been absorbed among the Creeks and countries having caught the spirit of disChoctas; and, indeed, it is certain, that tant adventure in quest of gold, these soon not only straggling individuals, but also entered into competition with the nation large portions of tribes, have united with whose sovereign had won the title of Most other tribes, and so exist in a commingled Catholic Majesty; and as all Christendom at state with them. It has happened that an that day bowed its neck to the spiritual doentire conquered tribe has been compelled minion of the Vicar of Christ, as the Bishop to submit to absorption among the conquer- of Rome claimed to be, they could not be ors. And, finally, the MOBILIAN or Musk- refused a portion from the “holy father," HOGEE-CHOCTA tribes, taken as a whole, on showing that they were entitled to it. have decidedly increased, it is believed, on the ground that Spain could not justly within the last twenty-five years. They, appropriate to herself any part of the Amerwith the Cherokees, and the remains of ican Continent which she had not actually several tribes of the Algonquin race, are discovered, by coasting along it, by markalmost all collected together, in the district ing its boundaries, and by landing upon it, of country assigned to them by the Gen- they created for themselves a chance of eral Government, west of the States of Ar- obtaining no inconsiderable share. · kansas and Missouri. Respecting this plan, England was the first to follow in the as well as touching the general policy of career of discovery. Under her auspices, the government of the United States to the continent itself was first discovered, * wards the Indians, I shall speak fully in June 24, 1497, by the Cabots, John and Seanother place.

bastian, father and son, the latter of whom It is difficult to estimate, with anything was a native of that country, and the forlike absolute precision, the number of In- mer a merchant adventurer from Venice, dians that now remain as the descendants but at the time residing in England, and of the tribes which once occupied the coun- engaged in the service of Henry VII. "By try of which we have spoken. Without this event, a very large and important part pretending to reckon those who have sought of the coast of North America was secured refuge with tribes far in the West, we may to a country which, within less than half safely put it down at one hundred and fif- a century, was to begin to throw off the teen or twenty thousand souls. Of what shackles of Rome, and to become, in due is doing to save them from physical and time, the most powerful of all Protestant moral ruin, I shall speak hereafter. kingdoms. He who “ hath made of one

The most plausible opinion respecting blood, all nations of men, for to dwell on the origin of the Aborigines of America is, all the face of the earth, and hath deterthat they are of the Mongolian race; and mined the times before appointed, and the that they came to America from Asia, ei- bounds of their habitation," had resolved in ther by way of the Polynesian world,* or this manner to prepare a place to which, in by Behring's Straits, or by the Aleutian ages then drawing near, those who should Islands, Mednoi Island, and the Behring be persecuted for Christ's sake might .group. Facts well attested prove this to fee and find protection, and thus found

have been practicable. That the resem- a great Protestant empire. And yet how blance between the Aborigines of America near, if we may so speak, was this mighty and the Mongolian race is most striking, plan to being defeated ? A Spanish discovevery one will testify who has seen both. erer, a year or two before, was diverted, “ Universally and substantially,” says the by some apparently trivial circumstance, American traveller, Ledyard, respecting from directing his course from Cuba to the Mongolians, “they resemble the Abo- the very coast which the Cabots afterrigines of America."

ward sailed along. Had he done so, how different, in some momentous respects, might have been the state of the world at

this day! We have here another illustraCHAPTER III.

tion of the littleness of causes with which

the very greatest of human events are DISCOVERY OF THAT PART OF NORTH AMER- often connected, and of that superintendICA WHICẢ IS COMPRISED IN THE LIMITS ing Providence which rules in all things.

Spain, however, far from at once relinUNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPTS TO COLONIZE IT. quishing her pretensions to a country thus

As the American hemisphere had been discovered by England, insisted on claimdiscovered by expeditions sent out by ing a large part of it, and for a long time Spain, that country claimed the erre con- extended the name of the comparatively tinent, as well as the adjoinig islands; insignificant peninsula of Florida, with and to it a pope, as the vicegerent of God, which she was compelled to be contented at undertook to cede the whole. But other last, over the whole tract reaching as far

OF THE UNITED STATES.—THE EARLY AND

north as the Chesapeake Bay, if not farther. southern coast of North America. The first France, on the other hand, was not likely, of these took place on the confines of South under so intelligent and ambitious a mon- Carolina, and seems at once to have failed. arch as Francis I., to remain an inactive The second, which was on the River St. spectator of maritime discoveries made by John's in Florida, survived but a few years. the nations on both sides of her. Under In 1565, it was attacked by the Spaniards, her auspices, Verrazzani, in 1524, and Car- under Melendez, that nation claiming the tier ten years afterward, made voyages in country in right of discovery, in consesearch of new lands, so that soon she, too, quence of Ponce de Leon having landed had claims in America to prosecute. As upon it in 1512; and as religious bigotry the result of the former of those two en- was added to national jealousy in the asterprises, she claimed the coast lying to sailants, they put almost all the Huguenots the south of North Carolina, and extending, to death in the most cruel manner, “not as as was truly asserted, beyond the farthest Frenchmen,” they alleged,“ but as Lutherpoint reached by the Cabots. Still more ans.” For this atrocity the Spaniards were important were the results of Cartier's severely punished three years afterward, voyage. Having gone up the River St. when Dominic de Gourgues, a Gascon, Lawrence as far as the island on which having captured two of their forts, hanged Montreal now stands, he and Roberval his prisoners upon trees, not far from the made an ineffectual attempt to found a spot where his countrymen had suffered, colony, composed of thieves, murderers, and placed over their bodies this inscripdebtors, and other inmates of the prisons tion: "I do not this as unto Spaniards or in France, on the spot now occupied by mariners, but as unto traitors, robbers, and Quebec. Two other unsuccessful attempts murderers.” at colonization in America were made by With a view to encourage the colonizaFrance, the one in 1598, under the Marquis tion of those parts of North America that de la Roche; the other in 1600, under Chau- were claimed by England, several patents vin. At length, in 1605, a French colony were granted by the crown of that country was permanently established, under De before the close of the sixteenth century. Monts, a Protestant, at the place now call The enterprises, however, to which these ed Annapolis, in Nova Scotia, but not un- led, universally failed. The most famous 'til after having made an abortive attempt was that made in North Carolina, under a within the boundaries of the present State patent to Sir Walter Raleigh and others; it of Maine, Quebec was founded in 1608, was continued from 1584 to 1588; but even under the conduct of Champlain, who be the splendid talents and energy of its chief came the father of all the French settle- could not save his colony from final ruin. ments in North America. From that point Though the details of this unsuccessful the French colonists penetrated farther and enterprise fill many a page in the history farther up the St. Lawrence, until at length of the United States, strange to say, we parties of their hunters and trappers, ac- are in absolute ignorance of the fate of the companied by Jesuit missionaries, reached few remaining colonists that were left on the great lakes, passed beyond them, and the banks of the Roanoke ; the most probdescending the Valley of the Mississippi, able conjecture being that they were masestablished themselves at Fort Du Quesne, sacred by the natives, though some affirm Vincennes, Kaskaskia, and various other that they were incorporated into one of places. Thus the greater part of the im- the Indian tribes. Two monuments of mense Central Valley of North America that memorable expedition remain to this fell, for a time, into the hands of the day; first, the name of Virginia, given to French.

the entire coast by the courtier, in honour Nor was it only in the North that that na- of his royal mistress, though afterward retion sought to plant colonies. The failure stricted to a single province; and, next, the of the French Protestants in all their efforts use of tobacco in Europe, Sir Walter havto secure for themselves mere toleration ing successfully laboured to make it an from their own government, naturally sug- article of commerce between the two congested the idea of expatriation, as the sole tinents. means that remained to them of procuring Some of the voyages made from Engliberty to worship God according to his own land to America in that century for the Word. Even the Prince of Condé, though mere purpose of traffic were not unprofitof royal blood, nobly.proposed to set the ex- able to the adventurers, but it was not until ample of withdrawing from France, rather the following that any attempt at colonizathan be the occasion, by remaining in it, tion met with success. In this no one who of perpetual civil war with the obstinate loves to mark the hand of God in the afpartisans of Rome; and in 1562, under the fairs of men, and who has studied well the auspices of the brave and good Coligny, to history of those times, can fail to be struck whom, also, the idea of expatriation was with the display it presents of the Divine familiar, two attempts were made by the wisdom and goodness. For be it observed, Huguenots to establish themselves on the thạt England was not yet ripe for the work

of colonization, and could not then have king the legislative authority, and a conplanted the noble provinces of which she trol over appointments; a species of doubwas to be the mother-country afterward. le government, under which few political The mass of her population continued, until privileges were enjoyed by the colonists. far on in the sixteenth century, to be at- What from the wilderness state of the tached to Rome; her glorious Constitution country, the unfriendliness of the Aboriwas not half formed until the century, that gines, the insalubrity of the climate, the arfollowed. The Reformation, together with bitrary conduct of the company, and the unthe persecutions, the discussions, and the fitness of most of the settlers for their task, conflicts that followed in its train, were all the infant colony had to contend with many required, in order that minds and hearts difficulties. Yet not only did it gain a permight be created for the founding of a free manent footing in the country, but, notempire, and that the principles and the withstanding the disastrous wars with the forms of the government of England Indians, insurrectionary attempts on the might in any sense be fit for the imitation part of turbulent colonists, misunderstandof her colonies.

ings with the adjacent colony of Maryland, Though England, when she first discover changes in its own charter, and other untoed America, thought only, as other nations ward circumstances, it had become a powerhad done, of enriching herself from mines ful province long before the establishment of of the precious metals and gems; on being American Independence. By a second charundeceived by time, she indulged for a ter granted in 1609, all the powers that had while the passion that followed for traffick- been reserved by the first to the king were ing with the natives. But the commercial, surrendered to the company; but in 1624 as well as the golden age, if we may so that second charter was recalled, the comspeak, had to pass away, before men could pany dissolved, and the government of the be found who should establish themselves colony assumed by the crown, which conon that great continent with a view to agri-tinued thereafter to administer it in a genculture as well as commerce, and who eral way, though the internal legislation should look to the promotion of Christiani- of the colony was left, for the most part, ty no less than to their secular interests. to its own Legislature. To this great and benevolent end God was Massachusetts was settled next in the rapidly shaping events in the Old World. order of time, and owed its rise to more

than one original colony. The first plant

ed within the province was that of NewCHAPTER IV.

Plymouth, founded on the west coast of

Massachusetts Bay, in 1620; but although COLONIZATION OF THE TERRITORIES NOW CON-it spread by degrees into the adjacent disSTITUTING THE UNITED STATES AT LENGTH trict, yet it never acquired much extent.

It originated in a grant of land from the The first permanent colony planted by Plymouth Company in England, an incorthe English in America was Virginia. poration of noblemen, gentlemen, and burEven in that instance, what was projected gesses, on which King James had bestowed was a factory for trading with the natives, by charter all the territories included withrather than a fixed settlement for persons in the forty-first and forty-fifth degrees of expatriating themselves with an eye to the north latitude, from the Atlantic to the future advantage of their offspring, and Pacific Ocean. That company having looking for interests which might recon- undergone important modifications, much cile them to it as their home. It was more numerous settlements were made founded in 1607, by a Company of noble- under its auspices, in 1628 at Salem, and men, gentlemen, and merchants in London, in 1630 at Boston, from which two points by whom it was regarded as an affair of colonization spread extensively into the business, prosecuted with a view to pecu- surrounding country, and the province soon niary profit, not from any regard to the became populous and powerful. A colony welfare of the colonists. These, consist- was planted in New-Hampshire in 1631, ing of forty-eight gentlemen, twelve labour- and some settlements had been made in ers, and a few mechanics, reached the Maine a year or two earlier ; but for a Chesapeake Bay in April, 1607, and having long time the progress of all these was landed, on the i3th of May, on a peninsula slow. In 1636, the celebrated Roger in the James River, there they planted their Williams, being banished from Massachufirst settlement, and called it James Town. setts, retired to Narragansett Bay, and by There had been bestowed upon the com- founding there, in 1638, the city of Provpany by royal charter a zone of land, ex-idence, led to the plantation of a new tending from the thirty-fourth to the thirty- province, now forming the State of Rhode eighth degree of north latitude, and from Island. In 1635, the Rev. Thomas Hooker the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, together and John Haynes having led a colony into with ample powers for administering the Connecticut, settled at the spot where the affairs of the colony, but reserving to the city of Hartford now stands, and rescued

B

ACCOMPLISHED.

9

north as the Chesapeake Bay, if not farther. southern coast of North America. The first France, on the other hand, was not likely, of these took place on the confines of South under so intelligent and ambitious a mon- Carolina, and seems at once to have failed. arch as Francis I., to remain an inactive) The second, which was on the River St. spectator of maritime discoveries made by John's in Florida, survived but a few years. the nations on both sides of her. Under In 1565, it was attacked by the Spaniards, her auspices, Verrazzani, in 1524, and Car- under Melendez, that nation claiming the tier ten years afterward, made voyages in country in right of discovery, in consesearch of new lands, so that soon she, too, quence of Ponce de Leon having landed had claims in America to prosecute. As upon it in 1512; and as religious bigotry the result of the former of those two en- was added to national jealousy in the asterprises, she claimed the coast lying to sailants, they put almost all the Huguenots the south of North Carolina, and extending, to death in the most cruel manner, " not as as was truly asserted, beyond the farthest Frenchmen,” they alleged,“ but as Lutherpoint reached by the Cabots. Still more ans." For this atrocity the Spaniards were important were the results of Cartier's severely punished three years afterward, voyage. Having gone up the River St. when Dominic de Gourgues, a Gascon, Lawrence as far as the island on which having captured two of their forts, hanged Montreal now stands, he and Roberval his prisoners upon trees, not far from the made an ineffectual attempt to found a spot where his countrymen had suffered, colony, composed of thieves, murderers, and placed over their bodies this inscripdebtors, and other inmates of the prisons tion: “I do not this as unto Spaniards or in France, on the spot now occupied by mariners, but as unto traitors, robbers, and Quebec. Two other unsuccessful attempts murderers.” at colonization in America were made by With a view to encourage the colonizaFrance, the one in 1598, under the Marquis tion of those parts of North America that de la Roche; the other in 1600, under Chau- were claimed by England, several patents vin. At length, in 1605, a French colony were granted by the crown of that country was permanently established, under De before the close of the sixteenth century. Monts, a Protestant, at the place now call- The enterprises, however, to which these ed Annapolis, in Nova Scotia, but not un led, universally failed. The most famous 'til after having made an abortive attempt was that made in North Carolina, under a within the boundaries of the present State patent to Sir Walter Raleigh and others; it of Maine. Quebec was founded in 1608, was continued from 1584 to 1588; but even under the conduct of Champlain, who be. the splendid talents and energy of its chief came the father of all the French settle-could not save his colony from final ruin. ments in North America. From that point Though the details of this unsuccessful the French colonists penetrated farther and enterprise fill many a page in the history farther up the St. Lawrence, until at length of the United States, strange to say, we parties of their hunters and trappers, ac are in absolute ignorance of the fate of the companied by Jesuit missionaries, reached few remaining colonists that were left on the great lakes, passed beyond them, and the banks of the Roanoke; the most probdescending the Valley of the Mississippi, able conjecture being that they were masestablished themselves at Fort Du Quesne, sacred by the natives, though some affirm Vincennes, Kaskaskia, and various other that they were incorporated into one of places. Thus the greater part of the im- the Indian tribes. Two monuments of mense Central Valley of North America that memorable expedition remain to this fell, for a time, into the hands of the day; first, the name of Virginia, given to French.

the entire coast by the courtier, in honour Nor was it only in the North that that na- of his royal mistress, though afterward retion sought to plant colonies. The failure stricted to a single province; and, next, the of the French Protestants in all their efforts use of tobacco in Europe, Sir Walter havto secure for themselves mere toleration ing successfully laboured to make it an from their own government, naturally sug- article of commerce between the two congested the idea of expatriation, as the sole tinents. means that remained to them of procuring Some of the voyages made from Engliberty to worship God according to his own land to America in that century for the Word. Even the Prince of Condé, though mere purpose of traffic were not unprofitof royal blood, nobly.proposed to set the ex- able to the adventurers, but it was not until ample of withdrawing from France, rather the following that any attempt at colonizathan be the occasion, by remaining in it, tion met with success. In this no one who of perpetual civil war with the obstinate loves to mark the hand of God in the afpartisans of Rome; and in 1562, under the fairs of men, and who has studied well the auspices of the brave and good Coligny, to history of those times, can fail to be struck whom, also, the idea of expatriation was with the display it presents of the Divine familiar, two attempts were made by the wisdom and goodness. For be it observed, Huguenots to establish themselves on the thạt England was not yet ripe for the work

a

of colonization, and could not then have king the legislative authority, and a conplanted the noble provinces of which she trol over appointments; a species of doubwas to be the mother-country afterward. le government, under which few political The mass of her population continued, until privileges were enjoyed by the colonists. far on in the sixteenth century, to be at- What from the wilderness state of the tached to Rome; her glorious Constitution country, the unfriendliness of the Aboriwas not half formed until the century, that gines, the insalubrity of the climate, the arfollowed. The Reformation, together with bitrary conduct of the company, and the unthe persecutions, the discussions, and the fitness of most of the settlers for their task, conflicts that followed in its train, were all the infant colony had to contend with many required, in order that minds and hearts difficulties. Yet not only did it gain a permight be created for the founding of a free manent footing in the country, but, notempire, and that the principles and the withstanding the disastrous wars with the forms of the government of England Indians, insurrectionary attempts on the might in any sense be fit for the imitation part of turbulent colonists, misunderstandof her colonies.

ings with the adjacent colony of Maryland, Though England, when she first discover-changes in its own charter, and other untoed America, thought only, as other nations ward circumstances, it had become a powerhad done, of enriching herself from mines ful province long before the establishment of of the precious metals and gems; on being American Independence. By a second charundeceived by time, she indulged for a ter granted in 1609, all the powers that had while the passion that followed for traffick- been reserved by the first to the king were ing with the natives. But the commercial, surrendered to the company; but in 1624 as well as the golden age, if we may so that second charter was recalled, the comspeak, had to pass away, before men could pany dissolved, and the government of the be found who should establish themselves colony assumed by the crown, which conon that great continent with a view to agri- tinued thereafter to administer it in a genculture as well as commerce, and who eral way, though the internal legislation should look to the promotion of Christiani- of the colony was left, for the most part, ty no less than to their secular interests. to its own Legislature. To this great and benevolent end God was Massachusetts was settled next in the rapidly shaping events in the Old World. order of time, and owed its rise to more

than one original colony. The first plant

ed within the province was that of NewCHAPTER IV.

Plymouth, founded on the west coast of

Massachusetts Bay, in 1620; but although COLONIZATION OF THE TERRITORIES NOW CON- it spread by degrees into the adjacent disSTITUTING THE UNITED STATES AT LENGTH trict, yet it never acquired much extent.

It originated in a grant of land from the The first permanent colony planted by Plymouth Company in England, an incorthe English in America was Virginia. poration of noblemen, gentlemen, and burEven in that instance, what was projected gesses, on which King James had bestowed was a factory for trading with the natives, by charter all the territories included withrather than a fixed settlement for persons the forty-first and forty-fifth degrees of expatriating themselves with an eye to the north latitude, from the Atlantic to the future advantage of their offspring, and Pacific Ocean. That company having looking for interests which might recon- undergone important modifications, much cile them to it as their home. It was more numerous settlements were made founded in 1607, by a Company of noble- under its auspices, in 1628 at Salem, and men, gentlemen, and merchants in London, in 1630 at Boston, from which two points by whom it was regarded as an affair of colonization spread extensively into the business, prosecuted with a view to pecu- surrounding country, and the province soon niary profit, not from any regard to the became populous and powerful. A colony welfare of the colonists. These, consist- was planted in New-Hampshire in 1631, ing of forty-eight gentlemen, twelve labour- and some settlements had been made in ers, and a few mechanics, reached the Maine a year or two earlier ; but for a Chesapeake Bay in April, 1607, and having long time the progress of all these was landed, on the 13th of May, on a peninsula slow. In 1636, the celebrated Roger in the James River, there they planted their Williams, being banished from Massachufirst settlement, and called it James Town. setts, retired to Narragansett Bay, and by There had been bestowed upon the com- founding there, in 1638, the city of Prov. pany by royal charter a zone of land, ex-idence, led to the plantation of a new tending from the thirty-fourth to the thirty- province, now forming the State of Rhode eighth degree of north latitude, and from Island. In 1635, the Rev. Thomas Hooker the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, together and John Haynes having led a colony into with ample powers for administering the Connecticut, settled at the spot where the affairs of the colony, but reserving to the city of Hartford now stands, and rescued

B

ACCOMPLISHED.