races, and remain with those enduring records in the cliff dwellings of the Peruvian, Pueblan, and Tuni races.

We make but slight reference here to the legendary portion of the history, for the reason that it is obscure and may have been tampered with by the designing Jesuits in early times, as we know that in their zeal for the cause of their religion they destroyed every vestige of conflicting creeds when possible, and interpolated ideas and dogmas in them when their entire destruction was impracticable. But it carries us back several thousand years, connecting the Toltec civilization by analogy with the Hamitic branch of the Semitic race, through the Phoenician navigators, and then by a like analogy we should class the Aztecs as the Semites proper. We know that for several hundred years the Phoenicians were the explorers of the world; that the results of their voyages were kept secret from their conquerors; and that sooner than reveal their destination, when it was to a newly discovered region, they would run their ships upon the rocks and destroy them. We also know that 1500 years B. C. they had passed out of the Euxine sea, through the pillars of Hercules, and thence down the coast of Africa; and what would be more likely, nay probable, than that they should wander out, or be driven by the westerly trade winds or tropical monsoon, assisted by the equatorial current, across the Atlantic, as these records claim?

How grand the conception, how comprehensive the story!-America first peopled by the direct descendants of Noah, by the Hamitic branch of the Semitic race; ten centuries later, repeopled by the Semites proper; these in turn over-run and ruthlessly exterminated by the fierce and more war-like Turaneans from the steppes of Chinese Tartary; and to-day, after the lapse of the slow-creeping centuries, the last remaining vestiges of these barbarians are being crushed out of the world's history by the enduring and progressing Indo-European branch of the Aryan race.

And last, but not least, of the achievements of this mighty race, it has turned back the cover of this majestic history, has swept aside the dust and cobwebs of oblivion and forgetfulness which the endless stretch of untold centuries had gathered about the hoary head of the ages, and has read to-day and for us the rich and instructive history of thirty dead and forgotten centuries.

J.T. Everett

GRINNELL, IOWA.

ENGLAND'S STRUGGLE WITH THE AMERICAN COLONIES

This story of America is stranger than fiction, and yet true; a by-play of history, that might be called an episode of wonder.

The ending was so likely and unlikely; there was so much to promise it, and so much to forbid; so much to help on, so much to hinder-that a demonstration is made of an unseen, overruling Hand, leading to some great issue. The settlements were so far from the mother country, in a territory unlimited in space and resources of wealth and comfort, necessarily free, obliged to care for and protect themselves, and so trained to selfgovernment, that they needed no outside legislation. Naturally, therefore, they could brook no restraint nor bear the lightest yoke of oppression, and so far they seemed predestined to be a separate, independent, and selfruling people. On the other hand, there was such a love for and longing toward the mother country, such veneration for the old name and venerable institutions, such a dread of standing alone, and such glory and advantage in being the part of a vast, free empire, that it would seem nothing could arise grievous enough to produce separation.

But, again, fine elements were brought together in the colonies to form a new starting for the human race, free from the roots of royalty and nobility in the old world with their hereditary claims and prejudices ever checking the march of freedom. Lecky, in his English history, eulogizes the original colonists as "a people, who in energy, moral excellence, and practical wisdom were probably unsurpassed upon earth. Moral causes lie at the root of the greatness of nations, and probably no nation ever started with a larger proportion of strong characteristics or a higher level of moral conviction." Pitt and Burke took the same view. Before our independence was gained, they looked upon America as a vast civilized and rapidly progressive country, evidently destined to take a foremost place in the history of the world. But an offset to the hopefulness of the prospect and an insuperable bond against union and separate advancement was found in the mutual rivalries, jealousies, and real animosities of the different colonies themselves. It lay beyond all probability and possibility, in the minds of some, that they would make independence a common cause, without which they could not resist such a power as Great Britain; while, on the other hand, all perceived that England could not conquer a united people.

VOL. XXII.-No. 2.-9

It was a case where a little less severity, a little more conciliating, with more firmness and perseverance in their measures on the one side, and less passion, impetuosity, and unlawful violence on the other, might have kept both parties together. The colonies might have been offered a representation in parliament like Ireland and Scotland at present, or a parliament of their own like Canada. England, by acting wisely, might have wielded a superior hand and molded American politics; but the obstinacy of the monarch, George III., and the vacillating measures of his ministry in enacting and repealing, the frequent changes in the administration, the divisions, incapacities, and rapid alternations of severity and indulgence, joined to the friendly feelings toward the colonies both in parliament and outside, lured America to resistance and encouraged the people to question the validity of parliamentary acts.

In fact, the two great parties seemed to the very end to have been playing at cross-purposes, misapprehending one another and suffering from mutual illusions respecting each other's condition and purposes; England believing America's protestations of loyalty and affection and trusting in her inability to form a union, whilst America thought her bold resistance and war-like preparations would secure an immediate repeal of grievances. The question of taxation without representation had at that day two sides; it was discussed early and late by both parties, and never settled by the highest legal opinion on either side. The grievances were in reality slight, compared with the wrongs of Ireland, and a revenue to aid England's treasury, which was the aim of taxation, might have been raised by the colonies in their own way. The navigation act, requiring all trading ships to be built either in England or her plantations, and to be manned by crews of whom two thirds must be British subjects, was not a matter of complaint, for it ruled through the whole empire and was supposed to be everywhere beneficial. The commercial code very early enacted was a different affair, by the provisions of which the interests of the colonists were sacrificed to the selfishness and greediness of manufacturers and merchants at home, who had votes to use in the sharply divided parliaments of that day. By the time the colonies had tobacco, cotton, silk, coffee, indigo, naval stores, skins, sugar, and rice to sell, they were forbidden to make a market outside of the British dominions. No goods could be carried from Europe to America without being first landed in England and reshipped. Every form of colonial industry that could possibly compete with the same manufacture in the mother country was deliberately crushed. Woolen goods could not be exported to any country whatever, nor sold in adjacent colonies.

It was the same with hat-making, and Americans were

hardly allowed to make hats for their own use. Steel furnaces and slitting mills were prohibited, and every branch of invention and trade was jeal ously watched. The importation of sugar, molasses, and rum from the French West India Islands was forbidden, and, for the sake of a few Portuguese merchants in London, wine, oil, and spirit raised in Portugal must be carried to London, a duty paid, and thence reshipped to America.

Still if we can look with candor upon such a code, some drawbacks from its severity may be detected. It was the way of every continental government with their dependencies, and France, the most liberal, was far harder in her restrictions towards Canada. If Virginia could sell her tobacco in England alone, Englishmen were forbidden to purchase elsewhere, except in Bermuda. The cultivation and importation of many articles to England were encouraged by bounties, and obtained almost a monopoly of the English markets by exemption from duties that were heavily laid on the same articles from foreign countries. Besides, the trade with England and the English West Indies was very lucrative, and some of the chief productions of the colonies were left unmentioned in the code, in which they might trade with any nation. Also, the prohibition of trading with the French West Indies was allowed by the government for a long while to become a dead letter, and before 1763 the European goods destined for America were so freed from duties in England that they cost less after crossing the Atlantic than if bought in England; and, finally, by the showing of Adam Smith in 1776, this whole system of commerce was found to be based on false principles, and would soon have been abandoned.

Nevertheless, these restrictions, with all the alleviations, were most grievous, and proved the opening wedge to the disruption of the empire; for the country was growing like a young giant that finds his garments too strait. Great expectations rose here and there—aspirations, as yet undefined, broke forth. More air, liberty of movement, a larger field of action, was the unconscious longing; and, like the natural struggle of the chrysalis to get from its swathings, the growing colonies were making their way, guided by the unseen Hand, towards separation, freedom, and independ

ence.

It may be added, as showing the improbability of separation, that America had many friends in England who wished her to enjoy all her rights, and, like Pitt and Burke, agreed that her union to the British crown was of vital importance to the future of that empire; and then, on the other side, it was a minority of more resolute and determined men that led the rest of the colonists into measures of separation, and even when independence was declared and war entered upon, more seemed to be against than

for them all things demonstrating a divine Providence directing and overruling for the whole world's welfare.

An easy sort of way, on the part of the English government with the colonies, had been going on for years, that necessarily nurtured the habit of directing home matters and taking care of themselves. It is incredible how ignorant the ministry were of colonial affairs, and how inattentive to what was transpiring among their distant subjects. Prior to George Grenville's administration in 1763, America was almost outside the cognizance of the English government. As Americans had no influence in the corrupt politics of the mother country, the duke of Newcastle, during his long official life under George II. and III., left them entirely to themselves. Official communications innumerable were never opened, but buried in pigeonholes or piled up in dusty corners and dark closets till they were swept into the streets or burned in accidental fires. Once, when it was suggested that Annapolis ought to be defended against the French, Newcastle assented: "Oh, yes, Annapolis must be defended; Annapolis must be defended. Where is Annapolis?" And some necessary letters from the secretary of state for the colonies were addressed, "To the Governor of the Island of New England." In 1776 the power and resources of Great Britain were not so formidable that they needed to have been feared so much as they were; and had the whole population of the thirteen colonies acted unitedly, the war by land would soon have been over. Had independence been resolved upon twenty years earlier, there might have been no war at all.

It is past belief how low was England's condition at this last-named era, in 1756. In the reigns of George I. and II. the Hanover succession was scarcely settled, and in the wars under George II. England was everywhere beaten by France and her allies, till her military reputation on the continent was lost. At the same time by a long system of political corruption, universal bribery and intimidation, court and family influence, not only did statesmen lose their manhood, but the whole people were drawn down with them, till enterprise and public spirit were changed into indolence, effeminacy, and unconcern for the public welfare.

But a wonderful reaction for the better came over the nation. There was but one man in England, perhaps, equal to the surprising work, but such an one had been provided. He was in public official life, though disliked by the old king George II., and kept in an under position by his colleagues in the ministry. Despite glaring defects this statesman was one of the noblest and grandest ever concerned in English politics.

His intolerable pride, though it made him enemies on every side, was the guardian of many virtues; his soaring ambition was indissolubly linked ·