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THE

GOVERNMENTAL HISTORY

OF THE

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

PART I.

HISTORY OF THE SOUTHERN COLONY OF VIRGINIA.

CHAPTER I.

THERE is, perhaps, no one of the sciences which, in its progress, has contributed more towards promoting the general welfare of mankind, or whose developements have tended so much to establish the amicable relations now existing among civilized nations, as the science of navigation. Through its agency people who were once not only alien, but whose very existence was unknown to each other, have been brought together and united by ties which were never felt or understood in the experience of ancient nations. An almost daily intercourse has taken place between the inhabitants of the most remote portions of the world. Commerce has been established between the barbarous and the civilized, for the supply of wants, which, by the one, were never before experienced, in exchange for commodities which by the other were till now regarded as without value or useless. This general intercourse of nations has almost

everywhere introduced a change of manners, habits, customs, opinions, and laws, which has revolutionized the face of society in every country, and by the gradual introduction and spread of more genial principles and influences is progressively ameliorating the condition of our race. The proud position which the Republic of The United States of America now occupies in the scale of nations, and the powerful influences which are emanating from them, make the history of our government and institutions a subject of great interest and importance to mankind, but more especially to those who may hereafter be entrusted with their guidance and control. In tracing these annals, the obligations which we owe to the science of navigation, make it necessary that we should give some account of its progress in the world.

The testimony of sacred as well as profane writers authorizes us to believe that the science of navigation was understood, although they leave us in doubt as to what extent it was practiced, in the earlier periods of the world's history. The multiplication of human families upon the earth, and their consequent dispersion over its wide territories must have suggested beneficial discoveries, and led to a reciprocal though limited intercourse. Europe, Asia and Africa were probably not unknown to each other as inhabited countries, though little perhaps was understood of their internal history. The relative position of the migratory tribes of men who inhabited those regions, and the nature of their correspondence with each other, were not such as to demonstrate to them either the utility or importance of the science of navigation, or greatly to encourage its cultivation.

We are told by the writers of antiquity that as far back as the seven hundreth year before the Christian

æra successful voyages of discovery were made by the Carthagenians and Phrenicians; but search has been made in vain for many of the records to which these authors refer, and of those which have been found many are inaccurate and mutilated, while the most interesting and important of these seem rather the exaggerated and romantic incidents of fiction, than faithful records of historical facts. Yet allowing all that is said of the extent to which this science was cultivated among these nations, there is much reason to believe that all traces of it had long faded from the recollections of men, inasmuch as the Greeks, who are said to have been their pupils in all the important arts and sciences, seem to have had hardly any acquaintance with the art of navigation. Some voyages were indeed performed by them, which their own historians accounted wonderful, but these were made merely for the purposes of conquest or of plunder, to islands not very remote, and creeping along the coast of the sea. Few, if any, had dared to launch out upon the broad bosom of the ocean for the purposes of discovery. And even these limited voyages were always attended with great hazard, and oftentimes with loss, the vessels employed being poorly constructed and unskilfully conducted. As the Greeks advanced, however, in civilization and refinement, learning increased, the arts and sciences were more liberally cultivated, and the encouragement and growth of commerce produced a parallel improvement in the progress of naval science and architecture. Still theirs was always a commerce of limited extent, and its enterprizes were for the most part confined to the Mediterranean sea. All other parts of the world were but little known to them, while they were wholly unacquainted with those rudiments of science upon which

a practical knowledge of the globe has since been established.

The progress of the Romans in the science of navigation was still more tardy, and their attainments in naval enterprize were less extensive than those of Greece, while their views of its importance and advantages were more darkened and illiberal. Most of their knowledge of the earth was derived from discoveries made on land, and they were so little acquainted with its geography that they supposed the temperate to be the only habitable of its zones. They regarded those parts of it which modern discovery has proved to be the fairest and most exuberant portions of its surface, as the abodes of perpetual silence, sterility, and gloom, either too hot or too cold to support animal, and alike fatal to the production of vegetable life. Besides the barrier which these opinions may be supposed to have set to the progress of discovery, the military genius of the nation operated to restrain them from the pursuits of commerce and naval enterprize. These were regarded as subordinate institutions, and were looked upon as unbecoming a nation of soldiers, fit only for the patronage of her slaves or her freedmen. The love of glory indeed stimulated her to aim at the mastery over the neighbouring seas, but it was long after her conquests over the countries of Carthage, Greece, and Egypt, before Rome sought to avail herself of the commercial resources which were opened to her. The introduction of a taste for the luxuries and the splendors of the East, with the love of imperial grandeur inspired by the increase of her dominions, at length induced her to send her mariners across the sea for the purposes of commerce, and rapidly promoted the growth of naval enterprize. The subsequent irruption of the fierce

hordes of barbarian tribes from the North, although ultimately productive of good to mankind, checked for a while the progress of human improvement, and centuries passed away before commerce and the arts again actively revived in Europe.

CHAPTER II.

THE invention of the mariner's compass in the year 1322 gave a new impulse to the enterprize of nations, and must be regarded as the most important æra in the whole history of navigation. It revealed to man a fuller comprehension of the powers with which he was endowed by his Creator, while at the same time it served to develope the ample resources with which the same munificent hand had overspread the globe he inhabited. It taught him that he was not only lord of the earth, but that even "the great and wide sea" was a theatre where his superior intelligence might be illustrated. It opened to him a safe and a sure pathway over the trackless waters of the ocean, which could be traversed with equal accuracy in all climes, and at all seasons, whether in sunshine or in shade, in breeze or in storm, by day or by night, in summer or in winter, and inspired him with a higher and a prouder confidence in daring and defying its tempests and its perils. The Spaniards were the first to avail themselves of the advantages of this wonderful invention; but their

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