THE SETTLEMENT OF GEORGIA AND THE PROGRESS OF THE STATES.
The settlement of Louisiana was for many years a series of unsuccessful
attempts. That of Georgia, though perhaps it cannot be called a success
from the commencement, furnishes that which is still better, a beautiful
chapter in the history of humanity.
At the period of which we are now writing, England acknowledged the
principle avowed by Locke and Shaftesbury in the Grand Model
Constitution of Carolina, that the protection of property was the end of
government; hence petty theft, whatever the incitement might be, was
punished by the gallows, and the jails were filled with small debtors,
whom the law condemned to life-long imprisonment. The hard and hapless
case of these unfortunate men attracted the attention of the benevolent,
and a commission to inquire into the state of the jails throughout the
kingdom was formed. Of this commission was James Oglethorpe, a member of
the British parliament, “a man of an heroic mind and a merciful
disposition, in the full activity of middle life,” at once a scholar and
a soldier. He had served in the British army, and under Prince Eugene,
was present at the siege of Belgrade; his most marked characteristic,
however, was that of active philanthropy, and as founder of a state, he
holds a distinguished place in American history beside William Penn and
the pilgrim fathers.
In 1728, Oglethorpe besought the interference of parliament on behalf of
the sufferings of those whose only crimes were misfortune and poverty;
nor did he rest until “from extreme misery he had restored to light and
freedom multitudes who, by long confinement for debt, were strangers and
helpless in the land of their birth.” His benevolence, however, did not
confine itself alone to these; he designed to provide an asylum also for
persecuted Protestants of all nations, who might, in the New World,
freely worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience. A
scheme of this kind could not lack advocates in England. The king,
George II., favoured the design; the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel in Foreign Parts lent it aid; and parliament advanced its objects
by a grant of £10,000. On the 9th of June, therefore, a charter was
granted to Oglethorpe and others, which constituted the country lying
between the Savannah and Altamaha and westward to the Pacific Ocean, the
province of Georgia. This country was to be held for twenty years, under
the guardianship of a corporation, “in trust for the poor.” The seal of
the corporation bore on one side a group of silk-worms at their labour
with the motto, _Non sibi, sed aliis_—not for themselves, but for
others—thereby expressive of the disinterested intention of the
originators, who refused to receive for their labours any temporal
advantage or emolument whatever. The reverse side represented the genius
of Georgia, with a cap of liberty on her head, a spear in one hand and a
horn of plenty in the other. The reported wealth and beauty of this land
of promise awoke the most brilliant hopes for the future.[33]
Oglethorpe sailed from England in November, 1732, with his little band
of liberated captives and oppressed Protestants, amounting in number to
about 120 persons, and after a voyage of fifty-seven days, reached
Charleston. Immediately after his arrival in the New World, he proceeded
up the Savannah river, and landed on a high bluff, called Yamacraw,
which he at once selected as the site of his capital, the Indians being
induced to give it up to the strangers through the agency of Mary
Musgrove, an Indian woman, who had married an English trader; and there
Savannah now stands. At the distance of half a mile dwelt the Yamacraws,
a tribe of Creek Indians, who, with their chief, Tomo-chichi, at their
head, sought alliance with the strangers. “Here is a little present,”
said the red man, stretching out before him a buffalo-hide, painted on
the inside with an eagle’s head and feathers; “the eagle’s feathers are
soft, and betoken love; the buffalo’s hide is warm, and betokens
protection. Therefore, love and protect our little families.”
Oglethorpe received with kindness these friendly demonstrations.
It was on the first day of February, when the little band of colonists
pitched their tents on the banks of the river. Oglethorpe’s tent stood
beneath four tall pine-trees, and for twelve months he had no other
shelter. In this beautiful region was the town of Savannah laid out,
according as it stands at the present day, with its regular streets and
large squares in each quarter of the town, whilst through the primeval
woods a road was formed to the ground which was to become a great
garden, intended as a nursery-ground for European fruits and the
wonderful natural products of America.
Such was the commencement of the commonwealth of Georgia. The province
became already, in its infancy, an asylum for the oppressed and
suffering, not only among the people of Great Britain, but in Europe
itself. The fame of this asylum in the wilderness rang through Europe.
The Moravian brethren, persecuted in their native land, received an
invitation from England of a free passage to Georgia for them and for
their children, provisions for a whole season, a grant of land to be
held free for ten years, with all the privileges and rites of native
English citizens, and the freedom to worship God in their own way. This
invitation they joyfully accepted.
On the last day of October, 1733, with their Bibles and hymnbooks, with
two covered wagons, in which were conveyed their aged and their little
children, and another wagon containing their worldly goods, the little
evangelical band set forth in the name of God, after prayers and
benedictions, on their long pilgrimage. They sailed up the stately
Rhine, between its vineyards and ruined castles, and thence forth upon
the great sea in the depth of winter. When they lost sight of land, and
the majesty of ocean was revealed to them, they burst forth into a hymn
of praise. When the sea was calm and the sun rose in his splendour, they
sang, “How beautiful is creation! how glorious the Creator!” “When the
wind was adverse, they put up prayers; when it changed, thanksgivings.
When they sailed smoothly with a favouring gale, they made holy
covenants, like Jacob of old; when the storm raged violently, they
lifted up their voices and sang amid the storm, for to love the Lord
Jesus gave great consolation.”
Thus they arrived at the shore of the New World. Oglethorpe met them at
Charleston and bade them welcome; and five days afterwards they pitched
their tents near Savannah. Their place of residence was to be yet
further up the country. Oglethorpe provided them with horses, and
accompanied them through the wilderness. By the aid of Indian guides and
blazed trees, they proceeded onward, till they found a suitable spot for
their settlement. It was on the banks of a little stream, and both were
called by them Ebenezer. Here they resolved to build their dwellings,
and to erect a column in token of the providence of God, which had
brought them safely to the ends of the earth.
The same year was the town of Augusta founded, which soon became a
favourite resort of the Indian trader. The fame of Oglethorpe extended
through the wilderness, and in May came the chiefs of the eight tribes
of the Musgogees, to make an alliance with him. Long-king, the tall old
civil chief of the Ocanos, was their spokesman.
“The Great Spirit, which dwells everywhere around us,” said he, “and
which gave breath to all men, has sent the Englishmen to instruct us!”
He then bade them welcome to the country south of the Savannah, as well
as to the cultivation of such lands as his people had not used; and, in
token of the sincerity of his words, he laid eight bundles of buckskins
at the feet of Oglethorpe. The chief of the Coweta tribe arose and said:
“We are come five-and-twenty days’ journey to see you. I have never
desired to go down to Charleston, but when I heard that you were come,
and that you were good men, I came down to you that I might hear good
things.”
A Cherokee appeared among the English. “Fear nothing,” said Oglethorpe,
“but speak freely.” “I always speak freely,” replied the mountain-chief;
“wherefore should I be afraid? I feared not when I was among enemies; I
am now among friends.” And the settlers and the Cherokees became
friends.
A Chocta chief, named Red-shoes, came the following year, and proposed
to trade. “We come from a great distance,” said he, “and we are a great
nation. The French built forts amongst us. We have long traded with
them, but they are poor in goods; we desire that a trade may be opened
between ourselves and you.”
The good faith which Oglethorpe kept in his transactions with the
Indians, his noble demeanour and bearing, and the sweetness of his
temper, won for him the confidence of the red men. He was pleased with
their simple manners and customs, and endeavoured to enlighten their
minds and to instruct them in the knowledge of that God whom they
ignorantly worshipped.
The laws which Oglethorpe framed for Georgia, forbade the introduction
both of intoxicating liquor and of slavery. “Slavery,” said he, “is
contrary to the Gospel, as well as to the fundamental law of England. We
will not permit a law which allows such horrid crimes.” And when later,
various of “the better class of people” endeavoured to introduce negro
slaves, Oglethorpe resolutely opposed it, and declared, that if slaves
were introduced into Georgia, he would no longer concern himself with
the colony. He continued steadfast, enforcing his determination by his
almost arbitrary power, although many of the planters, in the belief
that they could not successfully cultivate the land with white
labourers, threatened to leave the colony.
Oglethorpe continued to labour with unabated activity for the well-being
and prosperity of the province, extending and securing its boundaries,
establishing towns, and regulating the commonwealth. He visited the
evangelical brethren at Ebenezer, laid out the streets of their new
town, and praised their good management. Within a few years the product
of raw silk within this little settlement had increased to ten thousand
pounds annually; besides which, indigo had become a staple article of
traffic. They also opposed the introduction of negro slaves in the most
earnest manner, maintaining that the whites could labour equally well
under the sun of Georgia. Their religion united them with each other.
They settled their own disputes. Labour was with them worship, and
worship the business of their lives. They had peace and were happy.
From the Moravian towns Oglethorpe journeyed southward, passing through
narrow inland channels, the shores of which were covered with woods of
pine, evergreen oaks, and cedars, which grew down to the water’s edge,
and which resounded with the melody of birds. On St. Simon’s Island,
fire having cleared the grass from an old Indian field, the streets of
Frederica were laid out, and, amid the carolling of hundreds of birds, a
fort was constructed on a bluff commanding the river.
The Highlands of Scotland had already sent a company of bold
mountaineers, who sought for a home under Oglethorpe’s banner; and
Oglethorpe, attired in the highland costume, now sailed up the Altamaha,
to visit them at Darien, near the mouth of that river, where they had
located themselves.
In 1734, Oglethorpe, after about fifteen months’ residence in his
colony, made a voyage to England, taking with him Tomo-chichi and others
of the Creeks, to do homage at the English court, and to confirm his
report of the friendly relationship with the Indians. In 1736 he
returned, bringing with him 300 emigrants, whom he cared for like a
father. Reaching the shore, he ascended with his companions a rising
ground, not far from Tybee Island, where they all fell on their knees,
and returned thanks to God for having safely conducted them to Georgia.
Among these was a second company of Moravians, men who had “a faith
above fear,” and who in the simplicity of their lives seemed to revive
the primitive Christian communities where rank and state were unknown.
With this company came also John and Charles Wesley, Charles the
secretary to Oglethorpe, and both burning with a desire to become
apostles of Christ among the Indians, and to live in the New World a
life wholly and entirely consecrated to God. They desired to make
Georgia a religious colony. The Wesleys, however, found the sting as
well as the trail of the serpent in this religious garden of Eden, and
that through the guile of two young and fair women, one of whom early
compelled Charles to retire to England, whither he was sent ostensibly
as the bearer of despatches. The preaching of John excited the utmost
religious fervour, and balls were deserted to listen to his ministry;
but “a snare,” as he relates, “was laid to entrap him,” and he became
the lover of a young lady, the wooing of whom brought him only
embarrassment and vexation. He gave her up, but that did not end his
trouble; she married another, and the husband, on the plea of her
religious character being attacked, claimed damages at law to the amount
of £1,000. The jury returned a verdict in favour of the husband, and
Wesley, assisted by the good Moravians, prepared to flee to England.
Measures were taken to detain him; but as he himself records, he “saw
clearly that the hour was come, and as soon as evening prayer was over,
the tide serving, he shook the dust off his feet,” and left Georgia and
America for ever.
As Wesley landed in England, he encountered Whitfield just about to
embark for Georgia. The main purport of his visit was to establish there
an orphan-house, similar to that at Halle. The design was carried out,
the institution was founded in the neighbourhood of Savannah; but though
it continued to exist during his lifetime it languished and finally was
given up after his death. The permanent work which he carried out was
somewhat different. In order to collect funds for this orphan-house, he
commenced a tour through the colonies, producing wherever he went the
most extraordinary effects. At this time a religious reaction was taking
place in the New England states. The public mind, having rushed as it
were into latitudinarianism from the asceticism and sternness of the
rigid Puritan creed and life, now with that natural and necessary
reaction which follows every extreme, was going back to the religious
enthusiasm, of a former period. The preaching of Whitfield was a spark
which fell upon this inflammable material. Crowds followed him
everywhere; he preached, and the people, with cries and tears and
violent bodily contortions, believed that the Divine grace was born in
their souls. A “great revival” took place throughout New England; and
controversy, which in Connecticut lasted for nine years, raged between
the Old and New Lights.
“During these religious excitements,” says Hildreth, “the Baptists of
New England received a new impulse; the sect began largely to increase,
and ere long many of the New Light congregations joined the Baptist
church. In the middle and southern colonies, the Scotch and Irish
Presbyterians, who were being continually increased by additional
numbers from the mother-country, kindled into zeal by the preaching of
this modern apostle, became formidable rivals to the Episcopal church.”
“From this first visit of Whitfield,” continues the same author, “may be
dated that organised system of revivals and religious excitements which
to this day are in progress of development, and which are not without
results upon the moral and intellectual character of America.” Many
distinguished schools and colleges owe their establishment to the
religious fervor of that period.
[Illustration: WHITFIELD PREACHING.]
Whilst this excitement was going on in the New England colonies, New
York was the scene of a cruel and terrible delusion, which almost vied
in its horrors with the witch trials of Salem. New York at this time,
1741, contained between 7,000 and 8,000 inhabitants, 1,200 or 1,400 of
whom were blacks. The robbery of a house, and the occurrence of nine
fires in rapid succession, occasioned a kind of insane terror. The
magistrates having offered a reward, pardon and freedom to any slave who
would reveal the supposed incendiaries, two women of indifferent
character gave information of a plot among the negroes to burn the city,
murder the whites, and make one of their own party governor. Incredible
as the story was, it gained belief, and great numbers of slaves and
free-blacks were arrested. “The eight lawyers of the place assisted by
turns on behalf of the prosecutors; the prisoners, who had no counsel,
were tried and convicted on insufficient evidence; the lawyers vied with
each other in heaping abuse upon the unfortunate prisoners, and the
chief justice in passing sentence vied with the lawyers.”[34] Many
confessed to save their lives, and then appeared as witnesses against
others. Thirteen were burnt at the stake, eighteen were hanged, and
seventy-one transported.
When the general terror had a little subsided, and the public mind,
looking more coolly at the whole thing, considered the base character of
the informers and witnesses, the reality of the plot was doubted, and
the shame of blood-guiltiness rested upon the city.
The same year that Oglethorpe returned from England, he fortified the
colony in anticipation of war between England and Spain. For this
purpose forts were erected at Augusta, Darien, Frederica, Cumberland
Island, near the mouth of the St. Mary’s, and even as far south as St.
John’s river, all the territory north of that river being claimed for
England. This latter erection led to complaints from the Spanish
authorities at St. Augustine; hostilities were threatened; the fort at
the mouth of the St. John’s was therefore abandoned, and the St. Mary’s
river became from that time the established southern boundary of
Georgia.
Again, in 1737, Oglethorpe hastened to England to make there more
effectual preparations for the struggle, and returned with a commission
as brigadier-general, with a command extending over South Carolina, and
bringing with him a regiment of 600 men. He was received with salutes
and bonfires at Savannah and every demonstration of joy.
In 1739, war being formally declared, Oglethorpe planned an expedition
against St. Augustine. In November of the same year Admiral Vernon took
Porto Bello; and the following May, Oglethorpe entered Florida “with a
select force of 400 men from his own regiment, some troops from
Carolina, and a large body of friendly Indians.” A Spanish fort,
twenty-five miles from St. Augustine, surrendered after a short
resistance; another within two miles was abandoned; but St. Augustine,
when required to surrender, sent a bold defiance. Ships were stationed
at the entrance of the harbour to prevent supplies, and every measure
was taken to reduce the place. Oglethorpe, enduring all the fatigues and
hardships of the common soldiers, in spite of ill health consequent on
exposure to perpetual damps, was always at the head of every important
action. Great as was his courage and endurance, his conduct as a soldier
in an enemy’s country was still nobler; the few prisoners whom he took,
we are told, were treated with kindness; the cruelties of the savages
were reproved and restrained; not a field nor a house nor a garden near
St. Augustine was injured, unless by the Indians.
But St. Augustine resisted; Spanish galleys contrived to enter with
provisions; the unsuccess of the English fleet in the West Indies
prevented any assistance from that quarter; and sickness at length
breaking out among Oglethorpe’s forces, he was compelled in July to
return to Georgia.
Two years afterwards, in 1742, the Spaniards invaded Georgia. A fleet of
thirty-six sail from Havanna and St. Augustine, bearing upwards of 3,000
troops, entered the harbour of St. Simon’s, an island in the mouth of
the Altamaha, landed a number of troops, and erected a battery of twenty
guns. Oglethorpe, who was at that time on the island with less than 800
men, exclusive of Indians, spiked his guns and retreated to Frederica,
there to await the promised reinforcements from Carolina. From this
place he wrote to Savannah—“We will not suffer defeat; we will rather
die like Leonidas and his Spartans, if we can but protect Carolina and
the rest of the Americans from desolation.” The Spanish general,
Monteano, however, unacquainted with the coast and the proper points of
attack, wasted his efforts and was defeated in repeated skirmishes.
Oglethorpe, still disappointed of aid from Carolina, resolved, however,
to make a night attack on one of the enemy’s camps; but his intentions
were revealed by a French soldier who deserted. Apprehensive, says
Willson, that the enemy would now discover his weakness, he devised a
plan to destroy the credit of any information he might give. He wrote a
letter to the deserter, desiring him to urge the Spaniards to an
immediate attack, or to induce them to remain in St. Simon’s island yet
three days, as by that time several British ships would have arrived.
The letter, as Oglethorpe intended, was carried to the Spanish
commander. The deserter was arrested as a spy, and the utmost perplexity
prevailed in the Spanish camp. At that moment, fortunately for
Oglethorpe, three small vessels were perceived in the offing, which
being supposed to be a part of the expected British fleet, an attack on
Oglethorpe at Frederica was determined upon.
All turned out as Oglethorpe wished; one party of the advancing troops
were defeated by himself and his Highlanders who marched out of the town
to meet them, and another fell into an ambuscade. The scene of
destruction was terrible; the ground was covered with dead, and the
place to this day bears the name of the Bloody Marsh. The enemy fled
with precipitation to their ships, leaving their guns and ammunition
behind, and in a few days were sailing to the south, making, however, on
their way, an attack on Fort William, where again they were repulsed
with loss. The Spanish commander gained so little credit by this
expedition, that on his return to Havanna he was tried by court-martial
and dismissed the service. Oglethorpe, a week after his deliverance,
ordered a general thanksgiving.
Thus was Georgia established and defended; yet were there many
discontented and many disaffected within her borders; and scarcely was
the war at an end and peace once more within the colony, than Oglethorpe
sailed for England to meet and rebut various slanderous charges brought
against him, every one of which was disproved. But though he lived till
upwards of ninety, he never returned to the colony; joining soon after
the army against the Pretender. After Oglethorpe left Georgia, changes
were introduced into its laws and administration; the prohibition of rum
was removed from the statute-book; and the former somewhat military rule
of government was changed, the administration being entrusted to a
president and council, who were required to govern according to the
instruction of the trustees.
In one respect Georgia fell short of the liberality which might have
been expected from her founder; she was closed against “Papists,”
although, as regarded the Jews, Oglethorpe was more enlightened than the
English trustees of the colony. Among the earlier settlers, a company of
Jews coming over, the trustees wrote somewhat in perplexity, that “they
had no intention of making Georgia a Jews’ colony,” and requested
Oglethorpe, therefore, “to give these Israelites no encouragement.” If
he did not encourage them, neither did he discourage them, for they
settled at Savannah, opened a synagogue, and the descendants of many of
them remain to this day among the most worthy citizens of the place.
With all his noble virtues, Oglethorpe belonged more to the old
institutions than to the new; and hence somewhat of feudal usages had
been introduced, which led to long-continued discontent. Another cause
of discontent was the prohibition of slave-labour. Gradually, therefore,
this was relaxed; slavers from Africa visited Savannah, and the laws
against them were not enforced; in vain the Moravians opposed slavery as
contrary to the Gospel; their religious teachers in Germany, as well as
Whitfield, the great apostle of the colonies, “trusted that God would
overrule slavery to the Christianising of the slave,” and the Moravians
after long opposition yielded. Slaves were at first hired from Carolina
for a short period, or during life, and a sum equal to the value of the
slave paid in advance. Thus by degrees Georgia became a planting state,
with slave-labour like Carolina.[35]
In 1752, the trustees wearied with the many complaints which still
continued against even their amended form of government, resigned their
charter to the king, and Georgia became a royal government. The
liberties and privileges enjoyed by Carolina were now conferred on
Georgia; but the colony did not assume a really flourishing condition
until the close of the French and Indian war, when Florida was
surrendered to England, and security was thus insured to her frontiers.
In 1737, the eastern boundary of Maine was settled; so also was the
southern boundary of New Hampshire, though somewhat to the disadvantage
of Massachusetts, who not being greatly in favour with the English
parliament in consequence of her pertinacity with regard to the salaries
of Burnett and Belcher, had but little countenance to expect from that
quarter. Nor was another boundary dispute settled more to her
satisfaction in 1741, when the country conquered in the old times from
Philip and the Wampanoags, and claimed by Massachusetts under the
Plymouth grant, was ceded to Rhode Island after having been a subject of
contention between the two states for about 100 years.
We have already related that the Treaty of Utrecht conferred upon a
company of English merchants the monopoly of supplying slaves to the
Spanish colonies. Whilst this was the case on one hand, the African
company of independent traders, on the other, were conveying over
thousands of negro slaves to the British colonies. England, says
Bancroft, valued Africa as returning for her manufactures abundant
labourers for her colonies. The African coast for thirty degrees in
extent was traversed for the supply of the human cargo; Africans above
thirty and under fourteen were rejected, and very few women in
proportion were taken; the English slave-ships were laden with the youth
of Africa. Of the horrors of the middle passage we will not speak;
suffice it to say, that the loss of life on the voyage is computed to
have been, on an average, fifteen per cent.
The number of slaves in the northern provinces was small in proportion
to the whites; but in the lowlands of South Carolina and Virginia they
constituted the great majority. It is not easy to calculate the number
imported into the colonies. In the northern and middle states the negro
slaves were employed as domestic servants and agricultural labourers. In
New York they amounted to one-sixth of the population, and the slave
code of that province was as severe as those of South Carolina and
Virginia. In Georgia, as we have said, slavery obtained powerful
advocates in Whitfield and his associate Habersham, who, however, soon
turned trader. It was on the plea of Christianising the heathen that
they founded their argument, and the heart of the poor slaves even in
those early days seems to have been a ready recipient of the
consolations of religion. There were Uncle Toms even then; for Habersham
says exultingly, “Many of the poor slaves of America have already been
made freemen of the heavenly Jerusalem.” One circumstance must, however,
be observed; slavery was only permitted in Georgia on Whitfield’s
argument, and the masters were compelled, by fine, to oblige their
slaves “to attend at some time in the Lord’s-day for religious
instruction.” And hence, says Hildreth, may doubtless be ascribed the
peculiarly religious character of the negroes in and about Savannah. Nor
has the old humane spirit of Georgia ceased to exist. Miss Bremer,
speaking of this state, says: “I augur most favourably from the freer
and happier life of the negroes of Savannah; from the permission which
is given them to have their own churches, and where they themselves
preach. Besides this, much is done in Georgia for the instruction of the
negro slaves in Christianity, for their emancipation and their
colonisation at Liberia.”
Christianity, however, could not enfranchise the slave; he might become
a freeman of the heavenly Jerusalem, but a human thrall he remained in
the earthly America, spite of all that early philanthropists,
“enthusiasts,” and abolitionists could say and do; and as regarded the
slave-trade, the colonies had no power. England alone must bear the
burden of this shame and guilt. The English slave-trade received its
greatest impetus from the Assiento treaty. From 1680 to 1700, about
300,000 negroes were shipped from the coast of Africa; from 1700 to
1750, about 2,000,000. The English manufacturers advocated and supported
the trade, because it opened to them the African market. In the reign of
William and Mary, parliament legislated for the better supply of negroes
to the plantations; “and again it declared its opinion in 1695, that the
slave-trade is highly beneficial and advantageous to the kingdom and her
colonies.” Queen Anne was so decided a patron of the slave-trade, that
she herself, as we have said, became a slave-trader, and boasted to her
parliament that she had secured to Englishmen a new market for slaves in
Spanish America. George II. favoured it; and lastly, in 1749, in order
to give the utmost activity to the trade, all monopoly was removed, and
free-trade in slaves laid open to English competition; “the slave-trade
being,” according to the words of the statute, “very advantageous to
Great Britain.” To the credit of Horace Walpole, he saw the iniquity of
this traffic, while parliament was throwing it open to the rejoicing
manufacturers and merchants; and, according to his account, the English
trader at that time conveyed 46,000 slaves every year to the British
American colonies alone. So determined was England to thrust this trade
upon the colonies, that when any of them endeavoured to check the
importation, they were severely reproved. The reason of this was
obvious. The colonies were already becoming too independent. “The
African slave-trade,” it was asserted by a British merchant in 1745,
“was the great pillar and support of the British plantation trade in
America.” “If,” argued he, “it were possible for white men to answer the
end of negroes in planting, our colonies would interfere with the
manufactures of these kingdoms. In such case, indeed, we might have
reason to dread the prosperity of our colonies; but while we can supply
them abundantly with negroes, we need be under no such apprehension.”
And again: “Negro labour will keep our British colonies in a due
subserviency to the interests of their mother-country; for while our
plantations depend only on planting by negroes, our colonies can never
prove injurious to British manufacturers, never become independent of
their kingdom.”
So reasoned the England of that day, in the spirit of an arbitrary and
utterly selfish policy; and the colonies had no power of resistance.
Before concluding this portion of our history, which may be considered
as the early dawn of that day which saw ascend, through suffering and
blood, the sun of American independence, a few remarks may be welcome on
the life and manners of the colonies.
America could already boast of names which were an ornament to the age.
“America may look,” says Willson, “upon the scientific discoveries of
Franklin; upon Godfrey’s invention of the quadrant; upon the researches
of Bartram, a Pennsylvanian Quaker and farmer, whom Linnæus called the
greatest natural botanist in the world; upon the mathematical and
astronomical inventions of Rittenhouse, and upon the metaphysical and
theological writings of Jonathan Edwards with the greater pride, when it
is considered that these eminent men owed their attainments to no
fostering care which Britain ever showed for the cultivation of science
and literature in her colonies; that these men were their own
instructors, and that their celebrity is wholly of American origin.”
As regards the spirit of bigotry and intolerance which we have had such
frequent occasion to deplore in the history of New England, a great
change had now taken place. Although much puritanical strictness and
formality still pervaded New England manners, yet religious zeal had
become so tempered with charity, that explosions of frenzy and folly
like those of the early Quakers were no longer treated as offences
against religion, but as violations of public decency and order, justice
being tempered with prudence and mercy, and with a noble justice, also,
we may add; for during the administration of Governor Belcher, the
Assembly of Massachusetts passed laws making pecuniary compensation to
the descendants of those Quakers who had suffered capital punishment in
the years 1658 and 1659, and also to the descendants of such as had been
the victims of the persecutions for witchcraft in 1693. In 1729, the
legislature of Connecticut exempted Quakers and Baptists from
ecclesiastical taxes; and two years later a similar law was enacted by
the Assembly of Massachusetts.
Notwithstanding the exceeding strictness of the puritanic laws of New
England, we are told by numerous writers that the manners of the people
were distinguished by innocent hilarity and true politeness. Lord
Baltimore, it is said, was agreeably surprised by the graceful and
courteous behaviour of the gentlemen and clergy of Connecticut, and
confessed that he found the aspect and address which he thought peculiar
to nobility in a land where aristocratic distinction was unknown. “The
inhabitants of Massachusetts,” says a writer of the time, “were
distinguished in a high degree by their cheerful vivacity, their
hospitality, and a courtesy the more estimable that it was indicative of
true benevolence.” “Men devoted to the service of God,” says another
author, “like the first generation of the inhabitants of New England,
carried throughout their lives an elevated strain of sentiment and
purpose which must have communicated some of its grace and dignity to
their manners.”
Of the state of manners and morals in Maryland, Virginia, and the
southern colonies, so gratifying an account cannot be given. While the
upper classes of the southern people were distinguished for a luxurious
and expensive hospitality, they were too generally addicted to
card-playing, gambling, and intemperance, while hunting and cockfighting
were favourite amusements of all classes. The hospitality of Virginia
was, however, a beautiful feature of its life. “The early Virginian
colonists,” says the author whom we have quoted above, “remote from
crowded haunts, unoccupied by a variety of objects and purposes, and
sequestered from the intelligence of passing events, found the company
of strangers peculiarly agreeable. All the other circumstances of his
lot contributed to the promotion of hospitality.”
The celebrated Jefferson related that, in his father’s time, it was no
uncommon thing for gentlemen to post their servants on the main road,
for the purpose of amicably waylaying and bringing to their houses any
travellers who might chance to pass. Similar bounty is said to have
prevailed among the Quakers of Pennsylvania, “where unlimited
hospitality formed a part of their regular economy.”
“But whatever diversities of manners, morals, and general condition,”
says Willson, “might have been found in the several colonies in the
early period of their history, yet a gradual assimilation of character,
and a gradual advance in wealth, population, and the means of happiness,
were observable among all as we approach the period of the Revolution.
It cannot be denied, however, that New England colonial character and
New England colonial history furnish on the whole the most agreeable
reminiscences. As we approach this period, we behold a country of
moderate fertility, occupied by an industrious, hardy, cheerful,
virtuous, and intelligent population; a country where moderate labour
earned a liberal reward; where prosperity was connected with freedom;
where a general simplicity of manners and equality of condition
prevailed, and where the future invited with promises of an enlarging
expanse of human happiness and virtue.”
Having given this picture of life and manners prevalent in the North
American colonies at the period of the Revolution, we must of necessity
return to the course of our history, which takes us back about a quarter
of a century. At this time, that is from 1720 to 1730, the value of
exports from the mother-country to the colonies is stated by Hildreth to
have amounted to an annual average of £471,299.
END OF VOL. I.
-----
Footnote 1:
Bancroft.
Footnote 2:
Bancroft.
Footnote 3:
Bancroft.
Footnote 4:
Bancroft.
Footnote 5:
Bancroft.
Footnote 6:
Bancroft.
Footnote 7:
Bancroft.
Footnote 8:
Hildreth.
Footnote 9:
Bancroft.
Footnote 10:
Bancroft.
Footnote 11:
Miss Bremer.
Footnote 12:
Hildreth.
Footnote 13:
Bancroft.
Footnote 14:
Bancroft.
Footnote 15:
_Yᵉ lamentable Ballad and yᵉ True Historie of Captain William Kidd,
who was Hanged in Chains at Execution Dock, for Piracie and Murder on
yᵉ High Seas._
You captains bold and brave, hear our cries, hear our cries,
You captains bold and brave, hear our cries,
You captains brave and bold, though you seem uncontroll’d,
Don’t for the sake of gold lose your souls.
Don’t for the sake of gold lose your souls.
My name was Captain Kidd, when I sail’d, when I sail’d,
My name was Captain Kidd, when I sail’d,
My name was Captain Kidd, God’s laws I did forbid,
And so wickedly I did, when I sail’d.
My parents taught me well, when I sail’d, when I sail’d,
My parents taught me well, when I sail’d,
My parents taught me well to shun the gates of hell,
But against them I rebell’d, when I sail’d.
I’d a bible in my hand, when I sail’d,
I’d a bible in my hand, when I sail’d,
I’d a bible in my hand by my father’s great command,
And I sunk it in the sand, when I sail’d.
Then, after narrating two cruel murders on the high sea, and the death
of the mate, who called him to his bedside, and warned him of the
great day of reckoning which would come, the ballad-writer, in the
person of Captain Kidd, describes his short repentance and long career
of wickedness; how he took three ships from France and three from
Spain, all of which he burned; after which he found himself possessed
of “ninety bars of gold and dollars manifold,” but finally was
overtaken by fourteen ships, which being “too many for him,” he was
taken, cast into prison, and condemned to die. He then bids a pathetic
farewell to the “raging main, to Turkey, France and Spain, which he
ne’er shall see again,” and concludes—
To Execution Dock I must go, I must go,
To Execution Dock I must go,
To Execution Dock will many thousands flock,
But I must bear the shock, I must die.
Take warning all by me, for I must die, I must die,
Take warning all by me, for I must die,
Take warning now by me, and shun bad company,
Lest you lose your souls like me, for I must die.
Footnote 16:
Hildreth.
Footnote 17:
Mrs. Willard.
Footnote 18:
Hildreth.
Footnote 19:
Hildreth.
Footnote 20:
Hildreth.
Footnote 21:
Hildreth.
Footnote 22:
Bancroft.
Footnote 23:
Baucroft.
Footnote 24:
Hildreth.
Footnote 25:
Bancroft.
Footnote 26:
Bancroft.
Footnote 27:
Bancroft.
Footnote 28:
Willard.
Footnote 29:
Willard
Footnote 30:
Hildreth.
Footnote 31:
Willson.
Footnote 32:
Hildreth.
Footnote 33:
This sketch of the settlement of Georgia is given principally from my
translation of Miss Bremer’s “Homes of the New World” and is derived
from Bancroft.
Footnote 34:
Hildreth.
Footnote 35:
Willson.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.