Part 6 (1/2)

[Ill.u.s.tration: SILK-WINDING.

(Fac-simile of a picture in Edward Williams' ”Virginia Truly Valued.”

1650.)]

Of General Oglethorpe, it may be added that he lived to reach his ninety-eighth year. It was said of him that he was the handsomest old man in London, and people often stopped on the streets to look at and admire him. He always had a warm regard for the American colonies.

Indeed, it was this marked friends.h.i.+p for them which prevented his appointment as commander-in-chief of the British forces during the Revolution.

GROWTH OF THE AMERICAN COLONIES.

It will thus be seen that, beginning with Virginia, in 1607, the American colonies had grown in a little more than a century and a quarter to thirteen. These were strung along the Atlantic coast from Maine to Florida, and in 1750 their population was about 1,260,000. This was vigorous growth. All the colonists, although born on this side of the Atlantic, considered themselves Englishmen, and were proud of their king, three thousand miles away across the ocean. With such loyal subjects, the English crown had the best opportunity in the world to become the most powerful of all the nations.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A COMFORTIER, OR CHAFING-DISH.

(New York State Cabinet of Natural History, Albany.)]

But Great Britain was not free from misgiving over the rapid growth of her American colonies. Nothing looked more probable than that before many years they would unite in one government of their own and declare their independence of the British crown. Then was the time for the display of wise statesmans.h.i.+p, but unhappily for England and happily for the colonies, such wise statesmans.h.i.+p proved to be lacking on the other side of the water. The colonies displayed great industry. They grew tobacco, rice, indigo, and many other products which were eagerly welcomed by the British merchants, who exported their own manufactures in exchange for them. The inevitable result was that England and the American colonies increased their wealth by this means. Not only that, but the colonies voted s.h.i.+ps, men, and money to help the mother country in the wars in which she was often involved.

As early as 1651, Parliament pa.s.sed the first of the oppressive Navigation Acts, which forbade the colonies to trade with any other country than England, or to receive foreign s.h.i.+ps into their ports. This act was so harsh and unjust that it was never generally enforced, until the attempt, more than a century later, when it became one of the leading causes of the American Revolution.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EARLY DAYS IN NEW ENGLAND.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLACES OF WORs.h.i.+P IN NEW YORK IN 1742.

1. Lutheran. 2. French. 3. Trinity. 4. New Dutch. 5. Old Dutch. 6.

Presbyterian. 7. Baptist. 8. Quaker. 9. Synagogue.]

CHAPTER III.

THE INTERCOLONIAL WARS AND THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR.

King William's War--Queen Anne's War--King George's War--The French and Indian War--England and France Rivals in the Old World and the New--The Early French Settlements--The Disputed Territory--France's Fatal Weakness--Was.h.i.+ngton's Journey Through the Wilderness--The First Fight of the War--The War Wholly American for Two Years--The Braddock Ma.s.sacre--The Great Change Wrought by William Pitt--Fall of Quebec--Momentous Consequences of the Great English Victory--The Growth and Progress of the Colonies and Their Home Life.

KING WILLIAM'S WAR.

If anything were needed to prove the utter uselessness and horrible barbarity of war, it is found in a history of the strife in which the American colonies were involved through the quarrels of their rulers, thousands of miles away on the other side of the Atlantic. Men lived for years in America as neighbors, meeting and exchanging visits on the most friendly terms, and with no thought of enmity, until the arrival of some s.h.i.+p with news that their respective governments in Europe had gone to war. Straightway, the neighbors became enemies, and, catching up their guns, did their best to kill one another. Untold misery and hundreds of lives were lost, merely because two ambitious men had gotten into a wrangle. The result of such a dispute possessed no earthly interest to the people in the depths of the American wilderness, but loyalty to their sovereigns demanded that they should plunge into strife.

As time pa.s.sed, Spain and Holland declined in power, and England and France became formidable rivals in the New World as well as in the Old.

In 1689, when William III. was on the throne of England, war broke out between that country and France and lasted until 1697. The French, having settled in Canada, were wise enough to cultivate the friends.h.i.+p of the Indians, who helped them in their savage manner in desolating the English settlements. Dover, New Hamps.h.i.+re, was attacked by the French and Indians, who killed more than a score of persons and carried away a number of captives. In other places, settlers were surprised in the fields and shot down. Early in 1690, another party came down from Canada, and, when the snow lay deep on the ground and the people were sleeping in their beds, made a furious attack upon Schenectady. The town was burned and sixty persons tomahawked, while the survivors, half-clad, struggled through the snow to Albany, sixteen miles distant.

The Americans in retaliation attempted to invade Canada, but the result was a disastrous failure. The war continued in a desultory way, with great cruelties on both sides, until 1697, when a treaty signed at Ryswick, Holland, settled the quarrel between King William and James II., by deciding that the former was the rightful king of England. The suffering and deaths that had been inflicted on this side of the Atlantic produced not the slightest effect upon the quarrel between the two claimants to the throne.

QUEEN ANNE'S WAR.

In 1702, England got into a wrangle with France and Spain. This time the Iroquois Indians took no part, because of their treaty with France, although in the previous war they fought on the side of the English. In the depth of winter in 1703-4, Deerfield, Ma.s.sachusetts, was attacked and destroyed. Forty-seven of the people were tomahawked and more than a hundred carried into captivity. Their sufferings were so dreadful on the long tramp through the snow to Canada that nearly all sank down and died. Maine and New Hamps.h.i.+re were devastated by the hordes, who showed no mercy to women and children. Another English invasion of Canada was attempted, but failed like its predecessor. The aimless, cruel war continued until 1713, when a treaty of peace was signed at Utrecht in Holland, by which England secured control of the fisheries of Newfoundland, while Labrador, Hudson Bay, and Acadia or Nova Scotia were ceded to Great Britain. The result in both instances would have been the same had the English and French settlers and the Indians continued on amicable terms.