SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

lit6TORY.

History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent. By George Bancroft. Hi:tory of the Colonization of the United States. Sc, three vanmes. Ninth edition Little and Brown, Bosto n, U. S. ANNVALS.

Heath's Picturesque Annual, for 1842. Paris in 1841. By Mrs. Gore. With twenty- one highly-finished Engravings from Original Drawings by Thomas Allem, Esq.

Longman and Co.

The Keepsake. Edited by the Countess of Blessington. 1842. ... Longman and Co. Heath's Book of Beauty. Edited by the Countess of Blessington. 18411. ETHICS. Longman and CO. Peace Permanent and Universal : its Practicability. Value, and Consistency with Divine Revelation. A Prize Essay. By II. T. J. Mamas:taxa. Ctranaricy, Saunders and Tables of Exchange of Sterling Money and of Dollars reduced into each other; with an Appendm containing tables of the Currency of different Colonies, reduced into Dollars, and conversely. By George Reid Richardson.

BANCROFT'S HISTORY OF THE COLONIZATION OF THE UNITED STATES.

THIS work reached us from America some months ago ; and,

with History of British India and the Life of Warren Hastings, was put aside during the bustle and pressure of a London season, an election on which the fate of Government depended, and the subsequent Ministerial and Parliamentary arrangements, as neither time nor space were at command to do justice to the extent of the subject or the merits of the author. Probably the "ninth edition" of the titlepage induced a longer dalliance : a few months were of little consequence to a book on which the American public had pronounced a judgment, and

hose claims must rest on some higher ground than that of mere novelty.

The intention of Mr. BANCROFT is to include in his work the entire History of the United States. The volumes before Us only embrace the history of its Colonization ; and exhibit historical merits of the highest order in every point of view. Whether as re- gards plan, matter, or composition, so well-digested and compre- hensive a history has not appeared since the productions of MILL and HALLAss, if in point of mere attraction for the general reader BANcaorr's History of the Colonization of the United States does not excel both those standard authors.

To write the early history of the United States, has always ap- peared to us a work of difficulty, from the number of distinct colonies and the minuteness of their events. This difficulty is con- quered with great skill and felicity in the work before us. The fundamental canon on which Mr. BANCROFT has proceeded, is not to consider mere events, but the principles which those events contain ; so that much of the work is a history of subjects, in which the actors, however prominent they may often seem, are in reality subordinate to the exhibition of some large religious, social, or poli- tical principle. These subjects, too, are not merely taken up at the point where they intersect the history of the United States, but are often considered from their origin : slavery, for example, giving rise to a rapid survey of that institution from the earliest period till the Dutch vessel arrived in Virginia with her scanty cargo of Negroes. The relation of European events to colonial interests, as well as the circumstances in which the foundatioa of several colonies originated, enable the author to give variety and relief by episodes or digressions ; although it may be doubted whether the clearness resulting from singleness and unity is so well attained, though greater richness and comprehensiveness is without doubt produced.

A summary account of the order and arrangement of the work will convey a better idea of it than any general expressions. The book opens with a brief sketch of the discovery of North America, and a narrative of the early attempts of the French at colonization ; condensing into a short chapter a critical view of the claims of the Northmen, and the Gallic career in geographical discovery. The second chapter narrates the practical exer- tions of the Spaniards in extending a knowledge of that part of the continent which now constitutes the United States : and the third describes the discoveries of the English, and the va- rious abortive attempts at settlement ; this preliminary matter not merely introducing the general subject, but presenting a brief and connected history of a series of remarkable voyages, bold adven- tures, and luckless attempts at permanent colonization. Although chronology is not strictly observed, yet regard is had to the order of time so far as this, that each colony is generally taken in the order of its foundation: and, closely examined, each will be found to have originated in some peculiar condition of European opinion, which either succumbed to or gathered strength from the circum- stances in which it was placed. Virginia, the earliest settlement, was first successfully founded by a company with a charter from JAMES the First ; and, saving the sovereignty of the monarch, the shareholders in this company possessed as absolute a power over their settlers as the East India Company over its servants. Profit, especially from gold, was the object of the association : the settlers were to labour in common ; but had no power whatsoever over their own concerns, or even over the administration of justice. The returns of an East India or mining company, could not, however, be derived from the clearing and tillage of a soil, fertile even as that of Virginia. Economical necessity compelled the colonial servants of the company to break through the rule of property in common, by assigning small portions of land to each settler; and grants by purchase either in kind or money seem soon to have become the best if not the only source of profit the companies ever got. A political necessity led one Governor to summon a general assembly of the colonists: the weakness and distraction of an embarrassed corporation induced the proprietors at home to wink at it : by the time that the fatal mortality of the earlier settlers, the loss of capital, and the party-squabbles of the Virginia Company, had induced the Crown to resume its charters, a state of society where the only source of inequality (colour ex- cepted) was one of ability or property had already established in- stitutions adapted to its new condition, though ever modified by remembrances of England ; and these institutions neither CHARLES nor CROMWELL had leisure, if they had the inclination, to attack. But for the introduction of slavery, Virginia would probably have been nearly as Democratic as New England. Maryland, the adjoining colony to Virginia, originated in a dis- position on the part of a wealthy Catholic to procure religious freedom for those of his own sect. Repulsed from Virginia by the tests of Protestant allegiance and supremacy, Lord BALTIMORE applied to the Crown for a charter ; which was granted by CHARLES the First. It conveyed to BALTIMORE the powers almost of a feu- datory prince ; and he himself added perfect freedom of religion. Maryland was the only English colony that ever went forth an entire society, with gentlemen as well as labourers, land-lords as well as land-tillers. The colony exhibited somewhat of the forms of a feudal state in its tenures, and of an old society in its grada- tion of ranks ; and Maryland more than Virginia ought to exhibit the traces of aristocratical dominion, if scanned by a discriminating eye. The grants of BALTIMORE were liberal and easy ; and the contrast between the proprietary of Virginia and Maryland strik- ingly exhibits the moral of greediness and liberality : whilst the Virginian companies lost all their subscribed capital in a few years, and were ignominiously dissolved, the proprietors of Maryland drew for some generations a large revenue from the province. The foundation of Democratic New England arose from the persecutions to which the Puritans were subject. They were rather permitted to colonize than sent out as colonists : the exiles in Holland, sick of foreign manners, departed with nothing but a sort of understanding from JAMES the First that they might go without his troubling himself about them. The Independents in religion were Republicans in politics, and most assuredly equal in worldly goods ; and in the depth of winter, with the certainty of every hardship before them, and the prospect of famine, they framed a constitution, which has the two peculiarities of being the first clear and unquestionable illustration of the old Whig theory of the "social compact," and of being the model of the Democracy of the United States. The Quaker colonization, of Pennsylvania, (prefaced in Mr. 13ANeitorr by a history of the sect and a view of its doctrines,) was equally Democratical—more free, or rather absolutely free, in religious matters ; and established voting "not by the confused way of cries and voices, but by the balloting-box." The present State of New York, first founded by Holland under the title of New Netherlands, furnishes the author with an opportunity of making a digression to Dutch history, and giving an account of Dutch discovery and colonization till the con- quest of the settlement by the New England militia and a British fleet. Georgia, the last plantation, and even now little more than a century old, originated in a charitable desire to furnish debtors and other destitute persons with a means of livelihood : and though the main honour is due to OGLETHORPE, (whom POPE selected to illus- trate the innate workings of benevolence) yet it indicates the progress of a more exalted public opinion, when such a design could meet with public supporters. The other colonies—some of them offshoots of the older settlements, some of them founded on pro- prietary principles, where the Crown granted the territory to indi- viduals, and they colonized as they could, in the mode most favour- able for their own profit—though not possessing such distinct and characteristic features as the original plantations, have still points of discrimination. To discern the principles of each—to describe the struggles and difficulties, and often the dangers of the first set- tlers—to narrate the growth of the settlement, and to carry down the particular history of each and the general history of all—is the purpose of this work ; varied, as we have said already, by frequent digressions to universal, European, or English history, when they touch upon the colonization of the United States, and by frequent portraits of European worthies, when connected with America. Though a good plan is essential to a good work, and may be received as evidence of an understanding of the subject, design without execution is of little avail. But the execution of the His- tory of the Colonization of the United States is of a high order. Mr. BANCROFT has from nature the first requisite of an historian— an historical mind ; an understanding which can comprehend the vast, an acumen to detect the general principle enveloped in par- ticular facts, and a perception that seizes upon the true charac- teristic of things, and assigns both to men and events their proper scale and station; while, if not secure from the charge of par- tiality, he is perhaps as impartial as any national historian, tested by a stranger, would be found. These native qualities have been assiduously cultivated by collateral as well as direct studies. Mr. BANcR0PT IS ElPt only familiar with all the authorities essential to a mastery of his subject, but he appeara to have formed his taste by an assiduous perusal of at least the English clas- sics ; his work, independent of internal evidence, containing glustrations or allusions germane to his subject, but scattered in writers to whom no one would have referred who was reading for the occasion. The result of natural bias and long time is great condensation and great spirit : though full of matter, the :work is not crowded, and though the digressions may detract from its singleness, they do not impede and do not confuse,—unless in the chronology, which it is difficult to avoid when events

concurrent in point of time cannot be concurrently related. The author well selects the striking points of an incident, and gets. at once to the pith of the conclusion ; and his rapid narrative sometimes outruns and always keeps pace with the expectation. of the reader.

The model of the writer is GIBBON ; though, as regards mere diction, the native inflation of an American is substituted for the stateliness of the English historian ; and Mr. BANCROFT uses the figure of persodification more than his prototype—having, appa- rently, derived it from DE TOCQUEVILLE, of whom there are visible traces in his last volume. But the imitation, or at least the study of GIBBON, is chiefly shown in a sort of assumed elevation of mind, in the pregnant brevity of adjunctive epithets, and in the artfully allusive mode of the Roman historan, who suggests more to the mind by allusion than he could present by description. In these indications Mr. I3ANCROFT is very large and very comprehensive. At the same time, though the allusive style indicates more than can be told, it does not tell things so clearly, or impress them so distinctly, as a direct narrative.

Notwithstanding the length to which this notice has already ex- tended, a just idea of the work will be best conveyed by allowing it to speak for itself, and exhibit examples of its various features. Beginning at the beginning, we adduce a specimen of the author's comprehension and condensation. We know not that any essen- tial point of fact or of opinion is omitted in the following sketch of the claim of the Northmcn to the discovery of America ; about which. volumes have been written, and numerous controversies have taken place.

CLAIM OF THE NORTHMEN TO THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA.

The national pride of an Icelandic historian has indeed claimed for his ancestors the glory of having discovered the Western hemisphere. It is said that they passed from their own island to Greenland, and were driven by adverse winds from Greenland to the shores of Labrador ; that the voyage was often repeated ; that the coasts of America were extensively explored, and colonies established on the shores of Nova Scotia or New- foundland. It is even suggested that these early adventurers anchored near the harbour of Boston, or in the bays of New Jersey ; and Danish antiquaries believe that Northmen entered the waters of Rhode Island, in- scribed their adventures on the rocks of Taunton River, gave the name of Vinland to the South-east coasts of New England, and explored the inlets of our country as far as Carolina. But the story of the colonization of America by Northmen rests on narratives my thological in form and obscure in mean- ing, ancient yet not contemporary. The chief document is an interpolation in the history of Sturleson, whose zealous curioity could hardly have neglected. the discovery of a continent. The geographical details are too vague to sustain a conjecture ; the accounts of the mild winter and fertile soil are, on any mo- dern hypothesis, fictitious or exaggerated ; the description of the natives ap- plies only to the Esquimaux, inhabitants of hyperborean regions; the remark which should define the length of the shortest winter's day has received inter- pretations adapted to every latitude from New York to Cape Farewell ; and Vinland has been sought in all directions from Greenland and the St. Law- rence to Africa. The nation of intrepid mariners whose voyages extended be- yond Iceland and beyond Sicily, could easily have sailed from Greenland to Labrador: no clear historic evidence establishes the natural probability that they accomplished the passage.

"You have always nature," says REYNOLDS to the portrait- painter : and so has the historian of any period of which tolerable records have been preserved. Hence, any history, in competent hands, will present at least a picture of society and a portraiture of persons, quaint and curious, and marked by passions and vices if not rising to historical dignity. This was especially the case in America ; the bulk of whose founders were the necessitous, the sturdy, or the independent-thinking ; whose leaders possessed daring enterprise at the least, and whose position drove them upon strange shifts to procure food, not to mention wealth. Our elderly readers must have heard in their youth traditional accounts of trepanning or kidnapping men to the plantations ; and the youngest may get an inkling of the practice in the Vicar of Wakefield. Here is a picture of its earlier stages under the Com- monwealth and the STUARTS.

WHITE SLAVERY IN THE PLANTATIONS.

Conditional servitude, under indentures or covenants, had from the first ex- isted in Virginia. The servant stood to his master in the relation of a debtor, bound to discharge the costs of emigration by the entire employment of his powers for the benefit of his creditor. Oppression early ensued: men who had been transported into Virginia at an expense of eight or ten pounds, were some- times sold for forty, fifty, or even threescore pounds. The supply of White servants became a regular business; and a class of men, nicknamed spirits, used to delude young persons, servants and idlers, into embarking for America, as to a land of spontaneous plenty. White servants came to be a usual article of traffic. They were sold in England to be transported, and in Virginia were resold to the highest bidder ; like Negroes, they were to be purchased on ship- board, as men buy horses at a fair. In 1672, the average price in the Colonies, where five years of service were due, was about ten pounds ; while a Negro was worth twenty or twenty-five pounds. So usual was this manner of dealing in Englishmen, that not the Scots only, who were taken in the field of Dunbar, were sent into involuntary servitude in New England, but the Royalist prisoners of the battle of Worcester ; and the leaders in the insurrection of Penruddoe, in spite of the remonstrance of Haselrig and Henry Vane, were shipped to America. At the corresponding period in Ireland, the crowded exportation of Irish Catholics was a frequent event, and was attended by aggravations hardly inferior to the usual atrocities of the African slave-trade. In 1685, when nearly a thousand of the prisoners condemned for participating in the insur- rection of Monmouth were sentenced to transportation, men of influence at court, with rival importunity, scrambled for the convicted insurgents as a mer- chantable commodity.

The condition of apprenticed servants in Virginia differed from that of slaver chiefly in the duration of their bondage ; and the laws of the colony favoured their early enfranchisement.

The leaning of our author is to drawing characters, and his book abounds with them ; in some sense resembling an historical portrait- gallery. They embrace many Englishmen who were connected with the Colonies by having filled office there or assisted in found- ing them, and some whose influence upon American advancement was less immediate. As a specimen of each kind, we may select SMITH, the true founder of the colony of Virginia; ROGER WIL- mms, the Massachusetts broacher of perfect freedom in religious opinions, and the founder of Rhode Island ; and King WILLIAM the Third.

CHARACTER OF JOHN SMITH.

Disunion completed the scene of misery. It became necessary to depose Wingfield, the avaricious President, who was charged with engrossing the choicest stores; and who was on the point of abandoning the colony and escaping to the West Indies. Ratcliffe, the new President', possessed neither judgment nor industry : so that the management of affairs fell into the hands of Smith, whose deliberate enterprise and cheerful courage alone diffused light amidst the general gloom. He possessed by nature the buoyant spirit of heroic daring. In boyh000d he had sighed for the opportunity of "setting out on brave adventures "; and though not yet thirty years of age, he was already a veteran in the service of humanity and of Christendom. His early life had been given to the cause of freedom in the Low Countries, where he had fought for the independence of the Batavian Republic. Again, as a traveller, he had roamed over Fiance, had visited the shores of Egypt, had returned to Italy, and, panting for glory, had sought the borders of Hungary, where there had long existed an hereditary warfare with the followers of Mahomet. It was there that the young English cavalier distinguished himself by the bravest feats of arms, in the sight of Christians and Infidels ; engaging fearlessly and always successfully in the single combat with the Turks, which, from the days of the Crusades, had been warranted by the rules of chivalry. His signal prowess pined for him the favour of Signmundi Bathori, the unfortunate Prince of Transylvania. At length he, with many others, was overpowered in a sudden skirmish among the glens of Wallachia, and was left severely wounded in the field of battle. A prisoner of war, he was now, according to the Eastern custom, offered for sale "like a beast in a market-place," and was sent to Constantinople as a slave. A Turkish lady had compassion on his misfortunes and hisyouth, and, designing to restore him to freedom, removed him to a fortress in the Crimea. Contrary to her commands, he was there subjected to the harshest usage among half-savage serfs. Rising against his taskmaster, whom he slew in the struggle, he mounted a horse, and through forest-paths escaped from thraldom to the confines of Russia. Again the hand of woman relieved his wants; he travelled across the country to Transylvania ; and there bidding farewell to his companions in arms, he resolved to return "to his own sweet country." But as he crossed the Continent, he heard the rumours of civil War in Northern Africa, and hastened, in search of untried dangers, to the realms of Morocco. At length returning to England, his mind did not so much share as appropriate to itself the general enthusiasm for planting states in America; and now the infant commonwealth of Virginia depended for its ex- istence on his firmness. His experience in human nature under all its forms, and the cheering rigour of his resolute will, made him equal to his duty. He in- spired the natives with awe, and quelled the spirit of anarchy and rebellion among the emigrants. He was more wakeful to gather provisions than the covetous to find gold ; and strove to keep the country more than the faint- hearted to abandon it. As autumn approached, the Indians, from the super- fluity of their harvest, made a voluntary offering ; and supplies were also col- lected by expeditions into the interior. But the conspiracies that were still formed to desert the settlement, first by the selfish Wingfield, and again by the imbecile Ratcliffe, could be defeated only after a skirmish, in which one of the leaders was killed; and the danger of a precipitate abandonment of Vir- ginia continued to be imminent till the approach of winter, when not only the homeward navigation became perilous, but the fear of famine was removed by the abundance of wild-fowl and game. Nothing then remained but to examine the country.

Of Roans Wrmums, as well as of some other Colonial cha-

racters, it may perhaps be said that the space they occupy is somewhat more than proportioned to their actual power. The asserter of a principle in personal contention can hardly rank in the same degree with a man who advances the same principle as a moral truth applicable under all circumstances, and advances it before the civilized world, instead of in a remote district, where influence upon other peoples may well be questioned. At the same time, this is an English view, and Mr. Ruccaorr is writing for America.

CHARACTER OF ROGER WILLIAMS.

The principles of Roger Williams led him into perpetual collision with the clergy and the government of Massachusetts. It had ever been their custom to respect the Church of England, and in the mother-country they frequented its service without scruple ; yet its principles and its administration were still harshly exclusive. Williams would hold no communion with intolerance ; for, said he, "the doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience is most evidently and lamentably contrary to the doctrine of Christ Jesus." The Magistrates insisted on the presence of every man at public worship :

Williams reprobated the law; the worst statute in the English code was that which did but enforce attendance upon the parish-church. To compel men to unite with those of a different creed, he regarded as an open violation of their natural rights; to drag to public worship the irreligious and the unwilling, seemed only like requiring hypocrisy. "An unbelieving soul is dead in sin "- inch was his argument ; and to force the indifferent from one worship to an- Other, "was like shifting a dead man into several changes of apparel." "No one should be bound to worship, or," he added, "to maintain a worship against his own consent." "What," exclaimed his antagonists, amazed at his tenets, "is not the labourer worthy of his hire?" "Yes," replied he, "from them that

hire him." • • a •

The Court at Boston remained as yet undecided, when the church of Salem— those who were best acquainted with Williams, taking no notice of the recent investigations—elected him to the office of their teacher. Immediately the evils inseparable on a religious establishment began to be displayed. The mi- nisters got together, and declared any one worthy of banishment who should obstinately assert, that "the civil magistrate might not intermeddle even to stop a church from apostacy and heresy " ; the Magistrates delayed action, only that a committee of divines might have time to repair to Salem and deal with him and with the church in a church way. Meantime, the people of Salem were blamed for their choice of a religious guide ; and a tract of land to which they had a claim was withheld from them as a punishment.

The breach was therefore widened. To the ministers Williams frankly but

temperately explained his doctrines ; and he was armed at all points for their defence. As his townsmen had lost their lands in consequence of their attach- ment to him, it would have been cowardice on his part to have abandoned them; and instinct of liberty led him again to the suggestion of a proper re- medy. In conjunction with the church, be wrote "letters of admonition unto all the churches whereof any of the Magistrates were members, that they might admonish the Magistrates of their injustice." The church members alone were freemen ; Williams, in modern language, appealed to the people, and invited them to instruct their representatives to do justice to the citizens of Salem.

This last act seemed flagrant treason ; and at the next General Court, Salem was disfranchised till an ample apology for the letter should be made. The town acquiesced in its wrongs, and submitted ; not an individual remained willing to justify the letter of remonstrance; the church of Williams would not avow his great principle of the sanctity of conscience; even his wife, under a delusive idea of duty, was for a season influenced to disturb the tran- quillity of his home by her reproaches. Williams was left alone absolutely alone. Anticipating the censures of the colonial churches, he declared him- self no longer subjected to their spiritual jurisdiction. " My own voluntary withdrawing from all these churches, resolved to continue in persecuting the witnesses of the Lord, presenting light unto them, I confess it was mine own voluntary act ; yea, I hope the act of the Lord Jesus, sounding forth in me the blast which shall in his own holy season cast down the strength and confidence of those inventions of men." When summoned to appear before the General Court, he avowed L6 convictions in the presence of the representatives of the state, " maintained the rocky strength of his grounds," and declared himself " ready to be bound, and banished, and even to die in New England," rather than renounce the opinions which bad dawned upon his mind in the clearness of light. At a time when Germany was the battle-field for all Europe in the implacable wars of religion—when even Holland was bleeding with the anger of vengeful factions—when France was still to go through the fearful struggle with bigotry—when England was gasping under the despotism of intolerance— almost half a century before William Penn became an American proprietary— and two years before Descartes founded modern philosophy on the method of free reflection —Roger Williams asserted the great doctrine of intellectual

liberty. It became his glory to found a state upon that principle, and to stamp himself upon its rising institutions, in characters so deep that the impress has

remained to the present day, and can never be erased without the total de- struction of the work. The principles which he first sustained amidst the bickeriugs of a colonial parish, next asserted in the General Court of Massa- chusetts, and then introduced into the wilds on Narragansett Bay, he soon found occasion to publish to the world, and to defend as the basis of the religious freedom of mankind ; so that, borrowing the rhetoric employed by his antagonist in derision, we may compare him to the lark, the pleasant bird of the peaceful summer, that, " affecting to soar aloft, springs upward from the ground, takes his rise from pale to tree," and at last, surmounting the highest hills, utters his clear carols through the skies of morning. He was the first person in modern Christendom to assert in its plenitude the doctrine of the liberty of conscience, the equality of opinions before the law ; and in its defence he was the harbinger of Milton, the precursor and the superior of Jeremy Taylor. For Taylor limited his toleration to a few Christian sects: the philanthropy of Williams compassed the earth. Taylor favoured partial reform, commended lenity, argued for forbearance, and entered a special plea in behalf of each to- lerable sect : Williams would permit persecution of no opinion, of no religion ; leaving heresy unarmed by law and orthodoxy unprotected by the terrors of penal statutes. Taylor still clung to the necessity of positive regulations en- forcing religion and eradicating error ; he resembled the poets, who, in their folly, first declare their hero to be invulnerable, and then clothe him in earthly armour : Williams was willing to leave truth alone, in her own panoply of light, believing that if, in the ancient feud between truth and error, the employ- ment of force could be entirely abrogated, truth would have much the beat of the bargain. It is the custom of mankind to award high honoura to the successful inquirer into the laws of nature, to those who advance the bounds of human knowledge : we praise the man who first analyzed the air, or resolved water into its elements, or drew the lightening from the clouds, even though the discoveries may have been as much the fruits of time as of genius. A moral principle has a much wider and nearer influence on human happiness; nor can any discovery of truth be of more direct benefit to society than that which establishes a perpetual religious peace, and spreads tranquillity through every community and every bosom. If Copernicus's held in perpetual reverence, be- cause on his deathbed he published to the world that the sun is the centre of our system—if the name of Kepler is preserved in the annals of human excel- lence for his sagacity in detecting the laws of the planetary motion—if the ge. thus of Newton has been almost adored for dissecting a ray of light, and weight- jog heavenly bodies as in a balance—let there be for the name of Roger Williams at least some humble place among those who have advanced moral science, and made themselves the benefactors of mankind.

But if the opinion of posterity is no longer divided, the members of the Ge- neral Court of that day pronounced against him the sentence of exile; yet not by. a very numerous majority. Some who consented to his banishment would never have yielded but for the persuasions of Cotton ; and the judgment was vindi- cated, not as a punishment for opinion or as a restraint on freedom of con- science, but because the application of the new doctrine to the construction of the patent, to the discipline of the churches, and to the "oaths for malting trial of the fidelity of the people," seemed about "to subvert the fundamental state and government of the country."

CHARACTER OF WILLIAM THE THIRD.

The character of the new monarch of Great Britain could mould its policy but not its constitution. True to his purposes, he yet wins no sympathy. In political sagacity, in force of will, far superior to the English statesmen who environed him—more tolerant than his Ministers or his Parliaments—the child- less man seems like the unknown character in algebra, which is introduced to form the equation, and dismissed when the problem is solved. In his person thin and feeble, with eyes of a hectic lustre, of a temperament inclining to the melancholic, in conduct cautious, of a self-relying humour, with abiding im- pressions respecting men, he sought no favour, and relied for success on his own inflexibility and the greatness and maturity of his designs. Too wise to be cajoled, too firm to be complaisant, no address could sway his resolve. In Holland, he had not scrupled to derive an increase of power from the crimes of rioters and assassins; in England, no filial respect diminished thesnergy of his ambition. His exterior was chilling; yet he had a passionate delight in horses and the chase. In conversation he was abrupt, speaking little and slowly, and with repulsive dryness ; in the day of battle he was all activity, and the highest energy of life, without kindling his passions, animated his frame. His trust in Providence was so connected with iftith in general laws, that in every action he sought the principle which should range it on an absolute decree. Thus, unconscious to himself, he had sympathy with the people, who always have faith in Providence. "Do you dread death in my company ? " he cried to the anxious sailors, when the ice on the coast of Holland had almost crushed the boat that was bearing him to the shore. Courage and pride pervaded the re- serve of the Prince, who, spurning an alliance with a bastard daughter of Lows- the Fourteenth, had made himself the centre of a gigantic opposition to France. For England, for the English people, for English liberties, he had no affection ; indifferently employing the Whigs, who found their pride in the Revolution, and the Tories, who had opposed his elevation, and who yet were the fittest instru- ments "to carry the prerogative high." One great passion had absorbed his breast—the independence of his native country. The harsh encroachments of Louis the Fourteenth, which in 1672 had made William of Orange a revolu- tionary Stadtholder, now assisted to constitute him a revolutionary King, trani. forming the impassive champion of Dutch independence into the defender of the liberties of Europe.

As an example of the narrative style, (although this is not so well exhibited in examples,) we will give a specimen from the coloniza- tion of Georgia.

THE DEPARTURE OP THE MORAVIAN&

While the neighbouring province of Smith Carolina dispinyed. " assaiverag

zeal for assisting its new ally and bulwark," the persecuted Protestants known

to us as Moravians heard the message of hope, and, on the invitation of the Society in England for Propagating the Gospel, prepared to emigrate to the Savannah. A free passage, provisions in Georgia for a whole season, land for themselves and their children, free for ten years' then to be held for a small quit-rent, the privileges of native Englishmen, freedom of worship—these were the promises made, accepted, and honourably fulfilled. On the last day Of October 1733, "the evangelical community," well supplied with Bibles and hymn-books, catechisms and books of devotion, conveying in one waggon their few chattels, in two other covered ones their feebler companions, and especially their little ones, after a discourse and prayer and benedictions, cheerfully, and hi the name of God, began their pilgrimage. History need not stop to tell what charities cheered them on their journey ; what towns were closed against them by Roman Catholic magistrates ; or how they entered Frankfort-on-the- Maine, two by two, in solemn procession, singing spiritual songs. As they floated down the Maine, and between the castled crags, the vineyards, and the white-walled towns that adorn the banks of the Rhine, their conversation, amidst hymns and prayers' was of justification and of sanctification and of standing fast in the Lord. At Rotterdam they were joined by two preachers, Bolzius and Gronau, both disciplined in charity at the Orphan-house in Halle. A passage of six days carried them from Rotterdam to Dover; where several of the trustees visited them, and provided considerately for their wants. In January 1734, they set sail for their new homes, The majesty of the ocean quickened their sense of God's omnipotence and wisdom ; and as they lost sight of land, they broke out into a hymn to his glory. The setting sun, after a calm, so kindled the sea and the sky that words could not express their rapture; and they cried out, " How lovely the creation ! how infinitely lovely the Creator!" When the wind was adverse, they prayed; and as it changed, one opened his mind to the other on the power of prayer, even the prayer "of a man suldcct to like passions as we are." As the voyage excited weariness, a devout listener confessed himself to be an unconverted man ; and they reminded him of the promise to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at the word. As they sailed pleasantly with a favouring breeze, at the hour of evening- prayer, they made a covenant with each other, like Jacob of old, and resolved, by the grace of Christ, to cast all the strange gods which were in their hearts into the depths of the sea. A storm grew so high that not a sail could be set ; and they raised their voices in prayer and song amidst the tempest ; for to love the Lord Jesus as a brother gave consolation. At Charleston, Oglethorpe bade them welcome ; and in five days more the wayfaring men, whose home was beyond the skies, pitched their tents near Savannah. It remained to select for them a residence. To cheer their principal men as

they toiled through the forest and across brooks, Oglethorpe, having provided horses, himself joined the little party. By the aid of blazed trees and Indian guides, he made his way through morasses; a fallen tree served as a bridge over a stream, which the horses swam for want of a ford; at night he encamped with them abroad round a fire, and shared every fatigue till the spot for their village was chosen, and, like the little stream which formed its border, was named Ebenezer. There they built their dwellings; and there they resolved to raise a column of stone in token of gratitude to God, whose providence had brought them safely to the ends of the earth.

The war of the Revolution, and the circumstances which led to

it, are reserved for another work ; but as the History of the Coloni- zation of the United States approaches its close, an indication is given of the coming change, in a natural introduction of the public opinion in America a quarter of a century before the outbreak, and a somewhat forced insertion of the character of WASHINGTON. Here is the first.

COLONIAL VIEWS OF INDEPENDENCE, 1748.

Men believed that England, from motives of policy., had not desired success

in the conquest of Canada. "There is reason enough for doubting whether the King, if he had the power, would wish to drive the French from their pos- sessions in Canada." Such was public opinion at New York, in 1748, as pre- served for us by the Swedish traveller Peter Kelm. "The English colonies in this part of the world," he continues, "have increased so much in wealth sad population that they will vie with European England. But to maintain the commerce and the power of the metropolis, they are forbid to establish new manufactures, which might compete with the English ; they may dig for gold and silver only on condition of shipping them immediately to England ; they have, with the exception of a few fixed places, no liberty to trade to any parts not belonging to the English dominions; and foreigners aia not allowed the least commerce with these American colonies. And there are many similar restrictions. These oppressions have made the inhabitants of the English colonies less tender towards their mother-land. This coldness is increased by the many foreigners who are settled among them; for Dutch, Germans, and French, are here blended with English, and have no special love for Old Eng- land. Besides, some people are always discontented, and love change ; and exceeding freedom and prosperity nurse an untameable spirit. I have been told, not only by native Americans but by English emigrants, publicly, that within thirty or fifty years the English colonies in North America may con- stitute a separate state entirely independent of England. But as this whole country is towards the sea unguarded, and on the frontier is kept uneasy by the French, these dangerous neighbours are the reason why the love of these colonies for their metropolis does not utterly decline. The English Govern- ment has therefore reason to regard the French in North America as the chief power that urges their colonies to submission."

From the Prefaces we learn that the first volume of this work was published in 1834, and another apparently in 1838. We have an impression that a reprint of the entire history was contem- plated in London ; but we have never seen it, or heard of its completion. Our copy reached us from Boston, and bears no indication of a London publisher; though, if not to be immediately bought, the book no doubt can be readily procured through the American agency-houses. To such readers as are more particular with the appearance of an historian than with other authors, we may say that the work is got up in a style which, but for the title- page, would not be distinguished from the best productions of British bibliopoles.