•^1 f r ^^5S,-;^C:i ^/: ■ii^ ^i^/^ ^^ Class. £.ixa- Book . M ? ^7 Gopglit'N''. COFTi'RIGHT DEPOSIT. ^ IJ^ :««^ HAMILTON W. MABIE, LL.B.. Tjt D. Our Country IN PEACE AND IN WAR A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES FROM ITS DISCOVERY BY COLUMBUS TO THE TREATY OF PEACE WITH SPAIN EMBRACING The Growth, Progress, Characteristics and Achievements of the Americar People in the Pursuits of Peace and of War TOGETHER WITH A History of our New Possessions HAWAII, CUBA, PORTO RICO, THE LADRONE AND THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS By HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE, LL.B., Lit.D, Editor of the "Outlook," "The Makers of America/* "Our New England/' Etc Assisted by a Corps of Special Writers on Various Phases of Our History Embellished With Over 250 Fine Engravings IttUSTRATING THAT vVHICH IS BEST, NOBI,EST, MOST INTERESTING AND INSPIRING IN THE HISTORY OF THE LAND WE WVS IN AND OUR NEW ISI.AND POSSESSIONS. • 1 i ,' ' ' » -.*, »« . ; * THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, " vf) Cc>PIU3 RjtOBIVED NOV. G 1902 COPY B. Copyright, 1899 BY WM. E. SCULL ALL RIGHTS RESERVED .4> N ^»' * . ' » cc *«« M*a ¥■ K < C s. % • • « • 1 < I ( t. EVERY CHAPTER IN THIS VOLUME BEING ORIGINAL MATTER PREPARED EXPRESSLY FOR THIS WORK, ALL PERSONS ARE WARNED NOT TO INFRINGE UPON OUR COPYRIGHT BY USING EITHER THE MATTER OR THE PICTURES WITHOUT EXPRESS PERMISSION. PENNSYLVANIA AVtNUK, LOOKING TOWARD THE CAPITOL, WASHINGTON. INTRODUCTION. \?%^ T is four hundred years since Columbus caught his first glimpse I". of the western world, but it is only two hundred and seventy- five years since the work of making this continent habitable began. From Jamestown and from Plymouth the streams of exploration and colonization flow steadily westward and southward, gathering volume and momentum until they unite the great oceans and cover the continent. The story of this vast unfolding of life under new conditions is told in this volume by different pens, but with one controlling idea — to show how and by what means a great nation grew out of the few and scattered seeds of a small emigration from beyond the sea. The great English statesman, Burke, has said somewhere that to be a statesman one must Qot only master the different conditions and occupations of a people, but must so realize them through his imagination that he sees in them one unbroken life. This volume has been prepared in the hope that it will present the life .of the American people so clearly, vividly and comprehensively that the unity and magnitude of that life will be more evident than they have ever been before. A. great people in a great country has so many occupations, so many kinds of wealth, such differences of condition, that it loses at times the consciousness of its family ties and affections. There are so many kinds of Americans, they are V vi THE STORY OF AMERICA. so widely scattered, and they are busy with such manifold interests, that the homestead is in great danger of being neglected by the children, and the sense of kinship is likely to be lost in the diversity of interests. We talk a great deal about our power but we do not realize it ; we cannot realize it until we understand what it is which gives us power. We use a great many figures to convey an impression of our acreage and crops ; but it is the farmer, the mechanic and the merchant who are the real capital of the country. Their character, energy, intelligence, thrift and practical sagacity constitute our real wealth ; the wealth which is not subject to the fluctuations of the market or the untimely conditions of the weather. This volume tells the story of material growth as fully and more comprehensively than most books ; but it tells also the story of America as it is written in the life, character and habits of the American man and woman. To know the American you must know his ancestry and how he came where he now is ; that record is made here with a broad completeness which brings out the immense variety and volume of race force and character behind the people on this continent. To know the American you must know what religious, social and political influences shaped and moulded the lives of his forefathers ; those influences are all marked and traced here. To know the American of to-day you must know what experiences have befallen him on this side the ocean, how he has fared and what he has accomplished ; accordingly his history is fully spread out in these pages, and his explorations, settlements, wars, growth are told, not in detail but so as to cover the ground strongly and effectively. To know the American you must know what he is doing to-day ; where his work is and how he does it ; how he travels ; what inventions he uses ; what mechanical -genius he displays ; what books he reads ; what church he attends ; what schools he maintains ; what his pleasures are ; and how he employs his wealth. This volume answers these questions. It is at once a history, a story, an encyclopaedia iof national information, and a text-book of national character. It reports travels, describes settlements, gives account of wars, traces political ideas and growth, follows the lines of trade and of national prosperity, pictures what is going on in the shop, the office, the church, the school, the mine, the garden, the grain field, the home. It supplies the historic background of American life, and against this background it spreads out that life in broad, clear .lines of growth and activity. It is the story of America, but it is still more the story of the American. Well- done or ill-done, it aims at nothing less than to show the American as he lives and works on the continent which he has conquered by sheer force of energy and intelligence. There is no romance so marvelous as this record of fact ; none so full of incident, adventure, heroism, and human vicissitude. From the voyages of the earliest Spanish, French, and English explorers to the inventions and discoveries INTRODUCTION. vii of Edison the story never fails of thrilling interest. It is a romance of humanity written by the hand of Providence on the clean, broad page of a new continent. It is a Bible for new illustration of the old laws of right and wrong which underlie all history ; but it is a modern version of The Arabian Nights for marvels and miracles of human skill and achievements. The building of Aladdin's palace was a small affair compared with the building of some of our States ; and the rubbing of Aladdin's lamp was but a faint burnishing compared with the glow of prosperity which hard work has brought out on the face of this continent. There is no romance so wonderful as the story of life told, not by novelists of varying degrees of skill, but by great multitudes of eager, ener- getic men and women. It is doubtful if any country has ever developed greater energy of spirit or greater variety of character than this ; and this is the chief reason why our history has such significance and such fruitage of achievement. To know this history is a duty and a delight. A man whose brave ancestors have carried the name he bears far, and made it a synonym for courage and. honor, is rightly proud of his descent and gets from it a new impulse to bear as; brave a part in his own day. Americans can honestly cherish such pride ; it is justified by what lies behind them. No man can be truly patriotic who does not know something of the nation to which he belongs, and of the country in which he lives. Such knowledge is a part of intelligent citizenship. In this country, where the government rests on the intelligence and virtue of the entire popula- tion, such a knowledge is a duty and a necessity. Men who reach eminence in their professions invariably have large ideas of those professions ; they know the history of the profession and the names of those who have advanced its influence and secured its honors. A man of business who takes the lead in his particular line of trade is uniformly distinguished by his superior knowledge of business problems and conditions. He studies his business in its large relations to the business of the country ; he looks at it with the eyes of a statesman. The intelligent American cannot be ignorant of the great history in which he has had so vital an interest, or of the life of his country to-day. Not to know these things is to miss a noble and inspiring landscape which we might see simply by the lifting up of the eyes. It is for the family that this volume was primarily prepared. America is pre-eminently the country of homes ; that is the country which, by its free institutions and its large social and industrial conditions, makes comfortable homes possible to its entire population. These homes are not only the sources of happiness and the nurseries of purity and prosperity ; they are also the schools of citizenship. From these schools are graduated year after year, in unbroken and never-ending classes, the men and women who continue and enlarge the work and the influence of the nation. The Bible has been and will viii THE STORY OF AMERICA. remain the ereat text-book in these schools ; but other books are needed, and this book aims to take its place as an indispensable book of instruction and entertainment. The history of a race is the best possible material for the educa- tion of the children of that race. We know this by instinct, and we act by instinct when we hold up constantly the lives and achievements of our great men as illustrations of honor, honesty and capacity. No teaching is so effective las that which flows from persons and characters rather than from abstract principles and statements. Few boys care for patriotism as a quality of character, but every boy knows on the instant what patriotism means w^hen the names of Washington and Lincoln are spoken in his hearing. These great men render through character an even higher service than they render through sacrifice and action. They embody great virtues, they stand for great principles, they illustrate noble qualities. Being dead they still speak with voices whose range and power are denied to teachers who impart truth but do not live it on a great scale. Alfred the Great has been and still is one of the most persuasive and inspiring teachers England has ever had. His name brings instantly to mind the noblest traits of English manhood, the grandest type of English citizenship. To tell his story to a boy is to teach him the deepest lessons of life while he does not suspect anything more enduring than the entertainment of an hour. History is summed up in great men, and every virtue, every vice, every decisive popular movement is identified with or incarnated in some great man. The name of Washington is a most familiar name for truthfulness and integrity, that of Arnold for baseness and treachery, that of Jefferson for the democratic idea, the rule of the people. These names Ctre always in the air because they have their general and enduring meanings ; and no man can estimate their educational value to the country. They are heard on every political platform, but they are heard still more frequently in the school room, and they are of more use there than most text-books. It was the custom among some nations of antiquity to repeat to each fresh generation the noble deeds of their ancestors, thus making history a great oral tradition, and turning it from a dead record into a living romance. Real educa- tion is not knowledge of books but knowledge of life, and books are useful only so far as they lead us to this kind of knowledge. What men have been and have done is the best material for the education which trains one in cour- age, honesty, and energy as well as in mental quickness and skill. The Athenian boys learned Homer by heart; the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" took the place of the pile of books which the school-boy of to-day carries under his arm when he sets his "morning face" schoolward. In this way boys learned beauty and eloquence of speech, and imbibed the spirit of art while they were yet at their games. But they learned even greater things than these ; they grew up with the heroes of their race and took part in their great deeds. The bravest and INTRODUCTION. ix most poetic things which their race had done were familiar and became dear to them while their natures were most receptive and responsive. The past was not dim and obscure to them as it is to too many Americans ; it was a living past, full of splendid figures and heroic deeds. To boys so bred in the very arms and at the very heart of their race it was a glorious privilege to be an Athenian ; to share in a noble history, to be a citizen of a beautiful city, to have the proud consciousness of such place and fame among men. It is not surpris- ing that as the result of such an education the small city of Athens produced more great men in all departments in the brief limits of a century than most other cities have bred in the long course of history. There was a vital, inspir- ing education behind that splendid flowering of art, literature, philosophy and statesmanship. The American boy and girl ought to have the same education. Too many grow up with the most indefinite ideas of their own country. They do not know what has been done here ; they do not even know how people live in other parts of the broad land. They know something of their own commu- nities, but they are ignorant of the greater community to which they belong. The story of the country's birth and growth, of its struggles and achievements, of its wonderfully diversified life, of its heroic men and noble women, ought to be familiar to every boy and girl from earliest childhood. This knowledge is the A B C of real education. It is to furnish this knowledge that this volume Ims been largely prepared. The home, is never isolated and solitary ; it is one of a great community of homes stretching across the continent. To get the best and the most out of its beautiful relations and its manifold opportunities, each home must develop the sense of kinship with other homes, and the con- sciousness of common responsibility. Every child must fill a place in the nation and the world as well as in the home. He must know, therefore, what the nation is and what it demands of him. He must feel the deep and wonder- ful life, active and powerful over a whole continent, in which he shares and to which he contributes. This is the age o ' community feeling ; the sense of brotherhood among men of all races has never before been so pervasive and so real. A famine on the t)anks of the Volga brings quick response from the prosperous fields about the Mississippi. Nothing that happens in the remotest corner of the world is with- out interest. To know how the other half lives is not only a universal desire, but a universal duty. This volume not only makes the present acquainted with the past and so gives its historic background, but it brings to each occupation and profession the work and condition of every other occupation and profession, and it lays before each section of the country the aspects and habits of every other section. It is a national book ; it describes the West to the East and the North to the South. It tells the merchant how the farmer lives ; it gives the X THE STORY OF AMERICA, mechanic a picture of the miner's Hfe ; it furnishes the planter a ghmpse of the herdsman. It unfolds a map of the whole country, not in the hard and fast lines of geography, but in the streaming, rushing life of an inmense and energetic people. It supplies a clear and comprehensive view of the government in all its functions of administration ; it describes the great cities ; it follows and pictures the countless channels and instrumentalities of travel and commerce ; it delineates the work of the farmer, the mechanic, the miner, the merchant ; it has something to say about churches, colleges, schools, literature, charities. It is, in a word, a national chart, text-book, history and romance for the home. In the preparation of this volume we have had the assistance of a number of experienced writers specially qualified to present the subjects assigned to them. This co-operation of knowledge and work was not only necessitated by the magnitude and comprehensiveness of a book covering a period of four hun- dred years and embracing all the aspects, — historical, religious, industrial, social, and intellectual, — of the nation's life, but was deliberately chosen because it en- sured greater variety, interest, and thoroughness than any single author could give such a work. Its advantages were recognized as counterbalancing the additional expense involved. We have, however, planned the entire work, and, with the exception of the chapters which are signed by their writers, have outlined anrl thoroughly revised every part we have not ourselves written, thus securiri^ unity of aim and purpose throughout. Hamilton W. Mabie. Marshal H. Bright. U.S./^AM OP War •BuiLt- f"OR- E;(hiBiy- at- Wo(\Lo5-FAif\ LIST OF CHAPTERS AND SUBJECTS. PACB INTRODUCTION, $ CHAPTER I. KINDINQ THE NEW COUNTRY, 21 DISCOVERY AND DISCOVERERS — THE NORSEMEN — DID THEY DISCOVER AMERICA? THE EVIDENCE — CONCLUSIONS — COLUMBUS — EARLY YEARS — CHARACTERS OF HIS TIME — LEAVES ITALY FOR POR- TUGAL — HIS PLAN — SEES THE KING THE KING's INDIFFERENCE — VISITS SPAIN — A TRUE FRIEND DISAPPOINTMENT AND DELAY FERDINAND HIS COOLNESS TO COLUMBUS's PROJECT ISABELLA EXORBITANT TERMS — AT LAST SUCCESS THE EXPEDITION FROM PALOS — MUTINY COLUMBUS's FIRMNESS — MISTAKEN SIGNS — LAND AT LAST — A NEW WORLD FOUND — RETURNS TO SPAIN — VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES — HUMILIATION — HIS DEATH AT VALLADOLID. CHAPTER II. POST=COLUNlBIAN EXPLORERS AND DISCOVERERS, 49 COLUMBUS AND HIS DISCOVERIES — THEIR EFFECT — OTHER NATIONS AROUSED — THE CABOTS AND LABRADOR — AMERICUS VESPUCIUS — THE NAME AMERICA — CANNIBALS AND THEIR SACRIFICES — PINZON TURNS VOYAGER — HIS DISCOVERIES — DA GAMA — DE CABRAL — BASTIDAS — DK LA COSA— PONCE DE LEON — HIS CAMPAIGN IN FLORIDA — VERAZZANO — BALBOA — HE DISCOVERS THE PACIFIC — -DAVILA — FERDINAND DE SOTO — ATTEMPTS TO CONQUER FLORIDA — A LONG MARCH- ONWARD TO THE FAR WEST — DE SOTO DISCOVERS THE MISSISSIPPI DEATH AND BURIAL. CHAPTER III. SETTLINQ THE NEW COUNTRY,. ....... 69 BEGINNINGS OF IMMIGRATION — CONDITION OF EUROPE — FIRST ATTEMPT AT COLONIZATION — THE THIRTY years' WAR FIRST ROANOKE COLONY WOMEN AND THE COLONISTS RALEIGH ASSIGNS HIS PATENT — ACADIE — THE VIRGINIA CHARTER — LAZINESS AND ILL FEELING — OBTAIN- ING A NEW CHARTER — THE POCAHONTAS MYTH —JOHN SMITH — HIS CHARACTER — THE PLY- MOUTH COLONY — A CRUEL WINTER — MILES STANDISH — PICTURESQUE CHARTERS — MASSACHU- SETTS BAY COLONY — INDIAN WARS — BOUNDARY DISPUTES — TOWN MEETINGS — HENDRICK HUI>- SON NEW AMSTERDAM PENN — THE FRIENDS RJVPID SUCCESS OF THE QUAKERS. 2 xi xii LIST OF CHAPTERS AND SUBJECTS. CHAPTER IV. PAGI. NIAKINQ THE; NEW PEOPLE 89 iE colonists' new gondii ion — LAND AND LABOR THE RICE SWAMPS OF CAROLINA — THE PLAN- TATION THE FARM FORCING A STAPLE — A MULBERRY-TREE LAW MANORIAL RIGHTS IN VIR- GINIA — THE FEUDAL SYSTEM — THE ORIGIN OF THE VIRGINIA PARISH — THE COUNTY AND THE COURT CASTE THE AMERICAN BARON WHITE TRASH — EQUALITY IN NEW ENGLAND WHITE SLAVES — RELIGIOUS FREEDOM— CHARACTER OF THE PURITANS — EARLY HISTORIES OF MASSA- CHUSETTS COTTON MATHER AND THE WITCHES NEW YORK'S AUTO DA FE SYMBOLISM THE QUAKER AND THE PURITAN — A PROTEST AGAINST PERSECUTION — THE BLUE LAWS — THE HUDSON RIVER ESTATES — SCHOOLS NORTH AND SOUTH — THE SPREAD OF INTELLIGENCE. CHAPTER V. e.LD COLOKY DAYS AND WAYS 103 HOME AND ^OCTAI ^IFE ISOLATION OF COMMUNITIES THE TYPICAL PURITAN HOME — FRIENDLINESS AND REPRESSION — HOME INDUSTRIES — THE LOOM AND THE SPINNING WHEEL — HABITS OF THE PEOPLE — BOOKS AND READING — SCHOOL AND MEETING-HOUSE — MINISTER AND SQUIRE. CHAPTER Vi. STORY OE THE BUCCANEERS AND EI RATES, . . . 117 TQRTUGA THE FIRST HOME OF THE BUCCANEERS — SPAIN JEALOUS OF THE FRENCH — THE CAPTURE OF A WAR-SHIP — CHARACTER OF THE BUCCANEERS — PIERRE FRANCOIS AND THE PEARL FISHERS A CHANGE OF BASE — PORTUGUES — SUPPOSED DEATH OF THE PIRATE REJOICING OF THE SPAN- IARDS BRAZILIANO — THE PROFLIGACY OF PORT ROYAL — DAVIS'S STRATEGY DEFEAT AND VEN- GEANCE Of LOLONOIS — WEALTH OF THE SPANISH AMERICAN CITIES — THE DEFENSE OF MERIDA — AN OLD SOLDIER OF FLANDERS — THE LAST OF THE BUCCANEERS — HENRY MORGAN HIS CAREER— THE TAKING OF PUERTO BELLO — ST. CATHERINE'S FALLS MARACAIBO AGAIN THE SPANISH admiral's ultimatum HOW MORGAN ANSWERED IT THEATRICAL CIVILITY MORGAN APPROACHES PANAMA — IN SIGHT OF PANAMA AN ARDUOUS BATTLE RICH BOOTY TREACHERY OF MORGAN — OTHER PIRATES — KIDD — BLACKBEARD — HOW KIDD GOT HIS COMMISSION, ET^. CHAPTER VII. CUTTINQ LOOSE EROM EUROPE, ........ 133 DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS IN THE COLONIES — CHARTERS AND ASSEMBLIES — TOWN MEETINGS IN NEW ENGLAND — COUNTIES AS UNITS IN THE SOUTH — MASSACHUSETTS ANP VIRGINIA REPRE- SENTATIVE TYPES — bacon's rebellion — ANDROS's TYRANNY — UNITY IN ACTION FOR SELF- DEFENSE — KING Philip's war, the dutch and the Spaniards, louisburgh, port royal— WASHINGTON AND BRADDOCK OVERTHROW OF THE FRENCH POWER IN AMERICA THE ALBANY PLAN — NAVIGATION LAWS — THE STAMP ACT NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION — THK BOSTON MASSACRE — BOSTON TEA PARTY — PORT BILL — FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. LIST OF CHAPTERS AND SUBJECTS. xiii CHAPTER VIII. PAGli THE WAR KOR. INDEPENDENCE 14c CHARACTER OF THE WAR — THE BRITISH PLAN OF CAiMPAIGN — BUNKER HILL — TICONDEROGA — THK DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE — BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND — HARLEM HEIGHTS — WASHING- TON'S CROSSING THE DELAWARE — TRENTON AND PRINCETON — BURGOYNE'S EXPEDITION — SURRENDER OF BURGOYNE — HOWE AT PHILADELPHIA — BATTLE OF GERMANTOWN — WASHINGTON AT VALLEY FORGE — THE FRENCH ALLIANCE — MONMOUTH COURT HOUSE — INVASION OF GEORGIA AND SOUTH CAROLINA — GATES's FAILURE — GREENE's STRATEGY — BENEDICT ARNOLD'S TREACH ERY — PAUL JONES AND THE " SERAMIS " — AT YORKTOWN — WASHINGTON'S DECISIVE MOVE- SURRENDER OF CORNWALLIS — INDEPENDENCE ACKNOWLEDGED. CHAPTER IX. SXR.XJGQLE EOR LIBERTY AND GOVERNMENT, . . ijc BY FRANCIS NEWTON THORPE, PH.D., PROFESSOR OF SCHOOL OF AMERICAN HISTORY AND INSTITUTIONS, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. COLONIZATION — SOME RESULTS — POPULAR RIGHTS — NEW ENGLAND — THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY- LIMITATIONS — THE ENGLISH IDEA — COLONIAL LEGISLATURES — THE MONEY QUESTION — GOVERN ING OUTSIDE OF CHARTER LIMITATIONS — TAXATION — THOSE TEA CHESTS — THE STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE CONFEDERATION — THE FRANCHISE — PROPERTY QUALIFICATION THAT STAR OP EMPIRE — ITS WESTWARD COURSE — THEN AND NOW, ETC. CHAPTER X. RATHEINDERS AND PIONEERS, 199 DANIEL BOONE — A PICTURESQUE CHARACTER — WALKER — STEWART HOLDEN — MONCEY — FINLEY — COOL — A FIRST VIEW OF KENTUCKY — THE BIVOUAC — A KENTUCKY FORT — INDIAN CAPTURES- DAVID CROCKETT — A FASCINATING CAREER — LEWIS AND CLARK — THEIR WESTWARD TRAVELS — FREMONT KIT CARSON ARCTIC EXPLORERS BEHRING VAN WRANGEL ROSS PARRY SIR JOHN FRANKLIN THE GRINNELL EXPEDITION — KANE — DR. HAYES — SCHWALKER THE BENNETT EXPEDITION — CAPTAIN LONG — DEATH AND RESCUE. CHAPTER XI. RUSHING BACK THE BOUNDARIES 215 ORIGINAL LINES ORDER OF ADMISSION OF THE STATES — THE FRENCH CESSION — THE SPANISH CESSION — TEXAN ANNEXATION — MEXICAN CESSION — RUSSIAN PURCHASE — THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS CHAPTER XII. THE SECOND WAR KOR INDEPENDENCE, OR THE WAR OR 1812 23i MEANING OF THE WAR — ITS CAUSES — NEUTRAL RIGHTS — IMPRESSING AMERICAN SAILORS — INSULTS AND OUTRAGES — THE "CHESAPEAKE" AND THE " LEOPARD " — INJURY TO AMERICAN COM xiv LIST OF CHAPTERS AND SUBJECTS. MERCA — /APER BLOCKADES — THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL — EMBARGO AS RETALIATION— OUR NAVAL GLORY IN THIS WAR — FAILURE OF THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST CANADA — HULL's SURRENDER AT DETROIT SPLENDID VICTORIES AT SEA — THE "CONSTITUTION AND THE " GUERRIERE " THE "wasp" AND THE " FROLIC " — OTHER SEA-DUELS AMERICAN PRIVATEERS — ON THE LAKES perry's great VICTORY LAND OPERATIONS — BATTLE OF THE THAMES WILKINSON'S FIASCO — THE "shannon" and THE "CHESAPEAKE" — ENGLISH REINFORCEMENTS — LUNDY'S LANE AND PLATTSBURG — THE BURNING OF WASHINGTON BALTIMORE SAVED — GENERAL JACKSON AT NEW ORLEANS — THE TREATY OF PEACE — THE HARTFORD CONVENTION. CHAPTER XIII. PAGB THE STORY OK THK INDIAN 247 OUR RELATIONS TO THE INDIAN — PERIOD OF DISCOVERY — HOSPITALITY TO FIRST SETTLERS — ABUSE OF HOSPITALITY — DISTRUST AND WARFARE — COLONIAL PERIOD — EARLY OUTBREAKS AND MASSACRES — FRENCH AND ENGLISH WARS — REVOLUTIONARY WAR — INDIAN STRUGGLE FOR TERRITORY. CHAPTER XIV. THE INDIAN OK THK NINKTKKNTH CENTURY, . . 261 BY HON. HENRY L. DAWES, CHAIRMAN COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS, U. S. SENATE. JfATIONAL PERIOD — CONFLICT BETWEEN TWO CIVILIZATIONS — INDIAN BUREAU — GOVERNMENT POLICY — TREATIES — RESERVATION PLAN — REMOVALS UNDER IT — INDIAN WARS — PLAN OF CONCENTRA- TION — DISTURBANCE AND FIGHTING — PLAN OF EDUCATION AND ABSORPTION — ITS COMMENCE- MENT — PRESENT CONDITION OF INDIANS — NATURE OF EDUCATION AND RESULTS — LAND IN SEVERALTY LAW — MISSIONARY EFFORT — NECESSITY AND DUTY OF ABSORPTION. CHAPTER XV. STORY OK THE NEQRO, 277 THE NEGRO IN AMERICA — THE FIRST CARGO — BEGINNING OF THE SLAVE TRAFFIC — AS A LABORER — INCREASE IN NUMBERS — SLAVERY ; ITS DIFFERENT CHARACTER IN DIFFERENT STATES — POLITICAL DISTURBANCES — AGITATION AND AGITATORS — JOHN BROWN — WAR AND HOW IT EMANCIPATED THE SLAVE — THE FREE NEGRO. CHAPTER XVI. THE STORY OK THE CIVIL WAR, ........ 293 S9CESSI0N — NOT EXCLUSIVELY A SOUTHERN IDEA — AN IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT — COMING EVENTS- LINCOLN — A NATION IN ARMS — SUMTER — ANDERSON — McCLELLAN — VICTORY AND DEFEAT—* MONITOR AND MERRIMAC — ANTIETAM — SHILOH — BUELL — GRANT — GEORGE H. THOMAS — ROSE- CRANS PORTER SHERMAN SHERIDAN — LEE — GETTYSBURG A GREAT FIGHT SHERMAN'S MARCH — THE CONFEDERATES WEAKENING — MORE VICTORIES — APPOMATTOX — LEE's SURRENDER— FROM WAR TO PEACE — ETC., ETC. LIST OF CHAPTERS AND SUBJECTS. xv CHAPTER XVII. PAGB «0M:E KORGOXXEN lessons ok the war 317 BY ALEXANDER K. McCLURE, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR OF THE PHILADELPHIA TIMES. EMANCIPATION — RELUCTANCE OF THE NORTH TO FIGHT — FORT SUMTER — FALSE ESTIMATES ON BOTH SIDES THE QUESTION OF THE RIGHT TO COERCE NAVAL WARFARE REVOLUTIONIZED — GLOOMIEST PERIOD OF THE WAR DEFEAT OF THE ATLANTA — BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG — LEE — SHERMAN — JACKSON — LINCOLN — GRANT, ETC. CHAPTER XVIII. OUR RLAG ATT SEA • ... 339 THE ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN NAVY — JOHN PAUL JONES AND HIS FAMOUS VICTORY — SIGHTS ON GUNS AND WHAT THEY DID — SUPPRESSING THE BARBARY PIRATES — OPENING JAPAN — PORT ROYAL PASSING THE FORTS THE "MONITOR" AND " MERRIMAC " — IN MOBILE BAY — THE "KEARSARGE" AND THE "ALABAMA" — NAVAL ARCHITECTURE REVOLUTIONIZED — THE SAMOAN HURRICANE — BUILDING A NEW NAVY. CHAPTER XIX. DIKKICULTIES WITH KOREIGN POWERS, 361 PERPETUAL PEACE IMPOSSIBLE — THE BARBARY STATES — BUYING PEACE — UNCLE SAM AROUSED — THRASHES THE ALGERINE PIRATES — A SPLENDID VICTORY — KING BOMBA BROUGHT TO TERMS- AUSTRIA AND THE KOSZTA CASE — CAPTAIN INGRAHAM — HIS BRAVERY "DELIVER OR i'lL SINK you" AUSTRIA YIELDS THE PARAGUAYAN TROUBLE LOPEZ COMES TO TERMS THE CHILIAN IMBROGLIO BALMACEDA THE INSULT TO THE UNITED STATES — AMERICAN SEAMEN ATTACKED — MATTa's IMPUDENT LETTER — BACKDOWN — PEACE — ALl's WELL THAT ENDS WELL, ETC. CHAPTER XX. AROXIO ADVENTURERS 379 THE FATE OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN DR. KANE AND THE GRINNELL EXPEDITION DR. HAYES DIS- COVERS GRINNELL LAND — THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN HALL — SCHWATKA'S SEARCH FOR FRANKLIN RECORDS THE JEANNETTE AND HER COMMANDER — DE LONG ON FLOATING ICE DISCOVERS BENNETT ISLAND — WEYPRECHT's GREAT PLAN AND THE GREELY EXPEDITION — LOCKWOOD's FARTHEST NORTH. CHAPTER XXI. RELIGION UNDER NEW CONDITIONS, ...... 389 rHK OLD HP:BREW COMMONWEALTH — WHEN LEADING SECTS ARRIVED — THEIR PRESENT NUMERICAL STRENGTH — CARDINAL FACTS IN RELIGIOUS HISTORY IN THE UNITED STATES — PHASES OF RELIGIOUS LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND — THE PURITAN MINISTER — HIS PREACHING — PURITAN MEET- ING HOUSES THE DUTCH " DOMINIE " — METHODIST CIRCUIT RIDER — GREAT PREACHERS: JONATHAN EDWARDS, THE ELDER — GEORGE WHITEFIELD — NATHANIEL EMMONS — LYMAN BEECHER HENRY WARD BEECHER CHARLES GRANDISON FINNEY DENOMINATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS: FRIENDS — BAPTISTS — METHODISTS — CONGREGATIONALISTS— PRESBYTERIANS — ROMAN CATHOLICS UNITARIANS — MORMONS — CONCLUSION. xvi LIST OF CHAPTERS AND SUBJECTS CHAPTER XXII. t:^he feopiaEI under neiw conditions 415 THE NEW DEMOCRACY MANHOOD SUFFRAGE FEDERATION THE EVOLUTION OF POLITICS AND PARTIES THE FEDERALISTS HAMILTON DEMOCRATIC PARTY JEFFERSON WHIGS HENRY CLAY WEBSTER CALHOUN ABOLITIONISTS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY LINCOLN INDEPEN- DENTS, ETC. CHAPTER XXIII. GOIaD and SIKVER mining 427 opening the way to california discovery of gold marshal and sutter profits one dollar per minute san francisco with fifty houses five times destroyed by fire discovery of silver in 1857 the fate of early miners mining life vigilance committees, etc. CHAPTER XXIV. O^HEl PROBLaEM ok OUR NATIONAL OURRENOV, • . 439 BY HON. JOHN SHERMAN, ITS HISTORY AND EVOLUTION. By J. K. Upton. WHAT IS MONEY? ITS EARLY FORMS ITS FUNCTIONS LEGAL TENDER CONSIDERED UNDER THREE FORMS ITS HISTORY DIVIDED INTO THREE PERIODS COLONIAL MONEY DEBASING THE COINAGE PAPER MONEY BI-METALISM CONTINENTAL CURRENCY MONEY UNDER THE CONSTITUTION HAMILTON ON BI-METALISM REGULATION OF COINAGE MINTS PAPER MONEY OF THIS PERIOD THE CRASH OF 1809 THE NATIONAL BANK CRISIS OF 1818 THE PANIC OF 1837 ISSUE OF GREENBACKS BANK NOTES RESUMPTION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS GOLD AT 103 CONTRACTION OF THE CURRENCY GREENBACKS AT PAR FOLLOWED BY UNPARALLELED PROSPERTY FUTURE CURRENCY OF THE COUNTRY. CHAPTER XXV. HOW WE GOVERN OURSELVES 461 BY MISS ANNA L DAWES. THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT CONGRESS HOW COMPOSED DUTIES EXECUTIVE ELECTION OF PRESIDENT CABINET JUDICIARY POWERS OF SUPREME COURT FEDERAL SYSTEM RELA- TION OF STATES TO NATION THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES. CHAPTER XXVI. OUR PRESIDENTS AND THEIR ADMINISTRATIONS. 473 THE TWENTY-FOUR STATESMEN WHO HAVE OCCUPIED THE PRESIDENTIAL CHAIR BRIEF SKETCHES OF THEIR LIVES THE MEMORABLE EVENTS OF THEIR ADMINISTRATIONS THE IMPORTANT FACTS OF OUR POLITICAL, COMMERCIAL, AND SOCIAL HISTORY SINCE THE ADOPTION OF THE CON- STITUTION POLITICAL CHANGES HAWAIAN DIFFICULTY LABOR TROUBLES RECENT ELEC- TIONS THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR OUR NEW POSSESSIONS, ETC., ETC. Sec •?. Cf) g =^ ft era D-0 3 5- ft 3 O p IS" ft Q ft " •- o- ° s 1" ~ _i o-„ H ft c ri 5' 5' in S-3 O ft T ^ ft S 5 "■ 2 o P S 3 I 5— > r^ ^ ■ ft O < ft ft a t/1 (-• ft ft ^ ft « 3 o c p ■ B a i p — ."O O o U 6. C OB B- ^ h be- B 2 "Id •=^ — o - o '"■ til ■a -3 = c Z o (/) o _I _1 .. •5 §.5 4_, *- u « 5 2 ^ - a "•c 2 ll§ c^ §• O (:/.•; ^._ u CJ c t, I— ,> * u = J3 rt «-■ u o a en '. « . 3 3 a CONTENTS. xvii CHAPTER XXVIL FAGE SONIK GREAT A:VIERICAN INDUSXRiaS. . 501 IN THE ROCK-RIBBED HILLS BURIED TREASURES OF EARTH — RARE STONES VARIEGATED Mi»RELES — GRANITES — HOW TO GET THE STONES OUT A YOUNG INDUSTRY THE GREAT FLOUR MILLS — OLD-TIME MILLING THE NEW PROCESS — THE GREAT FLOUR MILLS OF THE WEST — THEIR VAST OUTPUTS, ETC. — THE GREAT OIL WELLS — A WONDERFUL INDl S TRY MORE LIGHT — PETROLEUM — ITS HISTORY — DEVELOPMENT — GAS WELLS — THE GREAT PIPE LINES — " GUSHERS '/ — SUGGESTIVE FIGURES, ETC CHAPTER XXVIII. OUR WAR WITH SIXAIN FOR CUBA'S KREKDOM!, . . 57^ UNIVERSAL INTEREST IN IHIS VVAR — OUR MOTIVES FOR IT A HOLY WAR BREAKING OFF DIPLOMAT^ RELATIONS WITH SPAIN — CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS EXPEDITIONS ORGANIZED — BOMBARDMENT OF MATANZAS — BATTLE OF MANILA ''KEEP COOL AND OBEY ORDERS" SPANISH AND AMERICAN VESSELS ENGAGED DEWEy's METHOD OF FIGHTING — CONGRESS' VOTE OF THANKS THIS VICTORY IS A MONUMENT TO ITS HERO — FIRST AMERICAN LOSS OF LIFE — BOMBARDMENT OF SAN JUAN, PORTO RICO — HUNTING THE SPANISH FLEET BOTTLED UP IN SANTIAGO HARBOR — COMMODORE SCHLEY BOMBARDS THE FORTIFICATIONS ADMIRAL SAMPSON TAKES COMMAND — HOBSON SINKS THE MERRIMAC — SECOND BOMBARDMENT OF SANTIAGO — SHAFTER's ARMY OF 15,000 MEN EMBARKS THE FOUR DAYS' FIGHT OF THE MARINES AT CAIMANERA THE LANDING OF SHAFTER's ARMY — THE VICTORY OF THE ROUGH RIDERS — PREPARING FOR THE ATTACK UPON SANTIAGO — FIERCE BATTLES OF SAN JUAN AND EL CANEY — THE DESTRUCTION OF CERVERA'S FLEET DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE NAVAL BATTLE OF JULY 3D FLIGHT OF REFUGEES FROM THE CITY — LAST BATTLE AND SURRENDER OF THE CITY — TAKING POSSESSION AND RAISING THE AMERICAN FLAG — GENERAL SHAFTER's ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE VICTORY — THE WAR IN PORTO RICO — THE CONQUEST OF THE PHILIPPINES — PEACE NEGOTIATIONS AND THE PROTOCOI — HOME-COMING OF OUR SOLDIERS. CHAPTER XXIX. OUR NEW POSSESSIONS, 605 The Hawaiian Islands, "the paradise of the pacific" — all climates together — STUPENDOUS AND DELIGHTFUL SCENERY HIGHEST VOLCANO IN THE WORLD THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN SUPERSTITIONS, ETC. PRODUCTS AND COMMERCE HONOLULU. Cuba, the Child of Our Adoption, the doorway to America — discovery-^visits of COLUMBUS — settlement AND CONQUEST BY THE SON OF COLUMBUS — SUBJUGATION, ENSLAVE- MENT AND ANNIHILATION OF THE ABORIGINES CAPTURE OF HAVANA BY THE ENGLISH — THE TEN years' WAR THE LAST GREAT STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM — WEYLEr's BRUTALITY UNITED STATES INTERVENTION FUTURE OF THE ISLANDS RESOURCES — CITIES — CLIMATE, ETC. Beautiful Porto Rico, discovery by columbus — conquest — aborigines — sacking of san JUAN BY THE ENGLISH — HEALTHFULNESS, SIZE AND RESOURCES — CHIEF CITIES CLIMATE. Ladrone Islands, discovery by Magellan — 3ize — topography — early inhabitants — con- quest by the SPANIARDS — CLIMATE — FLORA — CAPTURE BY THE CHARLESTON, JULY 4TH, 1 898. The Philippine Islands, number of islands and their population — Magellan's voyage OF discovery pirates — dutch and SPANISH WARS— CAPTURE BY THE ENGLISH UPRISINGS OF THE NATIVES MANNERS AND CUSTOMS WILD TRIBES — THE CITY OF MANILA — ILO ILO AN'' CEBU — PRODUCTS AND RESOURCES ANIMALS — CLIMATE EARTHQUAKES — VOLCANOES ANEW ERA. BARON STHUBBN. GOV. ARTHUR ST. CLAIR. SHC Y SAMUEL A. OTIS. ROGER SHERMAN. GOV. GEORGE CLINTON. CHANCELLOR ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON. GEORGE WASHINGTON. GEN'l HENRY KNG8 WASHINGTON TAKING THE OATH AS PRESIDENT, AI-RIL 30, 1789, ON THE SITE OF THE PRESENT TREASURY BUILDING, WALL STREET, NEW YORK CITY. Virginia gave us this imperial man. Cast in the massive mould Of those high-statured ages old Which into grander forms our mortal metal ran; Mother of States and undiminished men, Thou gavest us a Country, giving him. ^AMss Russell Loweliu LEVICI, IN THE BAY OF GENOA. CHAPTER I. KINDINO THE NEW COUNTRY. HILE Discovery, whether disclosing- unknown lands beyond untried seas, or revealing the method of subduing and utilizing to man's service some one of the mighty forces of Nature, has startled the world more than Conquest, scarcely less surprising than some discoveries is the fact that the world has so often and for so long a time seemed to call for a discoverer in vain. Notably this is the case with the two most important discoveries that have ever been made, and both in the fifteenth century — that of the art of printing and the finding of a new world. For thousands of years the world had transcribed its thought into permanent legible characters by means of the stylus, the stalk of the papyrus, or the chisel. Slow and laborious were these methods, yet the splendid civilizations of the great Eastern Empires, the Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and the Medo-Persian, had produced their literature without the aid of the printing press, while the later civilizations of Greece and Rome — countries that gave to all coming time the noblest litera- tures — transcribed them by the painful process of the pen. The wonderful brain of the Greek could construct a Parthenon, the wonder of the age ; and the Roman reared that pile, so noble in its simplicity — the Pantheon ; vet neither could discern the little type that should make the rapid 2 p & w 21 22 THE STORY OF AMERICA. multiplying of letters easy, nor place in relief upon a block of wood the tracery of a single leaf; and the wonder is no less, but increases as we consider the fact that two vast continents, the half of an entire planet, had for so many centuries eluded the gaze of men who went down to the sea in ships, who for centuries had navigated an inland sea for two thousand miles, while from Iceland and 'Jutland intrepid mariners and Buccaneers had plowed the ocean with their ■keek. ' For nearly three centuries before the angels sung at Bethlehem^, Aristotle, following the teachings of the Pythagoreans, had asserted the spheroidicity of the earth, and had declared that the great Asiatic Empire could be reached by sailing westwardly, a view that was confirmed by Seneca, the Spaniard, who affirmed that India could be reached in this way ; and all down the centuries the probability of discovery, as we now look back upon those times, seems to be increasing ; but, somehow. Discovery still refused to enter the open gate leading to the New World, and this, notwithstanding the fact that the Canary and Madeira Islands had been discovered some years before, and the Portuguese navigators had followed the coast of Africa for thousands of miles, as far as the Cape of Good Hope, Columbus himself having skirted the coast to the Cape of Storms. The spheroidicity of the earth was generally accepted by enlightened men, though the Copernican system was not known, and it was believed that there must be a largfe unknown continent to the west. There was such a continent — two of them indeed — and they were nearer the African coast, along which Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian navigators had coursed, than the distance they had covered from the Pillars of Hercules to the Cape of Good Hope. Yet, though the times wanted a discoverer, he was not to be found. WAS AMERICA DISCOVERED BY THE NORSEMEN ? This has long been a disputed question. Norse scholarship has always insisted upon the discovery ; scholars looking upon the matter from the outside have disputed the claim. One of the principal chains of evidence offered here- tofore has been supplied by the Norse Sagas — stories of mingled fact, romance and myth ; but they have been distrusted, and up to recent time the preponderance of evidence has rather been against the Icelandic claim. But latterly new evidence has been brought to light, which seems to fully establish the fact of the discovery of America by the Norsemen from Iceland, about A. D looo. To cite the testimony of the Sagas, one must suffice for evidence ir, that direction. The Eyrbyggia Saga — the oldest extant manuscript, remains of which date back to about the year 1300 — has the following : "After the recon- ciliation between Steinhor and the people of Alpta-firth, Thorbrand's sons, Snorri and Thorleif, went to Greenland. Snorri went to Wineland the Good with WAS AMERICA DISCOVERED BY THE NORSEMEN? 23 Karlsefni ; and when they were fighting with the SkrelHngs there in Wineland, Thorbrand Snorrason, a most vaHant man, was killed." In the Icelandic Annals, also, the oldest of which is supposed to have been written in the south of Iceland about the year 1280, mention is made of Vineland. In the year 1121 it is recorded that " Bishop Eric Uppsi sought Wineland." The same entry is found in the chronological lists. These would seem to supply historical references to the Norse discovery of America, set down in such a manner as to indicate that the knowledge of the fact was widely diffused. One of the most interesting accounts taken from the Norse records is that found in a parchment discovered in a Monastery library of the Island of Flato ON THE COAST OF NOVA SCOTIA. and which was transferred to Copenhagen and submitted to the inspection o\ Professor Rafn and other noted Icelandic scholars. Professor Rafn reproduces the record in his "Antiquities." The story is as follows: "In the year 996, while sailine from Iceland to Greenland, Biarne Heriulfson was driven southward by a storm, when they came in sight of land they had never before seen. Biarne did not try to land, but put his ship about and eventually reached Greenland. Four years after, in A. D. 1000, Leif the son of Eric the Red, sailed from Brattahlid in search of the land seen by Biarne. This land Leif soon discovered ; he landed, it is supposed, on the coast of Labrador, which he named Helluland, because of the numerous flat stones found there, from the word hella, a flat stone. Finding the shore inhospitable, he again set sail and soon reached a coast 24 THE STORY OF AMERICA. corresponding to Nova Scotia. This he called Markland (Woodland). Leif put to sea a third time, and after two days' buffeting landed, it is supposed, in Mount Hope Bay, in Rhode Island. Here the adventurers wintered, and noted that on the shortest day the sun rose at 7.30 a. m., and set at 4.30 p. m. After naming the newly discovered land Vineland, on account of the profusion of wild grapes, he returned in the following spring to Greenland." But it is only just to cite opinions on the other side. In his History Mr. Bancroft denies that the alleged discovery of the North American mainland is established by any clear historical evidence. He admits, indeed, that there is nothing intrinsically improbable in the notion that the colonizers of Greenland (and the early colonization of Greenland is admitted) may have explored the coast to the South. But the assertion that they actually did so rests, he says, on narratives "mythological in form, obscure in meaning, ancient, yet not contemporary." Mr. Justin Winsor, the well-known historian, seems unwilling to admit the trustworthiness of the epical accounts of the voyages of the Northmen to the so-called Vineland. But a recent writer, Mr. Arthur Middleton Reeves, well versed in Scandi- navian and Icelandic literature, has lately come forward to maintain the reality of the discovery ascribed to the Northmen, and has set forth an imposing arra)' of evidence and argument in support of his belief Mr. Reeves finds his proofs not in the Sagas alone, which Bancroft and Winsor reject, but he has also gathered together the preceding references to the Vineland voyages, which are scattered through the early history of Iceland. From these last mentioned data it seems clearly demonstrable that the discovery of the American mainland took place, as has been claimed, about A. D. 1000, and was well known in Greenland and Iceland long before any of the three Sagas dealing with the theme were penned, for there is documentary proof reaching so far back as about the year 1 1 10. Among the proofs brought forward, is the story as told by the Icelandic scholar, Ari the Learned, who was born in Iceland in the year 1067, and M'ho died in 1148. In Ari's book, narrating the colonization of Greenland, he says that the settlers perceived, from the dwellings, the fragments of boats, and the stone implements, that the people had been there who inhabited Wineland, and whom the Greenlanders called " Skrellings." Furthermore, in the Collectanea of Middle-age Wisdom, a manuscript written partly in Icelandic and partly in Latin, between the years 1400 and 1450, it is stated that "southward from Greenland is Helluland ; thence is Markland ; thence it is not far to Wineland the Good. Leif the Lucky first found Greenland." In another historical vellum document it is stated that " from Greenland to the southward lies Helluland, then Markland, thence it is not far to Wineland ;" and in another vellum of the year 1400, it is said "south from Greenland lies Helluland, then Markland, THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF COLUMBUS. 25 thence it is not far to Vineland." Still again — and the evidence must end with this citation — in an old manuscript, written according to the Icelandic scholar Dr. Vigfasson, as early as 1 260-1 280, referring to the date A. D. 1000, the manu- script records : "Wineland the Good found. That summer King Olaf sent Leif to Greenland, to proclaim Christianity there. He sailed that summer to Green- land. He found in the sea men upon a wreck, and helped them. There found "le also Wineland the Good, and arrived in the autumn at Greenland." It is objected to the discovery of America from Greenland that no runic Scandinavian) inscriptions have been found in any part of the North American continent. But the answer to this objection is that the Northmen never pretended that they had colonized Vineland ; they simply recounted their discovery of the country and their unsuccessful attempts to colonize it. Runic inscriptions, therefore, and other archasolocrical remains, are not to be expected in a region wher-i no perma- nent settlements were made. Besides, as Mr. Reeves points out, the rigorous application of the test would make the discovery of Iceland itself disputable. In conclusion, as to this matter, we have only to add that the statements put forth seem not only to confirm what we meet with in the Sagas, but, taken by themselves alone, they seem to fully establish the fact of the discovery of America by the Icelanders, even had CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. the Sagas never been written. And now leavinor the Norsemen and their dis- coveries we come to THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF COLUMBUS. It was the glory of Italy to furnish the greatest of the discoverers of the New World. Not only Columbus, but Vespucci (or Vespucius), the Cabots, and Verazzani were born under Italian skies ; yet singularly enough the country of the Caesars was to gain not a square foot of territory for herself where othei nations divided majestic continents between them. So, too, in the matter of Columbus biography and investigation, up to the present time but one Italian, Professor Francesco Tarducci, has materially added to the sum of the world's knowledge in a field pre-eminently occupied by Washington Irving, Henry Harrisse, and Roselly de Lorgues, a Frenchman, — these comprising the powerful original writers in Columbian biography. 26 THE STORY OF AMERICA. In treating- our subject we naturally begin at the starting point of biography, the birthplace. The generally accepted statement has been that Columbus was born at Genoa, especially as Columbus begins his will with the well-known declaration, "I, being born in Genoa." But it has been asserted l)y numerous writers that in this Columbus was mistaken, just as for a long time General Sheridan was mistaken in supposing himself to have been born in a little Ohio town, when he learned within a year or two of his death, that he was born in Albany, N. Y. But passing this, it remains to be said that the evidence of the Geno- ese birth of Columbus may now be considered as fully established. As to the time of his birth there has been not a little question. Henry Harrisse, the American scholar al- ready referred to, placed it between March 25th, 1446, and March 20th, 1447. This, however, we can hardly accept, especially as it would make Columbus at the time of his first naval venture only thirteen years of age. Tarducci gives 1435 or 1436 as the year of his birth. This is also the date given by Irving, and it would seem to be the most proba- ble. This is the almost decisive testimony of Andres Bernaldr:z, bet- ter known as the Curate (»f Los Palacios, who was most intimate with Columbus and had him a orreat deal in his house. He says the death of Columbus took place in his seven tieth year. His death occurred May 20th, 1506, which would make the year of his birth probably about 1436. And now starting with Genoa as the birthplace of Columbus and about the year 1435 or 1436 as the time of his birth, we proceed with our story. Christopher Columbus (or Columbo in Italian) was the son of Dominico Columbo and Susannah Fontanarossa his wife. The father was a wool carder, a business which seems to have been followed by the family through several generations. He was the oldest of four children, having two brothers, MONUMENT TO COLUMBUS AT GENOA. COLUMBUS AT PORTUGAL. 27 Bartholomew and Giacomo (James in English, in Spanish, Diego), and one sister. Of the early years of Columbus little is known. It is asserted by some that Columbus was a wool comber — no mean occupation in that day — and did not follow the sea. On the other hand, it is insisted — and Tarducci and Harrisse hold to that view — that, whether or not he enlisted in expeditions against the Venetians and Neapolitans (and the whole record is misty and uncertain), Columbus at an early age showed a marked inclination for the sea, and his education was largely directed along the lines of his tastes, and included such studies as geography, astronomy, and navigation. Certain it- is that when Columbus arrived at Lisbon he was one of the best geographers and cosmographers of his age, and was accustomed to the sea from infancy.* Happily his was an age favorable for discovery. The works of travel were brought to the front. Pliny and Strabo, sometime forgotten names, were more than Sappho and Catullus, which a later but not a better age affected. The closing decade of the fifteenth century was a time of heroism, of deeds of daring, and discovery. Rude and unlettered to some extent, it m.ay be conceded it was ; yet it was far more fruitful, and brought greater blessings to the world than are bestowed by the effeminate luxury which often character- izes a civilization too daintily pampered, too tenderly reared. Life then was at least serious. ♦ Right here it may be in place to state how invention promoted Columbian discovery. The compass had been known for six hundred years. But at this time the quadrant and sextant were unknown ; it became necessary to discover some means for finding the altitude of the sun, to ascertain one's distance from the equator. This was accomplished by utilizing the Astrolabe, an instrument only lately used by astronomers in their stellar work. This inven- tion gave an entirely new direction to navigation, delivering seamen from the necessity of always keeping near the shore, and permitting the little ships — small vessels they were — to sail free amidst the immensity of the sea, so that a ship that had lost its course, formerly obliged to grope its way back by the uncertain guidance of the stars, could now, by aid of compass and astralobe. retrace its course with ease. Much has justly been ascribed to the compass as a promoter of navigation ; but it is a question if the astralobe has not played quite as important a part. The best authorities place the arrival of Columbus at Lisbon about the year 1470. It is probable Columbus was known by reputation to Alfonso V, King of Portugal. It is unquestionable that Columbus was attracted to Portugal by the spirit of discovery which prevailed throughout the Iberian peninsula, fruits of which were just beginning to be gathered. Prince Henry of Portugal, ♦ Tarducci, I, 41. 23 THE STORY OF AMERICA. who was one of the very first of navigators, if not the foremost explorer of his day, had established a Naval College and Observatory, to which the most learned men were invited, while under the Portuguese flag the greater part of the African coast had been already explored. Having setded in Lisbon, at the Convent of All Saints, Columbus formed an acquaintance with Felipa Mofiis de Perestrello, daughter of Bartholomew de Perestrello, an able navigator but poor, with whom and two others Prince Henry had made his first discovery. The acquaintance soon ripened into love, and Columbus made her his wife. Felipa's father l«y . m\\ '^^''/mWW^fy^ '^ COLUMBUS'S ARRIVAL AT THE CONVENT OF LA RABIDA. soon died, and then with his wife and her mother Columbus moved to Porto Santo, where a son was born to them, whom they named Diego. Felipa hence- forth disappears from history ; there is no further record of her. At Porto Santo Columbus supported his family and helped sustain his aged father, who was living poorly enough off at Savona, and who was forced to sell the litde property he had, and whose precarious living led him to make new loans and incur new debts. COLUMBUS AND THE KING OF PORTUGAL. 29 Meanwhile Columbus was imbibing to the full the spirit of discovery sc widely prevalent. It was not his wife who materially helped him at this time, as has been asserted, but his mother-in-law, who, observing the deep interest that Columbus took in all matters of exploration and discovery, gave him all the manuscripts and charts which her husband had made, which, with his owr voyages to some recently discovered places, only renewed the burning desire for exploration and discovery. The leaven was rapidly working. But the sojourn at Portugal must be briefly passed over. The reports thai jcame to his ears while living at Porto Santo only intensified his convictions of the existence of an empire to the West. He heard of great reeds and a bit of curiously carved wood seen at sea, floating from the West ; and vague rumors reached him at different times, of "strange lands" in the Atlantic — most if not all of them mythical. But they continued to stimulate interest as they show the state of public thought at that time respecting the Atlantic, whose western regions were all unknown. All the reports and all the utterances of the day Columbus watched with closest scrutiny. He secured old tomes for fullest information as to what the ancients had written or the moderns discovered. All this served t'^ keep the subject fresh in his mind, nor would it "down," for his convictions were constantly ministered to by contemporary speculators. Toscanelli, an Italian mathematician, had written, at the instance of King Alfonso, instructions for a western route to Asia. With him Columbus entered into correspondence, which greatly strengthened his theories. Now they came to a head. Constant thought and reflection resulted in his conception of an especial course to take, which, followed for a specific time, would result in the discovery of an empire. And the end ! He would subdue a great trans-Atlantic empire, and from its riches he would secure the wealth to devote to expeditions for recovering the Holy Land, and so he would pay the Moors dearly for their invasion of the Iberian peninsula, — a truly fanciful but not a wholly unreasonable conception, as the times were. COLUMBUS AND THE KING OF PORTUGAL. At last he found means to lay his project before the King of Portugal. But the royal councillors treated the attempt to cross the Atlantic as rash and dangerous, and the conditions required by Columbus as exorbitant. The adventurous King, John II, — Alfonso had died in 1481 — had more faith in his scheme than his wise men, and, with a dishonesty not creditable to him attempted at this time to reap the benefit of Columbus' studies and plans by sending out an expedition of his own in the direction and by the way traced in his charts. But the skill and daring of Columbus were wanting, and at the first mutterings of the sea the expedition sought safety in flight. It turned back to the Cape de Verde islands, and the officers took revenge for their 30 THE STORY OF AMERICA. disappointment by ridiculing- the project of Columbus as the vision of a day dreamer. O, valiant voyagers ! — New Worlds are not discovered by such men as you ! Columbus's brother Bartholomew had endeavored about this time to interest the British monarch in the project, but the first of the Tudors had too much to do in quelling insurrection at home, and in raising revenues by illegal means, to spend any moneys on visionary projects. Henry III would have none of him. Meantime, indignant at the infamous treatment accorded him, and with his ties to Portugal already sundered by the death of his wife, he determined to shake the dust of Portugal off his feet, and seek the Court of Spain. He would start at once for Cordova, where the Spanish Court then was. Leaving Lisbon secretly, near the close of 1484, he chose to follow the sea coast to Palos, instead of taking the direct inland route, and most happily so ; for, in so doing he was to gain a friend and a most important ally ; this circumstance the unthinking man will ascribe to chance, but the believer to Providence. Weary and foot-sore, on his journey, he finally arrived at Palos, then a small port on the Atlantic, at the mouth of the Tinto, in Andalusia ; here hunger and want drove him to seek assistance from the charity of the Monks, and ascending the steep mountain road to the Franciscan monastery of Santa Maria de La Rabida, he met the pious prior. Father Juan Perez, who, struck with his imposing presence, despite his sorry appearance, entered into conversation with him. As the interview grew in interest to both the parties, Columbus was led to impart to the prior his great project, to the prior's increasing wonder, for in Palos the spirit of exploration was as regnant as in Lisbon. Columbus was invited to make the Convent his place of sojourn, an invitation he was only too glad to accept. Then Father Perez sent for his friend, a well known geographer of Palos, and, deeply interested in all that related to exploration and the discovery of new lands, the three took the subject into earnest consideration, thorough discussion of the question being had. It was not long before Father Perez — all honor to his name ! — became deeply interested in the plans of Columbus. To glorify God is the highest aim to which one can address himself; of that feeling Father Perez was thoroughly possessed; and how could he more fully glorify him than by aiding in the discovery of new lands and the spreading of Christianity there ? Impelled by this feeling, he urged Columbus to proceed at once to Cordova, where the Spanish Court then was, giving him money for his journey, and a letter of commendation to his friend, the father prior of the monastery of El Prado Fernando de Talavera, the queen's Confessor, and a person of great influence at Court. There was hope;' and there was a period of long and weary waiting yet before him. COLUMBUS AT THE SPANISH COURT. 31 Arriving at Cordova, Columbus found the city a great military camp, and all Spain aroused in a final effort to expel the Moors. Fernando, the Confessor, was a very different man from Perez, and instead of treating Columbus kindly, received him coolly, and for a long while actively prevented him from meeting the king. The Copernican theory, though held by some, was not at this time established, and the chief reason why the Confessor opposed Columbus's plan was unquestionably because he measured a scientific theory by appeal to the Scriptuft;s — just as the Sacred Congregation did in Galileo's case a century and a half later — just as some well-meaning but mistaken souls do to-day. At length, through the friendship of de Ouintanilla, Comptroller of the Castilian Treasury, Geraldini, the Pope's nuncio, and his brother, Allessandro, tutor of the children of Ferdinand and Isabella, Columbus was made known to Cardinal Mendoza, who introduced him to the king. Ferdinand listened to him patiently, and referred the whole matter to a council of learned men, mostly composed of ecclesiastics, under the presidency of the Confessor. Here again dogma supplanted science, and controverted Columbus's theories by Scriptural texts, and caused delay, so it was not till 1491 — Columbus had now been residing in Spain six years — that the Commission reported the project "vain and impossible, and not becoming great princes to engage in on such slender grounds as had been adduced." The report of the Commission seemed a death-blow to the hopes of Columbus. Disappointed and sick at heart, and disgusted at six years of delay, Columbus turned his back on Spain, "indignant at the thought of having been beguiled out of so many precious years of waning existence." Deter- mined to lay his project before Charles VIII, of France, he departed, and stopped over at the little Monastery of La Rabida, from whose Prior, Juan Perez, six years before, he had departed with such sanguine hopes, for Cordova. The good friar was greatly moved. Finally he concluded to make another and final effort. Presuming upon his position as the queen's Confessor, Perez made an appeal direct to Isabella, and this time with the result that an inter- view was arranged, at which Isabella was present. His proposals would have at once been accepted but that Columbus demanded powers * which even * His principal stipulations were (i) that he should have, for himself during his life, and his heirs and successors forever, the office of admiral in all the lands and continents which he might discover or acquire in the ocean, with similar honors and prerogatives to those enjoyed by the high admiral of Castile in his district. (2) That he should be viceroy and governor-general over all the said lands and continents, with the privilege of nominating three candidates for the government of each island or province, one of whom should be selected by the sovereigns. (3) That he should be entitled to reserve for himself one-tenth of all pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, 32 THE STORY OF AMERICA. "^^i^ de Talavera pronounced "arbitrary and presumptuous," though they were of Hke character with those conceded by Portu- ofal to Vasco de Gamba. Angrered and in- dignant at the rejection of his terms, which were conditioned only upon his success, Columbus impulsively '' \ M A.^^ left the royal presence, taking leave of his friends, set out for France, determined to off( Louis XII ISABELLA HAS A SOBER / ?s. SECOND THOUGHT. But no sooner \ had Columbus gone, than the queen, who we may believe regretted the loss of possible glory of discovery, hastily despatched a messen- ger after him, who overtook him when two leagues away and brought him back. Although Ferdinand spices, and all other articles and merchan- dises, in whatever manner found, bought, bartered, or gained within his admiralty, the cost being first deducted. (4) That he, or his lieutenant, should be the sole judge in all causes and disputes arising out of traffic between those countries and Spain, provided the high admiral of Castile had simUar jurisdiction in his district. COLUMBUS AND THE MESSENGER. FITTING OUT THE EXPEDITION. 3;^ was opposed to the project, Isabella concluded to yield to Columbus his terms and agreed to advance the cost, 14,000 florins, about ^7,000, from her own revenues, and so to Spain was saved the empire of a New World. On May 12 Columbus took leave of the king and queen to superintend the fitting out of the expedition at the port of Palos. The hour and the man had at last met. FITTING OUT THE EXPEDITION. What thoughts and apprehensions filled the heart and mind of Columbus as he at last saw the yearning desires of years about to be met, may be to some extent conceived ; they certainly cannot be expressed. Not a general at the head of his great army who, at a critical moment in battle, sees the enemy make the false move which insures him the victory, could feel more exultant than Columbus must have felt when he left the pres- ence of the Spanish Court, and, after seven years of weary and all but hopeless waiting at last saw the possibilities of the great unknown opening up before him, and beheld, in a vision to him as clear and radiant as the sun shining in the heavens, a New World extending its arms and welcoming him to her embrace. It would seem as if everything now conspired to atone for the disappointing past. His old tried friend, Perez, prior of the La Rabida monastery, near Palos, received him with open arms, and well he might, for had not his kind offices made success possible ? And the authorities, as if to make good the disappointments of seven years, could not now do too much. All public officials, of all ranks and conditions in the maritime borders of Andalusia were commanded to furnish supplies and assistance of all kinds. Not only so, but as superstition and fear made ship owners reluctant to send their vessels on the expedition, the necessary ships and men were to be provided, if need be, by impressment, and it was in this way vessels and men were secured. In three months the expedition was ready to sail. The courage of Columbus in setting sail in untried waters becomes more evident when we consider the size of the ships comprising the little expedition. They were three in number ; the largest of them, the Santa Maria, was only ninety feet long, being about the size of our modern racing yachts. Her smaller consorts, the Pinta and the Nina, were little caravels, very like our fishing smacks, without any deck to keep the wr.ter out. The Santa Maria had four masts, of which two were square rigged, and two fitted with lateen sails like those CARAVELS OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. {After an engraving published in 13S4.) 34 THE STORY OF AMERICA. used on the Nile boats ; this vessel Columbus commanded. Martin Alonzc Pinzon commanded the Pinta, and his brother, Vincente Yanez Pinzon, the Nina. The fleet was now all ready for sea ; but before setting sail Columbus and most of his officers and crew confessed to Friar Juan Perez, and partook of the Sacrament. Surely such an enterprise needed the blessing- of heaven, if any did ! It was before sunrise on Friday morning, August 3, 1492, that Columbus with 30 officers and adventurers and 90 seamen, in all 120 souls, set sail, "in the name of Christ," from behind the little island of Saltes. Those inclined to be superstitious regarding Friday will do well to note that it was on a Friday Columbus set sail from Palos ; it was on Friday, the 12th of October, that he landed in the New World ; on a Friday he set sail homeward ; on a Friday, agam, the 15th of February, 1493, land was sighted on his return to Europe, and that on Friday, the 1 5th of March, he returned to Palos. The story of that evP Jm/i^-^P^ei 171'' INDIAN VILLAGE ENCLOSED WITH PALISADES. {From the original drawings in the British Museum, inaJe by John White in /^Sj-) THE FRENCH ATTEMPT COLONIZATION. 73 himself impoverished by the former expeditions, which had cost him ^200,000, made an assignment, under his patent, to a company which included White and one Thomas Smith. A new fleet was procured, though with considerable trouble, and again the adventurers sought the Virginia coast, in 1590, only to find that the unfortunate settlement of three years before had been utterly wiped out of existence. So ended the first English attempt to settle America. THE FRENCH ATTEMPT COLONIZATION. About the same time de La Roche, a Marquis of Brittany, obtained from Henry IV of France a commission to take Canada. His company consisted largely of convicts and criminals. Following him came Chauvin de Chatte, but he accomplished little of permanent value. For some years following the last attempt of Raleigh to colonize Virginia, a desultory trade with the Indians of the coast was pursued, the staples being sassafras, tobacco, and furs. Richard Hakluyt, one of the assignees of Raleigh, was most active in promoting this traffic ; and among others employed was Bartholomew Gosnold, who, taking a more northerly course than the one usually followed, discovered Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard, and the Elizabeth Islands. Following Gosnold, in 1603, came Martin Pring, exploring Penobscot Bay, tracing the coast thence as far south as Martha's Vineyard. A French grant of the same year gave to Sieur de Monts, a Protestant, the whole of North America between the 40th and 46th parallels of north latitude. This domain was named Acadie. De Monts looked for a monopoly of the fur trade on what is now the New Enofland and Canadian coast. His Lieutenants in the expeditions which he soon commenced, were Poutrincourt and Champlain, of whom the latter became famous for several discoveries, but in particular for the lake which bears his name. So it will be noticed that both the French and English were stretchinof out their hands to acquire the same territory. De Monts and Champlain settled their colony at St. Croix, but soon shifted, trying various. points along the coast, and even attempted to inhabit Cape Cod, but were driven away by the savages. At last they transferred the settlement to Port Royal (Annapolis), where it endured for about a year. De Monts' commission or patent was recalled in 1606, and but a little while previously Raleigh's grant was forfeited by attainder, he having been imprisoned by King James on a charge of treason. The frequent failures to effect a permanent settlement in America did not discourage adventurers, whose desire to possess the new world seemed to grow stronger every year. Soon two new companies were incorporated under PvOyal charter, to be known as the First and Second Colonies of Virginia. The 5 P & \V 74 THE STORY OF AMERICA. former was composed of London men, and the latter of Plymouth people principally. The charter authorized the Companies to recruit and ship colonists, to engage in mining operations and the like, and to trade ; their exports to be free of duties for seven years and duties to be levied by themselves for their own use for a period of twenty years. They might also coin money and protect themselves against invasion. Their lands were held of the King. HARD TIMES COME AGAIN. Hardly had the charter been granted when James began to make regu- lations or instructions for the government of the colonies, which gave a shadow of self rule, established the church of England, and decreed, among other things, that the fruits of their industries were to be held in common stock by the colo- nists for five years. These instructions, along with the names of the "Council" appointed by James for the government of the settlement, were carried, sealed in a tin box, by Captain Christopher Newport, who commanded the three vessels which con- stituted the initial venture of the London Company. An ill chosen band landed at last at Old Point Comfort, after a stormy voyage. Of the one hundred and five men there were forty-three "gentlemen", twelve laborers, half a dozen mechanics and a number of soldiers. These quarreled during the voyage, so that John Smith, who it afterward appeared was one of the Councillors appointed by the Crown, entered Chesapeake Bay a prisoner, charged with con- spiracy. As might have been expected, this company did not fare well. They were consumed with laziness and jealousy ; there were cabals in the council and bickerings outside of it. Repeatedly the men tried to desert ; deaths were fre- quent and want stared them in the face. During this time it is hardly too much to say that the energy and wisdom of John Smith held the discouraged adventurers together. New arrivals of the same sort as the first added to, rather than diminished, the difficulties of the situation, so that at length Smith wrote that thirty workmen would be worth more than a thousand of such people as were being sent out. Not till the third lot of emigrants arrived did any women visit the new settlement, and then only two. The Indians became more and more troublesome, and the London Company, dissatisfied at receiving no returns from their investment, threatened to leave the settlers to shift for themselves. In 1609 the London Company succeeded in obtaining a new charter, by the terms of which it organized as a stock company, with officers chosen for life, a governor appointed by the Company's Council in England, and a territory extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific in a strip four hundred miles in width. During the interval between the granting of the charter and the organization POCAHONTAS. 75 of the new government anarchy reigned in Virginia. Smith did everything possible to restore order, but was at last wounded by an accidental explosion of powder and forced to return to England. At this time Jamestown, which was the name of the settlement, contained five hundred men, sixty dwellings, a fort, ,store and church. The people possessed a little live stock and about thirty acres of cultivated land, but as this was all ^^^ N — *\ - AN INDIAN COUNCIL OF WAR. inadequate to their support there followed what is known in the annals of the colony as the " Starving time." These earlier days in Virginia, while historically valuable only as a warning, have afforded an unusual share of romance, much of which centres about the unromantic name of Smith. The historian gladly concedes to this remarkable man his full share of credit for the survival of one of the most ill assorted 76 THE STORY OF AMERICA. parties that ever attempted to settle a new land. But, added to what is known of Smith's adventures, struggles and escapes, is a great deal that rests solely upon his own authority, and much of this is probably apocryphal. One hesitates, for instance, to examine the Pocahontas legend too closely. There is no doubt of the existence of that aboriginal princess, of her marriage to the Englishman, Rolfe, of her enthusiastic reception by English society, or of the fact that some of her proud descendants live to-day in Virginia. But the pretty story of hei devotion in saving the life of John Smith by protecting him with her own person when the club of the executioner was raised by chief Powhatan's order may be questioned. The account was not given in Smith's first narratives, and was subsequently written by him several years after the death of the lady in question. The multitude of hairbreadth escapes and marvelous adventures of which Smith made himself the centre, have laid him open to the suspicion of drawing a longer bow than Powhatan himself. JOHN SMITH. Clearing away the romance, and allowing all that is necessary to one who is so often the hero of his own narrative, it may not be uninteresting to briefly note some of the unquestioned services that John Smith performed for the struggling colony. We have seen how he arrived under suspicion and arrest, landing on the site of the little settlement which was destined to owe so much to him, like a felon. The opening of the hitherto secret instructions given under the broad seal of England, disclosed the fact that he was one of the Councillors named in that document. But it was his own clear head and strong courage rather than any royal appointment which won him the leadership in the affairs of the settle- ment. The quarrels and incompetency of the two governors, Wingfield and Ratcliffe, acted as a foil to display his superior quality. Although believing to the full in the common creed of his time, that the inducements of wealth were the only ones which would lead men to sacrifice home and comfort for the wilderness, yet he evinced a genius for hard work and a contempt for hard knocks worthy of a nobler purpose. It was in his first extended exploration of the Chickahominy that the Poca- hontas affair is supposed to have occurred. That he was taken prisoner then, and by some means escaped from his captors, is undeniable. And in passing, we may observe the curious misapprehension regarding the width of the Amer ican continent which Smith's journey up the Chickahominy betrayed. He was actually looking for the Pacific ocean ! In keeping with this error is that clause in the American charters which would make the land grants like long, narrow ribbons reaching from ocean to ocean. In 1608 Smith ascended Chesapeake Bay and explored the larger rivers emptying into it. In an open boat, he traveled over two thousand miles on fresh BACON DEMANDING HIS COMMISSION OF GOVERNOR BERKELEY. 78 THE STORY OF AMERICA. water. He parleyed with the Mohawks, and returned to subdue the much more unmanageable colonists at Jamestown. When the half-starved and wholly discouraged adventurers became mutinous, his methods of dealing with them were dictatorial and effectual. As already stated. Smith, upon his departure from Virginia, left nearly five hundred people there. In six months there remained only sixty. Many had died, some thirty or more seized a small vessel and sailed South on a piratical expedition, and a number wandered into the Indian country and never came back. Sick and disheartened, the remainder resolved to abandon Virginia and seek Newfoundland. Indeed, they had actually made all preparations and were starting upon their voyage, when they were met by the new governor from England, Lord De La War, with ships, recruits and provisions. The charter under which De La War assumed the government of Virginia was sufficiently liberal. It was that granted to Raleigh. But in the years that followed, the colony began to be prosperous and to excite the jealousy of the king — the same base, faithless king that had beheaded Raleigh. James began to conspire against the Virginia charter. It was too liberal : he dreaded the power it conferred. By 1620 colonists were pouring into Jamestown at the rate of a thousand a year, and thence being distributed through the country. To try to condense the early colonial history of Virginia to the limits of our space would result in a bare recital of names, or a repetition of the narrative of ignorance, vice, and want, occasionally relieved by some deed of devotion or daring. At first, in spite of the liberal provisions of the charter, the conditions were, to a large extent, those of vassalage. In 1623 James ordered the Com- pany's directors to surrender their charter, a demand which they naturally refused. He then brought suit against the Company, seized their papers so that they should have no defence, and finally, through foul means obtained a decision dissolving the Company. After that the government of the colony consisted in a crovernor and two councils, onr of" which sat in Virofinia and the other in London, The governor and councils were by royal appointment. bacon's rebellion. Here we must be allowed to digress a little, to give the part played by one Nathaniel Bacon in the affairs of Virginia. It was the year 1676, when Bacon became the leader of a popular movement instituted by the people of Kent County, whose purpose was twofold — first, to protect themselves against the Indians, which the Government failed to do ; and, secondly, to resist the unjust taxes and the oppressive laws enacted by the existing legislative assembly, and also to recover their liberties lost under the arbitrary proceedings of Sir William Berkeley, then Governor. Bacon, a popular, quiet man, who had come over from England a year before, was selected as their leader by the people, who. GOVERNOR BERKELEY REMOVED. 79 enrolling- themselves 300 strong, were led by Bacon against the Indians. Bacon's success increased the jealousy of Sir William, who, because of Bacon's irregular leadership, — he having no proper commission, — proclaimed Bacon a rebel. Finally, the people rose en masse, and demanded the dissolution of the old assembly, whose acts had caused so much trouble. Berkeley was forced to yield, and a new assembly was elected, who, condoning Bacon s irregular leader- ship, promised him a regular com- mission as General. This commission Berkeley refused to issue, whereupon Bacon, assembling his forces, at the head of 500 men, appeared before BURNIM; i)K JAMESTOWN. ■^ " Berkeley and demanded his commission, :-, which Berkeley, who was a real coward, ^ made haste to grant. But, as if repenting of his concession, Berkeley determined to oppose Bacon by force. In this he was unsuccessful, and in July of that year, Bacon entered Jamestown, the Capital, and burned the town. A little later, in October, Bacon died, and with him the "rebellion," or "popular uprising" as it had been variously called, subsided. Shortly afterward Berkeley was removed, for oppression and cruelty — a cruel, bloodthirsty man he was — and, sailing for England, died soon after his arrival, and the world's population of scoundrels was lessened by just one. While the curious mixture of cavalier and criminal was workinof out the 8o THE STORY OF AMERICA. early destinies of Virginia, a deeply religious element in Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire, England, were being educated by adversity for an adventure of a very different sort. At Scrooby, in 1606, a congregation of Separatists or Bronnists, who were ultra Puritans, used to meet secretly for worship at the house of their elder, William Brewster. King James, like most renegades, was a good persecutor, and he finally drove the Scrooby church to flee. Led by their pastor, that wisest and gentlest of the Puritans, John Robinson, the little com- pany escaped to Holland. The history of their ten years of sorrow and hard- ship in Amsterdam and Leyden is too well known to require repetition here. It is impossible to overestimate the influence of such a man as Robinson, or to question the permanency of the impression which his character and teaching made upon his flock. Procuring a patent from the London company, the Scrooby-Leyden Sepa- ratists prepared for their adventure. Only about half the Holland company could get ready, and it fell to the pastor's lot to stay with those who were left behind. Embarking on the Speedwell, at Delft Haven, the colonists bade good-by to their friends and directed their course to England, where they were joined by the Mayflower. i j • ARRIVAL OF THE MAYFLOWER. The Speedwell was found to be unseaworthy, so at length most of her passengers were transferred to the Mayflower, which proceeded on the voyage. To those who know how small a vessel of 180 tons is, the fact that one hundred souls, besides the crew, were upon a stormy ocean in her for more than sixty days, will be as eloquent as any description of their discomforts could be. The objective point was far to the southward of the land that they finally fell upon, which was not within the limits of their patent from the Virginia Company. But they dropped anchor in Cape Cod harbor, sick and weary with the voyage, and landed, giving thanks for their deliverance. With wisdom and frugality the plans for the home in the wilderness were made. Being too fcir North to be bound or protected by the provisions of the Virginia charter, the Pilgrims, as they called themselves, made a compact Vv^hich was mutually protective. The terms of the contract foreshadowed republican institutions. Thus in character, purpose and outward surroundings the Puritan of Plymouth and the Cavalier of Jamestown differed essentially. The after development of the two settlements followed logically along these lines, empha sizing these differences. Of the hundred souls left in Plymouth only fifty per cent, remained alive when the supplies from England came, a year later. Scurvy, famine and exposure to the severe climate had killed most of the weakest of them. Not a household but had suffered loss. Yet not one offered to go back. Men and THE PILGRIMS OF THE ''MAYFLOWER:' 8i women alike stood to their posts with a heroism that has never been excelled in the world's history. We read how they planted their corn in the graveyard when planting time came, so that the Indians might not discover the greatness of their loss. Cotton Mather, in writing of this dark time says, with that provoking, cold-blooded philosophy that can bear other people's troubles with equanimity: "If disease had not more easily fetched so many away to heaven," all must have died for lack of provisions. The Indians were at first very hostile, owing to depredations com- mitted by a previous navi- gator, but they were too few in number to be very trouble- some. Squanto, who became the interpreter, and Samoset, a sagamore from the east- ern coast, were their first friends among the red men. Squanto was their tutor in husbandry and fishing. Then, too, came Hobba- mock, whom Longfellow has immortalized as the "friend of the white man." The names of those who formed this little colony have be- come household words all over the land. Miles Stan- dish, John Alden, Priscilla, Elder Brewster, Bradford, — where are these names not known ? Frugal as the Pilgrims were, and industrious, they found that their inexperience in planting maize, together with other drawbacks, kept them on the edge of starvation for several years. Clams became at one time the staple diet, and were about all that the settlers had to regale their friends with, when a new ship-load of those that had been left behind in Leyden, arrived. A description of Plymouth, given in 1626, shows the situation of the town : A broad street, "about a cannon shot of eight hundred yards long," bordered iKiliVtBWV)^"^ _^ ARMOR WORN BY THE PILGRIMS IN 162O. 52 THE STORY OF AMERICA. by the houses of hewn planks, followed by a brook down the hillside. A second road crossed the first, and at the intersection stood the Governor's house. Upon the mound known as "burial hill" was a building- which served the double purpose of a fort and a church. A stockade surrounded the whole. At first the agricultural and other labors of the people had been communistic, in MILES sTANDis^H HOLDs^A^couNciL WITH ^ccordaucc with the couditious of the London Company's charter. But in 1624 this plan was done away with and the lands thereafter held separately. Still the people, unlike those of Virginia, continued to dwell in towns, and their habits in this respect descended to their children. BOUNDARY DISPUTES AND INDIAN WARS. 83 The second New England colony was that of Massachusetts Bay, which was sent out by a company provided with a charter very much like that of Vir- ginia. The provisions of this patent allowed for the appointment of officers by the company, but it was not stated where the headquarters of the company were to be. This important oversight allowed the transplanting of the company, with officers, elective power, and other democratic rights, to New England. The company, which pretended to be a commercial organization, was really composed of Puritans, who, though not Separatists, were strict to the point of fanaticism. The leader of the first emigrants was John Endicott. His followers numbered less than a hundred souls, with which little force he planted Salem. The Salem colonists, though they had known less persecution and hardship than those of Ply- mouth, or perhaps for that reason, yet were more intol- erant and Quixotic in their rules for self government, in social observances, and especially in their dealings with people of other reli- gious sects. The transfer- ence of the (government of the company, together with the addition of over eight hundred new colonists, was made in 1630. As the Massachusetts colonies grew they excited the jealousy or animosity of two very different classes of people. These were their Dutch neighbors and the Indians. The most serious of the early difficulties with the aborigines was, in fact, the effect of Dutch interference. These people had purchased the Connecticut river lands from the Pequots. The Pequots only held the territory by usurpation and the original owners obtained the Puritan protection, giving them a rival title. The enraged Pequots com- menced hostilities which were promptly resented by the Puritan Governor, Endicott, who led his men into the Indian country, punishing the assailants severely. This act, however necessary it may have been, laid the colony open A PIONEER FLEEING FROM ENRAGED PEQUOTS. 84 THE STORY OF AMERICA. to all the cruelty of a long-continued war, which lasted until the final rem nant of the Pequot tribe had been extinguished. The war with Philip, Massasoit's son, occurred in 1675, when the col- ony was stronger and better able to bear the tax upon its vigor, but during the year in which it lasted the settle- HENDRICK HUDSON. 85 merits were frightfully crippled. Six hundred houses had been burned, the fighting force of the English had been decimated, and the fruits of years of labor wasted. The whole difficulty arose from the Puritans' " lust for inflicting justice," and might have been avoided. One of the most significant, as well as beneficial, of early New England institutions was the "town meeting," which ranked next to " the meeting house worship " in importance to the colonist ; for while in one he indulged liberty of conscience, the other allowed him liberty of speech. Having both his speech and his conscience under control, the Puritan took a sober delieht in their indulgence. The town meetino- was in the New En^lander's blood, and it needed only the peculiar conditions of his new life to bring it out. His ancestors had had their Folkmotes where all questions of public policy and government were freely discussed. So it came natural to him to orather in unsmilingf earnestness with his neighbors, and attend to their plans or suggest others for their mutual guidance and safety. This ventilation of grievances and expression of views did more, in all probability, to prepare for the part which New England should take in future political movements than any other one agency. HENDRICK HUDSON. The discovery of the Hudson River, and that of Lake Champlain occurred at nearly the same time, each discoverer immortalizing himself by the exploit. That of Hudson has, however, been of vastly more importance to America and the world than that of his French contemporary. Hudson was known as a great Arctic explorer prior to his discovery of the site of America's metropolis. He had previously sailed under English patronage, but now he and his little " Half-Moon " were in the service of the Dutch East India Company, and in search of a northwest passage, which he essayed to find by way of Albany, but failed. At the same time Smith was searching the waters of the Chesapeake. In 161 4, the charter granting all of America between Virginia and Canada was received by the " Company of the New Netherlands " from the lately formed States General of Holland. The command of so magnificent a river system as that of the Hudson and its tributaries established almost at once the status and success of the Dutch colony. The States General held complete control of their American dependency They appointed governors and councillors and provided them with laws. Ordinarily, the people seemed to care as little to mix with politics as does the modern averacje New Yorker, a ofood deal of bad government beinp- considered better than a little trouble. Once in a while a governor got in some difficulty over the Indian question, and called a council of citizens to help him, but ordinarily he was despotic. 86 THE STORY OF AMERICA. The colonists were content to wax fat without kicking. They were honest, shrewd, good-natured, tolerant bodies, as different from the New Englander as from the Virginian, or as either of these neighbors was from the other. Primarily traders, they found themselves in one of the best trading grounds in the world, with nothing serious to prevent them from growing rich and multiplying. This they proceeded to do with less noise and more success than either of the other contemporary settlements. In the fifty years of Dutch rule, the population of New Amsterdam reached eight thousand souls. The character of the city was so cosmopolitan that it has been estimated that no less than twelve languages were spoken there. Free trade obtained, in contrast to the policy of New England and Virginia. The boundary difficulties with the Puritan colonies were a constant irritation, but were allowed to slumber when it was necessary to make common cause against the Indians. THE DUTCH LOSE NEW AMSTERDAM. In the time of Petrus Stuyvesant, the last of the Dutch governors, the rivalry which existed between the English and Dutch nations regarding the trade of the new world led the treacherous Charles II of Enofland to send an armament in a time of profound peace to take the colony of a friendly nation. Colonel Richard Nichols commanded the expedition. His orders caused him to stop at the Massachusetts Bay for reinforcements. The colonists there were reluctant to aid him, but those of Connecticut joined eagerly with the expedition, and Governor Winthrop took part in it. The colony passed, without a blow, with hardly a murmur on the part of the people, though considerably to the rage of Governor Stuyvesant, into the hands of the English, to be known thenceforth as New York. Notwithstanding the success of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, it was unquestionably a most important advantage in the after history of America that it should have fallen into the hands of the Entrlish. As a conservative element, the peaceful, prosperous Friend was of immense value in colonial development. The grant which William Penn obtained in 1681 gave him a tract of forty thousand square miles between the estates of York and Baltimore. Penn's charter was in imitation of that granted to Maryland, with important differences. With the approval of Lord Baltimore, laws passed by the Maryland Assembly were valid, but the king reserved the right to approve the laws of Pennsylvania. The same principle was applied to the right of taxation. There was about fifty years between the two charters. The settlement of New Jersey by Quakers was that which first drew Penn's attention to America. In drawing up the plans for his projected State he did so in accordance with Quaker ideas, which in point of humanity were far in advance ot the times. The declaration that crovernments exist for the sake of the M Z 2 H 7: Z D > Z 88 THE STORY OF AMERICA. governed, that the purpose of punishment is reformation, that justice to Indians as well as to white* men should be considered, were startling in their novelty. The success of this enterprise was instant and remarkable. In three years the colony numbered eight thousand people. The applications for land poured in and the affairs of the colonists were wisely administered, and before the death of her great founder, Pennsylvania was firmly established. Education was a matter of care from the very start in Philadelphia, although throughout the rest of the state it was neglected for many years. Indian troubles were scarcely known. The great blot on the scutcheon of the Quaker colony was the use of white slaves, for whom Philadelphia became the chief market in the new world. Not less remarkable than the unity of time which characterized the planting of several American settlements was the unity of race into which they all finally merged, with few and slight exceptions, so that in after years all of the various lines of development which have been indicated in this chapter should combine to form a more complete national life. Penn made a treaty with the Indians, and kept it ; and herein lies the secret of his success. If only all treaties had been kept, what bloodshed mio^ht not have been avoided ! CHAPTER IV. NIAKINQ THE NK^^/ F'KOF'LE. .•.?-' A NEW ENGLAND WEAVER WINDING THE SPOOLS. AFTER the colonists had forced the issue with fortune and had got more in touch with their new surroundings, they began to discover the fallacy of most of their first notions and to adjust themselves to the new problems as best they could. The day when the settlement of a new world could be regarded as an experi- ment with possible fabulous results was over. They had come to stay, and they understood that staying meant winning and winning meant working. The early notion that great fortunes were waiting to be picked up in the New Land, and that gold and silver and precious stones were almost to be had for the asking, had given place to a settled convictien that intelligent labor only would enable tiie settler to retain his foothold. Aid from the mother countries could not be depended upon, precarious as it was, nor was it to be desired. There were object lessons in frugality and industry that the colonist. had set before him every day ; lessons that he finally learned by heart. As has been very wisely said, the problem which confronted the new people was one of changed conditions. Whereas in England harvests were reckoned at their cost per acre, in America they were counted at their cost per man, because in the old country labor was plentiful and land scarce, and in the new it was just the reverse. So he who cultivated the soil after old country methods must, of necessity, find want oppressing him and starvation lurking with the wolves and bears in his forests. Successful farming must be " skim minor" the plentiful new land. To cut and burn wood-land, cultivate orain between the stumps, and abandon old holdings for new, was the necessity of the hour. Elsewhere we will speak of the influence of a staple upon the social and 6 i' & W 89 go THE STORY OF AMERICA. political life of Virginia. The first staple was tobacco. The growth of rice in the south did not begin till some years after the establishment of tobacco ; and cotton culture was never really begun, except in a small way for domestic demands, till after independence was achieved, when the invention of Whitney's cotton gin had made it possible to minimize the immense labor of hand-cleaning. The cultivation of rice, which had previously been grown in Madagascar, began in South Carolina in 1696, when a planter named Thomas Smith got from the captain of a brigantine a bag of rice for seed. Smith had been in Madagascar, and the appearance of some black wet soil in his garden suggested to him the soil of the rice plantations on that island. The experiment was a complete and instant success. Smith's rice grew luxuriantly and multiplied so that he was able to provide his neighbors with seed. This at first they attempted to grow upon the higher ground, but shortly found that the swamps were better adapted for the staple. In three years from the time of the first distribution of seed Thomas Smith had been made Governor of the colony. The people of South Carolina who had borrowed a staple for years and who had not made the advance in pros- perity that other colonists had, at last were blessed with a product all their own, one which was perfectly adapted to the soil. They learned to husk the rice, at first by hand but afterwards by horse power and tide mills. Then rice culture began to spread to Georgia, to Virginia, even as far North as New Jersey, but nowhere did it succeed as well as in the Carolinas. Even to-day the people of that section have cause to bless the forethought of Smith and the head winds that blew the brig-antine with her rice carg^o into a harbor on that coast. Carolina also tried indigo growing, which became profitable about the middle of the i8th century. Miss EJiza Lucan, afterwards Mrs. Pinckney, mother of General Pinckney, deserves th^ credit of its introduction. The Northern farmer, from the first, cultivated only a few acres compared with the large Southern plantations. His efforts were confined to the produc- tion of wheat and corn. Indian corn was grown from the very earliest New England days ; . the Indians had taught the white men their own method of manuring the corn hills by putting in each a codfish. Rye, little used as a food grain, was cultivated by certain Scotch and Irish settlers as a basis for whiskey. New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey were the great bread producers. In the year 1770, or thereabouts, the value of flour and bread exports reached $3,000,000. This was the result of a century and a half of patient, intelligent labor. All along the northern coast the importance of the fisheries was felt, from the early French settlements on Newfoundland, that antedated any successful planting of colonists on the main land of North America, till the development of the great fisheries of New England. The astonishment of those who described THE STAPLES. 91 the country at an early period was occasioned by the teeming life, the marvelous fertility, of all creatures, either in the ocean or on the land. The immense schools of cod gave to the inhabitants of the coast employment which soon rose to the dignity of an industry. From Salem, Cape Cod and many -other points, fleets of small vessels went and returned, till a generation of sailors who should accomplish more important voyages and adventures was bred on the fishing banks. One of the most. curious chapters in the history of husbandry in the New World is that of the attempt to force a staple. Some one conceived the idea l-vg^^ FAIRFAX COURT HOUSE — A TYPICAL VIRGINIA COURT HOUSE. that the heavy duties that made the silk of France and Southern Europe so expensive might be avoided by raising the silk-worm and manufacturing the fabric in the British colonies. About 1623 the silk-worm was brought to Virginia, and a law was enacted making the planting of mulberry trees, the food of the silk-worm, compulsory. The House of Burgesses passed resolutions of the most exacting character. It also offered premiums for the production of silk, and in other ways endeavored to foster the new industry. It was required that every citizen should plant one mulberry tree to every ten acres of ground. Among the rewards offered was one of ten thousand pounds of tobacco for 92 THE STORY OF AMERICA. fifty pounds of silk. This was in 1658. That seemed to be a generous year with the Burgesses, for they also offered the same amount of tobacco for the production of a certain small quantity of wine from grapes grown in the colony. The silk laws were withdrawn in Virofinia in 1666. Georgia, too, had a silk craze, and Pennsylvania and Delaware also went heavily into the production. Charles II wore a complete court dress of Amer- ican silk, which, it is said, must have cost its weight in gold to produce. The efforts to revive the silk industry were several times attempted, but without success. Except that we occasionally hear that some member of the British _- ^s*= AN OLD-TIME COLONIAL HOUSE. (Built in 1634, Bedford, Mass.) royal family was clad in American silk, we might almost doubt the existence of the industr)^ Vine planting and wine making were among the "encouraged" industries. All of these Utopian schemes for the acquisition of sudden wealth failed because they were not based upon any true appreciation of natural conditions in the New World. Fruits and vegetables were grown very early in the seventeenth century. In the latter part of the century a fresh impetus was given to horticulture by John Bartram, the Quaker, atThiladelphia. FEUDALISM IN AMERICA. 93 Horses and cattle, especially in the South, were allowed to run wild in the woods till the forests were full of them, and hunting this large game became a favorite amusement. Horses were so numerous in some places as to be a nuisance. New England adopted an old English custom, and the people herded their live stock in common, appointing general feeding places and overseers for it. The laws of England were such as to discourage sheep raising in the New World, and the wolves seconded the laws, but the farmers persisted, neverthe- less, though they were not so successful in this as in some other pursuits. As soon as the immediate necessity for the guns and stockades of the town were removed, those of the more favored colonists of Virginia who had obtained land grants began to separate, forming manorial estates and engaging in the production of staples, principal among which was tobacco. The tenants were practically serfs at first, and the introduction of slave labor made the proprietor even more independent, if possible, than he had been before, giving him authority almost absolute within his own domaios, even to the power over human life. It has been truly said that "that which broke down representation by boroughs and made the parish a vast region with very little corporate unity, was the lighting upon a staple." Tobacco and rice were the responsible agents for Virginia's social and political conditions, which resulted in the production of strong, self-reliant, and brave, though impetuous and uncontrollable men. From the first, none of the great colonies bore so close a resemblance to England in the development of a feudal system as Virginia. The ownership of what would be to us vast tracts of land, was due to the way in which Virginia was settled. Men of no especial note held estates of ten, twenty, or thirty thou- sand acres. This was the result of the very rapid increase in the cultivation of the great staple. For a great many years the white servants were much more numerous than the blacks, and with indentured servitude, which was equal to slavery in all points but that of perpetuity ; then arose the great class distinctions, which were almost unknown in the New England colonies, although originally the rural Virginia land-owner and the New England settler were of the same class. The effect of environment on social development can nowhere be traced more distinctly than in the first two great English colonies in America. Town life, as remarked elsewhere, was not known in Virginia. Up to the time of the war for independence her largest towns numbered only a very few thousand souls — not more than many a Northern village. There were very few roads and very many water-ways, so that the trading vessels could reach the individual plantation much more easily than the plantations could reach each other. The English custom of entail was early transplanted to Virginia, with some adaptations to suit the new conditions. The abolition of this system was due to Thomas Jefferson, as late as 1776. 94 THE STORY OF AMERICA. The Virginia substitute for the New England town meeting, committees, etc., was the vestry and parish system, modeled in part after the English parish. The vestrymen in each parish, however, were twelve representatives chosen by the people of the parish. This at least was the case at first, till by obtaining power to fill vacancies they became practically self-elective. The vestrymen were apportioners and collectors of taxes, overseers of the poor, and governors of the afiairs of the church. Their presiding officer was the minister. Mr. John Fiske, in his admirable text-book, " Civil Government in the United States," makes this observation: "In New England, the township was the unit of representation, but in Virginia the parish was not the unit of repre- sentation ; the county was that unit. In the colonial legislature of Virginia the representatives sat not for parishes but for counties." The county was arbitrarily OLD SPANISH HOUSE ON BOURBON STREET, NEW ORLEANS. defined as to physical limits, nor were any particular number of parishes required to constitute it. There might be one parish or a dozen. The machinery of county government consisted principally of a court which met once a month in some central place, where a court-house was erected. There it tried minor criminal offences and major civil actions. The court also was one of probate, and had the supervision of highways, appointing the necessary servants and officials. Like the parishes, the county courts, in course of time, became self-elective. The taxes, like many other obligations, were paid in tobacco, of which the sheriff was the collector and custodian. He also presided at elections for representatives to the colonial assembly. There were eight justices of the peace in each county. These were WHITE SLAVERY. 95 nominated by the court (?. c, by their own body), and appc^nted by the Governor. The election, or rather appointment of the sheriff was conducted in the same way practically, so that we see how little voice the people really had in either parochial or county crovernment. On July 30, 1619, Virginia's first General Assembly convened; as the English historian said, "A House of Burgesses broke out in Virginia." These Burgesses were at first the representatives of plantations, of which each chose two. The duty of the Assembly was to counsel the Governor ; or, more nearly in accordance with the facts, to keep him in check and make his life miserable. In 1634 the Burgesses first sat for counties, upon the new political formation. So it will be seen that the earliest form of representative government in the Colonies beo-an in Virofinia ; and that it was not government by the voice of the people, is apparent. The poor whites, or "white trash," as they were called at a later day, had little or no voice. The rights and liberties that were contended for were those of the rich and powerful. As in England, civil liberty began with the barons and did not extend to those in the humbler walks of life, so in Virginia, it was the planter, the proprietor of acres, the owner of slaves, who first guarded his own rights against despotism. In New England, on the contrary, such a thing as caste was hardly known. Town life induced a development very different from that of plantation life. Perhaps the individual was less aggres- sively independent. Perhaps the long course of bickering and obstruction on the part of Virginia's Burgesses against her governors, was as good a school as possible for future essays — the direction of national liberty ; but it is certain that New England could show a high level of intelligence all along the line. She had no "poor whites." While the distinctly influential class was not so prominently developed, each man had influence. He counted one, always. The practice of sending criminals and the offscouring of England to the Colonies under articles of bondage became established. Men were sold, some voluntarily, and others by force, for a term of years. The broken-down gentlemen, soldiers, and adventurers who composed the bulk of the inhabitants, found this system of white slavery to their temporary advantage, and the AN OLD VIRGINIA MANSION. 96 THE STORY OF AMERICA. exodus of those creatures from London was doubtless a relief to the authorities there. Sandys, the Treasurer of the Virginia Company, sent, in 1619, thirty young women, whose moral characters were vouched for, who were bought as wives by the colonists upon their arrival; the price of passage being the value set upon each damsel. As the years went by, the evil of this system of bondage became more and more apparent, and spread to other parts of the country. Philadelphia, the THE JAMES RIVER AND COUNTRY NEAR RICHMOND. Quaker refuge, was a white slave mart. Such terms as "Voluntary sales," "Redemptioners," "Soul Drivers," "Kids," "Free Willers," "Trepanning," etc., were familiar throughout the new land. Kidnapping in England, for the Colonies, was so common that it became the cause of violent agitation. Even youth of rank were not exempt from the danger and degradation. Those who carried on the business of trepan- ning were known as "Spirits." Criminals under sentence of death, might have the sentence commuted to seven years' servitude. Artisans and laborers COTTON MATHER AND THE WITCHES. 97 who were unemployed could be "retained" by force, under certain conditions. Of course, these bond-servants were a source of moral and social trouble and danger to the colonists. The usual impression regarding the Puritans is that they were austere, unsmiling men, with much hard fanaticism and little of the milk of human kindness. That they did suffer much and cause others to suffer for conscience sake is undoubtedly true, but no special pleading should be required to convince those who read the early history of New England carefully, that the highest of Christian virtues flourished quite as much in the Boston of the seventeenth century as in the Boston of the eighteenth or nineteenth. The good John Winthrop, first Governor of Massachusetts, who was firm and even severe in his administration of the government, so that he frequently felt the results of unpopularity, was, as one writer calls him, "most amiable" in his private character. A neighbor, accused of stealing from Winthrop' s wood- pile, was brought before him. The Governor had announced that he would take such measures that the thief should never be able to rob him again, so, of course, the case attracted attention. " You have taken my wood," said Winthrop, in effect; "You have my permission to keep on doing so. Help yourself as long as the winter lasts." We can imagine the scene when his servant, who used to be sent with messages to the poorer neighbors about dinner time, returned from one of his visits. The Governor's interest quickened as he listened to the details of the meals at which the servant had acted as a spy. Mr. So-and-so was without meat, this one lacked bread, and that other ate his bread dry. The good man expressed his sympathy in the best possible way, by sharing his larder. The man who had been one of Winthrop' s angry opponents owned himself vanquished when he received from the object of his animosity a cow, in his time of need. In a quaint fashion he expressed himself: "Sir, by overcoming yourself you have overcome me." The best early history of the colony of Massachusetts is that written by Governor Winthrop. Next to that work in value is Cotton Mather's Magiialia Christi Americana, which is a history of the colony in all its interests and affairs, from the year 1620 to 1689. COTTON MATHER AND THE WITCHES. Cotton Mather's name is perhaps most widely known as the great instigator of persecution in the time of the witchcraft terror. A man of great and varied learning, he was singularly devoid of common sense, and allowed himself to be swayed by opinions that bear a close resemblance to those of insanity. Unfortunately, through his great influence, and perhaps by virtue of that quality which we have learned to call "personal magnetism," he succeeded in inoculat- 7 98 THE STORY OF AMERICA. ing a majority of the most influential people of Massachusetts with his singulai craze. There had been executions for witchcraft in New England before Doctor Mather's time, but in the revival of persecution he was most prominent. Especially severe have some New York writers of later years been, in com- menting upon this reign of terror in New England, yet New York's history has had a darker chapter of cruelty. Twenty hangings for witchcraft occurred in Salem; nearly double that number of persons were burned at the stake in New York City, upon the ground until recently known as the " Five Points." Both of these occurrences were in the same generation, but the one was the result of delusion, while the other resulted *r^m abiect terror, caused by one Mary A PROTEST AGAINST PERSECUTION. 99 Burton, a criminal character, who pretended to have information of a negro insurrection, and then for a few pounds swore away forty hves. Virginia, too, had her witch trials, though not carried to the lengths that those of Salem were, and even tolerant Maryland has her record of witch hanging. And surely none can fail to honor Samuel Sewell, of Massachusetts, whose public expression of Lorrow for the part he had taken in the witch executions was one of the first signs of recovery from the popular delusion. In like manner the persecutions of the Friends were due to the same sombre, sadly mistaken views of religious duty. Undoubtedly the New England Quakers were guilty of some actions which must have greatly annoyed the Puritans. The gentlest, kindliest, and, in some respects, the most enlightened people in the New World showed sometimes a most exasperating obstinacy in doing things which should shock the strict ideas of propriety which the Pilgrims possessed. For instance, in New London Pastor Mather Byles was greatly annoyed by having Quaker men sit with their hats on and women with their spinning wheels in the aisles, industriously working during service on the Lord's day. As soon as the Quakers were settled, when no one opposed them the aggressive side of their character, as shown in symbolic acts of an exaggerated kind, does not seem to have manifested itself at all. A PROTEST AGAINST PERSECUTION. In the middle of the century the beginning of the protest against Quaker persecution began to be felt. Nicholas Upsall, pastor of the Boston Church, first opposed it. He was promptly fined twenty pounds and banished. He was refused a home in Plymouth and returned to Cape Cod, where he succeeded in inoculating a number of other people with his views. Robinson, son of the Leyden pastor, was sent by the General Court of Massachusetts to visit the Quakers and expostulate with them. He decided that there was no harm in them and made an able defence of them, for which he was disfranchised. The prejudice, once started, took years to eradicate. Perhaps a few lines from Cotton Mather on this subject may not be out of place. He says : — "It was also thot that the very Quakers themselves would say that, if they had got into a comer of the world and with immense toyl and change made a wilderness habitable in order there to be undisturbed in the exercise of their worship, they would never hear to have New Englanders come among them and interrupt their public worship, endeavor to seduce their children from it, yea, and repeat such endeavors after mild entreaties first and then just banishment." It is probable that in an age when we are more fond of finding causes for things than of suffering for conscience sake we will blame neither party in this obsolete quarrel. It was incompatibility of temper. Another of the matters about which the public is apt to be severe upon the U. ul 0, 100 THE STORY OF AMERICA. Puritans is the code known as " Blue Laws," concerning which a great deal has been said by people who value themselves upon their "liberal " views. Rules relating to Sabbath observances are quoted. We are told indig- nantly that the Puritan could not kiss his wife or children on the Sabbath, nor walk in his garden, nor do any one of a number of things that are innocent and proper. There is just one answer to these strictures. The Blue laws were wholly unknown to the Puritans. They were invented by that Tory wag. Dr. Samuel Peters, whose humorous " History of Connecticut" was as seriously taken by some folks as was Washington Irving's " Knickerbocker" a generation later. It is not probable that Dr. Peters ever supposed that they would be taken seriously. Of Puritans, Quakers, and other religionists of the olden time we are apt to think as though they were separate varieties of the human race, not to be under- stood by the light of any common experience of human nature, while in fact they were very human — and (perhaps in consequence) very much lied about. THE HUDSON RIVER ESTATES. Washington Irving has humorously dwelt upon facts in his relation of the differences which occurred between the Dutch Government in New Amsterdam and the Patroons whose little principalities were further up the Hudson River. The grants to the patroons were such as to insure to them almost absolute con- trol upon their estates, with only the shadow of allegiance. The fact that the great patroons allowed a semblance of subserviency to the metropolitan governor was rather a question of their advantage than of their necessity. The holdings were immense. The Livingstone estate was sixteen by twenty-eight miles in extent ; the Van Courtlandts owned eight hundred square miles ; the Rensselaer manor contained five hundred and seventy-five square miles. Sir Vredryk Flypse, the richest man in the colony, possessed the fairest portion of the river from Spuyten Duyvel Creek to the Croton River. From the mill on his manor he shipped grain and other commodities direct to Holland and to the West Indies, and received rum and other exchanges from those countries, without either clearing or entering at the port of New Amsterdam (or New York as it afterwards was called). Flypse, Van Courtlandt, and Bayard were keen politicians as well as successful traders. To them is credited the hanging of Governor Zeisler, and they were hotly charged with receiving from Kidd, whose privateering commission they had procured, a share of his piratical booty. Upon the great estates, the exactions of the lords proprietors drove many tenants out of the colony. Some of the patroons even went to the length of asserting their right to eject tenants and reassume the land at will. This course of procedure retarded the growth and development of the Hudson River SCHOOLS IN THE NORTH AND SOUTH. lOI Settlements for many years, tion of feudal authority in New York were very much like the monopolies of land and power in the South. But in one thing New Am- sterdam differed very much from Virginia ; that was in the possession of a thriving, busy city that should coun- In some respects the great estates and assump. ^^w# ,..--.k,. ij'i^f terbalance the spirit of feudalism by its democratic disposi- tion. How can we close this chapter better than by refer- ence to the bepfinnino^s of what we hold most precious of all the legacies which the fore- fathers of the American people left to their descendants ? In Virginia Governor Berkeley, in 1671 thanked God that there were no free schools, nor were likely to be for a hundred years. But less than twenty years afterward, a different feeling began to prevail. William's and Mary's College was founded by James Blair in 1692. But already a university was in *-^^K THE ATTACK ON RIOTERS AT SPRINGFIELD, MASS., IN 1 786. 102 THE STORY OF AMERICA. existence In the North, and the first common-school system, probably, that the world had ever known, had been established half a century in Massachusetts. Salem's free-school dates back to 1640, and the state adopted a general plan for common schools seven years later ; a plan, the purpose of which was set forth in language so remarkable, that it should be preserved through all time — a few sentences we can give : "That learning may not be buried in the grave of our faith in the church and commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavors, — It is therefore ordered, that every township in this jurisdiction after the Lord hath increased them to the number of fifty householders shall then forthwith appoint one within their town to write and to read, . . . and it is further ordered that where any town shall increase to the number of one hundred families they shall set up a grammar-school, .... to instruct youth so far that they may be fitted for the university." Maryland was nearly a century in following this lead. Rhode Island, beginning where Massachusetts did, fell from grace in educational matters till 1800. Philadelphia had good schools at a very early date, and New Amsterdam, or New York, moved very slowly, doubtless feeling confident that, whatever their attitude toward letters, her children would instinctively learn the use of figures. But we cannot pursue this matter widiout trenching upon another chapter. It is difficult to conceive that from the various forma- tive elements in the lives of the early colonists, a single one could have been well spared in the making of the new people. But Virginia was not the only State troubled with insurrection. Massachu- setts had a like experience. It was in 1786 that the movement broke out, Daniel Shay, a Revolutionary captain, having been rather forced to the head as leader, so that it became known as Shay's Rebellion. The pretext of the rebellion was the high salary paid the Governor, the aristocratic character of the Senate, the extortions of lawyers, and the oppressive taxation. In December, 1786, he led a considerable force of rioters to Worcester, where he prevented the holding of the U. S. Court, and with 2000 men traveled to Springfield, Mass., January, 1787, to capture the arsenal [see engraving], but was repulsed by the militia under General Shepard. Finally, defeated, he fled the State, but he was pardoned the following year by Governor Bowdoin. Ultimately he received a pension for Revolutionary services. He died September 29th, 1825^ at Sparta, N. Y., whither he had removed. CHAPTER V. OIvD COLONY DAYS AND WAYS. MANY were the varieties of New England life before the American Revolution. Each township maintained its own peculiar laws ; clung to its own peculiar cus- toms ; cherished its own peculiar traditions. Never, perhaps, except in Greece, were local self-government and local patriotism pushed to such an extreme. Not only did commonwealth hold itself separate from com- monwealth, but township from township, and often, village from village. Long stretches of uninhabited land effectively divided these self-reliant communities from one another. "The road to Boston," says one of the most graphic of New England's local historians,* when speaking of the route from Buzzard's Bay, in 1743, was "narrow and tortuous — a lane through a forest — having rocks and quagmires and long reaches of sand, which made it almost impassable to wheels, if any there were to be ventured upon it. Branches of larcre trees were stretched over it, so that it was unvisited by sunlight, except at those places where it crossed the clearings on which a solitary husbandman had established his homestead, or where it followed the sandy shores of some of those picturesque ponds which feed the rivers emptying into Buzzard's Bay. Occasionally a deer bounded across the path, and foxes were seen running into the thickets." Such roads, pictur- esque as they were, naturally discouraged travel. Occasionally a Congregational council called together the ministers of several towns at an installation or an ordination. Once a year the meeting of the General Court tempted the rura) authorities up to the capital ; during a week's time a few travelers may have ANCIENT HORSE-SHOES PLOWED UP IN SCHENECTADY CO., N. Y. {In the New York State Agricultural Aluseum.) *Mr. W. R. Bliss, in his "Colonial Times on Buzzard's Bay," an excellent depiction of eari^ New England life, from which other quotations will appear later in this chapter, 10;^ 104 THE STORY OF AMERICA. COLONIAL PLOW WITH WOODEN MOLD-BOARD. I706. (State Agricultural Museum, Albany, N. V.) ridden by on horseback and baited at the village inn ; now and then a visitor came to town, making no little stir, or perhaps a new immigrant settled on the confines of the parish. But there were then no Methodist preachers, with short and frequent pastorates, and no commercial travelers, with boxes of the latest goods, who could serve as conductors of thought and gossip from village to village and make them homogeneous, America was not then a land of travelers, What little travel there might have been, was often still further discouraged by local ordinances, and in many a town, a citizen had to have a special permit from the Selectmen before he could enter- tain a guest for anything over a fort- night. Thus one father was fined ten shillings for showing hospitality to his daughter beyond the legal period. In many a spot in early New England the protectionist principle was so thoroughly localized that the importation of labor, as well as of merchandise, was rigorously restricted. Towns so insulated naturally took on distinctive traits. Even religious customs, literal scripturalists as these people were, differed in different places. The Puritan Sabbath began on Saturday night in one commonwealth, on Sunday morning in another. In brief, no picture of any one town can serve as a picture of any other. To describe a typical Puritan home, therefore, is not easy. Yet it is not impossible. For the New England Puritans were a peculiar and easily distin- guished people. The fundamental differences in character which set them off from the rest of the world, are far more prominent to the eye than are the local differences which divided town from town. A Connecticut settler, or even a Rhode Island Baptist, might be taken for a Massachusetts Puritan, but a Knickerbocker could be mistaken for neither. To begin with, the New Englanders were the most truly benevolent and unselfish people of their time. They had hardly set foot on New England's shore before their history was marked by a magnanimous act of genuine forgiveness of injuries. It was in the middle of the landing at Plymouth Rock, when the colony was prostrated by illness and was exposed to the worst inclemencies of a new and inclement climate, " Destitute of every provision which the weak- ANCIENT HAND-MADE SPADE. (State Agricultural Museum, Albany,, N. y.) THE CHARACTER OF THE NEW ENGLANDER. 10- IRISH IMMIGRANT S FL.\X- WHEEL. ness and daintiness of the invalid require," so runs the description of a well-known historian, " the sick lay crowded in the unwholesome vessel or in half-built cabins, heaped around with snow^-drifts. The rude sailors refused them even a share of those coarse sea-stores which would have given a little variety to their diet, till disease spread among the crew and the kind ministrations of those whom they had neglected and auronted brought them to a better temper." There could be no better example of Christian forbearance than this. At the start the Indians also came within the scope of the Puritan's charity. He nursed them assiduously in times of small- pox, rescued many a child from a plague-stricken wigwam, helped them through times of famine, Christianized and partially civilized some of them, and in business dealings treated them not only justly but with a sincere though tactless kindness. The Puritan's home life was unselfish ; he was profoundly regardful of his children, though he evinced that regard not by indulging them, but by pains- taking discipline and a rigorous thrift, the better to provide for their future. It was a French Jesuit of the last century who testified that the New Englander, unlike the Canadian, labored for his heirs. These early settlers made staunch neighbors. They were ready at almost any time to leave their work to drive a pin or nail in a young home-maker's new dwelling-house as a token of their good will, while they found their greatest pleas- ures in such means of mutual helpfulness as corn-huskings, quilting-bees, and barn- raisings. They were, no doubt, exacting and unsympathetic masters, but in the commands which they enjoined they kept in view the moral welfare of their slaves and servants as of far greater importance than their own material prosperity. Never were slaves better treated than in New England. A COLONIAL FLAX-WHEEL. The Puritans were strenuously intent on making the world, not only better, but, as they thought, happier. It was to guard the more solid pleasures of a pure home-life and of an honest pride in one's country, that they bulwarked themselves against the encroachments of sordid self-indulgences. But they went 7 P& W io6 THE STORY OF AMERICA. A COMFORTIEK, UR CHAFING-DISH. {New York State Cabinet of Natural history, Albany.) about their task in crude fashion. They recognized, for instance, quite wisely, that there is no more insidious enemy of happiness than vanity, which makes a man utterly miserable whenever he is ignored and only uneasily pleased even when he is admired the most, but they tried to eradicate vanity from the human heart not by planting something better in its place, but by such petty sumptuary laws as prohibiting the wearing of lace. They simply attempted to cut off whatever might minister to vanity's indul- gence. Their chief reliance for improving the condition of the world was in a countless number of minute restrictions and self-limitations. The more law there is, however, the more there needs to be, for prohibit nine-pins and soon there will be a new game of ten-pins to prohibit also. So it was with the Puritans. Restriction was placed here and restriction was placed there, until restriction became constriction and grew intolerable. The children were never allowed to lose sight of parental regula- tions, the parents of township ordinances, the town of state laws. But it was in the number and pettiness of these laws, not any cruelty in them, which made them intolerable, for the humanity of New Eng-land's lemslators is evinced in the fact that there were only ten crimes punish- able with death in New England when there were one hundred and sixty in Old England. The New Englanders were swaddled, not chained. The best that was in them did not have full play, but it had more play than it could have had in any other country, except Great Britain and Holland. From the start New England was a country of homes. The typical New England dwelling was the work of several generations. It had begun perhaps as a solidly built but plain rectangular house of one story and two rooms. In one of them the good wife cooked the meals on the hearth — and simple cooking was never better done — laid the table, as meal-time approached, with the neat wooden bowls, plates, platters, and spoons and primitive knives of the time, or, the meal over, received a neighbor dropping DUTCH HOUSE IN ALBANY, N. Y. (From an Old Print.) THE HOUSE AND THE HOME 107 in on a friendly errand, or perhaps the rr mister gravely making the rounds of his parish. This was the living room, the centre of the family life. The other room contained two great bedsteads with their puffy feather-beds, while the trundle-bed in the corner betrayed the presence of little children in the household. If the family was large, a rude ladder led the way to a sleeping- place in the garret, the very spot for a boy with a romantic turn. Slowly but faithfully the farmer added to the size and to the comforts of his home. What a place the hearth soon became ! " In the wide fireplace and over the massive back-log, crane, jack, spit and pot-hook did substantial work, PRIMITIVE MODE OF GRINDING CORN. while the embers kept bake-kettle and frying-pan in hospitable exercise." Here was the place for the iron, copper or brass andirons, often wrought into curious devices and religiously kept bright and polished. In front of the fire was the broad wooden seat for four or five occupants, with its generously high back to keep off the cold. This was the famous New England settle, making an inviting and cozy retreat for the parents in their brief rests from labor, or perhaps for lovers when the rest of the house was still. On each side of the hearth, in Ueu of better seats were wooden blocks on which the children sat as they drew close to the fire on winter evenings to work or read by its blaze. Perhaps, in some corner of the room could be seen the brass warming-pan, which every winter's evening io8 THE STORY OF AMERICA, was filled with embers and carried to the sleeping chambers to give a temporary warmth to the great feather-beds. There was a place near at hand for the snow-shoes, while matchlocks, swords, pikes, halbert, and some pieces of armor fixed against the wall showed that the farmer obeyed the town ordinances and kept himself prepared against Indian raids. For like all frontiersmen, these farmers never felt secure. The Indians, instigated by the French, and exasperated by the cheating and bullying English adventurers, who had crept into New England against the colonists' will, were not only the cruelest of foes, they were the most treacherous of friends. They had pillaged and destroyed more than one secluded and unsuspecting setde- ment, murdering, torturing, or carrying into captivity, as they pleased, the peaceful inhabitants. The big, vague rumors of such midnight raids exercised their uncanny spell over many a household as it gathered about the hearth of a winter's evening. There was the Deerfield massacre, for instance. Just before the dawn of a cold winter's night the Indians fell upon the fated village. They spent twenty-four hours in wanton destruction, slaughtered sixty help- less prisoners, and carried a hun- dred back with them for an eiofht weeks' cruel march to the north, durinof which nineteen victims vv^ere murdered on the way and two were starved to death. Such was the story associated with the arms upon the wall ; but a happier story was told by the ears of corn, the crooknecks, the dried fruit, and the flitches of bacon hanging from the beams and ceiling of the room. They were a perpetual reminder of Thanksgiving Day. If the Puritan discountenanced Christmas observances as smacking of " papishness " — such was the narrow- mindedness of the times — he showed by this feast-day, his appreciation of the good things of earth. It was characteristic of the early New Englanders to make much of little things. The housewife was rightfully proud of her simple but nice cooking, and her husband of his plain but substantial produce. There is something appetizing in the very thought of their homely but choice dishes, their hasty-pudding, their Yankee breads, their pumpkin and mince pies. These simple people cultivated to an unsurpassed extent the wholesome pleasure OLD FRENCH HOUSE. HOUSEHOLD INDUSTRIES. 109 which comes from a full appreciation of nature's wealth of gifts. They were lovers and cultivators of the wholesome fruits. It was a custom often observed in New England to give a favorite tree or bush a special and appropriate name, as a token of affection and so to make it seem the more companionable. The Puritan, indeed, had strong local affections and attachments. He found his pleasures in what came to his hand and made pleasures often out of the work he had to do. He provided little that was even amusement for his children, but this misfortune was alleviated by the abundant outlet for youthful energies which they found in the activities of the household. There was little time which could be spent in mere amusement. The home was a hive of busy workers. The planting, cultivating and harvesting of his crops consumed perhaps the smaller portion of the farmer's time. Cattle raising for the West Indies and sheep growing took much of his attention. He was something of a lumberman, as well, and still more of a mechanic. Per- haps he bought iron rods and, when debarred from outdoor labor, hammered them into nails at the kitchen fireside. It was much more important, however, that he should have some skill at carpentry. Often too. he carved out of wood his table dishes. In the diverse indus- tries of his house was the germ of many a nucleus factory. From his wife's busy loom came home- spun cloth for the family. In the kitchen were distilled her favorite remedies. The children of the family were not only kept busy ; they were kept thinking ; their inventive faculties were constantly on the alert. Hardly a week passed but a new device was needed. Early in the history of New England, to be sure, there were tanners who would keep half the skins they received and return the other half in leather, brickmakers, masons, carpenters, millers with very busy wind-mills, curriers, sawyers, smiths, fullers, malsters, shoe- makers, wheelwrights, weavers and other artisans to do the work of specialists in the community, yet the farmer did not a little for himself in every one of these trades. His home was an industrial community in and of itself The fisherman who dwelt upon the sea-coast needed quite as active and versatile a family as did his inland brother. He left them to build the boats, hoop the casks, forge the irons, and manage the many other industries pre- SILK-WliNDING. {Fac-siiiiile 0/ a Picture in Edward Williams's " Virginia Truly Valued." ibjo.) no THE STORY OF AMERICA. requisite to the complete outfit of a vessel for a long and hazardous voyage. At any time they might be obliged to support themselves entirely or be thrown upon the town, for all fishing out at sea is a dangerous vocation, and whaling had its peculiar perils. Occasionally a boat and crew were sunk by the tremendous blows with which some great whale lashea tne sea in his death agony. Now and then one of these tormented giants would turn madly upon his pursuers. Then, so says one careful historian, "he attacked boats, deliberately, crushing them like egg-shells, killing and destroying whatever his massive jaws seized in their horrid nip. His rage was as tremendous as his bulk ; when will brought a purpose to his movement, the art of man was no match for the erratic creature." One such fighting monster attacked the good ship "Essex," striking with his head just forward of her fore-chains. The ship, says the mate, "brought up as sud- denly and violently as \i she had struck a rock, and trembled for a few seconds like a leaf" vShe had already begun to settle when the whale came again, crashing with his head through her bows. There was bare time to provision and man the small boats before the vessel sank. The crew suffered from long- exposure and severe privations, and only a part of them were ever saved. Such tales. as this reached inland and attracted boyish lovers of adventure to the sea. There were other and different tales of the sea, as well, to allure them — tales of great wealth amassed in the India trade, of prizes captured from the French by audacious privateersmen, or of pirates, then scourging the sea, or, more boldly still, entering Boston harbor and squandering their ill-gotten gains at the Boston taverns. The ocean was then the place for the brave and the ambitious. It is a significant fact that probably the first book of original fiction ever published in New England was "The Algerine Captive," a story of a sailor's slavery among the Moors. Yet this story was long in coming. New England produced no fiction of its own and reprinted little of old England's until ten years after the close of the American Revolution. In the early farm- houses, the library consisted of two or three shelves of Puritan theology. As time went on Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, a few ecclesiastical and local histories, one or more records of witchcraft trials, and some doggerel verse from_ the New England poets were added to the dry and scant supply of reading. Yet the enterprising and imaginative reader, though a child, could ferret out not a few exciting episodes from such uninviting volumes as Josephus's " History of the Jews," or Rev. Mr. Williams's record of Indian Captivity, while by 1720 a few of the more fortunate little ones had a printed copy of Mother Goose jingles for their amusement. But, although this was all the reading the farmer had — - for the newspapers were wretched and were seldom seen fifty miles from Bos- ton — it must not be supposed that he underestimated the value of books. He read far more than the modern farmer does — indeed all he could afford to eet and had the time for ; the clergy of the time often had substantial libraries of THE YOUNG LADY. Ill one or two or even three hundred vokimes ; while in the Revokitionary period, any young lady in a well-to-do family could easily obtain the best writings of Dryden, Pope, Addison. Swift, Thomson, and the other classic writers of the eighteenth century. A view of y Industry cfy3^a.yers cf Canada, in making J>ams to stirp y Course fffi:jR,ivuUt. in order to -form ajreatXrakt , about tv . thty build thiir JttaiitatioM . To Xifeet this : tfuy ^Ular^Irtet with theirTeeth, in JwA a manner as to make them come Crc/jyJl--u' Itt.to layyJoundatianofyJiam; they make Jlortar. uvrk up, andfinith v tfhole unth ^reat- order and wonderfull J^xteriiy. Xhe ieavert have two J>oors to their Ji^^es, one to the Ifater and t^>^ other to th^JtOnd Jide .Axcordin^ toy French A