Cheap land encourages the settler to marry early. Position of the laborer in America. Franklin the future relinquished her claim to the eastern half of the Mississippi Valley. These concessions on the part of Holland and France left England in undisputed possession of the Atlantic seaboard. For a long time prior to 1763, moreover, the number of English subjects in America had been increasing rapidly, so rapidly, indeed, as to occasion frequent comment. In 1751, for example, Benjamin Franklin anticipated the growing power of the British in America in the following terms: Land being thus plenty in America, and so cheap as that a labouring man, that understands husbandry, can in a short time save money enough to purchase a piece of new land sufficient for a plantation, whereon he may subsist a family, such are not afraid to marry. For if they even look far enough forward to consider how their children when grown up, are to be provided for, they see that more land is to be had at rates equally easy, all circumstances considered. Hence marriages in America are more general, and more generally early, than in Europe. And if it is reckoned there, that there is but one marriage per annum among one hundred persons, perhaps we may here reckon two, and if in Europe they have but four births to a marriage, we may here reckon eight, of which if one half grow up, and our marriages are made, . . . our people must at least be doubled every twenty years. But notwithstanding this increase, so vast is the territory of North America, that it will require many ages to settle it fully. And till it is fully settled, labour will never be cheap here, where no man continues long a laborer for others, but gets a plantation of his own. No man continues long a journeyman to a trade, but goes among those new settlers and sets up for himself, etc. Hence labour is no cheaper now, in Pennsylvania, than it was thirty years ago, though so many thousand labouring people have been imported.. There is no bound to the prolific nature of plants or animals, but what is made by their crowding and interfering with each other's means of subsistence. If the face of the earth were vacant of other plants, it might be gradually sowed and overspread with one kind only, as for instance, with fennel; and if it were empty of other inhabitants, it might in a few ages be replenished from one nation only, as for instance, with Englishmen. ... Thus there are suposed to be now upwards of one million English souls in North America, and yet perhaps there is not one the fewer in Britain, but rather many more, on account of the employment the colonies afford to manufacturers at home. This million doubling, suppose but once in twenty-five years, will in another century be more than the people of England, and the greatest number of Englishmen will be on this side of the water. What an accession of power to the British Empire by sea as well as land! What increase of trade and navigation! What numbers of ships and seamen! We have been here but little more than one hundred years, and yet the force of our privateers in the late war, united, was greater, both in men and guns, than that of the whole British navy in Queen Elizabeth's time. How important an affair then to Britain is the present treaty for settling the bounds between her colonies and the French, and how careful should she be to secure room enough, since on the room depends so much the increase of her people. . Questions on the foregoing Readings I. On what date did Columbus leave Spain on his first voyage of discovery? 2. Why do you suppose Columbus deceived his crew as to the actual distance traversed? 3. What signs of land were encountered on October 11th? 4. Describe the first sight of land on the morning of October 12th. 5. What did Columbus do when he went ashore? 6. What two European powers preceded England in the colonization of the New World? 7. How did Captain John Smith explain the failure of the colony at Jamestown to progress? 8. Why did the early settlers at Jamestown prefer growing tobacco to growing corn? 9. What was Smith's suggestion as to the method of causing the colonists to prefer corn culture to tobacco raising? 10. What did Smith give as the cause of the Jamestown massacre? II. What, according to Smith, were the defects of government in Virginia? 12. What is the significance of the Pilgrims? 15. Give several reasons why the Pilgrims resolved to remove from Holland to America. 16. What did they do when they had made this resolve? 17. Describe the landing of the Pilgrims in New England. 18. Where did they find some corn which the Indians had hidden? 19. Describe the work of the early settler in clearing the forest and preparing the soil for planting. 20. To what extent was isolation a handicap to the early settler? 21. Name some of the advantages of pioneer life. 22. What can be said as to the health and spirits of the early pioneers? 23. What was the relation between cheap land and early marriages in Colonial America? 24. Why was labour well paid in early America? 25. What was Benjamin Franklin's prediction as to the future population of America? CHAPTER II THE ORIGIN OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY of the document signed by King John in 1215. 7. King John is forced to sign the Magna Charta 1 At the same time that the early American colonists were building Significance homes in the wilderness, they were also developing their ideas of government. Without exception these early colonists were from the monarchical countries of Europe, yet a considerable number brought to their new home certain definite beliefs as to rights of the individual. Some of the settlers who came from England, for example, looked back to the Magna Charta as a definite limitation upon the royal power. This instrument, signed by King John on June 15, 1215, reduced many of the vague rights of Englishmen to tangible form. As a definite body of law, it constitutes the basis of all later English and American written statements of free institutions. The first ten amendments to our Federal Constitution, as well as the bill of rights attached to the constitutions of the several American states, have been called by Lord Bryce "the legitimate children of Magna Charta." The following are the most significant passages in this celebrated document: eternal This clause later became . . . We also have granted to all the freemen of our kingdom, for A grant of us and for our heirs for ever, all the underwritten liberties, to be had liberties. and holden by them and their heirs, of us and our heirs for ever.. And for holding the general council of the kingdom concerning the assessment of aids, except in the three cases aforesaid, and for the assessing of scutage, we shall cause to be summoned the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and greater barons of the realm, singly by our letters. And furthermore, we shall cause to be sum- Commons. moned generally, by our sheriffs and bailiffs, all others who hold of us in chief, for a certain day . . . and to a certain place; and in all 1 From the Magna Charta. the germ of representation in the House of Justice is guaranteed. A check on the king. Both the barons agree to respect the terms of the charter. letters of such summons we will declare the cause of such summons. And, summons being thus made, the business shall proceed on the day appointed, according to the advice of such as shall be present, although all that were summoned come not. Nothing from henceforth shall be given or taken for a writ of inquisition of life or limb, but it shall be granted freely, and not denied. No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or dispossessed, or outlawed, or banished, or any ways destroyed, nor will we pass upon him, nor will we send upon him, unless by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny to any man, either justice or right. And whereas, for the honor of God and the amendment of our kingdom, and for the better quieting the discord that has arisen between us and our barons, we have granted all these things aforesaid; willing to render them firm and lasting, we do give and grant our subjects the underwritten security, namely, that the barons may choose five and twenty barons of the kingdom, whom they think convenient; who shall take care, with all their might, to hold and observe, and cause to be observed, the peace and liberties we have granted them. Wherefore we will and firmly enjoin. that all men in our king and the kingdom have and hold all the aforesaid liberties, rights and concessions, truly and peaceably, freely and quietly, fully and wholly to themselves and their heirs, of us and our heirs, in all things and places, for ever, as is aforesaid. It is also sworn, as well on our part as on the part of the barons, that all the things aforesaid shall be observed in good faith, and without evil subtilty. Given under our hand, . in the meadow called Runingmede, between Windsor and Staines, the 15th day of June, in the 17th year of our reign. 8. The Pilgrims agree to establish a pure democracy 1 When the Pilgrims set out for America they took with them the memory of all those traditional guarantees which had first been put 1 From the Mayflower Compact, 1620. |