the mature man, prepared to vindicate natural rights, and to fashion political and social systems adapted to their position and wants. We view them now, conscious of their physical and moral strength, possessing clear views of right and justice, and prepared to demand and defend both. This is the point in the progress of the new and growing nation to which our observation is now directed, when the great question was to be decided, whether independent selfcontrol should be enjoyed, or continued vassalage to an ungenerous parent should be endured. Our next topic will be the events connected with the settlement of that question. It is a topic of highest significance. It looms up in the panorama of national histories like some giant Alp, far above its fellows, isolated in grandeur, yet assimilated in sympathy with all others.

they gave freely of their substance to carry on the contest for the mastery. Probably, the "Seven Years' War" cost the colonies, in the aggregate, full twenty millions of dollars, besides the flower of their youth; and, in return, Parliament granted them, during the contest, at different periods, about five millions and a half of dollars. Parliament subsequently voted one million of dollars to the colonies, but, on account of the troubles arising from the Stamp Act and kindred measures, ministers withheld the sum.

The following is a list, taken from official records, of "The grants in Parliament for Rewards, Encouragement, and Indemnification to the Provinces in North America, for their Services and Expenses during the last [seven years'] War:

"On the 3d of February, 1756, as a free gift and reward to the colonies of New England, New York, and Jersey, for their past services, and as an encouragement to continue to exert themselves with vigor, $575,000.

May 19th, 1757. For the use and relief of the provinces of North and South Carolina, and Virginia, in recompense for services performed and to be performed, $250,000.

"June 1st, 1758. To reimburse the province of Massachusetts Bay their expenses in furnishing provisions and stores to the troops raised by them in 1756, $136,900. To reimburse the province of Connecticut their expenses for ditto, $68,680.

"April 30th, 1759. As a compensation to the respective colonies for the expenses of clothing, pay of troops, etc., $1,000,000.

"March 31st, 1760. For the same, $1,000,000. For the colony of New York, to reimburse their expenses in furnishing provisions and stores to the troops in 1756, $14,885.

"Jan. 20th, 1761. As a compensation to the respective colonies for clothing, pay of the troops, etc., $1,000,000.

"Jan. 26th, 1762. Ditto, $666,666.

"March 15th, 1763.

Ditto, $666,666.

"April 22d, 1770. To reimburse the province of New Hampshire their expenses in furnishing provisions and stores to the troops in the campaign of 1756, $30,045. Total, $5,408,842."

In a pamphlet, entitled Rights of BRITAIN and Claims of AMERICA, an answer to the Declaration of the Continental Congress, setting forth the causes and the necessity of their taking up arms, printed in 1776, is a table showing the annual expenditures of the British government in support of the civil and military powers of the American colonies, from the accession of the family of Hanover, in 1714, until 1775. The expression of the writer is, "Employed in the defense of America." This is incorrect; for the wars with the French on this continent, which cost the greatest amount of money, were wars for conquest and territory, though ostensibly for the defense of the Anglo-American colonies against the encroachments of their Gallic neighbors. During the period alluded to (sixty years), the sums granted for the army amounted to $43,899,625; for the navy, $50,000,000; money laid out in Indian presents, in holding Congresses, and purchasing cessions of land, $30,500,000; making a total of $123,899,625. Within that period the following bounties on American commodities were paid: On indigo, $725,110; on hemp and flax, $27,800; on naval stores imported into Great Britain from America, $7,293,810; making the total sum paid on account of bounties, $8,047,320. The total amount of money expended in sixty years on account of America, $131,946,945.

existed in the moral realm of our world since the advent of man; and devious as may be their manifestations, according to circumstances, they remain the same, inherently, and always exhibit the same tendencies. When God gave to man an intelligent soul, and invested him with the prerogatives of moral free agency, then was born that instinctive love of liberty which, through all past time, has manifested itself in individuals and in societies; and in every age, the consciences of men have boldly and indignantly asked, in the presence of oppression,

"If I'm design'd yon lordling's slave,

By Nature's laws designed;
Why was an independent wish

E'er planted in my mind?

If not, why am I subject to

His cruelty or scorn?

Or why has man the will and pow'r

To make his fellow mourn?" 1

1 Burns.

Nations, like men, have thus spoken. The principles of civil and religious liberty, and the inalienable rights of man which they involve, were recognized and asserted long before Columbus left Palos for the New World.' Their maintenance had shaken thrones and overturned dynasties before Charles the First was brought to the block; and they had lighted the torch of revolution long before the trumpet-tones of James Otis3 and Patrick Henry' aroused the AngloAmericans to resist British aggression. From the earliest steps in the progress of the American colonies, we have seen the democratic theories of all past reformers developed into sturdy democratic practice; and a love of liberty which had germinated beneath the heat of persecution in the Old World, budded and blossomed all over the New, wherever English hearts beat, or English tongues gave utterance. Nor did English hearts alone cherish the precious seedling, nor English tongues alone utter the noble doctrines of popular sovereignty; but in the homes of all in this beautiful land, whatever country gave the inmates birth, there was a shrine of freedom, and a refuge for the oppressed. Here king-craft and priest-craft never had an abiding-place, and their ministers were always weak in the majestic presence of the popular will.

Upon the bleak shores of Massachusetts Bay; upon the banks of the Hudson, the Delaware, the Potomac, and the James; and amid the pine-forests or beneath the palmettos of the Carolinas, and the further South, the colonists, from the very beginning, had evinced an impatience of arbitrary rule; and every manifestation of undue control by local magistrates or distant monarchs— every effort to abridge their liberties or absorb their gains, stimulated the growth of democratic principles. These permeated the whole social and political life in America, and finally evolved from the crude materials of royal charters, religious covenants, and popular axioms, that galaxy of representative governments which, having the justice of the English Constitution, the truth of Christian ethics, and the wisdom of past experience for their foundation, were united in "the fullness of time," in that symmetrical combination of free institutions known as the REPUBLIC OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

It is a common error to regard the Revolution which attended the birth of this Republic, as an isolated episode in the history of nations, having its causes in events immediately preceding the convulsion. It was not the violent result of recent discontents, but the culmination of a long series of causes tending to such a climax. The parliamentary enactments which kindled the rebellion in 1775, were not oppressive measures entirely novel. They had their counterparts in the British statute books, even as early as the restoration of monarchy [1660° a hundred years before, when navigation laws,' intended to crush the growing commerce of the colonies were enacted. They were only re-assertions of tyrannical legislative power and royal prerogatives, to which the colonies, in the weakness of their infancy and early youth, were compelled to submit. Now they had grown to maturity, and dared to insist upon receiving exact justice.

They had recently emerged from an exhausting war, which, instead of weakening them, had taught them their real moral, political, and physical strength. They had also learned the important lesson of power in union, and profited by its teachings. Having acquired a mastery over the savages of the wilderness, and assisted in breaking the French power on their frontiers, into atoms,' they felt their manhood stirring within them, and they tacitly agreed no longer to submit to the narrow and oppressive policy of Great Britain. Their industry and commerce were too expansive to be confined within the narrow limits of those restrictions which the Board of Trade,' from time to time, had imposed, and they determined to regard them as mere ropes of sand. For long and gloomy years they had struggled up, unaided and alone, from feebleness to strength. They had built fortifications, raised armies, and fought battles, for England's glory and their own preservation, without England's aid, and often without her sympathy. And it was not until the growing importance of the French settlements excited the jealousy of Great Britain, that her ministers perceived the expediency of justice and liberality toward her colonies, in order to secure their loyalty and efficient co-operation. Compelled to be self-reliant from the beginning, the colonists were made strong by the mother's neglect; and when to that neglect she added oppression and scorn, they felt justified in using their developed strength in defense of their rights.

The colonists had grown strong, not only in material prosperity, perceptions of inalienable rights, and a will to be free, but in many things in which the strength and beauty of a State consist, they exhibited all the most prominent developments of a great nation. A love for the fine arts had been growing apace for many years; and when the Revolution broke out, West and Copley, natives of America, were wearing, in Europe, the laurel-crowns of supreme excellence as painters. Literature and science were beginning to be highly appreciated, and the six colonial colleges' were full of students. Godfrey, the glazier, who invented the quadrant, had flourished and passed away;"

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1 Page 203.

3

Note 5, page 134.

Georgia, alone, received parliamentary aid [page 100], in the establishment of settlements. In all the other colonies, where vast sums were expended in fitting out expeditions, purchasing the soil of the Indians, and sustaining the settlers, neither the crown nor parliament ever contributed a farthing of pecuniary aid. The settling of Massachusetts alone, cost a million of dollars. Lord Baltimore spent two hundred thousand dollars in colonizing Maryland; and William Penn became deeply involved in debt, in his efforts to settle and improve Pennsylvania. Page 197.

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Benjamin West was born in Chester county, Pennsylvania, in 1738. His parents were Quakers. He commenced art-life as a portrait-painter, when wealthy men furnished him with means to go to Italy. He soon triumphed, went to England, was patronized by the king, and became the most eminent historical painter of his age. He died in London in 1820, in the eightysecond year of his age.

⚫ John Singleton Copley was also born in 1738, in the city of Boston. He became a pupil of Smibert [note 8, page 158], and became an eminent portrait-painter. His family relations identified him with the Royalists at the commencement of the Revolution, and he went to England to seek employment, where he was patronized by West. There he painted two memorable pictures; one for the House of Lords, the other for the House of Commons. These established his fame, and led to fortune. His son became lord chancellor of England, and was made a peer, with the title of Lord Lyndhurst. Copley died in England, in 1815, at the age of seventy-seven years.

7 Page 178.

Thomas Godfrey was a native of Pennsylvania, and was born in 1704. inventor of the quadrant known as Hadley's. See Lossing's Eminent Americans.

He was the real

Bartram, the farmer, had become "American Botanist to his Majesty;" Franklin, the printer, was known, wherever civilization had planted her banners, as the lightning-tamer and profound moral philosopher; and Rittenhouse, the clock-maker, had calculated and observed the transit of Venus, and con

6

structed that Planetarium which is yet a wonder in the world of mechanism.' Theology and the legal profession, had taken high ground. Edwards had written his great work on The Freedom of the Will, and was among the dead; and already Otis, Henry,' Dickenson, Rutledge,' and other lawyers, had made their brilliant marks, and were prepared to engage in the great struggle at hand. All classes of men had noble representatives in the colonies, when the conflict commenced.

There was no cause for complaint on the part of the colonists, of the willful exercise of tyrannical power, for purposes of oppression, by Great Britain.

'See Lossing's Eminent Americans.

David Rittenhouse was born in Roxborough, Pennsylvania, in 1732. As he exhibited great mechanical genius, his father apprenticed him to a clock-maker, and he became one of the most eminent mechanicians and mathematicians of his time. He discovered that remarkable feature in algebraic analysis, called fluxions, and applied it to the mechanic arts. He constructed a machine which represented the motions of the solar system. That Planetarium is now in the possession of the College of New Jersey, at Princeton. Rittenhouse succeeded Franklin as president of the American Philosophical Society. He died in 1793, at the age of sixty-four years.

3 Jonathan Edwards was one of the most eminent of American divines. He was born in East Windsor, Connecticut, in 1703, and died at Princeton, New Jersey, while president of the college, in 1758.

4

Page 212.

Page 214.

6

Page 219.

7

Page 310.