tween the two countries would have been more likely to perpetuate their friendship. But as the Eaftern Provinces were the first, which were thickly fettled, and they did not for a long time cultivate an extensive trade with England, their defcendants fpeedily loft the fond attachment, which their forefathers felt to their Parent State. The bulk of the people in New-England knew little of the Mother Country, having only heard of her as a diftant kingdom, the rulers of which had, in the preceding century, perfecuted and banished their ancestors to the woods of America.

The distance of America from Great-Britain generated ideas in the minds of the Colonifts favourable to liberty. Three thoufand miles of ocean feparated them from the Mother Country. Seas rolled, and months paffed, between orders and their execution. In large governments the circulation of power is enfeebled at the extremities. This refults from the nature of things, and is the eternal law of extenfive or detached empire. Colonifts, growing up to maturity, at fuch an immenfe diftance from the feat of government, perceived the obligation of dependence much more feebly, than the inhabitants of the parent ifle, who not only faw, but daily felt, the fangs of power. The wide extent and nature of the country contributed to the fame effect. The natural feat of freedom is among high mountains and pathlefs deferts, fuch as abound in the wilds of America.

The religion of the Colonists alfo nurtured a love for liberty. They were chiefly Proteftants, and all Proteftantifm is founded on a ftrong claim to natural liberty, and the right of private judgment. A majority of them were of that clafs of men, who, in England, are called Diffenters. Their tenets being the Proteftantifm of the Proteftant religion, are hoftile to all interference of authority in matters of opinion, and predifpofe to a jealoufy for civil liberty. They who belonged to the Church of England were for the most part independents, as far as church government and hierarchy were concerned. They ufed the liturgy of that church, but were without bifhops, and were ftrangers to thofe fyttems, which make religion an engine of ftate. That policy, which unites the lowest curate with the greatest metropolitan, and connects both with the fovereign, was unknown among the Colonifts. Their religion was their own, and neither impofed by authority, nor made fubfervient to political purposes. Though there was a variety of fects, they all agreed in the communion of liberty, and all reprobated the courtly doctrines of paffive obedience, and non-refiftance. The fame difpofitions were fostered by the ufual modes of education in the Colonies. The fudy of law was common and fashionable, The infinity of difputes, in

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a new

a new and free country, made it lucrative, and multiplied its followers. No order of men has, in all ages, been more favourable to liberty, than lawyers. Where they are not won over to the fervice of government, they are formidable adverfaries to it. Profeffionally taught the rights of human nature, they keenly and quickly perceive every attack made on them. While others judge of bad principles by the actual grievances they occafion, lawyers difcover them at a diftance, and trace future mifchiefs from gilded innovations.

The reading of thofe Colonies who were inclined to books, generally favoured the cause of liberty. Large libraries were uncommon in the New World. Difquifitions on abftrufe fubjects, and curious researches into antiquity, did not accord with the genius of a people, fettled in an uncultivated country, where every furrounding object impelled to action, and little leifure was left for fpeculation. Their books were generally fmall in fize, and few in number: a great part of them confifted of those fashionable authors, who have defended the caufe of liberty. Cato's letters, the Independent Whig, and fuch productions, were common in one extreme of the Colonies, while in the other, hiftories of the Puritans kept alive the remembrance of the fufferings of their forefathers, and infpired a warm attachment, both to the civil and the religious rights of

human nature.

In the Southern Colonies, flavery nurtured a fpirit of liberty among the free inhabitants. All mafters of flaves who enjoy perfonal liberty will be both proud and jealous of their freedom. It is, in their opinion, not only an enjoyment, but a kind of rank and privilege. In them, the haughtiness of domination combines with the spirit of liberty. Nothing could more effectually animate the oppofition of a planter to the claims of Great-Britain, than a conviction that thofe claims in their extent degraded him to a degree of dependence on his fellow fubjects, equally humiliating with that which exifted between his flaves and himself.

The ftate of fociety in the Colonies favoured a fpirit of liberty and independence. Their inhabitants were all of one rank. Kings, nobles, and bishops, were unknown among them. From their first fettlements, the English provinces received impreffions favourable to democratic forms of government. Their dependent fituation forbad any inordinate ambition, among their native fons, and the humility of their fociety, abftracted as they were from the fplendour and amufements of the Old World, held forth few allurements to invite the refidence of fuch from the Mother Country as afpired to hereditary honours. In modern Europe, the remains of the feudal fyftem have occafioned an order of men fuperior to that of the commonalty, but, as few of that clas migrated

migrated to the Colonies, they were fettled with the yeomanry. Their inhabitants, unaccustomed to that diftinction of ranks, which the policy of Europe has established, were ftrongly impreffed with an opinion, that all men are by nature equal. They could not eafily be perfuaded that their grants of land, or their civil rights, flowed from the munificence of Princes. Many of them had never heard of Magna Charta, and those who knew the circumftances of the remarkable period of English hiftory, when that was obtained, did not reft their claims to liberty and property on the transactions of that important day. They looked up to Heaven as the fource of their rights, and claimed, not from the promifes of kings, but from the parent of the univerfe. The political creed of an American Colonift was fhort but fubftantial. He believed that God made all mankind originally equal: that he endowed them with the rights of life, property, and as much liberty as was confiftent with the rights of others. That he had beftowed on his vaft family of the human race, the earth for their fupport, and that all government was a political inftitution between men naturally equal, not for the aggrandizement of one, or a few, but for the general happiness of the whole community. Impreffed with fentiments of this kind, they grew up, from their earlieft infancy, with that confidence which is well calculated to infpire a love for liberty, and a prepoffeffion in favour of independence.

In confequence of the vast extent of vacant country, every Colonift was, or eafily might be, a freeholder. Settled on lands of his own, he was both farmer and landlord---producing all the neceffaries of life from his own grounds, he felt himself both free and independent. Each individual might hunt, fish, or fowl, without injury to his neighbours. Thefe immunities which, in old countries, are guarded by the fanction of penal laws, and monopolized by a few, are the common privileges of all in America. Colonists, growing up in the enjoyment of such rights, felt the restraint of law more feebly than they, who are educated in countries, where long habits have made submission familiar. The mind of man naturally relishes liberty---wherever from the extent of a new and unfettled country, fome abridgements thereof are useless, and others impracticable, this natural defire of freedom is ftrengthened, and the independent mind revolts at the idea of fubjection.

The Colonifts were also preferved from the contagion of minifterial influence by their diftance from the metropolis. Remote from the feat of power and corruption, they were not over-awed by the one, nor debauched by the other, Few were the means of detaching individuals from the intereft of the public. High offices were neither fufficiently numerous nor lucrative to purchase many adherents, and the most valuVOL. I.

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able

able of these were conferred on natives of Britain. Every man occupied that rank only, which his own induftry, or that of his near ancestors, had procured him. Each individual being cut off from all means of rifing to importance, but by his perfonal talents, was encouraged to make the most of thofe with which he was endowed. Profpects of this kind excited emulation, and produced an enterprifing laborious fet of men, not easily overcome by difficulties, and full of projects for bettering their condition.

The enervating opulence of Europe had not yet reached the colonists, They were deftitute of gold and filver, but abounded in the riches of nature. A fameness of circumftances and occupations created a great fenfe of equality, and difpofed them to union in any common caufe, from the fuccefs of which, they might expect to partake of equal advantages.

The Colonies were communities of separate independent individuals, under no general influence, but that of their perfonal feelings and opinions. They were not led by powerful families, nor by great officers in church or ftate. Refiding chiefly on lands of their own, and employed in the wholesome labours of the field, they were in a great measure strangers to luxury. Their wants were few, and among the great bulk of the people, for the most part, fupplied from their own grounds. Their enjoyments were neither far-fetched, nor dearly purchased, and were so moderate in their kind, as to leave both mind and body unimpaired. Inured from their early years to the toils of a country life, they dwelled in the midft of rural plenty. Unacquainted with ideal wants, they delighted in perfonal independence. Removed from the preffures of indigence, and the indulgence of affluence, their bodies were strong, and their minds vigorous.

The great bulk of the British colonifts were farmers, or planters, who were alfo proprietors of the foil. The merchants, mechanics, and ma nufacturers, taken collectively, did not amount to one fifteenth of the whole number of the inhabitants. While the cultivators of the foil depend on nothing but Heaven and their own industry, other claffes of men contract more or lefs of fervility, from depending on the caprice of their cuftomers. The excefs of the farmers over the collective numbers of all the other inhabitants, gave a cast of independence to the manners of the people, and diffufed the exalting fentiments, which have always predominated among those who are ́eultivators of their own grounds: thefe were farther promoted by their moderate circumstances, which deprived them of all fuperfluity for idlenefs, or effeminate indulgence,

The

The provincial conftitutions of the English colonies nurtured a fpirit of liberty. The king and government of Great Britain held no patronage in America, which could create a portion of attachment and influence, fufficient to counteract that fpirit in popular affemblies, which, when left to itself, ill brooks any authority that interferes with its own. The inhabitants of the colonies from the beginning, efpecially in New England, enjoyed a government which was but little short of being independent. They had not only the image, but the fubftance of the English conftitution. They chofe most of their magiftrates, and paid them all. They had in effect the fole direction of their internal government. The chief mark of their fubordination confifted in their making no laws repugnant to the laws of their mother country; in their fubmitting to have fuch laws as they made to be repealed by the king; and their obeying such restrictions as were laid on their trade by Parliament. The latter were often evaded, and with impunity. The other fmall checks were fcarcely felt, and for a long time were in no refpects injurious to their interests.

Under the fe favourable circumftances, colonies in the new world had advanced nearly to the magnitude of a nation, while the greatest part of Europe was almost wholly ignorant of their progrefs. Some arbitrary proceedings of governors, proprietary partialities, or democratical jealoufies, now and then interrupted the political calm which generally prevailed among them, but thefe and other occafional impediments of their profperity, for the moft part, foon fubfided. The circumstances of the country afforded but little fcope for the intrigues of politicians, or the turbulence of demagogues. The colonifts being but remotely affected by the bustlings of the old world, and having but few objects of ambition or contention among themselves, were absorbed in the ordinary cares of domeftic life, and for a long time exempted from a great proportion of thofe evils, which the governed too often experience from the paffions and follies of ftatefmen. But all this time they were rifing higher, and though not fenfible of it, growing to a greater degree of political confequence,

One of the first events which, as an evidence of their increasing importance, drew on the colonies a fhare of public attention, was the taking of Louisbourg, in the year 1745, from France, while that country was at war with Great Britain. This enterprife was projected by Governor Shirley, of Maffachusetts, and undertaken by the fole authority of the legislature of that colony. It was carried by only a fingle vote to make the attempt, but after the adoption of the meafure, there was an immediate union of all parties, and all were equally zealous in carrying it into execution. The expedition was committed to General 3 G 2 Pepperell,