may in time bring the infidels and savages living in those parts to human civility, and to a settled and quiet government." The Company endeavored to be careful in the selection of the men who were to emigrate and to refuse "idle and wicked persons such as shame or fear compels into this action, and such as are the weeds and rankness of this land"; they issued a true and sincere declaration to show what settlers they would accept, both as regards religion and conversation, and faculties, arts, and trades. They also made careful provision for the maintenance of the religious habits they prized so highly; churches were built with such elaboration as their means allowed, and the practice of attending the daily services there was carefully enforced. The whole work of colonization was treated as an enterprise in which it was a work of piety to engage, and collections were made in parish churches for the college that was planned, for English and Indians, at Henrico. The work continued despite many difficulties of every kind. Notwithstanding the efforts of the Company, the colony had been the refuge of a certain number of dissolute adventurers from the first; there had been much difficulty in keeping them in order, and in preserving friendly relations with the natives, while there had been many quarrels among the officials. On the whole, the colony prospered more in its material life than as a missionary enterprise; but it was not in a very flourishing condition at the close of King James' reign.

The religious impulse was also strongly at work in the first settlement of New England, not merely as affecting the spirit in which the enterprise was planned, but also as affording the main motive of those who actually emigrated. The Pilgrim Fathers were not much concerned in planting the existing English type of Christian civilization in the New World; but they desired to secure the opportunity of founding a society for themselves which should be thoroughly scriptural in character; they hoped that this would serve as a bright example to the rest of mankind. They established a very strict ecclesiastical discipline, but one which was entirely unlike the system they had found so galling in England. Under their scheme temporal privileges were dependent on church membership. "Most of the persons at New England are not admitted of their Church and therefore are not freemen; and when they come to be tried there, be it for life or limb, name or estate, or whatsoever, they must be tried and judged too by those of the Church, who are in a sort their adversaries." The enthusiasts for Theocracy sought out witches and banished Antinomians;

they even expelled and shipped off two members of the council who were in favor of using the Prayer Book.

In a community of men of this type there was much intense individual earnestness, but little sense of corporate duty to their neighbors, except in the way of furnishing them with a model to copy. Though they had traded with the Indians, they had made no serious efforts to civilize them, and had been careful to keep them at arm's length. The war of extermination, waged against the Pequod nation, alarmed all the neighboring tribes; and some of the colonies found it wise, in 1643, for their own security, to consolidate themselves into "The United Colonies of New England." Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven were the first members of this union. It was the beginning of that federation which has proved such a convenient system for governing a growing nation. Both in the nature of the impulse which gave them birth, and in the character of the settlements themselves, there is a marked contrast between the history of the Northern and Southern colonies on the American coast.

Religious convictions of different kinds exercised a considerable influence in connection with the planting of other English settlements in North America. Maryland was taken in hand by Sir George Calvert, a Romanist, in 1632; through the personal connections of the proprietor, this territory became the resort of such of his co-religionists as emigrated. It was a district where English Romanists obtained toleration, till the aggressive action of the Jesuits called forth the inevitable reaction. Liberty of conscience was adopted, as a matter of conviction, by Roger Williams at Rhode Island, the settlement which he founded in 1636, after he had been obliged to withdraw from New England, and a similar course was pursued by the Quakers in West New Jersey and Pennsylvania. No serious effort was made to enforce religious uniformity after the Restoration, and the principle of civil toleration was formulated, on grounds of expediency, in the Constitutions which Locke drew up for Carolina. He hoped that peace might be maintained among the diversity of opinions, "and that Jews, heathen and other dissenters from the Christian religion might not be scared away from the new colony." When the Puritan Theocracy succumbed before the storm which was raised by the trials of witches in New England, there was no longer any effective obstacle to the diffusion of Whig principles in regard to religious liberty. They found a congenial soil, and have so deeply impregnated American life and thought that there is some excuse for the

mistake of regarding them as an original element in its composition.

§ 4. Colonies as Sources of Gain

Religious motives had much to do in shaping the character of particular settlements, but the main impulse in the work of colonization was economic. The plantations offered a field for the profitable investment of capital. While many of the London merchants were eager to establish themselves on English soil, others were ready to develop colonial resources, and to promote the cultivation of products, such as tobacco and sugar, which were in demand in European lands. The development of the Southern colonies and the West Indian Islands was promoted by moneyed men in England, who directed the energies of the planters into raising commodities for export. These traders were not specially concerned to foster communities which should be self-sufficing; they preferred that the planters should manage their estates with a view to the requirements of outside markets. As a consequence, there was little subsistence farming in these regions. The land was mostly held in large estates by men who carried on their business, either with their own capital or through the help of the credit extended to them by the merchants who were interested in the trade. The course which these London capitalists pursued did not always commend itself to the government; King James, while he sympathized with their enterprise, was somewhat afraid of pushing it too vigorously, and involving himself in a dispute with Spain. Charles I was eager for the prosperity of Virginia, and was anxious that the colony should at least provide its own food supply; he feared that the future of the territory was being sacrificed to the immediate gain of the planters. It was clear, however, that the development of these settlements was of advantage to the realm, and successive commissions gave careful attention to their affairs. For one thing, the plantations served to supplement the resources of the realm, and to furnish supplies of commodities which had hitherto been procured from abroad, so as to diminish the commercial indebtedness of the country and to influence the balance of trade in our favor. Again, the trade with the colonies opened up a field for the employment of our shipping; and efforts were made, both by the crown and Parliament, to restrict this newly established line of intercourse to English vessels, in the interest of the maritime power of the country. After the

Restoration, when the plantations were firmly established, a third economic advantage to the mother country came more and more clearly into view. The colonists demanded considerable quantities of European goods, and the progress of the settlements opened a larger market, the advantage of which English manufacturers endeavored to retain for themselves. On these various grounds English moneyed men were inclined to promote the plantation of new areas, and the English governments were ready to approve of the undertaking.

$5. Colonies as Homes for Englishmen

There must also have been a very large class who looked eagerly to the plantations in the hope of finding a sphere where they could engage, as independent men, in rural occupations. They may have had little capital of their own, but they were confident that if they obtained a start, they could make a living by their labor, There is reason to believe that the material prosperity, and the comparative peace, which England enjoyed during the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, had resulted in a considerable increase of population. The growth of trade afforded openings for her younger sons of country gentlemen; but there must have been a large number of young men who greatly preferred an outdoor life, and who had difficulty in raising the premium that was required in order to be apprenticed to any branch of commerce. The fact that the competition for farms was so keen, is an incidental proof that there were a number of men who desired to follow this avocation; and if they had no opportunity at home, they would be ready to look for one abroad. Such men would be prepared to devote their own labor to the arduous work of clearing and tilling the ground for a livelihood; they desired to have a holding which they could work on their own account. Those plantations, which did not raise suitable products for export, offered a poor prospect of profit to the capitalists, but they would attract the classes of the community who were prepared to engage in farming for subsistence. It was almost inevitable that the colonies which were suitable for the growth of cereals should be settled with small homesteads, and not with large plantations managed by men who were catering for distant markets.

There have been many periods of English history when the government would have looked askance on schemes for drawing off large numbers of adult men to distant countries, where they could

not be called upon to play a personal part in defending England against invaders. More pressing anxiety was felt in the seventeenth century as to the best means of utilizing the able-bodied population in times of peace; and the government was quite prepared to give active assistance in promoting emigration. The statute of 1563 had doubtless done much to bring about the absorption of vagrants in industrial pursuits; but, despite the excellence of the London system for dealing with the poor, there appears to have been a considerable body of the unemployed in the city during the earlier part of the reign of James I. Among the motives and reasons which the king urged with the view of inducing the city to promote the Ulster Plantations it was pointed out that, if a body of the inhabitants were to hive off from London to Derry, the evils of overcrowding would be reduced, and there would neither be the same risk of infection nor as great a pressure of competition. The city was not easily induced to take active steps in response to the invitation. In the subsequent story we hear more of the king's endeavors to obtain contributions in money than of any great success in securing emigrants from London.

The city merchants were much more keenly alive to the advantage of developing trade, by planting in Virginia, than to the wisdom of schemes for prosecuting subsistence farming in the north of Ireland. The colonists, who were managing large estates and raising tobacco for export, were in constant need of labor; the Virginia Company and, after its dissolution, the agents of the planters, were willing to pay a good price for servants of every class; a large business sprang up, both at London and Bristol, in the shipment of laborers to the plantations.

There can be no doubt that a preference would be given to persons who had been brought up in the country and were accustomed to out-of-door employment. The young and active men in any parish, who saw little prospect of getting a holding of their own, would possibly feel that they could better themselves by emigration, though it is not probable that many adult servants in husbandry had either the inclination or the opportunity to go so far afield. There was more chance of drawing on the surplus population of the towns, and on those artisans who were thrown out of work by the fluctuations of their trade. It has already been pointed out that the arrangements which were made for the relief of the poor, prove how very easily the well-doing and industrious persons of this class might be reduced to destitution; the rigidity of the Elizabethan system, which told alike against change of residence