A. W. Ward

“ A division which has far more real bearing on facts is one which has been already touched upon, namely, that which separates the colonies into a northem and a southern group, the former in some measure agricultural, but tending more and more to become commercial and industi’ial, and depending mainly on free labour; the latter purely agricultural and wholly dependent on some form of servile labour. We may go further and subdivide the northem colonies. New England, homogeneous in origin and principles, intensely definite in habits of thought and modes of life, stands on one side ”

“ The New England of 1700, though still orderly, patient and labour-loving, was no longer the Christian Sparta, merciless in its discipline, crushing the individual into subjection to the State, yet strengthening him in the process, at which the founders of Massachusetts had aimed, not without a measure of success. As the life of Boston becomes more and more a reproduction of decorous middle-class English life, so the literature of New England becomes more and more a con- ventional copy of contemporary English models. ”

“ Yet one may doubt whether any machinery could have done much for a Church which was clearly felt by the majority of the settlei-s, and especially by the most earnest and spiritually minded section of them, to be exotic, which could appeal to no inspiring associations in the past, and which had done little for the mental and spiritual life of the colonies since they had become separate communities.
Whatever might be the shortcomings of New England, her eyes were never shut to the truth that man does not live by bread alone. ”

“ In Virginia and Maryland we find no trace of any foreign element, though doubtless there were individual foreign settlers. But the Carolinas were largely peopled by French Huguenots, by Swiss, by refugees from the Palatinate, and during the eighteenth century by Scottish and Irish immigrants.
In the northern colonies slavery was a mere excrescence, exercising no perceptible influence over industry or social life. Probably in 1700 there were not 6000 slaves in the whole territory between the Kennebec and Long Island. For the negro slave can only fulfil one of two functions. ”

“ The eastern boundary of New York ran not at right angles to the Atlantic but along the left bank of the Hudson, and thus, running northward, blocked the expansion of the New England colonies by giving them a western frontier. New York may be regarded as an isolated projection running westward, and far beyond the normal line, as one may call it, of occupied territory. With that exception the colonies practically formed a belt along the coast, of less than a hundred miles across at its widest. ”

“ The trade of South Carolina resembled that of Virginia, save that rice took the place of tobacco. North Carolina, the poorest, most backward and ignorant of all the colonies, was virtually a community of small proprietors living squalidly on the products of their own farms, and occasionally exporting their surplus products, pork, cattle, and tar. ”

“ For it is an accepted economical law that bad money drives out good; or, to put it differently, if one form of currency will circulate more generally than another, no one will introduce that other into an area where both forms are of equal value, or keep it there. ”

“ The trade and industry of the middle colonies did not differ widely from those of New England. Cora, cattle, and other articles of food were sent to the West Indies; the command of the Hudson enabled the settlers to export furs; and already ironworks were carried on profitably in Pennsylvania. In Maryland and Virginia on the other hand there was one staple of industry, and one only, namely tobacco. ”

“ If we divide the colonies by their constitutions they fall into three groups. Connecticut and Rhode Island were chartered colonies with extensive rights of self-government. The Crown exercised over them no regular and continuous control: it could only intervene in special cases and by exceptional process. Otherwise they were only subject to such restrictions as the Crown or Parliament might impose on the whole body of colonies. In Maryland and Pennsylvania administrative power was normally vested in the Proprietor, subject, as in the chartered colonies, to special intervention by the Crown. ”

“ For while there was plenty of wealth in the colonies, that wealth was mostly in the hands of men actively engaged in trade, and thus took the form of floating capital, not of those accumulations which are the easy and obvious prey of the public financier. ”

“ In reading the records of New York, of New Jerseys, and of Pennsylvania, we find the neglect of education occasionally lamented, and the obli- gation to supply it intermittently recognised and imperfectly fulfilled. There was no comprehensive system enforcing on townships the necessity for providing schools and schoolmasters. About the middle of the eighteenth century, however, a wave of educational progress seems to have swept over the middle colonies, since between 1741 and 1754 colleges were founded in New York, in New Jersey, and in Pennsylvania. ”

“ It differed, however, in this, that, though the men who administered the English colonies might be at times corrupt or negligent, corruption and negligence never undermined the colonial administration of England as they did that of France. ”

“ In Virginia, as we have seen, tobacco was the accepted form of currency. In New York beaver-fur held at one time the same position. There was in New England a curious and complex system by which certain commodities were declared to be legal tender at a fixed value. As might have been expected, the vendor indemnified himself by having two prices, one for specie, the other for what was called “ country pay.”
The deficiency of specie naturally made men welcome the issue of paper ”

“ The colony, though primarily intended for the good of destitute English citizens, was not wholly made up of such inhabitants. There were two foreign settlements, one of Moravians, and one of Protestants from Salzburg who had fled from the severity of a Roman Catholic archbishop. There was also a settlement of Highlanders, of great military value to the colony, forming a township called New Inverness, a little to the north of Frederica. Somewhat later another township was formed at Augusta, about a hundred miles abov'e Savannah, on the river of that name. ”

“ The climate was one in which only men of unusual resolution and physical energy, such as w'ere the Salzburgers, could work hard. In the hope of enforcing industry and sobriety, the Trustees forbade the importation of negroes and of ardent spirits. An influential party sprang up among the settlers, which insisted that both the prohibited articles were necessaries of life. Oglethoipe’s virtues were great and many; but there was along with them a good deal of the benevolent despot. It is clear that he did not make unpleasant restrictions smoother by his administration. ”

“ Oglethorpe’s design was by the establishment of a colony adjoining South Carolina to form a home where men, instead of pining in debtors’ prisons, might live in industry and comfort, and also to establish for the whole body of colonies a barrier against Spain. Accordingly Oglethorpe and his associates, amongst them the well-known philanthropist Thomas Coram, obtained from the Crown a grant of land south of the Savannah river. ”

“ Though the hardships of the restraint imposed by the mother-country on the commerce and industry of the colonies have often been grossly exaggerated, yet it cannot be doubted that they were enough to create friction and to beget a sense of grievance. ”

“ In New England neither of these conditions existed. Luxury, except at Boston, was unknown. Farms were small, and the sterility of the soil necessitated intelligent and diversified tillage. In New York, on the other hand, the rich merchant could find place for a retinue of domestic slaves; and the landowner growing corn on a large scale could make use of unskilled labour. Further south, in the tobacco plantations of Virginia and Mar}'land, negro-slavery w'as no doubt, if one sets aside moral and social considerations, the most effective and economical system of labour ”

“ The demand for paper-money was further strengthened by administrative considerations; for if payment in kind is inconvenient to the private trader, much more is it so to the collector of public dues. Moreover there is a natural tendency on the part of young and hopeful communities to escape from financial difficulties by mortgaging their future. ”

“ But men who had failed in England were not likely as a rule to make thrifty and industrious colonists, save under exceptionally favourable conditions; and in Georgia the conditions were distinctly unfavourable. ”

“ Nor is there any reason to think that under a more hberal and enlightened system the colonies would have advanced further in manufacturing industry than they did. In New England repeated attempts were made to encourage the production of textile fabrics by bounties and by importing skilled workmen, but with small success. Only the coarser forms of clothing worn by the poor were made in the colony. Iron, too, was raised, but only of inferior quality; and all cutlery and fai'm -implements of any importance came fiom England. Shipbuilding flourished at Boston and in Rhode Island. ”

“ Biunet at length succeeded in winning over the Council, but the representatives were inflexible; and when he died in 1729 the dispute was still unsettled.
Burnet’s successor, Jonathan Belcher, was a rich and influential Boston merchant. He had been first a representative and then a coun- cillor, and had been sent by the Assembly to England to plead their cause in the question of salary. No self-respecting man would have accepted a position which necessarily compelled him to turn his back on the very principles which he had just advocated. ”

“ He proposed a council elected by the colonies, with a president appointed by the Crown. The difficulty of proportioning representation to the population of the various colonies and yet pre- venting the smaller colonies from being virtually annihilated was surmounted, not, as in the later Federal Constitution, by establishing two chambers, but by varying the number of representatives assigned to the different colonies, and giving to none less than two or more than seven. ”

“ The son had held office under Andros, and was thus looked on as worse than an open enemy, as a deserter and an apostate. Dudley, understanding the principles and objects of his countrvnien better than did Bellomont or the advisers of the Crown in England, saw that the question of fixed salaries to the governor and other officials was of vital importance. On it turned the question whether the officials were to be independent servants of the Ciwvn or merely its nominees, dependent after appointment on the good-will of the Assembly. ”

“ Over and above the physical difficulties of the country, the Indians, who \ were little but an encumbrance to an organised invading force, were invaluable in harassing an enemy advancing through their own country. ”

“ But in 1733 an Act was passed which, if strictly enforced, would no doubt have borne very hardly on the New England colonies. Large quantities of molasses were habitually imported from the French West Indian islands into the American colonies and used for making rum. The British government, for the benefit of its own sugar plantations, imposed a duty on all molasses imported from foreign colonies. ”

“ The lines of demarcation separating the various groups of colonies in intellectual and spiritual matters corresponded pretty closely to the differences just sketched in their national progress". In the New England colonies we find a well-organised and finnly rooted ecclesiastical system. It is not enough to say that in New England every township
Beligioios conditions. ”