Thirteen Colonies

“ The thirteen original colonies were now "full grown." Their population had increased to 2,000,000 and was fast growing. Their men had proven their bravery and generalship in the French and Indian War. Many of them had developed into fine officers, and all compared favorably with the British regulars. Their loyalty to England was proven by the 30,000 lives that had been given that she might conquer her traditional rival and enemy. ”

“ The social and economic condition of the people is described, and attention is paid to the political characteristics of the several colonies both in the conduct of their local affairs and in their relations with each other and the mother-country. It is shown that the causes of the Revolution were deep-seated in colonial history. Attention is also called to the fact, generally overlooked, that the thirteen mainland colonies which revolted in 1776 were not all of the English colonial establishments in America. ”

“ From small beginnings the English colonies came into being along the Eastern seaboard of America. Puritans and cavaliers, profligates and mechanics, all helped to create what might have been except for sad misunderstandings part of the British empire of to-day. Behind the Alleghany slopes another great power was attempting to form a colonial empire. North of the St Lawrence, New France had already [Pg 167] been established; by the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana had already been named. ”

“ For the next few years, therefore, the French had only a few trading posts along the St. Lawrence River, where the Indians came at certain times to exchange the furs of the animals they had killed for the beads and trinkets they loved so well.
XIX. FRENCH AND SPANISH QUARRELS.
Twenty years passed by before the French again attempted to plant a colony in America—twenty very eventful years for France and for all western Europe. The people, who, as you have heard, had all been Roman Catholics for centuries, now began to divide. ”

“ From the earliest settlement of the country by the whites, down to 1817, the Colonies, and afterwards the thirteen States, met the emergencies of Indian contact as they arose. The parties to negotiation were often ill-defined, and the forms of procedure much as happened. Not only did each Colony, prior to 1774, conduct its own Indian relations, generally with little or no reference to the engagements or the interests of its white neighbors; but isolated settlements and even enterprising individuals made their own peace with the savages, or received the soil by deed from its native proprietors. ”

“ On the other hand, the English troops felt quite as bitterly as the colonists, and Colonel King wrote to St John in July 1711, "You'll find in my Journal what Difficultyes we mett with through the Misfortune that the Coloneys were not inform'd of our Coming two Months sooner, and through the Interestedness, ill Nature, and Sowerness of these People, whose Government, Doctrine and Manners, whose Hypocracy and canting, are insupportable; and no man living but one of Gen'l Hill's good sense and good nature could have managed them. ”

“ No state of slaves can stand—”
“How about the United States?” a man yelled from the audience.
“And how about it?” Martin retorted. “The thirteen colonies threw off their rulers and formed the Republic so-called. The slaves were their own masters. There were no more masters of the sword. But you couldn’t get along without masters of some sort, and there arose a new set of masters—not the great, virile, noble men, but the shrewd and spidery traders and money-lenders. ”

“ A contemporary narrative speaks cheerfully of the probable success of the colony, and states that they had a prosperous beginning and that "the natives of New Netherland are very well disposed so long as no injury is done them." ”

“ In the history of this Nation, there has been a small number of men and women whose contributions to its traditions of freedom, justice, and individual rights have accorded them a special place of honor in our hearts and minds, and to whom all Americans owe a lasting debt. Among them are the men and women who founded the thirteen colonies that became the United States of America.
William Penn, as a British citizen, founded the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in order to carry out an experiment based upon representative government; ”

“ With the Colonies so loyal and so willing to assist Great Britain in time of trouble and danger, how was it that in a decade the Empire was shattered and the major portion of the Colonies were busy building up a nation of their own? ”

“ Crown Colonies.There is another group of British possessions which are peculiarly under the government of the Colonial Office, and which have often reason to be dissatisfied with that Government—I mean the Crown Colonies, the most important of which are the Straits Settlements, Ceylon, the West Indian Islands, and Mauritius. In nearly every Crown Colony, the white population bears a very small proportion to the natives, and is composed mainly of merchants, bankers, a few officials, and, in the West Indies, of planters. ”

“ The nation at large, scarcely alive until now to the existence of the Colonies, was stung into Imperial consciousness by a national humiliation, for so it was not unnaturally regarded, coming from an obscure pastoral community confusedly identified as something between a Colony, a foreign power, and a troublesome native tribe. ”

“ In the Colonies, as everywhere else in this world, the vital point is not who decides, but what is decided on! That measures tending really to the best advantage temporal and spiritual of the Colony be adopted, and strenuously put in execution; there lies the grand interest of every good citizen British and Colonial. Such measures, whosoever have originated and prescribed them, will gradually be sanctioned by all men and gods; and clamors of every kind in reference to them may safely to a great extent be neglected, as clamorous merely, and sure to be transient. ”

“ From this destructive system of Colony Administration, adopted since the conclusion of the last war, have flowed those distresses, dangers, fears, and jealousies, that over whelm your Majesty's dutiful Colonists with affliction; and we defy our most subtle and inveterate enemies to trace the unhappy differences between Great Britain and these Colonies, from an earlier period, or from other causes than we have assigned. ”

“ It is a constitutional sight like few.
And yet an instinct deeper than the Gospel of M'Croudy teaches all men that Colonies are worth something to a country! That if, under the present Colonial Office, they are a vexation to us and themselves, some other Colonial Office can and must be contrived which shall render them a blessing; and that the remedy will be to contrive such a Colonial Office or method of administration, and by no means to cut the Colonies loose. Colonies are not to be picked off the street every day ”

“ It may be also proper to authorise the persons so commissioned to restore such Province or Colony, so returning to its allegiance, to the free exercise of its trade and commerce, and to the same protection and security as if such Province or Colony had never revolted. ”

“ This confederation was not a federal union, but simply a league for mutual defence against the Indians. Each Colony managed its own internal affairs, without interference from England, until 1684.
Down to this time the Colonies had been too insignificant to attract much notice in England, and hence were left to develop their institutions in their own way, according to the circumstances which controlled them, and the dangers with which they were surrounded. One thing is clear: the infant Colonies governed themselves, and elected their own magistrates, from the governor to the selectmen ”

“ Widely different was the case of the English colonies in North America. All these settlements started under some form of grant or charter, derived ultimately from the Crown: the Crown from time to time interfered and made a show of its supremacy; but there was no system of any sort or kind, and communities grew up, which in practice had never been governed from home but governed themselves. Most of all, the New England colonies embodied to the full the spirit of colonial independence. ”

“ That each colony have a governor and council appointed by the crown, and a house of representatives to be elected by the freeholders, inhabitants of the several counties, not more than forty nor less than thirty for a colony, who shall have power to make all necessary laws for the internal government and benefit of each respective colony that are not repugnant or contradictory to the laws of Great Britain, or the laws of the American parliament, made and enacted to be in force in the colonies for the government, utility, and safety of the whole. ”

“ Every colonist had a right to inhabit, if he pleased, in any other colony, and as a British subject he was capable of inheriting lands by descent in every other colony. The commercial intercourse of the colonies too was regulated by the general laws of the British empire, and could not be restrained or obstructed by colonial legislation. ”

“ The disposition of the French Crown to interfere with the fur-trade and to repress all commercial initiative not emanating from privileged circles, was but an evidence of its general colonial policy. The colony on the St. Lawrence was made continually to feel the hand of the king. In contrast to the free town and county systems of the English, the people of New France had no voice in their government or in the appointment of their officials. ”

“ The absolute orthodoxy of this colony from its inception was in striking contrast with the freedom from religious restriction of the colonies planned by Coligny before the civil wars had forced the government to introduce rigorous conformity.
10. The company's rights over the colony were great: they could appoint officers of sovereign justice, who should be commissioned by the crown; and nominate military officials by sea and land over ships, troops, and fortresses, the king agreeing to appoint their nominees. ”

“ May they yet be endowed with all that firmness necessary to-carry them through all their difficulties, till they come off conquerors. We hope to see good accounts of the tea cast away on the Cape. The union of the Colonies, the firm and sedate resolution of the people, is an omen for good unto us. ”

“ The difficulty which has stood in the way of reform is, that as long as the Colonies of France and Germany, which are sandwiched between the British Colonies on the West Coast, maintain the import and decline to increase their duties, it is said to be impossible for us seriously to increase ours. ”

“ What have these colonies to ask, while they continue free? Or what have they to dread, but insidious attempts to subvert their freedom? Their prosperity does not depend on ministerial favours doled out to particular provinces. They form one political body, of which each colony is a member. Their happiness is founded on their constitution; and is to be promoted by preserving that constitution in unabated vigour throughout every part. ”

“ The colonial assemblies immediately after their formation shall signify, in the name of each colony respectively, their sentiments respecting that constitution, those laws, and the administration of them, which will best promote the prosperity and happiness of the people, conforming themselves nevertheless to those general principles by which the colonies and the mother-country are connected together, and by which their respective interests are best secured, agreeably to the decree of the 8th of March 1790 and instructions of the 28th of the same month. ”

“ And they believed, reasoning somewhat too hastily from the revolt of the North American Colonies, that as soon as the new English communities to which self-government had been or was in due course to be granted, reached a certain level of wealth and population they would demand and receive their independence. ”

“ Souvent on a fait servir les colonies de moyens de punition; et l’on a confondu imprudemment celles qui pourraient servir à cette destination, et celles dont les rapports commerciaux doivent faire la richesse de la métropole. Il faut séparer avec soin ces deux genres d’établissements: qu’ils n’aient rien de commun dans leur origine, comme ils n’ont rien de semblable dans leur destination; car l’impression qui résulte d’une origine flétrie a des effets que plusieurs générations suffisent à peine pour effacer.
Mais quels seront les liens entre ces colonies nouvelles et la France? ”

“ This colony was greatly settled, in the latter part of Charles the First's time and during the usurpation, by the zealous churchmen, and that spirit which was then brought in has ever since continued, so that, except a few Quakers, we have no dissenters. But what has been the consequence? We have increased by slow degrees, except negroes and convicts, while our neighboring colonies, whose natural advantages are greatly inferior to ours, have become populous." [454:A] He also wrote to Governor Dinwiddie, then in England, to the same effect. ”

“ But it is just this which has made us successful colonists, and it is the absence of this which makes French colonies dead failures. Whereas we and the Germans pour forth tens of thousands of emigrants, France sends to her North African Settlements just over six hundred persons per annum—and they are nearly all officials. ”

“ You do not like Crown Colonies. You won’t grovel to Chartered Companies, however good. You prove, on your own showing, that there is not in West Africa a sufficiently large, or a sufficiently long resident, local English population—what with their constantly leaving for home or for the cemetery—to form an independent colony. ”