sounds, islands, &c., is 12,600 statute miles, of which 6,861 miles are on the Atlantic, 2,281 on the Pacific, and 3,467 on the Gulf. If the bays, sounds, &c., be included, together with rivers entered under the head of tide-waters, the total shore line will equal 33,069 miles. The Encyclopædia Americana, however, at this date, reduced the real extent of available surface to a little less than 1,000,000 square miles, not calculating the territories retained by the Indian tribes on the north-western frontier. But whichever calculation may prove the most correct, America contains a geographical area which, in point of territorial extent, is more than Attila ever ruled, or Tamerlane the Tartar ever conquered; is equal, Russia excepted, to all Europe: without the addition of the vast colonial possessions of England, more than six times as extensive as Great Britain and France, and equal to the whole of China and Hindostan ;—embracing, also, the finest portion of the globe-the seat of the choicest fertility, beauty, and wealth of the whole earth.

California, on its vast disclosures of gold, became at once a source of greatly augmented wealth and power. In compliment to this new State, and which is an evidence of its estimated value to the Union, it was admitted at once into the number of confederated States, though deficient at the time of the requisite population,* and was presented with a magnificent and costly seal, which represents the Goddess Minerva as she sprung full grown from the brain of Jupiter, thus representing the political birth of California without having gone through the probation of a territory.

Americans, like the ancient Romans in regard to their empire in the zenith of its prosperity, have a country of which they may well be proud, if their national vanity with respect to it be not altogether excusable.

It may convey a general idea of the situation of the northeastern portion of this continent in regard to Europe, to remark, that New Britain lies nearly parallel with Great Britain; that Newfoundland, the Bay of St. Lawrence, and Cape Breton, are opposite to France; Nova Scotia and New England are on a parallel with the Bay of Biscay; and New York and Pennsylvania are opposite to Spain and Portugal.

• A territory, before it can claim to be a State, must have at least a population of 55,000 souls.

CHAPTER III.

Early History after DiscoVERY BY EUROPEANS.-When first colonized by Europeans, In what localities, and by what nations. The Pilgrim Fathers. Subsequent exclusive possession by the British. Progress in civilization. Rupture with the Mother country, and its causes. Determined conduct of the colonists. Results and termination of the war. Its influence on the national character. Present population. Its late and continued increase. Observations of Sir William Molesworth and Lord John Russell.

The history of the United States may be divided into three periods-the Colonial, Revolutionary, and Independent.

North America was first really settled in Virginia by Captain Christopher Newport, who arrived with one hundred and five colonists in the reign of James the First, and in the year 1607. After this sovereign the first township was named. The district was, however, first discovered by a subject of Great Britain, and claimed by the English monarch, Henry VII., in 1497; but, in deference to the claims of Pope Alexander VI., who had granted to the Spaniards all the territories more than one hundred leagues west of the Azores, no settlement was attempted before the reign of Queen Elizabeth, in honour of whom this particular district was designated Virginia. At James Town, which occupied a peninsula projecting from the northern shore of James River, may still be seen the ruins of the first Episcopal church in North America; and this, with its surrounding burial ground, is now almost the only memorial to be found of the original colony. This town was established two years before the settlement of Canada by the French, seven years before the founding of New York by the Dutch, and thirteen before the landing of the Puritans at Plymouth Rock. Subsequently, and at different intervals, the territory was peopled along parts of the coast of the Atlantic as far as Plymouth, by the English, Dutch, Swedes, and Finns. New York was colonized by the Dutch in 1614. The Swedes, Finns, and Germans settled in Delaware and New Jersey in 1683. Plymouth-the general name applied to New England-was established in December, 1620, by the Puritans, who arrived in the May Flower. These devoted men-the 'Pilgrim Fathers"-found the country a howling wilderness,

inhabited by wild and savage beasts, and by men more savage still;—in the dead of winter, with no place of abode, their trust was alone in God. Before the opening of the ensuing spring, out of the one hundred and one who landed on the dreary shore, forty-six had died.

This great and deeply interesting historical occurrence for such it has now become-has been so beautifully sketched by Mrs. Hemans, that the writer cannot refain from quoting her stanzas, although it may in some degree interrupt the course of his narrative.

"The breaking waves dash'd high

On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods against a stormy sky
Their giant branches toss'd;

And the heavy night hung dark,

The hills and waters o'er,

When a band of exiles moor'd their bark
On the wild New England shore.

"Not as the conqueror comes,
They, the true-hearted, came;

Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
Or the trumpet that sings of fame;

Not as the flying come,

In silence and in fear;

They shook the depths of the desert's gloom,

With their hymns of lofty cheer.

'Amidst the storm they sang !

And the stars heard and the sea !

And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang,
To the anthem of the free !

The Ocean eagle soar'd

From his nest by the white wave's foam,

And the rocking pines of the forest roar'd,—
This was their welcome home!

"What sought they thus afar ?

Bright jewels of the mine?

The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?—

They sought a faith's pure shrine.

Aye, call it holy ground,

The spot where first they trod;

They have left unstained, what there they found,-
Freedom to worship God.”

Besides the Puritans and other Englishmen, together with the Dutch, Danes, Swedes, and Finlanders, the French made similar establishments in different portions of the continent, and all these were connected with the respective parent govern

POSSESSION BY THE BRITISH.

27

ments in Europe; but in 1664 all the settlements, excepting Louisiana and the Floridas, were subjected to English authority.

These several settlements, as arranged by the British Government, consisted of thirteen States, which long existed as provinces of Great Britain, containing at least a population of three millions. Their names were New Hampshire, Massachusetts (including Maine), Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia. Vermont was claimed both by New Hampshire and New York, and had not acquired an independent colonial existence. The chief sea ports were Boston, Newport, New York, and Philadelphia. Each State contained from ten to twenty thousand inhabitants. But Parliament attempting to tax the colonists on its own authority, without the intervention of their legislative assemblies, and embarrassing their trade by restrictions, added to some irritating circumstances previously existing,* such as the refusal of the Parent Government to sanction an extension of the colonies into the interior, the forcible deportation of the French population of Nova Scotia under circumstances of gross oppression,-immortally commemorated by Longfellow's beautiful poem "Evangeline, -together with other assumptions of power considered equally arbitrary and unjust,-all contributed to produce an alienation of the colonies from the English rule. A civil war ensued, which commenced at Lexington, near Boston, Massachusetts, in 1775, through the recklessness or indiscretion of General Gage. The colonists considered the mother country wholly selfish in her policy towards them, not only in the respects already named, but also by throwing impediments in the way of local manufacture, and by the enactment of absurd laws, the direct tendency of which was to repress the energies of the people, and reduce them to a state of literal serfdom and dependance.

It must, however, be confessed that the conduct of the British Government was not without some shadow of reason and justice. The expense that had been incurred by the mother country in

* The Stamp Act was passed by the Grenville administration in 1765, and the Duties on Tea, when Lord North was Prime Minister under the Tory administration of the latter, in 1771. The revolution commenced and continued during his administration of the government in the reign of George III.

its war with the French, in defence of her colonies, having increased the national debt to an enormous amount, they judged that, as the colonists had profited by the war, it would be but just that they should contribute their share towards the national burdens. But here was involved a principle--the colonists were unrepresented in the British Parliament, and this was an attempt to tax them without their consent. They contemplated the consequences, and refused. They contended that taxation and representation ought to go together; in other words, they resolved that if the British Government would not allow them to send representatives to parliament to speak on their own behalf, they would no longer submit to be taxed at its discretion,-they considered that they had a right both to self-taxation and to self-government. The colonists reasoned, remonstrated, petitioned; but in vain-the parliament of the day was inexorable; and great as was the pang, they thus cut asunder the ties that bound them to their fatherland, and disclaimed all further dependance on it. For

"Dauntless was the patriot's heart,
Though the tears were on his cheek.”

They regarded it as a natural and essential right that a man should quietly enjoy and have the sole disposal of his own property,―a right to religious freedom in the sense which they chose themselves to put upon the term, a right to construct their own municipal policy as they pleased; and these constitutional privileges were so familiar to the American people, that it was impossible to convince them that any necessity could render it just and equitable that parliament should impose duties or taxes on them, internal or external, for the sole purpose of raising a revenue, or deny them the right of control or amending the strictest fiscal regulation however oppressively it might bear upon them. They remembered Hampden and the shipmoney of Charles I., together with the oppressions which had driven their forefathers to these very shores. As it is the tendency of misfortune to strengthen the character, so is it the tendency of oppression to strengthen and arouse the passions; while it is a natural law of man's spirit to grow more attached to that course which the tyranny of rulers proscribes. They had, therefore, recourse to arms for principles. Their leading men rejected the emoluments and honours which sycophancy might have retained or ambition acquired, for the sake of constitutional