matter. 
 Those influences were then at work, which a few years 1572 
 later produced their dire effect in the massacre of St. Bar- 
 tholomew. Coligny, however, easily obtained a commission 
 from Charles IX. Preparations were soon made, and the 
 expedition sailed under the direction of John Ribault, a 
 worthy man, and a sincere Protestant. 
 
 They knew the character of the country and of the 
 climate in the latitude of the St. Lawrence, and they wish- 
 ed to find a region more fertile and a climate more genial. 
 They made land in the vicinity of St. Augustine, Florida; 
 then continued further north along the coast, and landed 
 at Port Koyal entrance. They were delighted with the May 
 country, its fine climate, its magnificent forests, fragrant 
 
62 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 C yjr P ' w * tn ^^ flowers ; but above all with the capacious har 
 
 bor, which was capable of floating the largest ships. Here 
 
 15fi2. it was determined to make a settlement : a fort was built 
 on an island in the harbor, and in honor of their sovereign 
 called Carolina. Leaving twenty-five men to keep pos- 
 session of the country, Eibault departed for France, with 
 the intention of returning the next year with supplies and 
 nlore emigrants. He found France in confusion ; civil 
 war was raging with all its attendant horrors. In vain the 
 colonists looked for reinforcements and supplies — none 
 ever came. Disheartened, they resolved to return home ; 
 they hastily built a brigantine, and with an insufficiency of 
 provisions, set sail. They came near perishing at sea by 
 famine, but were providentially rescued by an English bark. 
 Part of these colonists wei? taken to France, and part to 
 England, — there they told of the fine climate and the rich 
 soil of the country they had attempted to colonize. We 
 shall yet see the effect of this information in directing 
 English enterprise. 
 
 Two years after, there was a treacherous lull in the 
 storm of civil discord in France ; Coligny again attempted 
 to found a colony. The care of this expedition was intrust- 
 ed to Laudoniere, a man of uprightness and intelligence, 
 who had been on the former voyage. The healthfulness of 
 the climate of Florida was represented to be wonderful : 
 it was believed, that under its genial influence, human life 
 was extended more than one-half, while the stories of the 
 wealth of the interior still found credence. Unfortunately 
 proper care was not exercised in selecting the colonists 
 from the numerous volunteers who offered. Some were 
 chosen who were not worthy to be members of a colony 
 based on religious principles, and founded for noble pur- 
 
 They reached the coast of Florida, avoided Port Koyal, 
 
 1564 the scene of former misery, and found a suitable location 
 
 for a settlement on the banks of the river May, now called 
 
FORT CAROLINA. 63 
 
 the St. Johns. They offered songs of thanksgiving to God chap. 
 
 for his guiding care, and trusted to his promises for the 
 
 future. They built another fort, which like the first they 1564, 
 called Carolina. The true character of some of the colo- June 
 nists soon began to appear, — these had joined the enter- 
 prise with no higher motive than gain. They were muti- 
 nous, idle, and dissolute, wasting the provisions of the com- 
 pany. They robbed the Indians, who became hostile, and 
 refused to furnish the colony with provisions. 
 
 Under the pretext of avoiding famine, these fellows of 
 the baser sort asked permission of Laudoniere to go to New 
 Spain. He granted it, thinking it a happy riddance for 
 himself and the colony. They embarked, only to become 
 pirates. The Spaniards, whom they attacked, took their 
 vessel and made most of them slaves ; the remainder es- 
 caped in a boat. They knew of no safer place than Fort 
 Carolina. When they returned Laudoniere had them 
 arrested for piracy ; they were tried, and the ringleaders 
 condemned and executed ; — a sufficient evidence that 
 their conduct was detested by the better portion of the 
 colonists. 
 
 Famine now came pressing on. Month after month 
 passed away, and still there came no tidings — no supplies 
 from home. Just at this time arrived Sir John Hawkins 
 from the West Indies, where he had disposed of a cargo of 
 negroes as slaves. He was the first Englishman, it is 
 said, who had engaged in that unrighteous traffic. Though 
 hard-hearted toward the wretched Africans, he manifested 
 much sympathy for the famishing colonists ; supplied them 
 with provisions, and gave them one of his ships. They 
 continued their preparations to leave for home, when sud- 
 denly the cry was raised that ships were coming into the An*. 
 harbor. It was Ribault returning with supplies and fami- 
 lies of emigrants. He was provided with domestic ani- 
 mals, seeds and implements for cultivating the soil. The 
 scene was now changed ; all were willing to remain, and 
 
64 HISTOKY OF THE AMEEICAK PEOPLE. 
 
 C vn P ' fc ^ e k°P e °^ f° un( ^ n o a French Protestant State in tha 
 New World was revived. 
 
 1564. Philip II., the cruel and bigoted King of Spain, heard 
 
 that the French — French Protestants — had presumed to 
 make a settlement in Florida ! Immediately plans were laid 
 to exterminate the heretics. The king found a fit instru- 
 ment for the purpose in Pedro Melendez ; a man familiar 
 with scenes of carnage and cruelty, whose life was stained 
 with almost every crime. The king knew his desperate 
 character ; gave him permission to conquer Florida at his 
 own expense, and appointed him its governor for life, with 
 the right to name his successor. His colony was to consist 
 of not less than five hundred persons, one hundred of whom 
 should be married men. He was also to introduce the 
 sugar-cane, and five hundred negro slaves to cultivate it. 
 The expedition was soon under way. Melendez first saw the 
 land on the day consecrated to St. Augustine ; some days 
 after, sailing along the coast, he discovered a fine harbor 
 and river, to which he gave the name of that saint. From 
 the Indians he learned where the Huguenots had estab- 
 lished themselves. They were much surprised at the ap- 
 pearance of a fleet, and they inquired of the stranger who 
 he was and why he came ; he replied, " I am Melendez, of 
 
 tept Spain, sent by my sovereign with strict orders to behead 
 and gibbet every Protestant in these regions ; the Catholic 
 shall be spared, but every Protestant shall die !" The 
 French fleet, unprepared for a conflict, put to sea ; the 
 Spaniards pursued but did not overtake it. Melendez then 
 returned to St. Augustine. After a religious festival in 
 honor of the Virgin Mary, he proceeded to mark out the 
 boundaries for a town. St. Augustine is, by more than 
 forty years, the oldest town in the United States. 
 
 His determination was now to attack the Huguenots 
 by land, and carry out his cruel orders. The French sup- 
 posing the Spaniards would come by sea, set sail to meet 
 them. Melendez found the colonists unprepared and de- 
 
THE MASSACRE. 65 
 
 fenceless ; their men were nearly all on board the fleet. A c *^ p - 
 
 short contest ensued ; the French were overcome, and the 
 
 fanatic Spaniards massacred nearly the whole number, — 1564. 
 men, women, and children ; they spared not even the aged 
 and the sick. A few were reserved as slaves, and a few 
 escaped to the woods. To show to the world upon what 
 principles he acted, Melendez placed over the dead this 
 inscription : — " I do not this as unto Frenchmen, but as 
 unto heretics." Mass was celebrated, and on the ground 
 still reeking with the blood of the innocent victims of re- 
 ligious bigotry and fanaticism, he erected a cross and 
 marked out a site for a church — the first on the soil of 
 the United States. 
 
 Among those who escaped, were Laudoniere and Le 
 Moyne, an artist, sent by Coligny to make drawings of the 
 most interesting scenerv of the country ; and Challus, who 
 afterward wrote an account of the calamity. When they 
 seemed about to perish in the forests from hunger, they 
 questioned whether they should appeal to the mercy of 
 their conquerors. " No," said Challus, " let us trust in 
 the mercy of God rather than of these men." After en- 
 during many hardships, they succeeded in reaching two 
 small French vessels which had remained in the harbor, 
 and thus escaped to France. A few of their companions, 
 who threw themselves upon the mercy of the Spaniards, 
 were instantly murdered. 
 
 While these scenes of carnage were in progress, a ter- 
 rible storm wrecked the French fleet ; some of the soldiers 
 and sailors were enabled to reach the shore, but in a des- 
 titute condition. These poor men when invited, surren- 
 dered themselves to the promised clemency of Melendez. 
 They were taken across the river in little companies ; as 
 they landed their hands were tied behind them, and they 
 driven to a convenient place, where at a given signal they 
 were all murdered. Altogether nine hundred persons 
 perished by shipwreck and violence. It is the office of 
 
66 
 
 HISTOBY OF THE AMEEICAK PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, history to record the deeds of the past — the evil and the 
 
 '_ good ; let the one be condemned and avoided, the othei 
 
 1504. commended and imitated. May we not hope that the day 
 of fanatic zeal and religious persecution has passed away 
 forever ? 
 
 The French government was indifferent, and did not 
 avenge the wrongs of her loyal and good subjects ; but the 
 Huguenots, and the generous portion of the nation, were 
 roused to a high state of indignation at such wanton, such 
 unheard-of cruelty. This feeling found a representative 
 in Dominic de Gourges, a native of Gascony. He fitted 
 out, at his own expense, three ships, and with one hun- 
 dred and fifty men sailed for Florida. He suddenly came 
 upon the Spaniards and completely overpowered them. 
 1568. Near the scene of their former cruelty he hanged about 
 two hundred on the trees ; placing over them the inscrip- 
 tion, "I do not this as unto Spaniards and mariners, but 
 as unto traitors, robbers, and murderers V Gourges im- 
 mediately returned to France, when the u Most Christian' 
 king set a price upon his head ; and he who had exposed 
 his life, and sacrificed his fortune to avenge the insult 
 offered to his country, was obliged to conceal himself to 
 escape the gallows. Thus perished the attempt of the 
 noble Coligny and the Huguenots to found a French Prot- 
 estant State in the New World. 
 
 After the unsuccessful expeditions of Cartier and Bo- 
 berval, French fishermen, in great numbers, continued to 
 visit the waters around Newfoundland. As the govern- 
 ment had relinquished its claim to Florida, the idea was 
 once more revived of colonizing on the shores of the St. 
 Lawrence. 
 1557 The Marquis de la Koche obtained a commission for this 
 
 purpose. His colonists, like those of Koberval, were crimi- 
 nals taken from the prisons of France : like his, this enter- 
 prise proved an utter failure. The efforts of some mer- 
 
PORT ROYAL SETTLEMENT. 67 
 
 chants, who obtained by patent a monopoly of the fur- c ^ p 
 
 trade, also failed. 
 
 At length, a company of merchants of Rouen engaged 1603. 
 in the enterprise with more success. That success may be 
 safely attributed to Samuel Cham plain, a man of compre- 
 hensive mind, of great energy o* character, cautious in all 
 nis plans ; a keen observer of the habits of the Indians, 
 and an unwearied explorer of the country. 
 
 In the latter part of this same year, a patent, exclu- 
 sive in its character, was given to a Protestant, the excel- 
 lent and patriotic Sieur De Monts. The patent conferred 
 on him the sovereignty of the country called Acadie — a 
 territory extending from Philadelphia on the south, to be- 
 yond Montreal on the north, and to the west indefinitely. 
 It granted him a monopoly of the fur-trade and other 
 branches of commerce ; and freedom in religion to the 
 Huguenots who should become colonists. It was enjoined 
 upon all idlers, and men of no profession, and banished 
 persons to aid in founding the colony. 
 
 The expedition was soon under way in two ships. In 
 due time they entered a spacious harbor on the western 
 part of Nova Scotia, which they named Port Royal, since 
 Annapolis. The waters abounded in fish, and the coun- 
 try was fertile and level — advantages that induced some of 
 the emigrants to form a settlement. Others went to an 
 island at the mouth of the St. Croix, but the next spring 607 
 they removed to Port Royal. This was the first perma- 
 nent French settlement in the New World; and these 
 were the ancestors of those unfortunate Acadiens whose 
 fate, nearly a century and a half later, forms a melancholy 
 episode in American history. 
 
 Among the influences exerted upon the Indians was 
 that of the Jesuits, who, a few years afterward, were sent 
 as missionaries to the tribes between the Penobscot and 
 the Kennebec in Maine. These tribes became the allies 
 of the French, and remained so during all their contests 
 
 UNIVERsi-rY 
 
68 
 
 HISTORY OE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 C yii 1 wit ^ t ^ ie ^ n gl* sn - De Monts explored the coast and riven 
 of New England as far south as Cape Cod, intending 
 
 1608. somewhere in that region to make a settlement ; but disas- 
 ter followed disaster, till the project was finally abandoned. 
 
 Meantime, Champlain, whose ambition was to estab- 
 lish a State, had founded Quebec, that is, it was the 
 centre of a few cultivated fields and gardens. Huguenots 
 were among the settlers ; they had taken an active part in 
 the enterprise ; but there were also others who were of the 
 Catholic faith. Soon religious disputes as well as commer- 
 cial jealousies arose, which retarded the progress of the 
 colony. Champlain, the soul of the enterprise, was not 
 idle ; he made many exploring expeditions, and discovered 
 
 1609. * ne beautiful lake which bears his name. In spite of the 
 quarrels between the Jesuits and the Huguenots, and the 
 restlessness of the Indians and disappointments of various 
 kinds, the persevering Champlain succeeded in establish- 
 
 1684. ing a French colony on the banks of the St. Lawrence. 
 For one hundred and twenty years it remained under the 
 dominion of his native France, and then passed into the 
 hands of her great rival. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ENGLISH ENTERPRISE. 
 
 Sir Humphrey Gilbert. — The Fisheries. — St. Johns, Newfoundland. — Sir 
 Walter Raleigh. — Exploring Expedition. — Virginia; failures to colo- 
 nize. — Contest with Spain. — Death of Sir Walter. 
 
 CHAP 
 VIIL 
 
 England never relinquished her claims to North Amer- 
 ica ; they were based upon the discovery and explorations 1560. 
 of Sebastian Cabot. According to the received rules of 
 the times, she was right, as he was undoubtedly the 1497. 
 first discoverer. For many reasons, she was not pre- 
 pared to avail herself of these claims, till nearly ninety 
 years after that discovery. This time was not passed by 
 the English sailors in maritime idleness. During the reign 
 of Henry VIIL, intercourse was kept up with the fisheries 
 of Newfoundland, that school of English seamen, in which 
 were trained the men who gave to that nation the suprem- 
 acy of the ocean, — the element upon which the military 
 glory of England was to be achieved. The king cherished 
 his navy, and took commerce under his special protection. 
 The reign of Mary, of bloody memory, saw the strug- 
 gle commence between England and Spain for the suprem- 
 acy on the ocean. She married Philip II., the most 
 powerful monarch of the age : he designed to subject the 
 English nation to himself, and its religion to the church of 
 Rome. When this became known, the Protestant spirit 
 rose in opposition. This spirit pervaded the entire people ; 
 
1549 
 
 HISTOKY OF THE AMEEICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, they exerted their energies to the utmost. Instead of sub- 
 
 mitting to the dictation of Spain, England boldly assumed 
 
 157C the position of an antagonist. There was a marked con- 
 trast between the two nations. The navy of the one was 
 immense, that of the other was small, but brave and effi- 
 cient : the one drew her wealth from mines of gold and 
 silver in the New World — the other obtained hers by the 
 slow process of industry and economy. The one became 
 proud and indolent, luxurious and imbecile — the other 
 may have become proud, but certainly not indolent ; luxu- 
 rious, but certainly not imbecile. 
 
 On her accession, Queen Elizabeth pursued the policy 
 of her father Henry VIII., towards her navy and com- 
 From merce. While some of her subjects were trading by land 
 with the east, others were on the ocean cruising against 
 the Spaniards : some were prosecuting the fisheries around 
 Newfoundland and in the seas northwest of Europe ; some 
 were exploring the western coast of America, and the east- 
 ern coast of Asia : others were groping their way among 
 the islands of the extreme north, in a vain search for the 
 north-west passage. 
 
 Explorers were still haunted with the idea that mines 
 of exhaustless wealth were yet to be found in the New 
 World. Great was the exultation when a " mineral-man" 
 of London declared that a stone brought by an English 
 sailor from the Polar regions, contained gold. England 
 was to find in the region of eternal snow mines of the pre- 
 cious metal, more prolific than Spain had found in Mexico. 
 Soon fifteen vessels set sail for this northern island, where 
 there was " ore enough to suffice all the gold-gluttons of 
 the world." They returned laden, not with golden ore, but 
 1578. with worthless yellow stones. 
 
 Meanwhile, the fisheries around Newfoundland had be- 
 come a certain, though a slow source of wealth. Sir 
 Humphrey Gilbert, a gentleman of distinction and of. up- 
 right principles, obtained a commission from the Queen *o 
 
 jO 
 
SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 71 
 
 plant a colony in the vicinity of these fisheries. He *&&? 
 landed at St. Johns, Newfoundland, and there in the , 
 
 presence of the fishermen of other nations, took formal Aug., 
 possession of the territory in the name of his sovereign. He 
 then passed further south, exploring the coast — but losing 
 his largest ship with all on board, he found it necessary to 
 sail for home. Only two vessels remained, one of which, 
 the Squirrel, was a mere boat of ten tons, used to explore 
 the shallow bays and inlets. The closing acts of Sir Hum 
 phrey's life afford proofs of his piety and nobleness of char- 
 acter. Unwilling that the humblest of his men should 
 risk more danger than himself, he chose to sail in the boat 
 rather than in the larger and safer vessel. A terrible storm 
 arose ; he sat calmly reading a book — doubtless that book 
 from which he drew consolation in times of sorrow and 
 trial. To encourage those who were in the other vessel, he 
 was heard to cry to them, " we are as near to heaven on 
 sea as on land," — the reality of this cheering thought he * 
 was soon to experience. That night, those on the larger 
 vessel saw the lights of the little boat suddenly disappear. 
 
 The next attempt at colonization was made by Gilbert's 1584 
 half-brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, one of the noblest of that 
 age of noble spirits : gallant and courteous in his manners; 
 a scholar, a poet, a benefactor of his race ; his name should 
 ever be held in grateful remembrance by the people of this 
 country. He studied the art of war with Coligny, the high 
 admiral of France. When in that country, he determined 
 to plant a colony in those delightful regions from which the 
 Huguenots had been driven by the hand of violence. He 
 had learned from them of the charming climate, where 
 winter lingered only for a short time, — where the magnifi- 
 cent trees and fragrant woods bloomed during nearly all 
 the year, — where the gushing fountains, noble rivers, and 
 fertile soil invited the industrious to enjoy the fruits of 
 their labor. When Sir Walter returned home from France, 
 he found the people prepared to enter upon schemes of 
 
72 HISTOKY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 °blap. colonization in the south. They, too, had heard of thost 
 
 " delightful regions " from the Huguenots, who at sea had 
 
 1584. heen rescued from death, and brought to England. Ra- 
 leigh without difficulty obtained a commission, granting 
 him ample powers, as proprietor of the territories he was 
 about to colonize. He first sent an exploring expedition, 
 consisting of two ships, under Philip Amidas and Arthur 
 Barlow, to obtain more definite information of the country. 
 They sailed the usual route, by the Canaries and the West 
 Indies, came first upon the coast of North Carolina, landed 
 upon one of the islands forming Ocracock inlet, and took 
 formal possession of the country. They partially explored 
 Albemarle and Pamlico sounds, and the islands and coast 
 in the vicinity, and then sailed for home. They took with 
 them two of the natives, Wanchese and Manteo ; the lat- 
 ter was afterward very useful to the colonists as an inter- 
 preter. Amidas and Barlow on their return, confirmed 
 what the Huguenots had reported of the excellence of the 
 country. They saw it in the month of July. They 
 described the unruffled ocean, dotted with beautiful islands; 
 the clearness of the atmosphere ; the luxuriant forests 
 vocal with the songs of birds ; the vines draping the trees, 
 and the grapes hanging in clusters. This sunny land, in 
 all its virgin beauty, appeared to these natives of foggy 
 England, as the very paradise of the world. Elizabeth, 
 delighted with the description, named the country Virginia, 
 in honor of herself, as she took pride in being known as the 
 Virgin Queen. 
 ^FlQ> It was not difficult now to obtain colonists ; soon a 
 fleet of seven vessels was equipped, containing one hun- 
 dred and eight persons, who intended to form a settle- 
 ment. Sir Richard Grenville, a friend of Baleigh, and a 
 man of eminence, commanded the fleet, and Ralph Lane 
 was appointed governor of the colony. After a tedious 
 voyage, they landed, in June, fifteen hundred and eighty- 
 five, on an island called Koanoke, lying between Albemar 
 
 1585. 
 
ROANOKE ABANDONED. 
 
 and Pamlico sounds. Before long they excited the enmity chap 
 
 of the Indians. On one of their exploring expeditions, a _ 
 
 silver cup was lost or stolen. The Indians were. charged June, 
 with the theft ; perhaps they were innocent. Because it 
 was not restored, Grenville, with very little prudence and 
 less justice, set fire to their village and destroyed their 
 standing corn. Little did he know the train of sorrow and 
 death he introduced by thus harshly treating the Indians 
 and making them enemies. A few weeks after the fleet 
 sailed for England, unlawfully cruising against the Span- 
 ish on the voyage. Governor Lane now explored the 
 country, noticed the various productions of the soil, and 
 the general character of the inhabitants. The colonists 
 found many strange plants ; — the corn, the sweet potato, 
 the tobacco plant, were seen by them for the first time. 
 Lane was unfit for his station ; he became unreasonably 
 suspicious of the Indians. With professions of friendship, 
 he visited a prominent chief, and was hospitably received 
 and entertained ; this kindness he repaid by basely mur- 
 dering the chief and his followers. Men capable of such 153$ 
 treachery were necessarily unfit to found a Christian 
 State. Provisions now began to fail and the colonists 
 to despond. 
 
 Just at this time Sir Francis Drake, on his way home 
 from the West Indies, called to visit the colony of his 
 friend Baleigh. Though they had been but a year in the 
 country, the 3olonists begged him to take them home. 
 Drake granted their request. They were scarcely out of 
 sight of land, when a ship, sent by Baleigh, laden with 
 supplies, arrived. The colonists could not be found, and 
 the ship returned to England. In a fortnight Grenville 
 appeared with three ships ; not finding the colonists he 
 als« returned home, unwisely leaving fifteen men to keep 
 possession of the territory. 
 
 Though disappointed Baleigh did not despair. The 
 natural advantages of the country had failed to induce the 
 
HISTOEY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, first company to remain. It was hoped, that if surrounded 
 by social and domestic ties, future colonists would learn to 
 
 1586. look upon it as their true home. Sir Walter's second 
 company was composed of emigrants with their families, 
 who should cultivate the soil, and eventually found a State 
 for themselves and their posterity. Queen Elizabeth pro 
 fessed to favor the enterprise, but did nothing to aid it 
 The expedition was fitted out with all that was necessary 
 to form an agricultural settlement. Kaleigh appointed 
 
 Jan John "White governor, with directions to form the settle- 
 
 1587. ment on the shores of Chesapeake bay. 
 
 They came first to the Island of Koanoke, there to be- 
 hold a melancholy spectacle — the bleaching bones of the 
 
 July> men whom Grenville had left. All had become a desert. 
 Doubtless they had been murdered by the Indians. Fer- 
 nando, the naval officer in command of the fleet, refused 
 to assist in exploring the shores of the Chesapeake, and 
 the colonists were compelled to remain on the Island of 
 Koanoke. The scene of two failures was to be the witness 
 of a third. The Indians were evidently hostile. The 
 colonists becoming alarmed, urged the governor to hasten 
 
 Aug. to England and speedily bring them assistance. Previous 
 to his leaving, Mrs. Dare, his daughter, and wife of one of 
 his lieutenants, gave birth to a female child, — the first 
 child of English parentage born on the soil of the United 
 States ; it was appropriately named Virginia. 
 
 White on his return found England in a state of great 
 excitement. The Pope had excommunicated Queen Eliza- 
 beth, and had absolved her subjects from their allegiance 
 to her throne ; at the same time promising her kingdom 
 to any Catholic prince who should take possession of it. 
 The revengeful Philip, of Spain, that good son of the 
 Church, had been for three years preparing an immense 
 army and fleet, with which he intended to invade and con- 
 quer England. The fleet was boastfully named the Invin- 
 
 1588. cible Armada. The English naval commanders flocked 
 
DEATH OF SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 75 
 
 CHAF 
 VIII. 
 
 Qome from every part of the world to defend their native 
 land, and to battle for the Protestant religion. English 
 seamanship and bravery completely triumphed. From 1688 
 that hour the prestige of Spain on the ocean was gone — it 
 passed to England. It is not strange that in such exciting 
 times the poor colonists of Koanoke were overlooked or for- 
 gotten. As soon as the danger was passed, aid was sent ; 
 but it came too late : not a vestige of the colony was to be 
 found ; death had done its work, whether by the hand of 
 the savage, or by disease, none can tell. What may have 
 been their sufferings is veiled in darkness. Eighty years 
 after, the English were told by the Indians that the Hat- 
 teras tribe had adopted the colonists into their number. 
 The probability is that they were taken prisoners and car- 
 ried far into the interior. A few years before Sir Francis 
 Drake had broken up the Spanish settlement at St. 
 Augustine. Thus, one hundred years after the first voy- 
 age of Columbus, the continent was once more in the pos • 
 session of the Ked Men. 
 
 Sir Walter Kaleigh had now expended nearly all his 
 fortune ; yet, when he saw no prospect of ever deriving 
 benefit from his endeavors, he sent several times, at his 
 own expense, to seek for the lost colonists and to render 
 them aid. Sir Walter's genius and perseverance prepared 
 the way for the successful settlement of Virginia ; he had 
 sown the seed, others enjoyed the harvest. The remainder 
 of his life was clouded by misfortune. On the accession 
 of James I., he was arraigned on a frivolous charge 
 of high treason ; a charge got up by his enemies, never 
 substantiated, and never believed by those who condemned 
 him. On his trial he defended himself with a dignity and 
 consciousness of innocence that excited the admiration of 
 the world and put to shame his enemies. His remaining 
 property was taken from him by the king, and for thirteen 
 rears he was left to languish in the Tower of London ; 
 
76 HISTOKY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 CHj^P- James not yet daring to order the execution of the patriot 
 statesman,, who was an ornament to England and the age 
 
 1888# in which he lived. After the lapse of sixteen years the 
 hour came, and Sir Walter met death on the scaffold with 
 the calmness and dignity of an innocent and Christian 
 
77 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE SETTLEMENT OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 London and Plymouth Companies. — King James 1 Laws. — The Voyage and 
 Arrival. — Jamestown. — John Smith ; his Character, Energy, Captivity, 
 and Release. — Misery of the Colonists. — New Emigrants. — Lord Dela- 
 ware. — Sir Thomas Gates. — Pocahontas ; her Capture and Marriage. — 
 Yeardley. — First Legislative Assembly. 
 
 The bold and energetic Elizabeth was succeeded by the CHAP 
 timid and pedantic James I. To sustain herself against { 
 
 the power of Spain, she had raised a strong military force, leoa. 
 both on sea and land. But James had an instinctive 
 dread of gunpowder, he was in favor of peace at all 
 hazards, even at the expense of national honor. He dis- 
 banded the greater portion of the army, and dismissed 
 many of those employed in the navy. These men, left 
 without regular employment, were easily induced to try 
 their fortunes as colonists in Virginia. They were not 
 good material, as we shall see, but they prepared the way 
 for better men, and ultimately for success. Sir Walter 
 Raleigh having sacrificed his fortune in fruitless attempts 
 to found a colony, had induced some gentlemen to form a 
 company, and engage in the enterprise. To this com- 
 pany he had transferred his patent, with all its privileges, 
 on very liberal terms. The company manifested but little 
 energy : they had neither the enthusiasm nor the liberality 
 of Sir Walter. 
 
 England claimed the territory from Cape Fear, in North 
 Carolina, to Newfoundland, and to the West indefinitely 
 
HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 C nf ' ^is terr itory King James divided into two parts : South 
 , Virginia, extending from Cape Fear to the Potomac ; and 
 
 1G06. North Virginia, from the mouth of the Hudson to New- 
 foundland. There were now formed two companies : one 
 known as the London Company, principally composed of 
 " noblemen, gentlemen, and merchants," residing in Lon- 
 don ; the other the Plymouth Company, composed of 
 " knights, gentlemen, and merchants," living in the West 
 of England. To the London Company James granted 
 South Virginia, to the Plymouth Company North Vir- 
 ginia. The region between the Potomac and the mouth 
 of the Hudson was to be neutral ground, on which the 
 companies were at liberty to form settlements within 
 fifty miles of their respective boundaries. The London 
 Company was the first to send emigrants. 
 
 King James was enamored of what he called king- 
 craft. He believed that a king had a divine right to make 
 and unmake laws at his own pleasure, and was bound by 
 no obligation, — not even to keep his own word. In main- 
 taining the former of these kingly rights, James sometimes 
 found difficulty; he was more successful in exercising the 
 latter. He took upon himself the authority and labor of 
 framing laws for the colony about to sail. These laws are 
 a fair specimen of his kingcraft. They did not grant a 
 single civil privilege to the colonists, who had no vote in 
 choosing their own magistrates ; but were to be governed 
 by two councils, both appointed by the king, — one resid- 
 ing in England, the other in the colony. In religious mat- 
 ters, differences of opinion were forbidden ; all must con- 
 form to the rites of the church of England. The Indians 
 were to be treated kindly, and if possible, converted to 
 Christianity. 
 1607 Three ships were sent with one hundred and five emi- 
 
 grants ; of the whole number, not twenty were agricul- 
 turists or mechanics, — there was not a family nor a woman 
 in the company. The great majority were gentlemen, 8 
 
SETTLEMENT OF JAMESTOWN, 
 
 79 
 
 term then applied to those who had no regular employment, chap 
 
 • » Jut 
 but spent their time in idleness and dissipation. 
 
 The names of those who were to form the governing 1607. 
 council, together with their instructions, were, by order of 
 the king, foolishly sealed up in a box, there to remain until 
 they were ready to form a government. Thus when dis- 
 sensions arose on the voyage, there was no legal authority 
 to restore harmony. 
 
 Captain Newport, who commanded the expedition, 
 came first upon the coast of North Carolina, intending to 
 visit the island of Koanoke, the scene of Kaleigh's failures, 
 but a storm suddenly arose, and fortunately drove him 
 north into Chesapeake bay. The little fleet soon entered 
 a large river, and explored its stream for fifty miles — then 
 on the thirteenth of May, one thousand six hundred and May 
 seven, the members of the colony landed, and determined 18, 
 to form a settlement. The river was named James, and 
 the settlement Jamestown, in honor of the king ; while the 
 capes at the entrance of the bay, were named Charles and 
 Henry, in honor of his sons. 
 
 In every successful enterprise, we observe the power of 
 some one leading spirit. In this case, the man worthy the 
 confidence of all, because of his knowledge, and natural 
 superiority of mind, was Captain John Smith, justly styled 
 the " Father of Virginia." Though but thirty years of 
 age, he had acquired much knowledge of the world. He 
 had travelled over the western part of Europe, and in Egypt; 
 had been a soldier in the cause of freedom in Holland ; had 
 fought against the Turks in Hungary, where he was taken 
 prisoner, and sent to Constantinople as a slave. He was 
 rescued from slavery by a Turkish lady, conveyed to the 
 Crimea, where he was ill-treated ; his proud spirit resisted, 
 he slew his oppressor and escaped, wandered across the 
 continent, and returned to England just as plans were 
 maturing to colonize Virginia. He entered into the enter- 
 prise with his habitual energy. His cool courage, hie 
 
SO HISTOET OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 uhap. knowledge of human nature, civilized and savage, — but 
 
 1_ above all, his honesty and common sense, fitted him for the 
 
 1607. undertaking. 
 
 The superiority of Smith excited the envy and jealousy 
 of those who expected to be named members of the coun- 
 cil, when the mysterious box should be opened. On false 
 and absurd charges he was arrested and placed in confine- 
 ment. The box was opened — the king had appointed him 
 one of the council. An effort was made to exclude him, 
 but he demanded a trial ; his accusers, unable to substan- 
 tiate their charges, withdrew them, and he took his seat. 
 Wingfield, an avaricious and unprincipled man, was chosen 
 president of the council and governor of the colony. 
 
 When these difficulties were arranged, Newport and 
 Smith, accompanied by some twenty men, spent three 
 weeks in exploring the neighboring rivers and country. 
 They visited Powhatan, the principal Indian chief in the 
 vicinity — " a man about sixty years of age, tall, sour, and 
 athletic. ,, His capital of twelve wigwams, was situated at 
 the falls of James river, near where Kichmond now stands. 
 His tribe seems to have been fearful and suspicious of the 
 intruding white men from the very first — impressed, it may 
 be, with a foreboding of evil to come. 
 
 Soon after, Newport sailed for home, leaving the colo- 
 
 June nists in a wretched condition. Their provisions nearly all 
 spoiled, and they too idle to provide against the effects of 
 the climate — much sickness prevailed, and more than half 
 the company died before winter. To add to their distress, 
 it was discovered that Wingfield had been living upon 
 their choicest stores, and that he intended to seize the 
 remainder of their provisions, and escape to the West 
 Indies. The council deposed him, and elected Katcliffe 
 president. The change was not for the better ; he was 
 not more honest than Wingfield, and mentally less fit 
 for the station. In this emergency the control of affairs 
 passed by tacit consent into the hands of Smith. He knew 
 
SMITH A PRISONER. 
 
 8a 
 
 from the first what was needed for the colony. As it was c ^ p< 
 
 now too late in the season to obtain food of their own rais- 
 
 ing, he had recourse to trading with the Indians for corn. 1607. 
 Toward the close of autumn, an abundance of wild fowl 
 furnished additional provisions. The colony thus provided Deo. 
 for, Smith further explored the neighboring rivers and 
 country. In one of these expeditions he ascended a branch 
 of the James river, and leaving the boat in care of his men, 
 took with him his Indian guide, and struck out into the 
 forest. Finding himself pursued by the Indians, he fas- 
 tened Ins guide to his arm as a shield against their arrows, 
 and defended himself with great bravery, but at length 
 sinking in a swamp, he was taken prisoner. His captors 
 regarded him with strange wonder ; his cool courage and 
 self-possession struck them with awe. He, aware of the 
 simplicity and inquisitiveness of the savage character, 
 showed them his pocket compass. They wondered at the 
 motion of the needle, and at the strange transparent cover, 
 which secured it from their touch. Was their captive a 
 superior being ? — was he friendly to themselves ? — how 
 should they dispose of him ? — were questions that now per- 
 plexed them. They permitted him to send a letter to NW& 
 Jamestown. The fact that he could impress his thoughts 
 upon paper, and send them far away, they regarded as 
 strong proof of his superiority. He was led from place to 
 place, to be gazed at by the wondering natives of the 
 forest. For three days they performed powwows, or religious 
 ceremonies, in order to learn from the spirit world some- 
 thing of his nature and intentions. Finally, he was sent 
 to Powhatan, to be disposed of as he should decide. The 
 Indian chief received him with a great display of savage 
 pomp, but decided that he must die. Preparations were 
 made, but the eventful life of Smith was not destined to 
 be closed by the war-club of the savage. The heart of 
 Pocahontas, a young daughter of Powhatan, a girl of ten 
 or twelve vears of age, was touched with sympathy and 
 
HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap. pity. She pleaded with her father for his life. She clung 
 
 tenderly to him as he bowed his head to receive the fata] 
 
 1008. stroke. Her interposition was received by the savages as 
 an indication of the will of heaven, and the life of Smith 
 was spared. Her people have passed away — most of their 
 names are forgotten, but the name of Pocahontas, and the 
 story of her generous deed, will ever be honored and re- 
 membered. 
 
 The Indians now wished to adopt Smith into their 
 number : they strove to induce him to join them against 
 the English. He dissuaded them from an attack upon 
 Jamestown, by representing to them the wonderful effects 
 of the "big guns." After an absence of seven weeks, he 
 Jan w &s permitted to return. He had obtained much valuable 
 information of the country, of its inhabitants, their lan- 
 guage and customs. 
 
 He found the colony reduced in number to forty — in 
 want of provisions, and in anarchy and confusion, while 
 some were making preparations to desert in the pinnace ; 
 this he prevented at the risk of his life. The famishing 
 colonists were partly sustained through the winter by the 
 generous Pocahontas, who with her companions almost 
 every day brought them baskets of corn. 
 
 In the spring, Newport returned with another com- 
 pany of emigrants ; like the first, " vagabond gentlemen," 
 idlers, and gold-hunters. These gold-hunters lighted upon 
 some earth, glittering with yellow mica ; they thought it 
 golden ore. Every thing else was neglected ; the entire 
 company engaged in loading the ships with this useless 
 earth. What a blessing to England and the colony that 
 it was not gold ! 
 
 (While the people of Jamestown were thus foolishly em- 
 ployed, Smith explored the harbors and rivers of Chesa- 
 peake bay, and established friendly relations with the 
 Indians along its shores. From them he learned of the 
 Mohawks, who " made war upon all the world '* On h^ 
 
UNWORTHY EMIGRANTS. 83 
 
 return, he was, for the first time, formally elected Presi- 0H1* 
 
 dent of the Council. Industry was now more wisely , 
 
 directed ; but in the autumn came another company of 1608. 
 idle and useless emigrants. Smith, indignant that his 
 efforts to improve the colony should thus be frustrated, 
 wrote to the council to send him but a few husbandmen 
 and mechanics, and " diggers up of trees' roots," rather 
 than a thousand such men as had been sent. The com- 
 plaint was just. During two years they had not brought 
 under cultivation more than forty acres of land, while 
 the number of able-bodied men was more than two hun- 
 dred. The energetic arm of Smith was soon felt. The 
 first law he made and enforced was, that " He who would 
 not work should not eat f the second, that " Each man 
 for six days in the week should work six hours each 
 lay." 
 
 In England, about this time, an unusual interest was May, 
 manifested in the colony ; subscriptions were made to its 
 stock, and the charter materially changed. The council 
 was now chosen by the stockholders of the company, in- 
 stead of being appointed by the king. This council ap- 
 pointed the governor, but he could rule with absolute 
 authority. Not a single privilege was yet granted the 
 colonist : his property, his liberty, his life were at the dis- 
 posal of the governor ; and he the agent of a soulless cor- 
 poration, whose only object was gain. The company had 
 expended money, but the course they themselves pursued 
 prevented their receiving a return. Instead of sending the 
 industrious and virtuous, they sent idlers and libertines ; 
 instead of farmers and mechanics, they sent gold-seekers 
 and bankrupt gentlemen. Instead of offering a reward to 
 industry they gave a premium to idleness, by making the 
 proceeds of their labor go into a common stock. 
 
 The new charter excited so great an interest in the 
 cause, that a fleet of nine ships was soon under way, con- 
 taining more than five hundred emigrants, and, for the 
 
 1609, 
 
£4 ±LL»TOftY 0* THE AME1UCA.N PEOPLE. 
 
 ohap. first time, domestic animals and fowls. Lord Delaware, a 
 
 ix. . . 
 nobleman of excellent character, was appointed governor 
 
 1609 for life. As he was not prepared to come with this com- 
 pany, he nominated Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, 
 and Newport, to act as his commissioners until his own 
 arrival. Seven of the vessels came safely, but the ship on 
 which the commissioners embarked, with another, was 
 wrecked on one of the Bermuda islands. 
 
 This company of emigrants appears to have been worse 
 than any before. As the commissioners had failed to reach 
 the colony, these worthies refused to submit to the author- 
 ity of Smith, the acting President, contending that there 
 was no legalized government. But these men, who " would 
 rule all or ruin all," found in him a determined foe to dis- 
 order and idleness ; he compelled them to submit. Un- 
 fortunately, just at this time, he was injured by an acci- 
 dental explosion of gunpowder, and obliged to return to 
 England for surgical aid. He delegated his authority to 
 George Percy, a brother of the Duke of Northumberland. 
 And now the man who had more than once saved the 
 colony from utter ruin, bade farewell to Virginia forever ; 
 from his arduous labors he derived no benefit, but ex- 
 
 Q ct perienced at the hands of the company the basest in- 
 gratitude. 
 
 During the administration of Smith the Indians were 
 held in check ; he inspired them with confidence and 
 respect. When the colonists " beat them, stole their 
 corn, and robbed their gardens," they complained to him, 
 and he protected their rights. After his departure, they 
 formed a plan to cut off the white men at a single blow ; 
 but Pocahontas, that good genius of the English, came at 
 night, in a driving storm, to Jamestown, revealed the plot, 
 and saved the colony. 
 
 L610. What the Indians failed to do, vice and famine nearly 
 
 accomplished. In six months after the departure of Smith, 
 of the four hundred and ninety colonists only sixty were 
 
EMIGRANTS AND SUPPLIES. 85 
 
 a ring, and they would have perished in a few days had ^hap 
 
 they not obtained relief. Sir Thomas Gates, and those 
 
 who were wrecked with him, found means to build a 1611. 
 small vessel, in which, at this crisis, they reached James 2 ^ y 
 river. They were astonished at the desolation. They 
 all determined to abandon the place and sail to New- 
 foundland, and there distribute themselves among the 
 fishermen. They dropped down the river with the tide, 
 leaving the place without a regret. What was their sur- 
 prise the next morning to meet Lord Delaware coming in 
 with more emigrants and abundance of supplies. They re- 
 turned with a favoring wind to Jamestown the same night. 
 
 From this tenth day of June, one thousand six hun- 1611. 
 dred and eleven, the colony began, under more favorable cir- 
 cumstances, to revive. Other influences moulded their 
 characters. They acknowledged God in all their ways, 
 and their paths were directed by His providential care. 
 Under the just administration of the excellent Delaware, 
 factions were unknown ; each one was disposed to do his 
 duty. Before they commenced the labors of the day, they 
 met in their little church to implore the blessing of 
 heaven. The effects were soon visible in the order and 
 comfort of the community. They cheered their friends in 
 England : " Doubt not," said they, " God will raise our 
 state and build his Church' in this excellent clime." In 
 about a year, failing health compelled Lord Delaware to 
 return to England. He left Percy, Smith's successor, as 
 his representative. 
 
 The next year Sir Thomas Gates arrived, with six Aug. 
 ships and three hundred emigrants ; a majority of whom 
 were of a better class, temperate and industrious in their 
 habits. A measure was now introduced which produced 
 the greatest effect on the well-being of the colony : to each 
 man was given a portion of land, which he was to culti- 
 vate for himself. The good result of this was soon seen in 
 the abundance of provisions. The colony became so pros- 
 
 i6ia 
 
86 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 CHAP, perous that some of the neighboring tribes of Indians 
 
 V wished to be " called Englishmen," and to be subjects of 
 
 1612. King James. Some of the colonists, however, manifested 
 neither gratitude nor justice toward the natives. A neigh- 
 boring chief was won by the gift of a copper kettle to be- 
 tray into the hands of Captain Argall, Pocahontas, that 
 faithful friend of the colony. Argall had the meanness to 
 demand of her father a ransom. For three months the 
 indignant Powhatan did not deign to reply. Meantime 
 Pocahontas received religious instruction : her susceptible 
 heart was moved, she became a Christian and was baptized ; 
 she was the first of her race " who openly renounced her 
 country's idolatry." John Kolfe, a pious young man, of 
 " honest and discreet carriage," became interested in the 
 youthful princess ; he won her affections and asked her in 
 marriage. Powhatan was delighted. This marriage con- 
 ciliated him and his tribe, and indeed gave general satis- 
 faction, except to King James, who was greatly scandal- 
 ized that any man, but one of royal blood, should presume 
 to marry a princess. Rolfe took his wife to England, 
 where she was much caressed. She never again saw her 
 native land. Just as she was leaving England for Vir- 
 ginia she died, at the early age of twenty-two. She Jeft 
 one son, whose posterity count it an honor to have de- 
 scended from this noble Indian girl. 
 
 Sir Thomas Dale introduced laws, by which private 
 individuals could become proprietors of the soil. The land- 
 holders directed their attention almost exclusively to the 
 raising of tobacco, which became so profitable an article oi 
 export, that it was used as the currency of the colony. At 
 one time, the public squares and streets of Jamestown 
 werjB planted with tobacco, and the raising of corn sc 
 much neglected, that there was danger of a famine. 
 lllfa After a rule of two years, Dale resigned and returned 
 to England, leaving George Yeardley as deputy-governor 
 During his administration, industry and prosperity con- 
 
HOUSE OF BURGESSES. 87 
 
 tinned to increase. Under the influence of a faction, chap 
 Yeardley was superseded by the tyrannical Argall, but in 
 
 two years his vices and extortion, in connection with frauds Jan., 
 upon the company, procured his dismissal, and the people 
 once more breathed freely under the second administration 
 of the benevolent and popular Yeardley. 
 
 Although the colony had been in existence twelve 
 years, it contained not more than six hundred persons, and 
 they appeared to have no settled intention of making the 
 country their permanent home. Efforts were still made 
 to send emigrants, twelve hundred of whom came in one 
 year, and every means were used to attach them to the 
 soil. At different times the company sent over more than 
 one hundred and fifty respectable young women, who be- 
 came wives in the colony, their husbands paying the ex- 
 pense of their passage. This was paid in tobacco, the cost 
 of each passage varying from one hundred and twenty to 
 one hundred and fifty pounds. It was deemed dishonorable 
 not to pay a debt contracted for a wife ; and to aid the 
 husbands, the government, in giving employment, preferred 
 married men. Thus surrounded by the endearments of 
 home and domestic ties, the colonists were willing to remain 
 in the New World. 
 
 Governor Yeardley was " commissioned by the com- 
 pany " to grant the people the right to assist in making 
 their own laws, for which purpose they could hold an 
 Assembly once a year. In July, one thousand six hundred 
 and nineteen, met the House of Burgesses, consisting of 
 twenty- two members chosen by the people. A peculiar 
 interest is attached to this first Legislative Assembly in 
 the New World. The laws enacted exhibit the spirit of 
 the people. " Forasrnuche," said the Assembly, "as man's 
 affaires doe little prosper when God's service is neglected, 
 we invite Mr. Bucke, the minister, to open our sessions 
 by pray er, — that it would please God to sanctifie all our 
 m-oceedinges to his owne glory and the good of this plan- 
 tation." They passed laws against vices and in favor of 
 
88 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN" PEOPLE. 
 
 °HAP. industry and good order. V In detestation of idleness,' 
 
 the idler was " to be sold to a master for wages till he 
 
 1619. shewe apparent signes of amendment." Laws were made 
 against playing of dice and cards, drunkenness, and other 
 vices ; and to promote the " planting of come," of vines, 
 of mulberry trees, and the raising of flax and hemp. They 
 made provision " towards the erecting of the University 
 and College." This was designed for the education oi 
 their own children, as well as for " the most towardly boyes 
 in witt and graces" of the " natives' children." The gov- 
 ernor and council sat with the Assembly, and took part in 
 its deliberations. It was granted that a " generall Assem- 
 bly should be held yearly once," " to ordain whatsoever 
 laws and orders would be thought good and profitable for 
 our subsistence." ' 
 
 This right of the people to have a voice in making 
 their own laws, was rigidly maintained until it found its 
 full fruition in the institutions established one hundred 
 and fifty years afterward by the Kevolution. Emigration 
 from England was greatly stimulated ; in a few years the 
 population numbered nearly four thousand, while the 
 inducements to industry and general prosperity increased 
 in the same proportion. The company granted a written 
 constitution, under which the people could have a legisla- 
 tive assembly of their own choosing. It was necessary 
 that the laws passed by the colonial legislature should be 
 sanctioned by the company in England. As a check to 
 royal interference, no laws emanating from the court 
 could be valid, unless ratified by the House of Burgesses. 
 Thus it continued until the dissolution of the London com- 
 pany, when King James arbitrarily took away its charter. 
 
 Art. IX., Vol. III., Part 1. Second Series of Collections of the New 
 York Historical Society. The " Reporte" of the proceedings of this " First 
 Assembly of Virginia," was discovered among the papers of the British 
 State Paper Office. All trace of it had been lost for perhaps more than two 
 centuries; at length a search, instituted by Ba^ - r ft the historian, was sue 
 cessful. 
 
OHAPTEB X. 
 
 COLONIZATION OF NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 first roy ages to. — Plymouth Company. — Explorations of John Smith. — Thi 
 Chnrch of England. — The Puritans. — Congregation of John Robinson. — 
 11 Pilgrims" in Holland. — Arrangements to emigrate. — The Voyage. — 
 A Constitution framed on board the May-Flower. — Landing at Plym- 
 outh. — Sufferings. — Indians, Treaties with. — " Weston's Men. n — 
 Thanksgiving. — Shares of the London Partners purchased. — Democratic 
 Government. 
 
 The usual route to America had been by the Canaries and chajt 
 the West Indies. Bartholomew Gosnold was the first . 
 navigator who attempted to find a shorter one, by sailing 1602. 
 directly across the Atlantic. His effort was crowned with 
 success : after a voyage of seven weeks, he came upon the 
 coast in the vicinity of Nahant. Coasting along to the 
 south, he landed upon a sandy point, which he named Cape 
 Cod ; and passing round it he discovered Martha's Vine- 
 yard, and several other islands in the vicinity. While he 
 explored the coast he also traded with the natives, and 
 when he had obtained a cargo of sassafras root, which in 
 that day was much valued for its medicinal qualities, he 
 sailed for home. The voyage consumed but five weeks, 
 thus demonstrating tne superiority of the new route. 
 
 Gosnold, who saw the country in the montls of May 
 and June, was eu raptured with its appearance — its forests 
 blooming with shrubs and flowers; its springs of pure fresh 
 water, and little lakes; its beautiful islands nestling among 
 *0"ally beautiful bays along the coast. His description, 
 
90 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 CHAP, together with the shortness and safety of the voyage, led 
 
 mmm to many visits and minor discoveries by Martin Pring and 
 
 1607. others, all along the coast of New England. 
 
 The Plymouth Company, of which mention has been 
 made, attempted to form a settlement at the mouth of the 
 Kennebec in Maine. The rigors of a severe winter, and the 
 death of their president, so discouraged the colonists, that 
 they abandoned the enterprise, and returned to England. 
 
 A few years afterward, Smith, whose valuable services 
 we have seen in Virginia, undertook to explore the coun- 
 try. He constructed a map of the eastern portion, and 
 noted the prominent features of the territory. The coun- 
 1614. try he named New England — a name confirmed by the 
 Prince of Wales, afterward Charles I. After Smith left 
 for England, his associate, a captain named Hunt, treacher- 
 ously enticed twenty-seven of the natives with their chief, 
 Squanto, on board his ship, then set sail. He sold these 
 victims of his avarice into slavery in Spain. A few of 
 them were purchased by some friars, who kindly taught 
 them, in order to send them back as missionaries to their 
 countrymen. Among this number was Squanto. 
 
 In this age, we are unable to appreciate fully the trials 
 and sufferings experienced by the explorers and first settlers 
 of this continent. When we remember the frailty of the 
 vessels in which their voyages were made, the perils of the 
 unexplored ocean, the dangers of its unknown coasts, the 
 hostility of the wily savage, the diseases of an untried 
 climate, the labor of converting the primitive forests into 
 cultivated fields, we may well be astonished that such dif- 
 ficulties were ever overcome. 
 
 We have now co narrate the causes which led to the 
 settlement of New England. Previous to the time of 
 Henry VIII. the clergy and government of England had 
 been in religious matters the implicit subjects of the church 
 of Rome. While this may be said of the clergy it was dif- 
 ferent with great numbers of the people. The spirit of 
 
THE EXILES RETURN HOME. 91 
 
 religious truth was pervading their minds and moulding chap 
 
 their character. They read the Bible in their own Ian- , 
 
 guage, discussed freely its truths, and compared them with 1525 
 the doctrines and practices of the Komish church. The 
 Pope claimed to be the temporal and spiritual head of the 
 church, and by virtue of this claim to depose princes oi 
 absolve subjects from their allegiance. Henry wished t( 
 be divorced from his queen in order to marry another ; but 
 the Pope, to whom he applied, as the highest authority, 
 hesitated to dissolve the marriage. The angry king, when 
 threatened with excommunication, repudiated the Pope 
 and his authority, and declared the English church inde- 1584* 
 pendent of that of Rome. Parliament afterward confirmed 
 by law what the king in a fit of anger had done, and 
 recognized him as the head of the church in his own do- 
 minions. Thus England, by the act of her own govern- 
 ment, became Protestant. True reformation in religion 
 does not apply so much to its external form, as to its effect 
 upon the hearts and consciences of men. That portion of 
 the English people who had learned this truth from the 
 Word of God, recognized no human being as the head of his 
 church ; they received Christ alone as the Head of his own 
 church, and they refused to acknowledge the pretensions 
 of the king. For the maintenance of this belief they were 155a 
 persecuted through a series of years : during the reign of 
 Henry for not admitting his a ithority in spiritual matters ; 
 during the reign of his daughter Marv, still more fiercely, 
 for denying the authority of the church of Kome. Many 
 at the stake sealed their faith with their lives, and many 
 fled to foreign lands. 
 
 After the leath of Mary the persecuting fires were ex- 
 tinguished, and the accession of Elizabeth was the signal 
 for the exiles to return home. They came back with more 
 enlightened views of the rights of conscience and of free 
 inquiry. Of these* some were Presbyterians, some Con- 
 gregationalists, and others members of the Established 
 
92 
 
 HISTOKY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 CH x ? ' C nurcn - They demanded a more pure and spiritual wor- 
 
 ship than that of the church of England.. For this they 
 
 1658. were in derision called Puritans — a name which they 
 soon made respected, even by their enemies. Elizabeth 
 was a Protestant, but she was far from being a Puritan. 
 She wished to have a church that should reconcile all 
 parties, whose ceremonies should be a happy medium be- 
 tween the showy church of Rome and the simple form of 
 worship asked for by the Puritans. She contended stren- 
 uously for her headship of the church, while the Puritan 
 rejected the presumptuous doctrine. She demanded of her 
 subjects implicit obedience to her in religious matters : 
 the Puritan took the high ground that it was his right to 
 worship God according to his own conscience. 
 
 Severe laws were passed from time to time, and they 
 were enforced with unrelenting cruelty. All were en- 
 joined to conform to certain ceremonies in worship. Those 
 who did not comply were banished ; if they returned with- 
 160*. out permission, the penalty was death. The person accused 
 was compelled to answer on oath all questions, whether per- 
 taining to himself or to his fellow-worshippers. Ministers 
 who would not comply with these laws were driven from 
 their parishes ; the members of their congregations were 
 " beset and watched night and day ;" if they were de- 
 tected in listening to their deprived ministers, or were 
 absent a certain length of time from the services of the 
 Established Church, they were fined and imprisoned, and 
 punished in various ways. To avoid the effects of such 
 intolerable laws, many bade farewell to their native land, 
 and Holland and Switzerland became the asylum of some 
 of the noblest men and women of England. 
 
 Thus the contest had raged for nearly forty years, 
 when, in the latter part of Queen Elizabeth's reign, the 
 Puritans began to hope that the dark clouds of persecu- 
 tion which had so long overshadowed the land would be 
 dispelled under her successor, James I., who was edu- 
 
CONGREGATION OF JOHN BOBINSON. 
 
 93 
 
 cated in Scotland, principally under Presbyterian influ- °^ p 
 
 ence. They had reason to believe he would protect them 
 
 id the exercise of their form of worship. They were grossly 1008 
 deceived, and cruelly disappointed. When it was for his 
 interest, James professed to be very favorable to the Ref- 
 ormation, and more especially to the Puritan form. Upon 
 one occasion, standing with his hands lifted up to heaven, 
 he " praised God that he was king of such a kirk — the 
 purest kirk in all the world ; " adding, " As for the kirk of 
 England, its service is an evil said mass." Such was the 
 language of James just before he became king. The mo- 
 ment he ascended the throne he threw off the mask, and 
 openly proclaimed his famous maxim, " No bishop, no 
 king." The Puritans humbly petitioned him for a redress 
 of grievances ; he treated them with the greatest con- 
 tempt. Said he to his bishops : "I will make them con- 
 form, or I will harry them out of the land, or else worse : 
 only hang them — that's all." 
 
 During all these years they hoped for better times, and 
 were unwilling to separate from the church of their fathers ; 
 but suffering and persecution at length brought that hour. 
 Hitherto individuals and families had gone into exile ; but 
 now, in the north of England, a pastor, with all his con- 
 gregation, determined to leave their homes and flee to 
 Holland, where there was already a church of English 
 exiles. This was the congregation of John Robinson. 
 These poor people were harassed by the minions of the 
 king and clergy, and subjected to the petty annoyances 
 dictated by religious intolerance. Preparations were made 
 for them to leave. As they were about to sail, the officers 
 of the government, with the connivance of the captain of 160& 
 the ship, came on board the vessel, and arrested the whole 
 company ; searched their persons, took possession of their 
 effects, and carried them to prison; men, women, and 
 children. In a short time most of them were released ; 
 only seven persons were brought to trial. They also 
 
94 HISTOKY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap were liberated. The court could not convict them oi 
 x. 
 
 crime. 
 
 1608. The members of the congregation persevered ; and soon 
 
 they engaged a Dutch captain to take them from an un- 
 frequented common. The women and children were to be 
 taken to the place of embarkation in a small boat, the 
 men to go by land. The latter reached the ship, and 
 were taken on board. The boat containing the women 
 and children was stranded, and before it could be got off 
 they were seized by a party of their enemies. The cap- 
 tain, lest he should become involved in difficulties with 
 the English authorities, sailed immediately, taking with 
 him the men, overwhelmed with grief for their defenceless 
 wives and children in the hands of their cruel oppressors. 
 The poor women and helpless children were dragged, suf- 
 fering from cold, hunger, and fear, before a magistrate, as 
 if they had been guilty of crime. They were treated very 
 harshly, but were finally permitted to join their husbands 
 and fathers in Holland. 
 
 Now they were Pilgrims indeed, strangers in a strange 
 land ; " but they lifted up their eyes to heaven, their 
 dearest country, and quieted their spirits." They re- 
 mained about a year at Amsterdam ; not satisfied, how- 
 ever, they removed to Leyden. Their integrity and in- 
 dustry, their piety and self-denial, in what they believed 
 to be the cause of truth, elicited the respect of the 
 Dutch. The government officers would have treated 
 them with marked favor, but they feared to offend King 
 James. From year to year they received accessions from 
 their brethren in England. They were still surrounded 
 by evils, which made it necessary for them again to 
 change their homes. Their labors were severe ; though 
 frugal and industrious, they obtained a support with 
 great difficulty. The desecration of the Sabbath, the 
 dissolute morals of the disbanded soldiers and sailors 
 among: whom they were thrown, caused them to fear for 
 
THEY APPLY TO THE LONDON COMPANY. 95 
 
 their children. Holland could not be their permanent chap. 
 
 home. It dawned upon the minds of the more intelligent, '__ 
 
 that it was their duty to seek some other land. Their 1616 
 thoughts were directed to the wilderness of the New 
 World. They express not a wish in regard to worldly 
 comfort, but a desire to consecrate all to the great cause 
 of promoting Christianity. 
 
 Though they had been so harshly treated by England, 
 they loved her still, and were not willing to accept the 
 offers made them, to colonize under the protection of the 
 Dutch. They had heard of the fine climate and the set- 
 tlement of Virginia, and resolved to apply to the London 1617 
 Company for permission to emigrate to their territory. For 
 this purpose they sent two of their number, John Carver 
 and Robert Cushman, to confer with the company. Their 
 proposition was favorably received by the excellent Sir 
 Edwin Sandys, the secretary. Their request, signed by the 
 greater part of the congregation, was afterward sent to the 
 company. In it they made a summary of their principles, 
 and a statement of their motives of action. They said, " We 
 verily believe that God is with us, and will prosper us in our 
 endeavors ; we are weaned from our mother country, and 
 have learned patience in a hard and strange land. We 
 are industrious and frugal ; we are bound together by a 
 sacred bond of the Lord, whereof we make great con- nn^ 
 science, holding ourselves to each other's good. We do not 
 wish ourselves home again ; we have nothing to hope from 
 England or Holland ; we are men who will not be easily 
 discouraged." 
 
 They were to emigrate under the sanction of the com- 
 pany ; but owing to dissensions in the company itself, the 
 plan was not carried out. At this time the king was op- 
 pressing their brethren in England more and more ; the 
 only favor the Pilgrims could obtain from him was a half 
 promise that he would not molest them in the wilds of 
 America In truth, James wished to be fieed from those 
 
06 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, of his subjects who had any just notions of human rights 
 „ Said he, "I would rather live like a hermit in the forest, 
 
 1619. than be a king over such people as the pack of Puritans 
 that overrule the House of Commons \" 
 
 There was yet another difficulty. The Pilgrims were 
 poor — poor indeed ; in their persecution and exile they had 
 lost their all. Upon very hard conditions they secured the 
 means to emigrate ; yet they were willing to make any 
 sacrifice could they but worship God in peace, and protect 
 the morals of their children. 
 
 A company was now formed of London merchants, who 
 agreed to furnish the money, while the emigrant was to 
 give his entire services for seven years ; these services were 
 to constitute his stock in the company. The profits were 
 to be reserved to the end of that time, then a valuation of 
 all the property held by the company was to be made, and 
 
 1620. the amount distributed to each in proportion to his in- 
 vestment. By contract, the merchant who invested ten 
 pounds received as much as the colonist who gave seven 
 years of labor. This throwing of all their labor and capital 
 into a common stocky was the result of necessity, not of 
 choice. 
 
 They purchased one ship, the Speedwell, and hired 
 another, the May-Flower, a ship of one hundred and eighty 
 tons. As these vessels could carry only a part of the con- 
 gregation, they determined to send the younger and more 
 vigorous, while the pastor, Kobinson, and the aged and in- 
 firm, were to remain at Leyden. Their ruling Elder, 
 William Brewster, who had suffered much in the cause, 
 and was respected and loved for his integrity, was tc 
 conduct the emigrants. Before they left, they observed a 
 day pf fasting and prayer. They " sought of God a right 
 way for themselves and their little ones." 
 
 The parting address of the venerable Kobinson gives 
 us a glimpse of the principles in which, from year to year, 
 he had instructed them. As he addressed them for th* 
 
THE EMBARKATION. 97 
 
 ast time, he said : " I charge you before G-od and his holy chap. 
 
 angels, that you follow me no farther than you have seen 
 
 me follow the Lord Jesus Christ. If God reveal any thing 1620 
 to you, be ready to receive it ; for I am verily persuaded 
 the Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of his Holy 
 Word. I beseech you remember it is an article of your 
 church covenant, that you be ready to receive whatever 
 truth shall be made known to you from the written Word 
 of God. Take heed what you receive as truth ; examine 
 it, consider it, and compare it with other scriptures of 
 truth before you receive it ; the Christian world has not 
 yet come to the perfection of knowledge." 
 
 A number of their brethren came from Leyden to 
 Delft-Haven, where they were to embark. The night 
 before their departure was passed in religious inter- 
 course and prayer : as the morning dawned, they prepared 
 to go on board the ship. On the shore they all knelt, 
 and the venerable Kobinson led them in prayer — they 
 heard his voice for the last time. They sailed first to 
 Southampton ; in a fortnight they left that place for their 
 distant home. It is soon discovered that the Speedwell 
 needs repairs, and they must return. After the lapse of Aug. 
 eight days of precious time, again they make the attempt, 5 * 
 and still again the captain of the Speedwell asserts that his 
 ship cannot cross the Atlantic. They put back to Plym- 
 outh : they there leave the Speedwell, and those whose 
 courage failed them, and to the number of one hundred and 
 one once more commit themselves to the winds and waves, 
 trusting to the good providence of God. Sept 
 
 Let us glance for a moment at the circumstances and * # 
 characteristics of this company. They were bound to- 
 gether by the strong bond of religious sympathy — united 
 in interest and purpose, they expected to endure, to suffer, 
 to rejoice together for many years, even to the end of life. 
 
 Prominent among them was William Brewster, the 
 ruling elder and lay preacher, already mentioned, who was 
 
98 HISTOEY OF THE AMEEICAK PEOPLE. 
 
 CHAP, to supply the place of the pastor Eobinson. He was a man 
 
 of education, of refined associations, and. above all of a 
 
 1620. lovely and Christian spirit. " He laid his hand to the daily 
 tasks of life, as well as spent his soul in trying to benefit 
 his fellows — so bringing himself as near as possible to the 
 early Christian practices ; he was worthy of being the first 
 minister of New England." ' There was also the dignified 
 and benevolent John Carver, the worthy governor of this 
 band of Christian exiles, who in the cause laid down his 
 fortune, and at length his life — for he soon sank beneath 
 the hardships to which he was unused. These two were 
 comparatively old men, but most of the " Pilgrim 
 Fathers " were in the bloom and vigor of life. 
 
 William Bradford was but thirty-two, earnest, saga- 
 cious, true and steady in purpose, " a man of nerve and 
 public spirit ;" self-educated, and so ardent in the pursuit 
 of knowledge, that amidst all his trials and labors, he 
 accumulated books, and found time to read and even to 
 study them. As a farmer's boy in England, as a dyer in 
 Holland, as the governor of a small nation in the wilds oi 
 America, he acted well his part. 
 
 Edward Winslow was " a gentleman born/*' with a 
 mind cultivated by travel and books ; gentle in manner as 
 in spirit, his soul melted at the sorrows of others. Miles 
 Standish was a soldier, fearless, but not rash ; impetuous, 
 but not vindictive : though not a member of the church, 
 he was strongly attached to its institutions and to its most 
 rigorous advocates. Winslow was twenty-six, and Stan- 
 dish thirty-six years of age. 
 jj ot# A tedious voyage of sixty-three days brought them in 
 
 10 - sight of Cape Cod. They had left their native land to 
 seek in a howling wilderness an asylum from persecution. 
 They had not the sanction of a charter from their king, 
 and they appealed to no body of men for protection : fchey 
 
 Elliott's History of New England. 
 
A CONSTITUTION ADOPTED. 99 
 
 must have a government ; they were all on an equality, cilip 
 
 and they now drew up a constitution, or compact, to which 
 
 the men, servants and all, to the number of forty-one, sub- 1630. 
 scribed their names, and mutually pledged their obedience. 
 
 The words of this first constitution, made and adopted 
 by an entire people, plainly indicate whence its principles 
 were derived. They say, " In the name of God, amen : 
 we whose names are underwritten, having undertaken for 
 the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith, 
 a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of 
 Virginia, do solemnly and mutually in the presence of God, 
 and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together 
 into a body politic ; and by virtue hereof, to enact such 
 just and equal laws from time to time, as shall be thought 
 most convenient for the good of the colony. Unto which 
 we promise all due submission and obedience." Thus the 
 principle of popular liberty, that laws and constitutions 
 should be framed for the benefit of the entire people, found 
 its utterance in the cabin of the May-Flower, by the act 
 of the people themselves. 
 
 John Carver was elected governor for one year. Miles 
 Standish, who had been an officer in the army sent by 
 Queen Elizabeth to aid the Dutch against the Spaniards, 
 was chosen captain. Winter was coming on — they were 
 anxious to land, but unfortunately the shallop needed 
 repairs. In the mean time Standish, Bradford, and others, 
 impatient of delay, went to seek a convenient harbor, and 
 a suitable place for a settlement. The country was covered 
 with snow ; in one place they found some baskets of corn, 
 and in another an Indian burial-ground. 
 
 In a fortnight the shallop was ready for use, and the 
 governor, Winslow, Bradford, and Standish, with others 
 and some seamen, went to explore the bay. The cold was 
 intense, freezing the spray of the sea on their clothes, until, 
 as they expressed it, they were made as hard as iron. They 
 landed occasionally, found graves and a few deserted wig- 
 
100 HISTOET OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 CHAP, warns, but no other evidence of human beings. On one gj 
 
 these occasions they encamped at night on the shore neat 
 
 1620. where the shallop was moored. The next morning as they 
 were closing their devotions, they were startled by a strange 
 cr y — the war-whoop of the savage — it was accompanied by 
 a flight of arrows. At the report of their guns the Indians 
 fled. All that day was spent in seeking a safe harbor for 
 the ship. Near night a violent storm of rain and snow 
 drove them through the breakers into a cove, protected 
 from the blast by a hill. In the midst of the tempest they 
 landed, and with difficulty kindled a fire. In the morning 
 they found they were on an island at the entrance of a 
 harbor. The next day was the Sabbath ; though urged by 
 every consideration to hasten to the ship, they religiously 
 observed the day. 
 
 On the morrow, December twenty-second, one thousand 
 Dec. six hundred and twenty — a day ever to be remembered in 
 22 - the annals of our country, the Pilgrims landed. The 
 place they named after the town in England from 
 which they last sailed. The blessings which have flowed 
 from the settlement of New England are associated with 
 the spot where they first set foot— the Rock of Plym- 
 outh. 
 
 No time was spent in idleness. A place was selected 
 for the settlement, and divided into lots for families. On 
 the third day they began to build ; their houses went up 
 but slowly ; the forest trees must first be felled and split 
 into timbers ; the season was inclement — their strength 
 failed them : many from exposure had received into their 
 bodies the seeds of death ; many were sick, and many died. 
 At one time there were only seven of the whole company 
 not disabled by sickness. During the winter, more than 
 forty were numbered with the dead; among these were the 
 wives of Bradford and Winslow, and also Rose, the young 
 bride of Miles Standish. The benevolent Carver lost hi? 
 son — then he himself sunk in death, soon to be followed 
 
PRIVATIONS AND HEROISM. 101 
 
 Dy his broken-hearted widow. They were all buried but chap 
 
 a short distance from the rock on which they had landed. 
 
 Lest the many graves should tell the Indians the story of 1621. 
 weakness and of death, the spot where they rested was j?* 
 levelled and sown with grass. At length spring drew near, 
 and warm winds from the south moderated the cold. The 
 trees began to put forth their foliage, and among their 
 branches the "birds to sing pleasantly," while the sick 
 were gradually recovering. 
 
 When the May-Flower left for England, not one of 
 these heroic men and women desired to leave the land of 
 their adoption. They had now a government ; they had a 
 church covenant ; they had a constitution under which 
 their rights were secured, and each one according to his 
 individual merit could be respected and honored. So dear 
 to them were these privileges, that all the privations they 
 had suffered, the sickness and death which had been in 
 their midst, the gloomy prospect before them, could not 
 induce them to swerve from their determination to found a 
 State, where these blessings should be the birth-right of 
 their children. 
 
 Famine pressed hard Upon them, for in the autumn Noi 
 they were joined by some new emigrants, who had come 
 ill-provisioned ; and for the succeeding six months they 
 had only half a supply. " I have seen men," says Wins- 
 low, " stagger by reason of faintness for want of food/' 
 Their privations for two or three years were greater than 
 those of any colony planted in the country. But their 
 implicit confidence in the goodness of God was never 
 shaken. At times Indians were seen hovering around theii 
 settlement, but no communication had been held with 
 them, as they fled when approached. One day, to their 
 surprise, an Indian boldly entered their village, crying out, 
 welcome Englishmen ! welcome Englishmen ! It was 
 Samoset. He belonged to the Wampanoags, a tribe living 
 
 10. 
 
102 HISTOKY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 jhap in the vicinity. He had learned a few English words fron: 
 
 mmmm the fishermen on the Penobscot. 
 
 1621. Samoset, in the name of his tribe, told the Pilgrims 
 
 to possess the land, for the year before those to whom it 
 belonged had been swept away by a pestilence. This an- 
 nouncement was a great relief to their fears. Sarnoset 
 soon again appeared, and with him Squanto, who, as has 
 been mentioned, had been kidnapped and sold into slavery 
 in Spain, had been freed, found his way to England, and 
 finally home. They announced that Massasoit, the grand 
 sachem of the Wampanoags, desired an interview. The 
 chief and his retinue of warriors had taken their position 
 on a neighboring hill. Squanto acted as interpreter. A 
 treaty of friendship was made between the chief and the 
 English, by which they promised to defend each other 
 when attacked by enemies. Eor more than fifty years, till 
 King Philip's war, this treaty was observed. The Pil- 
 grims offered to pay for the baskets of corn they had 
 found buried ; this they did six months afterward when 
 the owners appeared. A trade, very beneficial to the 
 colony, commenced with the Indians, who promised to sell 
 them all their furs. 
 
 Why not remember the humble services of Squanto? 
 The Pilgrims looked upon him as " a special instrument 
 sent of God for their good beyond their expectation/' He 
 taught them how to plant corn, to put fish with it to make 
 it grow, where to find the fish and how to take them. He 
 was their interpreter and their pilot. Under his tuition 
 they soon raised corn so abundantly as to have a surplus tc 
 exchange with the Indians for furs. By means of these 
 furs they obtained from England the merchandise they 
 wanted. He remained their friend till his death, and when 
 dying asked the governor to pray that he might go tc 
 the " Englishman's God in heaven." 
 
 Massasoit desired the alliance with the Pilgrims as a 
 protection against Canonicus, the chief of the powerful 
 
N weston's men." 103 
 
 Narragansetts, who lived on the shores of the beautiful bay CHAP. 
 which bears their name. Canonicus was not, however, to , 
 
 be deterred from exhibiting his hostility. As a challenge 1622, 
 he sent to Plymouth some arrows wrapped in the skin of 
 a rattlesnake. Bradford, who was now governor, sent 
 back the same skin filled with powder and shot. The In- 
 dians looked upon it as containing a deadly influence, to 
 be exerted against the enemies of the English. In terror 
 they sent it from tribe to tribe, none of whom dared either 
 keep or destroy it. Finally, the skin and its contents 
 were returned to the colony. Canonicus himself, in a 
 short time, desired an alliance of peace ; evidently more 
 from fear than from good-will. 
 
 In trade the Pilgrims took no advantage of the igno- 
 rance of the Indians. They became involved in difficul- 
 ties with them, however, through the improper conduct 
 of others. 
 
 Thomas Weston, a merchant of London, who had in- 
 vested money in the enterprise of founding the Plymouth 
 Colony, now wished to engross the entire profits of the fur 
 trade with the Indians. He obtained a patent for a small 
 district, near Weymouth, on Boston harbor, and sent over 
 about sixty men, chiefly indented servants. These men 
 ill treated the Indians, stole their corn, and thus excited 
 their hostility. The savage seeks redress by murdering 
 those who do him wrong. The Indians did not distinguish 
 between the honesty and good-will of the Pilgrims, and 
 the dishonesty and evil acts of " Weston's men ;" they 
 plotted to involve all the white strangers in one common 
 ruin. Massasoit was dangerously sick ; Winslow kindly 
 visited him ; turned out of the wigwam the Indian doctors, 
 who were making a great noise to drive off the disease, and 
 relieved the chief by giving him medicine and quiet. The 
 grateful Massasoit revealed the plot. The people were 
 greatly alarmed ; they had heard of a terrible massacre in 
 Virginia, and they feared such would be their own expe- 
 
104 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, rience. Not a moment was to be lost ; they must act id 
 
 1_ self-defence. Captain Standish hastened with eight men 
 
 1628. to the assistance of those at Weymouth. He arrived in 
 2? r * time not only to prevent the attack, but to surprise the 
 Indians themselves. In the conflict, the principal plotting 
 chief and some of his men were killed. This exploit 
 taught the Indians to respect the English ; many of the 
 neighboring chiefs now sought peace and alliance. When 
 the good pastor, Mr. Eobinson, heard of this conflict, he 
 exclaimed, " Oh that they had converted some before they 
 killed any ! " One year saw the beginning and the end of 
 this trading establishment at Weymouth. Apprehension 
 of danger from the natives was now removed. 
 Since As " Thanksgiving " has now become a national festival, 
 
 the manner in which it was first instituted has a peculiar 
 interest. In the autumn of 1623, after the fruits of the 
 harvest were gathered in, Governor Bradford sent out a 
 company for game, to furnish dainty materials for a feast 
 God had blessed their labors, and this was to be a feast of 
 thanks- giving. " So they met together and thanked 
 God with all their hearts, for the good world and the good 
 things in it." 
 
 The merchant partners in England complained of the 
 small profits derived from their investments. They began 
 to neglect the interests of the colony, and to manifest their 
 displeasure in various ways. They would not permit 
 Robinson and his family, with the remainder of the church 
 at Leyden, to join their friends at Plymouth. They sold 
 the colonists goods at enormous prices, and sent a ship tc 
 rival them in their limited fur trade. They outraged their 
 feelings by attempting to force upon them one Lyford, a 
 clergyman friendly to the Established Church. Lyford was 
 expelled from Plymouth, not on account of his religious 
 views, but, according to Bradford, for conduct injurious tc 
 the colony and immorality. 
 
 In time industry and frugality triumphed ; the Pil- 
 
DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. 105 
 
 grinis in five or six years were able to purchase the entire chap 
 
 stock of those who were annoying them in this ungenerous mm 
 
 manner. The stock and the land were equitably divided, Nov. 
 and the arrangement of private property fully carried out, 1627 
 each one becoming the owner of a piece of land. 
 
 Though the Pilgrims had no charter, they formed a 
 government upon the most liberal principles. They had a 
 governor, who was chosen by the people, and whose power 
 was limited by a council of five. For more than eighteen 
 years the whole male population were the legislators. 1640. 
 
 They were the pioneers of religious freedom — the 
 openero of an asylum in the New World, to which th© 
 persecuted for religion's sake, and political opinions, have 
 been flocking from that day to this. Says Governor Brad- 
 ford, in his history of the colony : " Out of small begin- 
 nings great things have been produced, by His hand that 
 made all things out of nothing ; and as one small candle 
 will light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone 
 to many, yea to our whole nation." 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 COLONY OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 JL Company organized. — Settlement of Salem. — The Charter transferred. — 
 Boston and Vicinity settled. — Encouragements. — Disputes.— Roget 
 Williams; his Banishment; he founds Providence. — Discussions re- 
 newed. — Anne Hutchinson. — Settlement of Rhode Island. — The Dutch 
 at Hartford ; Disputes with. — Migrations to the fertile Valley of the Con* 
 necticut ; Hooker and Haynes. — Springfield. — Fort at Saybrooke. — Pe- 
 quods become hostile. — Expeditions against them ; their utter Ruin. — 
 Rev. John Davenport. — Settlement of New Haven. — Sir Ferdinand 
 Gorges. — New Hampshire. — The United Colonies. — The Providence 
 Plantations. — Educated Men. — Harvard College. — The Printing Press.— 
 Common Schools. — Grammar Schools. — Quakers ; Persecution of. — Eliot 
 the Apostle. — The Mayhews. — Progress. 
 
 chap. Persecution raged through the reign of James, and 
 
 threatened to continue through the reign of his son and 
 
 1624. successor, Charles I. 
 
 The various accounts sent to England by the colonists 
 at Plymouth, excited great interest, especially in the 
 minds of the Puritans. They listened to them as to a 
 voice from Heaven, calling upon them to leave their native 
 land, and join their brethren in these ends of the earth. 
 This was not wild enthusiasm, but the calm promptings 
 of -duty. 
 
 Pamphlets were published giving descriptions of the 
 land of promise ; it promised not wealth and ease, but only 
 peace and quietness. There were many who preferred 
 these, with toils and privations in the wilds of America, tc 
 religious persecutions in their own land. 
 
THE SETTLEMENT OF SALEM. 107 
 
 The Kev. Mr. White, of Dorchester, was a controlling chap 
 spirit in the enterprise. He was a Puritan, but not of the L 
 
 Separatists from the Established Church, as were Robin- 1624. 
 son and his congregation. 
 
 The Council of Plymouth had taken the place of the 1620. 
 old Plymouth Company. This council had no worthier 
 object than gain ; it granted the same region to different 
 individuals, and thus laid the foundation for endless dis- 
 putes. It sold to some gentlemen of Dorchester a belt of 
 territory, extending from three miles south of Massachu- 
 setts bay to three miles north of any part of Merrimac 162a 
 river, and, as usual, west to the Pacific. The company 
 prepared to send a colony. The care of the enterprise 
 was intrusted to one of their number, John Endicott, a 
 man of stern character and sterling integrity. He brought 
 with him his family, and about one hundred other per- 
 sons ; they landed at Salem, and there commenced the 
 colony of Massachusetts Bay. Men of wealth and influ- Sept, 
 ence, such as Winthrop, Thomas Dudley, Saltonstall, Bel- 
 lingham, Johnson, Simon Bradstreet, William Codding- 
 ton, and others, who afterward exerted a great influence 
 in the colony, were willing to bear a part in carrying the 
 "pure gospel" to New England. The king looked upon 
 the colony about to be founded more as a trading corpo- 
 ration than as the germ of an independent nation, and he 
 willingly gave them a charter, under which they lived more 
 than fifty years. By the terms of this charter the royal ^far., 
 signature was not necessary to give validity to the laws 162 * 
 made under it. 
 
 Soon another choice company, in which " no idle per- 
 sons were found/' was ready to sail. The good Francis 
 Higgirison accompanied them as their minister. As the 
 shores of England receded from sight, Higginson expressed 
 the feelings of the emigrants ; as from the deck of the ship 
 his eyes turned for the last time to his native land, he 
 exclaimed, " Farewell, England !- -farewell, all Christiap 
 
108 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, friends ! — we separate not from the church, but from its 
 corruptions ; — we go to spread the gospel in America/ 
 
 1629. There were about two hundred in this company ; the ma- 
 e ' jority remained at Salem, the rest went to Charlestown. 
 Privations and exposure brought sickness, and before the 
 end of a year death had laid his hand on more than half 
 their number, among whom was their pastor, Higginson. 
 When the summons came, the dying seemed only to re- 
 gret that they were not permitted to aid their brethren in 
 founding a pure church in the wilderness. 
 
 The charter contained no provision for the rights of 
 ^he people, it left them at the mercy of the corporation ; 
 and as long as that charter remained in England, they 
 could take no part in their own government. It was also 
 silent on the subject of their religious freedom ; at any 
 moment this might be interfered with by the king and his 
 clergy. There was only one way to be freed from such 
 undue interference. By the charter their governing coun- 
 cil could choose the place of meeting for the transaction 
 of business. It was a bold step ; but they chose, here- 
 after, to meet on the soil of the colony. This transfer of 
 the governing council and charter made its government 
 virtually independent. 
 
 The officers were to be a governor, a deputy governor, 
 and eighteen assistants. These were elected before leav- 
 1680. ing England. John Winthrop was chosen governor, and 
 Thomas Dudley deputy governor. A fleet of seventeen 
 ships set sail with the officers elect, and fifteen hundred 
 emigrants ; they arrived in June and July. Their arrival 
 was opportune, for those who had preceded them were in 
 great distress from sickness and scarcity of food. 
 
 Settlements were now made at various places around 
 the bay; Charlestown, Newtown, Dorchester, Watertown, 
 A fine spring of pure water, on the peninsula called Shaw- 
 mut, induced the governor and some other persons to settle 
 there. The position was central, and it became the capital, 
 
ENCOURAGEMENTS. 
 
 109 
 
 under the name of Boston. The change of climate and chap 
 
 l o^ 
 
 mode of living brought disease upon great numbers ; yet 
 they looked upon their sorrows as so many trials, designed 1680. 
 to make them appreciate still more the blessings which 
 the future had in store for them. As they hoped, these 
 evils gradually passed away, and prosperity smiled. 
 
 At first, the assistants could hold office for life, and 
 in addition it was their privilege to elect the governor. 
 The people became jealous of their liberties ; the dispute 
 was compromised by their electing their magistrates annu- 
 ally. They were to be chosen by the freemen of the 1634 
 colony, of whom no one who was not a church membef 
 could have a vote. This law was injudicious, though 
 enacted with the best intentions. They wished a govern- 
 ment based on purely religious principles, and they thought 
 to secure such a government by allowing none but the 
 religious to take part in it. Another change was made 
 from the purely democratic form, when all the freemen 
 met in convention and voted on the laws, to that of the 
 republican, when the people elected deputies, who were au- 
 thorized to legislate and transact the affairs of the colony. 
 
 The colonists dealt honestly with the Indians and en- 
 deavored to preserve their good will. They " were to 
 buy their lands, and not to intrude upon, and in no respect 
 injure them ;" they also " hoped to send the gospel to the 
 poor natives." Many of the neighboring chiefs desired 
 their friendship. One came from the distant river Con- 
 necticut ; he extolled its fertile valleys and blooming 
 meadows ; he offered them land near him, because he 
 wished their protection against the brave and fiery 
 Pequods. Fraternal and Christian intercourse was held 
 from time to time with the old colony of Plymouth ; as a 
 harbinger of the future, there came from Virginia a vessel 
 laden with corn ; and the Dutch, who some years before 
 had settled at Manhattan, visited them with kindly greet- 
 ings. Thus dawned a brighter day. 
 
110 HISTOKY OF THE AMEBIC AN" PEOPLE. 
 
 chap. During this year more than three thousand persons 
 
 came from England, many of whom were men of influence, 
 
 1035. wealth, and education. Prominent among these was Hugh 
 Peters, an eloquent clergyman, and Harry Vane, a young 
 man of much promise, the son and heir of a privy- council- 
 lor — a fact of some importance in the eyes of the people. 
 V*ane, however, was a true Kepuhlican. The people the 
 next year unwisely elected him governor, in place of the 
 dignified and benevolent Winthrop. 
 
 The Puritans had experienced all the evils of religious 
 intolerance, but unfortunately they had not themselves 
 learned to be lenient. In the colony there was a young 
 clergyman, Koger Williams, a man of ardent temperament, 
 a clear reasoner, and very decided in his opinions. He 
 came in conflict with the magistrates as he advanced sen- 
 timents which they deemed subversive of all authority, — 
 such as that obedience to the magistrate should not be en- 
 forced — that the oath of allegiance should not be required : 
 he also denounced the law that compelled all persons to 
 attend worship, as an infringement of the rights of con- 
 science ; he said the service of the church should be sup- 
 ported by its members, and not by a tax upon all the peo- 
 ple. His principles were in advance of the age in which 
 he lived : one hundred and forty years after this time they 
 were fully carried out. He contended that the charter 
 from the king was invalid ; the Indians were the original 
 proprietors. The people repelled the aspersion as unjust, 
 because they had purchased their lands from the Indians, 
 and acknowledged their rights by making treaties with 
 them. The contest waxed warm. Williams accepted an 
 invitation to Salem : the people of that place were admon- 
 Oct., ishedf by the General Court to beware, lest they should 
 encourage sedition. Upon this he retired to Plymouth, — 
 there for two years he maintained his opinions unmo- 
 lested. The people of the old colony had learned the les- 
 son of toleration in theii exile in Holland. 
 
Cp'-V/?rvyAk\ dot/. 
 
WILLIAMS A WANDERER. Ill 
 
 Williams was again invited to Salem, in open defiance chap 
 
 of the authority of the General Court, the governing power 
 
 of the colony. A committee of ministers held conferences 1685, 
 and discussions with him, but without inducing him to 
 retract. As the people of Salem sustained him, the Court 
 admonished them, and pronounced the sentence of banish- 
 ment against Williams. It was not the expression of 
 opinions on the subject of conscience, or " soul-oppression," 
 as he termed it, that alarmed the Court, but the expression 
 of opinions which, if carried into effect, would, they affirmed, 
 destroy all human government. 
 
 In midwinter, Williams became a wanderer for con- 
 science' sake. He went to the sons of the forest for that 
 protection denied him by his Christian brethren. For four- 
 teen weeks he wandered ; sometimes he received the simple 
 hospitality of the natives ; sometimes his lodging-place was 
 a hollow-tree. At last he was received into the cabin of 
 Massasoit, at Mount Hope. He was the Indians' friend, 
 and they loved him. He thought of settling at Seekonk, 
 on Pawtucket river; that place being within the bounds of 
 the Plymouth colony, Winslow, the governor, advised him 
 to remove beyond their limits, lest it should create diffi- 
 culty with the Bay colony. Williams received this advice 
 in the spirit in which it was given, and removed to the 
 country of the Narragansets. With five companions in a 
 canoe, he went round to the west side of the arm of the 
 bay. Landing at a beautiful spot, he found a spring of 
 pure water. He resolved there to make a settlement. In 
 thankfulness he called the place Providejsxle. Tradition w ^ 
 at this day points out the spring near which he built his 
 cabin. Canonicus, the chief of the Narragansets, would 
 not sell his land, but gave him a little domain " to enjoy 
 forever." 
 
 Williams here put in practice his theory of government 
 The land was given to him, and he distributed it to his 
 followers. Tt was purely a government of the people. All 
 
112 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 ;hap. 
 
 XI. 
 
 promised to obey the voice of the majority in temporal 
 things : in things spiritual, to obey only Grod. 
 
 1637. Discussions were still rife in Massachusetts on all sub- 
 
 jects. The men held meetings, in which they discussed 
 matters pertaining to their liberties ; edified each other 
 with expositions of passages of Scripture, and criticized the 
 weekly sermons of their ministers. As women were not 
 allowed to speak in these meetings, Mrs. Anne Hutchin- 
 son, a woman of great eloquence and talent, thought the 
 rights of her sex were not properly respected ; she there- 
 fore held meetings for their benefit at her own house. At 
 these meetings, theological opinions were advocated, at 
 variance with those of the ministers and magistrates. The 
 people became divided into two parties, and the affair soon 
 took a political turn : on the one side were arrayed Win- 
 throp and the older settlers, and with few exceptions, the 
 ministers : on the other, Governor Vane and the adherents 
 of Mrs. Hutchinson. She and her party were accustomed 
 to speak of themselves as "being under a covenant of 
 grace/' and of their opponents as " being under a covenant 
 of works." These indefinite phrases irritated her opponents 
 exceedingly. They proclaimed her a despiser of all spirit- 
 ual authority ; " like Koger Williams, or worse ;" and 
 darkly insinuated that she was a witch. The friends of 
 Mrs. Hutchinson spoke of appealing to the king; this was 
 downright treason in the eyes of their opponents, — their 
 allegiance was given to the government of the colony, not 
 to the king. A convention of ministers was held, they 
 investigated her doctrines, and declared them unsound and 
 injurious. At the ensuing election, Winthrop was chosen 
 governor; and soon after Vane left for England. Mrs. 
 Hutchinson and her followers were admonished, but with- 
 out effect ; she, with her brother-in-law John Wheelwright, 
 
 1688 and others, were exiled from the colony. How much wiser 
 it wo-ild have been had the magistrates permitted her to 
 
THE DUTCH AT HARTFORD. 113 
 
 exercise her " gift of discussing/' eveii if she did say they ^haf 
 
 were " under a covenant of works !" 
 
 Roger Williams invited the exiles to settle in his viein- 1638 
 ity. By his influence they obtained from Miantonomoh, 
 the nephew and prospective successor of Canonicus, a 
 beautiful island, which they named the Isle of Rhodes. 
 Here this little company of not more than twenty persons, 
 formed a settlement. William Coddington, who had been 
 a magistrate in the Bay Colony, was elected judge or ruler. 
 They, too, covenanted with each other to obey the laws 
 made by the majority, and to respect the rights of con- Oct 
 science. Mrs. Hutchinson and her family remained here 
 several years, and then removed farther west beyond New 
 Haven, into the territory of the Dutch ; there she and all 
 her family who were with her, with the exception of one 
 daughter, who was taken captive, were murdered by the 
 Indians. 1648. 
 
 The Dutch from Manhattan explored the Connecticut 161 ^ 
 river six years before the landing of the Pilgrims at 
 Plymouth. They erected a fortified trading-house near 
 where Hartford now stands, but by ill-treating the In- 
 dians they excited their hostility, and lost a trade that 
 might have been valuable. 
 
 Unable to occupy the territory, and unwilling to lose 
 its advantages, they invited the Pilgrims to leave the 1627. 
 sterile soil of Plymouth and remove to the fertile vales of 
 the Connecticut, and live under their protection. The 
 invitation was not accepted ; but as the Pilgrims were 
 convinced that a change to more fertile lands was desira- 
 ble, Governor Winslow went on an exploring tour to that 
 region ; having found the soil as fertile as had been repre- ] 632. 
 sented he promoted emigration. 
 
 The Council of Plymouth had given a grant of Corinec- 1 630. 
 ticut to the Earl of Warwick, who the next year trans- 
 ferred his claim or patent to Lords Say and Brooke, John 
 
114 HISTOEY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap. Hampden, and others. The eastern boundary of this grant 
 
 was the Narraganset river, and the western the Pacific 
 
 ifi33. ocean. When the Dutch learned of this grant, they pur- 
 chased of the Indians the tract of land in the vicinity of 
 Hartford, on which stood their trading-house, and pre- 
 pared to defend their rights ; they erected a fort and 
 mounted two cannons, to prevent the English from ascend- 
 ing the river. In the latter part of the year Captain 
 William Holmes, who was sent by Governor Winslow, 
 arrived in a sloop, with a company, and prepared to make a 
 settlement. The Dutch commandant threatened him with 
 destruction if he should attempt to pass his fort. The 
 undaunted Holmes passed by uninjured, and put up a 
 fortified house at Windsor. He was not permitted to en- 
 joy his place in peace ; the next year the Dutch made an 
 effort to drive him away, but not succeeding they compro- 
 mised the matter by relinquishing all claim to the valley. 
 The parties agreed upon a dividing line, very nearly the 
 same as that existing at this day between the States of 
 New York and Connecticut. As the natural meadows on 
 the Connecticut would furnish much more grass and hay 
 for their cattle than the region nearer the sea-shore, many 
 of the Pilgrims determined to remove thither. 
 1685. The following autumn, a party of sixty persons, men, 
 
 women, and children, undertook the desperate work of 
 going through the woods and swamps from Plymouth to 
 Connecticut. The journey was laborious and the suffer- 
 ing great. When they arrived at the river the ground 
 was covered with snow, the precursor of an unusually severe 
 Nov. winter. A sloop from Plymouth, laden with provisions 
 and their household furniture, failed to reach them on 
 account of storms and ice. Their cattle all perished ; a 
 little corn obtained from the Indians, and acorns, were their 
 only food ; they barely escaped starvation. 
 
 During this year three thousand persons came to Bos- 
 ton from England. Among these was the Kevereud 
 
JOURNEY THROUGH THE WILDERNESS. 115 
 
 Thomas Hooker, who has been called " The Light of the chap 
 
 Western Churches." He was a man of great eloquence, , 
 
 and of humble piety ; his talents, of a high order, com- 1635 
 manded universal respect, while his modesty won him 
 ardent friends. When he was silenced for non-conformity 
 in England, great numbers of the clergy of the Established 
 Church petitioned that he might be restored. But in 
 those days to be a Non-Conformist was an unpardonable 
 offence. 
 
 A portion of his congregation had emigrated the year 
 before. When he arrived at Boston with the remainder 
 of his flock, the colony was in a ferment — the Williams 
 controversy was going on ; his people were wearied with 
 the turmoil. John Haynes, who was a member of his 
 congregation in England, and who had been Governor of 
 Massachusetts, determined, with others, to remove to Con- 
 necticut. In the spring, a company, under the lead of Mar. 
 Hooker and Haynes, set out from the vicinity of Boston 163fi 
 for the pleasant valley. They numbered about one hun- 
 dred persons, some of whom had been accustomed to the 
 luxuries of life in England. With no guide but a com- 
 pass they entered the untrodden wilderness ; toiled on foot 
 over hills and valleys ; waded through swamps and forded 
 streams. They subsisted principally on the milk of the 
 kine that they drove before them, and which browsed on 
 the tender leaves and grass. They moved but slowly. 
 Their sick they carried on litters. The trustful spirit of 
 piety and faith was present, and the silence of the forest 
 was broken for the first time by Christian songs of 
 praise. The man whose eloquence in his native land at- 
 tracted crowds of the educated and refined, now, in the 
 wilderness, comforted and cherished the humble exiles for re- 
 ligion's sake. The first of July brought an end to their la- 
 borious journey. The greater part of the company remained 
 at Hartford . some went up the river and founded Spring- 
 field ; some went down and joined those at WethersfielcL 
 
HISTORY OF THE AMERICA^ PEOPLE. 
 
 C xt P ' John Winthrop, the younger, who had been sent te 
 
 L_ England on business for the colony, returned as agent for 
 
 1636. Lords Say and Brooke. He was directed to build a fort 
 at the mouth of the Connecticut river ; it was named 
 1685. Saybrooke. 
 
 These settlements were now threatened with destruc- 
 tion. The valley of the river and the region adjoining 
 were more densely populated with Indians than any por- 
 tion of New England. The powerful Pequods, the most 
 warlike tribe in the country, numbered almost two thou- 
 sand warriors, and ruled over a number of smaller tribes ; 
 they inhabited the south-eastern part of Connecticut, 
 and the shore of Long Island Sound to the mouth of 
 Connecticut river, and west almost to the Hudson. 
 The Mohegans, who dwelt in the north-eastern part of 
 Connecticut, and the Narragansets, who lived around 
 Narraganset bay, were the enemies of the Pequods and 
 the friends of the English. The Pequods were jealous of 
 1686 the English, not merely because they had settled near 
 them, but because they were friendly to their enemies. 
 These Pequods were charged with murdering, some years 
 before, a Virginia trader, named Stone, with his crew, on 
 the Connecticut river. Stone had the reputation of being 
 intemperate and quarrelsome ; the Pequods said that he 
 had attacked them and they killed him in self-defence. 
 Captain Oldham, who was exploring the Connecticut, was 
 murdered, with his crew, by the Indians living on Block 
 Island. Captain John Endicott was sent to punish the 
 murderers. Previous to this the Pequods had sent chiefs 
 to Boston to make an alliance, and explain the difficulty 
 in relation to the Virginia trader. They promised to de- 
 liver up— so the magistrates understood them — the two 
 men who had killed him. Endicott was ordered to call, 
 on his way home from Block Island, at the Pequod town, 
 and demand the promised satisfaction. The Indians, ac- 
 cording to their custom, offered a ransom for the two men, 
 
THE PEQUOD WAR. 117 
 
 but refused to give them up to certain death. Endicott chap 
 
 had no respect for their customs ; he must have blood for 
 
 blood. Angry at their refusal, he burned two of their vil- 1636 
 lages and destroyed their corn. It was after this that the 
 Pequods began to prowl about the settlements, and pick 
 off stragglers, until they had, during the winter, killed 
 more than thirty persons. 
 
 The people in the Connecticut valley were in great 
 alarm ; they knew not at what moment nor at what point 
 the storm would burst. They called upon Massachusetts 
 for aid ; only twenty men were sent under Captain Un- 
 derbill. The whole community were so much absorbed in 
 discussing theological questions with Mrs. Hutchinson that 
 every other consideration was overlooked. 
 
 Although the Pequods were more warlike and more 
 numerous than any other tribe, they were not willing to 
 enter upon the war single-handed. They sent a deputa- 
 tion to Miantonomoh, the chief of the Narragansets, to 
 enlist him against the common enemy. Governor Vane 
 wrote to Koger Williams, urging him, if possible, to pre- 
 vent the alliance. Williams hastened to visit Miantono- 
 moh ; he found the Pequod chiefs already there, urging 
 their ancient enemy to join them and exterminate the 
 white intruders — the Narragansets were wavering. At the 
 risk of his life, Williams labored for three days to prevent 
 these tribes uniting their forces against the colonists. The 
 disappointed and angry Pequods threatened him with 
 death. He not only prevented the alliance, but obtained 
 the promise of the Narragansets to aid the English. Oct 
 Meantime, he sent a messenger to Boston to warn them of 
 ;he impending danger. 
 
 At length the infant settlements of Connecticut in ^ ay 
 convention at Hartford declared war against the Pequods. 10, 
 The little army of not more than eighty men, including 
 those sent from Massachusetts, assembled at Hartford : 
 <-,he pious Hooker exhorted them, and gave the staff of com- 
 
21 
 
 26. 
 
 118 HISTORY OE THE AMERICAN" PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, mand to Captain John Mason, who had been a soldier in 
 
 '_ the Netherlands. At the request of the soldiers, part of 
 
 1637. the night preceding the day they were to march was spent 
 in prayer. Stone, one of their ministers, accompanied 
 them as chaplain. They floated down the river, and sailed 
 round the coast to Narraganset bay, intending to go across 
 the country, and attack the Pequods in their fort. As the 
 latter had a very exalted opinion of their own prowess, they 
 supposed the English were making their escape, when they 
 saw them sailing past the mouth of the Pequod, now the 
 Thames river. The English landed at a harbor in the 
 bay, and religiously observed the Sabbath. On the follow- 
 May ing day they repaired to Canonicus, the old Narraganset 
 chief, but his nephew Miantonomoh hesitated to join them; 
 their numbers were so small, and the Pequods so numer- 
 ous. Two hundred warriors, however, consented to accom- 
 pany them, but as rather doubtful friends — and about 
 seventy Mohegans joined them under their chief Uncas. 
 
 Sassacus, the bold chief of the Pequods, was too confi- 
 dent in the strength of his two forts, and in the bravery of 
 his warriors to be cautious. His main fort, on the top of a 
 high hill, was defended by posts driven in the ground, and 
 deemed by him impregnable. He was yet to experience 
 an attack from the English. In the night Mason, guided 
 by an Indian deserter, approached the main fort, and halted 
 within hearing of the triumphant shouts of the Pe- 
 quods, as they exulted over his supposed flight. Toward 
 the break of day the English moved to the attack, while 
 their Indian allies took a position to surround the fort. 
 May The coming struggle was one of life or death to all that 
 was dear to the little army: if they were defeated, all 
 hope t would be lost for their families on the Connecticut. 
 The barking of a dog awoke the Indian sentinel ; he 
 rushed into the fort with the cry, The English ! the English 1 
 In a moment more, the English were through the pali- 
 sades, and fighting hand to hand with the half awakened 
 
MASSACRE OF THE PEQUODS. 119 
 
 warriors. Their numbers were overwhelming. ■* We must chap 
 
 burn them," shouted Mason, as he applied a torch to the 
 
 dry reeds which covered a wigwam — the flames spread with 1637. 
 great rapidity. All was in confusion — as the despairing 
 warriors vainly endeavored to extinguish the flames they 
 became targets for the English marksmen. The Narra- 
 gansets and Mohegans now joined in the conflict. More 
 than six hundred of the Pequods perished, men, women, 
 and children in one common ruin, merciless and unrelent- 
 ing : only seven escaped. In an hour's time the work was 
 done ; just then appeared the warriors, three hundred 
 strong, from the other fort. They came forth expecting 
 victory. When they perceived the ruin which had come 
 upon their friends, they raved and stamped the ground in 
 despair. Mason with a chosen band held them in check, 
 till the remainder of the army had embarked on the boats, 
 which had come round from Narraganset Bay. Then 
 they hastened home, lest there should be a sudden attack 
 upon the settlements. 
 
 In a few days Captain Stoughton arrived from Massa- June 
 chusetts with one hundred men. The spirit of the Pequods 
 was broken; they fled to the west, and were pursued with 
 untiring energy. Their villages were burnt — their corn- 
 fields destroyed — their women and children slain without 
 mercy. They took refuge in a swamp, and in desperation 
 once more made a stand : again they were overwhelmed 
 with great slaughter. Sassacus, their chief, escaped with a Aug 
 few followers, and made his way to the Mohawks, where 
 he was afterward basely murdered by one of his own sub- 
 jects. The remainder, old and young, surrendered to the 
 victors, who disposed of them : some they gave as captives 
 of war to their enemies, the Narragansets and Mohegans; 
 and some they sent to the West Indies to be sold as slaves. 
 Their territory was declared to be conquered, and their 
 name to be blotted out. They were the foremost in that 
 mournful procession in which the Indian race, from that 
 
120 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, day to this, have been moving on toward utter extermina- 
 tion. This terrible example of the white man's powei 
 
 1687. sent a thrill of horror through the other tribes ; and for 
 more than forty years, they dared not raise an arm in de- 
 fence of the graves of their fathers. 
 
 1 638. The year following, John Davenport, a celebrated cler- 
 
 gyman of London, arrived at Boston — with him came his 
 friend Theophilus Eaton, a rich merchant. They and their 
 associates had been exiled. They were cordially welcomed 
 in Massachusetts, and urgently pressed to remain in that 
 colony. They preferred to go into the wilderness rather 
 than dwell in the midst of so much controversy. Kumor 
 had told of the fine region found to the west by the pursu- 
 ers of the Pequods. Eaton, with a few men, after explor- 
 ing the coast of the Sound, spent the following winter at a 
 desirable place in that region. As soon as spring opened, 
 the company sailed from Boston ; in due time they arrived 
 at the place where Eaton had spent the winter ; there, 
 under a large tree, on the Sabbath after their arrival, 
 
 April. Davenport preached his first sermon in the wilderness. A 
 day of fasting and prayer for direction was observed, and 
 then they formed a government, pledging themselves " to 
 be governed in all things by the rules which the Scriptures 
 held forth to them." Such was the settlement of New 
 Haven, and thus was it to be governed. They purchased 
 from the Indians the right to the land — Eaton was elected 
 governor ; and to the end of his life, for more than twenty 
 years, he was annually chosen to that office. 
 
 After the war with the Pequods was ended, the people 
 of the several settlements on the Connecticut held a con- 
 vention at Hartford, and adopted a constitution and form 
 
 1639. of government. The constitution was framed on liberal 
 principles. They agreed to " maintain the purity of the 
 gospel," and in civil affairs to be governed by the laws 
 made under their constitution. No jurisdiction was admit- 
 ted to belong to the King of England. Every one whc 
 
THE SPERIT OF THE COLONISTS. 121 
 
 took the oath of allegiance to the commonwealth was enti- c ^ p 
 
 tied to vote. The governor and the other officers were to 
 
 be chosen annually by ballot. The number of their repre- 1639. 
 sentatives to the General Assembly was to be apportioned 
 to the towns, according to the number of inhabitants. For 
 one hundred and fifty years this constitution remained in 
 force. 
 
 Sir Ferdinand Gorges and John Mason obtained, from 
 their associates of the Council of Plymouth, a grant of 
 'and, lying partly in New Hampshire and partly in Maine. 1622 
 This was named Laconia. A small number of emigrants 
 were sent over, who settled at Portsmouth, Dover, and a 
 few other places near the mouth of the Piscataqua. Wheel- 
 wright, when banished from Massachusetts, settled with 
 his fellow-exiles at Exeter. These settlements progressed 
 very slowly. Only a few trading houses were scattered 
 along the coast, and for many years they took no more 
 permanent form. These settlers were not all Puritans, 
 and were but little united among themselves ; yet, they 
 applied and were annexed to the colony of Massachusetts. 1541 
 The General Court agreed not to insist that the freemen 
 and deputies should be church members. 
 
 In all their troubles the colonists of New England had 1639 
 never appealed to the mother country. They felt under 
 no obligation to her ; she had driven them forth with a 
 harsh hand to take care of themselves, or to perish in the 
 wilderness. A spirit of independence pervaded their 
 minds. They had the energy and industry to sustain 
 themselves, and the courage to act in every emergency. 
 
 Kumors had reached them that unprincipled men 
 were planning to take away their charter ; that Arch- 
 bishop Laud was meditating to establish over them the 
 rule of the Church of England ; that a governor-general 
 had been appointed, and was on his way. 
 
 They would not recognize the right of the king even 
 
122 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, to investigate by what authority they held their charter, 
 1_ lest it might be inferred that they were in any respect de- 
 
 1639. pendent upon his will. For the same reason, when the 
 Long Parliament professed to be their friend, they respect- 
 fully declined any favors. When they feared an attempt 
 to place over them a royal governor, and to change their 
 colony into a royal province, they determined to defend 
 their liberties, and poor as they were, raised six hundred 
 pounds for fortifications. 
 
 1640. Twenty thousand emigrants were in New England, 
 when the Puritans of the mother country, galled beyond 
 endurance by the outrages committed on their rights and 
 persons, commenced that fearful struggle, which, in its 
 throes, overturned the throne, and brought the tyrannical 
 Charles I. to the scaffold, and established the Common- 
 wealth under Cromwell. During this period emigration 
 almost entirely ceased. Many hastened home to England 
 to engage in the conflict, among whom were the Eev. Hugh 
 Peters and Harry Vane. They both perished on the 
 scaffold after the Kestoration. 
 
 The colonists, though unmolested by the home gov- 
 ernment, were still surrounded with dangers. They were 
 in the midst of hostile Indians ; the French were threat- 
 ening them in the North-Eastr, and the Dutch in the West. 
 For mutual safety and interest, Plymouth, Massachusetts, 
 Connecticut, and New Haven, joined themselves together, 
 1648. under the title of " The United Colonies of New Eng- 
 land." Each was to be perfectly free in the management 
 of its own affairs ; while those which properly belonged to 
 the whole confederacy were to be intrusted to commis- 
 sioners — two from each colony. Church-membership was 
 the only qualification required of these commissioners. 
 The expenses of the government were to be assessed ac- 
 cording to the number of inhabitants. The purity of the 
 gospel was also to be preserved. This confederacy, the 
 germ of " The United States of America," lasted fortv 
 
THE COLLEGE AND THE PBESS. 
 
 123 
 
 years. Rhode Island was not permitted to join it because chap 
 
 she would not acknowledge the jurisdiction of Plymouth. 
 
 The two settlements on Narraganset bay now determined 1643 
 to apply for an independent charter. When, for this pur- 
 pose, Roger Williams arrived in England, he found the 
 country engaged in civil war ; the Puritans and Parlia- 
 ment on the one side and Charles I. on the other. Wil- 
 liams applied to his friend Harry Vane, and through his 
 influence obtained from the Parliament a charter, under 
 the title of " The Providence Plantations." Roger Wil- 
 liams afterwards became a Baptist, and founded the first 1544 
 church of that denomination in the United States. 
 
 A very great number of men of education, ministers 
 and laymen, emigrated to New England. There were of 
 ministers alone more than eighty, some of whom were equal 
 to any of their profession in their native land. There was 
 an unusual amount of general intelligence among all classes 
 of the community. The Bible to them was as familiar 
 as household words. In truth, it was the intelligent alone 
 who could appreciate the blessings for which they exiled 
 themselves. They wished to secure for their children the 
 benefits of education ; and as soon as possible an effort 
 was made to found a high school and ultimately a col- 
 lege. Funds, with some books, were obtained. The place 
 selected was Newtown, but as many of the men had been 
 educated at Cambridge University, England, the name was 
 changed to Cambridge. The Reverend John Harvard left 
 the infant institution half his fortune and his library. 
 Gratitude has embalmed his memory in its name. 163& 
 
 The next year a printing-press, the gift of some friends 1039, 
 in Holland, was established. Its first work was to print 
 a metrical version of the Psalms,, which continued for a long 
 time to be used in the worship of the churches in New Eng- 
 land. The following preamble explains the next law on the 
 subject of education : — " It being a chief project of that old 
 deluder Sathan to keep men from the knowledge of the 
 
124 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap. Scriptures/' it was determined that every child, rich and 
 
 1_ poor alike, should have the privilege of learning to read 
 
 1647. its own language. It was enacted that every town 01 
 district having fifty householders should have a common 
 school ; and that every town or district, having one hun- 
 dred families, should have a grammar-school, taught by 
 teachers competent to prepare youth for the college. AH 
 the New England colonies, with the exception of Khode 
 Island, adopted the system of common schools. 
 
 This event deserves more than a mere record. It was 
 the first instance in Christendom, in which a civil 
 government took measures to confer upon its youth the 
 blessings of education. There had been, indeed, parish 
 schools connected with individual churches, and founda- 
 tions for universities, but never before was embodied in 
 practice a principle so comprehensive in its nature and so 
 fruitful in good results, as that of training a nation of in- 
 telligent people by educating all its youth. 
 
 There had arisen among the Puritans in England a 
 new sect, called in derision Quakers. An unfavorable re- 
 port of their doctrines and doings had reached Massa- 
 chusetts ; they were represented as denouncing all forms 
 of worship and denying all civil authority. At length two 
 tte3 women of the dreaded sect appeared ; they were arrested 
 and detained until their books could be examined, and the 
 question was raised whether they themselves were not 
 witches. Their books were burnt by the hangman, and 
 they sent back to England. Barbarous laws were made 
 to deter Quakers from coming to the colony ; but they 
 ?ame, and were inhumanly treated and sent back. Then 
 * law was passed that if a Quaker, after being banished, 
 returned, he should be put to death. This the magis- 
 trates fondly hoped would be effectual. We may judge 
 their surprise when some of those who had been banished 
 returned. They came to call the magistrates to repent- 
 uice for their persecuting spirit. What was to be done ? 
 
ELIOT THE APOSTLE. 125 
 
 Must the law be enforced or repealed ? It had been passed chap 
 
 by only one majority. The vote was taken again ; one 
 
 majority decided that the law must be obeyed. Four of 
 the Quakers suffered the penalty of death. Severity did 
 not accomplish the end in view; their brethren flocked to 
 Massachusetts as if courting the honor of martyrdom. 
 From the first the people had been opposed to the cruel 
 law, and at their instance it was repealed. There was 
 little apology for these harsh proceedings ; the magistrates 
 could only say they acted in self-defence, in excluding 
 those who taught doctrines that would interfere with the 
 affairs of the colony. As soon as persecution ceased, the 166« 
 Quakers became quiet citizens ; many of them devoted 
 themselves to teaching the Indians under the direction of 
 the missionary Eliot. 
 
 The Puritans had long desired to carry the gospel to IWC 
 the Indians. John Eliot, the devout and benevolent 
 pastor of the church in Roxbury, in addition to his pas- 
 toral labors, gave them regular instruction in Christianity. 
 He learned their language that he might preach to them ; 
 he translated the Bible, and taught them to read in 
 their own tongue its precious truths. This translation, 
 which cost him years of labor, is now valued only as a 
 literary curiosity ; it is a sealed book, no living man can 
 read it. The language has passed away with the people 
 who spoke it. 
 
 Their kind instructor induced them to cease from 
 roving, and to settle in villages ; he taught the men to 
 cultivate the soil, and the women to spin and weave 
 oloth, to supply their wants. He mingled with them as a 
 brother ; and though he met with much opposition from 
 their priests and chiefs, he led many of them in the right 
 path. His disciples loved him ; his gentleness and good- 
 ness won their hearts. 
 
 As he lived so he died, laboring for the good of others. 
 In his last days, when borne down by years and infirmi- 
 
126 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, ties, lie said, " My memory, my utterance fails me, but 1 
 
 XI. 
 
 thank God my charity holds out still." Even up to the 
 1645. day of his death, which took place when he was eighty- 
 six years of age, he continued to teach some poor negroes 
 and a little blind boy. To Minister Walton, who came to 
 see him, he said, u Brother, you are welcome, but retire to 
 your study, and pray that I may be gone." Soon after, 
 without a fear or a pang, the spirit of this good " Apostle" 
 passed away ; his last words were " Welcome joy !" 
 
 Eliot was not alone in his labors. The young, the 
 winning, the pious May hew, an accomplished scholar, 
 thought it a privilege to toil for the souls of the poor 
 Indians who lived upon the islands in and around Massa- 
 chusetts bay. He took passage for England to excite 
 there an interest in his mission. He was never heard of 
 more ; the ship in which he sailed went down in unknown 
 waters. His father, although at this time seventy years 
 of age, was moved to take his place as a teacher of the 
 Indians. There, for twenty-two years, he labored with 
 the happiest results, till death withdrew him from the 
 work. 
 
 Let us glance at the inner life of these colonists 
 during the first generation or two after their settlement 
 in the wilderness. In these earlier days the magistrates 
 had a sort of patriarchal authority over the community, 
 somewhat as a parent over his own household. And as 
 the inhabitants were then comparatively few in number, 
 and were perhaps known individually to the respective 
 magistrates in their own vicinity, the influence of the latter 
 was more directly exercised than when the population 
 had largely increased. The children received instruc- 
 tion in Scripture lessons, and in the catechism, as well as 
 in the* very important virtue — obedience to parents. In 
 all such matters the magistrates and ministers took a 
 special interest, and thus aided the parents in training 
 the young. Eor is it strange, under these considerations, 
 
RESULTS OF SEVERE TRAINING. 127 
 
 that the magistrates censured the wearing of costly ap- chap. 
 parel, and the following of vain new fashions, because the 
 
 people were poor and did wrong, they thought, to waste 1645 * 
 their means on dress unnecessarily expensive, and they 
 exercised their prerogative as a parent who reproves the 
 extravagance of his children. Their descendants some- 
 times smile at what they term the crude notions of these 
 Puritan fathers ; but do these sons and daughters reflect 
 how they themselves acquired this consciousness of their 
 own superiority over their ancestors who lived more than 
 two hundred years ago ? Their own attainments unques- 
 tionably have been the result of that severe training con- 
 tinued from generation to generation ; each succeeding 
 one modified and refined by the experience, the educa- 
 tion, and correct moral influence of the one preceding ; 
 so that each generation thus profiting, unconsciously rose 
 to a still higher plane of Christianized civilization. This 
 result is in accordance with the God-implanted principle 
 in the hearts of parents, to desire that their children 
 should have better advantages than they themselves en- 
 joyed in their own youth. The Puritans were far in 
 advance of their contemporaries in the training of their 
 children and households in the sterling virtues of honor 
 and integrity ; these combined influences have produced, 
 in the course of five or six generations, the most remark- 
 able progress known to history. 
 
 The Puritans felt the vast importance of sacred things, 
 and were strenuous in carrying out their principles. They 
 were careful to leave off labor at three o'clock on Satur- 
 day afternoon to prepare for the Sabbath. They went to 
 church, heard sermons twice a day, each two hours long, 
 heard prayers and sang psalms of proportionate length, 
 and enjoyed it. The tithing-man passed round with his 
 staff of office, on the one end of which was a brass ball, 
 on the other a tuft of feathers : with the former he 
 tapped the heads of the men who fell asleep during the 
 
128 
 
 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, sermon ; with the latter he gently tickled the faces of the 
 
 L. drowsy women. 
 
 1645. They were not so democratic as to make no distinc- 
 
 tions in social life. 1 The term gentleman was seldom 
 used; the well-born and the well-bred by courtesy re- 
 ceived the title of Mr., while the common folk were 
 dignified with that of Goodman or Goody. These titles 
 were sometimes taken away by the court as a punish- 
 ment. It is recorded that Mr. Josias Plaistow robbed an 
 Indian of corn, for which he was sentenced to lose his 
 title of Mr., and henceforth to be known only as Josias. 
 Their luxuries were few indeed, but the women prized 
 none more highly than that of tea. In those days it was 
 customary for them to carry their own china cup and 
 saucer and spoon to visiting parties. To be the possessor 
 of a " tea equipage of silver" was deemed a worldly de- 
 sire, to be sure, but not of an objectionable kind ; it was 
 commendable. 
 
 Though there has been associated with these colonists 
 a certain austere manner, chilling the heart of cheerful- 
 ness, yet let it not be forgotten they had their innocent 
 pleasure parties, especially when the neighbors joined to 
 aid each other in harvest times or in house-raisings. The 
 farmers and their families were accustomed to go in 
 groups at least once a year, to spend a season at the sea- 
 shore and supply themselves with salt and fish. They 
 usually went at the close of harvest, when the weather 
 was suitable for camping out. If they rejected the. festi- 
 val of Christmas as a " relic of Popery," they instituted 
 Thanksgiving, and enjoyed it with as much relish as the 
 entire Nation does to-day. 
 
 Within thirty years great changes had taken place in 
 the colony. The people were prosperous : industry and 
 self-denial had wrought wonders. 
 
 Elliott's History of New England. 
 
THE GKOWTH OF BOSTON". 129 
 
 Says an enthusiastic chronicler of the times : ' " The chap. 
 
 XI 
 
 Lord hath been pleased to turn all the wigwams, huts, and L 
 
 hovels the English dwelt in at their first coming, into 1645. 
 orderly, fair, and well-built houses, well furnished, many 
 of them, with orchards filled with goodly fruit-trees and 
 garden flowers." The people had numerous cattle and 
 herds of sheep and swine, and plenty of poultry ; their 
 fields produced an abundance of wheat, rye, oats, barley, 
 and Indian corn ; and they could furnish fish, lumber, and 
 many commodities for export. " This poor wilderness hath 
 equalized England in food, and goes beyond it for the 
 plenty of wine, and apples, pears, quince-tarts, instead of 
 their former pumpkin pies." " Good white and wheaten 
 bread is no dainty ; the poorest person in the country hath 
 a house and land of his own, and bread of his own grow- 
 ing — if not some cattle." 
 
 These good things were not obtained without labor. 
 Of the thirty-two trades carried on, the most successful 
 were those of coopers, tanners, shoemakers, and ship- 
 builders. " Many fair ships and lesser vessels, barques, 
 and ketches were built." Thus the chronicler anticipates 135& 
 the growth of Boston, which, " of a poor country village, 
 is become like unto a small city ; its buildings beautiful 
 and large — some fairly set out with brick, tile, stone, and 
 slate, orderly placed, with comely streets, whose continual 
 enlargements presageth some sumptuous city." They 
 had their soldiers, too, and a " very gallant horse-troop," 
 each one of which had by him " powder, bullets, and 
 match." Their enemies were graciously warned that these 
 soldiers " were all experienced in the deliverances of the 
 Lord from the mouth of the lion and the paw of the bear." 
 
 » Johnson's " Wonder-working Providence of Zion's Saviour in New 
 England,"— as quoted by Hildreth. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 YIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. 
 
 Slavery. — Massacre by the Indians. — Lord Baltimore. — The Settlement ol 
 Maryland. — Clayborne's Rebellion. — The Colony prosperous. — Tolera- 
 tion. — Berkeley governor of Virginia ; Trade crippled ; Intolerance. — 
 Indian "War. — State of Society. — Aristocratic Assembly. — Complaints of 
 Berkeley. — War with the Susquehannahs. — Nathaniel Bacon. — Disturb- 
 ances. — Obnoxious Assembly dissolved. — Evils corrected. — Bacon goes 
 against the Indians. — Insincerity of Berkeley. — Jamestown captured 
 and burned. — Death of Bacon. — Tyranny of Berkeley. — Aristocratic 
 Assembly ; its illiberal Acts. — Culpepper governor. — A Series of extor- 
 tions. — Deplorable state of the Colony. — Difficulties in Maryland. 
 
 chap. In August of this year slavery was introduced into the 
 • gL colonies. A Dutch ship entered James river, having on 
 1620. board twenty negroes for sale as slaves. Although the 
 Dutch continued occasionally to bring Africans to the 
 Virginia market, the number of slaves increased but slowly 
 for a third of a century. The trade was discouraged, but 
 not absolutely forbidden. 
 
 The Indians were scattered throughout the country, in 
 little villages, along the streams and in the most fertile 
 districts. The planters, who wanted these places for theii 
 tobacco, took possession of them. Powhatan, the friend 
 1618. of the English, was dead ; his brother and successor, Ope- 
 chancanough, though professing friendship, was tfyeii 
 enemy : his proud spirit burned within him at the wrongi 
 of his people. Not daring to meet the English in open 
 conflict, he planned secretly a terrible revenge ; even theii 
 entire extermination. At this time the number of colo 
 
THE MASSACRE. 131 
 
 nists was about four thousand ; that of the Indians within c ^j?- 
 
 sixty or a hundred miles of Jamestown, about five thou- 
 
 sand. At noon on a certain day, the Indians were to fall 1622. 
 upon every settlement, and murder all the whites. Mean- 
 while, Opechancanough was warmer than ever in his pro- 
 fessions; " sooner would the skies fall," said he, " than that 
 my friendship for the English should cease." On the 
 morning of the intended massacre, the Indians were in the 
 houses and at the tables of the planters, and manifested 
 more than their usual good will. On that morning, a con- 
 verted Indian, named Chauco, brought the news of the plot 
 to Jamestown. He had learned of it only the night before. 
 Messengers were sent in every direction to warn the people, 
 but it was too late to reach the distant settlements. 
 Throughout the extent of one hundred and forty miles, the 
 merciless savages attacked the settlers at the same moment; 
 and on the twenty-second of March, there perished within 
 one hour, three hundred and forty-seven persons, men, Mar. 
 women, and children. Some of the settlements, though 
 taken by surprise, repulsed their assailants, yet the effect 
 was terrible. Of eighty plantations, all but eight were 
 laid waste, and the people hastened for safety to James- 
 town. Desolation reigned over the whole colony; death 
 had entered almost every family, and now famine and sick- 
 ness prevailed. Within three months the four thousand 
 colonists were reduced to twenty-five hundred ; the de- 
 crease continued, and at the end of two years not more 
 than two thousand remained of the nine thousand who had 
 emigrated to Virginia. Their misfortunes excited much 
 feeling in England. Assistance was sent ; the city of 
 London did much to relieve their pressing wants, and pri- 
 vate individuals were not backward in sending aid. Even 
 King James's sympathies were enlisted ; he had never aided 
 the colonists, but he now gave them some old muskets 
 that had been thrown aside as useless. 
 
 The planters did not fear the Indians in open conflict; 
 
132 
 
 HISTOEY OF THE AMEBICAjS" PEOPLE. 
 
 "m** ^ ut ** was necessai 7 to guard against their secret attacks. 
 
 In their turn, they formed plans to exterminate the 
 
 1622. savages, or drive them far back into the wilderness. Expe- 
 ditions for this purpose were sent against them from time 
 to time, during the space of ten years. In time industry 
 began to revive, and signs of prosperity once more were 
 seen. 
 
 The London Company was now bankrupt ; endless 
 discussions arose among the numerous stockholders. They 
 became divided into two political parties, — one favored 
 the king's prerogative ; the other, the liberty of the colo- 
 nists. These questions were freely discussed at the meet- 
 ings of the company, greatly to the annoyance of James. 
 When he found it impossible to prevent the stockholders 
 from expressing their opinions, he arbitrarily took away 
 the charter of the company. To console the colonists, he 
 announced that he had taken them under his own special 
 protection. He began to frame laws for their government — 
 laws no doubt in accordance with his peculiar notions of 
 
 l«25. kingcraft ; but his labors and life were suddenly ended. 
 
 Charles I., his son and successor, appeared to favor the 
 colony : it conformed to the church of England, and he did 
 not suspect its politics. More than this, he wished to 
 ingratiate himself with the colonists, for he desired the 
 monopoly of their tobacco trade. He even went so far as 
 to recognize the House of Burgesses as a legislative body, 
 and requested them to pass a law by which he alone could 
 purchase the tobacco of the colony. The House, in a dig- 
 nified and respectful manner, refused to comply with the 
 
 1«29. royal request, as it would be injurious to their trade. 
 After the death of the liberal and high-minded Yeardley, 
 the council elected Francis West governor. Charles, 
 piqued at this independence, as well as the refusal to 
 grant him the monopoly, appointed Sir John Harvey. 
 Harvey had been a member of the colonial council, where 
 he was the willing instrument of a faction that had almost 
 
SIR GEORGE CALVERT. 133 
 
 ruined the prospects of the colony. The enemy of the chap. 
 
 rights of the people, he was exceedingly unpopular ; he 
 
 now took special care of his own interests and those of his 1688. 
 friends, by appointing them alone to office. 
 
 The histories of Virginia and Maryland are intimately 
 connected. As has been mentioned, Captain Smith was 
 the first to explore the Chesapeake ; the trade with the 
 Indians along its shores had now become profitable. 
 Though the Potomac river was the northern boundary of 
 Virginia, the colonists had extended their trade and influ- 
 ence with the Indians on both sides, up to the head of the 
 bay. William Clayborne, a bold and restless spirit, a sur- 
 veyor of land by profession, was employed by the Governor 
 of Virginia to explore the sources of the Chesapeake. A 
 company was formed in England for the purpose of trading 
 with the Indians, who lived on both sides of the bay. 
 Clayborne, the agent of the company, obtained a license to 
 trade, and established two stations, one on Kent Island, 
 opposite Annapolis, and one at the mouth of the Susque- 
 hannah. 
 
 During the turmoil of religious parties and persecu- 
 tions in England, Sir George Calvert, afterward Lord 
 Baltimore, left the Protestant church, resigned his office 
 of Secretary of State, and professed himself a Roman 
 Catholic. This did not affect his standing with James 01 
 his son Charles. Calvert manifested a strong interest in 
 the cause of colonization. He wished to found a colony to 
 which Catholics might flee to avoid persecution. He first 
 obtained permission to found a settlement on the cold and 
 barren shores of Newfoundland ; that enterprise was soon 162% 
 abandoned. He turned to Virginia, a clime more genial ; 
 there he was met by the oaths of supremacy and alle- 
 giance, to which, as a good Catholic, Lord Baltimore could 
 not subscribe ; Virginia could never be a peaceful asylum 
 for those of his faith. The region north of it attracted his 
 
134 HISTOEY OP THE AMEBICAH PEOPLE. 
 
 c Sf T p - attention, and he applied to King Charles for a portion of 
 
 L that territory. 
 
 1682 Charles gave him a grant of land, most of which is now 
 
 included in the State of Maryland ; it was named after 
 Henrietta Maria, the wife of the king. As a proprietary 
 Lord Baltimore deserves all praise for his liberality. The 
 cojonists were to have a voice in making their own laws ; 
 they were not to be taxed without their own consent. 
 He was bold to repudiate intolerance, and politic to 
 adopt a form of government which alone could insure 
 success. He designed his colony to be an asylum for the 
 Catholic, but the Protestant was invited to share it. Just 
 as the charter was about to be issued he died. To his son 
 Cecil, under the same title, the charter was continued ; to 
 him belongs the honor of carrying into effect the inten- 
 tions of his father. 
 
 Feb., He deputed his brother, Leonard, to take charge of 
 
 the emigrants, who, to the number of two hundred, after 
 a protracted voyage, arrived safely in the Chesapeake. A 
 tribe of Indians residing on the St. Mary's, a branch of the 
 Potomac, were about to remove on account of their ene- 
 mies the Susquehannahs ; they sold to the infant colony 
 their cultivated land and their village. The Indian 
 women taught the strangers' wives to make bread of 
 maize ; and soon the emigrants had corn-fields and 
 gardens, and obtained abundance of game in the forest. 
 A few days after their arrival, Governor Harvey, of Vir- 
 ginia, paid them a friendly visit ; it was the desire of 
 Charles that they should be welcomed by the sister colony. 
 Friendly relations were established with the neighboring 
 Indians ; the colonists for a time obtained their necessary 
 pro visions from Virginia, but as they were industrious, the 
 fruitful earth soon repaid their labor. At the commence- 
 ment of the second year, the freemen of the colony held 
 their first legislative Assembly. 
 
 Clayborne was the evil genius of Maryland. His licecse 
 
 1682. 
 
EFFORTS TO CONVERT THE INDIANS. 135 
 
 to trade with the Indians was made void by Lord Balti- chap 
 
 more's charter. He attempted to excite a rebellion, but 
 
 was overpowered and compelled to flee to Virginia. The 1635 
 Governor of Maryland demanded him as a fugitive from 
 justice ; to evade the demand Harvey sent him to Eng- 
 land to be tried. This offended the people of Virginia, 
 who sympathized with Clayborne ; to avenge him, they 
 impeached Harvey himself, " and thrust him out of his 
 government." The Assembly appointed commissioners 
 to prosecute the charges against him in England. The 
 
 commissioners met with no favor from the king ; and soon, April, 
 
 1689 
 under a new appointment, the unpopular Harvey came 
 
 back as governor. 
 
 Meanwhile peace and plenty continued to be the lot 
 of Maryland. Every year the rights of the people were 
 better understood ; they acknowledged their allegiance to 
 England, and respected the rights of Lord Baltimore. 
 Their lands produced an abundance of tobacco, and com- 
 merce began to prosper. Efforts were now made to con- 
 vert some of the neighboring Indians to Christianity. 
 The priests established four stations among them, and not 
 without effect. One chief, Tayac, with his wife, was bap- 
 tized, he taking the name of Charles and she that of Mary. 
 Soon after one hundred and thirty other converts received 
 baptism, some of whom sent their children to receive a 
 Christian education under the care of the priests. But, 
 alas ! these efforts were as vain as the other attempts of 
 the times to Christianize the poor natives. The same evil 
 causes were here at work — wars and the influence of bad 
 men. It is said these grateful tribes ever after remained 
 friendly to those who endeavored to instruct them. 
 
 The persevering Clayborne returned, to mar their 264£^ 
 peace by another and more successful insurrection. The 
 Governor of Maryland was now, in his turn, compelled to 
 flee to Virginia. After two years of misrule, peace was 
 again restored, and all the offenders were pardoned. 
 
136 HISTOEY OP THE AMERICAS" PEOPLE. 
 
 chap. As an interesting fact, it may be mentioned, that in 
 
 this year Maryland passed a law of perfect toleration to 
 
 1649. all Christian sects ; two years previous Khode Island had 
 granted toleration to all opinions, Infidel as well as 
 Christian. 
 
 During the rule of Cromwell the government of Mary- 
 land was very unsettled. The Assembly, finally, repu- 
 diated both Cromwell and Baltimore, and proclaimed the 
 authority of the people as supreme. Scarcely was this ac- 
 complished when the restoration of Charles II. took place. 
 1660. Lord Baltimore made known to the king that his profes- 
 sions of republicanism were made only to obtain the favoi 
 of Cromwell, and that really he was a good royalist 
 Charles immediately restored him his proprietary rights. 
 Baltimore was not vindictive ; he proclaimed a general 
 pardon, and for almost thirty years the colony enjoyed 
 repose. 
 
 Sir William Berkeley, as successor to Harvey, was ap- 
 1642. pointed Governor of Virginia. The trade of the colony 
 was crippled by severe restrictions ; as England claimed 
 its trade for herself alone. Thus began a series of acts 
 and infringements on commerce by the home government, 
 which annoyed the people of the colonies, and interfered 
 with their industry and commercial prosperity for more 
 than one hundred and thirty years, when these grievances 
 1776. were swept away by the Kevolution. The colony was now 
 permitted for a time to take care of itself, Charles I. being 
 engaged in a contest with his subjects at home. The Vir- 
 ginians were stanch friends of the king, and the party in 
 the mother country contending against him met with no 
 favor from them. The Puritans who were living in Vir- 
 ginia, 'being identified with republicanism, were looked 
 upon with suspicion ; those of their number who would 
 not conform to the ceremonies of the Church of England 
 were banished. A majority of these passed over into 
 Maryland. Thus it was, the Puritan would not permit 
 
THE LOYALTY OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 the Episcopalian to come to New England, and the Epis chap. 
 copalian banished the Puritan from Virginia. 1 
 
 No peace was granted to the Indians. After a space 1644. 
 of twenty-two years, they once more made an effort to free 
 themselves from their enemies. The frontier settlements 
 were suddenly attacked, and about three hundred persons 
 killed. When resisted, the savages fled to the wilderness. 
 They were pursued with great vigor, and after a contest 
 of two years their power was completely broken. Opechan- 
 canough, their aged chief, was taken captive, and soon 
 after died in prison ; his proud spirit deeply wounded that 
 he should be gazed at by his enemies. The next year a 
 treaty was made, by which they relinquished forever the 
 fertile valleys of their fathers, and with sorrowful hearts 
 retired far into the wilderness. 
 
 After the execution of Charles I., great numbers of the 
 royalists, " good cavalier families," fled to Virginia, where 
 they were welcomed as exiled patriots. She was the last 
 of the colonies to acknowledge the authority of the Common- 
 wealth. But when commissioners were sent, who granted 
 the people all the civil rights and privileges they asked, 
 they submitted. 
 
 After the death of Cromwell, and before it was known 
 who was to rule in England, the House of Burgesses re- 
 solved, u that the supreme power will be resident in the 
 Assembly." Then Berkeley was elected governor. In 
 accepting office, he acknowledged the authority of the 
 people's representatives, saying, " I am but the servant of 
 the Assembly ." We shall see how sincere was that decla- 
 ration. 
 
 When Charles II. was in exile, he was invited to come 
 and be " king of Virginia; " from this incident, it has 
 been called " The Old Dominion/' This loyalty Charles 
 after his restoration repaid, by basely taking away their 
 privileges, and distributing their lands among his favorites. 
 
 The society of Virginia was peculiar. The first settle- 
 
138 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 CH-AjP- ments were made under the protection of the nobility; this 
 
 favored the growth of an aristocratic class of landholders. 
 
 1660. There were two other classes — the negro, who was a slave 
 for life, and the indented white man, sent from the mother 
 country to serve a certain number of years. These white 
 servants were sometimes criminals, but oftener political 
 offenders. The latter, when their term of servitude ex- 
 pired, mingled with the people on an equality. 
 
 The Assembly held their sessions once in two years , 
 their members were chosen by the people, and only for one 
 session. The first Assembly held after the Restoration, 
 was composed of landholders. Berkeley now declared him- 
 self governor, not because he was elected by the people, 
 but because Charles when in exile had appointed him. 
 
 1662. The Assembly went still further, and deprived the peo- 
 
 ple of the privilege of choosing their own legislators, by 
 assuming to themselves the right to be perpetual. This 
 Assembly remained thus in violation of law for fourteen 
 
 1676. years. During this usurpation, all that the people had 
 gained of civil rights for more than a third of a century, 
 this aristocratic House of Burgesses swept away. The only 
 right allowed them was that of petitioning their rulers for 
 redress of grievances — but these petitions were disregarded. 
 The Church of England was declared to be the religion of 
 the State, and all were- bound by law under penalties of 
 fines and banishment, not only to attend its services, but 
 to pay a tax to support it. Governor Berkeley complained 
 of its ministers : " as of all other commodities, so of this — 
 the worst are sent us, and we have few that we can boast 
 of, since the persecutions in Cromwell's tyranny drove 
 divers worthy men hither." The cause of education was 
 neglected, and almost prohibited. The poor were pecu- 
 liarly unfortunate — " out of towns," says a chronicler of 
 the times, " every man instructs his children as best he 
 can :" — no aid was afforded them by those in authority. 
 Says the aristocratic Berkeley : " I thank God there are 
 
NATHANIEL BACON. 
 
 139 
 
 no free schools nor printing ; and I hope we will not ha?e c ^ p 
 them these hundred years ! " Such was the language of , 
 
 a man who was Governor of Virginia for nearly forty years. 1639. 
 The printing-press was established in Massachusetts ninety 1729. 
 years before there was one in Virginia. 
 
 The people of Maryland became involved in war with 
 the Indians. A company of Virginians, under John Wash- 1675. 
 ington, great-grandfather of George Washington, crossed 
 over the Potomac to aid them. Six chiefs of the Susque- 
 hannahs came to treat for peace, but the Virginians treach- 
 erously murdered the whole company. For this evil deed 
 the innocent were made to suffer. The Susquehannahs 
 immediately passed over into Virginia to revenge their 
 death, by killing ten persons for each chief. According to 
 their belief, until this sacrifice was made, the souls of their 
 chiefs could not be at rest in the spirit land. The people 
 cried to the governor for protection, which he was slow to 
 give ; they attributed his tardiness to his interest in the 
 fur-trade. They now asked permission to defend them- 
 selves ; to invade the enemies' country, and drive them 
 from their hiding-places ; this was also refused. During 
 this delay, the Indians pursued their murderous work all 
 along the frontiers. 
 
 There was in the colony a young planter, not more than 
 thirty years of age, a native of England ; a lawyer by pro- 
 fession ; eloquent and winning in his manners ; bold and 
 determined in spirit ; a true patriot ; disliked by the gov- 
 ernor, because he was a republican ; but dear to the peo- 
 ple for the same reason : such was Nathaniel Bacon. To 
 him, in their extremity, they turned. Those who had 
 volunteered to go against the Indians, asked of the gover- 
 nor a commission for Bacon to command them. Berkeley 
 obstinately refused to grant it. He would not countenance 
 such presumption on the part of the " common people." 
 The murders continued ; the volunteers waited no longer 
 on the tardy government, but set out under the command 
 
140 HISTORY OP THE AMEBIC AH PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, of Bacon to repel the savages. The moment they were 
 
 gone, Berkeley proclaimed Bacon a traitor, and his soldiers 
 
 1676. rebels, and gave orders for them to disperse. 
 A-prU. 
 
 The populous counties on the Bay began to show signs 
 of insurrection. Their quarrel was not with the Indians, 
 but with the acts and continued existence of the House of 
 Burgesses. Bacon, meanwhile, had returned successful 
 from his expedition. The haughty old governor was forced 
 to yield ; the obnoxious Assembly was dissolved, and writs 
 issued for the election of members for another, to which 
 Bacon was returned triumphantly from Henrico county. 
 This Assembly corrected the evils of the long one. The 
 unjust taxes on the poor were removed ; the privilege of 
 voting for their legislators was restored to the people, and 
 many abuses in relation to the expenditure of the public 
 money rectified. The House elected Bacon commander oi 
 the army. These measures were very distasteful to Berke- 
 ley and his advisers — he would not give them his sanction. 
 Finally, however, he yielded to necessity ; and even went 
 so far as to transmit to England, his own and the council's 
 commendations of Bacon's loyalty and patriotism. 
 
 The Indians still continued their attacks upon the 
 settlements, and Bacon with a small force went to punish 
 them : again the insincere Berkeley proclaimed him a 
 traitor. Such treachery excited his indignation and that 
 of the army. No confidence could be placed in the gov- 
 ernor's word. " It vexes me to the heart," said the gal* 
 lant patriot, " that while I am hunting the wolves which 
 destroy our lambs, that I should myself be pursued like a 
 savage — the whole country is witness to our peaceable 
 behavior ; but those in authority, how have they obtained 
 their estates ? Have they not devoured the common trea- 
 sury ? What schools of learning have they promoted ? " 
 Such were the questions asked, and such were the senti- 
 ments that stirred the hearts of the people. They must 
 
/ 
 
 JAMESTOWN BURNED. 
 
 141 
 
 have their rights restored : wives urged their husbands to chap 
 contend for their liberties. L 
 
 Berkeley with a few royalist followers and advisers, went 1675 
 to the eastern shore of the bay. There by promises of plun- 
 der, he collected a rabble of sailors belonging to some Eng- 
 lish vessels, and a company of vagabond Indians. When the 
 rumor of the governor's intentions spread throughout the 
 land, the people with one accord met in convention at the 
 Middle Plantation, now Williamsburg, where they deliber- 
 ated all day, even until midnight. They decided it was 
 their duty to defend themselves from the tyranny of the 
 governor. They adjourned, however, and went to their 
 homes, determined to be guided in their conduct by the 
 course he should pursue. They were not long in suspense, 
 for Berkeley crossed over with five ships to Jamestown, to 
 put down what he was pleased to call a rebellion. In a Sept 
 very short time the little army so successful against the 
 Indians, was gathered once more under the same leader. 
 The conflict was short ; Berkeley's cowardly rabble broke 
 and fled ; deserting Jamestown, they went on board their 
 ships and dropped down the river. The victors entered 
 the deserted town. A council was held as to what was to 
 be done. Should they leave it as a place of defence for 
 their enemies ? It was deemed necessary to burn it. 
 Drummond and Lawrence, men prominent in the popular 
 movement, applied the torch to their own dwellings; the 
 example was followed by others, and, in a few hours, the 
 6rst town founded by Englishmen on this continent was in 
 ruins. A crumbling church-tower is all that now remains 
 to mark the site of old Jamestown. 
 
 The good results of this struggle were doomed to be 
 lost. Bacon suddenly fell ill of a violent fever, which 
 terminated his life in a few days. He was called a traitor Oct 
 and a rebel by Berkeley and his royalist party, as was 
 Washington by the same party one hundred years after- 
 ward, 
 
142 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 J xfr P ' ^^ e P eo P^ e were now without a leader — without any 
 
 one to plead their cause. Berkeley played the tyiant, 
 
 1676. ravaged the country and confiscated the property of the 
 patriots. He caused to perish on the scaffold more than 
 twenty of the best men of Virginia. One or two incidents 
 may serve to exhibit his spirit. When Drummond (who 
 is represented as a "sober, Scotch gentleman, of good 
 repute ") was brought into his presence, " You are very 
 welcome," said he, bowing at the same time, with mock 
 civility ; " I am more glad to see you than any man in 
 Virginia ; you shall be hanged in half an hour I " He 
 derided, in vulgar terms, a young wife who came to plead 
 for her husband, to take the blame of his offence upon 
 herself, and to offer her own life for his. 
 
 If any one dared speak disrespectfully of Berkeley 
 or his rule, he was publicly whipped. The end came at 
 last ; Berkeley left the country, and the people celebrated 
 his departure with bonfires and rejoicings. When he 
 arrived in England he found that public opinion severely 
 condemned his conduct ; and, what was more wounding 
 to his pride, even Charles, to serve whom he had stained 
 his soul with innocent blood, exclaimed, " That old fool 
 has taken away more lives in that naked land than I for 
 the death of my father ! " The names and characters of 
 Bacon and his adherents were vilified, and for a century 
 these slanders were not disproved ; the truth was not per- 
 mitted to be published. The facts, as now known, prove 
 that the men who thus opposed the tyranny of Berkeley 
 were not rebels and traitors, but worthy to be num- 
 bered among the patriots of the land. 
 ifTT. The first Assembly held after this unsuccessful strug- 
 
 gle was devoted to the interests of the aristocracy. All 
 the liberal laws passed by the preceding one were re- 
 pealed ; henceforth only freeholders could vote for mem- 
 bers of the House of Burgesses. The poor man was ae 
 
CULPEPPER AND EFFINGHAM. 143 
 
 heavily taxed as the rich, but unless he -was a landholder ckap 
 he had no vote. , 
 
 The profligate Charles gave Virginia to two of his 1678 
 favorites — Arlington and Culpepper ; the latter soon after 
 purchased the claim of the former. The king appointed C ul- 
 pepper governor for life. He came authorized to heal differ- 
 ences between the people and the government, but he used 1680 
 the power for his own interest alone ; he valued Virginia 
 only in proportion to the money his rapacity could extort ; 
 even the soldiers, sent to maintain his authority, he de- 
 frauded of their wages. When he had secured to himself 
 the highest possible revenue, he sailed for England. The 
 condition of the Virginians was wretched in the extreme ; 
 the rewards of their industry went to their rapacious rulers, 
 and they, goaded to desperation, were on the point of 
 rebellion. 
 
 Rumors of these discontents reached England, and the 
 truant governor reluctantly left his pleasures to visit his 
 domain. Having the authority of the king, Culpepper 1682. 
 caused several men of influence to be hanged as traitors. 
 The people who owned farms in the territory, given him 
 by royal grant, he now compelled to lose their estates, or 
 compromise by paying money. Charles had now another 
 favorite to provide for ; Culpepper was removed, and 1684 
 Effingham appointed. This change was even for the 
 worse ; Effingham was more needy and more avaricious. 
 
 On the accession of James II. what is known in his- 
 tory as Monmouth's Rebellion occurred. After its sup- 1688, 
 pression, multitudes of those implicated in it were sent to 
 Virginia and Maryland to be sold as servants for a term 
 of ten years. Many of these were men of education and 
 of good families. The House of Burgesses, to their hon^r 
 be it said, declared these poor men free, though the cruel 
 James had forbidden the exercise of such lenity. 
 
 So little were the claims of humanity respected at this 
 time in the West of England, that it was a common occur- 
 
144 
 
 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 CHAP. 
 XII. 
 
 renee to kidnap persons of the poorer sort, and send them 
 to the colonies to be sold as servants for a term of years 
 
 1685. These were principally brought to Virginia and Mary- 
 land, as there the planters required many laborers. The 
 trade was profitable, more so than the African slave 
 trade. 
 
 1688. 'After the accession of William and Mary an effort was 
 made to establish a college in Virginia, " to educate a do- 
 mestic succession of Church of England ministers," as well 
 as to teach the children of the Indians. The celebrated 
 Robert Boyle made a large donation, and the king gave, 
 in addition to three other grants, outstanding quit-rents, 
 valued at about £2,000. Such was the foundation of the 
 
 IW1 college of William and Mary. 
 
 The Rev. James Blair, said to be the first commissary 
 Bent to the colonies by the Bishop of London, " to supply 
 the office and jurisdiction of the bishop in the out-places 
 of the diocese/' was its president for fifty years. 
 
 Though William was thus moderately liberal, he was 
 by no means the representative of the true feeling of his 
 ministry ; they even looked upon this pittance as uncalled 
 for. Blair, the pious and energetic Scotchman, once urged 
 upon Seymour, the attorney-general, the importance of 
 establishing schools to educate ministers of the gospel. 
 " Consider, sir,-' said he, " that the people of Virginia 
 have souls to save." He was answered by a profane im- 
 precation upon their souls, and told to " make tobacco." 
 This pithy rebuff indicated the spirit and general policy 
 of the home government ; it valued the colonies only as a 
 source of wealth. 
 
 For many years voluntary emigration to Virginia almost 
 ceased. 'There were no inducements, no encouragement 
 to industry, all commerce was restricted. The planters 
 were at the mercy of the English trader ; he alone was 
 permitted to buy their tobaoco and to sell them merchan- 
 dise. The whole province was given over to the tender 
 
TROUBLES IN MARYLAND. 145 
 
 mercies of royal favorites and extortioners, while the chap 
 
 . XII 
 printing-press, that dread of tyrants, was still forbidden. — 
 
 How dearly did loyal Virginia pay for the honor of being 1685. 
 named the " Old Dominion ! " 
 
 The struggles of the people of Virginia under Bacon 
 and others, had an effect on the people of Maryland. At 
 the death of Lord Baltimore, his son and heir assumed the 1675. 
 government, and ruled with justice till another revolution 
 in England brought a change. The deputy-governor hesi- 1688. 
 tated to acknowledge William and Mary. This was seized 
 upon by some restless spirits to excite discontent in the 
 minds of the people. Among other absurd stories, it was said 
 that the Catholics, who were few in number, were about to in- 
 vite the Indians to aid them in massacring the Protestants. 
 At this time the Jesuits had excited the Indians of New 
 England and Canada against the New England colonies. 
 This gave a shadow of probability to the charge. Under 
 the lead of some persons, who professed to be very zealous 
 Protestants, the deputy-governor was seized, and a con- 
 vention called, which deposed Lord Baltimore, and pro- 
 claimed the people the true sovereign. Two years after, 1691. 
 King William, taking them at their word, unjustly de- 
 prived Lord Baltimore of his property, and made the colony 
 a royal province. The people now suffered the penalty 
 for ill treating their benevolent proprietary. The king 
 placed over them a royal governor ; changed their laws for 
 the worse ; established the Church of England, and taxed 
 them to maintain it ; did not promote education, but pro- 
 hibited printing ; discouraged their domestic manufac- 
 tures ; and finally disfranchised the Catholics, who had 
 laid the foundation of the colony sixty years before. The 
 rights of Lord Baltimore were afterward restored to his 
 infant child, and the original form of government was 171* 
 established. No colony experienced so many vicissitudes 
 as Maryland. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 COLONIZATION OP NEW TORI. 
 
 Hudson's Discoveries. — Indian Traffic. — Fort on the lrte of Manhattan.— 
 Walloons the first Settlers. — Peter Minuits. — The Patroons. — Tan 
 Twiller Governor ; his Misrule. — Succeeded by Kieft. — Difficulties with 
 the Indians. — They seek Protection; their Massacre. — Peace con- 
 cluded. — Stuyvesant Governor. — The Swedish Settlement on the Dela- 
 ware.— Pavonia. — Threatening Rumors. — New Netherland surrendered 
 to England. — New Jersey sold by the Duke of York. — The Influence of 
 the Dutch. 
 
 chap. When there were high hopes of discovering a north-west 
 
 passage to India, Henry Hudson was sent in search of it 
 
 1609. by a company of London merchants. He was unsuccess- 
 ful ; yet his enthusiasm was not diminished by his failure. 
 He requested to be again sent on the same errand, but the 
 merchants were unwilling to incur further expense. He then 
 applied to the Dutch East India Company ; the directors of 
 which, at Amsterdam, furnished him with a ship, the Half- 
 Moon, with liberty to exercise his own judgment in the pro- 
 secution of the enterprise. He first sailed to the north-east, 
 away beyond the Capes of Norway, as far as the ice would 
 permit. He saw that an effort in that direction would be 
 fruitless. He turned to the west, crossed the Atlantic, 
 and coasted along the continent till he found himself op- 
 posite the Capes of Virginia ; then turning to the north 
 he entered " a great bay with rivers," since known as the 
 Delaware ; still further north he passed through a narrow 
 channel, and found himself in a beautiful bay. Here he 
 
A CHANGE WROUGHT. 147 
 
 remained some days. The natives, " clothed in mantles c *\f* 
 
 of feathers and robes of fur/' visited his ship. Their 1 
 
 astonishment was great ; they thought it was the canoe 1609. 
 of the Great Spirit, and the vhite faces, so unlike them- 
 selves, were his servants. Hudson explored the bay, and 
 noticed a large stream flowing from the north ; this, thought 
 he, leads to the Eastern Seas. That stream, called by 
 some of the native tribes the Cahohatatea, or River of 
 Mountains, and by others the Shatemuc, he explored for 
 one hundred and fifty miles ; it did not lead to the 
 Eastern Seas, yet that river has immortalized the name 
 of Henry Hudson. 
 
 What a change has come over the " River of Moun- 
 tains n since he threaded his way up its stream two hun- 
 dred and eighty years ago ! It has become the highway 
 to the great inland seas of a continent, upon whose bosoms 
 float the fruits of the industry of millions ; and the island 
 at its mouth the heart of a nation's commerce, whose every 
 throb is felt throughout that nation's length and breadth. 
 From the highest church-steeple, 1 on this Isle of Man- 
 hattan, the eye takes in a horizon containing a population 
 very much greater than that of the thirteen colonies at the 
 time of the Declaration of Independence. There are other 
 changes which the philanthropist loves to contemplate. 
 Here are seen the humanizing influences of Christianity, 
 of civilization, of intelligence, and of industry, embodied 
 in institutions of learning, of science, and of benevo- 
 lence, that pour forth their charities and blessings, not 
 alone for this land but for others. 
 
 The coincidence is striking, that, nearly at the same 
 time, the representatives of three nations were penetrating 
 the wilderness and approaching each other. Champlain, 
 on behalf of France, was exploring the northern part of 
 New York ; John Smith, one of the pioneers of English 
 
 Trinity. 
 
143 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 CHAP, colonization, was pushing his discoveries up to the head 
 
 1 waters of the Chesapeake, while the Half-Moon was slowly 
 
 1610. sounding her way up the Hudson. 
 
 Hudson arrived safely in England, but he was not per- 
 mitted by the government to continue in the service of the 
 Dutch, lest they should derive advantage in trade from his 
 discoveries. However, he found means to transmit to his 
 employers at Amsterdam, an account of his voyage. On:e 
 more he sailed under the patronage of some English mer- 
 chants. He passed through the straits into the bay known 
 by his name; groped among a multitude of islands till late 
 in the season, and then determined to winter there, and in 
 the spring continue his search for the wished-for passage. 
 When spring came his provisions were nearly exhausted ; 
 it was impossible to prosecute his design. With tears of 
 disappointment he gave orders to turn the prow of his ves- 
 sel homeward. A day or two afterward his crew mutinied. 
 They seized him, put him, with his son and seven seamen, 
 four of whom were ill, on board the shallop, and inhumanly 
 left them to perish. " The gloomy waste of waters which 
 bears his name, is his tomb and his monument." 
 
 Hudson, in his communication to his employers, 
 described the extensive region he had discovered as well 
 watered by rivers, and as lying around bays and inlets ; as 
 covered with forests abounding in the finest timber for 
 ship-building ; and as " a land as beautiful as ever man 
 trod upon/' The numerous tribes of Indians who met 
 him in friendship, and the multitudes of beaver and otter , 
 gave indication also of a profitable trade. 
 
 The next year a ship was sent to trade ; the traffic was 
 profitable^ and was still further prosecuted. In a few 
 years there were forts or trading houses on the river, as far 
 up as Fort Orange, since Albany. A rude fort at the 
 1614 lower end of Manhattan island was the germ of the present 
 city of New York The Dutch during: this time wer« 
 
EMIGRATION ENCOURAGED. 149 
 
 busy exploring the waters from the Delaware to Cape c *lap. 
 
 Cod. They were as yet but a company of traders ; no L. 
 
 emigrants had left Holland with the intention of making 1614. 
 a permanent settlement. 
 
 A company was formed, under the title of the Dutch 1621. 
 West India Company ; an association for the purpose of 
 trade only. They took possession of the territory as tem- 
 porary occupants ; if they grew rich they were indifferent 
 as to other matters ; they had no promise of protection 
 from Holland, and as a matter of policy they were peace- 
 ful. The States-General granted them the monopoly of 
 trade from Cape May to Nova Scotia, and named the 
 entire territory New Netherland. The claims of the Eng- 
 lish, French, and Dutch thus overlapped each other, and 
 led to " territorial disputes, national rivalries, religious 
 antipathies, and all the petty hatreds and jealousies of 
 trade." 
 
 About thirty families, Walloons or French Protestants, 
 who had fled to Holland to avoid persecution, were the 
 first to emigrate with the intention of remaining. Some 
 of these settled in the vicinity of what is now the Navy 
 Yard in Brooklyn, others went up the river to Fort 162 e 
 Orange. 
 
 The central position of the island of Manhattan ob- 
 tained for it the honor of being chosen as the residence of 
 the agent for the company. Peter Minuits was appointed 
 such, under the title of governor, and the few cottages at 
 the south end of the island were dignified with the name of 
 New Amsterdam. The island itself belonged exclusively 
 to the company, and was purchased from the Indians for 
 about twenty-four dollars. Effort was now made to found 
 a State. Every person who should emigrate had the.privi- 
 lege of owning as much land as he could properly culti- 
 vate, provided it was not on lands especially claimed by 
 the company. To encourage emigration, it was ordered 
 that any member of the company who in four years should 
 
150 HISTORY m THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 CHAP, induce fifty persons to settle anywhere in New Nether- 
 
 1 land, except on the island of Manhattan, should be recog- 
 
 1625. nised as " Patroon," or " Lord of the Manor." Under 
 this arrangement "Patroons" could purchase a tract of 
 land sixteen miles long by eight in width. They secured 
 to themselves, by purchase from the Indians, the most 
 valuable lands and places for trade. The less rich were 
 by necessity compelled to become tenants of the Patroons. 
 The people, thus deprived of that independence which is 
 essential to the progress of any community, took but little 
 interest in cultivating the soil, or in improving the 
 country. 
 
 The company, for the sake of gain, determined, even at 
 the expense of the prosperity of the colonists, to make 
 New Amsterdam the centre of the trade of New Nether- 
 land. Under the penalty of banishment the people were 
 forbidden to manufacture the most common fabrics for 
 clothing. No provision was made for the education of the 
 young, or the preaching of the gospel ; although it was 
 enjoined upon the Patroons to provide " a minister and a 
 schoolmaster, " or at least a " comforter of the sick," whose 
 duty it should be to read to the people texts of Scripture 
 and the creeds. The company also agreed, if the specu- 
 lation should prove profitable, to furnish the Patroons with 
 African slaves. 
 
 As Hudson had discovered Delaware bay and river, the 
 Dutch claimed the territory. Samuel Godyn purchased 
 from the Indians all their lands from Cape Henlopen to 
 1629. the mouth of the Delaware river. Two years after this 
 thirty colonists arrived, fully prepared to found a settle- 
 ment. When De Vries, who was to be Patroon and com- 
 mander, 'came the next year, he found not a vestige of 
 the settlement ; all had perished by the hands of the 
 savages. 
 
 After the resignation of Minuits, Walter Van Twiller 
 through the " influence of kinsmen and friends/' was ap< 
 
WILLIAM KIEFT GOVERNOR. 151 
 
 pointed governor. He proved himself unfitted for the C ** A . P 
 station. As a clerk, he was acquainted with the mere . 
 
 routine of business, but ignorant of human nature ; as con- 1638. 
 ceited as he was deficient in judgment and prudence, 
 he failed to secure the respect of those he governed. 
 In his zeal for the interests of his employers, he neglected 
 the rights of the people, and was so inconsistent in the 
 management of public affairs that Dominie Bogardus sent 
 him a letter of severe reproof, threatening to give him 
 " such a shake from the pulpit on the following Sunday 1688, 
 as would make him shudder." 
 
 The inefficient Van T wilier was succeeded by William 
 Kieft. Though he had not the same defects as Van 
 Twiller, his appointment was a most unfortunate event for 
 the colony. A bankrupt in Holland, his portrait was 
 affixed to the gallows ; an evidence of the estimation in 
 which his character was held. Avaricious and unscrupu- 
 lous, so arbitrary in his measures that during his rule the 
 colony was in a continual turmoil, he quarrelled with the 
 Swedes on the Delaware, had difficulties with the Eng- 
 lish in New England, made the Indians his enemies, and 
 had scarcely a friend in his own colony. 
 
 The Dutch were on friendly terms with the Indians 
 during the rule of Van Twiller. It was forbidden by law 
 to sell them fire-arms ; but the traders up the river, indif- 
 ferent to the interests of the settlers, sold them guns to 
 such an extent, that at one time more than four hundred 
 of the Mohawks, or Iroquois, were armed with muskets. 
 By this means these terrible marauders and despots of the 
 wilderness were rendered more haughty and dangerous. 
 They paid enormous prices for guns, that they might be 
 able to meet their enemies the Canadian Indians, who 
 were supplied with fire-arms by the French. Though 
 the traders did not sell guns to the tribes living near New 
 Amsterdam and on the river, yet they sold them rum. 
 
 Kieft pretended that the company had ordered him to 
 
152 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 CHAP- levy an annual tribute upon the river Indians— the Mo- 
 
 1 hegans and other clans of the Algonquin race. They re- 
 
 1688. fused to pay any tribute, saying he " was a shabby fellow 
 to come and live on their lands without being invited, and 
 then want to take away their corn for nothing." Such 
 injustice, with the partiality shown to their enemies, the 
 Mohawks, gradually alienated their feelings of friendship 
 for the Dutch. 
 
 An act of Kieft awoke the slumbering anger of the 
 savages. The Karitans, a tribe living on the river which 
 bears their name, were accused of stealing hogs, which 
 had been taken by some Dutch traders. Kieft did not 
 inquire into the truth of the charge, but sent soldiers to 
 punish them, who destroyed their corn and killed some of 
 their number. De Vries, who, in the mean time, hac 
 planted a settlement on Staten Island, was himself a 
 friend of the Indians. The Karitans attacked this settle- 
 1641. ment and killed four men. The people now urged the 
 governor to conciliate the savages, but without effect. 
 Twenty years before a chieftain had been killed by a Dutch 
 hunter in the presence of his nephew, then a little boy ; 
 that boy, now a man, according to their custom, avenged 
 the death of his uncle by murdering an innocent Dutch- 
 man. Kieft demanded that the young man should be 
 given up to him, to be punished as a murderer. The 
 tribe would not comply with the demand, but offered to 
 pay the price of blood. The violent governor refused any 
 such compromise. 
 1642 With his permission a meeting of the heads of fami- 
 
 lies was called. They chose twelve of their number to 
 investigate the affairs of the colony. They passed very 
 soon from the Indian difficulties to other abuses ; even to 
 the despotic actions of the governor himself. As the 
 " twelve men " refused to be controlled by Kieft, but per- 
 fevered in expressing their opinions of his conduct, he 
 
MASSACBE OF THE INDIANS. 153 
 
 dissolved the Assembly. Thus ended the first representa- chai 
 tive Assembly in New Netherland. 
 
 Nearly all the difficulties with the Indians may be 164* 
 traced to some injustice practised upon them by the 
 whites. An instance of this kind now occurred which led 
 to direful results. A Dutchman sold a young Indian, the 
 son of a chief, brandy, and when he was intoxicated, 
 cheated and drove him away. The Indian, raging with 
 drink, and maddened by the treatment he had received, 
 went to his home, obtained his bow and arrows, returned 
 and shot the Dutchman dead. The chiefs of the murder- 
 er's tribe hastened to the governor to explain the matter, 
 and to pay the price of blood ; they wished for peace ; but 
 the governor was inexorable. He demanded the murderer ; 
 but he had fled to a neighboring tribe. " It is your own 
 fault ! " exclaimed the indignant chiefs ; " why do you 
 sell brandy to our young men ? it makes them crazy ; — 
 your own people get drunk, and fight with knives." 
 
 Just at this time came a company of eighty Mohawks, 
 all armed with muskets, to demand tribute of the enfee- 
 bled River Tribes. The latter fled to the Dutch for pro- 
 tection. Now is the time, urged the people, to obtain 
 forever the friendship of the Indians living around us, by 
 rescuing them from the rapacious Mohawks. Now is the 
 time, thought the stubborn and cruel Kieft, to extermi- 
 nate those who have fled to me for safety. 
 
 " If you murder these poor creatures who have put 
 themselves under your protection, you will involve the 
 whole colony in ruin, and their blood, and the blood of 
 your own people, will be required at your hands ! " urged 
 the kind-hearted De Vries. The admonition was un- 
 heeded. 
 
 The unsuspecting victims of this scheme of treachery 
 and barbarous cruelty were with the tribe of Hacken- 
 sacks, just beyond Hoboken. About the hour of mid- Feb., 
 night the soldiers from the fort, and some freebooters from lW8 
 
154 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN" PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, the ships in the harbor, passed over the river. Soon were 
 
 1 heard the shrieks of the dying Indians ; — the carnage 
 
 1648. continued, the poor victims ran to the river, to pass over 
 to their supposed friends in New Amsterdam. But they 
 were driven into the water ; the mother, who rushed to 
 save her drowning child, was pushed in, that both might 
 perish in the freezing flood. These were not the only 
 victims. Another company of Indians, trusting to the 
 Dutch for protection, were encamped on the island, but a 
 short distance from the fort. They were nearly all mur- 
 dered in the same manner. In the morning the returning 
 soldiers received the congratulations of Kieft. When the 
 people learned of the massacre they were filled with hor- 
 ror at its atrocity, and expressed their detestation of its 
 author, and their fears that all the Indians in their neigh- 
 borhood would become their deadly enemies. The guilty 
 Kieft cowered before the storm ; it would have been well 
 if the only effects of his acts had been the reproaches of 
 the people. 
 
 When it became known that it was not their enemies 
 the Mohawks, but their pretended friends the Dutch, who 
 had wantonly killed their countrymen, the rage of the 
 River Tribes knew no bounds. They rose as one man to 
 take revenge. Every nook and corner, every swamp and 
 thicket, became an ambush for the enraged savages The 
 . settlements up the river were destroyed. On Long Island, 
 on Staten Island, the retribution fell ; all around Man- 
 hattan the smoke of burning dwellings arose to heaven. 
 The people at a distance from the fort were either mur- 
 dered or taken captive, especially the women and chil- 
 dren. All who could deserted their homes, and sought 
 safety in the fort at Manhattan ; many of whom after- 
 ward left for Holland. 
 
 A pleasing incident is related of Indian gratitude. 
 De Vries had, on that fearful night, rescued an Indian 
 and his wife from death. When his settlement on Staten 
 
A TEMPORARY TRUCE. 
 
 155 
 
 Island was attacked, this Indian hastened to his country- crap 
 
 men who were hesieging the people in the "block-house, 1 
 
 and told them how he and his wife had been rescued. The 164& 
 besiegers immediately told the people they would molest 
 them no more ; and they kept their word. 
 
 A temporary truce was made at Kockaway on Long Sept 
 Island. The chiefs of a number of tribes agreed to meet 
 the messengers of the Dutch, and treat of peace. De 
 Vries, whom the Indians knew to be their friend, went 
 with two others to the interview. "When the conference 
 was opened one of the chiefs arose, having in his hand a 
 number of little sticks; taking one, he commenced : "When 
 you first came to our shores you wanted food ; we gave 
 you our beans and our corn, and now you murder our 
 people." He took another stick : " The men whom your 
 first ships left to trade, we guarded and fed ; we gave 
 them our daughters for wives ; some of those whom you 
 murdered were of your own blood." Many sticks still re- 
 mained, but the envoys did not wish to hear a further re- 
 cital of wrongs. They proposed that they should both 
 forget the past, and now make peace forever. Peace was 
 made. It was not satisfactory to the young warriors ; they 
 thought "the bloody men," as they now called the 
 Dutch, had not paid the full price of the lives they had 
 taken ; and war broke forth again. Now the leader of 
 the Dutch was Captain John Underhill, who had had ex- 
 perience in the Pequod war in New England. For two 
 years the Indians were hunted from swamp to swamp, 
 through winter and summer ; yet they were not sub- 
 dued. They lay in ambush round the settlements, and 
 picked off the husbandman from his labor, and carried 
 into captivity his wife and children. There was no security 
 from the midnight attack ; scarcely any corn was planted ; 
 famine and utter ruin stared the colony in the face. 
 
 Sixteen hundred of the Indians had been killed, and the 
 number of white people was so much reduced, that, besides 
 
156 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, traders, there were not more than one hundred jersons on 
 
 1 the Isle of Manhattan. What a ruin had been wrought 
 
 1648. by the wicked perverseness of one man ! 
 
 At length both parties became weary of war. The 
 chieftains of the tribes around New Amsterdam, and, as 
 mediators, a deputation from their ancient enemies the 
 Mohawks, met the deputies of the Dutch beneath the 
 open sky, on the place now known as the Battery, in New 
 York city, and there concluded a peace. 
 
 1646. Thanksgivings burst forth from the people at the 
 
 prospect of returning safety. There was no consolation 
 for Kieft ; he was justly charged by them with being the 
 cause of all their misfortunes. The company censured 
 him, and disclaimed his barbarous conduct. He was 
 without a friend in the colony. After two years, with his 
 ill-gotten gains, he sailed for his native land. The vessel 
 was wrecked on the coast of Wales, and, with many others, 
 
 \646. he was lost. 
 
 In the midst of all these difficulties there were those 
 who labored to instruct the poor heathen Indians of New 
 Netherland. Several years before the missionary Eliot 
 commenced his labors with the tribes near Boston, Mega- 
 polensis, the Dutch clergyman at Fort Orange, endeavored 
 to teach the Mohawks the truths of the gospel. He strove 
 to learn their language, that he might " speak and preach 
 to them fluently," but without much success ; their lan- 
 guage was, as he expressed it, so "heavy." The grave 
 warriors would listen respectfully when told to renounce 
 certain sins, but they would immediately ask why white 
 men committed the same. Efforts were made afterward 
 to instruct in Christianity the tribes around Manhattan, 
 but the gtood work was neutralized by other and evil in- 
 fluences. 
 
 The West India Company appointed Peter Stuyvesant 
 io succeed Kieft as governor. He had been accustomed 
 to military rule, and was exceedingly arbitrary in his gov* 
 
THE SWEDES ON THE DELAWARE. 157 
 
 ernment ; honest in his endeavors to fulfil his trust to the chap. 
 company, he also overlooked the rights of the people. He XIIL 
 thought their duty was to pursue their business, and pay lfi4fi 
 their taxes, and not trouble their brains about his man- 
 ner of government. The colony was well-nigh ruined 
 when Stuy vesant came into power ; for nearly five years 
 the dark cloud of war had been hanging over it. The In- 
 dians had been dealt with harshly and treacherously; 
 policy as well as mercy demanded that they should be 
 treated leniently. The company desired peace with the 
 various tribes, for the success of trade depended upon 
 their good-will. 
 
 Although the Dutch claimed the territory from Cape 
 Cod to the Capes of Virginia, they preferred to negotiate 
 with New England, and desired that the wars between 
 their mother countries in the Old World should not dis- 
 turb the harmony of the New. 
 
 It must be confessed that the Connecticut people 
 annoyed Stuyvesant exceedingly. The absurd stories told 
 by the wily Mohegan chief, Uncas, of the Dutch con- 
 spiring with the Narragansets to cut off the English, found 
 a too ready credence ; so ready as to leave the impression 
 that such stories were rather welcome than otherwise, pro- 
 vided they furnished an excuse for encroaching upon 
 the territory of the Dutch. When accused of this con- 
 spiracy, said a sachem of the Narragansets, "I am poor, 
 but no present can make me an enemy of the English ! " 
 
 We have now to speak of others settling on territory 
 claimed by the Dutch. Gustavus Adolphus, the King of 
 Sweden, was induced to engage in sending a colony to the 
 New World. He wished to found an asylum to which 
 Protestants of Europe could flee. Peter Minuits, who has 
 already been mentioned, as commercial agent at New 
 Amsterdam, offered his services to lead the company of 
 emigrants. The same year that Kieft came as governor 
 to New Amsterdam, Minuits landed on the shores of the 
 
158 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 <g£P. Delaware with a company of emigrants, about fifty in nam 
 ber. They purchased from the Indians the territory on 
 
 1638. the west side of the bay and river from Cape Henlopen 
 to the falls at Trenton. This was very nearly the soil 01 
 the present State of Delaware. Nearly all this territory 
 had been purchased some years before by the Dutch, who 
 looked upon the Swedes as intruders. The latter built a fort 
 and a church on the site of Wilmington, and named the 
 country New Sweden. The Dutch protested, but the 
 Swedes went quietly to work, and increased from year to 
 year by accessions from their native land. For years the 
 disputes between the two colonies continued ; at length 
 Stuyvesant, obeying the orders of the company, determined 
 to make the Swedes submit to Dutch rule. The former, 
 
 1655. m surrendering, were to lose none of their rights as citi- 
 zens. Thus, after an existence of seventeen years, the 
 Swedish colony passed under the sway of the Dutch. 
 Many of them became dissatisfied with the arbitrary acts 
 of their rulers, and from time to time emigrated to Vir- 
 ginia and Maryland. 
 
 What is now New Jersey was also included in the ter- 
 ritory claimed by the Dutch. They built a fort, a short 
 distance below Camden, which they named Nassau. 
 
 16*8. Michael Pauw bought of the Indians Staten Island, and 
 all the land extending from Hoboken to the river Karitan. 
 He named the territory Pavonia. Meanwhile the Swedes 
 passed over to the east side of Delaware bay, and estab- 
 lished trading-houses from Cape May to Burlington. 
 
 Manhattan in the meanwhile was gaining numbers by 
 emigration. The stern Stuyvesant was sometimes intol- 
 erant, but the company wished the people to enjoy the 
 rights of conscience. They wished New Amsterdam to be 
 as liberal to the exile for religion's sake as was its name- 
 sake in the Old World. Every nation in Europe had 
 here its representatives. It was remarked " that the in- 
 habitants were of different sects and nations, and that 
 
DISCONTENTS OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 lea- 
 
 ther- spoke many different languages." The public docu- chap 
 
 ments were issued sometimes in Dutch, sometimes in Eng- 
 
 lish, and sometimes in French. Two centuries ago it was 
 prophesied that here would be centred the commerce of 165& 
 the world. Time is realizing the prediction. To pro- 
 mote emigration the mechanic had his passage given him. 
 The poor persecuted Waldenses came from their native 
 valleys and mountains at the expense of the old city of 
 Amsterdam. Africa, too, had her representatives. Her 
 sons and daughters were brought as slaves at the charge 
 of the West India Company; and the city of Amsterdam, 
 in this case also, shared the expense and the profit. 
 
 The spirit of democracy began to pervade the minds 
 of the Dutch ; the credit of this has been given to the 
 New Englanders, who were continually enlightening them 
 on the subject of the freedom of Englishmen. This 
 annoyed Stuyvesant beyond endurance. He often ex- 
 pressed his contempt for the "wavering multitude ;" he 
 despised the people, and scoffed at the idea that they 
 could govern themselves : it was their duty to work, and 
 not discuss the mysteries of government. They had no 
 voice in the choice of their rulers, and were even forbidden 
 to hold meetings to talk of their affairs. Stuyvesant 
 finally consented to let them hold a convention of two 
 delegates from each settlement ; but as soon as these dele- 
 gates began to discuss his conduct as governor, he dis- 
 solved the convention, bluntly telling them he derived his 
 authority from the company, and not from " a few ignorant 
 subjects." When a citizen, in a case in which he thought 
 himself aggrieved, threatened to appeal to the States- 
 General of Holland, " If you do," said the angry gov- 
 ernor, "I will make you a foot shorter than you are." 
 When the day of trial came, Stuyvesant found that by 
 Buch despotic measures he had lost the good-will of the 
 people of every class and nation. 
 
 Kumors were now rife that the English were about tc 
 
1664. 
 
 160 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, subdue New Netherland. The people for the most part 
 XIIL were indifferent; they had now no civil rights, and to 
 them the change might be for the better; it was not 
 probable that it would be for the worse. The English 
 portion longed for the rights of Englishmen. Though 
 there had been war between England and Holland, the 
 people of Virginia and New England, except perhaps those 
 of Connecticut, were well-disposed toward the Dutch as 
 neighbors. 
 
 Stuyvesant was soon relieved of his troubles with the 
 people of Manhattan. Charles II., without regard to the 
 rights of Holland, with whom he was at peace, or to the 
 rights of the people of Connecticut under their charter, 
 gave to his brother, the Duke of York, the entire country 
 from the Connecticut to the Delaware. The first intima- 
 tion Stuyvesant had of this intended robbery, was the pres- 
 ence of a fleet, under Eichard Nicholls, sent to put in 
 execution the orders of the English king. The fleet had 
 brought to Boston the commissioners for New England, and 
 there received recruits, and sailed for New Amsterdam. 
 All was in confusion ; Stuyvesant wished to make resist- 
 ance, but the people were indifferent. What was to be 
 done? The fleet was in the bay, and the recruits from 
 New England had just pitched their tents in Brooklyn: 
 Long Island was already in the hands of the enemy. 
 Nicholls sent Stuyvesant a letter requiring him to surren- 
 der his post, which the valiant governor refused to do with- 
 out a struggle. A meeting of the principal inhabitants 
 was called; they very properly asked for the letter which 
 the governor had received from the English admiral. They 
 wished to know the terms he offered to induce them to 
 acknowledge English authority. Eather than send the 
 letter to be read to the "wavering multitude," the angry 
 Stuyvesant tore it to pieces. Instead, therefore, of prepar- 
 ing to defend themselves against the enemy, the people 
 protested against the arbitrary conduct of the governor. 
 
THE INFLUENCE OF THE DUTCH. 16] 
 
 At length the capitulation was made, on the condition that chap 
 the people should be protected in their rights and property, I ' 
 religion and institutions. Se 
 
 In a few* days Fort Orange surrendered ; and in a few 1664. 
 weeks the Dutch and the Swedes on the shores of the Dela- 
 ware passed under the rule of England. Nicholls was 
 appointed governor. New Amsterdam was to be hereafter 
 known as New York, and Fort Orange as Albany. 
 
 A treaty was also made with the Mohawks : they had 
 been the friends of the Dutch, and they now became the 
 friends of the English, and remained so in all their contests, 
 both with the French, and the Colonies during the revolu- 
 tion. They served as a bulwark against incursions from 
 Canada. Their hatred of the French was intense. They 
 said, the Canada Indians never invaded their territory 
 unaccompanied by a " skulking " Frenchman. 
 
 England and Holland were soon at war again ; and sud- 
 denly a Dutch squadron anchored in the bay, and demand- 
 ed the surrender of the colony. Thus the territory became 
 New Netherland once more. 
 
 In a little more than a year peace was made, and the 
 province was restored to England. Thus after half a cen- 
 tury, the rule of the Dutch passed away, but not their 
 influence — it still remains to bless. The struggles of their 
 fathers in Holland in the cause of civil and religious free- 
 dom, are embalmed in the history of the progress of the 
 Imman mind. In their principles tolerant, in religion 
 Protestant, a nation of merchants and manufacturers, 
 laborious and frugal, they acquired a fame as wide as the 
 world for the noble virtue of honesty. Defenders of the 
 right, they were brave, bold, and plain spoken; they were 
 peaceful; they were justly celebrated for their moral and 
 domestic virtues : nowhere was the wife, the mother, the 
 sister more honored and cherished. Such were the ances- 
 try and such the traditions of the people just come under 
 British rule. A little more than a century elapsed, and 
 
162 HISTOET OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 C xm * their descendants, with scarcely an exception, took their 
 
 places with the lovers of their country in the struggle for 
 
 1664. independence. 
 
 The change of rulers was not beneficial to the people ; 
 the promises made to them were not kept ; their taxes 
 were increased ; the titles to their lands were even called 
 in question, that the rapacious governors might reap a har- 
 vest of fees for giving new ones. It was openly avowed by 
 the unprincipled Lovelace, the successor of Nicholls, that 
 the true way to govern was by severity ; to impose taxes so 
 
 1667. heavy that the people should have " liberty for no thought 
 but how to discharge them." When the people respect- 
 fully petitioned in relation to their grievances, their petition 
 was burned by the hangman before the town-hall in New 
 York, by order of the same Lovelace. The same species 
 of tyranny was exercised over the colonists on the Dela- 
 ware. 
 
 The Duke of York sold to Lord Berkeley, brother of Sir 
 William Berkeley, governor of Virginia, and Sir George 
 Carteret, the soil of New Jersey. They made liberal offers 
 to emigrants to settle in the territory, promising to collect 
 no rents for five years. Many families were induced to 
 come from Long Island. Their principal settlement was 
 1670. named, in honor of Carteret's wife, Elizabethtown. All 
 went smoothly till pay-day came, and then those colonists 
 who had lived under Dutch rule refused to pay. They 
 contended that they had bought their lands from the In- 
 dians, the original owners of the soil, and that Carteret had 
 no claim to rent because the king had given him a grant 
 of land which did not belong to him. Others said they 
 derived no benefit from the proprietary, and why should 
 .they pay* him quit-rents ? 
 
 The Duke of York had but little regard to the rights 
 
 1674. of Carteret or Berkeley; he appointed Andros, " the tyrant 
 
 of New England/' governor of the colony Berkeley, dis- 
 
SCOTCH PRESBYTERIANS IN EAST JERSEY. 163 
 
 gusted by such treatment, sold what was called West H5J? 
 
 Jersey to Edward Byllinge, an English Quaker, who in a , 
 
 short time transferred his claim to William Penn and two 1674. 
 others, who afterward made an arrangement with Carteret 
 to divide the territory. Penn and his associates taking 
 West Jersey, and Carteret retaining East Jersey, the line 
 of division being drawn from the ocean, at Little Egg 
 Harbor, to the north-western corner of the province. 
 
 Episcopacy having been re-established in Scotland, a 
 certain portion of the Presbyterians, the Cameronians or 
 Covenanters, refused to acknowledge the authority of that 
 church, and in consequence they became the victims of a 
 severe persecution. To escape this they were induced to 
 emigrate in great numbers to East Jersey, which thus 1G8*. 
 became the cradle of Presbyterianism in America. The 
 original settlers of New Jersey were the Dutch, English, 
 Quakers, Puritans, from New England, and Presbyterians, 
 from Scotland, which may account for that sturdy opposi- 
 tion to royal or ecclestiastical tyranny so characteristic of 
 its inhabitants. 
 
CHAPTEK XIV. 
 
 COLONIZATION OP PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 The Quakers. — William Penn. — His Education. — Obtains a Charter. — Prepa 
 rations to plant a Colony. — He lands at Newcastle. — Philadelphia.— 
 Rights of the Indians. — Settlement of Germantown. — Fletcher, the Royal 
 Governor. — New Charter granted the People. — Prosperity of the Col- 
 ony. — Trials of Penn : his Death. — Benjamin Franklin. 
 
 ohap We have in the course of this history met with the sect 
 
 1 known as Quakers, — a sect, perhaps, more than any other 
 
 1650. drawn from the humbler classes of the English people. 
 We have found them at one time few in number, despised 
 and persecuted; treated as the enemies of social order and 
 morals. They were persecuted by all the sects in turn. 
 The Puritans of New England endeavored to drive them 
 from their shores; the Churchmen of Virginia refused them 
 a resting place ; and the politic and trading Dutch, though 
 desirous for colonists, treated them harshly. 
 
 The Quakers loved and cherished the truths of the 
 Bible with as much zeal as the most devoted Puritans. As 
 non-resistants, they believed that the only evil a Christian 
 should resist, was the evil of his own heart : as followers of 
 the Prince of Peace, they were opposed to war. How much 
 blood and sorrow would be spared the nations, if in this 
 respect they were governed by the principles of Quakerism ! 
 We have now to speak of this despised sect as the found- 
 ers of a State, where their principles were to be applied to 
 the government of men. 
 
WILLIAM PENN. 165 
 
 George Fox, their founder, had visited the American c ^ p 
 
 colonies ; the condition of his followers touched his heart. L 
 
 Was there no asylum for them in the New World ? "Who 1673. 
 should furnish them the means to form for themselves a 
 settlement ? 
 
 Among the few who joined them from the higher classes 
 of English society, was one destined to exert a great influ- 
 ence on the sect, and to he admired and reverenced as a 
 benefactor of his race by the good of every age. When a 1661 
 mere youth, his heart was touched by the conversation of a 
 simple-minded Quaker, who spoke of the peace and comfort 
 derived from the witnessing of God's Spirit with his own : 
 " the inner light," or voice of conscience. This youth was 
 William Penn, the son of Sir William Penn, who was dis- 
 tinguished as a successful naval commander in the times 
 of Cromwell and Charles II. The position of his father 
 afforded him great advantages. He studied at Oxford 
 University, was then sent to the Continent to improve his 
 mind by travel and intercourse with men, and to eradicate 
 his tendency toward Quakerism. After the absence of two 
 years he returned, improved it is true, but in religion still 
 a member of that despised sect everywhere spoken against : 
 a sect, which its enemies affirmed, would destroy every 
 government. The ambitious and worldly-minded Admiral 
 was angry and disappointed. He insisted that his son 
 should renounce Quakerism. The son reflected — he loved 
 and reverenced his father ; he desired to obey and please 
 him, but could he violate his conscience ? No; he calmly 
 resigned all earthly preferment, and became an exile from 
 his father's house. A mother's love secretly relieved his 
 pressing wants. 
 
 Before long we find him in prison for his religion. 
 When the Bishop of London threatened him with im- 
 prisonment for life if he did not recant, he calmly replied, 
 " Then my prison shall be my grave ! " When a clergy- 
 man, the learned Stillingfleet, was sent to convince him 
 
166 HISTOEY OB THE AMEBIC AN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, by arguments, he referred to his prison-walls, and re- 
 
 L_ marked, " The Tower is to me the worst argument in the 
 
 1663. world ; those who use force for religion never can be in the 
 right i " " Religion," said he, on another occasion, " is my 
 crime and my innocence ; it makes me a prisoner to 
 malice, but my own freeman." At the expiration of a 
 year he was released, through the intercession of his 
 father. 
 
 Promotion in the navy, royal favor, and every worldly 
 inducement was now urged to tempt him to desert his 
 principles ; but in vain. Within a year he was arraigned 
 again for having spoken at a Quaker meeting. As he 
 pleaded his own cause, he told the court " that no power 
 on earth had the right to debar him from worshipping 
 God." The jury brought in a verdict of not guilty. The 
 court, determined to persecute, ordered them back to their 
 room ; saying, " We will have a verdict, or you shall 
 starve for it." Penn admonished them as Englishmen to 
 remember their rights. To the great annoyance of his 
 enemies, the jury, though they " received no refreshments 
 for two days and two nights," again brought in a verdict 
 of not guilty. The court fined the jury it could not 
 intimidate. Though thus acquitted, the recorder, under 
 the plea of contempt of court, fined Penn, and again re- 
 manded him to prison. As he was leaving the room, he 
 mildly remarked to the angry magistrate : " Thy religion 
 persecutes and mine forgives." His father soon afterward 
 paid the fine, and he was liberated. Ere long that father, 
 when dying, became reconciled to his son, and called him 
 to his bedside. Worldly prosperity and honor did not 
 seem so important to the admiral in his dying hour as 
 they had done in other days. " Son William," said he, 
 " if you and your friends keep to your plain way 01 
 preaching and living, you will make an end to the 
 priests ! " 
 
 Weary of persecutions, Penn determined to seek in 
 
PENNSYLVANIA PURCHASED. 167 
 
 the New World an asylum for himself and his suffering 3HAP 
 
 friends. There was, perhaps, no man in the kingdom 
 
 better fitted to take the lead in colonizing a State : fa- 1680. 
 miliar, from books as well as from observation, with the 
 governments of Europe, and by personal intercourse with 
 some of the most enlightened statesmen of the age ; the 
 friend and companion of men, as eminent in science and 
 philosophy as they were in purity of morals. 
 
 His father had bequeathed him a claim of sixteen 
 thousand pounds against the government. He offered to 
 receive lands in payment. Charles II., always in want of 
 money, readily granted him territory west of the Delaware 1681. 
 river, corresponding very nearly with the present limits of ' ?*' 
 the State of Pennsylvania, — a name given it by the king. 
 The Duke of York claimed the region now known as the 1682. 
 State of Delaware ; Penn wishing to have free access to 
 the bay obtained it from him. 
 
 As proprietary he now drew up a proclamation for those 
 who were about to emigrate, as well as for the settlers April 
 already on the Delaware. He proposed that they should 
 make their own laws, and pledged himself to interfere with 
 nothing that should be for their benefit ; saying, " I 
 propose to leave myself and successors no power of doing 
 mischief ; that the will of no one man may hinder the 'good 
 of a whole country/' 
 
 With instructions to govern in accordance with law, 
 he sent his nephew, William Markham, as agent. He had 
 expended so much to aid his suffering brethren, that his 
 estate was now nearly exhausted. When about to sail for 
 his colony he wrote to his wife : " Live low and sparingly 
 till my debts are paid ; I desire not riches, but to owe 
 nothing ; be liberal to the poor, and kind to all." At this 
 time of embarrassment a very large sum was offered him 
 by a company of traders for the exclusive right to trade 
 Detween the rivers Susquehannah and Delaware. He re- 
 
168 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 3HAP. fused to sell such right, saying each one in his colonj 
 
 1 should have an equal privilege to acquire property. 
 
 1682. Penn, accompanied by one hundred emigrants, landed 
 
 2^* at New Castle. The Swedes, Dutch, and English alike 
 welcomed him. He passed up the river to where the 
 capital of his province was yet to rise ; there, under a 
 spreading elm, he met a large number of sachems of the 
 neighboring tribes, and with them entered into a treaty 
 No record of this treaty has been preserved, yet it re- 
 mained for fifty years in force ; neither party violating its 
 provisions. The sons of the forest received the " Quaker 
 King" as a friend, and they never had cause to regret 
 • their confidence. He promised to treat them justly ; 
 a promise observed not only by himself but by the Quakei 
 settlers. During this year twenty-three ships laden with 
 emigrants arrived safely in the colony ; and they continued 
 to flock thither from year to year. 
 
 Lands, lying between the Schuylkill and the Delaware, 
 were purchased from the Swedes : a place desirable for a 
 city, from its situation, healthy air, and springs of fresh 
 water. It was to be a " greene country town, gardens 
 round each house, that it might never be burned, and 
 always be wholesome." The streets were marked out in 
 the primitive forest by blazing the trees — the walnut, the 
 spruce, the chestnut. A city for all mankind, it was sig- 
 
 1688. nificantly named Philadelphia. 
 
 The new city grew very rapidly ; in three years it con- 
 tained more than six hundred houses, while the colony 
 had a population of nearly ten thousand. Well might 
 the benevolent proprietary look forward to the future in 
 cheerful hope ; he had based his government on truth and 
 justice. The rights of the Bed Men were respected ; no 
 one could wrong them without incurring the same penalty 
 as that for wronging a fellow planter. If difficulties oc- 
 curred between them and the settlers, the juries to try 
 such cases were to be composed of six Indians and sis 
 
C5? 
 
FIRST LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY. 169 
 
 tfkite men. In the earlier days of the colony the natives chap 
 
 manifested their friendship by bringing as presents the 
 
 products of the chase, wild fowl and venison. 1683. 
 
 Presently the first Assembly in Pennsylvania was con- 
 vened. Penn gave to the people a " charter of liberties," 
 a representative government, and toleration in religious 
 matters ; to prevent lawsuits, three " peace-makers" 
 were appointed for each county. Laws were made to 
 restrain vice and to promote virtue. Labor upon the Sab- 1684 
 bath was forbidden. The confidence which the Indians had 
 in his integrity gave security to their friendship, and Penn- 
 sylvania was free from frontier wars, and more prosperous 
 and happy than any other colony. Had the Ked Men been 
 treated as justly by the other colonists as by the Quakers, 
 thousands of lives would have been spared and the general 
 prosperity of the whole country promoted. 
 
 The interests of the young were not forgotten ; efforts 1698. 
 were made for their education, and a public high-school 
 chartered by Penn, was established at Philadelphia, where 
 already a printing-press, the third in the colonies, was 
 doing its work. 
 
 After Penn returned to England, the people of Dela- 
 ware, or the three lower counties, who sympathized but 
 little with the Quakers, began to be restless. They feigned 1691 
 grievances, as a means to become independent. He yielded 
 to their request, and appointed for them a separate deputy- 
 governor. 
 
 Being the personal friend of the Duke of York, Penn 
 urged him when he became king, to relieve the oppressed; 
 and in consequence more than twelve hundred Quakers 
 were liberated, who had been imprisoned many years for 
 conscience' sake. His benevolence was not limited to 
 those of his own persuasion, but extended to all, both 
 Catholic and Protestant. 
 
 When the great revolution drove the arbitrary James 
 nto exile, and placed William of Orange on the throne, 168& 
 
170 HISTORY OP THE AMERICAN" PEOPLE. 
 
 Peim was accused by his enemies of favoring the interests 
 of the exiled monarch, with whom he corresponded. This 
 
 1692. correspondence afforded no evidence of the truth of these 
 calumnies, but "William lent them too ready an ear. He 
 was at a loss to conceive how Penn could be the friend of 
 James in exile, without wishing him to return to England 
 as a sovereign. These false charges, together with rumors 
 of dissensions in the colony, famished the royal government 
 a pretext for depriving Penn of his proprietary rights. 
 
 The Quakers became divided in their sentiments; a few 
 went to the extreme of non-resistance, saying, that it was 
 inconsistent for a Quaker to engage in public affairs, either 
 as a magistrate or as a legislator. The prime leader in 
 this was George Keith. After disturbing the province be- 
 yond even Quaker endurance, he was indicted by the grand 
 jury, as a disturber of the peace and violator of the laws. 
 He was tried, and fined for using improper language ; but 
 lest it might be thought a punishment for the free expres- 
 sion of opinion, the fine was remitted. The cry of perse- 
 cution was raised ; but time proved the falsehood of the 
 charge. 
 
 The first German emigrants to Pennsylvania were 
 Quakers in their religious views — converts of Penn and 
 Barclay, who some years before had travelled on the conti- 
 nent as missionaries. These settled Germantown and the 
 vicinity. Twenty years later, the ravages of war drove 
 
 1690. many Germans from their homes on the banks of the Rhine. 
 These emigrated in great numbers first to England, and 
 then to Pennsylvania. In religious views they were Ger- 
 man Reformed and Lutherans. They chose fertile dis- 
 tricts} settled together, and soon became celebrated as the 
 best farmers in America. Their numbers gradually increas- 
 ed by accessions of emigrants from home. They did not 
 assimilate with the English colonists : preserved inviolate 
 their customs, their religion, and their language, which 
 alone they permitted to be taught their children. The 
 
OPPOSITION TO ROYAL AUTHORITY. 171 
 
 isolation of a population so large, had an important influ- cg^p 
 
 ence upon the people of Pennsylvania, on their system of 
 
 education by common schools, on the struggle for independ- 1692. 
 ence, and since politically. 
 
 An attempt was now made to convert Pennsylvania 
 and Delaware into one royal province, over which Benja- 
 min Fletcher was appointed governor. Some of the magis- 
 trates refused to recognize his authority, and some resigned 
 their offices. When the Assembly met, the opposition 
 became more determined. The members of this body 
 deemed the laws made under the charter received from 
 Penn as valid; neither would they legislate under any other 
 authority. The charter given by King Charles, said they, 
 is as valid as one given by King William ; and they re- 
 fused to throw a suspicion over their existing laws by 
 re-enacting them. They never noticed the governor ; with 
 Quaker coolness passed and repassed his door, and in every 
 respect ignored his presence. 
 
 Meanwhile, Penn had been persecuted and annoyed ; 
 he was arraigned three times on frivolous charges, which 
 were as often not sustained. He prepared once more to 1090 
 visit his colony. Crowds of emigrants were ready to go 
 with him, when he was arrested again. Forced to go into 
 retirement, he determined to wait till time should bring 
 him justice. This delay ruined the remainder of his for- 
 tune ; death entered his family, and robbed him of his 
 wife and eldest son. Treated harshly by the world, and in 
 some instances by those whom he thought his friends, he 
 mildly persevered; never changed his views of right and 
 justice ; conscious of the purity of his motives, he serenely 
 waited for the time when his character should be vindi- 
 cated from the aspersions cast upon it. Ere long that time 
 came, the charges laid against him were proved to be false, 
 and he was restored to his proprietary rights. 1694 
 
 The want of means delayed his visit to his colony, but 
 he sent Markham as his deputy. He called an Assembly; 
 
 OF ~WE 
 
 t(Niwr-Dci-H. 
 
172 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, 
 
 chap, the people, alarmed at the recent encroachments upon 
 
 L their chartered rights, framed for themselves a libera 
 
 1694. constitution. The Assembly would levy no tax until 
 this was granted. When Penn arrived, he recognized as 
 valid what the people had done. When the proposition 
 1700. was made to form a " constitution which would be firm 
 and lasting," he said to them, " Keep what is good in the 
 charter and frame of government, and add what may best 
 suit the common good." It was agreed to surrender the 
 old charter, and in its place frame a new constitution. 
 1702. The territories wished to be separate, and Delaware 
 was permitted to have her own legislature ; though the 
 governor was to be the same as that of Pennsylvania 
 The two governments were never again united. All the 
 political privileges the people desired he cheerfully 
 granted ; they enjoyed religious liberty, and annually 
 elected their own magistrates. 
 
 A large emigration began about this period, and con- 
 tinued for half a century, to pour into Pennsylvania from 
 the north of Ireland and from Scotland. These were 
 principally Presbyterians. They settled in the eastern 
 and middle parts of the colony, and thence gradually ex- 
 tended their settlements west, making inroads upon the 
 forest. 
 
 When Penn returned to the colony it was his inten- 
 tion to remain, and make it the home of his children. 
 Kumors, however, reached the province that the charters 
 of all the colonies were to be taken away, and they 
 thrown upon the tender mercies of court favorites. He 
 had not only purchased his territory from Charles, but he 
 had bought the land from the Indians themselves ; he 
 was therefore the sole owner of the unoccupied soil of 
 Pennsylvania. These rumors rendered it necessary for 
 him to return to England. Having arranged the govern- 
 ment so as best to promote the interests of the people, he 
 bade farewell to the colony, for which he had spent the 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 173 
 
 better part of his life, and for which he "breathed his part- GBkP 
 ing blessing. 
 
 The virtues of William Penn saved the colony, so 17oa 
 dear to his heart, from becoming a province ruled by 
 royal governors and impoverished by tax-gatherers. His 
 enemies never could persuade the court to deprive him 
 of his property. Though in his old age so poor, on ac- 
 count of the sacrifices he had made, as to be compelled to 
 go for a season to a debtor's prison, he refused to sell his 
 estates in America unless he could secure for the people 
 the full enjoyment of their liberties. His death was as 
 peaceful as his life had been benevolent. He left three 1718. 
 sons, who were minors. For them the government was 
 administered by deputies until the [Revolution, when the 1776 
 Commonwealth of Pennsylvania purchased their claims for 
 more than half a million of dollars. 
 
 Six years after the death of Penn, there came to 
 Philadelphia a youth of seventeen, who was yet to exert 
 a great influence, not merely upon that colony but upon 
 the others, while his fame was to be as great in the world 
 of science. This youth was Benjamin Franklin, a 
 native of Boston, the son of a tallow-chandler ; at which 
 business, till ten years of age, he labored. But his ardent 
 mind craved something far beyond. During his leisure 
 time, and till late at night, he read and appreciated 
 all the books he could borrow, and his limited means 
 could purchase. 
 
 At twelve he was bound to his eldest brother, a print- 
 er, to leam the art. There he experienced, not the 
 kindness of a brother but the harshness of a tyrant. 
 Worn out with this oppression, the determined youth 
 gold his little library to furnish means to travel, ancL 
 without giving notice to his friends, left to seek his for- 
 tune in the wide world. He travelled first to New 
 York, where he tarried but a day, and then passed on to 
 Philadelphia. There he arrived a stranger — his money 
 
174 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 3HAP . reduced to a single dollar ; a penny roll served him foi 
 
 , his first dinner. In one of the two printing-offices of the 
 
 1724. city he sought and obtained employment. Afterward he 
 went to London, where he spent a year and a half in the 
 same business ; then returned, hut every thing that could 
 be of avail to him he had carefully marked and treasured 
 up*. In truth he never lost a moment ; nothing escaped 
 his notice, whether in the natural or political world. His 
 wonderful combination of diligence, keen observation, and 
 practical wisdom, fitted him to trace the current of 
 human affairs, as well as deduce laws from the phenomena 
 of nature. 
 
 His experiments in electricity, the discovery of its 
 identity with lightning, and the invention of the light- 
 ning-rod, made his name famous in the universities and 
 courts of the Old World ; while his " Poor Richard's 
 Almanac," with its aphorisms of worldly wisdom, pene- 
 trated every nook and corner of his native land, and by 
 its silent influence did much to inculcate the virtues of 
 industry and economy. 
 
 " The first native of America, who wrote the Eng- 
 lish language with classic taste and elegance," his influ- 
 ence was impressed upon the literature of the. land. He 
 established the first American periodical magazine, con- 
 ducted a newspaper, and wrote popular pamphlets on 
 topics of public interest. 
 
 Pennsylvania seems to have been the chosen home of 
 1160 the Germans. In the autumn of one year came twenty 
 ships to Philadelphia, with twelve thousand German em- 
 igrants on board. The two following years brought each 
 nearly as many. The Rev. Henry M. Muhlenburg, whose 
 influence was exerted fo~ fifty years in laying the foundation 
 of the Lutheran church in America, had already com- 
 lttt. menced his labors. The Swedish churches on the Delaware 
 sympathized in doctrine with the Lutheran, but in time 
 the former, more inclined to adopt the English language, 
 united with the Episcopal church. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 COLONIZATION OP THE CAROLINAS. 
 
 The first Settlers.— Grants to Royal Favorites.— The " Grand Model.' 
 
 tlement at Cape Fear River. — Sir John Yeamans. — Emigrants under 
 Sayle. — The Huguenots. — The People Independent. — Rice. — Church- 
 men and Dissenters. — Manufactures prohibited. — War between Eng- 
 land and Spain. — Failure to Capture St. Augustine. — The ruin of the 
 Appalachees. — Indian Wars. — German Emigrants. — The People repu- 
 diate the Authority of the Proprietaries. 
 
 We have now to speak of the permanent settlement of chap 
 
 the land, which the chivalric Sir Walter Raleigh en- ^ 
 
 deavored to colonize ; and to which the noble Coligny 1522. 
 sent his countrymen to found a Protestant State, and 
 where they perished by the hand of Spanish violence. 
 That vast region, extending from the southern border of 
 Virginia to the northern border of Florida, was repre- 
 sented as a " delightsome land " by the adventurers who 
 had explored it. Thither, during the space of forty years, 
 emigrants had gone from Virginia. These were Dis- 
 senters, a term which now began to be applied to all 
 Protestants not attached to the Church of England. 
 This Church, established by law in Virginia, exercised 
 great illiberality toward those who would not conform to 
 its ceremonies ; and many Dissenters, greatly annoved by 
 the collectors of tythes, emigrated further south. Among 
 them was a company of Presbyterians who settled on the ;g5g, 
 Chowan. Berkeley, governor of Virginia, assumed juris- 
 diction over them by appointing one of their number, 
 
176 HISTORY OP THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 jhap. William Drummond, governor. Drummond was a Scotch- 
 
 man by birth, a devoted advocate of popular liberty, the 
 
 1653. same who afterward, as has been related, returned to 
 Virginia, and was put to death by Berkeley for the part 
 he took in Bacon's attempt to vindicate the rights of the 
 t676. people. 
 
 Charles II., who gave away vast regions with as much 
 coolness as if they really belonged to him, granted to 
 eight of his favorites a charter and certain privileges, to 
 468. repay them for their loyalty in restoring him to the throne 
 of his father. This grant was of the territory extending 
 from the present southern line of Virginia to the St. 
 Johns, in Florida, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 
 Many of these proprietaries were men of influence in their 
 day. Among these were the Earl of Clarendon, who was 
 prime minister ; Sir Ashley Cooper, better known as the 
 Earl of Shaftesbury ; General Monk, Duke of Albemarle, 
 who took an active part in the restoration of Charles ; Sir 
 William Berkeley, whom we have met in Virginia his- 
 tory; and Sir George Carteret, a proprietary of New 
 Jersey. They professed to have "a pious zeal for the 
 spread of the gospel," but their conduct has led the world 
 to believe that they desired more to enrich themselves by 
 means of a vast land speculation. 
 
 The labor of framing a government for their empire in 
 the New World they intrusted to Shaftesbury, and the 
 celebrated philosopher, John Locke. Their joint produc- 
 tion by pre-eminence was named the " Grand Model " or 
 " Fundamental Constitutions." In it the right to rule 
 was assumed to belong only to those of noble blood ; and 
 therefore its principles were pronounced immortal. It 
 made provision for Earls, Barons, and Squires, in whose 
 hands, under various forms, should be the entire adminis- 
 tration of affairs ; while the people were to be attached to 
 the soil as tenants. Those who owned fifty acres of land 
 had the privilege of voting, and were termed freemen ; but 
 
THE "grand model/' 177 
 
 those who were tenants had no such privilege, neither chap 
 
 could they ever rise above that station. To the freemen 
 
 an Assembly was granted, but on such conditions, that its 1668. 
 acts were under the control of the aristocracy. Every re- 
 ligion was professedly tolerated, but care was taken to 
 declare that the Church of England alone was orthodox. 
 Such was the frame of government prepared for the people 
 of the Carolinas by the united wisdom of two philosophers. 
 Had it been designed for a people living in the Middle 
 Ages, it might, at least, have had a trial ; an honor to 
 which the " Grand Model" never attained. It was 
 as easy to convert log-cabins into castles, as to make 
 the people perpetual tenants ; they might be made 
 nobles, but never dependents. Great numbers of them had 
 left Virginia expressly to escape restraint and oppression ; 
 and they had very little respect for the authority of the 
 proprietaries, while they certainly did not fear and honor 
 fche king. 
 
 The' contest soon began. The proprietaries claimed 
 the territory because the king had given them a charter, 
 and they demanded quit-rents ; the settlers, already in 
 possession, claimed their lands because they had pur- 
 chased them from the Indians. Why should they pay 
 quit-rents ? 
 
 A few years before, a small company from New Eng- leei 
 land had formed a settlement on Cape Fear river. Every 
 inducement was held out to retain these settlers, and to 
 encourage others to join them. To each one was offered one 
 hundred acres of land, at a quit-rent of half a penny an 
 acre ; but the barrenness of the soil neutralized every 
 effort. Many of these colonists returned home, and the 
 distress of the remainder was so great, that contributions 
 in their behalf were taken up in New England. 
 
 Three years later quite an accession was made to this 1664. 
 settlement by a company of planters from the Barbadoes. 
 Sir John Yeamans, their leader, was appointed governor. 
 
178 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap. He was instructed, in order to induce others to come, to 
 
 XV. 
 
 L be "very tender" toward the New Englanders. The 
 
 1664. people did the best they could with their pine barrens, by 
 making staves and shingles ; these they sent to the West 
 Indies : a trade carried on to this day from that region 
 It was enacted that debts contracted out of the colony 
 could not be collected from the emigrant by process of 
 law until he had been a resident five years. It thus be- 
 came a partial asylum for debtors. 
 tfe70. A company of emigrants, under the direction of Wil- 
 
 liam Sayle, was also sent by the proprietaries ; and to 
 superintend their own interests they appointed Joseph 
 West commercial agent. They landed first at Port 
 Royal, where the remains of the fort built by the Hugue- 
 nots, one hundred years before, were still visible. It had 
 been called Carolina, in honor of the reigning French 
 king ; the name was now retained in honor of Charles of 
 England. One of the proprietaries, Carteret, gave his 
 name to the colony. For some reason they, before long, 
 removed to another situation further north, where they 
 formed a settlement between two rivers, which, in honor 
 of Shaftesbury, were named the Ashley and the. Cooper. 
 A location near the harbor, and better suited for commer- 
 cial purposes, was afterward noticed. In process of time 
 a village grew up on this spot ; it is now known as the city 
 of Charleston. 
 
 The colony continued to increase from emigration. 
 Dissenters came, hoping to enjoy the religious rights 
 denied them at home ; Dutch and Germans from Europe ; 
 Presbyterians from the North of Ireland as well as from 
 Scotland — the latter furnishing great numbers of " phy- 
 sicians, clergymen, lawyers, and schoolmasters; " — Church- 
 men from England, who expected their church to be 
 established in accordance with the provisions of the 
 " Grand Model ; " emigrants from New York, because of 
 the high-handed measures of the English governors ; 
 
THE HUGUENOTS. 179 
 
 and Huguenots, under the patronage of Charles II. He c **^*- 
 
 wished to introduce the culture of the vine and olive, the L 
 
 raising of silk-worms, and ultimately the manufacture of 107&. 
 silk. Great numbers of the Huguenots, from Languedoc, 
 in the South of France, came to the Carolinas, attracted 
 by the genial climate. 
 
 A law granting toleration to the Protestants of France 
 was made by Henry IY. : this was the famous Edict of 1598. 
 Nantes, thus named from the city where it was given. 
 This law remained in force almost ninety years, when it 
 was revoked by Louis XIV. He had, as long as he 368& 
 could enjoy it, spent his life in vice and the grossest de- 
 bauchery ; now he thought to silence the clamors of con- 
 science, that terrible enemy of wicked men, and yet win 
 heaven by converting to the Romish church his Protestant 
 subjects. Encouraged in this by the priests and the 
 wiles of an apostate woman, he let loose upon these indus- 
 trious and well-disposed people the terrors of persecution. 
 Why go into the detail of their wrongs ? — the heart 
 sickens at the remembrance. By a refinement of cruelty, 
 they were forbidden to flee from their native land, and 
 every avenue of escape was guarded by their inveterate 
 enemies. Yet, after encountering unheard-of dangers and 
 trials, many of them did escape, and more than five hun- 
 dred thousand fled to different parts of the world. In the 
 New World they were everywhere welcomed by sympa- 
 thizing friends. 
 
 The Huguenots were so far superior to the Catholic 
 portion of the French nation, in intelligence and the 
 knowledge of the mechanic arts, that nearly all the manu- 
 factures of the country were in their hands. This skill 
 they carried with them, and they thus became desirable 
 citizens wherever they chose to settle. In South Carolina 
 their influence was specially felt. Their quiet and inof- 
 fensive manners won for them respect ; their integrity and 
 industry gave them influence. Ere long they mingled 
 10 
 
180 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, with the inhabitants ; and their descendants, almost uni- 
 versally, when the hour of trial came, were found on the 
 
 1670. side of justice and liberty. 
 
 The original inhabitants of the Carolinas were peculiar 
 in their character. Numbers of them went thither from 
 the other colonies to avoid restraint ; they refused to pay 
 taxes to the proprietaries or to the king, 01 duties or 
 trade ; they were friendly to the buccaneers or pirates, whc 
 infested the Southern waters ; they warred against the In- 
 dians, to obtain captives to be sent to the West Indies and 
 sold as slaves. There were no towns in the colony ; the 
 planters were scattered along the streams and valleys. 
 There were no roads ; they travelled along paths through 
 the woods, known only by the blazed trees, or on the 
 rivers by means of row-boats. The proprietaries soon saw 
 the impossibility of inducing a people so free and fearless 
 to conform to a government under the " Grand Model." 
 
 Sir John Yeamans, who had been appointed governor, 
 
 1671. brought with him, on his return from Barbadoes, fifty 
 families, and nearly two hundred slaves. This was the 
 commencement of negro slavery in South Carolina. The 
 slaves increased very rapidly, and in a few years so many 
 had been introduced that in number they were nearly two 
 to one of the whites. 
 
 Yeamans, "a sordid calculator," had been impover- 
 ished in England, and went abroad to improve his fortune. 
 He took special pains to guard his own interests ; for this 
 reason he was dismissed by the proprietaries. Under his 
 successor, the wise and liberal West, the colony flourished 
 for some years. He, too, was dismissed, not because he 
 favored himself but because he favored the people. 
 
 Th&»next struggle came, when an attempt was made 
 to levy duties on the little trade of the colony. The people 
 considered themselves independent of the proprietaries as 
 veil as of the king, and under no obligation to pay taxes 
 in any form. That there was much dissatisfaction in the 
 
DISPUTES AND PABTIE8. 181 
 
 colony, maj be inferred from the fact that in the chap 
 
 space of six years it had five governors. To allay these L. 
 
 troubles James Colleton, a brother of one of the pro- 1671. 
 prietaries, was sent as governor. But when he attempted 
 to collect rents and taxes he met with as little success as 
 any of his predecessors : the people seized tfo* records of 
 the province, imprisoned his secretary, and b\ Idly defied 
 him and his authority. 
 
 Though many of the settlers left Virginia on account 
 of the want of religious privileges, they found but very few 
 ministers of the gospel in the country. Quaker preachers 
 were the first to visit the Carolinas ; afterward George 
 Fox himself carried them the truth as he believed it. The 
 people warmly welcomed the messenger of the gospeL 
 The influence of this visit was to strengthen the hearts of 
 his followers, and to make many converts. The Quakers, 
 everywhere the friends of popular rights, exerted much in- 
 fluence against the arbitrary rule of the proprietaries. 
 
 There arose a party of " Cavaliers and ill-livers," 
 whose morals were fashioned after those of the court of the 
 profligate Charles. Opposition was excited by their high- 
 handed measures, and another party sprang into existence; 
 it was composed of the Presbyterians, Quakers, and the 
 Huguenots, who had recently been admitted to the rights 
 of citizenship. The disputes were chiefly in relation to 
 rents and land tenures. 
 
 In the midst of this confusion, an upright Quaker, 
 John Archdale, was elected governor. He assumed the 16&4 
 part of mediator, and attempted, with some success, to 
 reconcile the disputants. In selecting his council he chose 
 men of all parties, and by various judicious regulations 
 partially allayed the strife. By just treatment he made 
 friends of the Indians ; he ransomed and sent home some 
 of their Indian converts, who were held by a neighboring 
 tribe as slaves, and thus conciliated the Spaniards at St. 
 Augustine. The kind act was reciprocated ; the Spaniards 
 
182 HISTORY OF THE AMEBICAK PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, restored to their friends some English sailors shipwrecked 
 
 L on their coast. 
 
 16t>4. The Dissenters numbered two-thirds of the population, 
 
 yet, for the sake of peace, they consented that one minister 
 of the Church of England should be maintained at the 
 public expense. Upon one occasion the Churchmen and 
 aristocracy accidentally had a majority of one in the 
 Assembly ; they manifested their gratitude for the con- 
 cession just mentioned, by depriving the Dissenters of all 
 their political privileges ; they made the Church of Eng- 
 land the established church, to be maintained at the pub- 
 lic expense, and proceeded to divide the colony into 
 parishes, to which the " Society for the Propagation of 
 
 1704. the Gospel" was to appoint pastors. The aggrieved 
 people appealed to the House of Lords for redress ; and 
 the intolerant act of the Legislature was declared to be 
 null and void. The law disfranchising Dissenters was re- 
 pealed, that granting a support to the Church of England 
 remained in force till the Revolution. 
 
 Notwithstanding these difficulties the colony pros- 
 pered, and increased in numbers from emigration. Among 
 these a company from Massachusetts formed a settlement 
 
 1898. twenty miles back of Charleston. During Archdale's ad- 
 ministration, the captain of a ship from Madagascar gave 
 him some rice, which he distributed among the planters 
 to be sown. The experiment was successful, and soon 
 Carolina rice was celebrated as the best in the world. 
 The fur trade with the Indians was also profitable, while 
 the forests produced their share of profit in lumber and 
 tar. 
 
 The colonists attempted to manufacture domestic 
 cloths to supply their own wants ; an enterprise they were 
 soon compelled to abandon. The manufacturers and mer- 
 chants of England complained, as they themselves wished 
 to enjoy the profits that would arise from supplying them 
 Parliament passed an act forbidding woollen goods to be 
 
EXPEDITION AGAINST ST. AUGUSTINE. 183 
 
 transported from one colony to another, or to any foreign chap 
 
 port. This unrighteous law, as was designed, broke up 
 
 nearly all colonial trade and manufactures, and gave the 1600. 
 English trader and manufacturer the monopoly of both. 
 We shall see how this policy affected all the colonists. In 
 the Carolinas, they could only engage in planting, and a 
 new impulse was given to the slave trade. 
 
 War had arisen between England and Spain, and their 
 children in the New World unfortunately took up arms 
 against each other. James Moore, who was now governor 
 of Carolina, undertook an expedition against St. Augus- 
 tine. He is represented as a " needy, forward, ambitious 
 man," who was in the habit of kidnapping Indians and 
 selling them as slaves : now he hoped to plunder the 
 Spaniards at St. Augustine. He pressed some vessels into 1708 
 his service, and set sail with a portion of the troops, and 
 sent others with the Indian allies by land. The town was 
 easily taken, but the soldiers retired to a well fortified fort, 
 and defied the besiegers. Moore must send to the island 
 of Jamaica for cannon, to enable him to take the fort. 
 Meanwhile an Indian runner had sped through the forest 
 to Mobile, and informed the French settlers there of what 
 was going on. They sent word to Havana. We may judge 
 the surprise of Moore, when he saw two Spanish men-of- 
 war come to rescue St. Augustine, instead of the vessel he 
 expected from Jamaica. He immediately abandoned his 
 supplies and stores, and made his way by land as best he 
 could, to Charleston. The colony, by this unwise and 
 wicked expedition, only gained a debt which pressed heavily 
 upon the people for years. 
 
 The Appalachees of Florida, under the influence of 
 Spanish priests, had become converts to Romanism ; they 
 built churches, and began to cultivate the soil and live in 
 villages. As free intercourse existed between Florida and 
 Louisiana; the English colonists professed alarm at the 
 influence the French and Spaniards might have over the 
 
184 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 ch^P- Indians of that region. This furnished an excuse for thf 
 ambitious Moore to lead an expedition against these inoffen- 
 
 1705. sive Indians, whose only crime was, that they were willing 
 to be taught religion and agricultuie by Spanish priests. 
 With about fifty whites and one thousand friendly Indians, 
 he went through the wilderness, away across the State oi 
 Georgia, down on the Gulf to Appalachee Bay. The first 
 intimation the Indians had of this freebooting expedition 
 was an attack upon their village, one morning at daylight. 
 The assailants met with so warm a reception, that at first 
 they were forced to retire, but not until they had set fire 
 to a church. There happened to be in the bay a Spanish 
 ship, whose commander the next day, with a few white 
 men and four hundred Indians, made an attack on the 
 invaders, but he was defeated. The Indian villages were 
 now destroyed, the churches plundered of their plate, and 
 numbers of Indians taken captive, and removed to the banks 
 of the Altamaha, while their own country was given to the 
 Seminoles, the allies of the invaders. Thus the English 
 placed Indians friendly to themselves between the Spanish 
 and French settlements, while in virtue of this expedition 
 they claimed the soil of Georgia. More than one hundred 
 and twenty-five years afterward, the descendants of these 
 Seminoles were removed beyond the Mississippi. Even 
 then the ruins of churches marked the stations of the Span- 
 ish missions among the Appalachees. 
 
 The next year brought Charleston two unexpected 
 enemies — a malignant fever, and while it was raging, a 
 squadron of Spanish and French ships to avenge the attack 
 
 1706. upon the Appalachees. The people, under William Ehett 
 and Sir Nathaniel Johnson, were soon ready to meet them. 
 When thjBy landed, they were opposed at every point, and 
 driven back. A French ship was captured ; and of the 
 eight hundred men who landed, more than three hundred 
 were either killed or taken prisoners. This victory wag 
 looked upon as a great triumph. 
 
RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES. 18£ 
 
 In this conflict the Huguenots performed well their c ^ p 
 
 part. An unusual number of them had settled in Charles- L 
 
 ton ; here they founded a church, its forms of worship the 1688. 
 same as those to which they were accustomed at home. 
 This church still remains, the only one in the land that has 
 preserved inviolate these pristine forms. 
 
 A general effort was now made to extend the influence 
 of the Church of England in the colonies. The politic 
 William of Orange looked upon the project with a favor- 
 able eye. A " Society for the Propagation of the Gospel 
 in foreign parts " was formed in England. Its object, the 1701, 
 conversion of the Indians, was worthy ; but at this time, 
 by means of worldly men and politicians, its influence was 
 directed to the establishment of the Church of England in 
 all the American colonies. The project everywhere met 
 with great opposition except in Virginia; there the dissent- 
 ers were few in number. This society founded many 
 churches in the colonies, which remain even to this day. 
 
 North Carolina was called the " Sanctuary of Kun- 1711 
 aways," a " land where there was scarcely any government," 
 with a population made up of " Presbyterians, Independ- 
 ents, Quakers, and other evil-disposed persons." Such was 
 the language of royalists and those opposed to freedom in 
 religious opinions. The proprietaries determined to estab- 
 lish the Church of England, and maintain it at public ex- 
 pense. Those who refused to conform to this law were 
 debarred from holding offices of trust. The people did 
 refuse, and soon there "was but one clergyman in the 
 whole country;" and those in favor of freedom in religious 
 opinions, were stigmatized as a " rabble of profligate per- 
 sons." These tyrannies finally led to open rebellion on the 
 part of the people, who wished to govern themselves, and 
 when unmolested did it well. 
 
 Thus far North Carolina had escaped the horrors of 
 Indian warfare. There were many tribes west and south 
 of their territory. The greater part of the region now 
 
186 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, occupied by the States of Georgia and Alabama, was the 
 
 home of the Creeks or Muscogees, numbering nearly thirty 
 
 1712. thousand. 
 
 The teiritory of the Yamassees lay immediately west 
 of the settlement on the north bank of the Savannah. In 
 the vicinity were the Catawbas, on the river which per- 
 petuates their name. West of these, a mountaineer tribe, 
 the Cherokees, roamed through the beautiful valleys of 
 the upper Tennessee, while they claimed as their hunting 
 grounds the regions north of them to the Kanawha and 
 the Ohio. 
 
 A great change had come over the powerful tribes 
 along the coast. The Hatteras tribe, which, in Ealeigh's 
 time, one hundred and twenty-five years before, numbered 
 nearly twenty thousand, was now reduced to less than one 
 hundred. Some tribes had entirely disappeared ; had 
 retired farther back into the wilderness, or become extinct. 
 Vices copied from the white man had wrought this ruin. 
 
 The Tuscaroras, a warlike tribe, whose ancestors had 
 emigrated from the north, became alarmed at the en- 
 croachments of the colonists upon their lands. They 
 determined to make an effort to regain their beautiful 
 valleys. 
 
 A company of German exiles from the Khine had 
 come under the direction of De Graffenried. The proprieta- 
 ries assigned them lands that belonged to the Indians. 
 Lawson, the surveyor-general of the province, and Graffen- 
 ried, when on an exploring tour up the Neuse, were seized 
 bv a party of Tuscaroras, who hurried them on, day and 
 night, to one of their villages. There several chiefs of the 
 tribe held a council, and discussed the wrongs they had 
 suffered from the English. They finally determined to 
 burn the man, who with compass and chain had marked 
 out their lands into farms for the settlers. When Graff- 
 enried made known to them that he had been only a short 
 time in the country ; that he was the "chief of a differ- 
 
THE TUSCARORAS EMIGRATE. 187 
 
 tnt tribe from the English/' and moreover promised to chap 
 
 take no more of their lands, they did not put him to death L, 
 
 with Lawson. He was kept a prisoner five weeks, and 1712 
 then permitted to return home. During this time, the 
 Tuscaroras and their allies, the Corees, had attacked the 
 settlements on the Koanoke and Pamlico sound. The 1711 
 carnage continued for three days, and many of the poor 
 people, who had fled from persecution at home, perished 
 by the tomahawk in ths land of their adoption. 
 
 The people appealed to Virginia and to South Carolina 1711 
 for aid. Only a part of the Tuscaroras had engaged in 
 the attack. With another portion of the tribe, Spots- 
 wood, governor of Virginia, made a treaty of peace, — the 
 only assistance he could give. Governor Craven of South 
 Carolina sent to their aid a small force, and a number of 
 friendly Indians. These drove the Tuscaroras to their 
 fort, and compelled them to make peace. These same 
 troops, as they were returning home, basely violated the 
 treaty just made ; attacked some Indian towns, and seized 
 their inhabitants to sell them as slaves. The war was of 
 course renewed. The Tuscaroras, driven from one place 
 of concealment to another, and hunted for their scalps or 
 for slaves, finally abandoned their fair lands of the south ; 
 emigrated across Virginia and Pennsylvania to the home 
 of their fathers, and there, at the great council-fire of the 
 Iroquois, or Five Nations, on Oneida lake in New York, 
 were admitted into that confederacy, of which they 
 became the sixth nation. At this time, the people of 171! 
 Pennsylvania complained of the importation of these cap- 
 tives into their colony. A law was therefore enacted, 
 forbidding the introduction of u negroes and slaves, as 
 exciting the suspicion and dissatisfaction of the Indians 
 of the province." 
 
 The war seemed to be ended, and the traders of Soutlt 
 Carolina especially, extended their traffic with the tribes 
 vho lived in the region between that colony and the Mis* 
 
188 HIST0EY OF THE AMEEICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 °xv P * 8 ^ SS ^PP^ Soon aft©'* these traders were driven from the 
 
 L villages of some of the more western tribes. This wai 
 
 1713. attributed to the influence of the French of Louisiana. 
 
 The Yamassees, whom we have seen in alliance with 
 the colonists against the Tuscaroras, when they hoped tc 
 obtain captives, now renewed their friendship with the 
 * Spaniards, with whom they had been at variance, — for they 
 hated the priests, who attempted to convert them. They 
 induced the Catawbas, the Creeks and the Cherokees, 
 who had also been allies of the colonists against the 
 Tuscaroras, to join them. This alliance was likewise 
 attributed to Spanish and French influence. Governor 
 Spotswood seems to have revealed the truth, when he wrote 
 to the " Board of Trade " in London, that " the Indians 
 never break' with the English without gross provocation 
 from persons trading with them." These tribes had been 
 looked upon as " a tame and peaceable people," and fair 
 game for unprincipled traders. 
 1715. The savages cunningly laid their plans, and suddenly, 
 
 one morning, fell upon the unsuspecting settlers, killed 
 great numbers and took many prisoners. The people fled 
 toward the sea-shore. A swift runner hastened to Port 
 Koyal and alarmed the inhabitants, who escaped as best 
 they could to Charleston. The Indians continued to 
 prowl around the settlements, and drove the inhabitants 
 before them, until the colony was on the verge of ruin. 
 
 The enemy received their first check from forces sent 
 from North Carolina. Governor Craven acted with his 
 usual energy, he raised a few troops and went to meet the 
 savage foe. The contest was long and severe ; in the end 
 the Indian power was broken. The Yamassees emigrated 
 to Florida, where they were welcomed with joy by the 
 Spaniards at St. Augustine. The other tribes retired far- 
 ther into the wilderness. Yet war-parties of the Yamas- 
 sees continued, for years, to make incursions against the 
 frontier settlements, and kept them in a state of alarm* 
 
CHARTER OF TfiE PROPRIETARIES FORFEITED. 189 
 
 v 
 
 The proprietaries made no effort to protect the colo- chap 
 
 nists or to share the expense of the war. They at length 
 
 determined, as they must defend themselves, also to man- 1715. 
 age their own affairs, and they resolved " to have no more 
 to do with the proprietaries, nor to have any regard to 
 their officers/' On the other hand, the proprietaries com- 
 plained that the " people were industriously searching for 
 grounds of quarrel with them, with the view of throwing 
 off their authority." The matter was brought before Par- 
 liament, which declared the charter of the proprietaries to 
 be forfeited. 
 
 Francis Nicholson, who for many years had been ex- 
 perimenting as a colonial governor, and, as he said, " been 
 falsely sworn out of Virginia and lied out of Nova Scotia," 
 was appointed provisional governor. He was not an exam- 1720. 
 pie of good temper, and much less of good morals. He 
 made a treaty with the Cherokees, who were to permit 
 only Englishmen to settle on their lands ; and with the 
 Creeks, whose hunting-grounds were to extend to the 
 Savannah. He had battled against popular rights in the 
 north, now he thought best to make his path easy, and he 
 confirmed all the laws passed by the revolutionary Assem- 
 bly. However, when he left the country he mourned over 
 the " spirit of commonwealth notions which prevailed," 
 as the result, as he said, of intercourse with the New 
 Englanders, who, at this time, were busily engaged in 
 trading with the Carolinas. 
 
 These disputes were at length ended by an act of Par- 
 'iament. Seven of the proprietaries sold out their claims 
 to the government of England. The two Carolinas were 1729 
 now separated, and a royal governor appointed for each. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 COLONIZATION OF GEORGIA. 
 
 Founded in Benevolence. — Oglethorpe. — First Emigration. — Savannah. — 
 Encouragements. — Germans from the Western Alps. — Augusta. — The 
 Moravians. — Scotch Highlanders. — The Wesleys. — Whitefield, his Or- 
 phan House. — War with Spain ; its Cause. — Failure to Capture St. Au- 
 gustine. Repulse of the Spanish Invaders. — The Colony becomes a 
 Royal Province. 
 
 chap. We have seen some colonies founded as asylums for 
 
 the oppressed for conscience' sake, and others the. off- 
 
 1732. spring of royal grants to needy courtiers, — bankrupt in 
 fortune, and sometimes in morals, seeking in their old age 
 to retrieve the follies of their youth. It is now a pleasure 
 to record the founding of an asylum not alone for the 
 oppressed for conscience* sake, but for the victims of un- 
 . righteous law — a colony the offspring of benevolence ; the 
 benevolence of one noble-hearted man ;— one who, born 
 in affluence, devoted his wealth, his mind and his energies 
 to the great work. James Edward Oglethorpe, " the poor 
 man's friend," " a Christian gentleman of the Cavalier 
 school," had sympathy for the unfortunate who were im- 
 mured within prison walls, not for crime, but for debt. 
 He labored to have repealed the laws authorizing such 
 imprisonment, and to reform the entire prison discipline 
 of England. 
 
 His efforts did not end here ; he desired to provide in 
 America an asylum for those who were, while in their own 
 land, at the mercy of heard-hearted creditors, as well as 
 
James Edward Oglethorpe 
 
A TRUST FOB THE POOR. 191 
 
 a place of refuge for the poor, where comfort and happi- c**ap 
 
 ness might be the reward of industry and virtue. There 1 
 
 were, at this time, in England, more than four thousand 1732. 
 men in prison for debt, with no hope of relief. Through 
 his exertions, "multitudes were restored to light and 
 freedom, who by long confinement were strangers and 
 helpless in the country of their birth/' 
 
 Others became interested in his schemes of benevo- 
 lence, and a petition numerously signed by men of influ- 
 ence and family was presented to the king. They asked 
 a charter to colonize the territory south of the Savannah 
 river, then included in Carolina, with unfortunate debtors, 
 and with Protestants from the continent of Europe. A 
 grant was given by George II. of the region lying between 
 the Savannah and the Altamaha, and from their head 
 springs west to the Pacific. The territory was to be 
 known as Georgia. It was given " in trust for the poor " 
 to twenty-one trustees for the space of twenty-one years. 
 The trustees manifested their zeal by giving their services 
 without any reward. 
 
 The climate of this region was thought to be very fa- 
 vorable for the raising of silk-worms, and the cultivation 
 of the grape. Merchants, therefore, who could not be 
 otherwise influenced, were induced to favor the cause by 
 hopes of gain. The u free exercise of religion " was guar- 
 anteed to all " except papists." Under no conditions was 
 land to be granted in tracts of more than five hundred 
 acres. This was designed to enable the poor to become 
 owners of the soil, and to prevent the rich from monopo- 
 lizing the best lands. 
 
 Much interest was taken in this new field of benevo- 
 lence, and donations were made by all classes of society. 
 What a transition for the poor debtor I He was to ex- 
 change the gloomy walls of a prison for a home in that 
 delightful land, where grim poverty never would annoy 
 him more I It was determined to take as colonists only 
 
192 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, the most needy and helpless, and, as far as possible, ex- 
 
 1 elude those of bad morals. 
 
 1782. Thirty-five families, numbering altogether one hundred 
 
 and fifty persons, embarked for their new homes. While 
 others gave to the enterprise their substance and influ- 
 ence, Oglethorpe volunteered to superintend the colony in 
 • person. They took with them " a clergyman with Bibles, 
 Prayer-books, and Catechisms/' and one person who was 
 skilled in the raising of silk. The company landed first 
 at Charleston ; by a vote of the Assembly, they were 
 welcomed, and presented with supplies of rice and cattle. 
 Oglethorpe hastened to explore the Savannah. On a 
 bluff twenty miles from its mouth he planted his colony. 
 This bluff was already in the possession of a small band 
 of Indians, from whom it was named the Yamacraw. 
 Through the efforts of Mary Musgrove, who acted as in- 
 terpreter, the bluff was purchased. This woman was a 
 daughter of a Uchee chief, and had been sent to school 
 in Charleston, where she had married an English trader. 
 
 1J88. The colonists immediately began to build and fortify 
 
 their town, which they named Savannah, the Indian name 
 of the river. The town was regularly laid out, with wide 
 streets and spacious squares. A garden of some acree 
 was inclosed for a nursery of mulberry-trees to feed silk- 
 worms ; and here also experiments were made, in order tc 
 introduce European fruits. 
 
 The aged chief of the little band of Indians wished 
 protection. He presented to Oglethorpe a buffalo skin, 
 on the inside of which was painted an eagle. " The eagle," 
 said he, " signifies speed, and the buffalo strength ; the 
 English are swift as the eagle, for they have flown over 
 vast seas ; they are as strong as the buffalo, for nothing 
 can withstand them ; the feathers of the eagle are soft, 
 and signify love ; the buffalo's skin is warm, and signifies 
 protection ; therefore, I hope the English will love and 
 protect our little families." The hopes of poor old 
 
EMIGRANTS ; LUTHERANS. 193 
 
 Tomochechi and his tribe were doomed to be sadly dis- chap 
 appointed. 
 
 The genial climate delighted the colonists, and they 1788. 
 went cheerfully to work, building their houses. The 
 chiefs of the lower Creeks came and made a treaty ; they 
 acknowledged the English rule from the Savannah to the 
 St. John's, and west to the Chattahoochee, and gave 
 them permission to cultivate the lands not used by their 
 own people. Then came a messenger from the distant 
 Cherokees, pledging the friendship of his tribe. Soon 
 after came a Choctaw chief saying, " I have come a 
 great way ; I belong to a great nation ; the French are 
 among us ; we do not like them ; they build forts and 
 trade with us ; their goods are poor, and we wish to trade 
 with you." Thus the way was opened for a profitable 
 traffic with the tribes north of the gulf, and west to the 
 Mississippi. 
 
 The fame of this delightful land reached Europe, and 
 penetrated even into the fastnesses of the western Alps. 
 There, long ages before the Reformation, a pure gospel 
 had been taught. Now a persecution was raging, and the 
 sufferings of these Christians, now become Lutherans, deep- 
 ly enlisted the sympathies of the English people. These 
 Germans were invited by the " Society for the Propaga- 
 tion of the Gospel/' to emigrate to Georgia, where they 
 could be free from their persecutors, and lands were offered 
 them ; but they rejoiced more than all in the opportunity 
 given them to carry the gospel to the Indians. Money 
 was subscribed by the benevolent in England to enable 
 them to travel from Augsburg, across the country to 
 Frankfort on the Main. Nearly one hundred set out on 
 their pilgrimage ; they took with them, in wagons, their 
 wives and children ; their Bibles and books of devotion. 
 The men as they travelled on foot beguiled the toils of their 
 journey by singing praises to God, and offering prayers for 
 his guiding hand, and his blessing on their enterprise. 
 
194 ttlSIOUY Oi? THE AMEEICAS" PliOFLiS. 
 
 chap. They passed down the Main to its junction with the 
 1 Khine, and thence floated down to Kotterdani, where they 
 
 1783. were joined hy two clergymen, Bolzius and Gronau. They 
 sailed to England, and were there met and encouraged by 
 a committee of the trustees, and thence to their distant 
 home across the ocean. The faith that had cheered them 
 
 ♦ on their native mountains, sustained them amid the 
 storms of the Atlantic ; when, during a terrible tempest, 
 the waves broke over the ship, and caused an outcry of 
 alarm from the English, they continued their devotions 
 and calmly sung on. When one of them was asked, 
 " Were you not afraid p " "I thank God, no," was the 
 reply. " But were not your women and children afraid ? " 
 " No, our women and children are not afraid to die." 
 
 A passage of fifty-seven days brought them to receive 
 a hearty welcome at Charleston from Oglethorpe, and in 
 
 1784. less than a week they were at their journey's end. A 
 suitable place had been chosen for their residence, they 
 founded a village a short distance above Savannah, and 
 significantly named it Ebenezer. In gratitude they raised 
 a monumental stone as a memento of the goodness of God 
 in thus bringing them to a land of rest. They were joined 
 from time to time by others from their native land. By 
 their industry and good morals they secured prosperity, 
 and also the respect of their fellow-colonists. 
 
 At the head of boat navigation on the Savannah the 
 town of Augusta was now founded. This soon became 
 an important trading post with the Indians. 
 
 Oglethorpe gave himself unweariedly to the work of 
 benefiting those he governed. The success of the enter- 
 prise may be safely attributed to his disinterested labors. 
 " He," ^aid Governor Johnson, of South Carolina, " nobly 
 devotes all his powers to save the poor, and to rescue them 
 from their wretchedness." After the residence of a yeal 
 and a half he returned to England, taking with him 
 
JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY 195 
 
 aeveral Indian chiefs, and raw silk — the product of the ceap 
 colony — sufficient to make a robe for the queen. , 
 
 As an inducement for settlers, the trustees offered to 1734. 
 each one who should emigrate, at his own expense, 
 fifty acres of land. On these conditions came a number 
 of Moravians or United Brethren, with the intention of 
 devoting themselves to the conversion of the Indians. 1735. 
 They formed a new settlement on the Ogeechee, south of 
 the Savannah. 
 
 The same benevolent spirit which had relieved poor 
 debtors in prison, now devised measures to ward off one 
 of the most effective causes of debt and wretchedness ; 
 and accordingly the importation of rum into the colony 
 was prohibited. The trustees also forbid negro slavery, 
 " that misfortune of other plantations." They did not 
 wish to see their province "filled with blacks, the preca- 
 rious property of a few." They looked upon it as cruel 
 and inhuman, and injurious to the " poor white settlers," 
 for whom, in trust, they held the colony. 
 
 The next year Oglethorpe returned, with more emi- 173ft 
 grants, among whom was a party of Scotch Highlanders, 
 with their minister, John McLeod. These founded a set- 
 tlement at Darien, on the Altamaha. There likewise 
 came two young men as preachers to the people, and as 
 missionaries to the Indians. These were the brothers 
 John and Charles Wesley, — men of ardent piety and zeal- 
 ous in the cause of religion, they hoped to make the 
 colony eminent for its religious character. Enthusiastic 
 in their feelings, and perhaps a little wanting in discretion, 
 certainly in experience, they were soon involved in trouble. 
 For a time, John Wesley drew crowds of hearers ; places 
 of amusement were almost deserted. We doubt not that 
 he spoke the truth plainly, and in accordance with his 
 duty, but his austere manners and denunciation of sin 
 created him enemies. In one case, his severe exercise of 
 church discipline excited bitter feeling against himself, 
 
196 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, and sympathy for the victim of his injudicious zeal 
 
 Charles Wesley was, for awhile, the secretary of Ogle- 
 
 1788. thorpe, but in some unexplained manner he gave offence 
 to his patron ; at length an explanation took place, and a 
 reconciliation. Kind and gentle in his nature, he was 
 unfitted to endure the hardships to be encountered, and 
 . to sympathize with the unpolished colonists of Georgia. 
 After a residence of less than two years, the Wesleys, dis- 
 appointed in their hopes of doing good there, left the 
 colony forever. In their native land they became the 
 founders of the denomination of Methodists, who have 
 been, in that very colony, as well as in others, among the 
 foremost in carrying the gospel to destitute settlements. 
 Thus their labors were blessed, their prayers were an- 
 swered, and their hopes realized ; but, as is often the case 
 in the ways of Infinite Wisdom, not in the form and 
 manner in which they expected. 
 
 Just as the Wesleys, on their return home, were pass- 
 ing up the channel, their friend and fellow-laborer, the 
 celebrated George Whitefield, the most eloquent preacher 
 of his day, was leaving England to join them in Georgia. 
 Whitefield had commenced preaching when a mere youth, 
 and by his wonderful eloquence drew great crowds. He 
 first preached in the prisons, and then to the poor in the 
 open fields. Now he felt it his duty to visit the colonies. 
 When he arrived in Georgia, his sympathies were much 
 enlisted in behalf of the destitute children, left orphans. 
 He visited the Lutherans at Ebenezer, where he noticed 
 their asylum for poor children, and determined, if possible, 
 to found a similar one. By his fervent zeal in the cause 
 he obtained sufficient funds in England and America. 
 The institution was founded a few miles from Savannah. 
 During his lifetime it flourished ; at his death it began to 
 languish, and finally passed out of existence. 
 
 The Spaniards were not pleased with the encroach- 
 ments of the English upon what they deemed their terri- 
 
ENGLISH TRADERS J WAR WITH SPAIN. 197 
 
 tory, and they sent commissioners to protest against it, chap 
 
 and to demand the surrender of all Georgia and part of 
 
 Carolina. When this was unheeded, they prepared to ex- 1738, 
 pel the invaders. There were other causes, which made 
 it evident that war would soon take place between the 
 mother countries, in which the colonies would certainly 
 become involved. 
 
 The European governments restricted the commerce 
 of their colonies so as to make them subserve their own 
 interests. Those belonging to Spain must trade only with 
 the port of Cadiz, and the merchandise shipped to them 
 was sold at enormous prices. The English traders per- 
 sisted in smuggling goods into the Spanish ports. To 
 accomplish this they resorted to various stratagems. By 
 treaty, an English vessel was permitted to come once a 
 year to Portobello and dispose of her cargo ; but this 
 vessel was followed by others ; they came in the night 
 time, and slipped in more bales to supply the place of 
 those sold, and continued to do this, till the market was 
 supplied. Sometimes, under the pretence of distress, ships 
 would run into Spanish ports, and thus dispose of their 
 cargoes. 
 
 Though Spain was rich and feeble, she was haughty 
 and cruel ; and when any of these worthies, who were 
 engaged in violating her laws, were caught, they were 
 severely dealt with. Sometimes they were imprisoned, 
 and sometimes their ears were cropped. This exasperated 
 the traders, and though justly punished, they came with 
 the assurance of ill-treated men, to ask protection from 
 their own government. They were looked upon as mar- 
 tyrs to the cause of free commerce, and merchants, in 
 defence of such men as these, did not blush to clamor for 
 war, in the face of justice and national integrity. In 
 truth, the English government connived at this clandes- 
 tine trade, and secretly rejoiced at the advantage gained 
 over her rival. By this connivance at injustice she gave 
 
198 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN" PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, her own colonies a lesson on the subject of their trade 
 
 which, in less than half a century, she found, to her sur- 
 
 1738. prise, they had fully learned. 
 
 Another source of irritation to the people of South 
 Carolina, was that slaves, who ran away to Florida and 
 put themselves under Spanish protection, were not onlj 
 T welcomed, but given lands ; organized into military com- 
 panies, and armed at the public expense. A demand 
 made upon the authorities at St. Augustine to restore the 
 runaways, was promptly refused. Oglethorpe hastened to 
 
 1737. England to make preparations for the coming contest, and 
 returned in less than a year, with a regiment of six hun- 
 dred men, which he himself had raised and disciplined. 
 He was now prepared to defend the southern boundary of 
 Georgia. He renewed treaties with the Indian tribes 
 north of the Gulf from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, 
 and hoped to retain them in his interest. War was, at 
 
 l739> length, declared by England against Spain, and Ogle- 
 thorpe received orders, as military commander in Georgia 
 and the Carolinas, to invade Florida. With his usua, 
 energy, he hastened to Charleston to make the necessary 
 preparations. Supplies were voted and a regiment en- 
 listed ; and, joined by Indian allies, he set out to lay 
 siege to St. Augustine. He found the garrison much 
 more numerous than he expected, and the fortifications 
 stronger. After a short siege, the Indians began to desert, 
 and the Carolina regiment, enfeebled by sickness, returned 
 home. In five weeks the enterprise was abandoned. On 
 this occasion, Oglethorpe exhibited the kindness of his 
 nature ; he endured all the privations of the common sol- 
 diers. The captives taken were treated kindly, no houses 
 
 1740. were burned, and but little property destroyed. 
 
 This war had a very bad effect upon the colony of 
 Georgia. Instead of making farmers of the settlers, it 
 made them soldiers, and their farms were neglected. The 
 Moravians, who were religiously opposed to bearing arms, 
 
THE SPANIARDS INVADE GEORGIA. 
 
 199 
 
 emigrated, one and all, to Pennsylvania, where they c |y^ 
 founded the towns of Bethlehem and Nazareth. , 
 
 It was ere long the turn of Georgia to be invaded. 1W0 « 
 For this purpose, the Spaniards at Havana and St. 
 Augustine fitted out thirty-six vessels and three thousand 1748 
 troops. The commander, Monteano, instead of sailing 
 direct for Savannah, became entangled among the islands, 
 near the mouths of the St. Mary and the Altamaha, while 
 endeavoring to take possession of one or two insignificant 
 settlements. Oglethorpe ascertained the intention of the 
 enemy, but as he had received no assistance from Carolina, 
 was ill prepared to meet them. Having but eight hun- 
 dred men, he was forced to retreat from Cumberland j^ 
 island to St. Simons, on which was the little town of 
 Frederica, the special object of the Spanish attack. 
 
 After the enemy landed he went to surprise them in 
 the night, but as he approached their lines, one of his 
 soldiers, a Frenchman, fired his gun, rushed into the ene- 
 my's camp, and gave the alarm. Oglethorpe employed 
 stratagem to throw suspicion upon the deserter ; he wrote 
 him a letter, in which he addressed him as a spy for the 
 English, and directed him to induce the Spaniards to 
 attack them, or at least to remain where they were until 
 the English fleet of six men-of-war, which had sailed from 
 Charleston, should reach St. Augustine, and capture it. 
 This letter he bribed a Spanish prisoner to carry to the 
 Frenchman. As was to be expected, it was taken imme- 
 diately to the Spanish commander, and the Frenchman 
 soon found himself in irons. In the midst of the alarm, 
 some Carolina ships, laden with supplies for Oglethorpe, 
 appeared in the offing. Thinking these the veritable men- 
 of-war mentioned in the letter, the invaders determined 
 to attack and destroy Frederica, before they should sail 
 to defend St. Augustine. On the way they fell into an 
 ambuscade, and, at a place since known as the " Bloody 
 Marsh," they were signally defeated. The following night 
 
200 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, they embarked, and sailed to defend St. Augustine from 
 
 , the expected attack. Thus Georgia and the Carolinas 
 
 1743. were saved from ruin. 
 
 The following year Oglethorpe left the colony forever. 
 There he had spent ten years of toil and self-denial ; he 
 had for his reward no personal benefit, but the satisfaction 
 • of founding a State, and of leaving it in a prosperous con- 
 dition. The form of government was changed from a 
 military to a civil rule, and the various magistrates were 
 appointed. 
 
 In time, slavery was gradually introduced. Slaves 
 were at first hired from the Carolinas, for a short time, 
 and then for one hundred years. The German settlers 
 were industrious and frugal, and so were the Highlanders. 
 They were opposed to the introduction of slaves. On the 
 other hand, great numbers of the English settlers were 
 idle and bankrupt from their improvidence ; " they were 
 unwilling to labor, but were clamorous for privileges to 
 which they had no right." They contended that rum was 
 essential to health in that climate, and that none but 
 slaves could cultivate the soil of Georgia ; and, in seven 
 years after the benevolent Oglethorpe left, slave ships 
 brought negroes to Savannah, direct from Africa. 
 
 1750. The trustees, when the twenty-one years for which 
 
 they were to manage the " colony for the poor w were 
 expired, resigned their trust, and Georgia became a royal 
 
 1768. province. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 NEW ENGLAND UNDER CHARLES II. AND JAMES H. 
 
 The Restoration. — The Commissioners. — Progress of Trade. — Causes c£ 
 King Philip's War.— Death of Wamsutta. — State of the Colony.— At- 
 tack at Swanzey. — Philip among the Nipmucks. — Attacks on Northfield, 
 and on Hadley. — Goffe. — The Tragedy at Bloody Brook. — Philip among 
 the Narragansets. — Their Fort captured. — The Warriors take Revenge. 
 — Philip returns to Mount Hope to die. — Disasters of the War. — James 
 II. — The Charters in danger. — Andros Governor ; his illegal Measures ; 
 takes away the Charter of Rhode Island ; not so successful at Hart- 
 ford. — Andros in Jail.— The Charters resumed. 
 
 The first intimation of the restoration of Charles II. chaf 
 
 was brought to New England by two fngitives, Whalley 
 
 and Goffe. They came branded as regicides, for they sat \e,na, 
 on the trial of Charles I. They had fled for their lives ; 
 ere long came the royal command to deliver them up to 
 their pursuers, that they might be taken back to England 
 and there punished. But royal commands and rewards 
 were of no avail, the stern republicans were not betrayed ; 
 the people gloried in protecting them. 
 
 Kumors were afloat that the governments of all the 
 colonies were to be changed, and that soon armed ships 
 might be expected in the harbor of Boston, sent to enforce 
 the royal authority. After a year's delay, it was thought 
 prudent to proclaim Charles as king. It was done ungra- 
 ciously, as all manifestations of joy were forbidden. 
 
 From time to time intelligence came of the execution 
 of many of their best friends in England ; among these 
 were Hugh Peters and Sir Harry Vane : news came also 
 
202 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, that Episcopacy was again in power, and that more than 
 
 two thousand clergymen had been driven from their con- 
 
 1663. gregations because they would not conform. At length, 
 two agents were sent to conciliate the king, and to make 
 guarded professions of loyalty, as well as to ask permission 
 to make laws against the Quakers. 
 
 Connecticut and Bhode Island had both received lib- 
 eral charters from Charles, the former obtained principally 
 through the influence of the younger Winthrop. Mean- 
 time the intolerance of Massachusetts had raised up 
 against her a host of enemies, who were continually whis- 
 pering their complaints into the royal ear. The alarm was 
 presently increased, by information that commissioners 
 had been appointed to inquire into the affairs of the 
 colony. To provide for the future, the charter was, for 
 safe-keeping, secretly given to a committee appointed by 
 the General Court. 
 
 When the commissioners came, they outraged the 
 prejudices of the people by having the Episcopal service 
 performed in Boston. The Puritans observed the evening 
 of Saturday as holy time ; after the Jewish custom, they 
 commenced their Sabbath at sunset. As if to annoy 
 them, the commissioners habitually spent their Saturday 
 evenings in carousals. They also took in hand to redress 
 grievances, and invited all those who had complaints to 
 make against the Massachusetts colony, to bring them to 
 their knowledge. Ehode Island came with her complaints, 
 and the Narraganset chiefs with theirs ; but the General 
 Court cut the matter short, by forbidding such proceed- 
 ings, as contrary to the charter. 
 
 The laws passed by the mother country for the express 
 purpose of crippling the trade of the colonies, could not 
 be enforced, and Boston especially attracted attention by 
 her prosperous commerce. Industry and temperance in- 
 sured the prosperity of the people, and they increased in 
 riches and in numbers ; they also found means to indulge 
 
CAUSES Or KING PHILIP'S WAR. 203 
 
 their taste, and began to embellish their villages. Massa- chat 
 
 chusetts traded not only with the other colonies, but her 
 
 ships were found in every sea where commerce invited, 1663, 
 and not only England traded with her, but France and 
 Spain, Holland and Italy, were competitors for her favors. 
 
 For forty years there had been no Indian war in New 
 England ; the fate of the Pequods was not forgotten. 
 During this time the number of the Indians had not 
 diminished, while that of the colonists had greatly in- 
 creased. Their farms had extended in every direction ; 
 they gradually absorbed the best lands of the country, 
 and crowded the Indians down on the little bays and pen- 
 insulas, on the southern shore of Massachusetts and Rhode 
 Island. This policy was openly avowed, as thereby they 
 could be more easily watched. 
 
 The Wampanoags and Narragansets were especially 
 aggrieved. They could not, without great exertion, obtain 
 the means of living ; the animals which they hunted, had 
 been nearly all driven away, and they were forced to de- 
 pend upon fish, and of these they could obtain but a 
 scanty supply, and they had not learned the art of culti- 
 vating the soil, but in a very rude manner. 
 
 Massasoit, the friend who had welcomed the early 
 Pilgrims, left two sons, Wamsutta and Metacom. Years 
 before their father's death these young men went to Plym- 
 outh, where they entered into friendly relations with the 
 English, and received from them the names by which we 
 know them, Alexander and Philip. They were no ordi- 
 nary men, they seemed to have perceived from the first 
 the dangers that threatened their race. If so, they con- 
 cealed their impressions, and could never be won over to 
 the religion of the English. When Massasoit died, and 
 Wamsutta became chief sachem of the Wampanoags, the 
 colonists, incited by Uncas, chief of the Mohegans, his 
 bitter enemy, became suspicious of him. As he reposed 
 
204 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 aaAR at his hunting lodge with eighty of his followers, he was 
 
 1 surprised by Winslow, who had been sent with an armed 
 
 1671. force to bring him to the court at Plymouth. Wamsutta 
 thought not of danger ; his arms and those of his warriors 
 were outside the lodge and easily secured. When Wins- 
 low, with his pistol at his breast, told the astonished zhiei 
 he must go with him, his proud spirit was roused to bitter 
 indignation. His exasperation threw him into a fever so 
 violent, that he was unable to proceed far. In conse- 
 quence of his illness he was permitted to return home. 
 "He died on his way. He was carried home on the shoul- 
 ders of men, and borne to his silent grave near Mount 
 Hope, in the evening of the day, and in the prime of his 
 life, between lines of sad, quick-minded Indians, who well 
 believed him the victim of injustice and ingratitude ; for 
 his father had been the ally, not the subject of England, 
 and so was he, and the like indignity had not before been 
 put upon any sachem."* 
 
 It is natural to suppose that the untimely and tragical 
 fate of Wamsutta gave character to the latent hostility 
 that existed in the mind of his brother Philip toward the 
 English race. Soon suspicions fell upon him, and at one 
 time he was harshly treated, and compelled to give up his 
 fire-arms. A praying Indian, who lived with Philip, told 
 1675. the colonists that the Wampanoags entertained some de- 
 signs against them. There is some doubt as to the truth 
 of this story ; however, a short time after this Indian was 
 found murdered. Suspicion fell upon three of Philip's 
 men, who were apprehended by the authorities of Plym- 
 outh, and brought to trial ; they were pronounced guilty 
 by a jury composed of English and Indians. The execu- 
 tion of these men aroused the slumbering enmity of the 
 tribe. The young warriors were clamorous for war, while 
 the old men dreaded the contest. Philip, from his supe- 
 
 * Elliott's Hist, of New England. 
 
THE WAR BEGINS AT SWANZEY. 205 
 
 rior sagacity, foresaw that an attempt to regain their C 3Q£ 
 lands would end in their own destruction. 
 
 The colonists could now have warded off the strife by 1675 
 conciliating the Indians. No effort was made to soothe 
 their wounded feelings, they were treated as " bloody 
 heathen," whom it was their duty, as " the chosen of the 
 Lord," to drive out of the land. Avarice, contrary to ex- 
 press law, had been for many years furnishing the savages 
 with fire-arms, and when the contest came, they were far 
 more formidable than the Pequods had been ; to conquer 
 them required a great sacrifice of the best blood of the 
 colony. 
 
 Though there were settlements more or less extending 
 from Boston to Westfield on the west, and to Northfield 
 in the Connecticut valley on the borders of Vermont, and 
 on the north to Haverhill on the Merrimac, there were 
 vast solitudes, whose secret glens and hiding-places were 
 known only to the Indians. The spirit of the tribes near 
 the settlements was broken by their contact with the 
 superior whites, but Philip had under his control seven 
 hundred brave warriors, who rejoiced in their freedom, and 
 scorned to be the subjects of any white chief beyond the 
 great waters. They not only rejected the religion of the 
 white man, but despised those tribes who had adopted it. 
 
 In prospect of the threatened war, a day of fasting 
 and prayer was observed ; as the people were returning 
 from church at Swanzey, they were suddenly attacked by 
 a company of Philip's men, and seven or eight persons Jun€ 
 killed. Philip shed tears when he heard that blood had 
 been shed ; the dreaded ruin of his people was drawing 
 near. His tribe, single-handed, entered upon the con- 
 test ; the others were either the allies of the English or 
 indifferent. He scorned to desert his people, or forfeit his 
 character as a warrior, and he threw himself into the con- 
 test with the whole energy of his nature. 
 
 The war began within the bounds of the Plymouth 
 
206 HISTOEY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, colony ; but volunteers hastened to its aid from Massa- 
 
 chusetts. The army invaded the territory of the Wam- 
 
 16T5. panoags, and in a few weeks Philip, driven from Mount 
 Hope, became a fugitive among the Nipmucks, a tribe 
 in the interior of Massachusetts. After the flight of 
 Philip and his warriors, the little army went into the 
 .territory of the Narragansets, and compelled them to 
 promise neutrality, and also to deliver up the fugitive 
 Indians who should flee to them. They fondly hoped the 
 war was at an end ; but this was only its beginning. 
 
 The Nipmucks were induced to make common cause 
 July- with Philip and his tribe. His warriors, partially armed 
 24# with muskets, prowled round the settlements, ruthlessly 
 murdered the whites, and treated their remains with sav- 
 age barbarity. The Indians were familiar with the hidden 
 paths of the wilderness ; not daring to meet the colonists 
 in open conflict, they watched for opportunities of secret 
 attack. It was not known when or where the storm 
 would burst, and the terror-stricken inhabitants along the 
 frontiers fled to the more thickly settled portions. 
 
 Superstition added her terrors. The people saw an 
 Indian bow drawn across the heavens ; a scalp appeared 
 on the face of the eclipsed moon ; troops of phantom 
 horsemen galloped through the air ; the howlings of the 
 wolves were more than usually fearful, and portended some 
 terrible ruin ; whizzing bullets were heard in the whist- 
 ling wind ; the northern lights glowed with an unusual 
 glare — the harbinger of the punishment of sin. They be- 
 gan to enumerate their sins ; among these were the 
 neglect of the training of children, the using of profane 
 language, the existence of tippling houses, the want of 
 respect fo.r parents, the wearing of long and curled hair 
 by the men, the flaunting of gaudy-colored ribbons by 
 the women ; and intolerance whispered that they had 
 been too lenient to the Quakers. 
 
 The Nipmucks had fifteen hundred warriors ; with 
 
2. 
 
 GOFFE THE REGICIDE. 207 
 
 iome of these Philip hastened to the valley of the Con- chap 
 
 necticut, and spread desolation from Springfield, through 
 
 all the settlements to the farthest town of Northfield. 1675. 
 
 An effort was made to win hack the Nipmucks to Aug. 
 their old allegiance ; and Captain Hutchinson, son of 
 Anne Hutchinson, was sent with twenty men to treat 
 with them, hut the whole company was waylaid and mur- 
 dered at Brookfield. That place was "burned ; the people 
 fled to the strongest house, which was besieged two days, 
 and finally set on fire ; hut providentially a storm of rain 
 extinguished the flames, and others coming to their assist- 
 ance, the Indians were driven off. 
 
 The enemy concerted to make their attacks on the 
 same day and hour, in different parts of the country. On 
 the Sabbath, which seems to have been chosen by them 
 as the day most favorable for an attack, they burned 
 Deerfield ; and, as the people were worshipping in church, 
 they attacked Hadley. Suddenly there appeared a tall 
 and venerable looking man, with a white flowing beard, 
 who brandished a sword and encouraged and directed the 
 people in the battle. When the savages were driven off, 
 he disappeared ; some thought him an angel, specially 
 sent by heaven to their aid. It was Goffe, one of the reg- 
 icides of whom we have spoken. These regicides had 
 been hunted by zealous royalists from one place of refuge 
 to another ; now they were sheltered by the good minister, 
 John Davenport, of New Haven ; now by friends at Mil- 
 ford ; now they had wandered in the pathless wilderness, 
 and once they had heard the sound of their enemies' 
 horses, as in hot pursuit of them, they crossed the very 
 bridge under which they were secreted ; they had rested 
 in a cave on the top of " West Hock," New Haven, known 
 to this day as the " Judges' Cave," and at this time they 
 were living secretly in the house of minister Russell, at 
 Hadley. Thus they passed their remaining years ban- 
 tubed from society and from the occupations of life. 
 
208 HISTORY OP THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap. A company of chosen young men, " the flower of tha 
 
 1 county of Essex/' eighty in number, were engaged in 
 
 1675. bringing the fruits of harvest down from the vicinity of. 
 Deerfield to Hadley, where it was proposed to establish a 
 magazine for provisions. They fell into an ambuscade of 
 seven hundred warriors, and, after a desperate encounter, 
 • nearly all perished, at the crossing of a little stream, since 
 called the " Bloody Brook." 
 Sept- Ere long the nourishing settlement of Hatfield was 
 
 attacked ; and the Indians in the vicinity of Springfield 
 were induced to take up arms ; but the people were pre- 
 Oot. pared, and repulsed them. Philip returned home, but 
 finding Mount Hope in ruins, he went among the Narra- 
 gansets. The colonists feared that he would induce them 
 to join him, and in self-defence they resolved to treat 
 them as enemies. The winter, by stripping the trees and 
 bushes of their leaves, had deprived the Indians of their 
 hiding places, and the swamps, their favorite sites for 
 forts, could be passed over when frozen. A company of 
 one thousand men set out to attack their principal fort. 
 This place of defence contained about six hundred wig- 
 wams and nearly three thousand of the tribe ; warriors 
 with their wives and children, and an abundance of pro- 
 visions for the winter. They thought themselves secure ; 
 they had taken no part in the war. 
 
 Guided by an Indian traitor, the army marched fifteen 
 miles through a deep snow, and finally arrived at the Nar- 
 raganset fort, situated near where the village of Kingston 
 in Bhode Island now stands. Their fort, surrounded by 
 a palisade, stood in the midst of a swamp, and was almost 
 inaccessible ; it had but one entrance, the narrow passage 
 l^ 0, to which^ was along the body of a fallen tree. After a 
 severe contest of two hours, the English forced themselves 
 within the fort, and applied the torch to the frail and 
 combustible wigwams. A thousand warriors were slain, 
 and hundreds were made prisoners. Their provisions 
 
DEATH OF PHILIP. 209 
 
 were all destroyed, and those who escaped were left shel- crap 
 
 terless in the winter storms. They were forced to dig in 
 
 the snow for nuts and acorns to sustain life, and great 1675. 
 numbers died of exposure and famine before spring. The 
 colonists suffered severely ; they lost six captains, and two 
 hundred and fifty men killed and wounded. 
 
 The surviving Narraganset warriors took vengeance ; 
 they went from place to place ; they massacred, they 
 burned, they destroyed. The settlements in their vicinity 
 were abandoned. Though Khode Island had not joined 
 in the war, they made no distinction, and Providence was 
 almost destroyed. The now aged Koger Williams felt 
 it his duty to act as captain, in defending the town 
 he had founded. Bands of warriors swept through and 
 through the territory of Plymouth, and the people were 
 on]y safe when within their forts. Towns in different 
 parts of the country were attacked at the same time ; the 
 enemy seemed to be every where. 
 
 The majority of the Indians continued to fight ; and 167*. 
 though they fought without hope, they preferred death to 
 submission. Others quarrelled among themselves, charg- 
 ing one another with being the cause of the war. At 
 length the Nipmucks submitted ; and the tribes on the J*" 1 * 
 Connecticut, having grown weary of the contest, would 
 shelter Philip no longer. He now appealed, but in vain, 
 to the Mohawks to take up arms. In desperation, he 
 determined to return and die at Mount Hope. When 
 one of his followers proposed to make peace, the indignant 
 chieftain struck him dead at a blow. It was soon noised 
 abroad that Philip had returned to his old home. Benja- 
 min Church, the most energetic of the English captains, 
 surprised his camp, dispersed his followers, and took pris- 
 oner his wife and little son. Philip's spirit was now 
 crushed ; he exclaimed : " My heart breaks ; I am ready 
 to die ! " A few days after he was shot by a traitor of his An* 
 own tribe. His orphan boy was now to be disposed o£ 
 
210 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEORLE. 
 
 oh^p. He was taken to Boston ; some were .in favor of putting 
 
 , him to death, others of selling him into slavery. The 
 
 1676. latter prevailed, and the last prince of the Wainpanoags, 
 
 the grandson of generous old Massasoit, who had welcomed 
 
 the Pilgrims, and had given them his friendship, was sent 
 
 to toil as a slave under the burning sun of Bermuda. 
 
 After the close of the war, renewed efforts were made 
 to convert the remaining Indians, but without success 
 The habits of a people are not easily changed. If those 
 who came in contact with them had set them a Christian 
 example, as did Eliot, and the "learned and gentle" 
 Mayhew, the effect might have been different. The war 
 had completely broken the power of the Indians. The 
 more bold emigrated to Canada, and avenged themselves 
 in after years, by guiding war parties of the French against 
 the English settlements. Some went to the west, and, it 
 is said, their descendants are at this day roaming over its 
 wide prairies. But the great majority lost their native 
 independence, and became still more degraded by marry- 
 ing with the negroes. At this day, a few descendants of 
 the warriors who once roved over the hills and valleys of 
 New England, may be seen lingering in the land of theii 
 fathers. 
 
 For a time the effect of the war was disastrous ; 
 though it lasted but little more than a year, a dozen vil- 
 lages were in ashes, and others nearly destroyed. Of the 
 private dwellings, a tenth part had been burned, six hun- 
 dred of the men of the colony had perished in battle, not 
 to mention the women and children ruthlessly massacred. 
 AJmost every family was in mourning. The expenses of 
 the war were great, and for years weighed heavily upon 
 the people, while the desolation of the settlements par- 
 alyzed their energies. 
 
 No aid came to the sufferers from England ; but be it 
 remembered, that a Non-conformist church in Dublin 
 »ent them five hundred pounds. Instead of aiding them. 
 
DESPOTISM OF JAMES. 211 
 
 the spendthrift Charles devised means to extort money chap 
 
 from them by taxing their trade. This led to the estab- 
 
 lishment of a royal custom-house in Boston. To compel 1670. 
 the merchants to* pay tribute, he threatened to deprive 
 them of English passes for their ships in the Mediterra- 
 nean, where, without redress, they might be robbed by 
 pirates along the Barbary coast ; and he also threatened 
 to deprive them of their trade with the southern colonies. 
 These threats had little effect upon men who had learned 
 to take care of themselves. 
 
 James II., the brother and successor of Charles, was 1685. 
 bigoted and stubborn ; a Catholic in disguise, he wished 
 to establish that form of religion, not only in England, 
 but in the colonies. The more easily to accomplish this 
 object he professed to be very tolerant, and proclaimed 
 what he termed an Indulgence, by which persecution for 
 religious opinions was henceforth to end. This tolerance 
 was only a means to evade the laws, which prohibited the 
 introduction of Komish ceremonies and doctrines into the 
 Church of England. He became a bitter persecutor ; in 
 truth, to comprehend the idea of the rights of conscience 
 or of religious freedom, was far beyond the capacity of 
 James. That time-serving politician, Joseph Dudley, a 
 native of Massachusetts, who, when it was profitable, was 
 a zealous advocate of colonial rights, now became an ear- 168 ^ 
 nest defender of the prerogative of the king. He was 
 appointed the royal president of Massachusetts, until a 
 governor should arrive. There could be no free press 
 under a Stuart, and Edward Kandolph was appointed its 
 censor. Eandolph disliked the people of Massachusetts 
 as cordially as they hated him. The commission of Dud- 
 ley contained no recognition of an Assembly or [Represent- 
 atives of the people. James was at a loss to see the use 
 of a legislature to make laws, when his wisdom could be 
 appealed to for that purpose. Dudley, looked upon as 
 the betrayer of his country's liberties, was very unpopu- 
 
212 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 c £££ lar, while Randolph took pains to have his character as 
 
 little respected at court, by representing him as having 
 
 1686. " his fortune to make," and willing to " cringe and bow 
 to any thing." 
 
 James had resolved to take away the charters of all 
 the colonies and make them royal provinces. Ere long 
 ,came Sir Edmund Andros, as governor of all New Eng- 
 land. A fit instrument of a despot, he was authorized 
 to impose taxes, to appoint his own council, to have the 
 control of the militia, to prohibit printing, to introduce 
 Episcopacy, and to enforce the laws restricting the trade 
 of the colonies. That he might have the means to fulfil 
 his instructions, he brought two companies of soldiers — the 
 first ever stationed in New England. As a reward for his 
 desertion of the people's rights, Dudley was appointed 
 Chief Justice, and the busy Randolph Colonial Secretary, 
 and William Stoughton, through the influence of Dudley, 
 was named one of the council. Now followed a series of 
 measures exceedingly annoying to the people. Their 
 schools were left to languish. To assemble for delibera- 
 tion on any public matter was forbidden ; but it was 
 graciously permitted them to vote for their town officers. 
 The customs of the country were not respected. The 
 usual form of administering en oath was that of an appeal 
 to heaven by the uplifted hand ; the form now prescribed 
 was that of laying the hand on the Bible, which the Pu- 
 ritans thought idolatrous, — a relic of popery. Exorbitant 
 fees were extorted ; those who held lands were told their 
 titles were not valid, because they were obtained under a 
 charter which was now declared to be forfeited ; and when 
 an*Indian deed was presented, it was decided to be " worth 
 no more % than the scratch of a bear's paw." No person 
 could leave the colony without a pass from the governor. 
 No magistrate nor minister — who was deemed merely a 
 layman — could unite persons in marriage. The Episcopal 
 clergyman at Boston was the only person in all New Eng- 
 
ANDROS AT HARTFORD. 213 
 
 and authorized to perform that ceremony. Episcopacy &&& 
 
 was now fully introduced, and the people required to fur- 
 
 nish funds to build a church for its service. A tax of the 1686. 
 game amount was levied upon each person, poor or rich ; 
 this some of the towns refused to pay. John Wise, the min- 
 ister of Ipswich, was bold to say the tax was unjust, and 
 ought not to be paid. For this he was arrested. When 
 he spoke of his privileges as an Englishman, he was told 
 the only privilege he could claim was not to be sold as a 
 slave ; with others, he was fined heavily. When it was 
 said that such proceedings would affect the prosperity of 
 the country, it was openly avowed that " it was not for 
 his majesty's interest that the country should thrive." 
 n No man could say that any thing was his own." 
 
 Andros now demanded of Khode Island her charter, 
 but as she did not send it, he went to Providence, and 
 breaking the seal of the colony declared its government 
 dissolved. He then went with an armed guard to Hart- 168 ^ 
 ford, and demanded the charter of the colony of Connec- 
 ticut. The Assembly was in session. The members 
 received him with outward respect. The discussion of 
 the subject was protracted till evening, and when candles 
 were lighted, the charter was brought in and laid on the 
 table. As the eager Andros reached forth his hand to 
 seize the precious document, the lights were suddenly put 
 out ; when they were relighted, the charter was gone. 
 Captain William Wadsworth had slipped it away and hid 
 it in a hollow tree. Andros, foiled and in a rage, resolved, 
 charter or no charter, the present government should 
 cease, and taking the book of records of the Assembly, 
 he wrote at the end of the last record the word finis. 
 The tree in which the charter was hid stood for more than 
 a century and a half, and was visited as an object of his- 1856 
 torical interest. It was known as the Charter Oak. A 
 few years since it was blown down in a violent storm. 
 Some time before, a lady of Hartford gathered from it an 
 
214 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, acorn, which she planted. The good citizens of that place 
 obtained from her the young oak, and with appropriate 
 
 1687. ceremonies planted it on the spot where stood the parent 
 tree. 
 
 Happily the tyranny of Andros was soon to end. 
 James, in his zeal to promote the introduction of the 
 Catholic religion, had aroused against him the entire 
 English people. They invited William, Prince of Orange, 
 the husband of Mary, the eldest daughter of James, to 
 take possession of the throne. After finding that his des- 
 potic measures and insincerity had lost him his kingdom, 
 James fled, and the Prince of Orange, under the title of 
 William III., ascended his vacant throne. 
 
 1688. When the news of that great revolution, which estab- 
 ^? v * lished the constitutional rights of the English people, 
 
 reached Boston, it excited the greatest joy ; now they 
 could rid themselves of the tyrant. Andros imprisoned 
 the messenger for spreading false news. The trained 
 bands soon assembled in arms. The craven and guilty 
 governor, bewildered with fear, fled, with his servile coun- 
 cil, to a fort in the town. The aged Simon Bradstreet, 
 now more than fourscore, who was one of the original emi- 
 grants, and had been a magistrate, was urged to assume 
 the office of governor. 
 
 A declaration, said to have been written by Cotton 
 Mather, was published, maintaining the rights of the peo- 
 ple, in which they commit the enterprise to u Him who 
 hears the cry of the oppressed." Andros, in the mean 
 time, made an effort to escape ; but he and Dudley, with 
 the troublesome Kandolph, were speedily lodged in jail. 
 Many were clamorous for their punishment, but generous 
 forbearance prevailed, and they were sent to England for 
 trial. 
 
 Connecticut, paying little respect to the " Finis " of 
 Andros, now brought forth her charter from its hidden 
 place, and resumed her former government. Plymouth 
 
THE MEN OF INFLUENCE. 215 
 
 resumed the constitution framed on board the May- chap 
 
 Flower, and Rhode Island her charter. The people of 
 
 Massachusetts voted almost unanimously to resume theirs, 1688. 
 but a moderate party, consisting of the former magistrates, 
 and some of the principal inhabitants, chose rather to 
 defer it for the present ; as they hoped to obtain one 
 from William, more in accordance with their own views. 
 
 The patriarchs who laid the foundation of the New 
 England colonies had nearly all passed away ; their places 
 were filled by those who had not experienced the trials of 
 their fathers, but had learned of them by tradition. The 
 Puritans lived in serious times — times that made rugged 
 Christians as well as rugged soldiers. They may have 
 lacked the gentler graces that adorn those living almost 
 wo centuries later, and enjoying greater privileges, when 
 the combined influence of Christianity, science, and refine- 
 ment have produced a more perfect effect. They consci- 
 entiously filled their sphere of duty in the age in which 
 they lived, and we honor their memories. 
 
 The influence of their ministers was the influence of 
 mind upon mind, enhanced by that implicit trust reposed 
 in moral worth. They were peculiarly the educated class ; 
 the people looked up to them as their spiritual instructors. 
 They were the friends of education, and wished to elevate 
 the children of their flocks by cultivating their minds, 
 and training them for usefulness in the world; — what 
 higher position for his children could the Puritan desire ? 
 In process of time, New England became more inviting 
 to men of education belonging to the professions of law 
 and medicine. In some respects, the great influence of 
 the ministers gradually diminished, not because of dere- 
 liction of duty on their part, but because, in temporal 
 affairs, especially, the management passed, by degrees, 
 into the hands of other men of influence. 
 
CHAPTEK XVIII. 
 
 COMMOTION IN NEW YORK.— WITCHCRAFT IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 Leialer acting Governor of New York. — The Old Council refuses to yield.— 
 Captain Ingoldsby. — Sloughter Governor. — Bitterness of Parties. — Trial 
 and Execution of Leisler and Milbourne. — Death of Sloughter. — Fletcher 
 Governor ; he goes to Connecticut. — Yale College. — The Triumph of a 
 Free Press. — Witchcraft ; belief in. — Cotton Mather. — The Goodwin 
 Children. — Various Persons accused at Salem. — Special Court. — Parris 
 as Accuser, and Stoughton as Judge. — Minister Burroughs. — Calefs 
 Pamphlet. — Revulsion in Public Sentiment. — Mather's stand in favor 
 of Inoculation. 
 
 chap, Difficulties with royal governors were by no means con- 
 
 rvm fined to New England. The people of New York were 
 
 1590. also in commotion, though not so much united, as the 
 
 Dutch had not yet cordially associated in feeling with the 
 
 English. 
 
 James had appointed a Catholic receiver of customs ; 
 this annoyed the Protestants, and Nicholson the governor 
 1689. was exceedingly unpopular. The military companies went 
 2^ e in a body to Jacob Leisler, a respectable and generous- 
 hearted merchant, and their senior captain, and urged 
 him to take possession of the fort and to assume the man- 
 agement of affairs. He consented. Leisler, a Presbyterian 
 and a Dutchman, was an enthusiastic admirer of the 
 Prince of Orange. The fort and public money were taken, 
 and the companies pledged themselves to hold the fort 
 "for the present Protestant power that rules in England." 
 Leisler was to act as commander-in-chief until orders 
 came from King William, to whom a letter was sent giv- 
 
LEISLEB ACTING GOVERNOR. 217 
 
 ing an account of the seizure of the fort and also of the S5£? 
 
 money, which was to be expended in building another at 
 
 the lower part of the island, to defend the harbor. 1689. 
 
 As a large majority of the people were in favor of 
 Leisler and of the proceedings of the militia, Nicholson, 
 the governor, thought best to carry his complaints to 
 England. The members of his council, claiming to be 
 the true rulers of the province, went to Albany, and de- Aug, 
 nounced Leisler as a " rebel." 
 
 He appointed Milbourne, his son-in-law, secretary. 
 Afterward the people at Albany, alarmed on account of 
 an expected attack from Canada, asked aid from New 
 York ; Milbourne was promptly sent with a body of men 
 to their assistance. But the members of the old council 
 refused to acknowledge his authority, or to give him the 
 command of the fort. To avoid bloodshed he returned, 
 eaving them to fight the French as they could. In their 
 extremity, the Albanians obtained, assistance from Con- 
 necticut. Presently came a royal letter, directed to Dec. 
 " such as for the time being administer affairs." It con- 
 tained a commission for Nicholson as governor. As the 
 latter was on his way to England, Leisler injudiciously 
 proclaimed himself governor by virtue of the letter, and 
 still more imprudently ordered the members of the refrac- 
 tory council at Albany to be arrested. Meantime an As- 
 sembly was called to provide for the wants of the province. 
 
 The letter sent to the king remained unanswered, but 
 suddenly an English ship came into the harbor, having on njji, 
 board a Captain Ingoldsby, and a company of soldiers t J* n - 
 sent by Colonel Henry Sloughter, who had been appointed 
 governor. Encouraged by the party opposed to Leisler, 
 Ingoldsby demanded the surrender of the fort. He was 
 asked his authority ; as he had none to show, the fort 
 was not given up. Six weeks elapsed before Sloughter 
 made his appearance ; meanwhile, a collision took place 
 between the soldiers and some of the people, and blood 
 
218 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 xvra was s ^ e( ^* ^^ e kto erest party spirit prevailed ; the ene- 
 
 mies of Leisler resolved on revenge ; and when he came 
 
 1691: forward to resign his trust to the regularly appointed gov- 
 ernor, he was arrested, and with Milbourne taken to prison. 
 j q The charge against them was the convenient one of trea- 
 son ; their enemies knew that they were as loyal as 
 themselves, but it answered their purpose. Immediately 
 a special court was called to try the prisoners. They de- 
 nied the right of a court thus constituted to try them, 
 and refused to plead, but appealed to the king. They 
 were, however, condemned, and sentenced to death by the 
 degenerate Dudley, who, driven away by the indignant 
 people of Massachusetts, now appeared as Chief Justice 
 of New York. 
 
 Sloughter was unwilling to order their execution, and 
 he determined to leave the matter to the king. But their 
 blood, and it alone, could satisfy the intense hatred of 
 their enemies. To accomplish their end they took advan- 
 tage of one of. the numerous failings of the governor. 
 They gave him a dinner-party ; when overcome by a free 
 indulgence in wine, they induced him to sign the death- 
 warrant of the unfortunate men. About daylight the 
 next morning, lest Sloughter should recover from his stu- 
 mor and recall the warrant, Leisler and Milbourne were 
 hurried from their weeping families to the gallows. It 
 was whispered abroad, and although the rain poured in 
 torrents, the sympathizing people hastened in multitudes 
 Hay to the place of execution. Said Milbourne, when he saw 
 in the crowd one of their enemies, " Eobert Livingston, 
 I will implead thee for this at the bar of God." The last 
 words of Leisler were : " Weep not for us, who are depart- 
 ing to our God." Said Milbourne, "I die for the king 
 and queen, and for the Protestant religion ; Father, into 
 thy hands I commend my spirit. ,, When the execution 
 was over, the people rushed forward to obtain some me- 
 morial of their friends — a lock of hair, or a piece of their 
 
 16. 
 
BENJAMIN FLETCHER AT HAETFORD. 219 
 
 clothing. This judicial murder increased the bitterness chap 
 
 of party animosity. The friends of the victims were the 
 
 advocates of popular rights, in opposition to the royalists. 1691- 
 All that could be was done in time to remedy the wrong. 
 Their estates were restored to their families, and Parlia- 
 ment reversed the attainder under the charge of treason. 
 Dudley even opposed this act of justice. Three months 
 after this tragedy, delirium tremens ended the life of the 
 weak and dissolute Sloughter. It was about this time 
 that the " ancient Dutch usages " gave place to the com- 
 plete introduction of English laws. 
 
 A year had elapsed, when Benjamin Fletcher came as 169a 
 successor to Sloughter. He was a military officer, arbi- 
 trary and avaricious. His sympathies were with the ene- 
 mies of Leisler. As New York was on the frontiers of 169S 
 Canada, all the colonies were expected to contribute to 
 her defence. To make this more effective, an effort was 
 made to put the militia of New Jersey and Connecticut, 
 as well as that of New York, under the command of 
 Fletcher. Accordingly, he went into Connecticut to en- 
 force his authority. To give the command of their militia 
 to the governor of another colony, was to sacrifice the 
 rights of the people under the charter. The Assembly 
 was in session at Hartford, and the militia engaged in 
 training when Fletcher arrived. He had boasted that he 
 " would not set foot out of the colony until he was obeyed." 
 When the militia were drawn up, he ordered his secretary 
 to read in their hearing his commission. When he com- 
 menced to read, the drummers began to beat. " Silence," 
 commanded Fletcher. For a moment there was silence, 
 and the reading was renewed. " Drum ! drum ! " ordered 
 Wadsworth, the same who, some years before, hid the 
 charter. Fletcher once more ordered silence. The sturdy 
 captain, stepping up to him, significantly remarked, " If 
 I am interrupted again I will make daylight shine through 
 you." Fletcher thought it best to overlook the insult. 
 
220 HISTOKT OF THE AMEKICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, and return to New York, without accomplishing hit 
 
 threat. 
 
 1693. More than half a century before, the Bev. John 
 
 Davenport proposed to found a college in the colony of 
 Connecticut, but as Harvard would be affected by the 
 establishment of a similar institution, the project was 
 postponed. Now, the ministers of the colony met at 
 Branford, where each one laid upon the table his gift of 
 books, accompanied by the declaration, " I give these 
 books for the founding a college in this colony. " Forty 
 volumes were thus contributed. How little did these good 
 men, as they made their humble offerings, anticipate the 
 importance and influence of the college of which they 
 
 1701. thus laid the foundation. 
 
 The following year the General Court granted a char- 
 ter. The professed object of the college was to promote 
 theological studies in particular, but afterward so modified 
 as to admit of "instructing youth in the arts and sci- 
 ences, who may be fitted for public employments, both in 
 church and civil state." For sixteen years, its sessions 
 were held at different places ; then it was permanently 
 located at New Haven. A native of the town, Elihu 
 Yale, who had acquired wealth in the East Indies, became 
 its benefactor, and in return he has been immortalised in 
 its name. 
 
 For forty years succeeding the rule of Fletcher the 
 annals of New York are comparatively barren of incident ; 
 during that time the province enjoyed the doubtful privi- 
 lege of having ten governors, nearly all of whom took 
 special care of their own interests and those of their 
 friends. The last of this number was the " violent and 
 mercenary ^.William Cosby, who complained to the Board 
 of Trade that he could not manage the " delegates " to 
 the Assembly ; — " the example of Boston people " had so 
 much infected them. 
 
 The city of New York, at this time, contained nearly 
 
THE LIBERTY OF THE FBEBS. 221 
 
 nine thousand inhabitants. The Weekly Journal, a paper chap. 
 
 recently established by John Peter Zenger, contained 
 
 articles condemning the arbitrary acts of the governor 1732. 
 and Assembly, in imposing illegal taxes. This was the 
 first time in the colonies the newspapers had dared to 
 criticize political measures. This new enemy of arbitrary 
 power must be crushed. Governor Cosby, with the appro- 
 bation of the council, ordered the paper to be burned by 
 the sheriff, imprisoned the editor, and prosecuted him for 
 libel. Zenger employed as counsel two lawyers, and they 
 denied the authority of the court, because of the illegal 
 appointment of the Chief Justice, Delancy, by Cosby, 
 without the consent of the Council. For presenting this 
 objection their names were promptly struck from the roll 
 of practitioners. This high-handed measure intimidated 
 the other lawyers, and deterred them from' acting as coun- 
 sel for the fearless editor. 173& 
 
 On the day of trial a venerable man, a stranger to 
 nearly all present, took his seat at the bar. The trial 
 commenced, and much to the surprise of the court, the 
 stranger announced himself as counsel for the defendant. 
 It was Andrew Hamilton, the famous Quaker lawyer of 
 Philadelphia, and speaker of the Assembly of Pennsyl- 
 vania. Hamilton proposed to prove the truth of the 
 alleged libel, but Delancy, the judge, in accordance with 
 English precedents, refused to admit the plea. Then 
 Hamilton with great force appealed to the personal 
 knowledge of the jury ; — the statements in the paper 
 were notoriously true. He showed that the cause was not 
 limited to this editor alone ; a principle was involved, 
 that affected the liberty of speech and a free press through- 
 out the colonies. 
 
 In spite of the charge of the judge to the contrary, 
 the jury brought in a verdict of acquittal, which was 
 received with rapturous shouts by the people. Thus, for 
 the first time, had the press assumed to discuss, and even 
 
222 
 
 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 xvm* condemn political measures, and its liberty to do so was 
 
 i amply vindicated. This was thirty-seven years before the 
 
 1733. same principle was established in England by the decision 
 
 in the trial for libel brought against the publisher of the 
 
 famous letters of Junius. 
 
 1684. " We have now to relate the story of that sad delusion 
 so identified with the early history of the quiet and re- 
 spectable town of Salem, in Massachusetts. The belief 
 in witchcraft appears to have been almost universal in 
 the age of which we write. As Christians were in cove- 
 nant with God, so, it was believed, witches were in cove- 
 nant with the devil ; that he gave them power to torment 
 those whom they hated, by pinching them, pricking them 
 with invisible pins, pulling their hair, causing their cattle 
 and chickens to die, upsetting' their carts, and by many 
 other annoyances, equally undignified and disagreeable. 
 As Christians had a sacrament or communion, witches 
 had a communion, also, at which the devil himself offici- 
 ated in the form of a " small black man." He had a book 
 in which his disciples signed their names, after which they 
 renounced their Christian baptism, and were rebaptized, 
 or " dipped " by himself. To their places of meeting the 
 witches usually rode through the air on broomsticks. 
 
 This delusion, absurd as it seems to us, was in that 
 age believed by learned and good men, such as Sir Matthew 
 Hale, Lord Chief Justice of England ; Eichard Baxter, 
 author of the " Saints' Eest ; " and Dr. Isaac Watts, 
 whose devotional " Psalms and Hymns " are so familiar 
 to the religious world. For this supposed crime many 
 had, at different times, been executed in Sweden, Eng- 
 land, France, and other countries of Europe. Before the 
 excitement at Salem, a few cases in the colony of Massa- 
 chusetts had been punished with death. 
 
 As the Bible made mention of witches and sorcerers, — 
 to disbelieve in their existence was counted infidelity. 
 To disprove such infidelity, Increase Mather, a celebrated 
 
Cc*cm moJ&W- 
 
COTTON MATHER. 223 
 
 clergyman of New England, published an account of the chap 
 
 cases that had occurred there, and also a description of , 
 
 the manner in which the bewitched persons were afflicted. 1684. 
 After this publication, the first case that excited general 
 interest was that of a girl named Goodwin. She had ac- 
 cused the daughter of an Irish washerwoman of stealing 
 some article of clothing. The enraged mother disproved 
 the charge, and in addition reproved the false accuser se- 
 verely. Soon after, this girl became strangely affected ; 168 & 
 her younger brother and sister imitated her " contortions 
 and twistings." These children were sometimes dumb, 
 then deaf, then blind ; at one time they would bark like 
 dogs, at another mew like cats. A physician was called 
 in, who gravely decided that they were bewitched, as they 
 had many of the symptoms described in Mather's book. 
 The ministers became deeply interested in the subject, 
 and five of them held a day of fasting and prayer at the 
 house of the Goodwins, when lo I the youngest child, a 
 boy of five years of age, was delivered 1 As the children 
 asserted that they were bewitched by the Irish washer- 
 woman, she was arrested. The poor creature was fright- 
 ened out of her senses, if she had any, for many thought 
 she was " crazed in her intellectuals." She was, how- 
 ever, tried, convicted and hanged. 
 
 There was at this time at Boston a young clergyman, 
 an indefatigable student, remarkable for his memory and 
 for the immense amount of verbal knowledge he possessed ; 
 he was withal somewhat vain and credulous, and exceed- 
 ingly fond of the marvellous ; no theory seems to have 
 been, more deeply rooted in his mind than a belief in witch- 
 craft. Such was Cotton Mather, son of Increase Mather. 
 He became deeply interested in the case of the Goodwin 
 children, and began to study the subject with reoewed 
 zeal ; to do so the more perfectly, he took the girl to his 
 home. She was cunning, and soon discovered the weak 
 points of his character. She told him he was under a 
 
224 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 shap. special protection ; that devils, though they tried hard, 
 
 , . could not enter his study ; that they could not strike 
 
 1688. him ; the hlows were warded off hy an invisible, friendly 
 hand. When he prayed, or read the Bible, she would be 
 thrown into convulsions ; while at the same time, she 
 read with zest Popish or Quaker books, or the Book of 
 Common Prayer. Mather uttered prayers in a variety 
 of languages to ascertain if these wicked spirits were 
 learned. He discovered that they were skilled in Latin, 
 Greek, and Hebrew, but deficient in some Indian tongues. 
 He sincerely believed all this, and wrote a book, " a story 
 all made up of wonders/' to prove the truth of witch- 
 craft ; and gave out that, hereafter, if any one should 
 deny its existence, he should consider it a personal insult. 
 Mather's book was republished in London, with an ap- 
 proving preface written by Kichard Baxter. This book 
 had its influence upon the minds of the people, and pre- 
 pared the way for the sad scenes which followed. 
 
 About four years after the cases just mentioned, two 
 young girls, one the niece and the other the daughter of 
 Samuel Parris, the minister at Salem village, now Dan- 
 vers, began to exhibit the usual signs of being bewitched. 
 They seem to have done this at first merely for mischief, 
 as they accused no one until compelled. 
 16*2. Between Parris and some of the members of his con- 
 
 gregation there existed much ill-feeling. Now was the 
 time to be revenged ! And this " beginner and procurer 
 of the sore affliction to Salem village and country," in- 
 sisted that his niece should tell who it was that bewitched 
 her, for in spite of all the efforts to " deliver " them, the 
 children continued to practise their pranks. The niece at 
 length accused Kebecca Nurse, a woman of exemplary and 
 Christian life ; but one with whom Parris was at variance. 
 At his instigation she was hurried off to jail. The next 
 Sabbath he announced as his text these words : " Have I 
 uot chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil ? " Imme- 
 
TBIAL OF WITCHES AT SALEM. 225 
 
 diately Sarah Cloyce, a sister of the accused, arose and left chap 
 
 the church, — in those days, no small offence. She too was '. 
 
 accused and sent to prison. The excitement spread, and 1692 
 m a few weeks nearly a hundred were accused and re- 
 manded for trial 
 
 After the people had driven off Andros, Bradstreet 
 had still continued to act as governor. A new charter lew. 
 was given, under which the governor was to he appointed 
 by the crown. Sir William Phipps, a native of New 
 England, "an illiterate man, of violent temper, with 
 more of energy than ability," was the first governor, and 
 William Stoughton the deputy-governor. These both 
 obtained their offices through the influence of Increase 
 Mather, who was then in England, acting as agent for the 
 colony. Stoughton had been the friend of Andros, and a 
 member of his council, and, like Dudley, was looked upon 
 by the people as their enemy. Of a proud and unforgiv- 
 ing temper, devoid of humane feelings, he was self-willed 
 and selfish. The people in a recent election had slighted 
 him ; they scarcely gave him a vote for the office of 
 judge ; this deeply wounded his pride. In his opinions, * 
 as to spirits and witches, he was an implicit follower of 
 Cotton Mather, of whose church he was a member. 
 
 The new governor, bringing with him the new charter, 
 arrived at Boston on the fourteenth of May. The General 1692. 
 Court alone had authority to appoint Special Courts ; but ^j** 
 the governor's first official act was to appoint one to try 
 the witches confined in prison at Salem. The triumph 
 of Mather was complete ; he rejoiced that the warfare 
 with the spirits of darkness was now to be carried on vig- 
 orously, and he " prayed for a good issue." 
 
 The illegal court met, and Parris acted as prosecutor, 
 producing some witnesses and keeping back others. The 
 prisoners were made to stand with their arms extended, 
 lest they should torment their victims. The glance of the 
 witch's eye was terrible to the " afflicted ; " for its evil 
 
226 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN" PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, influence there was but one remedy : the touch of the 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 accused could alone remove the charm. Abigail Williams, 
 
 1692. the niece of Parris, was told to touch one of the prisoners ; 
 she made the attempt, but desisted, screaming out, " My 
 fingers, they burn, they burn ! " She was an adept in 
 testifying ; she had been asked to sign the devil's book by 
 the spectre of one of the accused women, and she had 
 also been permitted to see a witch's sacrament. All this 
 was accepted by the court as true and proper evidence. 
 If a witness contradicted himself, it was explained by as- 
 suming that the evil spirit had imposed upon his brain. 
 A farmer had a servant, who suddenly became bewitched ; 
 his master whipped him, and thus exorcised the devil, 
 and had the rashness to say that he could cure any of 
 " the afflicted " by the same process. For this he soon 
 found himself and wife in prison. Kemarks made by the 
 prisoners were often construed to their disadvantage. 
 George Burroughs, once a minister at Salem, and of whom 
 it is said Parris was envious, had expressed his disbelief in 
 witchcraft, and pronounced the whole affair a delusion. 
 For this he was arrested as a wizard. On his trial the 
 witnesses pretended to fye dumb. "Why," asked the 
 stern Stoughton of the prisoner, " are these witnesses 
 dumb ? " Burroughs believed they were perjuring them- 
 selves, and promptly answered, " The devil is in them, I 
 suppose." " Ah ! ah 1 " said the exulting judge ; " how 
 is it that he is so loath to have any testimony borne against 
 you ? " This decided the case ; Burroughs was condemned. 
 From the scaffold he made an address to the people, and 
 put his enemies to shame. He did what it was believed 
 no witch could do ; he repeated the Lord's Prayer dis- 
 tinctly an& perfectly. The crowd was strongly impressed 
 in his favor ; many believed him innocent, and many 
 were moved even to tears, and some seemed disposed to 
 rescue him ; but Cotton Mather appeared on horseback, 
 and harangued the crowd, maintaining that Burroughs 
 
REVULSION IN PUBLIC OPINION. 227 
 
 was not a true minister, that he had not been ordained, S34& 
 
 that the fair show he made was no proof of his innocence, 
 
 for Satan himself sometimes appeared as an angel of light/ 1692. 
 
 Many of the accused confessed they were witches, and 
 by that means purchased their lives : and some, to make 
 their own safety doubly sure, accused others : thus the 
 delusion continued. Then, again, others who had con- 
 fessed, repented that they had acknowledged themselves to 
 be what they were not, denied their confession, and died 
 with the rest. The accusations were at first made against 
 those in the humbler walks of life ; now others were ac- 
 cused. Hale, the minister at Beverly, was a believer in 
 witchcraft, till his own wife was accused ; then he was 
 convinced it was all a delusion. 
 
 Some months elapsed before the General Court held 
 its regular session ; in the mean time twenty persons had 
 fallen victims, and fifty more were in prison with the same 
 fate hanging over them. Now a great revulsion took 
 place in public opinion. This was brought about by a 
 citizen of Boston, Robert Calef, who wrote a pamphlet, 
 first circulated in manuscript. He exposed the manner 
 in which the trials had been conducted, as well as proved 
 the absurdity of witchcraft itself. Cotton Mather, in his 
 reply, sneered at Calef as " a weaver who pretended to 
 be a merchant." Calef, not intimidated by this abuse, 
 continued to write with great effect, and presently the 
 book was published in London. Increase Mather, the 
 President of Harvard College, to avenge his son, had the 
 " weaver's " book publicly burned in the college yard. 
 
 In the first case brought before the court, the jury 
 promptly brought in a verdict of not guilty. "When news 
 came to Salem of the reprieve of those under sentence, 
 the fanatical Stoughton, in a rage, left the bench, ex- 
 claiming, " Who it is that obstructs the course of justice 
 I know not ; the Lord have mercy on the country." T 
 
 Not long after, the indignant inhabitants of Salem 1698, 
 
22S HISTOEY OF THE AMEBICAK PEOPLE. 
 
 C^P- drove Parris from their village. Many of those who had 
 participated in the delusion, and given their influence in 
 
 1693. favor of extreme measures, deeply repented and publicly 
 asked forgiveness of their fellow-citizens. But Cotton 
 Mather expressed no regret for the part he had taken, 01 
 the influence he exerted in increasing the delusion ; hie 
 vanity never would admit that he could possibly have 
 been in error. Instead of being humbled on account of 
 the sorrows he had brought upon innocent persons, he la- 
 bored to convince the world that, after all, he had not 
 been so very active in promoting the delusion. Stoughton 
 passed the remainder of his days the same cold, proud, 
 and heartless man ; nor did he ever manifest the least 
 Borrow, that on such trifling and contradictory evidence, 
 he had sentenced to death some of the best of men and 
 women. 
 
 It is a pleasure to record that, thirty years after this 
 melancholy delusion, Cotton Mather with fearless energy 
 advocated the use of inoculation for the prevention of 
 
 1721. small-pox. He had learned that it was successful in Tur- 
 key, in arresting or modifying that terrible disease, and 
 he persuaded Dr. Boylston to make the experiment. Ma- 
 ther stood firm, amid the clamors of the ignorant mob, who 
 even threw a lighted grenade filled with combustibles into 
 his house, and paraded the streets of Boston, with halters 
 in their hands, threatening to hang the inoculators. The 
 majority of the physicians opposed inoculation on theo- 
 logical grounds, contending, " it was presumptuous for 
 men to inflict disease on man, that being the prerogative 
 of the Most High." " It was denounced as an infusion of 
 malignity into the blood ; a species of poisoning ; an at- 
 tempt to *thwart God, who had sent the small-pox as a 
 punishment for sins, and whose vengeance would thus be 
 only provoked the more." Nearly all the ministers were 
 in favor of the system, and they replied with arguments 
 drawn from medical science. An embittered war of pam- 
 
INOCULATION IN BOSTON. 229 
 
 phlets ensued. The town authorities took decided ground chap 
 
 . XVIII 
 
 against the innovation, while the General Court passed . 
 
 a bill prohibiting the practice, but the Council wisely 1721 - 
 refused to give it their sanction. At length science and 
 common sense prevailed, and the inoculists completely 
 triumphed. 
 
 Much has been said and written, more or less justly, 
 in condemnation of these strange proceedings ; however, 
 from this time forth the belief in witchcraft began to 
 wane in New England, and the civil authorities noticed 
 it no more. In justice to the misguided actors in this 
 sad tragedy it ought to be remembered that for half a 
 century afterward, the law of the mother country, as it 
 always had done, still made witchcraft a capital crime ; 
 and within thirty years after these terrible scenes in 
 Salem, persons accused of witchcraft were condemned 
 and put to death, both in England and in Scotland ; in 
 the former a mother and her daughter — nine years old — 1716. 
 perished together on the same scaffold ; in the latter, six 
 years afterward, an old woman was burned as a witch ; 
 and even Blackstone, when writing on the laws of England 
 in the latter half of the eighteenth century, deems witch- 
 craft a crime. 
 
 No one of these persons at Salem suffered by that 
 barbarous form of execution — burning; nor were they 
 put to the rack and torture. "What a tribute it is to the 
 integrity of these twenty victims that they refused to 
 stain their souls with the crime of falsehood, " and went 
 to the gallows rather than soil their consciences by the lie 
 of confession." ■ For if they confessed themselves to be 
 witches, "and promised blameless lives for the future, 
 they were uniformly pardoned." 
 
 The seven magistrates composing this illegal court held 
 at Salem were evidently sincere in the performance of 
 
 > Palfrey's History of New England. Vol. IV., p. 133. 
 
230 HISTOEY OF THE AMEEICAK PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, their official duties, yet the sternness of Stoughton, the 
 
 1 chief judge, seems to savor of fanaticism, as shown in his 
 
 1716. permitting the trials to be hurried through without 
 proper deliberation ; had they been postponed to the 
 regular meeting of the General Court, some months dis- 
 tant, the issue, no doubt, would have been far different. 
 The magistrates in Plymouth Colony were more enlight- 
 ened, for when, many years previous to this time, two 
 1660. prosecutions for witchcraft having been brought before 
 them, the accused were declared not guilty. 
 
 Notwithstanding this mistaken zeal in punishing im- 
 aginary crime, it is but justice to notice that the penal 
 laws enacted by the Puritans of New England were in 
 their humane characteristics far in advance of those of 
 the same period in Europe, especially in England, with 
 which the comparison may be more properly made. Even 
 down to 1819 there were in England two hundred and 
 twenty-three offenses punishable with death, while in the 
 From very first formation of the government in the colonies of 
 £ Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven, the crimes 
 1646 punished capitally were limited to seventeen, and some of 
 these with express reservations, " leaving the exaction of 
 the supreme penalty to the discretion of the court." " Lar- 
 ceny above the value of twelve pence was a capital crime 
 in England ;" also, " to kill a deer in the king's forest, or 
 to export sheep from the kingdom." It is but just to 
 compare the laws enacted in these colonies with the con- 
 temporary ones in the Motherland, and not with those of 
 the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The marvel is 
 that, coming from a country where such barbarous laws 
 were in force, the colonists had the moral power to 
 rise above, the prejudices and brutalities of the age, and 
 frame penal laws so much more humane. It may serve 
 as an explanation that the Puritans of New England fell 
 back upon the code of Moses as a model, deeming that to 
 be an embodiment of the law of God for His people ; 
 
LAND HOLDERS. 231 
 
 sometimes forgetting, however, that these laws did not chap. 
 
 fully apply in the seventeenth century of the Christian ; 
 
 era. 
 
 In the recognition of human rights these colonial law- 
 givers were far in advance of the contemporary legislators 
 of Europe. With the former it was a cardinal principle 
 to give every citizen a chance to improve his temporal " 
 affairs by industry and economy, and to educate his 
 children. Their settlements, in accordance with the law, 
 were originally arranged so that each member of the 
 community had an interest in its affairs by his becoming 
 a landholder, and a participant in the councils of the Town 
 Meetings, and indirectly in those of the colony at large, 
 through representatives elected by the aid of his vote. The 
 farms were so laid out that their length greatly exceeded 
 their breadth, and each farmer could thus have his house 
 near a neighbor ; usually their dwellings were built on a 
 single street, the farms running back, while the church 
 and school-house were so located as to be accessible to all. 
 This plan of laying out settlements, though at first en- 
 joined by the civil authorities, was afterward, because of 
 its utility, adopted in numerous instances by the people 
 themselves. This system accounts for the greater num- 
 ber of villages in the colonies of New England in propor- 
 tion to their extent of territory than are in the Middle, 
 and still more in the Southern, colonies. 
 
 Another division, the township or town as it was 
 usually termed, was a district marked off of convenient 
 size, to enable the male inhabitants to attend the town 
 meetings, which were held at a point known as the " Cen- 
 tre," in which meetings measures pertaining to the well- 
 being of the people were discussed and voted upon — 
 such as related to schools, the highways, the district taxes, 
 etc. Under these conditions all the residents became in- 
 terested in the local affairs of the community. The 
 transition was natural and easy for citizens thus trained 
 
232 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, to manifest a similar interest in the general prosperity of 
 
 1 the colony, and its relations with the Home Government. 
 
 In consequence of this political schooling, we find that 
 on the great questions which came up a hundred years 
 later, these " citizens of the common folk" were remark 
 ably well informed, and the sentiments of the most in- 
 telligent patriots of that period found in their minds a 
 ready response. For the times, this kind of information 
 was therefore extensively diffused by the intercourse be- 
 tween citizens, as well as by means of printing ; for in 
 the earlier days that medium was often used by leading 
 minds to express their views upon current topics of 
 interest. The printing-press was specially utilized in the 
 issue of short publications in the form of pamphlets in 
 discussing questions of local interest ; among these theol- 
 ogy held a prominent place. These wars of pamphlets 
 were terrible of their kind. The mass of the people were 
 not then far enough advanced in literary attainments to 
 sustain newspapers, as they were known even a century 
 later, but on religious topics and on political subjects they 
 were wide awake. These short publications, so often 
 controversial, served their purpose, and in their way in- 
 fluenced the most enlightened minds, and they in turn 
 those with whom they came in personal contact. 
 
 The system of landholding x and town meetings culti- 
 vated the self-respect of every citizen, and dignified the 
 most humble with the consciousness that he was a mem- 
 ber of the community, and in the direction of its affairs 
 the influence he might have he was at liberty to exercise. 
 This was the outgrowth of the democratic principle 
 which found its expression for the first time on this side 
 of the world in the cabin of the May- Flower. 2 The sys- 
 tem of dividing counties into towns or townships pre- 
 vailed, also, in the other colonies that afterward became 
 
 * History, p. 105. 2 History, p. 99. 
 
EFFECT OF THE KEVOLUTIOK OF 1688. 233 
 
 free states, and in them, likewise, the minor local affairs chap. 
 
 . XVIII 
 
 were managed by the citizens in township meetings ; but . 
 
 not to the same extent they were in New England, be- 
 cause the people were not so homogeneous, there being 
 a large proportion that were not of Anglo-Saxon descent, 
 neither were they so harmonious nor so far advanced in 
 their political views. In these colonies and states, how- 
 ever, the people elected their own civil officers, while in 
 the southern they were nearly all appointed by the Gov 
 ernors, Legislatures, or County Courts. This latter cus- 
 tom, together with the restrictions on suffrage, greatly 
 diminished the independence of the individual ; for, in- 
 stead of the power being lodged with the people them- 
 selves, it was exercised by a self-constituted oligarchy. 
 
 During the three-quarters of a century immediately 
 succeeding the Great Revolution in England the principles From 
 — religious and political — which the colonists had adopted 1( j^ 8 
 as their rule of conduct, exerted a free and benign influ- 1763. 
 ence; consequently their progress, under the circum- 
 stances, was very great. This revolution secured so much 
 for the religious liberties of the English people, that after- 
 ward when any emigrated to the colonies, it was not on 
 account of religious disabilities, but to better their mate- 
 rial interests. Among those who came during this period 
 were companies of Protestants, such as the Presbyterians ' 
 from Scotland, the Scotch-Irish from the north of Ireland, 
 Huguenots from France, and Lutherans from Germany. 
 These immigrants exerted a healthy influence on the 
 country, in promoting its material prosperity by their in- 
 dustry and economy, and in coalescing with the colonists 
 in their educational and religious matters. They blended 
 easily with the people, and became thoroughly assimi- 
 lated in less than two generations. 
 
 As New England and Virginia were populous and 
 
 i History, 163, 172, 175, 179, 193. 
 
234 HISTOEY OF THE AMERICAN" PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, important colonies, they became centers of influences that 
 
 XVIII. . 
 
 , ! produced certain results during the six generations ' f ol- 
 
 From lowing the witchcraft excitement in the one, and the 
 an( i attempt under Bacon 2 to vindicate the rights of the peo- 
 1684 pi e m the other. 
 
 I860. In the Virginia colony the distribution of the territory 
 
 was radically different from that in New England. In 
 the former were large undivided counties, instead of the 
 districts of convenient size in the latter in order to main- 
 tain schools and churches, thus making compact settle- 
 ments of land-owners independent and self-respecting. 
 Lands in Virginia were frequently given by the crown 
 to court favorites 3 in immense grants, and on these were 
 to be located tenants ; the effect upon these tenants was 
 not to cherish independence of character, but the reverse. 
 In consequence of this system of royal grants farms of 
 moderate size became the exceptions ; the tendency was 
 for the rich to own lands in very large estates, thus widely 
 separating the homes of the inhabitants. The poor or 
 small farmers gradually withdrew from the fertile lands 
 of the main settlements to districts more sterile, and being 
 deprived of the appropriate means to educate their chil- 
 dren, they made little improvement from generation to 
 generation. None but landholders were permitted to 
 vote, and, as far as known, none but that class were 
 elected legislators, thus laying the foundation for a landed 
 aristocracy modeled after that of England ; to this class 
 was added another element of aggrandizement — the sys- 
 tem of slavery. From this time forward there was more 
 importance attached to wealth in landed estates and 
 slaves than in any other form. As "only freeholders 
 could vo£e for members of the house of burgesses," so it 
 came to pass, in process of time, that none but slave- 
 owners were elected to office. 
 
 I History, pp. 858-860. * History, pp. 139-144. 8 History, pp. 141-143. 
 
1866. 
 
 INFLUENCE OF SLAVEKY. 235 
 
 •v In respect to education the spirit of Berkeley seemed chap. 
 
 .... . XVIII 
 
 to brood over successive Virginia legislatures ; during one , . 
 
 hundred and ninety years after his time neither as a From 
 colony nor as a state did they establish schools where to 
 all the children could be educated, while it required 
 more than half a century to prepare the aristocracy for 
 the innovation of a printing-press. The " poor whites" 
 in Virginia never recovered from the blow they received 
 at the failure of their uprising under Bacon ; twenty of 
 their most progressive and patriotic men perished on the 
 scaffold by order of the inhuman Berkeley, and from that 
 time forward they made little progress. 1 This influence 
 extended gradually south from Virginia to the Carolinas 
 and Georgia, where the same system prevailed of large 
 tracts of the best lands being cultivated by slaves, and 
 with the usual result of driving the " poor whites" back 
 to the unfertile districts. In these colonies, and after- 
 ward when states, no schools were established to educate 
 all the children. 
 
 Meanwhile the influence of slavery grew stronger and 
 stronger ; manual labor for a white man became a badge 
 of degradation, which attached itself to him and to his 
 children. There is no sadder story in our history than is 
 revealed in the inner life of the "poor whites" of the 
 South during these two centuries. They made but little 
 progress. They cultivated sterile fields merely to eke out 
 a scanty subsistence ; as to manufactures, they were only 
 by hand, and of the crudest kind, to supply their domes- 
 tie wants ; in the main, the great mass making little ad- 
 vance in education or in mental improvement. This may 
 account for the fact that so limited a number of that class 
 rose above their condition in times of great trial, as in the 
 days of the Revolution, when, comparatively, very few of 
 them displayed talents of a high order. The most promi- 
 
 » Lodge's History of the Colonies ; Virginia, p. 21, and onward. 
 
236 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, nent of these was Daniel Morgan. 1 When their youth 
 
 ; came to manhood they were cramped by lack of education. 
 
 From Another effectual cause of hindering the political prog- 
 
 t0 ress of the mechanic or farmer of limited means, was the 
 186L manner in which civil affairs were conducted. In the 
 large counties of these colonies and states, the Court-House 
 was located near the center, and to meet at " The Court" 
 became the practice of the aristocracy, there to see their 
 compeers from all parts of the county : this custom passed 
 over from colonial times to be more fully carried out in 
 the States. In these meetings they discussed measures in 
 relation to the interests of the county as well as general 
 politics. The nominal citizen not owning land had no vote, 
 and therefore he took little or no interest in these county 
 gatherings, and the distinction became still more clear, so 
 that he who owned a small farm and no slaves, felt ill at 
 ease in an assembly where mere wealth in land and slaves 
 exerted so much influence. It was the landed aristocracy 
 who held office under colonial governors, and who were 
 their accepted advisers ; at the South, from this class alone 
 came the enlightened patriots of the Ke volution ; none 
 scarcely from the ranks of manual labor or small farmers. 
 The intercourse between the rich land- and slave-owners 
 and their poorer neighbors was characterized by an obse- 
 quiousness on the part of the latter totally unknown in 
 the northern colonies ; in them the value of knowledge 
 and moral excellence was more clearly estimated, while 
 that of mere wealth was reckoned only secondary in the 
 social position of the individual. 
 
 Of the middle colonies during this period the most 
 advanced in literary culture was Pennsylvania. Though 
 she had no "public schools in a wide sense, yet under the 
 influence of the Friends her private ones, were the best of 
 their kind. Then came a large immigration of Germans 2 
 
 1 History, p. 380; also, Serjeant Jasper, p. 406. 2 History, pp. 170-174. 
 
NEWSPAPERS. 237 
 
 who became famous as farmers, but unfortunately not so chap. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 famous for the interest they took in education. The con- . 
 
 trast between them in this respect and the Friends and 171 °- 
 Presbyterians 1 was very striking. In New Jersey the 
 schools were private, none were public ; but the Presby- 
 terian element ' moulded the minds of the youth, by in- 
 stilling the truths of the Bible as they deemed them sum- 
 marized in their catechism ; through their influence 
 Princeton college was founded. The same in respect to 
 private schools may be said of the Dutch of New York, 
 In this colony, however, occurred the first instance in the 
 English-speaking world of a trial in court in which the 
 freedom 2 of the press was fully established, and has re- 
 mained so from that day to this. 
 
 When newspapers were first printed in the seventeenth 
 century the arbitrary colonial governments suppressed 
 them without hesitation if they contained anything 
 these gentlemen did not relish. The first newspaper pub- 
 lished in the colonies — " The Public Occurrences'' — was 
 at Boston ; it was simply a printed narrative of events, in- 1690. 
 stead of the usual one in manuscript, giving the current 
 news. The only copy of this paper known to exist is in 
 the Colonial State Paper Office in London. 3 It was con- 
 fiscated no doubt. Fourteen years afterward the first 
 weekly newspaper in the colonies was established also 
 in Boston — "The News-Letter" — by Benjamin Harris. 1704. 
 " The News-Letter" lived seventy years. 
 
 "The American Weekly Mercury" was founded in 1719. 
 Philadelphia, and ten years later in the same city Benja- 
 min Franklin published the first number of the " Penn- 1729. 
 sylvania Gazette ;" two years later " The South Carolina 
 Gazette" began its existence in Charleston, and five years 
 afterward " The Virginia Gazette" made its apnearance 1736. 
 at Williamsburg. 
 
 1 History, pp. 336, 318. 2 History, p. 231. 
 
 3 Hudson's Journalism, p. 44. 
 
238 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap. The influence was reciprocal ; as these papers gradu- 
 
 , 1 ally advanced in excellence, the people, meanwhile, were 
 
 becoming more and more intelligent and better qualified 
 to appreciate their merits. They flourished more vigor- 
 ously in the New England and in the three northern 
 middle colonies than elsewhere. In the former especially 
 the prevalence of common schools had made the great 
 mass of the people readers ; in addition the harsh climate 
 of that section, when compared with the more genial one 
 of the southern, led the people to cultivate indoor indus- 
 tries, and during the long and severe winters, to acquire 
 knowledge and mental improvement by reading. Mean- 
 time a marvelous change had been going on during 
 the French war, which assumed a decided character at 
 1756 its close. Now began the discussion, both by addresses 
 .. *° of prominent men and in the newspapers, of the political 
 questions involved in the policy of the Home Government, 
 in its endeavor to interfere with the civil rights and in- 
 dustries of the colonies. The whole people were intensely 
 roused to this phase of thought, and to the maintenance 
 of their rights. In this clash of opinions the press became 
 a still greater power, both in force and in numbers. It 
 became the exponent, to a certain extent, of the senti- 
 ments of the royalists as well as of the patriots, while the 
 people themselves were stirred to their inmost souls. 1 
 
 The questions relating to civil and religious liberty 
 absorbed the thoughts of the colonists so much that we 
 learn only incidentally concerning their material -prog- 
 ress, as the chroniclers of the times give us only occa- 
 sionally a glimpse of the domestic life of the people. 
 We know that the New Englanders, more than the 
 people, of tnje middle or southern colonies, were com- 
 pelled by the barrenness of their soil and the bleakness 
 of their climate to labor almost incessantly in obtaining 
 
 1 See History, chap. XXIV., pp. 317-324, for characteristics of the 
 colonists. 
 
CROPS — AKIMALS. 239 
 
 a supply of the necessaries of life. They carefully cul- chap. 
 
 tivated wheat, but the sterile soil refused abundant crops ; _ 
 
 and they also devoted care to raising rye and Indian 
 corn. It was different in the middle and the southern 
 colonies : in them the soil was much more fertile, and the 
 climate more genial ; the crops of wheat and Indian corn 
 in the former were abundant, while in the latter tobacco 
 was the most valuable product, because of its ready sale. 
 This led to its extensive culture, almost to the exclusion 
 of the cereals — the latter were supplied by the middle 
 colonies : even in that early day the different sections of 
 the land were dependent upon one another. The rapid 
 sale and high price of tobacco led to the introduction 
 of foreign luxuries, and made the planters dependent 
 on England, especially for their needed manufactured 
 articles. On the contrary, the handicraft of the New 
 Englanders and the people of the middle colonies was 
 constantly improving, because they had no valuable pro- 
 duct like tobacco to send to Europe in exchange for mer- 
 chandise — not even to any extent for textile fabrics ; 
 hence they were compelled to manufacture these articles 
 for themselves. 
 
 In the one section the working animal most prized 
 was the ox, so patient and useful in cultivating the rocky 
 farms in little valleys and on hillsides, and the cows fur- 
 nishing so much food for the family, and the sheep for 
 the production of wool. In the middle colonies the ox 
 was used, but not so much as the draft-horse, in cultivat- 
 ing the large wheat fields ; while in Yirginia the hoe was 
 as necessary, if not more, than the plow in cultivating 
 tobacco. The Yirginian cherished the horse as the 
 noblest of animals, and imported from England the 
 finest for the saddle, for hunting, and for racing, mean- 
 while neglecting his domestic cattle. 
 
CHAPTEK XIX. 
 
 MISSIONS AND SETTLEMENTS IN NEW FRANCE. 
 
 The Emigrants few in number. — The Jesuits ; their zeal as Teachers and 
 Explorers. — Missions among the Hurons. — Ahasistari. — The Five Na- 
 tions, or Iroquois. — Father Jogues. — The Abenakis ; Dreuilettes. — The 
 Dangers of the Missions. — French Settlers at Oswego. — James Mar- 
 quette. — The Mississippi. — La Salle ; his Enterprise ; his Failure and 
 tragical End. 
 
 chap We have already given an account of the discoveries 
 
 * LK ' made in New France, and the settlements founded under 
 
 1684. * ne direction of Samuel Champlain. We now intend to 
 
 trace the history of these settlements and missions, from 
 
 that period till the time when the Lilies of France were 
 
 supplanted by the Banner of St. George. 
 
 The climate offered but few inducements to cultiva- 
 tors of the soil, and emigrants came but slowly ; they 
 established trading houses, rather than agricultural settle- 
 ments. To accumulate wealth their main resource was 
 in the peltries of the wilderness, and these could be ob- 
 tained only from the Indians, who roamed over the vast 
 regions west and north of the lakes. 
 
 A partial knowledge of the country had been obtained 
 from a priest/ Father Le Caron, the friend and companion 
 of Champlain. He had, by groping through the woods, 
 and paddling over the waters his birch-bark canoe, pene- 
 trated far up the St. Lawrence, explored the south shore 
 of Lake Ontario, and even found his way to Lake Huron. 
 
THE JESUITS. 241 
 
 Three years before the death of Champlain, Louis chap 
 
 XIII. gave a charter to a company, granting them the 
 
 control of the valley of the St. Lawrence and all its trib- 1684. 
 utaries. An interest was felt for the poor savages, and it 
 was resolved to convert them to the religion of Kome ; — 
 not only convert them, but make them the allies of 
 France. Worldly policy had as much influence as reli- 
 gious zeaL It was plain, the only way to found a French 
 empire in the New World, was by making the native 
 tribes subjects, and not by transplanting Frenchmen. 
 
 The missions to the Indians were transferred to the 
 supervision of the Jesuits. This order of priests was 
 founded expressly to counteract the influence of the 
 Reformation under Luther. As the Keformers favored 156* 
 education and the diffusion of general intelligence, so the 
 Jesuit became the advocate of education — provided it was 
 under his own control. He resolved to rule the world by 
 influencing its rulers ; he would govern by intellectual 
 power and the force of opinion, rather than by supersti- 
 tious fears. He endeavored to turn the principles of the 
 Reformation against itself. His vows enjoined upon him 
 perfect obedience to the will of his superior, — to go on 
 any mission to which he might be ordered. No clime so 
 deadly that he would not brave its danger ; no people so 
 savage that he would not attempt their conversion. 
 
 With their usual energy and zeal, the Jesuits began 
 to explore the wilds of New France, and to bring its 
 wilder inhabitants under the influence of the Catholic 
 faith. To the convert was offered the privileges of a 
 subject of France. From this sprang a social equality, 
 friendly relations were established, and intermarriages took 
 place between the traders and the Indian women. 
 
 Companies of Hurons, who dwelt on the shores of the 
 lake which bears their name, were on a trading expedition 
 to Quebec. On their return home the Jesuits Brebeuf 
 and Daniel accompanied them. They went up the Ot- 
 
242 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 C xfx P ' * awa ^ ^ e y came to * ts largest western branch, thence 
 
 to its head waters, and thence across the wilderness to 
 
 1634. their villages on Georgian bay and Lake Simcoe. The faith 
 and zeal of these two men sustained them during their 
 toilsome journey of nine hundred miles, and though their 
 feet were lacerated and their garments torn, they rejoiced 
 in their sufferings. Here in a grove they built, with theii 
 own hands, a little chapel, in which they celebrated the 
 ceremonies of their church. The Eed Man came to hear 
 the morning and evening prayers ; though in a language 
 which he could not understand, they seemed to him to be 
 addressed to the Great Spirit, whom he himself wor- 
 shipped. Six missions were soon established in the villages 
 around these lakes and bays. Father Brebeuf spent four 
 hours of every morning in private prayer and self-flagel- 
 lations, the rest of the day in catechizing and teaching. 
 Sometimes he would go out into the village, and as he 
 passed along would ring his little bell and thus invite the 
 grave warriors to a conference, on the mysteries of his 
 religion. Thus he labored for fifteen years. 
 
 These teachings had an influence on the susceptible 
 heart of the great Huron chief Ahasistari. He professed 
 himself a convert and was baptized. Often as he escaped 
 uninjured from the perils of battle, he thought some pow- 
 erful spirit watched over him, and now he believed that 
 the God whom the white man worshipped was that guar- 
 dian spirit. In the first flush of his zeal he exclaimed : 
 " Let us strive to make all men Christians." 
 
 Thousands of the sons and daughters of the forest 
 listened to instruction, and the story of their willingness 
 to hear, when told in France, excited a new interest. The 
 king and queen and nobles vied with each other in mani- 
 festing their regard by giving encouragement and aid tc 
 the missionaries, and by presents to the converts. A col- 
 lege, to educate men for these missions, was founded at 
 Quebec, two years before the founding of Harvard. Two 
 
THE FIVE NATIONS. 243 
 
 years afterward the Ursuline convent was founded at chap 
 
 Montreal for the education of Indian girls, and three 
 
 young nuns came from France to devote themselves to 1635 
 that labor. They were received with demonstrations of 
 joy by the Hurons and Algonquins. Montreal was now 
 chosen as a more desirable centre for missionary operations. 
 
 The tribes most intelligent and powerful, most war- 
 like and cruel, with whom the colonists came in contact, 
 were the Mohawks, or Iroquois, as the French named 
 them. They were a confederacy consisting of five nations, 
 the Senecas, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, 
 and the Mohawks — better known to the English by the 
 latter name. This confederacy had been formed in ac- 
 cordance with the counsels of a great and wise chief, 15881 
 Hiawatha. Their traditions tell of him as having been 
 specially guided by the Great Spirit, and that amid strains 
 of unearthly music, he ascended to heaven in a snow- 
 white canoe. They inhabited that beautiful and fertile 
 region in Central New York, where we find the lakes and 
 rivers still bearing their names. 
 
 Their territory lay on the south shore of Lake Ontario, 
 and extended to the head-waters of the streams which 
 flow into the Chesapeake and Delaware bays, and also to 
 the sources of the Ohio. These streams they used as 
 highways in their war incursions. They pushed their con- 
 quests up the lakes and down the St. Lawrence, and 
 northward almost to the frozen regions around Hudson's 
 bay. They professed to hold many of the tribes of New 
 England as tributary, and extended their influence to the 
 extreme east. They made incursions down the Ohio 
 against the Shawnees, whom they drove to the Carolinas. 
 They exercised dominion over the Illinois and the Miamis. 
 They were the inveterate enemies of the Hurons, and a 
 terror to the French settlements — especially were they 
 hostile to the missions. In vain the Jesuits strove to 
 teach them ; French influence could never penetrate 
 
244 HISTOKY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, south of Ontario. The Mohawks closely watched the 
 
 passes of the St. Lawrence, and the intercourse between 
 
 1685. the missionaries stationed on the distant lakes and their 
 head-quarters at Montreal was interrupted, unless they 
 travelled the toilsome route by the Ottawa and the wil- 
 derness beyond. 
 1642. An expedition from the lakes had slipped through to 
 
 Quebec, and now it endeavored to return. As the fleet 
 approached the narrows, suddenly the Mohawks attacked 
 it ; most of the Frenchmen and Hurons made for the op- 
 posite shore. Some were taken prisoners, among whom 
 was Father Jogues. The noble Ahasistari, from his 
 hiding-place, saw his teacher was a prisoner ; he knew 
 that he would be tortured to death, and he hastened to 
 him : " My brother," said he, " I made oath to thee, that 
 I would share thy fortune, whether death or life ; here 1 
 am to keep my vow." He received absolution at the 
 hands of Jogues, and met death at the stake in a manner 
 becoming a great warrior and a faithful convert. 
 
 Father Jogues was taken from place to place ; in each 
 village he was tortured and compelled to run the gauntlet. 
 His fellow-priest, Goupil, was seen to make the sign of 
 the cross on the forehead of an infant, as he secretly bap- 
 tized it. The Indians thought it a charm to Mil their 
 children, and instantly a tomahawk was buried in the 
 poor priest's head. The Dutch made great efforts, but 
 in vain, to ransom Jogues, but after some months of cap- 
 tivity he made his escape to Fort Orange, where he wa, 
 gladly received and treated with great kindness by the 
 Dominie Megapolensis. Jogues went to France, but in a 
 few years he was again among his tormentors as a messen- 
 ger of the gospel ; ere long a blow from a savage ended 
 his life. A similar fate was experienced by others. Father 
 Bressani was driven from hamlet to hamlet, sometimes 
 scourged by all the inhabitants, and tortured in every pos- 
 
INDIAN MISSIONS. 245 
 
 able form which savage ingenuity could invent, — yet he chap 
 survived, and was at last ransomed by the Dutch. 
 
 The Abenakis of Maine sent messengers to Montreal 1642. 
 asking missionaries. They were granted, and Father 
 Dreuilettes made his way across the wilderness to the 
 Penobscot, and a few miles above its mouth established a 
 mission. The Indians came to him in great numbers. 
 He became as one of themselves, he hunted, he fished, he 
 taught among them, and won their confidence. He gave 
 a favorable report of the place, and the disposition of the 
 tribes, and a permanent Jesuit mission was there estab- 
 lished. On one occasion Father Dreuilettes visited the 
 Apostle Eliot at Koxbury. The noble and benevolent 
 work in which they were engaged, served in the minds of 
 these good men to soften the asperities existing between 
 the Catholic and the Puritan, and they bid each other 
 God speed. 
 
 At this time there were sixty or seventy devoted mis- 1646 
 sionaries among the tribes extending from Lake Superior 
 to Nova Scotia. But they did not elevate the character 
 of the Indian ; he never learned to till the soil, nor to 
 dwell in a fixed abode ; he was still a rover in the wide, 
 free forest, living by the chase. The Abenakis, like the 
 Hurons, were willing to receive religious instructions ; they 
 learned to chant matins and vespers, they loved those 
 who taught them. It is not for us to say how many of 
 them received into their hearts a new faith. 
 
 The continued incursions of the ferocious Mohawks 
 kept these missions in peril. Suddenly one morning they 
 attacked the mission of St. Joseph on Lake Simcoe, 
 founded, as we have seen, by Brebeuf and Daniel. The 
 time chosen was when the warriors were on a hunting ex- 
 cursion, and the helpless old men, women, and children 
 fell victims to savage treachery. The aged priest Daniel, 
 at the first war-cry, hastened to give absolution to all the 1048 
 converts he could reach, and then calmly advanced from 
 
246 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 °xlx/ ^ e cna P e * * n *ke ^ ace °^ tne murderers. He fell pierced 
 
 with many arrows. These marauding expeditions broke 
 
 164a up nearly all the missions in Upper Canada. The Hu- 
 rons were scattered, and their country became a hunting- 
 ground for their inveterate enemies. 
 , Many of the Huron converts were taken prisoners and 
 adopted into the tribes of the Five Nations. Some years 
 1661. after, when a treaty was made between those nations and 
 the French, the presence of these converts excited hopea 
 that they would receive Jesuit teachers. A mission was 
 established among the Onondagas, and Oswego, their prin- 
 cipal village, was chosen for the station. In a year or 
 two missionaries were laboring among the other tribes of 
 the confederacy. But the French, who had an eye to se- 
 curing that fertile region, sent fifty colonists, who began 
 a settlement at the mouth of the Oswego. The jealousy 
 of the Indians was excited ; they compelled the colonists 
 to leave their country, and with them drove away the 
 missionaries. Thus ended the attempts of the French to 
 possess the soil of New York. 
 
 The zeal of the Jesuits was not diminished by these 
 untoward misfortunes ; they still continued to prosecute 
 their labors among the tribes who would receive them. 
 Away beyond Lake Superior one of their number lost his 
 way in the woods and perished, and the wild Sioux kept 
 his cassock as an amulet. Into that same region the un- 
 daunted Father Allouez penetrated ; there, at the largest 
 town of the Chippewas, he found a council of the chiefs 
 of many different tribes. They were debating whether 
 they should take up arms against the powerful and war- 
 like Sioux. He exhorted them to peace, and urged them 
 1666 t° join in alliance with the French against the Iroquois ; 
 he also promised them trade, and the protection of the 
 great king of the French. Then he heard for the first 
 time of the land of the Illinois, where there were no trees, 
 but vast plains covered with long grass, on which grazed 
 
JAMES MARQUETTE. 247 
 
 innumerable herds of buffalo and deer. He heard of the *&&' 
 
 wild rice, and of the fertile lands which produced an , 
 
 abundance of maize, and of regions where copper was ob- 1669. 
 tained, — the mines so famous in our own day. He learned, 
 too, of the great river yet farther west, which flowed 
 toward the south, whither, his informants could not tell 
 After a sojourn of two years Allouez returned to Quebec, 
 to implore aid in establishing missions in that hopeful 
 field. He stayed only to make known his request ; in two 
 days, he was on his way back to his field of labor, accom- 
 panied by only one companion. 
 
 The next year came from France another company of 
 priests, among whom was James Marquette, who repaired 
 immediately to the missions on the distant lakes. Ac- 
 companied by a priest named Joliet, and five French 
 boatmen, with some Indians as guides and interpreters, 
 Marquette set out to find the great river, of which he had 
 heard so much. The company passed up the Fox river 
 in two birch-bark canoes ; they carried them across the 
 portage to the banks of the Wisconsin, down which they 
 floated, till at length their eyes were gratified by the sight 
 of the " Father of Waters." 1670 
 
 They coast along its shores, lined with primeval for- 
 ests, swarming with all kinds of game ; the prairies redo- 
 lent with wild flowers ; — all around them is a waste of 
 grandeur and of beauty. After floating one hundred and 
 eighty miles they meet with signs of human beings. They 
 land, and find, a few miles distant, an Indian village ; here 
 they are welcomed by a people who speak the language 
 of their guides. They are told that the great river ex- 
 tends to the far south, where the heat is deadly, and that 
 the great monsters of the river destroy both men and 
 canoes. 
 
 Nothing daunted they pass on, and ere long they reach 
 the place where the turbid and rapid Missouri plunges 
 into the tranquil and clear Mississippi. " When I return/' 
 
248 vHISTOEY OF THE AMEBIC AN PEOPLE. 
 
 C xnF* sa ^ B ^ ar( l uette > u I w iH ascend that river and pass beyond 
 
 its head- waters and proclaim the gospel." Further on 
 
 1670. they see a stream flowing from the north-east ; — it is the 
 Ohio, of which the Iroquois have told them. We can 
 imagine Marquette, noticing the fertility of the soil, 
 looking with awe upon the dark and impenetrable forests, 
 and hoping that in future ages these shores would be the 
 homes of many millions of civilized and Christian men. 
 
 As they went on they approached a warmer climate ; 
 and now they were sure that the great river flowed intc 
 the Gulf of Mexico, and not into that of California, as 
 had been supposed. They met with Indians who showed 
 them tools of European manufacture ; obtained either 
 from the English of Virginia or from the Spaniards fur- 
 ther south. It was deemed prudent to return, as they 
 might fall into the hands of the latter, and thus be de- 
 prived of the privilege of making known their discovery. 
 At the mouth of the Arkansas they began the toilsome 
 labor of paddling their canoes up the stream down which 
 they had so easily floated. They reached the mouth of the 
 Illinois ; thinking it would lead them to the lakes, they 
 passed up that river to its head-waters, and thence across 
 to Lake Michigan. 
 
 Joliet immediately set out to carry the news of the 
 discovery to Quebec. Marquette was desirous to begin 
 his work, and he chose to remain in the humble station of 
 a missionary in the wilderness. One day he retired to his 
 private devotions, at a simple altar he had erected in a 
 grove. An hour afterward he was found kneeling beside 
 it ; his prayers and his labors for the good of the poor In- 
 dian were ended ; — in that hour of quiet retirement his 
 spirit had passed away. 
 
 Among the adventurers who came to Canada to seek 
 their fortunes, was Eobert Cavalier de la Salle, a young 
 man who had been educated as a Jesuit, but had re- 
 nounced the order. A large domain at the outlet of Lake 
 
ENTERPRISE OP LA SALLE — LOUISIANA. 249 
 
 Ontario was granted him on condition that he would main- chap 
 tain Fort Frontenac, now Kingston. But his main object , 
 
 was to obtain the entire trade of the Iroquois. The Dews 1675. 
 of the discovery of the great river inflamed his ardent mind 
 with a desire to make settlements on its banks, and thus 
 secure its vast valley for his king. Leaving his lands and 
 his herds, he sailed for France, and there obtained a favora- 1677 
 ble grant of privileges. He returned, passed up to Lake 
 Erie, at the foot of which he built a vessel of sixty tons, in 
 which, with a company of sailors, hunters, and priests, he 
 passed through the straits to the upper lakes, and an- 
 chored in Green Bay. There, lading his ship with a cargo 16 7 9 
 of precious furs, he sent her to Niagara, with orders to Aug. 
 return as soon as possible with supplies. Meanwhile he 
 passed over into the valley of the Illinois, and on a bluff 
 by the river side, near where Peoria now stands, built a 
 fort, and waited for his ship ; but he waited in vain ; she 
 was wrecked on the voyage. 
 
 After three years of toils, wanderings in the wilder- 
 ness, and voyages to France, during which he experienced 
 disappointments that would have broken the spirit of an 
 ordinary man, we find him once more on the banks of the 
 Illinois. Now he built a barge, on board of which, with 1682. 
 his companions, he floated down to the Mississippi, and A P™ 
 thence to the Gulf. Thus were his hopes, after so much 
 toil and sacrifice, realized. He had triumphantly traced 
 the mighty stream to its mouth. He remained only to 
 take possession of the country in the name of his sovereign, 
 Louis XIV., in honor of whom he named it Louisiana. 
 
 La Salle returned to Quebec, and immediately sailed 
 for France. He desired to carry into effect his great de- 
 sign of planting a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi. 
 The enterprise was looked upon with favor by both the 
 French people and the king. He was furnished with an 
 armed frigate and three other vessels, and two hundred 1684, 
 and eighty persons to form a colony. One hundred of 
 
250 HISTOEY OF THE AMERICAN" PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, these were soldiers ; of the remainder, some were volun- 
 
 L teers, some mechanics, and some priests. Unfortunately, 
 
 1684. the command of the ships was given to Beaujeu, a man 
 as ignorant as he was self-willed and conceited. After 
 surmounting many difficulties, they entered the Gulf of 
 Mexico, but missed the mouth of the Mississippi. La 
 1686. Salle soon discovered the error, but the stubborn Beaujeu, 
 deaf to reason, sailed on directly west, till fortunately ar- 
 rested by the eastern shore of Texas. La Salle deter- 
 mined to disembark and seek by land the mouth of the 
 great river. The careless pilot ran the store-ship on the 
 breakers ; suddenly a storm arose, and very little was saved 
 of the abundance which Louis had provided for the enter- 
 prise. It is said that he gave more to aid this one colony 
 than the English sovereigns combined gave to all theirs in 
 North America. 
 
 As the ships were about to leave them on that desolate 
 shore, many became discouraged, and returned home. 
 The waters in the vicinity abounded in fish, and the for- 
 ests in game, and with a mild climate and productive soil, 
 there was no danger from starvation. A fort was built in 
 a suitable place ; the trees of a grove three miles distant 
 furnished the material, which they dragged across the 
 prairie. La Salle explored the surrounding country, but 
 sought in vain for the Mississippi. On his return to the 
 fort, he was grieved to find his colony reduced to forty per- 
 sons, and they disheartened and mutinous. He did not 
 despair ; he would yet accomplish the darling object of his 
 ambition ; he would thread his way through the wilder- 
 ness to Canada, and induce colonists to join him. With 
 * 687 a company of sixteen men he commenced the journey ; 
 they travelled two months across the prairies west of the 
 Mississippi ; but the hopes that had cheered his heart 
 amidst hardships and disappointments were never to be 
 realized. Two of his men, watching their opportunity, 
 murdered him. Thus perished Kobert Ovalier de la 
 
DEATH OF LA SALLE. 251 
 
 Salle, assassinated in the wilderness by his own country- C S A ?- 
 
 men. He was the first to fully appreciate the importance 
 
 of securing to France the two great valleys of this conti- 1687. 
 nent. His name will ever be associated with his unsuc- 
 cessful enterprise, and his tragical fate will ever excite a 
 feeling of sympathy. Ketribution was not long delayed ; 
 his murderers, grasping at spoils, became involved in a 
 quarrel with their companions, and both perished by the 
 hand of violence. 
 
 The remainder of the company came upon a tributary 
 of the Mississippi, down which they passed to its mouth, 
 where their eyes were greeted by a cross, and the arms of 
 France engraved upon a tree. This had been done by 
 Tonti, a friend of La Salle, who had descended from the 
 Illinois, but in despair of seeing him had returned. The 
 colony of Texas perished without leaving a memento of its 
 existence. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 MARAUDING EXPEDITIONS; SETTLEMENT OF LOUISIANA j CAPTURE 
 OP LOUISBURG. 
 
 Mohawks hostile to the French. — Dover attacked ; Major Waldron. — Sche- 
 nectady captured and burned. — The inhuman Frontenac. — The Colonists 
 act for themselves. — Invasion of Canada. — Settlements in Maine aban- 
 doned. — Heroism of Hannah Dustin. — Deerfield taken; Eunice Wil- 
 liams. — D'Ibberville plants a Colony on the Pascagoula. — Trading Posts 
 on the Illinois and the Mississippi. — The Choctaws ; the Natchez ; at- 
 tempts to subdue the Chickasaws. — King George's War. — Capture of 
 Louisburg. — The English Ministry alarmed. — Jonathan Edwards. — The 
 " Great Revival." — Princeton College. 
 
 chap. Peace had continued for some time between the Five Na- 
 xx. 
 tions and the French, but now the former were suspicious 
 
 1685. of the expeditions of La Salle. James II. had instructed 
 Dongan, the Catholic governor of New York, to conciliate 
 the French, to influence the Mohawks to receive Jesuit 
 missionaries, and to quietly introduce the Catholic religion 
 into the colony. But Dongan felt more interest in the 
 fur trade, which the French seemed to be monopolizing, 
 than in Jesuit missions among the Mohawks, and he 
 rather encouraged the latter in their hostility. An act of 
 treachery increased this feeling. Some of their chiefs, 
 who were enti<*$d to enter Fort Frontenac, were seized and 
 forcibly carried to France, and there made slaves. 
 
 When the indignant people of England drove the 
 bigoted James from his throne and invited William of 
 
 1688. Orange to fill it, Louis XIV. took up the quarrel in behalf 
 of James, or of legitimacy, as he termed it. He believed 
 
DOVEB BUBNED MAJOB WALDBON. 253 
 
 in the divine right of kings to rule, and denied the right c ^ p - 
 
 of a people to change their form of government, Louis 
 
 had for years greatly abused his power, and all Europe had 1G88. 
 suffered from his rapacity. Religious feeling exerted its 
 influence in giving character to the war, and Protestant 
 Holland joined heart and hand with Protestant England 
 in opposing Catholic France. 
 
 Though the colonies were thus involved in war by the 
 mother countries, they had different ends in view. The 
 New Englanders had an eye to the fisheries and the pro- 
 tection of their northern frontiers ; the French wished to 
 extend their influence over the valleys of the St. Lawrence 
 and the Mississippi, and to monopolize the fisheries as well 
 as the fur-trade. The latter object could be obtained only 
 by the aid of the Indians, and they were untiring in their 
 efforts to make them friends. They could never conciliate 
 the Mohawks, nor induce them to join in an invasion of 
 New York. On the contrary, fifteen hundred of them 
 suddenly appeared before Montreal, and in a few days cap- 
 tured that place, and committed horrible outrages upon 
 the people. 
 
 Thus stood matters when Frontenac, for the second 168&. 
 time, appeared as governor of New France. To make the 
 savages respect him as a warrior, he set on foot a series of 
 incursions against the English colonies. The eastern In- 
 dians were incited to attack Dover in New Hampshire ; — 
 incited by the French, and also by a cherished desire for 
 revenge. There, at the head of the garrison, was that 
 Major Waldron who, thirteen years before, during King 
 Philip's war, had treacherously seized two hundred of 
 their friends, who came to him to treat of peace. He had 
 proposed to these unsuspecting Indians a mock fight by 
 way of entertainment ; when their guns were all discharged 
 he made them prisoners and sent them to Boston. Some 
 of them were hanged, and others sold into slavery. The 
 Indians in their turn employed stratagem and treachery. 
 
254 HISTOKY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 C xxT' ^ W0 S( l uaws came t° Dover; they asked of the aged 
 __ Waldron, now fourscore, a night's lodging. In the night 
 1G8». they arose, unbarred the gates, and let in their friends, 
 who lay in ambush. Their hour for vengeance had come ; 
 fchey made the pangs of death as bitter as possible to the 
 brave old Waldron ; his white hairs claimed from them no 
 pity. In derision, they placed him in a chair on a table, 
 and scored his body with gashes equal in number to their 
 friends he had betrayed ; they jeeringly asked him, " "Who 
 will judge Indians now ? Who will hang our brothers ? 
 Will the pale-faced Waldron give us life for life ? " l 
 They burned all the houses, murdered nearly half the in- 
 habitants, and carried the remainder into captivity. 
 
 This was only the beginning of a series of horrors 
 inflicted upon the frontier towns. The inhabitants of 
 Schenectady, as they slept in fancied security, were star- 
 tled at midnight by the terrible war-whoop of the savage, 
 — the harbinger of untold horrors. The enemy found easy 
 1690. access, as the gates of the palisades were open. The 
 Feb. bouses were set on fire, more than sixty persons were 
 killed, and many helpless women and children were carried 
 into captivity. A few escaped and tied half clad through 
 the snow to Albany. This attack was made by a party 
 of French and Indians from Montreal, who had toiled for 
 twenty-two days through the snows of winter, breaking 
 the track with snow-shoes, and using, when they could, 
 the frozen streams as a pathway. At Salmon Falls, on 
 the Piscataqua, and at Casco, similar scenes were enacted. 
 Such were the means the inhuman Frontenac, now 
 almost fourscore, took to inspire terror in the minds of the 
 English colonists, and to acquire the name of a great war- 
 rior among the Indians, — they would follow none but a 
 successful leader. Among the early Jesuit missionaries 
 who taught the Indians of New France, there were un- 
 
 2 New England History, C. W. Elliott. 
 
EXPEDITIONS AGAINST CANADA. 255 
 
 doubtedly many good men. The priests of that generation chap 
 
 had passed away, and others had taken their places ; L, 
 
 these incited the recently converted savage, not to prac- 1690. 
 tise Christian charity and love, hut to pillage and murder 
 the heretical English colonist. 
 
 King William was busy in maintaining his own cause 
 in England, and left the colonists to defend themselves. 
 Massachusetts proposed that they should combine, and re- 
 move the cause of their trouble by conquering Canada. 
 Commissioners from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New 
 York met to deliberate on what course to pursue. They 
 resolved to invade that province from New York, by way 
 •>f Lake Champlain, and from Massachusetts by way of the 
 St. Lawrence. The expedition from New York failed. 
 Colonel Peter Schuyler led the advance with a company 
 of Mohawks, but the ever- watchful Front enac was pre- 
 pared ; his Indian allies flocked in crowds to aid him in 
 defending Montreal. The Mohawks were repulsed and 
 could not recover their position, as the army sent to sup- 
 port them was compelled to stop short ; the small-pox 
 broke out among the soldiers, and they were in want of 
 provisions. 
 
 Meantime, the fleet of thirty-two vessels, and two 
 thousand men, which had sailed from Boston, was endeav- 
 oring to find its way up the St. Lawrence. It was under 
 the command of Sir William Phipps, to whose incompe- 
 tency may be attributed the failure of the enterprise. An 
 Indian runner cut across the woods from Piscataqua, and 
 in twelve days brought the news of the intended attack 
 to the French. Frontenac hastened to Quebec, where he 
 arrived three days before the fleet. When it came in 
 sight he was prepared to make a vigorous defence. A 
 party landed, but after some skirmishing the enterprise 
 was abandoned. While returning, the men suffered much 
 from sickness, and storms disabled the fleet. The disap- 
 pointment of the people of Massachusetts was very great ; 
 
256 
 
 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, many lives had been lost, and the colony was laden witfc 
 
 debt. 
 
 1690 The Eastern Indians, in the mean time, were held in 
 
 check by Captain Church, celebrated in King Philip's 
 war. At one time, he so far forgot himself as to put to 
 death his prisoners, some of whom were women and chil- 
 dren. Such cruelty was inexcusable ; and it was avenged 
 by the savages with tenfold fury. Nearly all the settle- 
 ments of what is now Maine were destroyed or abandoned. 
 The enemy were continually prowling around the farms, 
 watching an opportunity to shoot the men at their work. 
 All went armed, and even the women learned to handle 
 effectively the musket and the rifle. It was a great in- 
 ducement for the Indians to go on these marauding expe- 
 ditions, because they could sell for slaves to the French 
 of Canada the women and children they took prisoners. 
 
 Peace was at length made with the Abenakis, or East- 
 ern Indians, and there was a lull in the storm of desola- 
 tion. It lasted but a year, the Indians broke the treaty. 
 They were incited to this by their teachers, two Jesuits, 
 Thury and Bigot, who even took pride in their atrocious 
 work. 
 
 IW4 Heroic deeds were performed by men and women. A 
 
 small band of Indians attacked the house of a farmer 
 named Dustin, near Haverhill. When in the fields he 
 heard the war-whoop and the cry of distress. He hastened 
 to the rescue, met his children, and threw himself be- 
 tween them and their pursuers, whom he held at bay by 
 well-directed shots till the children were in a place of 
 safety. His house was burned ; a child only a few days 
 old was dashed against a tree, and his wife, Hannah Dus- 
 tin, and her nurse, were carried away captive. A toilsome 
 march brought them to an island in the Merrimac, just 
 above Concord, where their captors lived. There Mrs. 
 Dustin, with the nurse and a boy, also a captive, planned 
 an escape. She wished revenge, as well as to be secure 
 
DKERFIELD DESTROYED EUNICE WILLIAMS. 257 
 
 from pursuit. The Indians, twelve in number, were asleep. c §^ p 
 
 She arose, assigned to each of her companions whom to 
 
 strike ; their hands were steady and their hearts firm ; 1694. 
 they struck for their lives. Ten Indians were killed, one 
 woman was wounded, and a child was purposely saved. 
 The heroic woman wished to preserve a trophy of the deed, 
 and she scalped the dead. Then in a canoe the three 
 floated down the Merrimac to Haverhill, much to the 
 astonishment of their friends, who had given them up for 
 lost. Such were the toils and sufferings, and such the 
 heroism of the mothers in those days. 
 
 The friendly Mohawks had intimated to the inhabi- 
 tants of Deerfield, in the valley of the Connecticut, that 
 the enemy was plotting their destruction. The anxiety 
 of the people was very great, and they resolved during the 
 winter to keep a strict watch ; sentinels were placed every 
 night. 
 
 On an intensely cold night in February a company of 1704 
 two hundred Frenchmen, and one hundred and forty In- 
 dians, lay in ambush, waiting a favorable moment to 
 spring upon their victims. Under the command of Hertel 
 de Kouville, they had come all the way from Canada, on 
 the crust of a deep snow, with the aid of snow-shoes. The 
 sentinels, unconscious of danger, retired at dawn of day. 
 The snow had drifted as high as the palisades, thus, ena- 
 bling the party to pass within the inclosure, which con- 
 sisted of twenty acres. The terrible war-cry startled the 
 inhabitants, the houses were set on fire, and forty-seven 
 persons were ruthlessly murdered ; one hundred and 
 twelve were taken captive, among whom were the minister 
 Williams, his wife, and five children. No pen can de- 
 scribe the sufferings of the captives on that dreary winter's 
 march, driven, as they were, by relentless Frenchmen and 
 savages. Eunice Williams, the wife, drew consolation 
 from her Bible, which she was permitted to read when 
 the party stopped for the night. Her strength soon failed ; 
 
258 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 C xx P ' ^ €r ^ llls ^ an ^ cheered her by pointing her to the " house 
 
 not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." " The 
 
 1704. mother's heart rose to her lips, as she commended her five 
 captive children, under God, to theii father's care, and 
 then one blow of the tomahawk ended her sorrows." This 
 family, with the exception of one daughter, seven years of 
 age, were afterward ransomed, and returned home. 
 • Many years after this, there appeared at Deerfield a 
 white woman wearing the Indian garb ; she was the lost 
 daughter of Eunice Williams, and now a Catholic, and 
 the wife of an Indian chief. No entreaties could influence 
 her to remain with her civilized relatives ; she chose to re- 
 turn and end her days with her own children. 
 
 Humanity shudders at the recital of the horrors that 
 marked those days of savage warfare. Some of the Indians 
 even refused to engage any more in thus murdering the 
 English colonists ; but the infamous Hertel, with the ap- 
 probation of Vaudreuil, then governor of Canada, induced 
 a party to accompany him on a foray. Why repeat the 
 story of the fiendish work, by which the little village of 
 Haverhill, containing about thirty log-cabins, was burned, 
 and all the inhabitants either murdered or taken captive. 
 1708. u -j^y k ear t gwe u s ^th indignation," wrote Colonel Peter 
 Schuyler, of New York, to Vaudreuil, " when I think that 
 a wax between Christian princes, is degenerating into a 
 savage and a boundless butchery ; I hold it my duty to- 
 ward God and my neighbor, to prevent, if possible, these 
 barbarous and heathen cruelties." This reproof was un- 
 heeded ; the cruelties continued. 
 
 Under the feelings excited by such outrages, can we 
 think it strange that the colonists resolved to hunt the 
 Indians like wild beasts, and offered a bounty for their 
 scalps ? or that the hostility against the French Jesuit 
 should have thrown suspicion upon the Catholic of Mary- 
 land, who about this time was disfranchised ? or that 3veu 
 
LEMOINB D'lBBERVILLB. 
 
 in liberal Rhode Island, he should have been deprived chap 
 of the privilege of becoming a freeman ? 
 
 With renewed energy the French began to press for- 1708. 
 ward their great design of uniting, by means of trading 
 posts and missions, the region of the Lakes and the valley 
 of the Mississippi. The Spaniards had possession of the 
 territory on the northern shore of the Gulf of Mexico, 
 while they claimed the entire regions lying around that 
 expanse of water. 
 
 The energetic mind of Lemoine d'Ibberville conceived 
 a plan for planting a colony at the mouth of the Missis- 
 sippi. He was a native of Canada, and had, on many 
 occasions, distinguished himself by his talents and great 
 courage. Hopes were entertained of his success. The 
 expedition, consisting of four vessels and nearly two hun- 
 dred colonists, among whom were some women and chil- 
 dren, sailed from Canada for the mouth of the Mississippi. 1699 
 D'Ibberville entered the Gulf and approached the north 
 shore, landed at the mouth of the river Pascagoula, and 
 with two barges and forty-eight men went to seek the 
 great river. He found it by following up a current of 
 muddy waters, in which were many floating trees. He 
 passed up the stream to the mouth of Red River, where 
 he was surprised to receive a letter dated fourteen years 
 before. It was from Tonti ; he had left it with the In- 
 dians for La Salle ; they had preserved it carefully, and 
 gave it to the first Frenchman who visited them. 
 
 As the shores of the Mississippi in that region are 
 marshy, it was thought best to form a settlement on the 
 Gulf at the mouth of the Pascagoula. This was the first 
 colony planted within the limits of the present State of 
 Mississippi. D'Ibberville sailed for France to obtain sup- 
 plies and more colonists, leaving one of his brothers, Sau- 
 ville, to act as governor, and the other, Bienville, to 
 engage in exploring the country and river. 
 
 Some fifty miles up the Mississippi Bienville met an 
 
260 
 
 HISTOKY OF THE AMEKICAK PEOPLE. 
 
 C ix > ' ^* B ^^ 1 sn *P sent on tne same errand. Seventy years 
 
 before, Charles I. had given to Sir Kobert Heath a grant 
 
 1630. of Carolina, which as usual was to extend to the Pacific. 
 This worthless grant Coxe, a London physician, had pur- 
 chased, and to him belonged this vessel. 
 
 » From the time of La Salle the Jesuits had been busy 
 ingratiating themselves with the tribes along the shores of 
 the Mississippi, and under their direction trading posts 
 were established, at various points, to the mouth of the 
 Illinois, and up that river to the Lakes. 
 1700. The following year D'Ibberville returned with two 
 
 ships and sixty colonists, and the aged Tonti had just ar- 
 rived from the Illinois. Availing himself of his counsel, 
 D'Ibberville ascended the river four hundred miles, and on 
 a bluff built a fort, which, in honor of the Duchess of 
 Pontchartrain, was called Rosalie. These settlements lan- 
 guished for twenty years ; the colonists were mere hire- 
 lings, unfitted for their work. The whole number of 
 emigrants for ten years did not exceed two hundred per- 
 sons. Instead of cultivating the soil, and making their 
 homes comfortable, many went to the far west seeking for 
 gold, and others to the north-west on the same errand, 
 while fevers and other diseases were doing the work of 
 death. Meantime Mobile became the centre of French 
 influence in the south. 
 
 Once more a special effort was made to occupy the 
 territory, and a monopoly of trade was granted to Arthur 
 1714 Crozart, who was to send every year two ships laden with 
 merchandise and emigrants, and also a cargo of slaves from 
 Africa. The French government was to appropriate an- 
 nually about ^en thousand dollars to defray the expense 
 of forts and necessary protection. 
 
 A trading house was established up the Red River at 
 Natchitoches, and one up the Alabama near the site of 
 Montgomery ; Fort Rosalie became a centre of trade, and 
 
FOUNDING OF NEW ORLEANS. 261 
 
 the germ of the present city of Natchez — the oldest town chap 
 on the Mississippi. 
 
 Bienville put the convicts to work on a cane-brake to 1718. 
 remove the trees and shrubs " from a savage and desert 
 place/' and built a few huts. Such were the feeble begin- 
 nings of New Orleans, which it was prophesied would 
 yet become M a rich city, the metropolis of a great colony." 
 Still the colony did not prosper ; instead of obtaining 
 their supplies from that fruitful region, they were depend- 
 ent on France and St. Domingo. Labor was irksome to 
 the convicts and vagabonds, and the overflowings of the 
 river, and the unhealthiness of the climate retarded prog- 
 ress. The chief hope for labor was based on the impor- 
 tation of negroes from Africa. 
 
 Some German settlers, who, a few years before, had 
 been induced by one Law, a great stock-jobbing and land 
 speculator, to emigrate to the banks of the Arkansas, de- 
 cided to remove. A tract of land, lying twenty miles 
 above New Orleans, known now as the " German coast," 
 was given them. Their settlement was in contrast with 1T2> 
 the others. They were industrious, and cultivated their 
 farms, raised vegetables, rice, and other provisions ; also 
 tobacco and indigo. The fig and the orange were now 
 introduced. The Illinois region had been settled by emi- 
 grants from Canada, who raised wheat and sent flour to 
 the colonists below. The priests meanwhile were not idle 
 in teaching the Indians, and a convent was founded at 
 New Orleans for the education of girls. As the colonists 
 had not energy enough to protect themselves, a thousand 
 soldiers were sent from France for that purpose. 1724 
 
 The Choctaws, the allies of the French, occupied the 
 region between the lower Mississippi and the Alabama. 
 The principal village of the Natchez tribe was on the 
 bluff where now stands the city of that name. They 
 were not a numerous people, unlike the tribes among 
 whom they dwelt, in their language as well as in their 
 
262 
 
 HISTOKY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 CHAP, religion. Like the Peruvians, they were worshippers of 
 
 the sun, and in their great wigwam they kept an undying 
 
 1724. fire. Their principal chief professed to be a descendant 
 of the sun. They became justly alarmed at the encroach- 
 ments of the French, who having Fort Kosalie, demanded 
 * the soil on which stood their principal village, for a farm. 
 They suddenly fell upon the white intruders and killed 
 two hundred of their number, and took captive their women 
 and children. The negro slaves joined the Indians. Their 
 principal chief, the Great Sun, had the heads of the 
 French officers slain in the battle arranged around him, 
 1780. that he might smoke his pipe in triumph ; — his triumph 
 was short. A company, consisting of French and Choc- 
 taws, under Le Suer, came up from New Orleans, and 
 surprised them while they were yet celebrating their vie* 
 tory. The Great Sun and four hundred of his people were 
 taken captive and sent to St. Domingo as slaves. Some 
 of the Natchez escaped and fled to the Chickasaws, and 
 some fled beyond the Mississippi ; their land passed into 
 the hand of strangers, and soon, they as a people were 
 unknown. 
 
 The territory of the brave Chickasaws, almost sur- 
 rounding that of the Natchez, extended north to the Ohio, 
 and east to the land of the Cherokees. They were the 
 enemies of the French, whose boats, trading from Canada 
 and Illinois to New Orleans, they were accustomed to 
 plunder. English traders from Carolina were careful to 
 increase this enmity toward their rivals. 
 1786 Two expeditions were set on foot to chastise these bold 
 
 marauders. Bienville came up from the south with a 
 fleet of boats and canoes, and a force of twelve hundred 
 Choctaws ; he paddled up the Tombecbee as far as he 
 could, and then hastened across the country to surprise 
 one of their fortified places. D'Artaguette hastened down 
 from the Illinois country, of which he was governor, with 
 fifty Frenchmen and a thousand Indians, to attack an- 
 
EXPEDITION AGAINST LOUI8BURG. 263 
 
 other of their strongholds. The Chickasaws were too c 5^ > - 
 vigilant to be thus surprised. They repulsed Bienville, , 
 
 dispersed the forces of D'Artaguette, took him prisoner, 1735. 
 
 and burned him at the stake. Once more an attempt was May 
 
 20 
 
 made with all the force the French could bring to crush 
 this warlike tribe, but in vain ; the patriotic Chickasaws 
 successfully defended their country against the foreign foe. VMk 
 
 These reverses did not deter the persevering French 
 from establishing trading houses south of Lake Erie, and 
 down the Alleghany to the Ohio, and thence to the Mis- 
 sissippi. The people of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and 
 Virginia became alarmed at these encroachments on their 
 territory. The Iroquois professed to have conquered all 
 the valley of the Ohio, and they claimed a vast region to 
 the north-west as their hunting grounds. Commissioners 
 from the above colonies met the envoys of the Iroquois at 174a. 
 Lancaster, and purchased from them for £400 all their Jul 7« 
 claim to the regions which they professed to own between 
 the Blue Kidge and the Alleghany mountains. 
 
 The colonies had enjoyed nearly thirty years of com- 
 parative freedom from French and Indian incursions, when 
 they were involved in what is known as King George's 174 ^ 
 War. 
 
 The first intimation of hostilities was an attack upon 
 the fort at Canso, in which the garrison was captured and 
 carried to Louisburg. Louisburg was the great strong- 
 hold of the French on this continent ; the centre from 
 which privateering expeditions were fitted out, that had 
 nearly destroyed the commerce as well as the fisheries of 
 New England. To prevent these depredations, and the 
 inroads to which the French incited their Indian allies, 
 Governor Shirley, of Massachusetts, proposed to the Gen- 
 eral Court to take Louisburg. No aid was expected from 
 the mother country — she was too much engaged at home ; 
 but the other colonies were invited to enlist in the com- 
 mon cause. New Jersey and Pennsylvania agreed to 
 
264 HISTOEY OF THE AMEKICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap furnish money, but declined to send men ; New York 
 
 L furnished money and some cannon ; Connecticut offered 
 
 1744. five hundred men ; Rhode Island and New Hampshire 
 each furnished a regiment. Massachusetts proposed the 
 expedition, was the most interested in its success, bore 
 the greater part of the expense, and furnished the greater 
 portion of the men and vessels. The fishermen, especially 
 those of Marblehead, entered upon the enterprise with 
 alacrity. Their fisheries had been almost ruined and they 
 thrown out of employment, by the continued forays from 
 Louisburg. Farmers, mechanics, and lumbermen volun- 
 teered in great numbers. Here were citizen soldiers, 
 without a single man whose knowledge of military tactics 
 went beyond bush-fighting with the Indians, and all 
 equally ignorant of the proper means to be used in redu- 
 cing a fortified place. A wealthy merchant, William Pep- 
 perell, of Maine, was elected commander. The artillery 
 was under the direction of Gridley, the same who, thirty 
 years afterward, held a similar position in an American 
 army under very different circumstances. The enthusiasm 
 was great, and what was lacking in means and skill, was 
 supplied by zeal. A strong Protestant sentiment was 
 mingled with the enterprise, and Whitefield, then on his 
 third tour of preaching in the colonies, was urged to fur- 
 nish a motto for a banner. He promptly suggested, " Nil 
 desperandum, Christo duce," — " Nothing is to be despaired 
 of when Christ is leader." He also preached to them an 
 inspiriting sermon, and they sailed, like the Crusaders of 
 old, confident of success. 
 ^45 In April the fleet arrived at Canso, but owing to the 
 
 ice, could not enter the harbor of Louisburg. Intelligence 
 of the expedition had been sent to England, and Admiral 
 Warren, who commanded on the West India station, was 
 invited to join in the enterprise. He declined for want of 
 explicit orders, but afterward receiving permission, he 
 hastened to join them with four men-of-war. 
 
LOUISBUBG CAPTURED. 265 
 
 The whole armament was now put in motion for Lou- c ^| p, 
 
 isbnrg. That stronghold had walls forty feet thick, thirty 
 
 feet high, and surrounded by a ditch eighty feet wide, 1745. 
 with protecting forts around it, manned by nearly two 
 hundred and fifty cannon, small and great, and garrisoned 
 by sixteen hundred men. 
 
 As the fleet approached, the French came down to the 
 beach to oppose their landing, but in a moment the " whale 
 boats," filled with armed men, were " flying like eagles" 
 to the shore. Their opposers, panic-stricken, fled ; and 
 the following night the soldiers of the royal battery, one 
 of the outside forts, spiked their cannon and retreated to 
 the town. The deserted fort was immediately taken pos- 
 session of, and the gunsmiths went to work to bore out 
 the spikes. The next day a detachment marched round 
 the town, giving it three cheers as they passed, and took 
 up a position that completely enclosed the place on the 
 land side, while the fleet did the same toward the ocean. 
 They threw up batteries, dragged their cannon over a 
 morass, and brought them to bear upon the fortress. 
 
 These amateur soldiers soon became accustomed to 
 encamping in the open air, and sleeping in the woods, as 
 well as to the cannon-balls sent among them by the be- 
 sieged. They not only prevented ships from entering the 
 harbor, but found means to decoy into the midst of their 
 fleet and capture a man-of-war of sixty-four guns, laden 
 with stores for the fort. This loss so much disheartened 
 the garrison that, after a siege of seven weeks, Louisburg ^* 
 surrendered. The news of this success sent a thrill of 
 joy throughout the colonies. It was the greatest feat 
 of the war, and was accomplished by undisciplined volun- 
 teers. 
 
 France resolved, at any cost, to recover her stronghold, 
 and also to desolate the English colonies. The fleet sent 
 for the purpose was disabled by storms, while pestilence 
 wasted the men. The commander, the Duke d'Anville, 
 
266 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, suddenly died, and his successor, a short time after, com- 
 
 mitted suicide. The next year, the fleet sent for the same 
 
 1746. purpose was forced to strike its colors to an English squad- 
 ron under Admirals Anson and Warren. 
 
 Though thus successful, the frontier settlements still 
 suffered greatly, and in self-defence the old project was 
 revived of conquering Canada. The government of Eng- 
 land required all the colonies, as far south as Virginia, to 
 furnish men and means. Eight thousand men were raised, 
 of which number Massachusetts furnished nearly one-half. 
 The British ministry suddenly changed their mind, and 
 the enterprise was abandoned. Soon after, the treaty of 
 Ait la Chapelle was concluded, by which all places taken 
 by either party during the war were to be restored. Thus 
 Louisburg, the capture of which was so gratifying to the 
 colonists, and so significant of their daring spirit, passed 
 1748. again into the hands of the French. 
 
 The ministry did not relish the ardor and independ- 
 ence of the colonists, who appeared to have, according to 
 Admiral Warren, " the highest notions of the rights and 
 liberties of Englishmen ; and, indeed, as almost levellers." 
 It was in truth the foreshadowing of their complete inde- 
 pendence of the mother country, and measures were taken 
 \>y her to make them more subservient. They were for- 
 bidden to have any manufactures, to trade to any place 
 out of the British dominions, while no other nation than 
 the English were permitted to trade with them. " These 
 oppressions," says an intelligent traveller of that day, 
 " may make, within thirty or fifty years, the colonies en- 
 tirely independent of England." 
 i 
 
 For many years there had been a marked decline in 
 religion in New England. A peculiar union of church 
 and state had led to a sort of compromise between the 
 two, known as the " Half-way covenant," by which per- 
 sons who had been baptized, but without pretensions tc 
 
JONATHAN EDWARDS. — THE GREAT REVIVAL. 267 
 
 personal piety, were admitted to the full privileges of chap 
 church members. 
 
 In the midst of this declension a religious u Awaken- 1785. 
 ing," better known as the " Great Kevival," commenced 
 at Northampton, in Massachusetts, under the preaching 
 of Jonathan Edwards, a young man remarkable for his 
 intellectual endowments. His sermons were doctrinal and 
 strongly Calvinistic. His religious character had been 
 early developed. At thirteen he entered Yale College ; 
 thoughtful beyond his years, a metaphysician by nature, 
 at that early age he was enraptured with the perusal of • 
 Locke on the " Understanding." Secluded from the world 
 by the love of study, he penetrated far into the mysteries 
 of the workings of the human mind. 
 
 Edwards drew from the Bible the knowledge of the 
 true relation between the church and the world. The 
 contest was long and strenuous, but the lines were clearly 
 drawn, and from that day to this the distinction is marked 
 and appreciated. " He repudiated the system of the Half- 
 way covenant," and proclaimed the old doctrines of " the 
 sole right of the sanctified to enjoy the privileges of church 
 members, and of salvation by faith alone." As the influ- 
 ence of the state in religious matters thus began to fade 
 away, a closer spiritual relation of men to men, not as 
 members of a commonwealth alone, but as members of a 
 great brotherhood, gained in importance. 
 
 Parties sprang into existence ; those who favored a 
 more spiritual life in religion were stigmatized as " New 
 Lights," while the steady conservatives were known as 
 the " Old Lights." So bitter was the feeling that in Con- 
 necticut the civil authority was invoked, and severe laws 1744 
 were enacted against the New Lights. The controversy 
 was so warm that Edwards was driven from his congrega- 
 tion — at that time, "the largest Protestant society in the 
 world." He went as a missionary to the Housatonic In- 
 dians at Stockbridge, Massachusetts. There in the forest, 
 
HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN" PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, amid toils and privations, he wrote his far-famed treatise 
 
 on the " Freedom of the Will/' which has exerted so 
 
 1750. much influence in the theological world, while the writer 
 was the first American that obtained a European reputa- 
 tion as an author. 
 1740. During this period Whitefield came, by invitation, to 
 
 New England. He had been preaching in the south with 
 unexampled success. At intervals, for more than thirty 
 years, he preached the gospel from colony to colony. " Hun- 
 dreds of thousands heard the highest evangelical truths 
 uttered with an eloquence probably never equalled." The 
 influence of the awakening spread till all the colonies 
 were visited by the same blessings, especially the Presby- 
 terians of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and 
 in a less degree in the more southern colonies. These 
 influences were not limited to that age, for similar revivals 
 have continued to our own times. 
 
 The Baptists, hitherto but few in number, received a 
 new impulse, as many of the New Light churches adopted 
 their views ; and the preaching of Whitefield prepared 
 the way for the success of the Methodists. 
 
 The revival created a want for ministers of the gospel, 
 to supply which, the Rev. William Tennent established 
 an academy at Neshaminy ; an institution where young 
 men professing the religious fervor that characterized those 
 prominent in the revival, could be prepared for the sacred 
 office. This was the germ of Princeton College. 
 
 This religious sentiment met with little sympathy 
 from the authorities of the colony, and with difficulty a 
 174«. charter was obtained. The institution was named Nassau 
 Hall, in honor of the great Protestant hero, William III. 
 It was first located at Elizabethtown, then at Newark, 
 1757. and finally at Princeton. Its success was unexampled ; 
 in ten years the number of students increased from eight 
 to ninety. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR. 
 
 The Valley of the Ohio. — French and English Claimants. — Gist the Pioneer. 
 — George Washington ; his Character ; his Mission to the French on 
 the Alleghany. — Returns to Williamsburg. — St. Pierre's Letter unsatis- 
 factory. — Virginians driven from the Ohio. — Fort Du Quesne built. — 
 Washington sent to defend the Frontiers. — Conflict at Fort Necessity. — 
 The Fort abandoned. — British Troops arrive in America. — Plan of oper- 
 ations. — General Braddock ; his qualifications. — The Army marches 
 from Wills' Creek. — Obstinacy of Braddock. — Arrival on the Mononga- 
 hela.— The Battle. — Defeat.— Death and Burial of Braddock.— Dun- 
 bar's Panic. — The Frontiers left unprotected. 
 
 Scarcely an English colonist had yet settled in the val- cbaj 1 
 
 ley of the Ohio. The traders who visited the Indians in m 
 
 that region, told marvellous stories of the fertility of the 1749. 
 soil, and the desirableness of the climate. It was pro- 
 posed to found a colony west of the Alleghany mountains. 
 The governor of Virginia received royal instructions to 
 grant the " Ohio Company " five hundred thousand acres 
 of land lying between the rivers Monongahela and Kana- 
 wha, and on the Ohio. The company engaged to send one 
 hundred families ; to induce them to emigrate they offered 
 them freedom from quit-rents for ten years. 
 
 Meantime, the French sent three hundred men to ex- 
 pel the English traders and take possession of the valley. 
 They also sent agents, who passed through the territory 
 north of the Ohio river, and at various points nailed on 
 the trees plates of lead, on which were inscribed the arms 
 of France. This they were careful to do in the presence 
 
270 HISTOKT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 C xxf ' °^ *^ e ^ n( ii an8 J wno suspected they intended to take away 
 
 their lands. When the English came and made surveys 
 
 1749. on the south side of the Ohio, they asked them the puz- 
 zling question : " If the French take possession of the 
 north side of the Ohio, and the English of the south, 
 where is the Indian's land ? " 
 
 At Wills' Creek, now Cumberland, Maryland, one of 
 the easiest passes over the mountains commenced. Here 
 the Ohio Company established a place of deposit to sup- 
 ply Indian traders with goods. They also wished to 
 explore the Ohio river to the great falls ; to ascertain the 
 location of the best lands, and whether the Indians were 
 friendly or unfriendly. They employed for this dangerous 
 and difficult task the celebrated trader and pioneer Chris- 
 topher Gist, who crossed the mountains and came upon 
 the Alleghany river, at a village occupied by a few Dela- 
 ware Indians. Thence he passed down to Logstown, a 
 sort of head-quarters for traders, situated some miles 
 below the junction of that river and the Monongahela. 
 Here dwelt a renowned chief of the western tribes, Tana- 
 charison, or half-king, as he was called, because he ac- 
 knowledged a sort of allegiance to the Mohawks. " You 
 are come to settle the Indian lands," said the resident 
 traders, whose suspicions were roused ; " you will never go 
 home safe." Gist traversed the region of the Muskingum 
 and of the Scioto, then crossed the Ohio, and passed up 
 the Cuttawa or Kentucky to its very springs. He gave a 
 glowing account of the beauty and fertility of the region 
 he had visited. It was covered with trees of immense 
 size, the wild cherry, the ash, the black walnut, and the 
 sugar maple, the two latter giving indubitable proof of the 
 fertility of the soil ; a land abounding in never-failing 
 springs and rivulets, forests interspersed with small mead- 
 ows, covered with long grass and white clover, on which 
 fed herds of elk, deer, and buffalo, while the wild turkey 
 and other game promised abundance to the hunter and 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON. 271 
 
 pioneer. Such was the primitive character of the territory c -^ > - 
 since known as the State of Ohio. 
 
 He ascertained that French emissaries were visiting 1749. 
 all the western tribes, to induce them to take up arms 
 against the English ; that the Indians looked upon both 
 as intruders, and though willing to trade with both, were 
 unwilling that either should occupy their lands. The 
 French saw that if the English obtained a foothold on the 
 Ohio, they would cut off the communication between the 
 Lakes and the Mississippi; The final struggle for the 
 supremacy in the valley was near at hand. 
 
 "While the English, by invitation of the Indians, were 
 approaching from the south, to build a fort at the head of 
 the Ohio, the French were approaching the same point 
 from the north. The latter had built war vessels at Fron- 
 tenac to give them the command of Lake Ontario ; they 
 had strengthened themselves by treaties with the most 
 powerful tribes, the Shawnees and the Dela wares ; they 
 had repaired Fort Niagara, at the foot of Lake Erie, and 
 at this time had not less than sixty fortified and well gar- 
 risoned posts between Montreal and New Orleans. They 
 had also built a fort at Presque Isle, now Erie, one on 
 French Creek, on the site of Waterford, and another at 
 the junction of that creek with the Alleghany, now the 
 village of Franklin. 
 
 Dinwiddie, governor of Virginia, resolved to send a 
 messenger to remonstrate with the French for intruding 
 on English territory. Where could he find a .man of en- 
 ergy and prudence to trust in this laborious and perilous 
 undertaking ? His attention was directed to a mere 
 youth, in his twenty-second year, a surveyor, who, in the 
 duties of his profession, had become somewhat familiar H&% 
 with the privations of forest life. That young man was 2 2. 
 George Washington. He was a native of Westmoreland 
 county, Yirginia. The death of his father left him an 
 orphan when eleven years of age. The wealthy Virginia 
 
272 HISTOEY OF THE AMEEICAK PEOPLE. 
 
 3HAP. planters of those days were accustomed to send their 
 
 sons to England to complete their education, and thus 
 
 1749. had Lawrence, his half-brother, fourteen years older than 
 himself, been educated. No such privilege was in store 
 for George. His father's death may have interfered with 
 such plans : be that as it may, he was sent to the com- 
 mon school in the neighborhood, and there taught only 
 the simplest branches of an English education — to spell, 
 to read, to write, to cipher. When older, he went for some 
 time to an academy of a somewhat higher grade, where he 
 devoted his time particularly to the study of mathematics. 
 
 Though his school advantages were so limited, it was 
 his inestimable privilege to have a mother endowed with 
 good sense, united to decision of character and Christian 
 principle,— she inspired love, she enforced obedience. 
 From her he inherited an ardent, impulsive temper — from 
 her he received its antidote ; she taught him to hold it in 
 subjection. 
 
 The early life of George Washington furnishes an ex- 
 ample worthy the imitation of the youth of his country. 
 We are told of his love of truth, of his generous and noble 
 acts, that he won the confidence of his schoolmates, and 
 received from them that respect which virtue alone can 
 secure. 
 
 He was systematic and diligent in all his studies. 
 There may yet be seen, in the library at Mount Vernon, 
 the book in which he drew his first exercises in surveying ; 
 every diagram made with the utmost care. Thus was 
 foreshadowed in the youth what was fully developed in 
 the man. At the early age of sixteen, we find him in the 
 woods on the frontiers of Virginia, performing his duties 
 as a surveyor ; making his measurements with so much 
 accuracy that to this day they are relied upon. 
 
 We must not suppose that the studious and sedate 
 youth, with his rules for governing his " conversation and 
 conduct " carefully written out, and as carefully observed 
 
THE FORMATION OF HIS CHARAOTEB. 
 
 273 
 
 was destitute of boyish feelings. He had his youthful chap. 
 sports and enjoyments ; he could exhibit feats of strength . 
 
 and skill ; could ride a horse or throw a stone with any 1742. 
 boy, and was so far military in his tastes as occasionally to 
 drill his school-fellows during recess. 
 
 His brother Lawrence had spent some time in the Eng- 
 lish navy, and George had often heard of the excitements 
 of the seaman's life, and had boyish longings for adven- 
 tures on the ocean. Circumstances seemed to favor his 
 wishes. When fourteen, it was decided that he should 
 enter the navy. The man-of-war on which he was to go 
 as a midshipman was lying in the Potomac ; his baggage 
 was ready, but when the parting hour came the mother's 
 heart failed. Though deeply disappointed, George yielded 
 to her wish, and relinquished his anticipated pleasure. 
 
 Though Washington was born and spent his youth in 
 the wilds of Virginia, there were many refining influences 
 brought to bear upon the formation of his character. He 
 was intimate for years in the Fairfax family, who brought 
 with them to their western home the refinement and cul- 
 ture of the English aristocracy of that day. Neither 
 must we overlook the benign influence exerted over him 
 by his educated and benevolent brother Lawrence, who, 
 up to the time of his death, watched over his young 
 brother with a father's care, as well as a brother's love. 
 
 The influence of Christian principle governing the im- 
 pulses of a noble nature, was the secret of the moral 
 excellence, the dignified integrity, unaffected candor, and 
 sterling worth, which shone forth in the character of 
 Washington, — a name so much blended with the liberties 
 of his country, and so much cherished and honored by the 
 Mends of humanity in every clime. 
 
 Governor Dinwiddie gave his youthful messenger a 
 letter for the French commandant on the Ohio, in which 
 he demanded of him his reasons for invading the territory 
 of England. The very day on whicb Washington re- 
 
274 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 C xxl* ce * ve( * *" s credentials, (October 30,) lie left Williamsburg 
 
 , for Winchester, then a frontier town of Virginia. By the 
 
 1758. middle of November his preparations were completed. 
 With a company consisting of the intrepid Gist, who 
 acteci as guide, two interpreters, and four others, he set 
 out from Wills' Creek. A. journey of nine days, through 
 solitudes and mountain passes, and across streams swollen 
 by recent rains, brought them to where the Monongahela, 
 that river " so deep and still/' meets the " swift running 
 Alleghany." Washington explored the neighborhood, and 
 remarks in his journal : " The land at the Fork is 
 extremely well situated for a fort, as it has absolute 
 command of both rivers." Thus thought the French en- 
 gineers, who afterward on that very spot built Fort Du 
 Quesne. 
 
 Shingis, chief sachem of the Delawares, who afterward 
 took up arms against the English, accompanied him to 
 Logstown. Here, by his instructions, Washington was to 
 confer with the Indian chiefs : he summoned them to a 
 grand talk. They would not commit themselves ; they 
 had heard that the French were coming with a strong 
 force to drive the English out of the land. But he in- 
 duced three of them to accompany him to the station of 
 the French commandant ; among these was the Half- 
 King. 
 
 When he arrived at Venango, or Franklin, the officer 
 in command referred him to the Chevalier St. Pierre, 
 general officer at the next post. Meanwhile he was 
 treated with politeness, and invited by the French officers 
 to a supper. The wine passed freely, and the talka- 
 tive Frenchmen began to boast of their plans ; they 
 would ft take possession of the Ohio ; the English could 
 raise two men for their one, but they were too slow and 
 • dilatory." The sober and cautious Washington marked 
 well their words. The three chiefs had promised well ; 
 they would give back the speech belts to the French ; 
 
THE VIRGINIANS DBIVEN FBOM THE OHIO. 
 
 275 
 
 they were friends to the English. But when plied with chap 
 
 drink, and hailed hy the French as " Indian brothers," 1 
 
 they wavered for a time. 1753. 
 
 Washington obtained an interview with St. Pierre, 
 "an ancient and silver-haired chevalier, courteous hut 
 ceremonious," and after some delay received an answer to 
 his despatches, and hastened homeward. As the pack- 
 horses were disabled, he left them and the baggage, and 
 with Gist for his only companion struck out into the wil- 
 derness. The cold was intense, the snow was falling, and 
 freezing as it fell. Wrapped in Indian blankets, with 
 their guns in their hands and knapsacks on their backs, 
 and a compass to guide them, they pushed on toward the 
 Alleghany river, which they hoped to cross on the ice. 
 Their journey through the pathless wild was marked by 
 some mishaps and hairbreadth escapes. Their lives were 
 endangered by a false guide, and Washington in endeav- 
 oring to force his way through the ice in the river, came 
 near perishing ; but, on the sixteenth of January, they 1754 
 arrived safely at Williamsburg. 
 
 The answer of St. Pierre was courteous but indefinite. 
 He referred the matter to the Marquis Du Quesne, the 
 governor of Canada. It was clear, however, that he did 
 not intend to retire from the valley of the Ohio. This 
 was still more evident from the preparations of boats, ar- 
 tillery, and military stores, which Washington noticed up 
 the Alleghany, waiting for the spring flood, when they 
 would be taken to their place of destination. 
 
 The following spring the Ohio Company sent between 
 thirty and forty men to build a fort at the head of the 
 Ohio. The French were on the alert ; a company of sol- 
 diers floated down the Alleghany, who surprised and sur- 
 rounded them at their work. They must surrender in an 
 hour's time or defend themselves against a thousand men. 
 They were glad to leave their unfinished fort and return 
 
276 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, to Virginia. The French took immediate possession 
 
 1 finished it, and named it Du Quesne. 
 
 1754. At the early age of nineteen Washington had been 
 
 appointed Adjutant- General of the northern district of 
 Virginia, an office which he filled to the entire satisfaction 
 of his countrymen. Now he received the commission of 
 lieutenant-colonel, with orders to protect the frontiers. 
 He was also offered the command of the expedition against 
 the French at Fort Du Quesne. This he declined on ac- 
 count of his youth ; the command was then conferred 
 upon Colonel Fry, who shortly after fell ill, and it virtu- 
 ally passed into the hands of Washington. His little 
 army was ill provided with tents and military stores, and 
 poorly clad. They moved on very slowly. It was not 
 easy with a train of artillery to pass through the forests, 
 climb mountains, and ford swollen rivers. Washington 
 pushed on with a detachment for the junction of the Red- 
 stone and Monongahela. There, on the spot now known 
 as Brownsville, he hoped to maintain his position until 
 the main force should come up, and then they would float 
 down the river in flat-boats to Fort Du Quesne. 
 
 On the ninth of May this detachment arrived at a 
 place called the Little Meadows. Here they met traders, 
 who informed them that the French were in great force at 
 Du Quesne, and that a portion of them had set out on a 
 secret expedition. There was but little doubt as, to its 
 object. Presently came an Indian runner ; he had seen 
 the tracks of the Frenchmen ; they were near. The Half- 
 King with forty warriors was also in the neighborhood. 
 On a dark and stormy night, Washington and forty of his 
 men groped their way to his camp, which they reached 
 about daylight. This faithful ally put a couple of runners 
 upon the enemy's tracks ; they reported that the French 
 were encamped in a deep glen, where they had put up 
 temporary cabins. 
 
 Washington arranged his company in two divisions, and 
 
SURRENDER OF FORT NECESSITY. 277 
 
 bo effectually surprised them that few of theii number chap 
 
 escaped. Among the slain was the youthful De Jumon- 1 
 
 ville, the leader of the party. Here was shed the first 1754 
 blood in that seven years' struggle, in which the French 
 power on this continent was broken. As no reinforce- 
 ments were sent, Washington was greatly disappointed ; 
 he could not maintain the advantage he had gained. He 
 heard that a numerous force was on its way to attack him. 
 In a letter to his friend Colonel Fairfax he writes : " The 
 motives that have led me here are pure and noble. I had 
 no view of acquisition, but that of honor by serving 
 faithfully my king and country." 
 
 He built a fort at the Great Meadows, which, from 
 the fact of famine pressing upon them, he named Fort 
 Necessity. It is a fact worthy of mention, that at this 
 encampment public prayer was daily observed, and con- 
 ducted by the youthful commander himself. 
 
 Soon five hundred French and many hundred Indians 
 appeared on the hills in sight of the fort. He drew out 
 his men for battle, but the enemy declined the contest. 
 Then he withdrew them within the inclosure, giving them 
 directions to fire only when an enemy was in sight. This 
 irregular fighting continued throughout the day. The 
 rain poured in torrents, and rendered useless many of 
 their muskets. At night the French desired a parley ; 
 suspecting stratagem to introduce a spy, Washington at 
 first refused, but at length consented. Much of the night 
 was spent in negotiation ; finally, the Virginians were 
 allowed to leave the fort with the honors of war, and their 
 equipments and stores, except artillery. The next morn- 
 ing the youthful hero led out his men. The Indians im- jtdj 
 mediately began to plunder ; Washington, seeing this, 8 * 
 ordered every thing to be destroyed that the soldiers could 
 not carry. The loss of the Virginia regiment, which 
 numbered about three hundred, was nearly fifty ; the loss 
 of the enemy was greater. After much toil and suffering. 
 
278 HISTOET OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 C xxl' ^ rom want °^ provisions, they arrived at Cumberland. 
 
 Thus ended the first military expedition of Washington, 
 
 1754. Although unsuccessful, he displayed so much prudence 
 and judgment that the people were impressed by his 
 merits, and which the House of Burgesses acknowledged 
 by a vote of thanks. 
 
 He was, however, soon after annoyed and mortified by 
 the course pursued by the narrow-minded Dinwiddie, who, 
 unwilling to promote the provincial officers, dissolved the 
 Virginia regiments, and formed them into independent 
 companies, in which there should be no officer of higher 
 rank than that of captain. "With a dignity and self-respect 
 worthy of his character, Washington withdrew from the 
 army. When Governor Sharpe, of Maryland, was ap- 
 pointed commander-in-chief by the king, he invited him, 
 through a friend, to join it again under the title of colonel, 
 but really with no higher authority than that of captain. 
 He declined the offer, writing in reply, " If you think me 
 capable of holding a commission that has neither rank 
 nor emolument annexed to it, you must maintain a very 
 contemptible opinion of my weakness, and believe me more 
 empty than the commission itself. " He was still further 
 mortified by Dinwiddie's refusal to give up the French 
 prisoners, according to the articles of capitulation at Fort 
 Necessity. 
 
 While these contests were in progress in the valley of 
 the Ohio, the French and English nations were ostensibly 
 at peace. Each, desirous of deceiving the other, professed 
 to hope that this little collision would not interrupt their 
 harmony ; the French still continued to send ships to 
 America laden with soldiers ; and the English matured 
 plans to drive them away. 
 
 Matters took a more decided form ; war was not de- 
 clared, but open hostilities commenced, and England, foi 
 the first time, sent an army to aid the colonists. 
 
GENERAL BRADDOCK — THE EXPEDITION. 279 
 
 Four expeditions were decided upon : one to capture chap 
 
 the French posts near the head of the Bay of Fundy, and 1 
 
 sxpel the French from Acadie ; another against Crown 1754 
 Point, to be led by William Johnson, Indian agent among 
 the Mohawks ; the third, against Niagara and Frontenac, 
 was to be intrusted to Shirley, Governor of Massachusetts ; 
 the fourth against Fort Du Quesne ; the latter the Com- 
 mander-in-chief, General Edward Braddock, was to lead 
 in person. 
 
 The struggle was about to commence in earnest; 
 British troops had arrived, and the colonies responded with 
 a good will to the call of the mother country for levies of 
 soldiers. 
 
 General Braddock was perfect in the theory and prac- 
 tice of mere military training ; he had been in the 
 " Guards " many years, where he had drilled and drilled, 
 but had never seen actual service. With the conceited 
 assurance of inexperience, he believed the excellencies 
 of the soldier were alone found in the British regular — 
 the perfection of military skill in British officers. To 
 these qualifications he added a most supercilious con- 
 tempt for the provincial soldiers and their officers. 
 
 He was to lead in person the force against Fort Du 
 Quesne. Of the difficulties of marching an army over 1755 
 mountains, and through an unbroken wilderness, he was 
 blindly ignorant. He was unwilling to hear advice, or 
 even receive information on the subject ; and when Wash- 
 ington, whom he had invited to act as one of his aids, 
 suggested that " if the march was to be regulated by the 
 slow movements of the train, it would be tedious, very 
 tedious indeed," he made no reply, but smiled at the sim- 
 plicity of the young man, who knew £0 little about the 
 movements of a regular army. Afterward, Benjamin 
 Franklin ventured to direct his attention to the danger of 
 Indian ambuscades. To his suggestion Braddock replied : 
 M The Indians are no doubt formidabl to raw Americans, 
 
280 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 CH£P. but upon the king's regulars, and disciplined troops, It is. 
 
 L sir, impossible they should make any impression." 
 
 1755. The army assembled at Wills' Creek, to which place 
 
 Braddock came in his coach, and surrounded by his staff, 
 " cursing the road very heartily " — its roughness had brok- 
 en his coach, and ruffled his temper. He refused to em- 
 ploy Indians as scouts on the march, or to protect the 
 Pennsylvanians, who were making a road for the passage 
 of the army ; hooted at the suggestion of Washington to 
 take as little baggage as possible, and to employ pack- 
 horses instead of wagons. The English officers could 
 give up neither their cumbrous baggage nor their lux- 
 uries, neither could the general dispense with " his 
 two good cooks, who could make an excellent ragout out 
 of a pair of boots, had they but materials to toss them 
 up with." 
 
 June, After a month's delay, the army commenced its march. 
 
 The difficulties of dragging heavily laden wagons and 
 artillery over roads filled with stumps of trees and rocks, 
 brought the general partially to his senses, and he inquired 
 of Washington what was the best to be done. From 
 recent accounts it was known that the garrison at Fort 
 Du Quesne was small, and he advised that a division of 
 light armed troops should be hurried forward to take pos- 
 session of the place, before reinforcements could arrive 
 from Canada. Accordingly, twelve hundred choice men 
 were detached from the main body and pushed forward, 
 taking with them ten field-pieces, and pack-horses to carry 
 their baggage. The main division was left under the com- 
 mand of Colonel Dunbar, with orders to move on as fast 
 as possible. 
 
 The general persisted in refusing to employ either In- 
 dians or backwoodsmen as scouts. There was a celebrated 
 hunter, known all along the frontiers as Captain Jack. 
 He was " the terror of the Indians." He had been theii 
 prisoner, had lived years among them, and was familiar 
 
THE ARMY AT THE MONONGAHELA. 281 
 
 with their habits. Afterward he cleared for himself a chap 
 
 piece of land, built his cabin, and, happy in his forest life, , 
 
 cultivated his ground and amused himself by hunting and 1765. 
 fishing. On his return home on a certain evening he found 
 his wife and children murdered, and his cabin in ashes. 
 From that hour he devoted his life to defend the frontiers, 
 and to avenge himself upon the destroyers of his worldly 
 happiness. He offered his services and those of his band 
 to act as scouts, and seek the Indians in their lurking- 
 places. Braddock received him very coldly, and declined 
 the offer, saying that he "had experienced troops upon 
 whom he could rely for all purposes." 
 
 Even the advance division moved very slowly, not 
 more than three or four miles a day. Says Washington 
 in a letter, " Instead of pushing on with vigor, without 
 regarding a little rough road, they halt to level every 
 mole-hill and to erect a bridge over every brook." A 
 month's slow march through the woods brought the army 
 to the east bank of the Monongahela, about fifteen miles 
 above Fort Du Quesne. Only the very day before the pro- 
 posed attack on that fort, Washington, who had been 
 detained by a fit of sickness, was able to join them. As JulyC 
 the hills came down to the water's edge, it was necessary 
 to cross the river directly opposite to the camp, and five 
 miles below, at another ford, recross to the east side. 
 Colonel Gage — he, who, twenty years afterward, com- 
 manded a British army in Boston — crossed before daylight, 
 and with his detachment moved rapidly to the second 
 ford ; then recrossing, took position to protect the passage 
 of the main force. Washington ventured once more to 
 suggest that the Virginia Rangers, consisting of three hun- 
 dred men, should be thrown in advance. This proposition 
 received an angry reply from Braddock, and, as if to make 
 the rebuke more conspicuous, the Virginians and other 
 provincials were placed as a rear-guard. At sunrise the 
 remainder of the army was in motion. Their equipments 
 
282 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, were in the most perfect order ; their muskets were bur- 
 
 nished, and charged with fresh cartridges, and in high 
 
 1755. spirits they moved along, with bayonets fixed, colors flying, 
 and drums beating. 
 
 About two o'clock in the afternoon, after recrossing the 
 river, as the army was moving along a narrow road, not 
 more than twelve feet wide, with scarcely a scout in front 
 or on the flanks, the engineer, who was marking the way, 
 suddenly cried out " French and Indians." Scarcely was 
 the alarm given, before rapid firing was heard in front, 
 accompanied by most terrific yells. The army was in a 
 broad ravine, covered with low shrubs, with moderately 
 rising ground in front and on both sides. On this eleva- 
 tion among the trees were the French and Indians, invisi- 
 ble to the English, but from their hiding-places able to see 
 every movement of the soldiers in the ravine, and to take 
 deliberate aim. The regulars were thrown into confusion ; 
 the sight of their companions shot down beside them by 
 an invisible enemy, together with the unearthly yells of 
 the savages, sent a thrill of horror through their souls. 
 They were ordered to charge bayonet up the hill, but no 
 orders could induce them to leave the line. The enemy 
 had been sent to occupy this very position, but had arrived 
 too late ; now they were spreading all along both sides of 
 the ravine. The English soldiers lost all control, and fired 
 at random into the woods, wherever they saw the smoke 
 of an enemy's gun. The advance party fell back upon 
 the second division, and threw it into still greater confu- 
 sion. At this moment Colonel Burton came up with a 
 reinforcement, eight hundred strong, but just as they had 
 formed to face the enemy, down upon them rushed the 
 two foremost divisions pell-mell \ all were crowded to- 
 gether in inextricable confusion, and their officers were 
 nearly all slain or wounded. Now came Braddock him- 
 self He ordered the colors to advance, and the respective 
 
THE BATTLE. 283 
 
 regiments to separate and form in ranks — but in vain. No <&£* 
 orders were obeyed. 
 
 In a few minutes after the battle commenced the Vir- 1755 
 ginia Hangers were behind trees, and rapidly picking off 
 the Indians ; but unfortunately many of these brave men 
 fell victims to the random shots of the regulars. Wash- 
 ington entreated Braddock to permit his soldiers to pro- 
 tect themselves, as the Virginians had done ; but he 
 refused, and still persisted in striving to form them into 
 platoons, and when any sheltered themselves behind trees, 
 he called them cowards and struck them with the flat of 
 his sword. Thus, through his obstinacy, these unfortu- 
 nate men became targets for the enemy. The officers ex- 
 hibited the greatest bravery, and many of them fell, as 
 they were the special objects of the sharpshooters. Two 
 of the aids, Morris and Grme, were severely wounded, 
 and their duties devolved upon Washington. His expo- 
 sure was great, as he passed often from one part of the 
 field to another ; yet he gave his orders with calmness 
 and judgment. When sent to bring up the artillery, he 
 found the Indians surrounding it, Sir Peter Halket, the 
 commander, killed, and the men paralyzed with fear. He 
 enc ruraged them, leaped from his horse, pointed a field- 
 pie ie and discharged it. It was useless ; the men deserted 
 thf, guns. For three hours the desperate fight lasted. 
 During this time Braddock was in the centre of the con- 
 flict, trying, in his way, to regain the field. His officers 
 nad nearly all fallen, and his slain soldiers covered the 
 ground ; still he would not permit the remainder to adopt 
 the Indian mode of fighting. 
 
 Five horses were shot under him, and finally he him- 
 self was mortally wounded. As he was falling from his 
 horse Captain Stewart, of the Virginia Guards, caught 
 him in his arms. As they bore him out of danger, he 
 begged to be left to die upon the field of his misfortune. 
 All was now abandoned. The fall of the general saved 
 
284 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, fche army from entire destruction. The soldiers were now 
 
 V at liberty to save themselves as best they could. " The 
 
 1760. regulars fled like sheep before hounds." The Virginia 
 Rangers threw themselves in the rear, and for some time 
 held the enemy in check. The wagoners mounted their 
 team-horses and fled ; all hurried to the ford, fiercely pur- 
 sued by the Indians. The love of plunder restrained the 
 pursuers, and after the fugitives had recrossed the river 
 they were not molested. 
 
 Washington rode all that night and the next day to 
 Dunbar's camp to obtain wagons to transport the wounded, 
 and soldiers to guard them. When he had obtained these 
 he hastened back to meet the fugitives. 
 
 Braddock was still able to issue orders, and seems to 
 have had a faint hope that he might hold out till he 
 could receive reinforcements. He was carried by the sol- 
 diers, being unable to mount a horse ; — at length, the 
 fugitives arrived at Fort Necessity. The wounded gen- 
 eral appeared to be heart-broken. He scarcely spoke ; as 
 if reflecting on his past confidence in his troops, he would 
 occasionally ejaculate, " Who would have thought it ? * 
 Tradition tells of his softened feelings toward those whom 
 he had treated harshly ; of his gratitude to Captain Stew- 
 art for his care and kindness ; of his apology to Washing- 
 ton for the manner in which he had received his advice. 
 On the night of the thirteenth of July he died. The next 
 morning, before the break of day, he was buried as secretly 
 as possible, lest the Indians, who were hovering around, 
 should find his grave and violate it. The chaplain was 
 among the wounded, and Washington read the funeral 
 service. Near the national road, a mile west of Fort 
 Necessity, may be seen a rude pile of stones — the work 
 of some friendly hand, — it marks the grave of Braddock. 
 " His dauntless conduct on the field of battle shows him 
 to have been a man of spirit. His melancholy end, too, 
 disarms censure of its asperity. Whatever may have been 
 
THE FRONTIERS LEFT EXPOSED. 285 
 
 his faults and errors, he, in a manner expiated them by CTUJP 
 
 the hardest lot that can befall a brave soldier ambitious , 
 
 of renown, — an unhonored grave in a strange land, a 1755. 
 memory clouded by misfortune, and a name ever coupled 
 with defeat." ' 
 
 The frightened Dunbar, though he had under his com- 
 mand fifteen hundred effective men, — enough, if properly 
 led, to have regained the field, — broke up his camp, de- 
 stroyed his stores, and retreated with all speed ; only when 
 he had arrived safely in Philadelphia did he breathe freely. 
 His failure of duty left the frontiers exposed to the inroads 
 of the savages. 
 
 Of eighty-six officers, twenty-six had perished, and 
 thirty-six were wounded. Among the latter was Captain 
 Horatio Gates, who, twenty-five years later, was conspicu- 
 ous as a major-general in t the struggle for independence. 
 Of the soldiers, more than seven hundred were either 
 killed or wounded. The gallant Virginia Kangers had 
 perished in great numbers, for upon them had fallen the 
 brunt of the battle. When it became known that there 
 were only two hundred and twenty-five French, and about 
 six hundred and fifty Indians in the battle, the disgrace 
 was deeply felt, that this handful of men, sent merely to 
 hold the English in check, should have defeated a well- 
 equipped and disciplined army of nearly twice their own 
 number. 
 
 The religious sentiments of the colonists Were greatly 
 shocked at the profanity, Sabbath-breaking, and almost 
 every form of vice and wickedness common in this boastful 
 army. So certain were the expectations of victory, that 
 preparations were made to celebrate it. 
 
 It is proper to notice the effect of these events upon the 
 minds of the colonists. With them the name of the Brit- 
 ish regulars had lost its prestige — they were not invincible. 
 
 1 Washington Trying. 
 
286 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap. In addition, the haughtiness of the British officers had 
 
 inflicted wounds destined never to be healed. The atten- 
 
 1755. tion of the people was directed especially to Washington. 
 In a letter to his brother Augustine he says : "By the 
 all-powerful dispensation of Providence, I have been pro- 
 tested beyond all human probability or expectation ; for 
 I had four bullets through my coat, two horses shot under 
 me, yet escaped unhurt, though death was levelling my 
 companions on every side around me." 
 
 The wonderful manner in which he had been preserved 
 in that day of peril, excited universal attention. No 
 doubt the Kev. Samuel Davies, one of the most celebrated 
 clergymen of the day, expressed the common sentiment, 
 when, in a sermon preached soon after Braddock's defeat, 
 he referred to him as " that heroic youth, Colonel Wash- 
 ington, whom I cannot but hope Providence has hitherto 
 preserved in so signal a manner for some important ser- 
 vice to his country" Washington was never wounded in 
 battle ; he was shielded by the same protecting hand. 
 
 • 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR— CONTINUED. 
 
 Die French Acadiens ; their simple Manners, Industry, and good Moi da.-— 
 Expulsion from their Homes, and mournful Exile. — Expedition against 
 Crown Point. — Baron Dieskau. — English defeated. — Death of Colonel 
 Williams. — Attack on Johnson's Camp repulsed. — Death of Dieskau. — 
 Williams College. — Indian Ravages on the Frontiers of Virginia and 
 Pennsylvania. — Kittanning destroyed. — Lord Loudon Commander-in- 
 chief. — His tardiness and arbitrary Measures. — Montcalm acts with 
 Energy ; captures Fort Ontario, then Fort William Henry. — Exhausted 
 condition of Canada. 
 
 In the mean time other expeditions were undertaken jjjffi 
 
 against the French. For this purpose Massachusetts 
 
 alone raised eight thousand soldiers, almost one-fifth part 1755. 
 of her able-bodied men. A portion of Acadie or Nova 
 Scotia was still in the hands of the French. It consisted 
 of the isthmus on the northern part, which was defended 
 by two insignificant forts. For forty years, since the peace 
 of Utrecht, the peninsula had been under British rule, 
 and now the whole territory was completely subdued. 
 These forts, with scarcely any resistance, fell into the T nni 
 hands of the English. Sixteen years before the Pilgrims 1C * 
 landed at Plymouth this French colony was established 
 on the Peninsula of Acadie. It was the oldest perma- 
 nent French settlement in North America. For one 
 hundred and fifty years the Acadiens had been gradually 
 clearing and improving their lands, and enjoying the com- 
 forts of rural life. At first their chief source? of wealth 
 had been the fisheries and the fur-trade ; but these had 
 
288 HISTORY OF THE AMERICA^ PEOPLE. 
 
 cg^P- gradually given way to agriculture. Their social inter- 
 
 course was governed by a high tone of morals. Theii 
 
 1755. differences, but few in number, were settled by the arbi- 
 tration of their old men. Seldom did they go with com- 
 plaints to their English rulers. Early marriages were 
 encouraged, and when a young man came of age, his 
 neighbors built him a house, and aided him for one year, 
 and the wife's friends aided her with gifts. Their fields 
 were fertile, and industry made them productive. Their 
 meadows, which now were covered with flocks of sheep 
 and herds of cattle, they had, by means of dikes, redeemed 
 from the great flow of the tide. Their little cottages dot- 
 ted the landscape. In their domestic industry each family 
 provided for its own wants, and clothed its members with 
 cloth and linen made from the wool of their flocks, or from 
 the flax of their fields. 
 
 As Catholics, they were happy in the exercise of their 
 religion ; though they belonged to the diocese of Quebec, 
 they were not brought into close relation with the people 
 of Canada. They knew but little of what was passing 
 beyond the limits of their own neighborhood. Independ- 
 ent of the world, they had its comforts, but not its luxu- 
 ries. They now numbered about seventeen thousand 
 inhabitants, and up to this time their English rulers had 
 left them undisturbed in their seclusion. 
 
 A dark cloud was hanging over this scene of rural 
 simplicity and comfort. As they were excused from bear- 
 ing arms against France by the terms of their surrender, 
 the Acadiens were known as " French neutrals ;" neither 
 had they been required to take the usual oaths of allegi- 
 ance ; they had promised submission to English au- 
 thority, to be neutral in times of war with France, and it 
 was understood they were ' to enjoy their religion. This 
 oath was one which, as good Frenchmen and good Catho- 
 lics, they could not take ; it required them to bear armi 
 against their own brethren in Canada, and it might in- 
 
THE OATHS OF ALLEGIANCE. 289 
 
 rolve the interests of their religion. " Better/' urged Q ]^' 
 
 the priests, "surrender your meadows to the sea, and 
 
 your houses to the flames, than at the peril of your souls 1755. 
 take the oath of allegiance to the British government." 
 But it was now to he exacted. " They possess the best 
 and largest tract of land in this province/' writes Law- 
 rence, Lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia, to Lord Hali- 
 fax ; " if they refuse the oaths, it would be much better 
 that they were away." This "largest and best tract" 
 seems to have been coveted by their English rulers ; they 
 undoubtedly were suspicious of the Acadiens as Catholics, 
 and it is true some of their more ardent young men be- 
 longed, as volunteers, to the garrisons of the recently 
 captured forts ; but as this simple-minded people had 
 neither the will nor the power to aid the enemies of Eng- 
 land, we cannot suppose that this suspicion alone induced 
 the British to visit upon them a severity so unparalleled. 
 The question of allegiance was, however, to be pressed to 
 the utmost ; if they refused to take the oath, the titles to 
 their lands were to be null and void. The haughty con- 
 duct of the British officers sent to enforce these orders 
 was to them a harbinger of sorrow. Their property was 
 wantonly taken for the public service, and " they not to 
 be bargained with for payment ; " if they did not bring 
 wood at the proper time, " the soldiers might take their 
 houses for fuel." Their guns were taken, and their boats 
 seized, under the pretence that they intended to carry 
 provisions to the French. The English insisted upon 
 treating this people, so faithful to their country and their 
 religion, as lawless rebels. Wearied by these oppressions, 
 their deputies promised allegiance ; they declared that 
 their consciences would not permit them to rebel against 
 their rulers, and they humbly asked that their arms and 
 boats might be restored. " The memorial is highly arro- 
 gant, insidious, and insulting," said the haughty Law- 
 rence ; " guns do not belong to you by law, for you are 
 
290 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap. Boman Catholics." After consultation with the people, 
 
 the deputies offered to swear unconditionally. Then they 
 
 1755. were told, as they had once refused, now they should not 
 be permitted to swear. 
 
 A calamity, as unexpected as it was dreadful, was at 
 hand. By proclamation, " the old men, and young men, 
 as well as all lads over ten years of age," were called upon 
 to assemble, on a certain day, the fifth of September, at 
 certain posts in their respective districts, to hear the 
 Sept. " wishes of the king." The call was obeyed. At Grand 
 Pre alone more than four hundred unsuspecting and un- 
 armed men and boys came together. They were gathered 
 into the church, its doors were closed, and Winslow, the 
 commander, announced to them the decision of the Brit- 
 ish government. They were to be banished forever from 
 their native province ; from the fields they had cultivated, 
 from the pleasant homes where they had spent their 
 youth. They might not emigrate to lands offered them 
 among friends in Canada, lest they should add strength 
 to the French. They were to be driven forth as beggars 
 among their enemies, a people of a strange language and 
 of a different religion. They were retained as prisoners, 
 till the ships which were to bear them away were ready. 
 As soon as possible, their wives and little children were 
 also seized. On the day of embarkation, the young men 
 and boys were first ordered on board the ship ; as their 
 parents and friends were not allowed to go with them, 
 they refused, fearing that if thus separated, they might 
 never meet again — a thought they could not bear. But 
 resistance and entreaties were useless ; driven by the bay- 
 onet, they were marched from the church to the ship, 
 which was a mile distant ; their way was lined with weep- 
 ing friends, mothers, and sisters, who prayed for blessings 
 on their heads, and they themselves wept and prayed and 
 mournfully chanted psalms as they passed along. Then 
 in the same manner the fathers were driven on board 
 
THE SORROWS OF THE EXILES. 
 
 291 
 
 another ship. The wives and children were left hehind ; ( 5£? 
 
 these were kept for weeks near the sea without proper 
 
 shelter or food, shivering in December's cold, till ships 1755. 
 could come to take them away. " The soldiers hate them, 
 and if they can but find a pretext will kill them." Thus 
 wrote an English officer who was engaged in this work of 
 cruelty. 
 
 In some places the object of the proclamation was 
 suspected, and the men and youth did not assemble. In 
 the vicinity of Annapolis some fled to the woods, with 
 their wives and children, some went to Canada, while 
 others threw themselves upon the hospitality of the In- 
 dians, from whom they received a hearty welcome. That 
 these poor people, who had fled to the woods, might be 
 compelled by starvation and exposure to give themselves 
 up, orders were issued to lay waste their homes, and the 
 whole country was made a desolation, from the village 
 and its church, to the peasant's cottage and barn. " For 
 successive evenings the cattle assembled round the smoul- 
 dering ruins, as if in anxious expectation of the return of 
 their masters ; while all night long the faithful watch- 
 dogs howled over the scene of desolation, and mourned 
 alike the hand that had fed, and the house that had shel- 
 tered them." ' 
 
 Seven thousand of these poor people were transported 
 and cast helpless on the shores of the English colonies, 
 from New Hampshire to Georgia. Families were separated 
 never to meet again. From time to time, for many years 
 afterward, advertisements in the newspapers of the colo- 
 nies told the tale of sorrow. Now they inquired for a lost 
 wife or husband, now brothers and sisters inquired for 
 each other; parents for their children, and children foi 
 their parents. When any in after years attempted to re- 
 turn they were driven off. Some of those taken to Georgia 
 
 1 Haliburton's History of Nova Scotia. 
 
292 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, could endure their banishment no longer. They obtained 
 
 1 boats, and coasted along the shore toward home ; but, 
 
 1755. alas ! when almost at the end of their perilous voyage, 
 they were ordered away. Some wandered to Louisiana, 
 where lands on the river above New Orleans, still known 
 as the Acadien coast, were assigned them. 
 
 This work of wanton cruelty was done by men, who un- 
 blushingly congratulated the approving king that the work 
 of desolation had been so effectively accomplished — a work, 
 which, for its treachery and cowardly cruelty, deserves the 
 reprobation of every human breast. " I know not that the 
 annals of the human race keep the record of sorrows so 
 wantonly inflicted, so bitter and so perennial, as fell upon 
 the French inhabitants of Acadie. The hand of the Eng- 
 lish official seemed under a spell with regard to them, 
 and was never uplifted but to curse them." l 
 
 The expedition against Crown Point, on Lake Cham- 
 plain, had been intrusted to General William Johnson. 
 His troops were drawn principally from Massachusetts and 
 Connecticut ; a regiment from New Hampshire joined 
 them at Albany. At the head of boat navigation on the 
 Hudson, a fort was built which, in honor of their com- 
 mander, whom they reverenced as " a brave and virtuous 
 man," the soldiers named Fort Lyman. But when John- 
 son assumed the command he ungenerously changed the 
 name to Fort Edward. Leaving a garrison in this fort, 
 Johnson moved with about irve thousand men to the head 
 of Lake George, and there formed a camp, intending to 
 descend into Lake Champlain. Hendrick, the celebrated 
 Mohawk chief, with his warriors, were among these troops. 
 Israel Putnam, too, was there, as a captain, and John 
 Stark as a lieutenant, each* taking lessons in warfare. 
 
 The French were not idle ; the district of Montreal 
 made the most strenuous exertions to meet the invading foe. 
 
 1 Bancroft. 
 
THE ENGLISH FALL INTO AN AMBUSCADE. 293 
 
 All the men who were able to bear arms were called into chap. 
 
 active service ; so that to gather in the harvest, their 1 
 
 places were supplied by men from other districts. The 1755. 
 energetic Baron Dieskau resolved, by a bold attack, to 
 terrify the invaders. Taking with him two hundred reg- 
 ulars, and about twelve hundred Canadians and Indians, 
 he set out to capture Fort Edward ; but as he drew near, 
 the Indians heard that it was defended by cannon, which 
 they greatly dreaded, and they refused to advance. He 
 now changed his plan, and resolved to attack Johnson's 
 camp, which was supposed to be without cannon. 
 
 Meantime scouts had reported to Johnson, that they 
 had seen roads made through the woods in the direction 
 of Fort Edward. Not knowing the movements of Dieskau, 
 a detachment of a thousand men, under Colonel Ephraim 
 Williams, of Massachusetts, and two hundred Mohawks, 
 under Hendrick, marched to relieve that post. The 
 French had information of their approach, and placed 
 themselves in ambush. They were concealed among the 
 thick bushes of a swamp, on the one side, and rocks and 
 trees on the other. The English recklessly marched into 
 the defile. They were vigorously attacked, and thrown Sept 
 into confusion. Hendrick was almost instantly killed, and 6 * 
 in a short time Williams fell also. The detachment com- 
 menced to retreat, occasionally halting to check their pur- 
 suers. The firing was heard in the camp ; as the sound 
 drew nearer and nearer, it was evident the detachment 
 was retreating. The drums beat to arms, trees were 
 hastily felled and thrown together to form a breastwork, 
 upon which were placed a few cannon, just arrived from 
 the Hudson. Scarcely were these preparations made, 
 when the panting fugitives aprpeared in sight, hotly pur- 
 sued by the French and Indians. Intending to enter the 
 camp with the fugitives, Dieskau urged forward his men 
 with the greatest impetuosity. The moment the fugitives 
 were past the muzzles of the cannon, they opened with 
 
294 HISTOET OF THE AMEBICAK PEOPLE. 
 
 CHAP, a tremendous shower of grape, which scattered the terrified 
 
 1 Indians and checked the Canadians, but the regulars 
 
 1755. pushed on. A determined contest ensued, which lasted five 
 hours, until the regulars were nearly all slain, while the 
 Indians and Canadians did but little execution ; they re- 
 mained at a respectful distance among the trees. At 
 length the enemy began to retreat, and the Americans 
 leaped over the breastwork and pursued them with great 
 vigor. That same evening, after the pursuit had ceased, 
 as the French were retreating, they were suddenly attack- 
 ed with great spirit by the New Hampshire regiment, 
 which was on its way from Fort Edward. They were so 
 panic-stricken by this new assault, that they abandoned 
 every thing, and fled for their lives. 
 
 Dieskau had been wounded once or twice at the com- 
 mencement of the battle, but he never left his post ; two 
 of his soldiers generously attempted to carry him out of 
 danger, but when in the act one of them received his death 
 wound ; he urged the other to flee. In the midst of flying 
 bullets he calmly seated himself on the stump of a neigh- 
 boring tree. He was taken prisoner, kindly treated, and 
 sent to England, where he died. 
 
 Johnson was slightly wounded at the commencement 
 of the battle, and prudently retired from danger. To 
 General Lyman belongs the honor of the victory, yet John- 
 son, in his report of the battle, did not even mention his 
 name. Johnson, for his exertions on that day, was made 
 a baronet, and received from royal favor a gift of twenty- 
 five thousand dollars. He had friends at court, but Lyman 
 was unknown. 
 
 Colonel Epjiraim Williams, who fell in this battle, 
 while passing through Albany had taken the precaution 
 to make his will, in which he bequeathed property to 
 found a free school in western Massachusetts. That school 
 has since grown into Williams College — a monument 
 
INDIAN VILLAGE OF KITTANNING DESTROYED. 295 
 
 more honorable than one of granite, one fraught with £§£? 
 
 blessings to future generations. 
 
 Johnson, instead of pushing on to take advantage of the 1756 
 victory, loitered in his camp, and finally built and garrison- 
 ed a useless wooden fort, which he named William Henry. 
 
 As has been mentioned, the retreat of Dunbar left the 
 frontiers of Virginia and Pennsylvania subject to the hor- 
 rors of savage warfare. Washington was intrusted with 
 their defence, but so few men had he at his command, 
 and they so scattered, as to afford but little protection. 
 The distant settlers of Virginia were driven in, and the 
 beautiful valley of the Shenandoah became almost a deso- 
 lation. Governor Dinwiddie, as an apology for not furnish- 
 ing more soldiers, wrote : " We dare not part with any 
 of our white men to any distance, as we must have a 
 watchful eye over our negro slaves." In one of his letters, 
 Washington says : " The supplicating tears of women 
 and moving petitions of the men, melt me into such 
 deadly sorrow, that for the people's ease, I could offer 
 myself a willing sacrifice to the treacherous enemy .* 
 
 The village of Kittanning, twenty or thirty miles up 
 the Alleghany, above Fort Du Quesne, was the head-quar- 
 ters of a notable Indian chief, known as Captain Jacobs. 
 Incited by the French, he and his bands made many mur- 
 derous incursions against the settlements of Pennsylvania. 
 His associate was the Delaware chief Shingis. Benjamin 
 Franklin, who had been appointed colonel by the governor, 
 had organized the Pennsylvania militia to protect the 
 frontiers, and after his resignation, Colonel John Arm- 
 strong, afterward a major-general in the Revolutionary 
 war, was chosen in his place. He resolved to destroy these 
 Indians and their village. Three hundred Pennsylvanians 
 volunteered for the enterprise. In the latter part of Sep- 
 tember they set out on horseback, across the mountains, 
 and in a few days came into the vicinity of Kittanning, at 
 
296 HISTOKY OF THE AMEKICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, night. They heard the savages carousing and yelling , 
 
 they left their horses, approached the village, and arranged 
 
 1756, the order of attack. The night was warm, the Indians 
 ^P** soon began to separate, some to sleep in the corn-fields 
 near by, and some in wigwams. As day began to dawn, 
 the Americans surrounded the party, and, at a given sig 
 nal, rushed to the attack. The Indians were taken by 
 surprise, but soon the voice of Jacobs was heard loud 
 above the din, cheering on his warriors, and shouting, 
 " We are men, we will not be prisoners." The wigwams 
 were set on fire, and warriors were heard singing their 
 death-song in the midst of the flames. Jacobs attempted 
 to break through the surrounding foe, but his career was 
 cut short by a rifle-ball. This nest of savage murderers 
 was entirely broken up ; the survivors went further west, 
 and for a season the frontiers had peace. 
 
 Lord Loudon was appointed a sort of viceroy of all the 
 colonies. He sent General Abercrombie as his lieutenant, 
 having suspended Governor Shirley, and ordered him to 
 June, repair to England. Abercrombie arrived in June, and 
 brought with him several British regiments. It was con- 
 fidently expected that something important would now be 
 done. These royal gentlemen had an army of seven thou- 
 sand men at Albany, but, as the Frenchmen had said, 
 they were "slow and dilatory," — they spent the summer 
 in adjusting the rank of the officers. The soldiers of the 
 colonies, though they had, by their indomitable courage, 
 saved the remnant of the British army on the banks of 
 the Monongahela though, at Lake George, they had 
 driven the enem> before them, and had defended their 
 soil and maintained the honor of the English name, yet 
 they were not permitted to elect their own officers, and if 
 they were appointed by the colonial governors, those of 
 the same rank by royal appointment took the precedence. 
 These were the petty annoyances dictated by little minds, 
 that aided so much in alienating the colonists from the 
 
FOBTS ONTARIO AND WILLIAM HENRY CAPTURED. 29? 
 
 mother country, and in the end leading them to independ chap 
 ence. __ 
 
 While the English were thus trifling, Montcalm, the 1756. 
 successor of Dieskau, was acting. With five thousand 
 Frenchmen, Canadians, and Indians, he darted across the 
 lake, and suddenly presented himself at the gates of Fort 
 Ontario, at the mouth of the Oswego. He met with a 
 vigorous resistance ; not until they had lost all hope of 
 receiving aid, and their brave commander, Colonel Mercer, 
 was killed, did the garrison surrender. An immense ^ LUft 
 amount of military stores fell into the hands of Montcalm ; !*• 
 he sent the captured flags to adorn the churches of Can- 
 ada, and to please the Iroquois, who promised neutrality, 
 he demolished the fort. Though it was known that this 
 important post was threatened, yet no means were 
 taken to relieve it. Thus Loudon planned and counter- 
 planned, accomplished nothing, and then withdrew from 
 his arduous labors into winter-quarters. He demanded 
 free quarters for his officers of the citizens of Albany, 
 New York, and Philadelphia. As the demand was " con- 
 trary to the laws of England and the liberties of America," 
 they refused to accede to it. He threatened to bring his 
 soldiers and compel them to submit to the outrage. The 
 citizens, in their weakness, raised subscriptions to support 
 for the winter those who had wasted the resources of the 
 country. Thus a military chief invaded, not merely the 
 political rights of the people, but the sanctities of their 
 domestic life. 
 
 Montcalm was undisturbed in making preparations to 
 capture Fort William Henry, before which he appeared, 1757 
 the next year, with a large French and Indian force. The 
 garrison numbered about three thousand men, under 
 Colonel Monroe, a brave officer, who, when summoned to 
 surrender, indignantly refused, and immediately sent to 
 General Webbe, at Fort Edward, fifteen miles distant, for 
 aid. He could have relieved Monroe, for he had four 
 
298 histoky or the American people. 
 
 c^r thousand men at his disposal, but when Putnam obtained 
 
 _ permission to go to the aid of the fort, and had proceeded 
 
 1757. some miles with his rangers, Webbe recalled him. Then 
 
 he sent a letter to Monroe advising him to surrender. This 
 
 letter fell into the hands of Montcalm, who was on the 
 
 point of raising the siege, but he now sent the letter to 
 
 Monroe, with another demand to surrender. The brave 
 
 veteran would not capitulate, but held out till half his 
 
 guns were rendered useless. Montcalm was too brave and 
 
 generous not to appreciate nobleness in others, and he 
 
 granted him the privilege of marching out with the honors 
 
 A J g * of war. The only pledge he asked, was that the soldiers 
 
 should not engage in war against the French for eighteen 
 
 months. They were to retain their private property, and 
 
 Canadian and Indian prisoners were to be restored. 
 
 Montcalm held a council of the Indians, who consented 
 to the terms of the treaty, though they were Badly dis- 
 appointed in their hopes of plunder. He refused them 
 rum, and thus he could restrain them ; but, unfor- 
 tunately, the night after the surrender they obtained it 
 from the English. In the morning they were frantic from 
 the effects of intoxication, and when the garrison were 
 leaving their camp, they fell upon the stragglers. The 
 French officers did all they could to restrain them, and 
 some were even wounded in their exertions to save the 
 English soldiers from savage violence. Montcalm, in his 
 agony, cried, " Kill me, but spare the English ; they are 
 under my protection." Instead of an orderly retreat to 
 Fort Edward, it was a flight. 
 
 Thus the French, with a population in Canada, not 
 one-twentieth, part as great as that of the English colo- 
 nies, seemed triumphant everywhere. Was it strange 
 that the colonists began to lose their respect for those sent 
 to protect them from their enemies — especially for the 
 officers ? They believed the interference of the home gov- 
 ernment hindered the advancement of their cause, while 
 
CANADA EXHAUSTED. 299 
 
 the majority of the royalist governors seemed to be actu- ^54?' 
 
 ated by no worthier motive than that of promoting their 1 
 
 own interests. 1757. 
 
 Thongh the French were thus victorious, and pos- 
 sessed the valleys of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, 
 and apparently all the continent, except a little strip 
 along the Atlantic coast, yet Canada was exhausted. The 
 struggle was virtually over. Her men had been drawn to 
 the battle-field, while their farms were left untilled, and 
 now famine was beginning to press upon the people. Their 
 cattle and sheep were destroyed, and horse-flesh was made 
 to supply the place of beef ; no aid could come from 
 France, as nearly all intercourse was cut off by the ever- 
 present British cruisers. The French owed their success, 
 not to their own strength, but to the imbecility of tha 
 English commanders. 
 
OHAPTEE XXIII. 
 
 FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR, CONTINUED. 
 
 William Pitt, Prime Minister. — Lord Amherst, Commander-in-chief. — Pka 
 of Operations. — Louisburg captured. — Abercrombie on Lake George ; 
 Repulse and Retreat. — Bradstreet captures Fort Frontenac. — Expedi- 
 tion against Fort Du Quesne. — Colonel Grant. — Washington takes pos- 
 session of the Fort ; resigns his Commission. — Ticonderoga abandoned ; 
 the French retire to Canada. — Wolfe appears before Quebec* — Exer- 
 tions of Montcalm. — The British on the Heights of Abraham. — The 
 Battle. — Deaths of Wolfe and Montcalm ; their Memories. — Quebec ca- 
 pitulates. — The Cherokee War. — Destruction of their Crops and Villa- 
 ges ; their Revenge. — Pontiac ; his Character and Plans. — Desolations 
 along the Frontiers. — General Bouquet. — Pontiac's Death. 
 
 jxiif The people of England were not indifferent spectators of 
 ■ these failures ; they noticed the feeble manner in which 
 
 1757. the war was conducted, and attributed the want of success 
 to the inefficiency of those in command. 
 
 Through their influence William Pitt, one of them- 
 selves, not of the aristocracy, was called to the head of 
 affairs. He appreciated the character and patriotism of 
 the colonists. Instead of devising measures that would 
 impoverish them, he, at once, assumed the expenses of the 
 war ; announced that the money they had already spent 
 for that purpose, should be refunded, and that for the fu- 
 ture such expenses would be borne by the home govern- 
 ment ; also arms and clothing should be furnished the 
 soldiers who would enlist. This act of justice brought 
 into the field fifty thousand men — a number greater th&n 
 that of the entire male population of Canada at that 
 time. 
 
PLAN OF OPERATIONS. 301 
 
 Lord Jeffrey Amherst was appointed commander-in- c&ap 
 
 chief of the British army. He had for his lieutenant the 
 
 young and talented James Wolfe, who, although hut 1757. 
 thirty-one years of age, had spent eighteen of those years 
 in the army, where, hy his nohle hearing, he had won for 
 himself the admiration of both friends and foes. 
 
 According to the general plan, Amherst himself was 
 to head the expedition against Louisburg and Quebec ; 
 while General Forbes was to capture Fort Du Quesne and 
 take possession of the valley of the Ohio, and Abercrombie 
 to take Ticonderoga, the French stronghold on Lake 
 Champlain. With Abercrombie was associated Lord 
 Howe, who was characterized as the soul of the enterprise. June, 
 
 On the 8th of June, Amherst landed with his forces 7 
 near the city of Louisburg. Under the cover of a fire 
 from the ships Wolfe led the first division. He forbade a 
 gun to be fired, urged on the rowers, and in the face of 
 the enemy leaped into the water, and followed by his men 
 waded to the shore. The French deserted their outposts, 
 and retired to the fortress in the town. After a bombard- 
 ment of fifty days, when the French shipping in the harbor 
 was destroyed, and all hopes of receiving assistance at an 
 end, the fortress surrendered. At the same time were given j^, 
 up the islands of Cape Breton and Prince Edward, five 87. 
 thousand prisoners, and an immense amount of military 
 stores. 
 
 Abercrombie and Lord Howe advanced against Ticon- 
 deroga. Their army, which amounted to seven thousand 
 English and nine thousand Americans, assembled at the 
 head of Lake G-eorge. They passed in flat-boats down 
 to the foot of the lake, where they disembarked and hur- 
 ried on toward Ticonderoga ; but through the ignorance 
 of their guide, missed their way, and the advance fell Jt Q 
 into an ambuscade of a French scouting party. The ene- 6. 
 my was soon put to flight, but Lord Howe fell at the head 
 
302 HISTOKY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 Ctt^ of his men. His death threw a gloom over the camp- -the 
 
 soldiers had confidence in no other leader. Their fore- 
 
 1758. bodings were soon realized. The British engineer recon- 
 noitred the French works, and reported them as weak ; 
 but Stark, who knew their strength, affirmed they were 
 strong and well furnished. Abercrombie believed his en- 
 gineer, and without waiting for his artillery, he ordered an 
 attack. His soldiers performed prodigies of valor, but 
 were forced to retire, with a loss of two thousand of their 
 number. In this battle was wounded Charles Lee, then 
 a captain, and afterward a major-general in the Kevolu- 
 tionary army. The indefatigable Montcalm had disposed 
 his small army to the very best advantage, and was pres- 
 ent wherever he was specially needed. Abercrombie or- 
 dered his men to attempt an impossibility, but judiciously 
 kept himself out of danger. The English army was yet 
 four to one of the French, and could have conquered with 
 the aid of the cannon which had been brought up, yet 
 Abercrombie hastily retreated. As Montcalm's troops 
 were few and exhausted, he did not attempt to pursue him. 
 The monotony of disasters was disturbed by Colonel 
 Bradstreet, of New York, who, after much solicitation, 
 obtained permission to go against Fort Frontenac, which, 
 from its position at the foot of Lake Ontario, commanded 
 that lake and the St. Lawrence. It was a central point 
 for trading with the Indians ; a great magazine which 
 supplied all the posts on the upper lakes and Ohio with 
 military stores. With twenty-seven hundred men, all 
 Americans, principally from New York and Massachu- 
 setts, Bradstreet passed rapidly and secretly to Oswego, 
 and thence across the lake in open boats, and landed 
 Aug. within a mile of the fort. The majority of the garrison, 
 * 6 * terrified at the sudden appearance of enemies, fled ; the 
 next day the remainder surrendered. There was found 
 an immense amount of military stores, some of them des- 
 tined for Fort Du Quesne, and a fleet of nine armed ves- 
 
THE HIGHLANDERS ROUTED. 303 
 
 sels, which held the command of the lake. The fort was ££&[ 
 
 razed to its foundation, two of the vessels were laden with 
 
 stores and brought to Oswego ; the remaining stores and 1758. 
 ships were destroyed. 
 
 The troops raised in Pennsylvania for the expedition 
 under General Forbes against Fort Du Quesne were as- 
 sembled at Raystown, on the Juniata. Washington was 
 at Cumberland, with the Virginia regiment. His plan 
 was to march directly upon the fort by the road which 
 Braddock had made. This common-sense plan was re- 
 jected, and the suggestions of some land speculators 
 adopted, and Forbes ordered a new road to be cut through 
 the wilderness further north. 
 
 General Bouquet with the advance passed over the 
 Laurel Hill, and established a post at Loyal Hanna. 
 Without permission he despatched Major Grant with 
 eight hundred Highlanders and a company of Virginians 
 to reconnoitre in the vicinity of Fort Du Quesne. Grant Sept 
 was permitted to approach unmolested, though the French 15, 
 knew from their scouts of all his movements. As he 
 drew near, he sent a party to take a plan of the fort, and 
 placed Major Lewis with the Virginians to guard the bag- 
 gage, as if they were not to be trusted in the contest. 
 Not a gun was fired from the fort. Grant self-compla- 
 cently attributed this to the dread his regulars had in- 
 spired. All this time the Indians lay quietly in ambush, 
 waiting for the signal to commence the attack. Presently 
 out rushed the garrison, and attacked the Highlanders in 
 front, while in a moment the fearful war-whoop arose on 
 both flanks. Terrified at the unusual contest, they were 
 thrown into confusion ; their bewildered officers began to 
 manoeuvre them as if in the open field. Major Lewis 
 with some of his party hastened to the rescue, and there 
 fought hand to hand with the savages. The detachment, 
 overpowered by numbers, was completely routed, and 
 
304 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap. Grant and Lewis were both made prisoners. The fugi- 
 
 txm - tives soon reached the place where they left the baggage. 
 
 1758. Captain Bullit hastily formed a barricade with the wag- 
 ons, behind which he waited the approach of the pursuers. 
 When they were within a few yards, the Virginians poured 
 in a fire so direct and deadly as to check them. They 
 soon rallied and again approached. This time, Captain 
 Bullit and his men advanced, as if to surrender, but when 
 within eight yards he again poured in an effective fire, and 
 immediately charged bayonet. The pursuers were so as- 
 tonished at the suddenness and manner of attack that 
 they fled in dismay, while the Virginians retreated with 
 all speed. 
 
 When the news of this disaster reached the main 
 army, it well-nigh ruined the whole enterprise , as a coun- 
 cil of war decided to give up the attempt for that year, 
 as it was now November, and there were yet fifty miles of 
 unbroken forest between them and the fort. Just then 
 some prisoners were brought in, from whom the defence- 
 less condition of the fort was learned. Washington was 
 given the command of a division with which to push for- 
 ward. In a few days they arrived in the neighborhood of 
 Du Quesne. Instead of meeting with a vigorous resist- 
 ance, they were surprised to learn that the place had been 
 abandoned the day before. The French commander had 
 blown up his magazines, burned every building that would 
 burn, and with his company gone on board of flat-boats 
 
 fl- ov . and floated down the Ohio. On the twenty-fifth of No- 
 86. vember, Washington marched into the deserted fort, and 
 planted the English colors. An impulse of grateful feel- 
 ing changed the name to Fort Pitt — since Pittsburg, in 
 honor of the illustrious man — the first of English states- 
 men, who appreciated the character of the American colo- 
 nists, and who was willing to do them justice. Situated 
 at the head of the Ohio, in a region celebrated for its agri- 
 cultural and mineral wealth, and settled by a moral and 
 
PLAN OF OPERATIONS AGAINST CANADA. 305 
 
 industrious population, it has far exceeded in importance |^^ 
 
 any other acquisition made during the war. A fit monu- 
 
 ment to the memory of the " Great Commoner. " 1V58. 
 
 The object of the campaign thus secured, Washington, 
 leaving two Virginia regiments to garrison the fort, re- 
 signed his commission, and retired to private life. In the 
 mean time he had been elected a member of the House of 
 Burgesses. A few months afterward, on the opening of 
 the session, the House, by vote, resolved to receive the 
 youthful champion with some befitting manifestation of 
 its regard. Accordingly, when he took his seat as a mem- 
 ber, the Speaker addressed him, giving him thanks for the 
 military services he had rendered his country. Taken by 
 surprise, Washington rose to reply, but words were want- 
 ing ; he faltered and blushed. " Sit down, Mr. Washing- 
 ton/' kindly said the Speaker; "your modesty equals 
 your valor, and that surpasses the power of any language 
 I possess." 
 
 This year closed with great advantages to the English. 
 The cunning Indians — still true to the winning side — be- 
 gan to desert the French, and to form treaties of peace or 
 neutrality with their enemies. The comprehensive mind 
 of Pitt was devising plans to crush the French power in 
 America. He promptly paid all the expenses incurred by 
 the colonists during the past year, and they with alacrity 
 entered into his schemes. Wolfe was to ascend the St. 
 Lawrence ; Amherst was to advance by way of Lake Cham- 
 plain, and capture Montreal, and then join Wolfe before 
 Quebec ; while General Prideaux was to capture Fort Ni- 
 agara, and then to pass down Lake Ontario to Montreal. 
 
 As Amherst advanced against Ticonderoga, the French 175*. 
 abandoned that post, and the others as he approached ; y 
 he wasted his time in fortifying the places deserted by the 
 enemy, as if they who were so exhausted as to be scarcely 
 able to get out of his way, would ever return 1 Though 
 General Prideaux was unfortunately killed by the burst- 
 
27. 
 
 306 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 ^P. ing of a gun, yet Sir William Johnson, on whom the oom- 
 
 mand devolved, took Niagara ; and thus the chain which 
 
 1759. joined the French forts of Canada, with those of the val- 
 ley of the Mississippi, was broken forever. 
 June The fleet and troops designed against Quebec, assem- 
 
 bled at Louisburg. In the latter part of June the arma- 
 ment arrived at the Isle of Orleans, upon which the troops 
 immediately landed. The rock on which stood the citadel 
 of St. Louis, could be seen to the west looming up more 
 than three hundred feet, bidding defiance to the invaders. 
 In the rear were the Heights of Abraham, a plain extend- 
 ing for miles, while all along the shore the high cliiFa 
 seemed to be an impregnable defence, 
 
 To meet this force, Montcalm had only a few enfeebled 
 battalions and Canadian militia. The Indians held them- 
 selves aloof. The English fleet consisted of twenty- two 
 ships of the line, and as many frigates. As master of one 
 of these ships was Captain James Cook, afterward cele- 
 brated as the discoverer of the many isles of the Pacific. 
 Under Wolfe were four young and ardent commanders, 
 Kobert Monckton, afterward governor of New York; 
 George Townshend, and James Murray, and also Colonel 
 Howe, afterward Sir William, who for a time commanded 
 the British army in the American Revolution. 
 
 Quebec, situated on a peninsula between the St. Law- 
 rence and the river St. Charles, was defended on three 
 sides by these rivers, leaving only the west exposed. The 
 lower town was on the beach, while the upper was on the 
 cliff two hundred feet above. The high cliffs of the north 
 shore of the St. Lawrence were deemed a sufficient de- 
 fence. It was thaught impossible for an army to scale 
 them. Below on the St. Lawrence, between the St. 
 Charles and the Montmorenci rivers, was Montcalm's 
 camp, guarded by many floating batteries and ships of 
 war. But the naval superiority of the English soon ren- 
 dered them masters on the wa cr. 
 
THE RESOLVE TO SCALE THE HEIGHTS. 307 
 
 The French troops were driven from Point Levi, di- S5£? 
 
 rectly opposite Quebec, and Wolfe erected batteries on 
 
 that spot, and began to bombard the lower town, which 1759. 
 was soon reduced to ashes ; but owing to the distance, the 
 fortress and the upper town could not be injured. Wolfe 
 then passed over to the north side of the river, below the 
 Montmorenci, intending to pass that stream, and force 
 Montcalm to a battle. 
 
 When this design was carried into effect, the first 
 division, consisting of the grenadiers, rashly rushed on to 
 storm the French lines before the second division could 
 come up to support them. They were repulsed, with a 
 loss of nearly five hundred men. Diversions were also 
 made above the town to induce the enemy to come into 
 the open field, but without success. Montcalm merely 
 sent De Bougainville with fifteen hundred men to guard 
 against these attacks. 
 
 The repulse at Montmorenci occasioned the sensitive ^7 
 Wolfe much suffering. He looked for the tardy Amherst, 
 but in vain 1 No tidings came from him, and it seemed 
 as if the enterprise, the first under his own command, 
 was about to fail. He was thrown into a violent fever by 
 his anxiety. As a last resort, it was resolved, in a coun- 
 cil held around his bed, to scale the Heights of Abraham. 
 In order to do this, the French must be deceived. There- 
 fore Captain Cook was sent to take soundings and place 
 buoys opposite Montcalm's camp, as if that was to be the 
 special object of attack. Meantime, the shore for many 
 miles above the town, was carefully examined. At one 
 place was found a little indentation in the bank, from 
 which a path wound up the cliff, — there they determined 
 to make the attempt. This is now known as Wolfe's Cove. 
 The troops were put on shipboard and suddenly sailed up 
 the river, as if intending to pass beyond the French lines 
 and there land. At night the ships lay to, and the troops, 
 in boats, dropped down with the tide to Wolfe's Cove, fol- 
 
308 HISTORY OF THE AMEKICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, lowed by the ships designed to cover their landing, if necea- 
 . sary. As they passed, a French sentinel hailed them with 
 
 1759. the inquiry, " Who goes there ? " " La France/' answer- 
 ed a captain. " What regiment ? " " The Queen's " — that 
 being one of the regiments up the river with Bougainville. 
 The sentinel was deceived. They passed on to the Cove, 
 and quietly landing began to grope their way up the cliff, 
 clinging to the shrubs and rocks for support. In the 
 morning the entire army was on the Heights of Abraham, 
 ready for battle. 
 
 ^ t Montcalm was thunderstruck, when he heard the news. 
 
 3. "It must surely be," said he, " a small party come to 
 pillage, and then retire." More correct information re- 
 vealed to him the whole truth. There was no time to be 
 lost. He sent immediately for the detachment of Bou- 
 gainville, which was fifteen miles up the river. The 
 Indians and Canadians advanced first, and subjected the 
 English to an irregular, and galling fire. Wolfe ordered 
 his men to reserve their fire for the French regulars, who 
 were rapidly approaching. When they were within forty 
 yards, the English poured upon them a stream of musket- 
 ry, aided by grape-shot from a few guns dragged up the 
 cliff by the sailors. It was a fierce conflict. The respect- 
 ive commanders were opposite to each other. Wolfe, al- 
 though wounded twice, continued to give his orders with 
 clearness ; but as he advanced with the grenadiers, who 
 were to make their final charge with the bayonet, he re- 
 ceived a ball in the breast. He knew the wound was 
 mortal, and when falling said to the officer nearest to 
 him : " Let not my brave fellows see me fall." He was 
 carried to the rear ; % when asked if he would have a sur- 
 geon, he answered : " It is needless ; it is all over with 
 me." As his life was fast ebbing, the cry was raised — 
 " See, they run ! they run ! " " Who run ! " asked the 
 dying man. " The enemy, sir," was the answer. " Do 
 they run already ? " he asked with evident surprise. Sum- 
 
WOLFE AND MONTCALM. 309 
 
 moning his failing energies, " Go one of you, to Colonel chap 
 
 Burton," said he ; " tell him to march Webb's regiment [ 
 
 with all speed down to Charles river, to cut off the retreat 1759. 
 by the bridge." Then turning upon his side, he mur- JJ* 
 mured, " Now God be praised, I die happy." These were 
 the last words of the young hero, in whom were centred 
 the hopes of his soldiers and of his country. Monckton 
 was severely wounded, and the command devolved upon 
 Townshend, who, content with being master of the field, 
 called the troops from the pursuit. Just at the close of 
 the battle Bougainville appeared with his division ; but 
 the contest was declined. 
 
 There is a peculiar interest attached to the name and 
 character of Wolfe. A miod sensitive in its emotions and 
 vigorous in its thoughts, animated his feeble body. He 
 maintained a love for the quieter paths of literature, even 
 amid the excitements of the camp. On the clear star- 
 'ight night preceding the battle, as the boat in which he 
 was seated with his officers was silently floating down the 
 St. Lawrence, he recited to them that classic poem, 
 Gray's " Elegy in a Country Church-yard ; " then just 
 published. Death seems to have already cast his dark 
 shadow upon him, and doubtless many of the finer pas- 
 sages of the poem were in accordance with his subdued and 
 melancholy emotions. Then for a time the aspirations 
 of the man of feeling and poetic taste triumphed over the 
 sterner ambition of the warrior, and at its close he ex- 
 claimed : " I would rather be the author of that poem 
 than to take Quebec to-morrow." 
 
 The brave and generous Montcalm was mortally 
 wounded near the close of the battle. When carried into 
 the city, the surgeon informed him that he could survive 
 only a few hours. " So much the better," he calmly re- 
 plied, " I shall not live to see the surrender of Quebec." 
 When asked his advice about defending the city, he an- 
 
1827. 
 
 18. 
 
 310 HISTOEY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, swered : " To your keeping I commend the honor of 
 
 France. I will neither give orders nor interfere any fur- 
 
 1759. ther ; I have business of greater moment to attend to ; 
 my time is short ; I shall pass this night with God, and 
 prepare myself for death/' He then wrote a letter to the 
 English commander, commending to his favor the French 
 prisoners. The next morning he died. That generation 
 passed away, and with it the animosity which existed be- 
 tween the conquerors and the conquered. The united 
 people of another generation erected a granite monument, 
 on which they inscribed the names of Montcalm and 
 Wolfe. 
 Sept. Five days after the battle Quebec surrendered. There 
 
 were great rejoicings both in America and England. 
 Praises were lavished upon Pitt. He in Parliament re- 
 plied, * I will aim to serve my country, but the more a 
 man is versed in business, the more he finds the hand of 
 Providence everywhere." The next year an attempt was 
 made by the French to recover Quebec, but it failed. An 
 overwhelming force was brought against Montreal. Re- 
 sistance was vain, and Yaudreuil, the governor, surren- 
 dered all the French stations on the Lakes. The troops 
 were to be sent home, and the Canadians, protected in 
 their property, were to enjoy their religious privileges. 
 Thus passed away the French power in Canada. Depend- 
 ents upon the mother country, the inhabitants had never 
 exercised the right of self-government ; they lacked the 
 energy essential to success as an independent people. 
 They have assimilated but little with their conquerors. 
 They still preserve that gay simplicity of manners, so 
 characteristic of their nation, and an ardent attachment 
 to the church of their fathers. 
 
 Meantime disturbances had occurred on the south- 
 west. The Cherokees had always been the friends of the 
 English, and had undertaken to protect the frontiers south 
 of the Potomac, yet for this their warriors, when about to 
 
WAR WITH THE CHEBOKEE& 311 
 
 return home, received no reward from the government — ( ^ff 
 
 not even supplies of food for their journey. What the 
 
 State failed to do was done by Washington and his offi- 1758. 
 eers, who supplied their wants. The next year more 
 Cherokees joined the expedition under Forbes against 
 Fort Du Quesne. As they were returning home along 
 the western borders of Virginia, to avoid starvation they 
 helped themselves to what they wanted. This led to 
 quarrels with the backwoodsmen, who killed and scalped 
 some of their number. When this was told in the land 
 of the Cherokees, it caused sorrow, indignation, and alarm ; 
 the women, relatives of those who were slain, poured forth 
 deep and bitter wailings for the dead ; the young warriors, 
 indignant, armed themselves for revenge ; the old men 
 cautioned and counselled, and did all in their power to 
 prevent war, but in vain ; two white men fell victims to the 
 rage of the young warriors. Tiftoe and five other chieftains 
 went to Charleston to beg for peace, and to heal differ- 
 ences. The governor, the haughty and arbitrary Lyttle- 
 ton, demanded that the young men who, according to the Oct 
 ideas of the sons of the forest, had vindicated the honor 1 ^ 69 * 
 of their nation, u should be delivered up or put to death 
 in their own land." This, the Cherokees thought, would 
 only add fuel to the flame already kindled. The legislature 
 decided unanimously that there was no cause for war. 
 News came from the frontier that all was peaceful ; 
 " there were no bad talks." The obstinate governor per- 
 sisted in his demand, and created more disturbance. Then 
 he told the chiefs who wished for peace to come to him 
 and hold a talk, and promised them safe conduct to and 
 from Charleston. Trusting to his word, the great warrior 
 Oconostata came with thirty others But Lyttleton must 
 obtain for himself the glory of a successful expedition 
 against the Cherokees. He called out the militia in spite 
 of the remonstrances of the people, of the legislature, and 
 of his own council, and basely retained as prisoners, those 
 
312 HISTOEY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 CHAP- ^vno had trusted his word. He marched into the ccuntry 
 
 1 of the Cherokees, forced a treaty from a feeble old chief, 
 
 1759. who had no authority to make one, and then returned in 
 fancied triumph. Oconostata and a few others were lib- 
 erated. The remainder Lyttleton ordered to be kept pris- 
 oners at Fort Prince George till twenty-four warriors 
 should be given up to him. Oconostata made an attempt 
 to liberate his friends. In this effort a white man was 
 killed ; then, in revenge, the garrison murdered the pris- 
 oners. Now the rage of the Cherokees knew no bounds. 
 They exclaimed : " The spirits of our murdered brothers 
 are flying around us screaming for vengeance." The leg- 
 islature strongly condemned the perfidious conduct of 
 Lyttleton, and asserted their " birth-rights as British 
 subjects," and affirmed that he had " violated their un- 
 doubted privileges." Yet this very man received the 
 highest commendations from the " Board of Trade." 
 
 The Cherokees, driven to desperation by such treat- 
 ment, called to their aid the Muscogees, and sent to 
 Louisiana for military supplies. The Carolinians applied 
 to General Amherst, who sent them twelve hundred 
 1750. men, principally Highlanders, under General Montgomery. 
 They, with the Carolinians, pressed forward, by forced 
 marches, into the land of the Cherokees. Why give the 
 details of desolated settlements ? Village after village 
 was destroyed, and fertile valleys laid waste. On the 
 upper Savannah was the beautiful vale of Keowee, " the 
 delight of the Cherokees." They had become so far civil- 
 ized as to build comfortable houses, and to surround them 
 with cultivated fields. Suddenly appeared the invaders. 
 The great majority of the Indians, after an attempt at 
 j . defence, fled, and from the distant mountain-tops saw the 
 enemy burning their houses and destroying their crops. 
 "I cannot help pitying them a little," writes Colonel 
 Grant : " their villages are agreeably situated, their houses 
 
PONTIAC. 313 
 
 neatly built. There were everywhere astonishing maga- §h±p 
 sines of corn, which were all consumed." 
 
 After this dash at the Cherokees, Montgomery imme- 1760. 
 diately returned to the north, as ordered by Amherst. 
 The Indians were not subdued, but enraged ; they con- 
 tinued to ravage the back settlements of the Carolinas. 
 
 Immediately after the surrender of Canada, all the 17W. 
 French stations on the lakes were occupied by the con- 
 querors, and the little stockade posts throughout all that 
 region, and in the valley of the Ohio, were garrisoned by 
 a few men, in many instances not exceeding twenty. The 
 French, either as traders or as religious teachers, had won 
 the confidence and the affection of the Indians, by a 
 friendly intercourse extending through more than half a 
 century. Was it strange that the contrast appeared 
 great to them, between these friends and companions and 
 the domineering English soldiers, who insulted their priests 
 and vilified their religion ? The French had prohibited 
 the trade in rum, but the English introduced the traffic, 
 and the demoralization of the Indians commenced. The 
 capture of Fort Du Quesne was the signal for a torrent 
 of emigration, which poured over the mountains into the 
 valleys of the Monongahela and Alleghany. The Indians 
 feared the pale-faces would drive them from their homes. 
 
 Adopted into the tribe of the Ottawas, was a Catawba, 
 who had been brought from the South as a prisoner, but 
 who had, by his genius and bravery, risen to be a chief. He 
 had the most unbounded influence over his own and other 
 tribes, and was styled " the king and lord of all the coun- 
 try of the north-west." " How dare you come to visit my 
 country without my leave ? " demanded he of the first Eng- 
 lish officer who came to take possession of the French forts. 
 Such was Pontiac, the Philip of the north-west, who, in 
 the war which bears his name, made the last great strug- 
 gle for the independence of the Bed Man. This master 
 spirit planned, and partially executed, one of the most 
 
314 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, comprehensive schemes ever conceived by Indian sagacity 
 
 to expel the invaders, and maintain his own authority aa 
 
 1763. " king and lord " of all that region. He induced the Del- 
 awares, the Shawnees, the Senecas, the Miamis, and many 
 lesser tribes, who roamed over the vast region in the basin 
 of the upper lakes, in the valley of the Ohio, and a portion 
 of that of the Mississippi, to join in the conspiracy. He 
 sent a prophet through the land to proclaim that the 
 Great Spirit had revealed to him, " that if the English 
 were permitted to dwell in their midst, then the white 
 man's diseases and poisons would utterly destroy them." 
 This conspiracy was more than a year in forming, yet it 
 was kept a profound secret. 
 
 Detroit had the largest garrison, was the great centre 
 for the trade of the upper lakes, and most important in 
 its influence. Here the French were numerous ; they 
 tilled their farms, as well as engaged in the traffic of furs. 
 Pontiac desired to obtain possession of the fort. He inti- 
 mated that he was coming with his warriors to have a 
 " talk " with his English brothers. Meantime, Gladwin, 
 the commander, had, learned of the conspiracy. Finding 
 that the plot was discovered, Pontiac threw off the mask, 
 and boldly attacked the fort, but without success. This 
 was the commencement of a series of surprises ; the In- 
 dians, in the short space of three weeks, captured every 
 station west of Niagara, except Detroit and Pittsburg. 
 The soldiers of the garrisons were nearly all put to death, 
 more than one hundred traders were murdered and scalped 
 in the wilderness, and more than five hundred families, 
 after losing hundreds of their members, were driven from 
 their homes on the frontiers. A large force from several 
 tribes concentrated around Pittsburg, the most important 
 post in the valley of the Ohio ; yet the brave garrison 
 could not be caught by their wiles, nor conquered by their 
 arms. Their ravages, in the mean while, extended to all 
 
INDIANS DEFEATED PITTSBURG RELIEVED. 315 
 
 the settlements and posts on the head-waters of the Ohio, chap 
 
 and on the lakes to the region between the Mississippi , , 
 
 and the Ohio. 1768. 
 
 General Bouquet was sent from Eastern Pennsylvania 
 to relieve Fort Ligonier, just at the western foot of the 
 mountains, and Pittsburg. His army consisted of not 
 more than five hundred effective men, principally Scotch 
 Highlanders. They had with them a train of wagons, 
 drawn by oxen, and pack-horses laden with military stores 
 and necessary provisions, and a drove of beef cattle. 
 Passing through a region desolated by the savages, they 
 saw the remains of burnt cabins, and the harvests stand- 
 ing uncut in the fields. 
 
 When he arrived at Ligonier, Bouquet could learn 
 nothing from the west, as all intercourse had been cut off. 
 Leaving there his wagons and cattle, he pushed forward 
 to ascertain the fate of Pittsburg. The Indians besieging 
 that place, heard of his approach, and they resolved to 
 place themselves in ambush, and defeat his army. As 
 soon as the battle began, the Highlanders dashed at them 
 with the bayonet, and the Indians fled ; but when the 
 pursuit slackened they rallied, and were again repulsed. 
 At length, the number of the savages increased so much 
 that they completely surrounded the Highlanders, who, 
 during the night, encamped on the ridge of a hill. In the 
 morning they could not advance, for their wounded men 
 and baggage would fall into the hands of the enemy. 
 Placing two companies in ambush, Bouquet began to re- 
 treat, and immediately, with exulting yells, the Indians 
 rushed on in pursuit, but when they came to the right 
 point, those in ambush charged them on both sides, and 
 those retreating wheeled and charged also. Panic-stricken 
 by the suddenness of the attack, the savages broke and 
 fled. The division then moved on to Pittsburg. From 
 that day the valley of the Ohio was free from Indian vio- 
 
316 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, lence. The stream of emigration began again to pom 
 
 1 over the mountains. The tribes, disheartened, began to 
 
 1764 - make treaties and promise peace. Pontiac would make 
 no treaty, nor acknowledge himself a friend of the Eng- 
 lish. He left his home and tribe and went to the country 
 of the Illinois, where he was assassinated. 
 1769. For nearly three-quarters of a century a dispute had 
 
 existed between the authorities of the colonies of Penn- 
 sylvania and Maryland in respect to their boundary line. 
 Finally, a compromise was agreed upon by which a start- 
 ing-point was to be taken " fifteen English statute miles 
 1760. south of the latitude of the most southerly part of Phila- 
 delphia." This point was to be on the circumference or 
 tangent of a circle whose center was New Castle — now in 
 Delaware — and radius twelve miles ; from that " fifteen^ 
 mile point a line was to be run due west across the 
 Susquehannah, etc., to the utmost longitude of Pennsyl- 
 vania." This circle sweeps round from the west to the 
 north-east, and is said to be the only boundary in the 
 world in which the circle is used. 
 
 The king sent out from London two learned astrono- 
 mers — Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon — to run the 
 line. They commenced their labors, and in five years 
 made a report of their progress. Troubles with the In- 
 1768 dians interfered, and they could not finish the work, 
 which was completed fifteen years afterward by other 
 hands. The English surveyors cut openings through the 
 woods ; at the end of every mile they set up a stone, on 
 one side of which the letter " P" was cut in, and on the 
 other the letter "I;" and every five miles a stone 
 brought from England, but instead of the letters were en- 
 graved the coats-of-aians of the Penns and of Lord Balti- 
 more. This line is artificial, not a mountain nor a river 
 is used — it passes over both. JSTo boundary has marked 
 greater contrasts in society and its advancement than the 
 famous " Mason and Dixon's Line." 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE COLONISTS. 
 
 Religious Influences among the earlier Settlers. — The later Emigrants ; their 
 Influence. — Lore of domestic Life. — Laws enjoining Morality. — Sys- 
 tems of Education ; Common Schools. — John Calvin. — The South'- -ner ; 
 the Northerner. — The Anglo-Saxon Element ; the Norman. — Influences 
 in Pennsylvania ; in New York. — Diversity of Ancestry. 
 
 The conquest of Canada had removed apprehensions of chap. 
 
 . . XXIV 
 
 war with France, or of incursions by the Indians. The ] 
 
 colonists naturally turned to their own affairs. They 176O. 
 were poor and in debt ; a seven years' war had been within 
 their borders ; their men had been drawn from the labor 
 of industry to the battle-field. Yet that war, with its 
 evils, had conferred benefits. It had made known to them 
 their strength, and success had given them confidence. 
 
 Before relating the events that led to the Kevolution, 
 let us take a rapid survey of the people, who were soon to 
 take their place among the nations of the earth. 
 
 From the first they were an intelligent and a religious 
 people. They were untrammelled in the exercise of their 
 religion, and its spirit moulded public sentiment in all 
 the colonies, whether settled by the Puritan or the Church- 
 man, by the Dutch Calvinist or the Quaker, by the 
 Huguenot or the Scotch-Irish Presbyterian. The two 
 latter were of more receDt emigration ; they did not di- 
 minish the high tone of morals already sustained by the 
 earlier settlers. 
 
318 HISTORY OE THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap. The Huguenots came in small companies, and seldom 
 
 " settled together in large numbers, but mingled with the 
 
 1760. colonists, and conformed more and more to their customs, 
 and, in time, became identified with them in interests. 
 Calvinists in doctrine, they generally united with either 
 the Episcopal or Presbyterian churches, and by their piety 
 and industrious habits exerted an influence that amply 
 repaid the genuine hospitality with which they were every- 
 where received. 
 
 The Scotch-Irish Presbyterians displayed the indomi- 
 table energy and perseverance of their ancestors, with the 
 same morality and love of their church. Even those who 
 took post on the outskirts of civilization along the western 
 frontiers of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and North 
 Carolina, had their pastor, and trained their children in 
 Bible truth, in the catechism, obedience to parents, — 
 a wholesome doctrine practically enforced by all the colo- 
 nists, — and reverence for the Sabbath and its sacred duties. 
 They were a people decided in their character. They 
 emigrated from their native land to enjoy civil and relig- 
 ious privileges, but they had also an eye to the improve- 
 ment of their temporal affairs. 
 
 The endearments of home and of the domestic fireside 
 had charms for the colonists of every creed. The educa- 
 tion of their children was deemed a religious duty, while 
 around their households clustered the comforts and many 
 of the refinements of the times. The example of their 
 ancestors, who had sought in the wilderness an asylum, 
 where they might enjoy their religion, had not been in 
 vain ; a traditionary religious spirit had come down from 
 those earlier days, and now pervaded the minds of the 
 people. 
 
 Though there was neither perfect uniformity in their 
 forms of worship, nor in their interpretation of religious 
 doctrines, yet one sentiment was sacred in the eyes of all — 
 a reverence for the day of Holy Kest. The influences 
 
LAWS ENJOINING MORALITY. 319 
 
 connected with the Sabbath, and impressed fkm week to $M* 
 
 week, penetrated their inner life, and like an all-pervading 1 
 
 moral antiseptic preserved, in its purity, the religious 1760. 
 character of the entire people. 
 
 The laws of a people may be taken as the embodiment 
 of their sentiments. Those enacted by our forefathers 
 may excite a smile, yet they show that they were no time- 
 servers — that they were conscientious and in earnest. 
 
 In New England the laws noticed those who dressed 
 more richly than their wealth would justify ; they would 
 not permit the man who defrauded his creditors to live in 
 luxury ; those who did not vote, or would not serve when 
 elected to office, they fined for their want of patriotism ; 
 they forbade " drinking of healths as a bad habit ; " they 
 prohibited the Wearing of embroidered garments and laces ; 
 they discouraged the use of " ribbons and great boots ; " 
 sleeves must reach to the wrist, and not be more than 
 half an ell wide ; no one under twenty years of age was 
 allowed to use tobacco, unless prescribed by a physician ; 
 those who used it publicly were fined a sixpence ; all per- 
 sons were restrained from " swimming in the waters on 
 the Sabbath-day, or unreasonably walking in the fields or 
 streets. " 
 
 In Virginia we see the same spirit. In every settle- 
 ment there was to be " a house for the worship of God." 
 Divine service was to be in accordance with the canons of 
 the Church of England. Absence from church was pun- 
 ished by a fine ; the wardens were sworn to report cases 
 of " drunkenness, swearing, and other vices." The drunk- 
 ards were fined, the swearers also, at the rate of " a shil- 
 ling an oath ; n slanderers and tale-bearers were punished ; 
 travelling or shooting on the Sabbath forbidden. The 
 minister was not to addict himself " to excess in drinking 
 or riot, nor play cards or dice, but to hear or read the 
 Holy Scriptures, catechize the children, and visit the 
 sick." The wardens were bound to report the masters 
 
320 HISTORY OF THE AMEEICAK PEOPLE. 
 
 c^p. and mistresses " who neglected to catechize the ignorant 
 
 ! persons under their charge." In the Carolinas laws of a 
 
 1760. similar character were enacted ; and, in Pennsylvania, 
 against " stage plays, playing of cards, dice, May-games, 
 masques, and revels." 
 
 ^Although, at the time of which we write, many of 
 these, and similar laws had "become obsolete, yet the influ- 
 ences which dictated them had, for one hundred and fifty 
 years, been forming the character of the colonists. Hedged 
 in on the one side by the ocean, and on the other by 
 a howling wilderness filled with hostile savages, they 
 acquired a certain energy of character, the result of 
 watchfulness, and an individuality, which to this day dis- 
 tinguishes their descendants. 
 
 While emigrants were flocking to the colonies, these 
 
 influences were somewhat disturbed, but for three-quarters 
 
 1688. of a century — since the great revolution in England had 
 
 restrained the hand of oppression — emigration had been 
 
 gradually diminishing. 
 
 Thus uninfluenced from without, the political and re- 
 ligious principles with which they were imbued had time 
 to produce their fruit. A national sentiment, a oneness 
 of feeling among the people, grew into vigorous being. 
 The common schools of New England had exerted their 
 undivided influence for almost three generations ; the 
 youth left them with that conscious self-reliance which 
 springs spontaneously in the intelligent mind — a pledge 
 of success in things great as well as small. These schools, 
 no doubt, gave an impulse to female education. In the 
 earlier days of New England the women were taught to 
 ~ead, but very few to write. " The legal papers executed 
 in the first century (of the colony) by well-to-do women, 
 were mostly signed by a mark, (X ) ". l The custom of 
 
 'Elliott's History of New England, toL i p, 428. 
 
EDUCATION — FREE INQUIRY AND CIVIL LIBERTY. 321 
 
 settling in townships or villages made it easy to support SS££ 
 common schools. 
 
 In the middle colonies, especially Pennsylvania and If 60. 
 New York, a system of general education had not been 
 introduced ; the diversity of sects prevented. In the 
 South, except partially in Maryland, common schools were 
 not adopted. The owners of slaves usually held large 
 tracts of the best lands, while the less wealthy were com- 
 pelled to retire to the outskirts of the settlements, where 
 they could obtain farms. The population was thus so 
 much scattered, that generally children could not be con- 
 centrated at particular places in sufficient numbers to 
 sustain schools. Those who, for want of means, could not 
 employ private teachers, taught their own children as best 
 they could. Among this class, from year to year, there 
 was but little increase in general intelligence. The 
 wealthy employed private instructors, or sent their chil- 
 dren abroad. As the nation increased in knowledge, the 
 people cherished the right to exercise free thought and 
 free speech. 
 
 Our ancestors lived not for themselves alone. With 
 the prophet's vision, and the patriot's hope, they looked 
 forward to the day, when all this continent would be un- 
 der the influence of their descendants, and they a Chris- 
 tian people. Was it strange they were self-denying and 
 in earnest, in endeavoring to spread the blessings of 
 education and religion, as the greatest boon they could 
 transmit to their posterity ? Thus they labored to found 
 institutions of learning ; they encouraged the free ex- 
 pression of opinion. From the religious freedom of con- 
 science, which they proclaimed as the doctrine of the 
 Bible, the transition was easy to political freedom. The 
 advocate of free inquiry became the advocate of civil lib- 
 erty, and the same stroke which broke the chain binding 
 the word of God to the interpretation of the church, shat- 
 tered the fetters binding the political slave. 
 
322 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN" PEOPLE. 
 
 chap. Much of this sentiment may be traced to the influence 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 [ exerted by the opinions of one man, John Calvin. " We 
 
 1760. boast of our common schools, Calvin was the father of 
 popular education, the inventor of free schools. The pil- 
 grims of Plymouth were Calvinists ; the best influence of 
 South Carolina came from the Calvinists of France. Wil- 
 liam Perm was the disciple of the Huguenots ; the ships 
 from Holland that first brought colonists to ManhattaD 
 were filled with Calvinists. He that will not honor the 
 memory and respect the influence of Calvin, knows but 
 little of the origin of American liberty. He bequeathed 
 to the world a republican spirit in religion, with the kin- 
 dred principles of republican liberty/' l 
 
 There were slight differences of character between the 
 people of the several colonies. In the eastern, the diffi- 
 culties arising from a sterile soil had made the people 
 industrious and frugal. There, labor was always honorable, 
 and when the day came " which tried men's souls," great 
 numbers of the prominent men came from the ranks of 
 manual labor. The Anglo-Saxon element greatly pre- 
 dominated among the colonists of New England. As 
 simple in manners as rigid in morals, a truly democratic 
 spirit and love of liberty pervaded their minds, and hence 
 political constitutions of whose benefits all were partici- 
 pants. The Norman element prevailed more in the South, 
 especially in Virginia. Here the wealthy colonists were 
 more aristocratic in spirit and feeling ; were more refined 
 and elegant in manners. This aristocratic spirit was fos- 
 tered, in time, by the system of slavery, while the dis- 
 tinctions in society arising from the possession of wealth 
 were greatly increased. In all the southern colonies, the 
 mildness of the climate, the labor of slaves, and the ready 
 sale of their tobacco, rice, and indigo, made the acquisition 
 of wealth comparatively easy. The planter, " having 
 
 1 Bancroft's Miscellanies, pp. 405-6. 
 
INFLUENCES IN PENNSYLVANIA. 323 
 
 more leisuie, was more given to pleasures and amuse- ^^* 
 
 ments — to the sports of the turf, the cock-pit, the chase, 
 
 and the gaming-table. His social habits often made him 1760. 
 profuse, and plunged him in debt to the English or Scotch 
 merchant, who sold his exported products and furnished 
 him his foreign supplies. He was often improvident, and 
 sometimes not punctual in his pecuniary engagements." ' 
 The planters were hospitable. Living upon isolated plan- 
 tations, they were in a measure deprived of social inter- 
 course ; but when opportunity served, they enjoyed it 
 with a relish. As the Southerner was hospitable, so the 
 Northerner was charitable. From the hard earnings of the 
 farmer, of the mechanic, of the merchant, of the seafaring 
 man, funds were cheerfully given to support schools, to 
 endow colleges, or to sustain the ordinances of the gospel. 
 In the South, colleges were principally endowed by royal 
 grants. 
 
 In Pennsylvania was felt the benign influence of the 
 disciples of George Fox, and its benevolent founder. The 
 friends of suffering humanity, the enemies of war, the 
 opponents of classes and ranks in society founded on mere 
 birth, they recognized merit wherever found. There the 
 human mind was untrammelled — conscious of a right de- 
 rived from a higher authority than conventional law ; 
 there public posts were open to all — no tests intervened 
 as a barrier. At this time the ardent aspirations of Ben- 
 jamin Franklin in the pursuit of science received the 
 sympathy of the people. In Philadelphia he was the 
 means of founding an academy and free school, which grew 
 into a university. Here was founded the first medical col- 
 lege in the colonies, the first public library, and the first 
 hospital. Here, Bartram, the botanist, founded the first 
 botanic garden ; and here was formed the American Phil- 
 osophical Society. Here lived Godfrey, the inventor of 
 the quadrant, which bears the name of Hadley. 
 
 Mucker's History of the United States, vol. l, p. 97. 
 
324 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN" PEOPLE. 
 
 chap l n New York, " the key of Canada and the lakes/* 
 
 1 were blended many elements of character. Here com- 
 
 1760. merce began to prevail, and here the arbitrary laws of the 
 Board of Trade were vigorously opposed, and so often 
 eluded, that Holland derived more benefit from the trade 
 than England herself. It cost nearly as much as the 
 amount of the import duties to maintain the cruisers and 
 the " Commissioners of Customs." The " Dutch ."Repub- 
 licans " had been for nearly a century pupils in the school 
 where the " rights of Englishmen " were taught ; they 
 profited so much by the instruction, that they paid very 
 little attention to the king's prerogative, and thought 
 their own Legislature quite as respectable as the House oi 
 Commons. 
 
 Although the great majority of the Americans were 
 the descendants of Englishmen, yet there were represent- 
 atives from Scotland, from Ireland, from Wales, from 
 France, from Holland, from Germany, from Sweden, and 
 from Denmark. In religion, there were Churchmen and 
 Dissenters, Quakers and Catholics. Though they differed 
 in many minor points, and indulged in those little ani- 
 mosities which unfortunately too often arise between peo- 
 ple of different nations and religions, yet they cherished a 
 sympathy for each other. They were all attached to the 
 mother country — the South, perhaps, more than the North; 
 the former had not experienced so severely the iron hand 
 of royal rule. Some strong external pressure was required 
 to bind them more closely together, if ever they were to 
 become an independent nation. That external pressure 
 was not long wanting. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 CAUSES WHICH LED TO THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 Restrictions of Trade and Manufactures. — Taxes imposed by Parliament.— 
 Writs of Assistance. — James Otis. — Samuel Adams. — The "Parsons'" 
 Case in Virginia. — Patrick Henry. — A Stamp Tax threatened. — Colonel 
 Barre's Speech. — The Stamp Act. — Excitement in the Colonies. — Henry 
 in the House of Burgesses. — Resolutions not to use Stamps. — " Sons 
 of Liberty." — A Call for a Congress ; it meets, and the Colonial As- 
 semblies approve its Measures. — Merchants refuse to purchase English 
 Merchandise. — Self-denial of the Colonists. — Pitt defends them. — 
 Franklin at the Bar of the House of Commons. — Stamp Act repealed. — 
 Rejoicings. — Dartmouth College. 
 
 The industrious habits of the colonists were no less wor- c ^* 
 
 thy of notice than their moral traits. The contest with 
 
 the mother country had its origin in her attempts to de- 1750 
 prive them, by means of unjust laws, of the fruits of their 
 labor. For one hundred years she had been imposing 
 restrictions on their trade and domestic manufactures. 
 They were treated as dependents, and inferiors who 
 occupied " settlements established in distant parts of the 
 world for the benefit of trade." They could purchase 
 from England alone, and only to her market could they 
 lend their products. That English merchants might 
 grow rich at their expense, the products of Europe and 
 Asia were first to be landed in England, and then re- 
 shipped to America in British vessels. The only trade 
 not thus taxed, was that of negroes, they being shipped 
 directly from Africa — a trade against which all the colo- 
 nies earnestly, but in vain, protested. Even the trees 
 
326 HISTOET OF THE AMEKICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, in the forest suitable for masts were claimed by the 
 
 1 king, and marked by his " Surveyor-General of Woods." 
 
 1760 " Rolling mills, forges, or tilt-hammers for making iron/' 
 were prohibited as " nuisances/' The House of Commons 
 said " that the erection of manufactories in the colonies 
 tended to lessen their dependency upon Great Britain ; " 
 and the English ship-carpenters complained " that their 
 trade was hurt, and their workmen emigrated, since so 
 many vessels were built in New England." The hatter, 
 because he could obtain his fur from the Indians without 
 sending to England, was not permitted to sell hats out of 
 his own colony. No manufacturer was permitted to have 
 more than two apprentices. The government was unwil- 
 ling that the colonists should make for themselves a single 
 article which the English could supply. 
 
 These measures aroused a spirit of opposition, more 
 especially among the frugal and industrious inhabitants 
 of New England, whose manufactures, fisheries, and trade 
 were almost ruined. There the people mutually agreed 
 to buy of British manufacturers only what was absolutely 
 necessary ; rather than pay the English merchant exorbi- 
 tant prices, they would deprive themselves of every luxury. 
 Families determined to make their own linens and wool- 
 lens, and to abstain from eating mutton, and preserve the 
 sheep to furnish wool. It became fashionable, as well aa 
 honorable, to wear homespim. Associations were formed 
 to promote domestic manufactures. On the anniversary 
 of one of these, more than three hundred young women 
 met en Boston Common, and devoted the day to spinning 
 flax. The graduating class of Harvard College, not to be 
 outdone in patriotism, made it a point on Commencement 
 Day to be clad in homespun. Restrictions on trade did not 
 affect the interests of the people of the South so much, 
 as England could not dispense with their tobacco, rice, 
 and indigo, and they had scarcely any manufactories. 
 17W. Before the close of the French war, it was intimated 
 
FRANKUN WORKING AS A PRINTER 
 
WRITS OF ASSISTANCE. 
 
 327 
 
 that England intended to tax the colonies, and make chap 
 
 them bear a portion of the burdens brought upon herself , 
 
 by the mismanagement of her officials. Many plans were 1768. 
 discussed and laid aside. Meantime the colonists denied 
 the right of Parliament to tax them without granting 
 them, in some form, representation in the government ; 
 they claimed a voice in the disposal of their money. They 
 looked back upon their history, and were unable to dis- 
 cover the obligations they owed the king. They loved to 
 think of Old England as the " home * of their fathers ; 
 they rejoiced in her glories and successes, and nevei 
 dreamed of separating from her, until driven to that re- 
 solve by oppression. Yet visions of greatness, and it may 
 be of independence, were floating through the minds of 
 the far-seeing. John Adams, when a youth, had already 
 written : "It looks likely to me, for if we can remove the 
 turbulent Gallicks, our people, according to the exactest 
 computations, will in another century become more nu- 
 merous than England itself. Should this be the case, 
 since we have, I may say, all the naval stores of the nation 
 in our hands, it will be easy to obtain the mastery of the 
 seas ; and then the united force of all Europe will not be 
 able to subdue us." ■ 
 
 A special effort was now made to enforce the naviga- 
 tion laws, and to prevent the colonists from trading with 
 other nations. This policy would have converted the en- 
 tire people into a nation of smugglers and law-breakers, 
 but for the strong religious influences felt throughout the 
 land. 
 
 To enforce these laws, Parliament gave authority for 
 using general search warrants, or " Writs of Assistance." u^ 
 These Writs authorized any sheriff or officer of the 
 customs to enter a store or private dwelling, and search 
 for foreign merchandise, which he suspected had not paid 
 
 a Life and Writings, vol. i. p. 23. 
 
328 HISTOEY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 char duty. The quiet of the domestic fireside was no longei 
 
 1 to be held sacred. These Writs, first used in Massa- 
 
 1761. chusetts, caused great excitement and opposition. Their 
 legality was soon brought to the test in a court of justice 
 On this occasion the eloquent James Otis sounded the 
 npte of alarm. He was the Advocate for the Admiralty, 
 whose duty it was to argue in favor of the Writs ; but he 
 resigned, in order to plead the cause of the people. The 
 royalist lawyer contended that the power of Parliament 
 was supreme, and that good subjects ought to submit to 
 its every enactment. In reply, Otis exclaimed : " To my 
 Feb. dying day, I will oppose, with all the power and faculties 
 God has given me, all such instruments of slavery, on the 
 one hand, and villany on the other." His stirring elo- 
 quence gave an impulse to public opinion, which aroused 
 opposition to other acts of Parliament. " Then and 
 there," says John Adams, "was the first opposition tc 
 arbitrary acts of Great Britain. Then and there Ameri- 
 can Independence was born." The writs were scarcely 
 ever enforced after this trial. 
 
 Of the leading men of the times, none had greater in- 
 fluence than Samuel Adams — in his private life, the 
 devout Christian ; in his public life, the incorruptible 
 patriot. In him the spirit of the old Puritans seemed to 
 linger : mild in manners, living from choice in retire- 
 ment, incapable of an emotion of fear, when duty called 
 him to a post of danger. Learned in constitutional law, 
 he never went beyond its limits. Through his influence 
 Boston expressed her opinions, saying, " We claim Brit- 
 ish rights, not by charter only — we are born to them. If 
 we are taxed without our consent, our property is taken 
 without our consent, and then we are no more freemen, 
 but slaves." And she invited all the colonics to join in 
 obtaining redress. The same note of alarm was sounded 
 in Virginia, in New York, in Connecticut, and in the 
 Carolinas Thinking minds saw in the future the coming 
 
THE KING'S PREROGATIVE — PATRICK HENRY. 329 
 
 contest ; that the English ministry would persist in their chap 
 
 anjust treatment, until, in self-defence, they had driven 1 
 
 the whole American people to open rebellion. "They 1761. 
 wish to make us dependent, but they will make us inde- 
 pendent ; these oppressions will lead us to unite and thus 
 secure our liberty." Thus wrote Kichard Henry Lee, of 
 Virginia. " Oh ! poor New England," exclaimed the elo- 
 quent George Whitefield, "there is a deep-laid plot 
 against your liberties ; your golden days are ended." 
 
 The first collision in Virginia between the prerogative 1768, 
 of the king and the authority of the legislature occurred Dec * 
 in a county court. Tobacco was the legalized currency 
 of the colony. Occasionally, untoward events, such as 
 war, or failure of the crop, made payments in tobacco very 
 burdensome. The legislature passed a law, authorizing 
 debtors to pay their public dues in money, at the rate of 
 twopence a pound for the tobacco due. The clergymen 
 of the established church refused to acquiesce in the law ; 
 they had a fixed salary of a certain number of pounds of 
 tobacco a year. At their instance, Sherlock, the Bishop 
 of London, used his influence and persuaded the king to 
 refuse his signature to this law. " The rights of the cler- 
 gy and the authority of the king must stand or fall 
 together," said the Bishop. The law was therefore null 
 and void. 
 
 To test it, a clergyman named Maury brought a suit 
 to recover damages, or the difference between twopence 
 per pound and the higher price for which tobacco was 
 selling. It became the cause of the people on the one 
 side, and the cause of the clergy and of the king's pre- 
 rogative on the other. The people engaged a young man 
 of twenty-seven to plead against " the parsons." 
 
 That young man was Patrick Henry. He belonged 
 not t© the aristocracy, and was obscure and unknown. 
 On this occasion, that rare and wonderful gift of eloquence, 
 which has made us so familiar with his name, was first 
 
«>oO HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap displayed. He possessed a charm of voice and tone that 
 
 fascinated his hearers ; a grasp of thought, a vividness of 
 
 1763. conception, and withal a power that allured into sympathy 
 with his own sentiments the emotions of his audience. 
 For this he was indebted to nature, not to education ; for, 
 when a boy, he broke away from the restraints of school 
 and the drudgery of book-learning, to lounge idly by 
 some solitary brookside with hook and line, or in more 
 active moods to dash away into the woods to enjoy the ex- 
 citements of the chase. He learned a little of Latin, of 
 Greek not more than the letters, and as little of mathe- 
 matics. At eighteen he married, engaged in trade, and 
 failed ; tried farming with as little success ; then read 
 law six weeks, and was admitted to the bar. Yet the 
 mind of this young man had not been idle ; he lived in a 
 world of deep thought ; he studied men. He was now to 
 appear for the first time as an advocate. 
 
 The whole colony was interested in the trial, and the 
 court-room was crowded with anxious spectators. Maury 
 made objections to the jury ; he thought them of " the 
 vulgar herd," " dissenters," and " New Lights." " They 
 are honest men," rejoined Henry. The court overruled 
 the insulting objections, and the jury were sworn. 
 
 The case was plainly against him, but Henry con- 
 tended the law was valid, and enacted by competent au- 
 thority ; he fell back upon the natural right of Virginia 
 to make her own laws, independently of the king and par- 
 liament. He proved the justness of the law ; he sketched 
 the character of a good king, as the father of his people, 
 but who, when he annuls good laws becomes a tyrant, and 
 forfeits all right to obedience. At this doctrine, so new, 
 so daring, the audience seemed to stand aghast. " He 
 has spoken treason," exclaimed the opposing counsel. A 
 few joined in the cry of Treason ! treason ! Yet the jury 
 brought in a verdict for the " parsons " of a penny dam- 
 ages. 
 
THE STAMP ACT. 331 
 
 Henry denied the right of the king to aid in making c ^^- 
 laws for the colonies. His argument applied not only to , 
 
 Virginia, but to the continent. The sentiment spread 1768. 
 from colony to colony. 
 
 Parliament assumed the right to tax the Americans, 
 and paid no attention to their protests, but characterized 
 them as " absurd," " insolent/ 1 " mad." When they ex- 
 postulated with Grenville, the Prime Minister, he warned 
 them that in a contest with England they would gain 
 nothing. The taxes must be levied at all events ; and 
 he graciously asked if there was any form in which they 
 would rather pay them than by means of the threatened 
 stamps. These were to be affixed to all documents used 
 in trade, and for them a certain impost duty was charged. 
 Only the English merchants whose interests were involved 
 in the American trade, appear to have sympathized with 
 the colonists. Franklin, who was then in London as agent 
 for the Assembly of Pennsylvania, wrote home : " Every 
 man in England regards himself as a piece of a sovereign 
 over America, seems to jostle himself into the throne 
 with the king, and talks of our subjects in the colonies." 
 
 The Stamp Act did not pass without a struggle. Dur- 17w 
 ing these discussions, Colonel Barre, who, in the war 
 against the French, was the friend and companion of 
 Wolfe, charged the members of the House of Commons 
 with being ignorant of the true state of the colonies. 
 When Charles Townshend, the Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer, asked the question, " Will our American chil- 
 dren, planted by our care, nourished by our indulgence, 
 and protected by our arms, grudge to contribute their mite 
 to relieve us from our burdens ? " Barre indignantly re- 
 plied : " They planted by your care ! No, your oppres- 
 sions planted them in America. They fled from your 
 tyranny to an uncultivated, inhospitable country ; where 
 they exposed themselves to almost every hardship, and to 
 the cruelties of the savage foe. Thev nourished by your 
 
332 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, indulgence ! They grew by your neglect ;. your care foi 
 
 1 them was to send persons to rule them ; deputies of dep 
 
 1765. uties, to some members of this house, sent to spy out their 
 liberties, to misrepresent their actions, and to prey upon 
 them ; men who have caused the blood of those sons oj 
 liberty to recoil within them. They protected by yout 
 arms ! They have nobly taken up arms in your defence. 
 Amidst their constant and laborious industry they have 
 defended a country whose frontiers were drenched in blood, 
 while its interior settlements yielded all their little savings 
 to your emoluments. I speak the genuine sentiments of 
 my heart. They are a people as truly loyal as any sub- 
 jects of the king ; they are jealous of their liberties, and 
 will vindicate them, if ever they should be violated/' 
 
 But very few of the members of the house were thus 
 liberal in their sentiments. The great majority looked 
 upon the colonies as subservient to the rule of the mother 
 country. It was the express intention of the ministry 
 " to be very tender in taxing them, beginning with small 
 duties and taxes," and advancing as they found them 
 willing to bear it. 
 
 The House of Commons, on March 22d, passed the 
 Stamp Act by a majority of nine to one ; ten days after- 
 ward it passed the House of Lords almost unanimously. 
 The king was ill ; mystery whispered of some unusual 
 disease. When George III. signed the Stamp Act, he 
 was not a responsible being — he was insane. 
 
 This act declared that every written agreement be- 
 tween persons in trade, to be valid, must have affixed to 
 it one of these stamps. Their price was in proportion to 
 the importance of the writing ; the lowest a shilling, and 
 thence increasing indefinitely. Truly this " was to take 
 money without an equivalent." All business must be 
 thus taxed, or suspended. 
 
 In order to enforce this act, Parliament, two months 
 afterward, authorized the ministry to send as many troops 
 
RESOLUTIONS OF THE VIRGINIA ASSEMBLY. 
 
 333 
 
 m they saw proper to America. For these soldiers the gLUP 
 
 colonies were required to find "quarters, fuel, cider or 
 
 ram, caudles, and other necessaries." 1765 
 
 The news of the passage of these arbitrary laws threw 
 the people into a ferment. They became acquainted with 
 rtach other's views ; the subject was discussed in the news- 
 papers, was noticed in the pulpits, and became the en- 
 grossing topic of conversation in social intercourse. In 
 the Virginia Assembly, Patrick Henry introduced resolu- 
 tions declaring that the people of Virginia were only bound 
 to pay taxes imposed by their own Legislature, and any 
 person who maintained the contrary should be deemed an 
 enemy of the colony. An exciting debate followed, in 
 which the wonderful power of Henry in describing the 
 tyranny of the British government swayed the majority 
 of the members. In the midst of one of his bursts of 
 eloquence he exclaimed : " Caesar had his Brutus, Charles 
 I. his Cromwell, and George III. " — " Treason ! trea- Uaj 
 son ! " shouted the Speaker, and a few others joined him 
 in the cry. Henry fixed his eye upon the Speaker, and 
 in the tone and emphasis peculiar to himself, continued, 
 " may profit by their example. If that be treason, make 
 the most of it." The resolutions passed, but the next 
 morning, in Henry's absence, the timid in the Assembly 
 rescinded the last, and modified the others. The governor 
 immediately dissolved the house for this free expression of 
 opinion. Meantime, a manuscript copy of the resolutions 
 was on its way to Philadelphia, where they were speedily 
 printed and sent throughout the country. They raised 
 the drooping spirits of the people, who determined to neu- 
 tralize the law — they would never use the stamps. 
 
 The Legislature of Massachusetts resolved that the 
 courts should conduct their business without their use. 
 Colden, the royalist governor of New York, thought 
 " that the presence of a battalion would prevent mis- 
 chief : " but the council suggested, " it would be more 
 
334 history or the American people. 
 
 C x£f- safe for the government to show a confidence in the peo- 
 
 . pie." " I will cram the stamps down their throats with 
 
 1765. my sword/' said an officer. The churchmen preached 
 obedience to the king — the " Lord's anointed." William 
 Livingston answered, " The people are the ! Lord's anoint- 
 ed/ though named ' mob and rabble * — the people are the 
 darling of Providence." 
 
 Colonel Barre, in his famous speech, characterized 
 those in America who opposed British oppression, as 
 " Sons of Liberty." He read them rightly ; Sons of Lib- 
 erty they were, and destined to be free ; they felt it ; they 
 adopted the name, it became the watchword under which 
 they rallied. Associations called by this name sprang up 
 as if by magic, and in a few weeks spread from Massachu- 
 setts to Maryland. They would neither use stamps nor 
 permit the distributers to remain in office. 
 
 One morning the famous Liberty Tree in Boston was 
 found decorated with the effigies of some of the friends of 
 the English ministry. The mob compelled Oliver, the 
 secretary of the colony, who had been appointed stamp 
 distributer, to resign, and promise that he would not aid 
 
 Aug. in their distribution. They also attacked the houses of 
 some of the other officials. The patriots protested against 
 these lawless proceedings. Five hundred Connecticut 
 farmers came into Wethersfield and compelled Jared 
 Ingersol, the stamp officer for that colony, to resign, and 
 then take off his hat and give three cheers for " Liberty, 
 Property, and no stamps." Such was the feeling, and 
 
 Nov guch the result, that when the day came, on which the 
 law was to go into effect, not one stamp officer could be 
 found — all had resigned. 
 
 June. The General Court of Massachusetts issued a circular 
 
 in June, inviting all the colonies to send delegates to a 
 convention or Congress, to be held at New York, on the 
 first Tuesday of the following October. Accordingly, od 
 
THE CONGRESS IN SESSION. 335 
 
 the day named delegates from nine of the colonies met at c *^- 
 the place appointed. , 
 
 The idea of a union of the colonies dates as far back 1765. 
 as the days of William Perm, who was the first to suggest 
 it ; but now the question was discussed by the various 
 committees of correspondence. At a convention which 
 met at Albany eleven years before this, Benjamin Frank- 
 lin had proposed a plan of union. This was adopted and 
 laid before the Assemblies of the colonies, and the Board 
 of Trade, for ratification. It met with a singular fate. 
 The Assemblies rejected it, because it was too aristocratic, 
 and the Board of Trade because it was too democratic. 
 
 The Congress met and spent three weeks in delibera- Ot 
 tion. They drew up a Declaration of Rights, a Memorial 
 to both Houses of Parliament, and a Petition to the king. 
 They claimed the right of being taxed only by their own 
 representatives, premising, that because of the distance, 
 and for other reasons, they could not be represented in the 
 House of Commons, but in their own Assemblies. These 
 documents were signed by nearly all the delegates, and 
 transmitted to England. The colonial Assemblies, at 
 their earliest days of meeting, gave to these proceedings 
 of the Congress their cordial approval. Thus the Union 
 was consummated, by which the colonies " became as a 
 bundle of sticks which could neither be bent nor broken." 
 While the Congress was in session, a ship with stamps on 
 board made its appearance in the bay. Placards were 
 posted throughout the city, threatening those who should 
 attempt to use them. " I am resolved to have the stamps 
 distributed," said C olden, the governor. " Let us see 
 who will dare to put the act into execution," said the 
 Sons of Liberty. 
 
 On the last day of October all the royal governors, 
 except the governor of Ehode Island, took the oath to 
 carry into execution the Stamp Act. On the next day the 
 law was to go into effect. But not a stamp was to be 
 
336 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, seen ; instead, in every colony the bells were tolled, and 
 1 the flags lowered to half-mast — indications that the pas- 
 
 1765. sage of this act was regarded as " the funeral of liberty." 
 
 The merchants of New York, Boston, and Philadel- 
 phia, agreed to send no orders to England for merchan- 
 dise, to countermand those already sent, and to receive no 
 goods on commission till the act was repealed. They were 
 sustained by the people, who pledged themselves not to use 
 the products of English manufacturers, but to encourage 
 their own. Circulars were sent throughout the land in- 
 viting to harmonious action ; these were responded to 
 with a hearty good-will. Luxuries were dispensed with, 
 and homespun was more honorable than ever. 
 
 The infatuated ministry, in view of this opposition, 
 resolved to modify, not to repeal the law. It would de- 
 tract from their dignity, to comply with the request of the 
 colonists. " Sooner," said one of them, " than make our 
 colonies our allies, I would wish to see them returned to 
 their primitive deserts." 
 
 1766. Infirm health had compelled Pitt to retire from active 
 life. " My resolution is taken," said he, " and if I can 
 crawl or be carried to London, I will deliver my mind and 
 heart upon the state of America." When accused by 
 Grenville of exciting sedition, " Sir," said he in reply, 
 " I have been charged with giving birth to sedition in 
 America. Sorry I am to have the liberty of speech in 
 this house imputed as a crime. But the imputation will 
 not deter me ; it is a liberty I mean to exercise. The 
 gentleman tells us that America is obstinate ; that Amer- 
 ica is almost in rebellion. I rejoice that America has re- 
 sisted." The sentiment startled the house ; he continued : 
 " If they had submitted, they would have voluntarily be- 
 come slaves. They have been driven to madness by injus- 
 tice. My opinion is, that the Stamp Act should be repealed, 
 absolutely, totally, immediately." The celebrated Edmund 
 
THE STAMP ACT REPEALED — REJOICINGS. 337 
 
 Burke, then a young man rising into notice, advocated the chap 
 repeal with great eloquence. , 
 
 The House of Commons wished to inquire still further 1766. 
 of the temper of the Americans before taking the vote. 
 They accordingly called witnesses to their bar, among 
 whom was Benjamin Franklin. His knowledge was the 
 most perfect, and his testimony had the greatest effect 
 upon theii minds. He said the colonists could not pay 
 for the stamps for want of gold and silver ; that they had 
 borne more than their share of expense in the last war, and 
 that they were laboring under debts contracted by it ; 
 that they would soon supply themselves with domestic 
 manufactures ; that they had been well disposed toward 
 the mother country, but recent laws were lessening their 
 affection, and soon all commerce would be broken up, un- 
 less those laws were repealed ; and finally,' that they never 
 would submit to taxes imposed by those who had no au- 
 thority. The vote was taken, and the Stamp Act was Mar. 
 repealed ; not because it was unjust, but because it could 
 not be enforced. The people of the English commercial 
 cities manifested their joy ; bonfires were lighted, the ships 
 displayed their gayest colors, and the city of London itself 
 was illuminated. Expresses were sent to the seaports, 
 that the news might reach America as soon as possible. 
 
 The rejoicings in the colonies were equally as great. 
 In Boston, the bell nearest to the Liberty Tree was the 
 first to ring ; soon gay flags and banners were flying from 
 the shipping, from private dwellings, and from the steeples 
 of the meeting-houses. Amidst the joy, the unfortunate 
 were not forgotten, and those immured in the debtor's 
 prison, were released by the contributions of their friends. 
 The ministers, from their pulpits, offered thanksgiving in 
 the name of the whole people, and the associations against 
 importing merchandise from England were dissolved. 
 New York, Virginia, and Maryland, each voted a statue 
 to Pitt, who became more than ever a popular idoL 
 
338 
 
 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 C xxv > ' * n *** e m ^ t °f tnese troubles the cause of education 
 
 1 and religion was not forgotten. The Eev. Eleazar Whee- 
 
 1766. lock established at Lebanon, in Connecticut, a school to 
 educate Indian boys, and train them as teachers for their 
 own race. Success attended the effort. A grant of forty- 
 four thousand acres of land induced him to remove the 
 school to Hanover, New Hampshire. Under the name of 
 Dartmouth, a charter as a college was granted it, by 
 1769 Wentworth, the governor. The Earl of Dartmouth, a 
 Methodist, a friend of John Wesley, aided it, was one of 
 its trustees, and took charge of the funds contributed for 
 it in England — hence the name. 
 
 The establishment of this institution was one of the 
 effects of the Great KevivaL In the midst of the native 
 forest of pines the work was commenced. The principal 
 and his students dwelt in log-cabins, built by their own 
 hands. 
 
OHAPTBE XXVI. 
 
 CAUSES WHICH LED TO THE REVOLUTION— CONTINUED. 
 
 The English Ministry determine to obtain a Revenue. — Massachusetts invites 
 to harmonious Action. — The Romney and the Sloop Liberty. — A Brit- 
 ish Regiment at Boston. — Collision with the Citizens. — Articles of Asso- 
 ciation proposed by Washington. — The Tax upon Tea. — Whigs and 
 Tories. — The Gaspe captured. — The King's Maxim. — The Resolutions 
 not to receive the Tea. — Tea thrown into Boston Harbor. — Its Recep- 
 tion at other Places. — More oppressive Laws passed, by Parliament. — 
 Aid sent to Boston. — Gage's Difficulties. — Alexander Hamilton. — The 
 Old Continental Congress. — The Organization ; the first Prayer. — The 
 " Declaration of Rights." — The " American Association." — The Papers 
 issued by the Congress. — The Views of Pitt in relation to them. 
 
 Lord Grenville, the head of the ministry, was dismissed, |^ap 
 and the Marquis of KocMngham took his place. This , 
 
 ministry soon gave way, and another was appointed by 1756. 
 the king, at the head of which was placed Pitt, who, in 
 the mean time, had been created Earl of Chatham. 
 
 The following year, daring Pitt's absence, Charles 
 Townshend, his Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced 
 that he intended, at all risks, to derive a revenue from J^ 
 America, by imposing a duty upon certain articles, which 
 the colonists received from abroad, such as wine, oil, 
 paints, glass, paper, and lead colors, and especially upon 
 tea, as they obtained it cheaper from Dutch smugglers 
 than the English themselves. It was suggested to him 
 to withdraw the army, and there would be no need of a 
 
340 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap. tax. " I will hear nothing on the subject," said he ; u it 
 XXVL is absolutely necessary to keep an army there." 
 jygif. The colonists were startled by this news. They now 
 
 remembered the fatal reservation in the repeal of the 
 Stamp Act, that Parliament had the absolute right to tax 
 them. " We will form a universal combination to eat 
 nothing, to drink nothing, and wear nothing, imported 
 from England," passed as a watchword from one colony 
 to another, and very soon the non-importation associations 
 were again in vigor. " Courage, Americans ; liberty, relig- 
 ion, and science are on the wing to th se shores. The 
 finger of God points out a mighty empire to your sons," 
 said one of the lawyers of New York. " Send over an 
 army and fleet, and reduce the dogs to reason," wrote one 
 of the royal governors to the ministry. 
 
 Suddenly the Eomney, a man-of-war, appeared in the 
 harbor of Boston. The question soon arose, Why is a 
 vessel of war sent to our harbor ? The people had resisted 
 no law ; they had only respectfully petitioned for redress, 
 and resolved to dispense with the use of British goods. 
 Since the arrival of the Komney, the haughty manner of 
 the Commissioners of Customs toward the people had be- 
 come intolerable. The Komney frequently impressed the 
 New England seamen as they came into the harbor. One 
 man thus impressed was forcibly rescued by his compan- 
 ions. These and similar outrages excited the bitterest 
 animosity between the royal officials and the people. 
 
 The Massachusetts Assembly issued a circular to the 
 other Colonial Assemblies, inviting to harmonious action 
 in obtaining redress. A few months afterward the minis- 
 1768. try sent peremptory orders to the Assembly to rescind 
 June, their circular. Through the influence of Otis and Samuel 
 Adams, the Assembly refused to comply with the arbitrary 
 demand, but instead intimated that Parliament ought to 
 repeal their offensive laws. Meantime the other Colonial 
 Assemblies received the circular favorably, and also en- 
 
A BRITISH REGIMENT STATIONED IN BOSTON. 341 
 
 couraged Massachusetts in her resistance to tyranny and chap 
 injustice. 
 
 At this crisis, under the pretence that she had made 1768. 
 a false entry, the sloop Liberty, belonging to John Han- 
 cock, one of the prominent leaders, was seized, and towed 
 under the guns of the Romney. She was laden with Ma- 
 deira wine, on which duties were demanded. The news 
 soon spread, and a crowd collected, the more violent of 
 whom attacked the houses of the Commissioners of Cus- 
 toms, who were forced to fly for safety to Castle William 
 in the harbor. Of these outbreaks of a few ignorant per- 
 sons, the most exaggerated accounts were sent to Eng- 
 land, and there it was resolved to send more soldiers, and 
 make Massachusetts submit as a conquered country. Ven- 
 geance was to be especially taken on " the insolent town 
 of Boston." As the Parliament had determined to send 
 troops to the colonies, Bernard, the governor, requested 
 Colonel Gage to bring a regiment from Halifax to Boston. 
 On a quiet Sabbath, these troops were landed under the g^ 
 cover of the guns of their vessels, their colors flying, 
 drums beating, and bayonets fixed, as if they had taken 
 possession of an enemy's town. Neither the leaders of 
 the people, nor the people themselves, were intimidated 
 by this military demonstration. According to law, troops 
 could be lodged in Boston, only when the barracks at the 
 forts in the harbor were full. The Assembly refused the 
 soldiers quarters, and the food and other necessaries which 
 had been demanded. The royalists gravely thought the 
 Bostonians " had come within a hair's-breadth of commit- 
 ting treason." Gage wrote, " It is of no use to argue in 
 this country, where every man studies law." He would 
 enforce obedience without delay. 
 
 Boston was held as a conquered town ; sentinels were 
 placed at the corners of the streets, and citizens, when 
 passing to their ordinary business, were challenged ; even 
 the sacred hours of the Sabbath were not free from the 
 
342 HISTOKY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, din of drams. A collision finally took place, between a 
 
 1 citizen and a soldier. This led to an affray between the 
 
 1770. soldiers and some rope-makers. A few evenings afterward 
 2™ a sentinel was assaulted ; soldiers were sent to his aid, 
 and they were stoned by the mob. At length a soldier 
 fired upon their assailants ; immediately six of his com- 
 panions fired also. Three persons were killed and five 
 wounded. The town was thrown into a state of great ex- 
 citement ; in an hour's time the alarm bells had brought 
 thousands into the streets. The multitude was pacified, 
 only for the time, by the assurance of Hutchinson, who 
 was now governor, that in the morning justice should be 
 done. The next morning the people demanded that the 
 troops should be removed from the town to Castle Wil- 
 liam ; and that Captain Preston, who, it was said, had 
 commanded his soldiers to fire, should be tried for murder. 
 Both these requisitions were complied with. Captain 
 Preston and six of his men were arraigned for trial. John 
 Adams and Josiah Quincy, both popular leaders, volun- 
 teered to defend them. They were acquitted by the jury 
 of murder, but two of the soldiers were found guilty of 
 manslaughter. 
 
 The result of this trial had a good effect in England. 
 Contrary to the slanders of their enemies, it showed that 
 the Bostonians, in the midst of popular excitement, were 
 actuated by principles of justice. Those citizens who had 
 been thus killed were regarded in the colonies as martyrs 
 of liberty. 
 
 The Virginia Assembly passed resolutions as " bad as 
 those of Massachusetts." The next day, the governor, 
 Lord Boutetourte, dissolved the house for passing " the 
 L769 abominable resolves'." The members immediately held a 
 May. meeting, at which Washington presented the resolutions, 
 drawn up by himself and his friend George Mason. They 
 were a draft of articles of association, not to import from 
 Great Britain merchandise that was taxed. " Such was 
 
THE KING INSISTS ON TAXING TEA. 343 
 
 their zeal against the slave-trade, they made a special Oj|AP, 
 
 covenant with one another not to import any slaves, nor 
 
 purchase any imported." To these resolutions were signed 1769 
 the names of Patrick Henry, Washington, Jefferson, Kich- 
 ard Henry Lee, and, indeed, of all the members of the 
 Assembly. Then they were sent throughout the colony 
 for the signature of every man in it. 
 
 The non-importation associations produced their effect, j?^ 
 and Lord North, who was now prime minister, proposed 
 to remove all the duties except that on tea. That was 
 retained at the express command of the king, whose maxim 
 was, " that there should be always one tax, at least, to 
 keep up the right of taxing." This removed part of the 
 difficulty, for which the colonists were thankful ; but they 
 were still united in their determination not to import tea. 
 For these concessions they were indebted to the clamors 
 of those English merchants whose trade had been injured. 
 For a year there was an apparent lull in the storm of 
 popular feeling. 
 
 Governor Hutchinson issued a proclamation for a day 
 of thanksgiving ; this he required the ministers to read 
 from their pulpits on the following Sabbath. He thought 
 to entrap them, by inserting a clause acknowledging grat- 
 itude, " that civil and religious liberty were continued," 
 and " trade encouraged." But he sadly mistook the men. 
 The ministers, with the exception of one, whose church 
 the governor himself attended, refused to read the proc- 
 lamation, but, on the contrary, agreed to " implore of Al- 
 mighty God the restoration of lost liberties." 
 
 The contest had continued so long that party lines 
 began to be drawn. Those who favored the iemands of 
 the people, were called Whigs ; those who sympathized 
 with the government, were called Tories. These terms 
 had been long in use in England, the former to designate 
 the opposers of royalty ; the latter its supporters. 
 
 Scarcely a colony was exempt from outrages commit- 
 
Jan. 
 
 344 HISTOKY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, ted by those representing the royal authority. In New 
 
 York the people, on what is now the Park, then known as 
 
 1770. the Fields, erected a liberty-pole. They were accustomed 
 to assemble there and discuss the affairs of the colony. 
 On a certain night, a party of the soldiers stationed in 
 the fort cut down the pole. The people retaliated, and 
 frequent quarrels and collisions occurred. Though these 
 disturbances were not so violent as those in Massachusetts, 
 they had the effect of exciting in the people intense hatred 
 of the soldiers, as the tools of tyranny. 
 
 An armed vessel, the Gaspe, engaged in the revenue 
 service, took her position in Narraganset Bay, and in an 
 insulting and arbitrary manner enforced the customs. 
 Sometimes she wantonly compelled the passing vessels 
 and market boats to lower their colors as a token of re- 
 spect ; sometimes landed companies on the neighboring 
 islands, and carried off hogs and sheep, and other provi- 
 sions. The lieutenant in command was appealed to for his 
 authority in thus acting. He referred the committee to 
 the admiral, stationed at Boston. The admiral haughtily 
 answered : " The lieutenant is fulfilling bis duty ; if any 
 persons rescue a vessel from him, I will hang them as 
 pirates." The bold sailors and citizens matured their 
 1772. plans and executed them. The Providence packet, of a 
 "E* e light draught and a fast sailer, was passing up the bay. 
 The Gaspe hailed. The packet paid no attention, but 
 passed on. Immediately the Gaspe gave chase. The 
 packet designedly ran into shoal water near the shore ; 
 the Gaspe followed, and was soon aground, — the tide go- 
 ing out, left her fast. The following night a company of 
 men went down in, boats, boarded her, made prisoners of 
 the crew, and burned the vessel. A large reward was 
 offered for the perpetrators of this bold act ; though well 
 known, not one was betrayed. 
 
 The warehouses of the East India Company were rilled 
 with the " pernicious weed," and the company proposed 
 
A TAX IMPOSED ON TEA. 
 
 345 
 
 to pay all its duties in England, and then export it at ^^J- 
 their own risk. This would remove the difficulty, as there , 
 
 would then he no collections of the duty in American 1772. 
 ports. But the king was unwilling to sacrifice his maxim, 
 and Lord North seems to have been incapable of compre- 
 hending, that the Americans refused to pay the duty on 
 tea, not because it was great or small, but because they 
 looked upon a tax thus imposed as unjust. He therefore 
 virtually proposed to the company to pay three-fourths of 
 the duty in England ; to save the king's maxim, the gov- 
 ernment would collect the other fourth, or three pence on 
 a pound, in America. It was suggested to North, that 
 the Americans would not purchase the tea on those con- 
 ditions. He replied : " It is to no purpose the making 
 objections, for the king will have it so. The king means 
 to try the question with the Americans." *W* 
 
 Meantime public opinion in the colonies was becoming 
 more and more enlightened, and more and more decided. 
 " We must have a convention of all the colonies," said 
 Samuel Adams. And he sent forth circulars inviting 
 them to assert their rights, when there was a prospect of 
 success. He saw clearly that the king and Parliament 
 were resolved to see whether the Americans would or 
 would not acknowledge their supremacy. 
 
 When the conditions became known on which tea was 
 to be imported, the people took measures to prevent its 
 being either landed or sold. In Philadelphia they held a 
 meeting, and requested those to whom the tea was con- 
 signed " to resign their appointments." They also de- 
 nounced " as an enemy to his country," " whosoever shall 
 aid or abet in unloading, receiving, or vending the tea." 
 Similar meetings were held in Charleston and New York, 
 and similar resolutions were passed. 
 
 A ship, making a quick passage, arrived at Boston, 
 with intelligence that several vessels laden with tea had 
 sailed. Five thousand men immediately assembled to de- 
 
346 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 ci|iP. liberate on the course to be pursued. On motion ol 
 
 1 Samuel Adams, they unanimously resolved to send the 
 
 1773. tea back. " The only way to get rid of it," shouted 
 g J" some one in the crowd, " is to throw it overboard/' Those 
 to whom the tea had been consigned were invited to meet 
 at Liberty Tree, and resign their appointments. Two of 
 the consignees were sons of Governor Hutchinson, who, at 
 that time, was peculiarly odious on account of his double- 
 dealing. This had been brought to light by a number of 
 his letters to persons in England. These letters had 
 fallen into the hands of Dr. Franklin, who sent them to 
 the Speaker of the Massachusetts Assembly. They dis- 
 closed the fact, that nearly all the harsh measures directed 
 against the colony, had been suggested by Hutchinson. 
 
 According to law, a ship must unload within twenty 
 days, or be seized for non-payment of duties. 
 
 Presently a ship laden with tea came into the harbor. 
 By order of the committee, it was moored at a certain 
 wharf, and a company of twenty-five men volunteered to 
 guard it. The owner promised to take the cargo back, if 
 the governor would give his permit. Meantime came two 
 other vessels ; they were ordered to anchor beside the first. 
 The committee waited again upon the consignees, but 
 their answer was unsatisfactory. When the committee 
 made their report to the meeting, not a word was said ; 
 the assemblage silently broke up. The consignees were 
 ^Sy* terribly alarmed. That silence was ominous. Hutchin- 
 son's two sons fled to the fort, to the protection of the 
 regulars. The father went quietly out of town. His ob- 
 ject was to gain time till the twenty days should ex- 
 pire ; then the ships would pass into the hands of the 
 Commissioners of Custom^ and the tea would be safe for 
 his sons. 
 
 Another meeting of the people was protracted till after 
 dark ; on the morrow the twentieth day would expire, 
 and the tea would be placed beyond their reach. At 
 
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE TEA. 347 
 
 length the owner of the vessel returned from his mission chap. 
 to the governor, and reported that he would not give the , 
 permit for the ships to leave the port. " This meeting," 1773. 
 announced Samuel Adams, " can do nothing more to save 
 the country." 
 
 Immediately a shout, somewhat like a war-whoop, 
 arose from a band of forty or fifty " very dark complex- 
 ioned nlen, dressed like Mohawks," who were around the 
 door. This band moved hastily down to the wharf where 
 lay the tea ships. Placing a guard to protect them from Dec. 
 spies, they went on board and took out three hundred and 
 forty-two chests, broke them open, and poured the tea 
 into the water. In silence the crowd on shore witnessed 
 the affair ; when the work was accomplished, they quietly 
 retired to their homes. Paul Kevere set out immediately 
 to carry the news to New York and Philadelphia. 
 
 At New York, a tea ship was sent back with her j >e<J 
 cargo ; the captain was escorted out of the city by the 25. 
 Committee of Vigilance, with banners flying and a band 
 playing God save the king. Eighteen chests of tea, found 
 concealed on board another vessel, were thrown into the 
 dock. In Charleston tea was permitted to be landed, 
 but was stowed in damp cellars, where it spoiled. The 
 captain of the vessel bound for Philadelphia, when four 
 miles below the city, learned that the citizens would not 
 permit him to land his cargo ; he prudently returned to 
 England. At Annapolis, a ship and its cargo were both 
 burned ; the owner, to allay the excitement, himself ap- 
 plying the torch. 
 
 Meantime the various committees of correspondence 
 were making preparations to hold a congress composed of 
 representatives from all the colonies. Yet they said, 
 and no doubt honestly, that "their old good-will and 
 affection for the parent country were not totally lost" 
 1 ' If she returned to her former moderation and good hu- 
 mor, their affection would revive." 
 
348 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 cg|P. When it became known in England that the auda- 
 
 _' cious colonists would not even permit the tea to be landed, 
 
 1774. the king and ministry determined to make their powei 
 felt ; and especially to make an example of Boston. Ac- 
 cordingly a bill was introduced and passed in Parliament, 
 four to one, to close her port to all commerce, and to 
 transfer the seat of government to Salem. Though her 
 June, citizens offered remuneration for the tea destroyed, yet 
 Massachusetts must be punished ; made an example, to 
 deter other outbreaks. Parliament immediately passed a 
 series of laws which violated her charter and took away 
 her privileges. The Port Bill, it was complacently prophe- 
 sied, will make Boston submit ; she will yet come as a 
 penitent, and promise obedience to British laws. 
 
 Parliament went still further, and passed other laws ; 
 one for quartering soldiers, at the people's expense, on all 
 the colonies, and another in connection with it, by which 
 officers, who, in enforcing this particular law, should com- 
 mit acts of violence, were to be taken to England, and 
 tried there for the offence. This clause would encourage 
 arbitrary acts, and render military and official insolence 
 still more intolerable. To these was added another law, 
 known as the Quebec act ; it granted unusual concessions 
 to the Catholics of Canada — a stroke of policy, if war 
 should occur between the colonies and the mother country. 
 This act revived much of the old Protestant feeling latent 
 in the minds of the people. These laws, opposed by many 
 in Parliament as unnecessary and tyrannical, excited in 
 America a deep feeling of indignation against the English 
 government. 
 
 Everywhere Boston met with sympathy. The town of 
 Salem refused to accept the proffered boon of becoming 
 the seat of government at the expense of her neighbor, 
 and Marblehead offered her port, free of charge, to the 
 merchants of Boston. In that city great distress was ex- 
 perienced ; multitudes, who depended upon the daily 
 
BOSTON MEETS WITH SYMPATHY. 349 
 
 labor they obtained from commerce, were out of employ- chap . 
 
 ment, and their families suffered. The different colonies 1 
 
 sent to their aid provisions and money ; these were accom- 1774. 
 panied by words of encouragement, to stand firm in the 
 righteous cause. The ordinary necessaries of life came 
 from their neighbors of New England. " The patriotic 
 and generous people " of South Carolina sent them two 
 imndred barrels of rice, and promised eight hundred more, 
 but urged them " not to pay for an ounce of the tea." 
 In North Carolina " two thousand pounds were raised by 
 subscription " and sent. Virginia and Maryland vied 
 with each other in the good work. Washington presided 
 at a meeting of sympathizers, and subscribed himself fifty 
 pounds ; and even the farmers on the western frontiers of 
 the Old Dominion sent one hundred and thirty-seven bar- 
 rels of flour. 
 
 These patriots were determined " that the men of 
 Boston, who were deprived of their daily labor, should not 
 lose their daily bread, nor be compelled to change their 
 residence for want." ■ 
 
 Even the citizens of Quebec, French and English, by 
 joint effort sent them more than a thousand bushels of 
 wheat, while in London itself one hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand dollars were subscribed for their benefit. Notwith- 
 standing all this distress no riot or outbreak occurred 
 among the people. 
 
 General Gage was now Commander-in-chief of the 
 British army in America, and had been recently appointed 
 governor, in place of Hutchinson. He was sadly at a loss 
 how to manage the Bostonians. If they would only vio- 
 late the law, he could exercise his civil as well as his mili- 
 tary authority. They held meetings, from time to time, 
 and freely discussed their public affairs. They were under 
 
 1 Bancroft, vol. vii, p. 75. 
 
350 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 xxvl *^ e con * ro ^ °^ leaders w ho never lost their self-possession, 
 , nor transcended their constitutional rights. The govern- 
 
 1774. ment, thinking to avoid the evil, forhade them to hold such 
 meetings, after a certain day. They evaded the law " by 
 convoking the meetings before that day, and keeping them 
 alive." " Faneuil Hall was at times unable to hold them, 
 and they swarmed from that revolutionary hive into Old 
 South Church. The Liberty Tree became a rallying 
 place for any popular movement, and a flag hoisted on it 
 was saluted by all processions as the emblem of the popu- 
 lar cause." ' 
 
 During this time, the people throughout the colonies 
 held conventions and chose delegates to the General Con- 
 gress about to meet at Philadelphia. One of these meet- 
 ings, held in the " Fields M in New York, was addressed 
 by a youth of seventeen. The stripling charmed his hear- 
 ers by his fervor, as he grappled with the question and 
 presented with clearness the main points at issue. When 
 he closed, a whisper ran through the crowd, " It is a col- 
 legian." The youth was Alexander Hamilton, a native 
 of St. Kitts, of Scotch and French descent, his mother a 
 Huguenot. The son combined the caution of the Scot 
 with the vivacity of the Gaul. At an early age he lost 
 his mother, whose memory he cherished with the greatest 
 devotion. "A father's care he seems never to have 
 known." At the age of twelve he was thrown upon the 
 world to depend upon his own resources. He came to 
 Boston, and thence to New York, where he found means 
 to enter King's, since Columbia College. He had been 
 known to the people simply as the West Indian, who 
 walked under the trees in the college green, and uncon- 
 scious of the observation of others, talked to himself. 
 Henceforth a brilliant mind and untiring energies were to 
 be consecrated to the welfare of the land that had adopted 
 the orphan. 
 
 1 Washington Irvine. 
 
4/ 6L ^yo^j^T'^La^yy^^ 
 
THE OLD CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 351 
 
 When the time came for the meeting of the General ceap. 
 
 Congress, known as the Old Continental Congress, fifty- , 
 
 five delegates assembled in the Carpenters' Hall, in the 1774 
 city of Philadelphia. Every colony was represented, ex- g P 
 cept Georgia, Martin, the royalist governor, had prevented 
 delegates from being chosen. 
 
 Here for the first time assembled the most eminent 
 men of the colonies. They held in their hands, under the 
 Great Disposer of all things, the destinies of a people num- 
 bering nearly three millions. Here were names now sacred 
 in the memories of Americans. George Washington, 
 Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Edward and John 
 Rutledge, Gadsden, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Roger 
 Sherman, Philip Livingston, John Jay, William Living- 
 ston, B r. Withoropoo n, President of Princeton College, a 
 Scotch Presbyterian minister, who had come over some 
 years before, but was said to be " as high a son of liberty 
 as any man in America, ,; and others of lesser note, but 
 no less patriotism. They had corresponded with each 
 other, and exchanged views on the subject of their coun- 
 try's wrongs ; they had sympathized as brethren, though 
 many of them were to each other personally unknown. It 
 was a momentous crisis, and they felt the responsibility 
 of their position. 
 
 The House was organized by electing the aged Peyton 
 Randolph, of Virginia, Speaker, and Charles Thomson, of 
 Pennsylvania, Secretary. A native of Ireland, when a 
 youth he came to America. He was principal of the 
 Quaker High School in Philadelphia, and was proverbial 
 for his truth and honesty. 
 
 It was suggested that it would be becoming to open 
 their sessions with prayer. This proposition was- thought 
 by some to be inexpedient, since perhaps the delegates 
 could not all join in the same form of worship. At length 
 Samuel Adams, who was a strict Congregationalist, arose 
 and said : " I will willingly join in prayer with any gen- 
 
352 HISTOKY OF THE AMEEICA^ PEOPLE. 
 
 cg^P- tleman of piety and virtue, whatever may be his cloth 
 
 provided he is a friend of his country." On his motion, 
 
 1774. the Kev. Mr. Duche, a popular Episcopal clergyman, of 
 Philadelphia, was invited to officiate as chaplain. Mr. 
 Duche accepted the invitation. A rumor, in the mean 
 time, reached Philadelphia that General Gage had bom- 
 barded Boston. When the Congress assembled the next 
 morning, anxiety and sympathy were depicted on every 
 countenance. The rumor, though it proved to be false, 
 excited feelings of brotherhood, hitherto unknown. 
 
 The chaplain read the thirty-fifth psalm, and then, 
 carried away by his emotions, burst forth into an extem- 
 porary prayer to the Lord of Hosts to be their helper. 
 " It seemed," says John Adams, in a letter to his wife, 
 " as if Heaven had ordained that psalm to be read on that 
 morning. He prayed, in language eloquent and sublime, 
 for America, for the Congress, for the province of Massa- 
 chusetts Bay, and especially for the town of Boston. It 
 has had an excellent effect upon everybody here." 
 
 When the prayer was closed, a long and death-like 
 silence ensued, as if each one hesitated " to open a busi- 
 ness so momentous." At length Patrick Hemy slowly 
 arose, faltering at first, " as if borne down by the weight 
 of his subject ; " but the fires of his wonted eloquence be- 
 gan to glow, as he recited the colonial wrongs already 
 endured, and foretold those yet to come. " Kising, as he 
 advanced, with the grandeur of his subject, and glowing 
 at length with all the majesty and expectation of the 
 occasion, his speech seemed more than that of mortal 
 man." He inspired the entire Congress with his liberal 
 sentiments ; they found a response in every heart when 
 he exclaimed : " British oppression has effaced the boun- 
 daries of the several colonies ; the distinctions between 
 Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Eng- 
 enders, are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an 
 American." When he closed, the members were noi 
 
THE PAPERS ISSUED BY CONGRESS. 353 
 
 merely astonished at his matchless eloquence, but the £5£* 
 importance of the subject had overwhelmed them. 
 
 The Congress appointed a committee, which drew up 
 a " Declaration of Eights." In this they enumerated 
 their natural rights to the enjoyment of life, liberty, and 
 property ; as British subjects, they claimed to participate 
 in making their own laws ; in-imposing their own taxes ; 
 the right of trial by jury in the vicinage ; of holding pub- 
 lic meetings, and of petitioning for redress of grievances. 
 They protested against a standing army in the colonies 
 without their consent, and against eleven acts passed since' 
 the accession of George III., as violating the rights of the 
 colonies. It was added, "To these grievous acts and 
 measures Americans cannot submit." 
 
 To obtain redress they resolved to enter upon peacea- 
 ble measures. They agreed to form an "American Asso- 
 ciation," in whose articles they pledged themselves not to 
 trade with Great Britain or the West Indies, nor with 
 those engaged in the slave-trade — which was especially 
 denounced — not to use British goods or tea, and not to 
 trade with any colony which would refuse to join the asso- 
 ciation. Committees were to be appointed in the various 
 districts to see that these articles were strictly carried into 
 effect. 
 
 Elaborate papers were also issued, in which the views 
 of the Congress were set forth still more fully. A petition 
 to the king was written by John Dickinson, of Pennsylva- 
 nia ; he also wrote an Address to the people of Canada. 
 The Memorial to the people of the colonies was written 
 by Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, and the Address to 
 the people of Great Britain by John Jay, of New York. 
 
 Every measure was carefully discussed, and though on 
 some points there was much diversity of opinion, yet, as 
 Congress sat with closed doors, only the results of these 
 discussions went forth to the country, embodied in resolu- 
 
 1774, 
 
354 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, tions, and signed by the members. These papers attracted 
 
 1 the attention of thinking men in England. Said Chat- 
 
 1774. ham, "When your lordships look at the papers trans- 
 mitted to us from America ; when you consider their 
 decency, firmness, and wisdom, you cannot but respect 
 their cause, and wish to make it your own. For myself, 
 I must avow, and I have studied the master states of the 
 world, I know not the people, or senate, who, for solidity 
 of reason, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, 
 under such a complication of difficult circumstances, can 
 stand in preference to the delegates of America assembled 
 In General Congress at Philadelphia. The histories of 
 Greece and Kome give us nothing equal to it, and al] 
 attempts to impose servitude upon such a mighty conti- 
 nental nation, must be vain." 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 COMMENCEMENT OP THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 The Spirit of the People. — Gage alarmed. — The People seize jGuns and Am- 
 munition. — The Massachusetts Provincial Congress ; its Measures. — 
 Parliament passes the Restraining Bill. — Conflicts at Lexington and 
 Concord. — Volunteers fly to Arms, and beleaguer Boston. — Stark. — 
 Putnam. — Benedict Arnold. — Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain 
 Boys. — Capture of Ticonderoga. — Lord Dunmore in Virginia. — Patrick 
 Henry and the Independent Companies. — The News from Lexington 
 rouses a Spirit of Resistance. — The second Continental Congress ; it 
 takes decisive Measures ; adopts the Army before Boston, and ap- 
 points Washington Commander-in-chief. 
 
 While Congress was yet in session, affairs began to wear ^yR 
 
 a serious aspect in and around Boston. The people were , 
 
 practising military exercises. Every village and district 1774. 
 had its company of minute-men — men pledged to each 
 other to be ready for action at a minute's warning. Eng- 
 land soon furnished them an occasion. The ministry pro- 
 hibited the exportation of military stores to America, and 
 sent secret orders to the royal governors, to seize all the 
 arms and gunpowder in the magazines. Gage complied 
 with these orders. When it became known that he had 
 secretly sent a company of soldiers by night, who had 
 seized the powder in the arsenal at Charlestown, and con- 
 veyed it to Castle William, the minute-men assembled at 
 once. Their eagerness to go to the governor and compel 
 him to restore it to the arsenal could scarcely be restrained. 
 Ere long various rumors were rife in the country — that 
 Boston was to be attacked ; that the fleet was bombarding 
 
356 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, it • that the soldiers were shooting down the citizens in its 
 . streets. Thousands of the sturdy yeomanry of Massa- 
 
 1774. chusetts and Connecticut credited these rumors ; they 
 left their farms and their shops, and hastened to the res- 
 cue. Before they had advanced far they learned that the 
 reports were untrue. General Gage was alarmed hy this 
 significant movement ; he did not apprehend its full im- 
 port, neither did he rightly discern the signs of the times, 
 nor read the spirit of the people ; he was a soldier, and 
 understood the power that lies in soldiers and fortifications, 
 but knew nothing of the power of free principles. He 
 determined to fortify the neck which connects Boston with 
 the mainland, and place there a regiment, to cut off all 
 communication between the people in the country and 
 those in the town. 
 
 1774. Intelligence of these proceedings spread rapidly through 
 
 Dec - the land. The people took possession of the arsenal at 
 Charlestown, from which the powder had been removed. 
 At Portsmouth, in New Hampshire, a company, led by 
 John Sullivan, afterward a major-general, captured the 
 fort, and carried off one hundred barrels of powder and 
 some cannon. At Newport, in the absence of the men-of- 
 war, forty-four pieces of artillery were seized and conveyed 
 to Providence. In Connecticut, the Assembly enjoined 
 upon the towns to lay in a double supply of ammunition, 
 to mount their cannon, and to train the militia frequently. 
 This spirit was not confined to New England, but pre- 
 vailed in the middle and southern colonies, where the peo- 
 ple took energetic measures to put themselves in a posture 
 of defence. 
 
 In the midst o/ this commotion, Gage, thinking to 
 conciliate, summoned the Massachusetts Assembly to 
 
 Oct. meet at Salem ; but, alarmed at the spirit manifested at 
 c * the town meetings in the province, he countermanded the 
 order. The Assembly, however, met ; and as no one ap- 
 peared to administer the oaths, and open the session, the 
 
MASSACHUSETTS ADOPTS DECIDED MEASURES. 357 
 
 members adjourned to Concord, and there organized as a £!££ 
 
 Provincial Congress. They elected John Hancock Presi- 
 
 dent, and Benjamin Lincoln Secretary. Lincoln was a 1774, 
 farmer, and afterward became an efficient major-general 
 in the revolutionary army. This was the first provincial 
 Assembly organized independently of royal authority. 
 
 They sent an address to G-age, in which they com- 
 plained of the recent acts of Parliament ; of his own high- 
 handed measures ; of his fortifying Boston Neck, and 
 requested him to desist ; at the same time they protested 
 their loyalty to the king, and their desire for peace and 
 order. Gage replied that he was acting in self-defence, 
 and admonished them to desist from their own unlawful 
 proceedings. 
 
 The Assembly disregarded the admomtion, went quiet- 
 ly to work, appointed two committees, one of safety, and 
 the other of supplies, — the former was empowered to 
 call out the minute-men, when it was necessaiy, and the 
 latter to supply them with provisions of all kinds. They 
 then appointed two general officers — Artemas Ward, one 
 of the judges of the court, and Seth Pomeroy, a veteran 
 of threescore and ten, who had seen service in the French 
 war. They resolved to enlist twelve thousand minute- 
 men, and invited the other New England colonies to in- 
 crease the number to twenty thousand. The note of alarm 
 was everywhere heard ; preparations for defence were 
 everywhere apparent. In Virginia the militia companies 
 burnished their arms and practised their exercises. Wash- 
 ington, their highest military authority, was invited, and 
 often visited different parts of the country, to inspect these 
 volunteers on their review days. 
 
 The attention of all was now turned to the new Par- 177ft 
 liament about to assemble. To some extent, a change **?- 
 had come over the minds of many of the English people ; 
 the religious sympathies of the Dissenters were specially 
 enlisted in favor of the colonists. The papers issued by 
 
358 HISTOEY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, the Continental Congress had been published and circu- 
 
 . lated extensively in England, by the exertions of Franklin 
 
 1775. and others. Their plain, unvarnished statements of facts, 
 and their claim for the colonists to enjoy British as well 
 as natural rights, had elicited sympathy. 
 .- Chatham, though much enfeebled, hurried up to Lon- 
 don to plead once more for American rights. He brought 
 in a bill, which he hoped would remove the difficulties ; 
 but the House spurned every scheme of reconciliation 
 short of absolute submission on the part of the colonists. 
 Lord North, urged on by his colleagues in the ministry, 
 whom he had not strength of will to resist, went further 
 than ever. The Boston Port Bill had not accomplished 
 its design ; and now he introduced what was termed the 
 New England Kestraining Bill, which deprived the people 
 of those colonies of the privilege of fishing on the banks 
 of Newfoundland. He declared Massachusetts was in 
 rebellion, and the other colonies, by their associations, 
 were aiding and abetting her. Parliament pledged itself 
 to aid the king in maintaining his authority. 
 Mar. The next month came intelligence to England, that 
 
 the Colonial Assemblies had not only approved the reso- 
 lutions of the Continental Congress, but had determined 
 to support them. To punish them for this audacity, Par- 
 liament passed a second Kestraining Act, to apply to all 
 the colonies except New York, Delaware, and North Car- 
 olina. The object of this mark of favor signally failed ; 
 these colonies could not be bribed to desert their sisters. 
 
 General Gage had learned, by means of spies, that at 
 Concord, eighteen miles from Boston, the patriots had 
 collected ammunition and military stores. These he de- 
 termined to destroy. His preparations were made with 
 the greatest secrecy ; but the Sons of Liberty were vigi- 
 lant. Dr. Warren, one of the committee of safety, noticed 
 the unusual stir ; the collection of boats at certain points ; 
 
LEXINGTON. 
 
 359 
 
 tbnt the light infantry and grenadiers were taken off duty. £|^ 
 
 He sent information of what he had seen and suspected 
 
 to John Hancock and Samuel Adams, who were at Lex- 1775. 
 ington. It was rightly surmised that Concord was the 
 object of the intended expedition. It was to leave Boston 
 on the night of the eighteenth of April ; on that day 18 . 
 Gage issued orders forbidding any one to leave the town 
 after dark. Again the vigilance of Warren had antici- 
 pated him. Before his order could go into effect, Paul 
 Revere and William Dawes, two swift and trusty messen- 
 gers, were on the way to the country, by different routes. 
 A lantern held out from the steeple of the North Church — 
 the concerted signal to the patriots in Charlestown — 
 warned them that something unusual was going on. Mes- 
 sengers from that place hurried to rouse the country. 
 
 About ten o'clock, under cover of the darkness, eight 
 or nine hundred men, light infantry and grenadiers, em- 
 barked and crossed to Cambridge, and thence, with as 
 little noise as possible, took up their line of march. To 
 their surprise they heard in advance of them the tolling 
 of bells, and the firing of alarm guns ; evidently they 
 were discovered. Lieutenant-colonel Smith sent back to 
 Gage for reinforcements, and also ordered Major Pitcairn 
 to press forward, and seize the two bridges at Concord. 
 Pitcairn advanced rapidly and arrested every person he 
 met or overtook, but a countryman, who evaded him, 
 spurred on to Lexington, and gave the alarm. At dawn 
 of day Pitcairn's division reached that place. Seventy 
 or eighty minute-men, with some other persons, were on 
 the green. They were uncertain as to the object of the 
 British. It was thought they wished to arrest Hancock jj 
 and Adams, both of whom had left the place. Pitcairn 
 ordered his men to halt and load their muskets ; then 
 riding up he cried out, — " Disperse, you rebels." " Down 
 with your arms, you villains, and disperse," was echoed 
 by his officers. Confusion ensued ; random shots were 
 
360 HISTOKY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chaf fired on both sides ; then, by a volley from the British, 
 
 , seven men were killed and nine wounded. The Ameri- 
 
 *776. cans dispersed, and the British soldiers gave three cheers 
 for their victory ! By whom the first shot was fired is 
 uncertain. Each party charged it upon the other. Be 
 that as it may, here was commenced the eight years' war 
 of the revolution. 
 
 Presently Colonel Smith came up, and in half an hour 
 the entire body moved on toward Concord, six miles dis- 
 tant. Information of the firing at Lexington had already 
 reached that place. The minute-men were assembled on 
 the green near the church. About seven o'clock the ene- 
 my appeared, in two divisions. The minute-men retreated 
 across a bridge to the top of a neighboring hill. The 
 British placed a strong guard at the bridge, and spent 
 two hours in destroying what stores they could find, as the 
 greater part had been concealed, and pillaging some private 
 dwellings. Meantime the little company on the hill in- 
 creased rapidly, and soon it numbered about four hundred 
 and fifty. They advanced upon the guard, who fired upon 
 them, and skirmishing commenced. As the British began 
 to retreat they were followed by an irregular and galling 
 fire from behind trees, and fences, and houses. In vain 
 they sent flanking-parties to free themselves from their 
 assailants, who were increasing every minute ; the nimble 
 yeomanry would retire before these parties, only to appear 
 at a more favorable point. Colonel Smith was severely 
 wounded, and many of his men killed. He had consumed 
 more than two hours in retreating to Lexington ; there, 
 fortunately for him, Lord Percy, who insultingly had 
 marched out of Boston to the tune of Yankee Doodle, 
 met him with a thousand men and two field-pieces. The 
 fainting and exhausted troops were received in a hollow 
 square, where they rested, while the fresh soldiers kept the 
 indomitable " rebels " at bay with their field-pieces. 
 
 While the enemy were thus halting, General Heath, 
 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 
 
THE HASTY RETREAT VOLUNTEERS FLY TO ARMS. 361 
 
 whom the Massachusetts Provincial Congress had ap- chap 
 pointed to command the minute-men, came upon the , 
 
 ground, and also Dr. Warren. They directed the Ameri- 1775. 
 cans, whose attacks were now more in concert, but still 
 irregular. The British set fire to dwellings in Lexington, 
 then renewed their retreat, pillaging and burning as they 
 went. The Americans, greatly exasperated, harassed them 
 at every step. Lord Percy's condition became very criti- 
 cal. The country was roused ; new assailants poured in 
 from every side ; every moment he was more and more 
 encumbered by the number of the wounded, while his am- 
 munition was nearly exhausted. Had he been delayed an 
 hour longer, his retreat would have been cut off by a pow- 
 erful force from Marblehead and Salem. " If the retreat," 
 writes Washington, "had not been as precipitate as it 
 was — and God knows it could not well have been more 
 so — the ministerial troops must have surrendered, or been 
 totally cut off." In this affair, about eighty of the Ameri- 
 cans were killed or wounded, and of the British nearly 
 three hundred. 
 
 Intelligence of this conflict spread rapidly through the 
 country ; couriers hastened from colony to colony. In 
 New England, volunteers flew to arms, and in ten days 
 an irregular army completely blockaded the British in 
 Boston, by a line of encampments, that extended from 
 Koxbury to beyond Charlestown — a distance of nine miles. 
 The fire of other days glowed in the breasts of the old 
 campaigners of the French war, — none were more ready 
 than they. John Stark, whom we have seen leading his 
 men in that war, waited not for invitation nor commission ; 
 in ten minutes after he heard the news he was on his way. 
 Israel Putnam, another name associated with deeds of 
 daring in French and Indian warfare, was laboring in his 
 field when the courier passed along. He left the work, 
 mounted a horse, roused his neighbors, and, without 
 changing his clothes, hastened to Boston. Putnam was 
 
362 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 xxvFl a na *^ ve °^ Salem, Massachusetts, but for many years a 
 
 resident of Connecticut. Though now almost sixty years 
 
 1775. of age, he was buoyant in spirits as a boy, impulsive and 
 frank as he was fearless, and too generous to suspect 
 others of guile. 
 
 At this crisis, the Massachusetts Congress took ener- 
 getic measures. A regiment of artillery was formed, the 
 command of which was given to the aged Gridley, who, 
 thirty years before, commanded the artillery at the taking 
 of Louisburg. In the other colonies, the people were not 
 inactive ; they seized arms and ammunition wherever 
 found, repudiated the royal authority, and each for itself 
 called a Provincial Congress. 
 
 It was suggested to the Massachusetts Committee of 
 Safety to seize the two posts, Ticonderoga and Crown 
 Point, on Lake Champlain, and thus secure the u key of 
 Canada," as well as the cannon and other military stores ' 
 there deposited. Benedict Arnold, who commanded a 
 company in the camp beilre Boston, entered into the proj- 
 ect with great ardor. Arnold was a man of impulsive 
 temper, petulant, headstrong, and reckless of danger ; he 
 thirsted for an opportunity to distinguish himself. The 
 Committee gave him the commission of colonel, with au- 
 thority to raise men and accomplish the object. He 
 learned that others were engaged in the same enterprise, 
 and without waiting to enlist men, he set out immediately 
 for Vermont. There he met the redoubtable Ethan Al- 
 len — an original character — wno from his very singulari- 
 ties exerted a great influence over his companions. When 
 he harangued them, as he often did, " his style, though a 
 singular compound of local barbarisms, and scriptural 
 phrases, and oriental wildness, was highly animated and 
 forcible." The territory now known as the State of Ver- 
 mont, was claimed at this time by both New York and 
 New Hampshire ; but the inhabitants preferred to live 
 
10. 
 
 CAPTURE OF TICONDEROGA 363 
 
 onder the rule of the latter, and formed combinations to SvS 
 
 resist the authority of New York. Allen was the leader 
 
 of " the Green Mountain Boys," an association formed 1776. 
 for this purpose. 
 
 These Green Mountain Boys, numbering about two 
 hundred and seventy, with Allen at their head, were al- 
 ready on their way to Ticonderoga. Within a few miles 
 of the head of Lake Champlain, Arnold overtook them. 
 By virtue of his commission as colonel, he ordered Allen 
 to surrender the command into his hands. Allen refused, 
 nor would his men march under any other leader. It was 
 finally arranged that Arnold should go as a volunteer, re- 
 taining the rank of colonel without the command. The 
 following night the party reached Shoreham, a point on 
 the lake opposite Ticonderoga. At dawn of day, as they A£ay 
 had but few boats, only eighty-three men with Arnold 
 and Allen had crossed over. 
 
 They could delay no longer, lest they should be dis- 
 covered, and Allen proposed to move on at once to the 
 fort. Guided by a boy of the neighborhood, a brisk run 
 up the hill soon brought them to the entrance. They 
 secured the two sentinels, one of whom they compelled to 
 show the way to the quarters of Captain Delaplace, the 
 commandant. The vigorous knocks of Allen at his door 
 soon roused him. When he appeared, half-awake and 
 half-dressed, Allen flourished his sword, and called upon 
 him to surrender the fort. The commandant stammered 
 out, " By whose authority do you act ? " " In the name 
 of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress," 
 thundered Allen. This was a demonstration not to be 
 resisted. The cheers of Allen's men had already roused 
 the garrison, all of whom were taken prisoners. 
 
 Two days later Seth Warner, Allen's lieutenant, with 
 a detachment, took Crown Point. Arnold then obtained 
 boats, pushed on, and captured St. John's in the SoreL 
 Altogether, sixty prisoners were taken, and what was far 
 
364 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 char more important, two hundred cannons and a large supply 
 
 . of gunpowder. 
 
 1775. 
 
 Two days after the affair at Lexington, Lord Dunmore, 
 governor of Virginia, sent a company of marines, who, in 
 
 April the night, entered the capital, "Williamsburg, and carried 
 20, off from the public arsenal about twenty barrels of powder, 
 and conveyed them on board an armed schooner lying in 
 James river. When the inhabitants learned the fact the 
 next morning, they were greatly exasperated. Numbers 
 flew to arms with the intention of recovering the powder 
 By the persuasions of the leading citizens, and of the 
 council, they were restrained from acts of violence. 
 
 The Council, however, addressed a remonstrance to 
 the governor, who promised, verbally, to restore the pow- 
 der when it should be needed. The people deemed his 
 answer unsatisfactory. When intelligence came of the 
 conflict at Concord, it flashed upon their minds that the 
 seizure of the powder and munitions of war in the colonies 
 was concerted by the royal governors, in accordance with 
 instructions from the ministry. 
 2 y Patrick Henry invited the independent companies of 
 
 the county of Hanover to meet him at a certain place on 
 the second of May. They, seven hundred strong, obeyed 
 the call He made known why they were called together ; 
 spoke of the fight at Concord, and the occasion of it. 
 Then, at their head, he marched towards Williamsburg, 
 determined either to have the powder returned, or its 
 value in money. On their way a messenger from the 
 frightened governor met them, and tendered the money 
 for the full value of the powder. The money was after- 
 ward sent to Congress. * 
 
 The companies now disbanded, with the understanding 
 that when called upon, they were to be ready to march at 
 a minute's warning. Thus did Virginia emulate Massa- 
 chusetts. 
 
THE PEOPLE RISE IN OPPOSITION. 365 
 
 Dunniore, in the mean while, fled with his family on chap. 
 
 board a man-of-war, and thence issued one of his harmless 
 
 proclamations, in which he declared " a certain Patrick 1775. 
 Henry and his associates to be in rebellion." 
 
 A few days before he had said, " The whole country » 
 can easily be made a solitude ; " and he threatened to 
 declare freedom to the slaves, arm them, and lay Wil- 
 liamsburg in ashes 1 
 
 As the news from Lexington and Concord reached the 
 various portions of the colonies the people rose in opposi- 
 tion. The whigs were indignant at the outrage, and the 
 royalists censured Gage for his rash and harsh measures. 
 
 In New York, the Sons of Liberty, with Kobert Sears, 
 the sturdy mechanic, at their head, seized eighty thousand 
 pounds of flour, which was on board of sloops ready to be 
 taken to Boston for the king's troops ; they shut up the 
 custom-house, and forbade vessels to leave the harbor for 
 any colony or port which acknowledged British authority ; 
 they secured the arms and ammunition belonging to the 
 city, while the volunteers turned out and paraded the 
 streets. The General Committee was dilatory ; another 
 was chosen to act with more energy. An association was 
 formed whose members pledged themselves, "under all 
 ties of religion, honor, and love of country, to submit to 
 committees and to Congress, to withhold supplies from 
 the British troops, and, at the risk of lives and fortunes, 
 to repel every attempt at enforcing taxation by Parlia- 
 ment." 
 
 Similar was the spirit manifested in the Jerseys. In 
 Philadelphia, thousands of the citizens assembled and 
 resolved, " To associate for the purpose of defending with 
 arms, their lives, their property, and liberty." Thomas 
 Mifflin, the warlike young Quaker, urged them in his 
 speech, " not to be bold in declarations and cold in action." 
 Military companies were formed in the neighboring coun- 
 
366 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 char ties, as well as in the city, who armed themselves ana 
 
 daily practised their exercises. 
 
 177f . In Maryland, Eden, the royalist governor, in order tc 
 
 conciliate, gave np to the people the arms and ammunition 
 * of the province. 
 
 In Charleston, the people at once distributed the 
 twelve hundred stand of arms which they seized in the 
 royal arsenal, while the Provincial Congress, with Henry 
 Laurens, a Huguenot by descent, as their president, de- 
 clared themselves " ready to sacrifice their lives and for- 
 tunes to secure freedom and safety." The officers of the 
 militia threw up their commissions from the governor, and 
 declared themselves ready to submit to the authority of 
 Congress. Eegiments of infantry and rangers were imme- 
 diately raised. 
 
 Georgia, which had hitherto been lukewarm, now took 
 decided ground. The people broke into the royal maga- 
 zine, from which they took all the powder, five hundred 
 pounds. The committee wrote words of encouragement 
 and commendation to the people of Massachusetts, and 
 sent them rice and specie. 
 
 In North Carolina, as the news passed from place to 
 place, it awakened the spirit of resistance to tyranny. 
 The highlands along her western frontier were settled by 
 Presbyterians of Scotch-Irish descent, " who were said to 
 possess the impulsiveness of the Irishman with the dogged 
 resolution of the Covenanter." A county convention was 
 in session when the courier arrived. Fired with indigna- 
 tion, the delegates resolved to throw off " the authority 
 of the king and Parliament." Ephraim Brevard, " trained 
 in the college at Princeton," and afterward a martyr in 
 the cause, embodied their sentiments in resolutions, which 
 declared : " All laws and commissions, confirmed by or 
 derived from the authority of the king and Parliament to 
 
 lf ay . be annulled and vacated." To maintain their rights, they 
 also determined to form nine military companies, and tc 
 
THE SECOND CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 36> 
 
 frame laws for the internal government of the courtry. §^j[ 
 
 This was the famous Mecklenburg Declaration of Inde- 
 
 pendence. 1775. 
 
 Such was the spirit that pervaded the minds of the 
 entire people. Throughout the land free principles had 
 laid the train — the spark was applied at Lexington. 
 
 On the tenth of May the second Continental Congress Maj 
 commenced its session at Philadelphia. They organized 
 without changing the officers of the year before. In a 
 few days, however, Peyton Kandolph resigned the presi- 
 dency to return to Virginia and preside over the Assembly, 
 which had been called by the governor. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson was sent to supply his place as a 
 delegate, and John Hancock was elected president. Har- 
 rison, of Virginia, in conducting him to the chair, said : 
 u We will show Britain how much we value her pro- 
 scriptions." For it was well known that Hancock and 
 Samuel Adams were deemed rebels too great to be par- 
 doned. 
 
 Dr. FrankVin had returned only a few days before from 
 England, where he had been for some years in the capacity 
 of agent for some of the colonies. There his enlightened 
 statesmanship and far-seeing judgment had won the re- 
 spect of liberal-minded Englishmen. He was at once 
 chosen a delegate. Also, in addition to the members of 
 the first Congress, appeared George Clinton and Robert R. 
 Livingston, from New York. 
 
 The members were encouraged, for the measures of the 
 first Congress had been approved by the assemblies of all 
 the colonies. 
 
 The first General Congress met to protest and peti- 
 tion ; the second to assume authority and take decisive 
 measures. Then the door was open for reconciliation with 
 the mother country, now it was almost closed. The face 
 of affairs was changed ; blood had been wantonly shed, 
 
HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, and a beleaguering host of rustic soldiery were besieging 
 
 . the enemy. 
 
 1775. Congress was imbued with the spirit of the time. In 
 
 committee of the whole reports were called for on the 
 state of the country. These disposed of, they passed to 
 other matters ; reviewed the events of the last year ; inves- 
 tigated the causes which led to the conflicts at Lexington 
 and Concord. The timid proposed to memorialize Parlia- 
 ment once more. No ! argued John Adams, and many 
 others ; it is useless, we have been spurned from the 
 throne, and our petitions treated with contempt ; such a 
 memorial would embarrass our proceedings, and have no 
 influence upon Parliament. Yet another petition was, in 
 form, voted to the king, and while they denied any inten- 
 tion to cast off their allegiance, they proceeded to put the 
 colonies in a posture of defence. 
 
 They formed a " Federal Union," by whose provisions 
 each colony was to manage its own internal concerns ; but 
 all measures pertaining to the whole community, such as 
 treaties of peace or alliance, the regulation of commerce, 
 or declaration of war, came under the jurisdiction of Con- 
 gress. They recognized Him who holds in his hands the 
 destinies of nations. They issued a proclamation for a 
 day of solemn fasting and prayer. 
 
 Congress now assumed the authority of the central 
 power of the nation. They forbade persons, under any 
 circumstances, to furnish provisions to the British navy or 
 troops ; took measures to enlist an army and to build 
 fortifications, and to procure arms and ammunition. To 
 defray expenses, they issued " Bills of Credit," amount- 
 ing to two millions #of dollars, for whose redemption they 
 pledged the faith of the " United Colonies." In accord- 
 ance with the request of the Provincial Congress of Massa- 
 chusetts, they adopted the volunteers in the camp before 
 Boston, as the continental army. It remained to appoint 
 a Commander-in-chief. On this subject there were diver 
 
WASHINGTON CHOSEN COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. 369 
 
 sities of opinion. Some thought a New England army SS^f, 
 
 would prefer a New England commander ; others strove 
 
 to appoint a commander acceptable to all sections of the 1775 
 country. The members of Congress acknowledged the 
 military talents of Washington, and appreciated his lib- 
 eral views as a statesman. As chairman of the committee 
 on military affairs, he had suggested the majority of tbe 
 rules for the army, and of the measures for defence. At 
 this time came intimations in a private letter from Dr. 
 Warren to Samuel Adams, that many leading men in 
 Massachusetts desired his appointment as commander-in- 
 chief. 
 
 Patrick Henry, when asked, on his return home from 
 the first Congress, who of the members was the greatest 
 man, had replied, " If you speak of eloquence, Mr. Rut- 
 ledge, of South Carolina, is, by far, the greatest orator ; 
 but if you speak of solid information and sound judgment, 
 Colonel Washington is unquestionably the greatest man 
 on that floor." 
 
 John Adams took occasion to point out what, under 
 the present circumstances, should be the qualifications of 
 a commander-in-chief, and closed by remarking, that they 
 knew a man who had these qualifications — " a member of 
 this house from Virginia." He alluded to Washington. 
 A few days after, the army was regularly adopted, and 
 the salary of the commander-in-chief fixed at five hundred 
 dollars a month. That arranged, Mr. Johnson, of Mary- 
 land, nominated Washington for the office. The election 
 was by ballot, and he was unanimously chosen. The next Jane 
 day the president of Congress formally announced to him 16 
 his election. Washington rose in his seat and briefly ex- 
 pressed his gratitude for the unexpected honor, and his 
 devotion to the cause. Then he added, " I beg it may 
 be remembered by every gentleman in this room, that I 
 this day declare, with the utmost sincerity, I do not 
 
370 HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 
 
 chap, think myself equal to the- command I am honored 
 
 . with." Kefusing any pay, he continued, " I will keep an 
 
 i776. exact account of my expenses. Those, I doubt not, 
 they will discharge, and that is all I desire." Con- 
 gress resolved " to maintain and assist, and adhere to 
 'him with their lives and fortunes in the defence of 
 American liberty." 
 
 or- He 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
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*--'Jfr 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LIBRARY 
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