The Thirteen Colonies. By Helen Ainslie Smith. 2 vole. (G.
P. Putnam's Sons. 12s.)—Miss H. A. Smith, after giving a chapter to the "Forerunners," from John Cabot onwards, takes the thirteen Colonies that joined in the Declaration of Inde- pendence, and relates the history of each in succession, from the settlement of Virginia by Raleigh and those who took up his work, down to that of Georgia, which received a charter in 1735, just one century and a half after the first landing at Roanoke Island. (The earliest attempt at colonisation goes back some twenty years before, when a company of Huguenots landed on what is now the Florida coast; but Philip II., who was a zealous promoter of the "unity of Christendom," slaughtered them all, a few fugitives excepted.) It is a very difficult task that Miss Smith has taken in hand; there is a great mass of detail to be handled, often of little apparent significance, and certainly tedious, but, nevertheless, demanding attention. Many ques- tions, too, both political and religious, have to be considered. It would not be difficult to draw, now and again, a parallel between the troubles of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and those of the twentieth. All these things have been fairly considered and met. The book, written in the first instance for Transatlantic readers, should be welcomed here. We do not know of a work which deals with the subject, the pre-indepen- donee period of American history, in a more convenient way.
Previous page
