It has been my object in this small book to put into a handy form a short narrative of the History of the Thirteen Colonies. In the limited space at my command I have endeavoured to give as often as possible the actual words of contemporaries, hoping that the reader may thereby be tempted to search further for himself amongst the mass of documentary evidence which still needs so much careful study. I cannot send this book into the world without acknowledging my indebtedness to both the Beit Prof

It would be out of place in this small book to give in detail a history of all the discoveries which were made along the shores of North and South America at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries. As the main object is to depict briefly the political history of the Thirteen English Colonies on the North American seaboard, it will be unnecessary to say more than a few words about the discoverers whose enterprise and bravery made colonisation possible. With the Spanish,

The English settlers in America may be less romantic and less interesting figures than their Elizabethan predecessors, but they were undoubtedly fitter instruments for the specific work. The Elizabethan seamen had played their part, and men now arose who were to fulfil a greater destiny. The Gilberts and the Drakes were of a race which had ceased to be, and Fuller justly remarks "how God set up a generation of military men both by sea and land which began and expired with the reign of Queen Eliz

"Maryland is a province not commonly knowne in England, because the name of Virginia includes or clouds it, it is a Country wholy belonging to that honorable Gentleman the Lord Baltamore." [67] Such is the description of the colony that now comes before us, and at the time it was penned John Hammond, the writer, told the truth. The colony had arisen under rather peculiar circumstances, which neither resembled the foundation of Virginia nor the settlement of the Pilgrim Fathers. In 1632 Charles I

It has been customary to regard the members of the colony of Virginia as Cavaliers of the most ardent type, but, as has been shown, this is scarcely correct, and amongst the Virginians there were many who did not approve of either the actions of Laud or the dissimulation of Charles. In much the same way it would be erroneous to ascribe to the New England group a plebeian origin. The Virginian gentleman found his counterpart in the New England colonies of Plymouth and Massachusetts. It is, howeve

The early history of the group of colonies which is now to engage the attention is less interesting than that of either Virginia or Massachusetts. There is not the glamour of a first colony as in the case of Virginia; the men were not Pilgrim Fathers in the true sense as in Plymouth; the prosperity of Massachusetts, the rivalries of Maryland, and the Spanish danger in the Carolinas, are all wanting in this portion of New England. There is therefore not only a lack of romance, but there is too a

A new epoch in colonial history was reached when England adopted a warlike policy to obtain mastery in the West. During the Protectorate, England and Holland were for the first time engaged in desperate warfare. The numerous common interests that existed in the two countries, such as religion and republicanism, were of no avail to keep the peace. The war that brought such honour to Admiral Blake was not a war against a "natural enemy," but rather a contest between trade rivals using the same met

There are few examples in history of the possessions of an ardent Roman Catholic passing quietly and amicably into the hands of members of the Society of Friends, but the Quaker colonies stand pre-eminent as one instance of this exceptional circumstance. The Quakers were probably the most persecuted of all religious sects in North America, and yet by the irony of fate, one of the most thriving settlements owed its origin to them; its capital Philadelphia became the most important town of the Thi

"God sifted a whole nation that he might send choice grain over into this wilderness." [204] With regard to New England this statement was in part true, for the people of those northern colonies exhibited a remarkable homogeneity, and their leaders were men of a peculiarly lofty character. That this population grew with leaps and bounds during the first century of settlement is well attested by records. As early as 1643, Massachusetts had a population of 20,000; while Plymouth, Connecticut, and

The southern colonies in their geographical formation, their soil and climate, were of a uniform character; nor were there any decidedly marked religious differences. In the middle colonies this was by no means the case, but even here the style of life in such states as Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey had many points of resemblance. In all the colonies except Maryland and Virginia there was a heterogeneous population of English, Irish, Scots, Dutch, Huguenots, and Germans, but in New York

"The French empire in the New World has vanished, leaving behind it ineffaceable monuments of the grand political conception of which it formed part." [239] Frenchmen were amongst the earliest to be roused by the discoveries of Columbus, Cabot, and Vasco da Gama; but it was not until the sixth year of the sixteenth century that any real attempt at discovery was made. In that year, 1506, Denys of Harfleur sailed across the Atlantic, hoping to reach the East, but finding instead the great Gulf of

In a previous chapter reference has already been made to the fatality of having no form of union among the Thirteen Colonies. Every chance of concentration existed towards the end of the seventeenth century, for the colonies were contiguous, they lay in compact and continuous territory along the eastern seaboard, backed by the boundary of the Alleghanies. They were too, for the most part, inhabited by Englishmen, who may originally have been driven to emigrate for very different reasons, but who

"If we can remove the turbulent Gallics the seat of Empire might be transferred to America." [281] Such were the characteristically pompous words of John Adams, which nevertheless contained something of the spirit that animated a few of the thinking colonists in their final struggle with the power of France. The Conquest of Canada liberated the settlers of the Thirteen Colonies from a state of continuous and watchful alarm; but it also increased their attitude of resistance to interference on th

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