Reginald W. Jeffery

“ The great interest of the early history of the Carolinas is that the colony won for itself against very considerable odds the rights of local government and freedom from the shackles of the Proprietors. The settlers exhibited from first to last that full determination which is peculiarly associated with those of English stock to control their own destiny without the leading-strings of a few, perhaps benevolent, but generally misguided, human beings, whose powers have been conferred upon them by chance. ”

“ By means of a deserter he succeeded in hoodwinking the enemy, declaring that he was ready for a second assault, which would be welcomed with the same hearty spirit that had been accorded to the first; at the same time he informed them, in mere bravado, that he was expecting an English fleet. As a matter of fact the desire for a second attack and the arrival of English vessels were mere figments of Oglethorpe's imagination. But as the gods fight on the side of the brave, so Oglethorpe was rewarded by the almost miraculous appearance of a few men-of-war. ”

“ What, then, was the effect of the capture of Canada upon the settlers of the Thirteen Colonies? We stand at the parting of the ways. The Treaty of Paris not only marked the increase of the British dominions beyond the seas, but also carried within it the germ of the future schism within the British Empire. Several of the Thirteen Colonies had for many years been filled with "a spirit of independence, puritan in religion, and republican in politics." [304] Ever since the seventeenth century the people of Massachusetts had kicked against the pricks of the Navigation Act. ”

“ New York was torn by internal factions, and the history of that colony would have been infinitely more sad had it not been that its fighting contingent was led by the redoubtable William Johnson. The state of Pennsylvania was actually worse than that of New York; it was "a sanctuary for sloth, cowardice, and sordid self-interest. The humanity of Penn, the peace principles of the early Quakers, were a cloak behind which the factious and indolent citizen with no sense of public responsibility could always screen himself." ”

“ Wild, looting, scalping, murdering bands poured in upon the unhappy settlers who dwelt along the borders of New Hampshire and Maine. The French feared, and with reason, that unless they kept this blood-lust at fever heat, the Abenaki like the Iroquois would be won over by the English owing to the fascination of a lucrative commerce.
The onslaughts that had to be resisted were not only from the Indians. The success of Phipps at Port Royal, and his daring attack upon Quebec, forced the Canadians to cry aloud for some form of retaliation, which swiftly came. ”

“ As it was, the gains to England in the colonial world were not to be despised. Acadia was surrendered to Great Britain, with Hudson Bay and Newfoundland; on the other hand, Cape Breton Island was restored to France. The great faults of the treaty, as far as it concerned the Western Hemisphere, lay first in allowing the French certain fishing rights off the shores of Newfoundland, which remained until recently "a dangerous cause of quarrel between two great nations, a perpetual irritating sore, a bar to the progress and prosperity of the Colony;" ”

“ A formidable foreign rival held a valuable commercial settlement between the northern and southern colonies, for the Dutch possessed in New Amsterdam the very best harbour along the coast. By the reign of Charles II. the hatred of the Dutch had become a passion amongst Englishmen, and it had not only been fostered by the Cromwellian war, but by trade-jealousy both in the East and in the West. In America the rising colonies of New England, in particular, looked with greedy eyes upon the splendid waterway of the River Hudson, which was the finest route for Indian trade. ”

“ With the Spanish, French, and Dutch voyagers it is not proposed to deal; their stories are well known, and affected but little the establishment of our early settlements in the West. Like the British nation, these three peoples also strove to create lasting empires in America; but unlike their rival, they failed. The Spaniards made the fatal error of attempting to settle during the period of exploration. They based their colonies upon slavery, and a mistaken commercial policy; and the sparseness of their colonists made them incapable of contending against the pressure of surrounding savagery. ”

“ The danger from the north and the west had undoubtedly had a repressive influence upon the colonists, and had kept them subservient to the English colonial system, which they hated and which was in reality at the root of their disaffection. The Peace of Paris removed all danger from Spain in the south, while the French danger was removed by the victory of Wolfe; and the rising colonies felt themselves as a new race about to start some great venture. ”

“ The settlers, however, were incapable, the callous nobleman sailed away to sunny France, and the unhappy survivors were left to quarrel among themselves, till eleven only of the original forty remained alive to be rescued after five long years of misery and starvation. The spirit of adventure was not crushed, and in 1599 Chauvin, a sea captain, and Pontgravé, a St Malo merchant, obtained a patent to colonise Canada, and so established a settlement at Tadoussac. Their object was to monopolise the lucrative fur trade, rather than to establish any permanent colony. ”

“ The man chosen as leader had no special aptitude for the post, being possessed with the mania for discovery rather than the desire to teach the settlers to form a self-supporting community. But even worse than this, Lane made the fatal error of estranging the natives by the severity and brutality of his punishments. Exactly a year after the settlers had landed, Sir Francis Drake put in to see how his friend Raleigh's Utopian schemes progressed. He found the colony in a miserable plight and, yielding to the earnest entreaties of the settlers, took them on board and sailed to England. ”

“ The man who had once tended sheep, who had been a common seaman, and worked his way up the rungs of the ladder of fame and prosperity, now pitted himself against the Count de Frontenac, noble of France; the humble citizens of Boston, who, up to that moment, had shown more interest in religious intolerance and the rejection of any unnecessary pressure from England, had dared to attack the ancient fortress of New France, garrisoned by trained forces and skilled backwoodsmen warriors ”

“ Nothing perhaps is more astonishing than the bitter intolerance of those who had fled to find toleration; but to the Puritan toleration was only significant of indifference, and was therefore an abhorrent principle at the very time he so sorely needed it. The religious dissensions during the early years of the colony of Massachusetts illustrate the fanatical and bigoted character of the Puritan quite as clearly as any particular event or series of events in English history. ”

“ Ten years after its foundation, the colony was seen to be commercially on the decline, although other towns had grown up such as Guildford, Milford, and Stamford. They were all governed as one town without representation, and the executive was placed in the hands of an elected Governor and four assistants. The commercial depression did not last for long; trade began to increase again, and Newhaven became a flourishing state, the inhabitants of which were noted for the magnificence of their buildings and their astonishing opulence. ”

“ In May 1696 he wrote, "The Indians, though monsters, want not sense, but plainly see we are not united, and it is apparent that the stronger these colonies grow in parts, the weaker we are on the whole, every little government setting up for despotic power and allowing no appeal to the Crown, but valuing themselves on their own strength and on a little juggling in defeating all commands and injunctions of the King." ”

“ It is urged with truth that the inhabitants consisted of the very men who should have composed a fine fighting force, but that the Virginian youth exhibited an astounding supineness in following the gallant Washington. There are, however, two reasons that may be found as partial excuses for the unpatriotic attitude of the Virginian settlers. The first was an ever-present dread of a slave insurrection if the militia left the colony; while the second is to be found in the irascible temper of the governor, Robert Dinwiddie. ”

“ Slye began by asserting that "all thinking men are amazed that such a man should have twisted himself into any post in the government, for besides his incapacity and illiteracy, he is a man who first in New York, then in Virginia, and at last in Maryland, has always professed himself an enemy to the present King and government." ”

“ Oglethorpe, promoted to the rank of General, left Georgia in 1743, never to return. The colony cannot be called an entire success; the very philanthropy upon which it was founded deprived it to a certain extent of those enduring qualities which had made the New England colonies strong and healthy provinces. But though Oglethorpe had not accomplished all that he had wanted to do, a modern writer has paid him a high tribute when he says that he "had attained a far larger measure of success than most men could have won with such material." ”

“ Such was the foundation of the French in Louisiana. La Salle and his party returned to the North, but he was not the man to rest upon his laurels, for in the autumn of 1682 and the spring of 1683 he is to be found busily establishing a French colony on the Illinois. Fort Louis was built on a rocky summit and promised to be a most important station in the future, always on the one condition that the connection with Canada was in no way broken, or even threatened.
Perpetual envy and jealousy tended to keep Canada weak and the French in the West powerless. ”

“ The story of Great Britain's expansion contains the names of hundreds of gallant heroes, but they were at the same time sober and industrious men. The plodding and commercial characteristics possessed by the British colonial saved him from perpetrating those foolish errors of the Spaniard which arose from a desire to gain rapid wealth and a tawdry glory. One fact stands out pre-eminent amongst the reasons of British success—the English kept their period of exploration almost entirely separate from their epoch of settlement. ”

“ New France then lost the man to whom she owed her all, and the French nation was deprived of one who has been fitly called "the Father of French Colonisation." From thirty-six years of age to the time of his death, Champlain had [Pg 208] given up the whole of his energies to increase the power of his native country and to encourage the welfare and prosperity of New France. He was a hardy explorer, an excellent administrator, and one of the most trustworthy writers of his time. His ambitions were lofty, his foresight keen and intelligent, while the whole of his life was pure and resolute. ”

“ As the seventeenth century drew to a close, Virginian progress was stimulated by the settlement, on the upper waters of the James River, of De Richebourg's colony of Huguenots, which is said to have "infused a stream of pure and rich blood into Virginian society." If the test of a colony is its population, Virginia at this time must have been most flourishing. Less than a century had passed since Newport and his one hundred and forty-three settlers had sailed into the James River ”

“ Owing to King William's War, Connecticut was within an ace of losing its government, and for purposes of defence being united, in 1690, with its stronger neighbour New York; the proposals fell through, and the fears of the citizens were set at rest by a legal confirmation of their constitution. The colony from this time undoubtedly advanced. Its system of government was active and vigorous; each township controlled its own affairs, and in the early years of the eighteenth century local government lay entirely in the hands of the Select-men, to the exclusion of English officials. ”

“ The War of the Spanish Succession in Europe had for all practical purposes ceased, and the echo of it in America was dying away. The belligerents were weary; the English began to feel the burden of their National Debt; while the French were utterly exhausted, for in 1709 even nature had turned against [Pg 243] the omnipotent Louis, and the country was impoverished by a winter which killed the fruits and vines. In 1713 terms were at last agreed to; and the Treaty of Utrecht, the first really great colonial treaty, was the result. ”

“ The southern confines of Virginia continued to be harried, although Washington and his little band, for the most part composed of Ulster Protestants, did what they could to preserve peace along the border-line. In much the same way the frontiers of New England were open to attack, and French animosity was by no means decreased by the skilled scouting expeditions of Robert Rogers and his bold New England rangers. The only great achievement was in Acadia, a province of more value to Great Britain than to the settlers of any particular colony. ”

“ The industry of Great Britain, instead of being accommodated to a great number of small markets, has been principally suited to one great market.... The expectation of a rupture with the colonies accordingly has struck the people of Great Britain with more terror than they ever felt for a Spanish Armada or a French invasion." [215]
The colonists did not, however, simply depend upon trade for their means of livelihood; many of them engaged in agriculture. During the winter months their beasts suffered as much as those in England, for until the eighteenth century there were no winter roots. ”

“ The Company took care that no trade was carried on by private individuals, and it was insisted that magazines should be erected for the produce of the colony and for supplying necessities to the colonists. It may be stated finally that the old ideas of enterprise and adventure were not lost sight of, and what had stirred Columbus and many another voyager was now definitely mentioned in the commands. The settlers were told "to show kindness to the savages and heathen people in those parts, and use all proper means to draw them to the true knowledge and service of God." ”

“ THE FIRST GREAT COLONY OF THE BRITISH
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 Elizabeth, like a suit of clothes made for her and worn out by her ”