ENGLAND'S COLONIAL SYSTEM.

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acts of the provincial governments, and see how all their money was expended.

146. Plans for Union.-For the sake of the common defense, the Board recommended a closer union of the colonies. Postal service, already existing between Boston and New York, was now extended, and letters could be carried eight times in the year from Philadelphia to the Potomac ! William Penn drew up a plan for the union of the American states by means of a general congress. But the time had not come for union. If it had been effected then, it would have been under a military despotism.

147. The "Mercantile System," which was already ruining the colonies of Spain, was now adopted in its full force by England. The Navigation Acts ($128) were renewed and stringently enforced. England was to be the only market and the only storehouse for colonial commerce. Wool, being the staple export of England, was forbidden to be carried out of any colony upon horse, cart, or ship. Even a sailor in want of clothes must not buy more than forty shillings' worth in any American port, and even this small purchase was soon forbidden. Not a pine tree could be felled on common lands except by the king's license. Later, all iron-works were prohibited.

148. Courts of Admiralty.-As colonial juries would not pronounce men guilty for evading laws like these, new "Courts of Admiralty" were established to try all offenses against the Navigation Laws. Among the greatest injuries inflicted by Parliament upon the southern colonies was the forced increase of the slave trade. Virginia and Carolina made repeated attempts in their popular assemblies to stop the importation of negroes from Africa. But Queen Anne, the successor of William III., was, by the terms of her treaty with Spain, the greatest slave-merchant in the world. Many English lords and capitalists, also, had large shares in

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the traffic; and for their advantage Parliament reversed the acts of the colonial assemblies, and forced every American port to receive men as merchandise.

149. Literary Progress.-The twelve colonies now numbered about two hundred thousand people. At the accession of Queen Anne, in 1702, they had three colleges: Harvard in Massachusetts, Yale in Connecticut, and William and Mary in Virginia. There was no newspaper printed as yet upon the western continent; but in 1704 the Boston News Letter, the first American journal, was established. It was a small sheet which merely reported facts and never meddled with opinions. There were but two public libraries in the whole country; one was in Massachusetts and the other in South Carolina.

150. Georgia.-One more state was yet to be added to the cluster of English colonies on the Atlantic. The great proprietors of the Carolinas (see $130), weary of endless disputes with the people concerning rents, taxes, and political rights, surrendered their claims to the crown. A part of the surrendered territory was bestowed by King George II. on General Oglethorpe "in trust for the poor." Oglethorpe was not only a famous soldier, but a good and benevolent man. As a member of Parliament, his attention was called to the wretched condition of persons imprisoned for debt under then-existing laws of England. Their sufferings seemed to him needless as well as cruel, while the great, rich lands of America were lying untenanted; and he resolved to open in the New World a refuge for the unfortunate of every name.

151. He himself came over with the first settlers, and lived for a year in a tent, where he afterwards A. D. 1733. laid out the broad avenues and spacious squares The colony was named Georgia, in honor of the king. The neighboring Indians were justly treated,

of Savannah.

OGLETHORPE IN GEORGIA.

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and they repaid the kindness of Oglethorpe by the same loving fidelity which their northern brethren had shown to Penn. German Lutherans and Moravians, Swiss Calvinists, and Scotch Covenanters were among the early settlers of Georgia.

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152. So long as he remained with the colony, Oglethorpe refused to admit either slaves or rum, though the latter would have been received at a great profit in exchange for the pine-timber which was the chief natural wealth of Georgia. The great English preachers, John and Charles Wesley, who visited America in 1736, strongly opposed negro slavery; but Whitefield, a no less celebrated preacher, whose wonderful eloquence swayed all hearts, approved and recommended it; and after Oglethorpe's departure African servants were soon introduced.

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James Oglethorpe.

153. Spain, meanwhile, claimed the whole territory of Georgia as her own ($45). Foreseeing war, Oglethorpe built forts at Augusta, at Darien, and at Frederica, and brought a regiment of soldiers from England. War was declared in Europe in 1739; and in the following winter General Oglethorpe invaded Florida, captured two fortified posts, and besieged St. Augustine, though without success. In return the Spaniards invaded Georgia, but after a severe defeat at Bloody Marsh, on St. Simon's Island, they sailed away to Florida with their forces much diminished.

154. In 1743 Oglethorpe left the colony which he had

spent ten years in founding, and returned to England, where for forty years he was known as a warm friend of America. Considered as an institution of charity, Georgia was not altogether a success: the people who had failed to support themselves in England, had seldom the courage and industry needed for life in the wilderness. Happily, more energetic settlers were not wanting, and Georgia became in time one of the richest and most thriving colonies.

Point out on Map No. 3 the enlarged boundaries of Massachusetts (2140). Savannah. St. Augustine. Augusta. Darien and Frederica.

NOTES.

1. King William had always been opposed to France and to Catholicism, and as the conquest of New France was now the great ambition of New England, it was hoped by the latter that a common sentiment would unite England and the northern colonies.

2. The spread of this delusion among the intelligent classes is almost incredible. It was not confined to America, but had a much wider prevalence in France, Switzerland, and Germany. In England and Scotland four thousand witches were put to death during the seventeenth century. Among the most ruthless opponents of witchcraft in the colonies was the Reverend Cotton Mather, then a young minister, whose remarkable learning gave a fatal importance to his opinions. His book, entitled "Wonders of the Invisible World," was approved both by the governor of the state and by his father, the president of Harvard.

3. In the words of the treaty: "Her Britannic Majesty does offer and undertake, by persons whom she shall appoint, to bring into the West Indies of America belonging to his Catholic Majesty in the space of thirty years, one hundred and forty-four thousand negroes, at the rate of four thousand eight hundred in each of the said thirty years." It was further agreed that the exclusive slave-trade of all Spanish America, as well as of the British possessions, should be in the Queen's hands.

4. James Edward Oglethorpe was born in London in 1688, and entered the army at the age of fourteen. He served against the Turks in 1716-'17, and in 1722 was elected to Parliament, holding his seat for thirtytwo years. Oglethorpe returned to England from America in 1743, and served as major-general against the Pretender in 1745. In 1765 he was made General of all His Majesty's forces, when he retired upon half-pay. His death occurred in 1785.

5. John Wesley (b. 1703, d. 1791) was the founder of Methodism. He graduated at Oxford in 1727, and the following year was ordained priest in the English Church. From 1729 to 1735 he was an instructor at Oxford, where he became the leader of a set of pious young men, who were derisively called "Methodists," from their methodical mode of living. In 1735, Oglethorpe persuaded Wesley to go to Georgia as a missionary. He was accompanied by his brother Charles and two Oxford friends; his principal object being the conversion of the Indians. It was upon this journey that Wesley met with some Moravian missionaries, who so impressed him that, immediately upon his return to England, he commenced the study of their doctrines, which finally led to his establishing the Methodist Church.

6. George Whitefield (b. 1714, d. 1770), an associate of the Wesleys at Oxford, was the most remarkable preacher of his day,-his audiences frequently numbering ten thousand persons. He was deeply interested in extending Methodist doctrines, and visited the American colonies no less than seven times, preaching wherever he went. His death, from asthma, occurred at Newburyport, Mass.

in the great central valley, and along the southern shores of our country. Missionaries, traders, and soldiers were the three classes who successively planted the lily-standard of France by the lakes of central New York and the northwest, along the Mississippi and its branches, and by the Mexican Gulf. The Franciscan and Jesuit Fathers' were moved by zeal for the souls of the savage heathen; and the bells of their little chapels broke the silence of many a wilderness far from the dwellings of white men.