prefent century, a conteft concerning boundaries of American territory belonging to neither, occafioned a long and bloody war between France and England.

Though Queen Elizabeth and James the First denied the authority of the Pope of Rome to give away the country of infidels, yet they fo far adopted the fanciful diftinction between the rights of Heathens and the rights of Chriftians, as to make it the foundation of their respective grants. They freely gave away what did not belong to them with no other provifo, than that "the territories and districts fo granted, be not previously occupied and poffeffed by the subjects of any other Chriftian prince or state." The firft English patent which was given for the purpofe of colonizing the country discovered by the Cabots, was granted by Queen Elizabeth to Sir Humphry Gilbert, in 1578, but this proved abortive. In 1584, the licenced Walter Raleigh, "to fearch for Hea then lands not inhabited by Chriftian people," and granted to him in fee all the foil" within two hundred leagues of the places where his people should make their dwellings and abidings." Under his aufpices an inconfiderable colony took possession of a part of the American coast, which now forms North-Carolina. In honour of the Virgin Queen his fovereign, he gave to the whole country the name of Virginia. These first fettlers, and feveral others who followed them, were either deftroyed by the natives, removed by fucceeding navigators, or died without leaving any behind to tell their melancholy ftory, for they were never more heard of. No permanent fettlement was effected till the reign of James the First.

In the course of little more than a century, was the English NorthAmerican continent peopled and parcelled out into distinct governments. Little did the wisdom of the two preceding centuries foresee the confequences both good and evil, that were to refult to the old world from difcovering and colonizing the new. When we confider the immenfe floods of gold and filver which have flowed from it into Europe, the fubfequent increase of industry and population, the prodigious extenfion of commerce, manufactures, and navigation, and the influence of the whole on manners and arts, we see fuch an accumulation of good, as leads us to rank Columbus among the greateft benefactors of the human race: but when we view the injuftice done the natives, the extirpation of many of their numerous nations, whofe names are no more heard;-The havoc made among the first fettlers;-The flavery of the Africans, to which America has furnished the temptation; and the many long and bloody wars which it has occafioned, we behold fuch a crowd

of

of woes, as excites an apprehenfion, that the evil has outweighed the good.

In vain do we look among ancient nations for examples of colonies established on principles of policy, fimilar to thofe of the colonies of Great-Britain. England did not, like the republics of Greece, oblige her fons to form diftant communities in the wiles of the earth. Like Rome fhe did not give lands as a gratuity to foldiers, who became a military force for the defence of her frontiers. She did not, like Car thage, fubdue the neighbouring ftates, in order to acquire an exclufive right to their commerce. No conqueft was ever attempted over the Aborigines of America. Their right to the foil was difregarded, and their country looked upon as wafte, which was open to the occu pancy and ufe of other nations. It was confidered that fettlements might be there formed for the advantage of thofe who fhould migrate. thither, as well as of the Mother Country. The rights and interests of the native proprietors were, all this time, deemed of no account.

What was the extent of obligations by which colonies planted under these circumstances were bound to the Mother Country, is a fubject of nice difcuffion. Whether thefe arofe from nature and the conftitution, or from compact, is a queftion neceffarily connected with many others. While the friends of Union contended that the king of England had a property in the foil of America, by virtue of a right derived from prior discovery: and that his fubjects, by migrating from one part of his dominions to another, did not leffen their obligations to obey the fupreme power of the nation, it was inferred, that the emigrants to English America continued to owe the fame obedience to the king and parliament, as if they had never quitted the land of their nativity. But if as others contended, the Indians were the only lawful proprietors of the country in which their Creator had placed them, and they fold their right to emigrants who, as men, had a right to leave their native country, and as fubjects, had obtained chartered permiffion to do fo it follows from thefe premifes, that the obligations of the colonifts to their parent state must have refulted more from compact, and the profpect of reciprocal advantage, than from natural obligation. The lat ter opinions feem to have been adopted by feveral of the colonists, par ticularly in New-England. Sundry perfons of influence in that country always held, that birth was no neceflary caufe of fubjection, for that the subject of any prince or state had a natural right to remove to any other state or quarter of the globe, efpecially if deprived of liberty of confcience, and that, upon fuch removal, his fubjection ceafed.

The validity of charters about which the emigrants to America were univerfally anxious, refts upon the fame foundation. If the right of the fovereigns of England to the foil of America was ideal, and contrary to natural juftice, and if no one can give what is not his own, their charters were on feveral accounts a nullity. In the eye of reafon and philofophy, they could give no right to American territory. The only validity which fuch grants could have, was, that the grantees had from their fovereign a permiffion to depart from their native country, and negociate with the proprietors for the purchafe of the foil, and thereupon to acquire a power of jurifdiction fubject to his crown. Thefe were the opinions of many of the fettlers in New-England. They looked upon their charters as a voluntary compact between their fovereign and themfelves, by which they were bound neither to be fubject to, nor feek protection from any other prince, nor to make any laws repugnant to thofe of England: but did not confider them as inferring an obligation of obedience to a parliament, in which they were unreprefented. The profpects of advantage which the emigrants to America expected from the protection of their native fovereign, and the profpect of aggrandifement which their native fovereign expected from the extenfion of his empire, made the former very folicitous for charters, and the latter very ready to grant them. Neither reafoned clearly on their nature, nor well understood their extent. In less than eight years one thousand five hundred miles of the fea coaft were granted away, and fo little did they who gave, or they who accepted of charters, understand their own tranfa&tions, that in feveral cafes the fame ground was covered by contradictory grants, and with an abfurdity that can only be palliated by the ignorance of the parties, fome of the grants exended to the South Sea, over a country whofe breadth is yet unknown, and which to this day is unexplored.

Ideal as thefe charters were, they answered a temporary purpose. The Colonifts repofed confidence in them, and were excited to industry on their credit. They alfo deterred European powers from difturbing them, because, agreeable to the late law of nations, relative to the appropriation of newly discovered Heathen countries, they inferred the protection of the fovereign who gave them. They alfo oppofed a barrier to open and grofs encroachments of the mother country on the rights of the colonifts; a particular detail of thefe is not now neceflary. Some general remarks may, nevertheless, be made on the early periods of colonial hiftory, as they caft light on the late revolution. Long before the declaration of independence, several of the colonies on different occafions declared, that they ought not to be taxed but by their own provincial affemblies, and that they confidered fubjection to acts of a British Par

liament,

liament, in which they had no representation, as a grievance. It is allo worthy of being noted, that of the thirteen colonies, formed into ftates at the end of the war, no one (Georgia excepted) was fettled at the expence of government. Towards the fettlement of that fouthern frontier, confiderable fums had at different times been granted by par liament, but the twelve more northern provinces had been wholly fet. aled by private adventurers, without any advances from the national reafury. It does not appear, from exifting records, that any compen fation for their lands was ever made to the Aborigines of America by the crown or parliament of England; but policy, as well as justice, led the colonists to purchafe and pay for what they occupied. This was done in almost every fettlement, and they profpered moft, who by juf tice and kindness took the greatest pains to conciliate the good-will of the natives.

It is in vain to look for well-balanced conftitutions in the early periods of colonial hiftory. Till the revolution in the year 1688, a period fubfequent to the fettlement of the colonies, England herfelf can scarcely be faid to have had a fixed conftitution. At that eventful æra the line was first drawn between the privileges of fubjects, and the prerogativer of fovereigns. The legal and conftitutional history of the colonies, in their early periods, therefore, affords but little inftruction. It is fuf ficient in general to obferve, that in less than eighty years from the first permament English fettlement in North America; the two original patents granted to the Plymouth and London Companies were divided, and fubdivided, into twelve distinct and unconnected provinces, and in fifty years more a thirteenth, by the name of Georgia, was added to the fouthern extreme of previous establishments.

To each of thefe, after various changes, there was ultimately granted a form of government refembling, in its moft effential parts, as far as local circumftances would permit, that which was established in the parent state. A minute defcription of conftitutions, which no longer exift, would be both tedious and unprofitable. In general, it may be observed, that agreeably to the fpirit of the British conftitution, ample provifion was made for the liberties of the inhabitants. The prerogatives of royalty and dependence on the mother country, were but feebly in pressed on the colonial forms of government. In fome of the provinces the inhabitants chose their governors, and all other public officers, and their legislatures were under little or no controul. In others, the crown delegated most of its power to particular perfons, who were alfo invested with the property of the foil. In thofe which were most immediately dependent on the king, he exercifed no Ligher prerogatives over the

colonifa

colonists than over their fellow fubjects in England, and his power over the provincial legislative affemblies was not greater than what he was conftitutionally vefted with, over the House of Commons in the mother country. From the acquiefcence of the parent ftate, the fpirit of her conftitution, and daily experience, the colonists grew up in a belief, that their local affemblies ftood in the fame relation to them, as the parliament of Great Britain to the inhabitants of that ifland. The beRefits of legiflation were conferred on both, only through these conftitutional channels.

It is remarkable, that though the English poffeffions in America were far inferior in natural riches to thofe which fell to the lot of other Europeans, yet the fecurity of property and of liberty, derived from the English conftitution, gave them a confequence to which the colonies of other powers, though fettled at an earlier day, have not yet attained. The wife and liberal policy of England towards her colonies, during the first century and half, after their fettlement, had a confiderable influence in exalting them to this pre-eminence. She gave them full liberty to govern themselves by fuch laws as the local legiflatures thought neceffary, and left their trade open to every individual in her dominions. She also gave them the ampleft permiffion to pursue their respective interefts in fuch manner as they thought proper, and referved little for herself, but the benefit of their trade, and that of a political union under the fame head. The colonies, founded by other powers, experienced no fuch indulgencies. Portugal and Spain burdened theirs with many vexatious regulations, gave encouragement only to what was for their own intereft, and punished whatever had a contrary tendency. France and Holland did not adopt fuch oppreffive maxims, but were, in fact, not much less rigorous and coercive. They parted, as it were, with the propriety of their colonies to mercantile affociations, which fold to the colonists the commodities of Europe, at an enormous advance, and took the produce of their lands at a low price, and, at the fame time, difcouraged the growth of any more than they could difpole of, at exceffive profits. Thefe oppreffive regulations were followed with their natural confequence: the fettlements thus reftricted advanced but flowly in population and in wealth,

The English Colonies participated in that excellent form of government with which their parent ifle was blessed, and which has raised it to an admirable height of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures. After many ftruggles, it had been acknowledged to be effential to the conftitution of Great Britain, that the people could not be compelled to pay any taxes, nor be bound by any laws, but such as had been granted or VOL. I. enacted

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