The War of Independence | Page 7

which these two colonies were different alike from New England and
from Virginia. Their population was far from being purely English.
Delaware had been first settled by Swedes, New York by Dutchmen;
and the latter colony had drawn its settlers from almost every part of
western and central Europe. A man might travel from Penobscot bay to
the Harlem river without hearing a syllable in any other tongue than
English; but in crossing Manhattan island he could listen, if he chose,
to more than a dozen languages. There was almost as much diversity in
opinions about religious and political matters as there was in the
languages in which they were expressed. New York was an English
community in so far as it had been for more than eighty years under an
English government, but hardly in any other sense. Accordingly we
shall find New York in the revolutionary period less prompt and
decided in action than Massachusetts and Virginia. In population New
York ranked only seventh among the thirteen colonies; but in its
geographical position it was the most important of all. It was important
commercially because the Mohawk and Hudson rivers formed a direct
avenue for the fur-trade from the region of the great lakes to the finest
harbour on all the Atlantic coast. In a military sense it was important
for two reasons; first, because the Mohawk valley was the home of the

most powerful confederacy of Indians on the continent, the steady allies
of the English and deadly foes of the French; secondly, because the
centre of the French power was at Montreal and Quebec, and from
those points the route by which the English colonies could be most
easily invaded was formed by Lake Champlain and the Hudson river.
New York was completely interposed between New England and the
rest of the English colonies, so that an enemy holding possession of it
would virtually cut the Atlantic sea-board in two. For these reasons the
political action of New York was of most critical importance.
[Sidenote: The two Carolinas and Georgia; New Jersey and
Pennsylvania]
Of the other colonies in 1750, the two Carolinas and New Jersey were
rather more than eighty years old, while Pennsylvania had been settled
scarcely seventy years. But the growth of these younger colonies had
been rapid, especially in the case of Pennsylvania and North Carolina,
which in populousness ranked third and fourth among the thirteen. This
rapid increase was mainly due to a large immigration from Europe kept
up during the first half of the eighteenth century, so that a large
proportion of the people had either been born in Europe, or were the
children of people born in Europe. In 1750 these colonies had not had
time enough to become so intensely American as Virginia and the New
England colonies. In Georgia, which had been settled only seventeen
years, people had had barely time to get used to this new home on the
wild frontier.
The population of these younger colonies was very much mixed. In
South Carolina, as in New York, probably less than half were English.
In both Carolinas there were a great many Huguenots from France, and
immigrants from Germany and Scotland and the north of Ireland were
still pouring in. Pennsylvania had many Germans and Irish, and settlers
from other parts of Europe, besides its English Quakers. With all this
diversity of race there was a great diversity of opinions about political
questions, as about other matters.
[Sidenote: Why Massachusetts and Virginia took the lead.]

We are now beginning to see why it was that Massachusetts and
Virginia took the lead in bringing on the revolutionary war. Not only
were these two the largest colonies, but their people had become much
more thoroughly welded together in their thoughts and habits and
associations than was as yet possible with the people of the younger
colonies. When the revolutionary war came, there were very few Tories
in the New England colonies and very few in Virginia; but there were a
great many in New York and Pennsylvania and the two Carolinas, so
that the action of these commonwealths was often slow and undecided,
and sometimes there was bitter and bloody fighting between men of
opposite opinions, especially in New York and South Carolina.
[Sidenote: The two republics; Connecticut and Rhode Island]
If we look at the governments of the thirteen colonies in the middle of
the eighteenth century, we shall observe some interesting facts. All the
colonies had legislative assemblies elected by the people, and these
assemblies levied the taxes and made the laws. So far as the legislatures
were concerned, therefore, all the colonies governed themselves. But
with regard to the executive department of the government, there were
very important differences. Only two of the colonies, Connecticut and
Rhode