Nation in a Nutshell | Page 9

Virginian five hundred pounds of the narcotic weed; and even the government accepted it in discharge of taxes.
[Sidenote: Virginian Customs.]
Virginia early became divided into classes; the landlords being a virtual nobility, the poorer colonists a middle class, and the slaves comprising the lower social stratum. The Church of England was the prevailing sect, and English habits of hospitality and ease of manner replaced the Puritan austerity of the North. Yet Virginia had a severe code of punishments; and at one time, if a man stayed away from church three times without good reason, he was liable to the penalty of death. The Virginians were tolerant of all faiths excepting those of the Quakers and the Roman Catholics. Persons professing these creeds were sternly excluded from the colony.
[Sidenote: The Indians.]
Just one hundred years before the outbreak of the Revolution, the white population of New England had reached fifty-five thousand: while the Indians, retreating at the approach of the European, had become reduced to two-thirds of that number. The presence of the aborigines on the borders of the whole line of the colonies seemed at first, destined to become fatal to the settlement of the continent. But had it not been for Indian hostility, the colonies might never have grown together and merged, first into a close defensive alliance, and then into a great and united state. It was mainly the sentiment of the common preservation that brought about the intimate relations which gradually grew up between Puritan, Dutchman, and Cavalier.
[Sidenote: Indian Wars.]
The Puritans treated the Indians with strict justice: Penn made friends of the powerful tribes along the Delaware; and Roger Williams succeeded in conciliating the Narragansetts. But a time came when the Indians saw clearly that they were being pushed further and further back, away from their ancient homes. Then followed the terrible wars which so long threatened the existence of the struggling colonies, and which the dauntless courage and hardihood of the settlers alone rendered vain. King Philip arose, and struggled fiercely for more than a year to exterminate the New England intruders. The Canadian French, jealous of English supremacy on the continent, joined hands with the Indians, and incited them constantly to fresh assaults. These French had explored the Lakes, and the Mississippi as far as what is now New Orleans; and they feared lest the English should deprive them of these western domains.
Wars succeeded each other with alarming rapidity. After King Philip's War came King William's War in 1689, Queen Anne's War in 1702, King George's War in 1744, the Canadian War (which lasted from 1755 to 1763, and in which Quebec was taken by Wolfe, and Canada was conquered by the English), and finally, Pontiac's bold but futile rebellion, aided by the French, in 1763. It was these wars, and the growing need of combined resistance to the tyrannical assumptions of the British government, which together drew close the bonds of friendship and mutual support between the colonies, and made them capable of striking a successful blow for independence.

V.
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
[Sidenote: The Revolution.]
[Sidenote: American Loyalty.]
The Revolution was long in brewing. The discontent of the colonies at their treatment by the mother country was gradual in its growth. At first it seemed rather to inspire fitful protests and expostulations, than a desire to foster a deliberate quarrel. Even New England, settled by Pilgrims who had no strong reason for evincing loyalty and affection for the land whence they had been driven for opinion's sake, seemed to have become more or less reconciled to the dominion of British governors. There can be no doubt that the colonists, even down to within a brief period of the Declaration of Independence, hoped to retain their connection with Great Britain. Congress declared, even after armies had been raised to resist the red-coats, that this was not with the design of separation or independence. Even the mobs cried "God save the king!" Washington said that until the moment of collision he had abhorred the idea of separation: and Jefferson declared that, up to the 19th of April, 1775 (the date of the battle of Lexington), "he had never heard a whisper of a disposition to separate from Great Britain."
[Sidenote: Effect of the Stamp Act.]
The Stamp Act, and the similar acts which followed it, united the colonies in a spirit of resistance. They inspired Patrick Henry's eloquence in Virginia; they gave rise to the "tea-party" in Boston; they produced the Boston massacre; they led to the burning of the Gaspee in Narragansett Bay; they finally developed, no longer rioting, but open and flagrant rebellion at Concord, Lexington, and Bunker Hill. The colonies did not refuse to be taxed. They recognized the right of Great Britain to tax them. But they claimed that this right had its condition--that the taxed people should be