they faintly acknowledged themselves to owe some sort of allegiance—what sort, and to what extent, was difficult to be ascertained. Under this notion of independence they acted, pursuing their own interests as to them seemed fit, and establishing with every customer and country that offered, such traffic as their capabilities permitted. They consequently rapidly improved in substance. Increasing wealth brought with it softened feelings and gentler habits. The good and sterling portion of the Puritan remained, and produced its admirable fruits in the energy and virtue of the people; while all the sterner and cruel characteristics of their class were, by constant collision with their neighbours and the world, so checked and subdued as to seem almost effaced, leaving traces only of a certain gravity of deportment, and harmless asceticism in their religious observances, which, to this hour, belong to, and distinguish, this singular people. They form, by far, the most remarkable portion of the American people, and have given to the character of the whole nation those traits, whether attractive or the reverse, which distinguish them as a people from the rest of mankind. If by some unfortunate combination of circumstances the colonists of New England could have been withdrawn from America, and directed elsewhere; and if, in consequence, New England had never arisen, and taken her place in the great federation of America, we should not, at this moment, behold the wonderful spectacle which that vast continent now exhibits. People, and provinces, and wealth, there would undoubtedly have been, but not the people we now see-not that busy, hardy, adventurous, shrewd, and enlightened race, whose swarms are spreading from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific who will push up to the Pole, and down to the Equator. Without New England, and New Englanders, the Americans might, and probably would, have proved a more winning and attractive people than they now are, but they would not have proved themselves that great people we now behold. The Rapacity was not, however, easily satisfied. courtiers of Charles II. believed, as their fathers had done, that great store of wealth might be obtained in the regions of America; and the most powerful nobles of the court of Charles united to plant a colony, to which they gave the name of their royal master. Such were the auspices under which CAROLINA became a colony. Lord Clarendon, Monk, from a republican general become Duke of Albemarle, Lord Craven, Ashley Cooper Lord Shaftesbury, (he and Monk must have looked significantly at each other sitting at the same council table,) Sir John Colleton, Lord John Berkeley, Sir William Berkeley, and Sir George Carteret, were, by royal charter, constituted the proprietors, and immediate sovereigns of the province, extending from the thirty-sixth degree of north latitude to the river San Matheo. Their rule was nearly absolute under the charter which they had obtained from the dissolute and reckless Charles, under the pretence "of a pious zeal for the propagation of the Gospel." In 1665, another charter was obtained from the crown by Clarendon, which charter gave him and his associates all the territories from the Atlantic to the Pacific, lying between twenty-nine degrees and thirty-six degrees thirty minutes of north latitude. This extravagant gift included what are now the States "of North and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, much of Florida and Missouri, nearly all Texas, and a large portion of Mexico."* For this territory Locke was asked by Shaftesbury to frame a constitution. The proprietors had received with the land ample powers from the Crown. "An express clause in the charter for Carolina opened the way for religious freedom; another held out to the proprietaries a hope of revenue from colonial customs, to be imposed in colonial ports by Carolina legislatures; another gave them the power of erecting cities and manors, counties and baronies, and of establishing orders of nobility with other than English titles. It was evident that the founding an empire was contemplated; for the power to levy troops, to erect fortifications, to make war by sea and land on their enemies, and to exercise martial law in cases of necessity, was not withheld. Every favour was extended to the proprietaries; nothing was neglected but the interests of the English Sovereign, and the rights of the colonists." But these great powers availed nothing. Colonists had already come from Virginia and Massachuserts, men determined to govern themselves after their own fashion. * Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 138. They †The Crown had clearly no power, legally, to make such a Clarendon deserved to be impeached for having put the grant. great seal to so flagrant a violation of the law. Bancroft, vol. ii. p. 138. rejected the complicated scheme of Locke-they resisted the proprietary. They quarrelled with every governor that was sent; and, in 1688, their parliament formally deposed Colleton, the brother of the proprietary Sir John Colleton, and who had been created Landgrave, a title in Locke's scheme, and sent out as governor over these refractory colonists. Having deposed, they banished him the province. From this period to the revolution, strife continued between the people and the proprietary. The latter were a clog, and did nothing but mischief. The colonists did everything for themselves, and would have been able to do more, had they not been crossed, vexed, harassed, and plundered by the proprietary. With the revolution the proprietary necessarily ended in name, as they had long ceased to rule in reality. They had failed in every endeavour from the commencement. The history of Penn's doings is not so disastrous; simply, because he was compelled to follow the rule which he at the outset laid down for his own conduct: "Whatever sober and free men can reasonably desire for the security and improvement of their own, I shall heartily comply with." He found within the territories granted to him by Charles, many settlements already made; and he had the good sense to see that if he expected any kind or degree of profit, he must allow the people to govern themselves, and watch over and advance their own interests. He made and published a frame of government, but he left to the people the power to decide whether they would adopt it. "I purpose," he said, "for the matter of liberty-that which is extraordinary-to leave myself and successors no power of doing mischief; that the will of one man may not hinder the good of the whole country." This was in reality the great benefit he rendered this new people-he stood between them and meddling-they throve because left alone, and he received advantage because he left them alone. Yet his rule was not borne without complaint, and his rights, like those of all the proprietary governments, came to an end. Having founded his colony and city, he sailed for England-and what says his admiring historian, "His departure was happy for the colony and for his own tranquillity. He had established a democracy, and was himself a feudal sovereign. The two elements in the government were incompatible; and, for ninety years, the civil history of Pennsylvania is but the account of the jarring of these opposing interests, to which there could be no happy issue but in popular independence."* The colour given by Mr. Bancroft to all these proceedings of Penn is far more favourable to the Quaker legislator than that given by other historians. I own for myself I have no faith in any great pretensions made to sanctity and peculiar virtue. That Penn was a timeserver and a hypocrite, I have no doubt, and that he was avaricious, is plain, from all his doings in America. He pestered the Duke of York into giving him large grants of territory in that country. It was for the interest of James to make and keep friends with this dissenter, and Penn wanted not the sagacity to understand the full value of his position. He afforded James the advantage * Bancroft, vol. iii. p. 395. |