recent date, and others a few years older than those of Massachusetts. Although not precisely alike in their manners and customs, yet these provincials were so nearly alike as to be embraced under general remarks, applicable to the most advanced portions of the country. They were, at this period, comparatively at ease, for the dread of extermination from the aborigines had entirely passed away. They had fought the savages, and had driven them back to remote forests and distant hunting grounds; and though often vexed and distressed by the hostile incursions of the Indians, still they had no fears of being destroyed by them. The Indians had, in the infancy of the colonies, come down upon them in their full strength and best possible concert, and were then beaten and broken, and if not destroyed, were so far dispirited and enfeebled, that nothing like regular warfare was afterwards carried on against the most populous parts of the country. The people, it is true, were often distressed at the complaints of the frontier settler, and were frequently called out to avenge his wrongs, which was generally done in such a manner as to keep the tribe of Indians who perpetrated them quiet for some time. The growth of this country was indeed marked by wonders to the people themselves; for the most sanguine of the emigrants did not contemplate so rapid a progress in their growth and strength. They had, in this century, not only fought the Indians for self-preservation, but after little more than fifty years of their existence, assisted the mother country in an attempt to wrest Canada from the hands of the French, which fortunately did not succeed; for an intermixture of the French and English at that time would, in all probability, have had no good effect on the nationality of the provincials; but as it was, the primitive character of the people had not essentially changed from that of their fathers, when the century closed. They had wisely adopted new rules and regulations in the administration of justice, and greatly expanded their views, and thoroughly changed their opinions on many subjects, but still the same spirit remained, and the same hardihood of character was apparent. They had, before this time, separated church from state, and had found many blessings flowing from this division. Men of distinction grew up in both departments of these intellectual and moral pursuits, who laboured hard for the general good, and have left their deeds on record.

They had also established courts under their various charters, and civil justice took a new form. The primitive courts, though believed by the people themselves, when first instituted, to be the best method of getting at justice that could then be devised, had, long before the close of the century, become rather offensive to the good sense of the people at large. They found that there was some

thing very arbitrary in discretion, that which the magistrates possessed of defining the crime and of fixing the punishment at the same time; and often making that criminal, which had never been considered a crime, misdemeanour, or offence, in any written code of laws that had ever been given to the world. It is amusing to look back to their records now, when the judges and those they condemned have gone to a perfect tribunal, and to mark the course of proceedings in those early days, when the magistracy, on the suspicion of an offence against what they thought the decorum of society, would often decree a more severe punishment than against a crime of a felonious nature. The people were too shrewd to be so governed forever; and they found the courts of law, established upon proper principles, with judges sworn to administer justice according to fixed and settled laws, either the wisdom of many years experience, or the written law of the statute book, were far better than the arbitrary opinions and decisions of those esteemed even as wise and good, who had no barrier against caprice, and who were imperfect, because they were men.

At this period, the day of delusion had passed away, and the mists of superstition were fast dispersing before the rays of reason and the reign of common sense. This very delusion, however, was made a mean, under Providence, of hastening on the age of philosophical inquiry into the nature of man, and of the permissions of Deity in his government of the world. The blood of the victims of delusion, though they were few in number, was not without its use. It did not cry from the ground for vengeance, for it was shed by infatuated honesty; but ages of eloquence and reasoning could not have done so much for the advancement of rational thinking as the sacrifice of these few lives did. There was an image of error left in the minds of the community which was held up against misguided zeal, and a too ready desire to punish offences, which has had a most salutary effect ever since. The shades of immolated innocence haunted the severe in disposition, who are always inclined to superstition, and restrained them from attempting to influence publick feeling, which they had a secret wish, no doubt, at all times to do. The momentary folly of the few was the permanent security of the whole.

At this period, publick schools had been long in operation in NewEngland, and the rich were made to educate the poor, not only in the common elements of learning, but in the higher walks of literature, when they aspired to it. The colleges that had been established were fountains of useful knowledge, whose streams were flowing in all directions. The young men educated in these colleges were, most of them, engaged, for several years after they had

graduated, in the useful employment of teaching school in those places required by law to maintain a grammar school, and almost every town was sufficiently large to require one. Among other duties, the clergy, too, assisted in preparing youths for college. The influence of their labours had entered into every thing temporal, as well as spiritual; and being now confined, by the separation of the government of the church from that of the state, to their own distinct duties, they had much more leisure to attend to improving their own minds, and those of their parishioners, than ever; and to them, present generations are indebted for no inconsiderable portion of the literature of that day. By this time, the law had become a distinct profession, and several luminaries had arisen, who had changed the modes of transacting the business of the courts, and driven the race of pettifoggers, which generally abound in a new country, (and did in this to a considerable extent,) at the first establishment of courts, into disgrace and neglect. Learned physicians had grown up, who were not only devoted to the healing art, but were making researches in the phenomena of nature, with great assiduity and success.

The press was well supported by the people, and held as one of the great safeguards of the rights and interests of freemen. The literati were fond of seeing themselves in print, and pamphlets and tracts issued, to gratify the curiosity and taste of the people. At this period, newspapers had been established, and were most valuable vehicles of information. They were, in general, edited with no ordinary share of talent, and some of the first men in the country were engaged directly or indirectly in their support. Political rights were freely discussed in them, and their influence was felt in the most remote settlement of the country. Not only the proceedings of the British Parliament were communicated to the public through their columns, with the news of the day; but they were made serviceable in giving the people a knowledge and taste for the current English literature. Long extracts from authors of standard value were weekly diffused by these papers. England was, during this century, prolific in men of genius, and the great doctrines of civil liberty were taught in their writings, which in this country had a free circulation, if not in their own. Texts are often graced, and sometimes amended, by their commentaries; it was so in this country, in regard to every work on British liberty; for here it was read without prejudice, and scanned without fear. The mind of man was awake to its true interests, in a country where there was neither hierarchy, nor aristocracy, nor furious democracy, to disturb the smooth and equal current of thinking and acting. They had often quarrelled with governors, and complained of royal neglect,

and sometimes were gravely debating upon heresies and schisms s; but these things were not more than sufficient to give force and activity to their intellectual powers, and had no withering effect. The people, although prudent and saving, were not goaded by avarice, or sunk in voluptuousness, or dissipated by trifling amusements; and these political and religious excitements were necessary to give proper tone to the mind.

Commerce had, during this century, extended its humanizing influence among the people, and trade was now doing what war previously had done-making them acquainted with each other's wants and capacities. Their commercial enterprise, considering their means, was astonishing.*

Their fisheries and lumber trade, with their ship building, produced them a very considerable surplus over their importations from the mother country and the West India islands. They had found that the bosom of the earth was rich in iron ore, the true gold of a primitive people; and they at this early period had established foundries, or bloomeries, as the works for manufacturing iron were then called, which were in a prosperous condition for many years afterwards. The clothing of the great mass of the people was from their own flax and wool, wrought at their own firesides; and if it did not allow them to dress sumptuously, it made comfortable articles of wearing apparel. The forests were then abundant, and their dwellings were warm and convenient. The purest of streams watered their grounds, and their orchards produced in abundance, so that there was but little use of ardent spirits.

Their military system was simple, yet perfect; every man was enrolled who could carry a musket, and all were accustomed to the use of it. They obeyed the calls of their country with alacrity, and fought as long as their services were necessary: braver troops never stood on the battle field; they were valiant without ferocity, and endured the hardships of war without the hopes of plunder. Military glory was with them a principle, not a passion. Military knowledge was with them a habit, not a profession. The plough, the axe, the saw, and the hammer, were the tools of their handy-craft-necessary implements of their daily avocation; and the musket, and the sword, only implements of defence; and they were expert in all. They asked no wreath for their victories, they obtained no heraldric honours for their numerous instances of valour; a consciousness of having discharged their duties as citizen soldiers, was all their reward. At the time we are now describing, they exhibited in their character all that is now embraced in the hopes and desires of na

*See Appendix, note A.

tions, for liberty, for moral dignity, and for the rights of man. They were sons of trial, of perseverance, and enterprise, who had turned their afflictions and their exertions to advantage; and made not only their enjoyments and privileges, but even their misfortunes, a truly valuable lesson for themselves and for their posterity.

LECTURE V.

See their sons

Before the bulwark of their dear rights drawn,
Proud in their simple dignity, as runs
The courser to the fair stream-on their thrones
They sat, all kings, all people-they were free,
For they were strong and temperate, and in tones
Deep and canorous, nature's melody,

They sung in one full voice the hymn of liberty.

PERCIVAL.

FROM the beginning of the second century, reckoning from the commencement of the settlement of the province of Massachusetts Bay, there could not have been more than half a million of inhabitants in the colonies. Douglass, as late as 1749, calculates that there were three hundred and fifty-four thousand souls in New-England; and it must be recollected, that it was the policy of the country to magnify these numbers, to appear as formidable as possible to the French in Canada, and their allies the Indians. This is very evident when Douglass says there were ninety thousand fighting men in New-England at the time. This was too erroneous to deceive for a moment. The growth of all the colonies had been much retarded by sickness and wars. Nearly one half the pilgrims died the first three months after their landing. A wasting sickness came among the settlers of the province of Massachusetts Bay. Virginia had her share of sickness and the disasters of war. In 1622, three hundred and forty-seven of the Virginia colonists were massacred by the Indians in one day, and a famine and pestilence ensued. The other colonies were sickly: in fact, all new settlements are so; numerous causes conspire to make them unhealthy. The population of the colonies was very much overrated at the commencement of the revolutionary war. Burke and Chatham state the population to have