tried out and found their strength. If we may believe contemporary laments, the power of the crown in America was diminishing when it was struck down altogether. In New York, the friends of the governor complained in 1747 that "the inhabitants of plantations are generally educated in republican principles; upon republican principles all is conducted. Little more than a shadow of royal authority remains in the Northern colonies." Here," echoed the governor of South Carolina, the following year, "levelling principles prevail; the frame of the civil government is unhinged; a governor, if he would be idolized, must betray his trust; the people have got their whole administration in their hands; the election of the members of the assembly is by ballot; not civil posts only, but all ecclesiastical preferments, are in the disposal or election of the people." 66 Though baffled by the "levelling principles " of the colonial assemblies, the governors did not give up the case as hopeless. Instead they evolved a system of policy and action which they thought could bring the obstinate provincials to terms. That system, traceable in their letters to the government in London, consisted of three parts: (1) the royal officers in the colonies were to be made independent of the legislatures by taxes imposed by acts of Parliament; (2) a British standing army was to be maintained in America; (3) the remaining colonial charters were to be revoked and government by direct royal authority was to be enlarged. Such a system seemed plausible enough to King George III and to many ministers of the crown in London. With governors, courts, and an army independent of the colonists, they imagined it would be easy to carry out both royal orders and acts of Parliament. This reasoning seemed both practical and logical. Nor was it founded on theory, for it came fresh from the governors themselves. It was wanting in one respect only. It failed to take account of the fact that the American people were growing strong in the practice of self-government and could dispense with the tutelage of the British ministry, no matter now excellent it might be or how benevolent its intentions. References A. M. Earle, Home Life in Colonial Days. A. L. Cross, The Anglican Episcopate and the American Colonies (Harvard Studies). E. G. Dexter, History of Education in the United States. C. A. Duniway, Freedom of the Press in Massachusetts. E. B. Greene, The Provincial Governor (Harvard Studies). A. E. McKinley, The Suffrage Franchise in the Thirteen English Colonies (Pennsylvania University Studies). M. C. Tyler, History of American Literature during the Colonial Times (2 vols.). Questions 1. Why is leisure necessary for the production of art and literature? How may leisure be secured? 2. Explain the position of the church in colonial life. 3. Contrast the political rôles of Puritanism and the Established Church. 4. How did diversity of opinion work for toleration ? 5. Show the connection between religion and learning in colonial times. 6. Why is a "free press" such an important thing to American democracy? 7. Relate some of the troubles of early American publishers. 8. Give the undemocratic features of provincial government. 9. How did the colonial assemblies help to create an independent American spirit, in spite of a restricted suffrage? 10. Explain the nature of the contests between the governors and the legislatures. Research Topics Religious and Intellectual Life. Lodge, Short History of the English Colonies: (1) in New England, pp. 418-438, 465-475; (2) in Virginia, pp. 54-61, 87-89; (3) in Pennsylvania, pp. 232-237, 253–257; (4) in New York, pp. 316–321. Interesting source materials in Hart, American History Told by Contemporaries, Vol. II, pp. 255–275, 276–290. The Government of a Royal Province, Virginia. Lodge, pp. 43-50. Special Reference: E. B. Greene, The Provincial Governor (Harvard Studies). The Government of a Proprietary Colony, Pennsylvania. — Lodge, pp. 230-232. Lodge, pp. 412-417. Government in New England. Special Reference: G. H. Payne, History of Colonial Life in General. John Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neigh bors, Vol. II, pp. 174-269; Elson, History of the United States, pp. 197–210. Colonial Government in General.—Elson, pp. 210-216. CHAPTER IV THE DEVELOPMENT OF COLONIAL NATIONALISM It is one of the well-known facts of history that a people loosely united by domestic ties of a political and economic nature, even a people torn by domestic strife, may be welded into a solid and compact body by an attack from a foreign power. The imperative call to common defense, the habit of sharing common burdens, the fusing force of common service - these things, induced by the necessity of resisting outside interference, act as an amalgam drawing together all elements, except, perhaps, the most discordant. The presence of the enemy allays the most virulent of quarrels, temporarily at least. tics," runs an old saying, "stops at the water's edge." "Poli This ancient political principle, so well understood in diplomatic circles, applied nearly as well to the original thirteen American colonies as to the countries of Europe. The necessity for common defense, if not equally great, was certainly always pressing. Though it has long been the practice to speak of the early settlements as founded in "a wilderness," this was not actually the case. From the earliest days of Jamestown on through the years, the American people were confronted by dangers from without. All about their tiny settlements were Indians, growing more and more hostile as the frontier advanced and as sharp conflicts over land aroused angry passions. To the south and west was the power of Spain, humiliated, it is true, by the disaster to the Armada, but still presenting an imposing front to the British empire. To the north and west were the French, ambitious, energetic, imperial in temper, and prepared to contest on land and water the advance of British dominion in America. RELATIONS WITH THE INDIANS AND THE FRENCH Indian Affairs. It is difficult to make general statements about the relations of the colonists to the Indians. The problem was presented in different shape in different sections of America. It was not handled according to any coherent or uniform plan by the British government, which alone could speak for all the provinces at the same time. Neither did the proprietors and the governors who succeeded one another, in an irregular train, have the consistent policy or the matured experience necessary for dealing wisely with Indian matters. As the difficulties arose mainly on the frontiers, where the restless and pushing pioneers were making their way with gun and ax, nearly everything that happened was the result of chance rather than of calculation. A personal quarrel between traders and an Indian, a jug of whisky, a keg of gunpowder, the exchange of guns for furs, personal treachery, or a flash of bad temper often set in motion destructive forces of the most terrible character. On one side of the ledger may be set innumerable generous records of Squanto and Samoset teaching the Pilgrims the ways of the wilds; of Roger Williams buying his lands from the friendly natives; or of William Penn treating with them on his arrival in America. On the other side of the ledger must be recorded many a cruel and bloody conflict as the frontier rolled westward with deadly precision. The Pequots on the Connecticut border, sensing their doom, fell upon the tiny settlements with awful fury in 1637 only to meet with equally terrible punishment. A generation later, King Philip, son of Massasoit, the friend of the Pilgrims, called his tribesmen to a war of extermination which brought the strength of all New England to the field and ended in his own destruction. In New York, the relations with the Indians, especially with the Algonquins and the Mohawks, were marked by periodic and desperate wars. Virginia and her Southern neighbors suffered as did New England. In 1622 Opecacano, a brother of Powhatan, the friend of the Jamestown settlers, launched a general massacre; and |