to form a just and proper estimate of those of the new. Whether he comes among us, like some modern traveler, under the mask of impartiality, and with a professed desire of ascertaining the truth, but in reality to confirm his own preconceived and self-sufficient opinions; to exggerate, to misrepresent, and to make a false report.

We know little of Mr. Grahame, who has thus commenced a series of American history, except from his own account in the volumes under consideration. From his name, and the dedication of his work to his father of Whitehall, Lanarkshire, Scotland, we conclude, he is by birth a Scotsman.

With respect to the sources of his information, Mr. Grahame states, that he found the public libraries of Great Britain very imperfectly provided with the materials of American history. After obtaining by loan or purchase all the additional works which he could procure in that country, he was compelled to resort to the library of Göttengen, where he "found an ampler collection of North American literature than any, and indeed than all the libraries of Britian could supply." That this admirable repository should be richer in the materials of European history than any similar establishment in Great Britain, would not excite our surprise. But that Englishmen should be compelled to resort to Germany for the history of their own early settlements, in a country which is distant more than three thousand miles from the continent of Europe, is certainly a remarkable fact. In addition to these means of information, Mr. Grahame has had access to the library and papers of the late George Chalmers, for many years clerk of the Board of Trade, and author of that well-known work, the Political Annals. Mr. Chalmers first commenced his acquaintance with colonial history, in this country. Prior to the American revolution, as Mr. Grahame inform us, he emigrated to the colonies, and settled as a lawyer at Baltimore; but adhering to the royal cause, he returned to England, and was rewarded by an appointment from the Board of Trade. His Political Annals were written while he was clerk of this board; and as they are often referred to, in this country, as well as in England, we shall here subjoin what Mr. Grahame says of the author, as well as of the work itself.

Perhaps no other writer has combined such elaborate research of facts, with such temerity of opinion, and such glaring inconsistency of sentiment, as the Political Annals" of this writer display. The American provinces, though little indebted to his favorable opinion, owe the most important illustration of their history to his industrious researches. Some of the particulars of his own early history may perhaps account for the peculiarities of his American politics. A Scotsman by birth, he had emigrated to Maryland, and settled at Baltimore as a lawyer, when the revo

lutionary contest in which he adhered to the royal cause, blasted all his prospects, and compelled him to take refuge in England, where his unfortunate loyalty and distinguished attainments, procured him an honorable appointment from the board of trade. The first (and only) volume of his Annals was composed while he hoped that the royal cause would yet prevail in America, and was intended as an apology for his party. His labors were discontinued when the cause and party to which they were devoted, had evidently perished. Though a strong vein of toryism pervades all his pages, he is at times unable to restrain an expression of indignant contempt, at particular instances of the conduct of the kings and ministers, whose general policy he labors to vindicate.

In the facts relative to the early history of our country, Mr. Grahame, as appears by his reference to authors, has relied principally on the historical accounts of the different colonies, which, have been published both in Europe and America; and with most of which the American reader will find himself already acquainted. He has referred, however, to some works of an early date, not so generally known in this country. Among these we notice Archdale's statistical and historical description of Carolina, 'a work' says Mr. Grahame, 'replete with so much good sense, benevolence and piety, that it is surprising it should never have been reprinted'; -Dunton's travels in New-England;-Denton's New-York;Alsop's Maryland ;-Blome's account of the American provinces, and Gabriel Thomas' history of Pennsylvania and New-Jersey.

Mr. Grahame very frankly avows his strong predilections in favor of America and the colonial side, in the controversies between the colonists and the British government; and in entering on the history of our early settlements, he pays a just tribute of praise to the character of our fathers, and to the wisdom of their institutions. This tribute from a foreigner, cannot fail to be read with pleasure, by every American, who reveres the memory of his ancestors, and cherishes a love for their principles.

"History," says the author in his preface," addresses her lessons to all mankind: but when she records the fortunes of an existing people, it is to them that her admonitions are specially directed. There has never been a people on whose character their own historical recollections were calculated to exert a more animating and salutary influence, than the nation whose history I have undertaken to relate.

"In national societies established after the manner of the United States of North America, history does not begin with obscure or fabulous legends. The origin of the nation, and the rise and progress of all its institutions, may be distinctly known. The people may obtain an accurate and familiar acquaintance with the character of their earliest national ancestry, and of every succeeding generation through which the inheritance of the national name and fortunes, has devolved to themselves. When this interesting knowledge is blended with the information that their existence as a people originated in the noblest efforts of wisdom, fortitude and magnanimity, and that every successive acquisition, by which their liberty and happiness have been extended and secured, has arisen from the

exercise of the same qualities, and evinced their faithful preservation and unimpaired efficacy-respect for antiquity becomes the motive and pledge of virtue; the whole nation feels itself ennobled by ancestors, whose renown will continue to the end of time, the honor or reproach of their successors; and the love of virtue is so interwoven with patriotism and with national glory, as to prevent the one from becoming a selfish principle, and the other a splendid or mischievous illusion. If an inspired apostle might with complacency proclaim himself a citizen of no mean city, a North American may feel a grateful exultation in avowing himself the native of no ignoble land, but of a land that has yielded as great an increase of glory to God and of happiness to man, as any other portion of the world, since the first syllable of recorded time, has ever had the honor of producing. A nobler model of human character could hardly be proposed to the inhabitants of New-England, Pennsylvania and others of the North American states, than that which their own early history supplies. It is, at once their interest and their honor to preserve with sacred care a model so richly fraught with the instructions of wisdom and the incitements of duty. The memory of the saints and heroes whom they claim as their natural and national ancestors will bless all those who account it blessed, and the ashes of their fathers will give forth a nobler influence than the bones of the prophet of Israel, in reviving piety and invigorating virtue. So much, at the same time, of human weakness and imperfection is discernible in the conduct or is attested by the avowals of these eminent men, and so steady and explicit was their reference to heavenly aid, of all the good they were enabled to perform or attain, that the admiration they so strongly claim never exceeds a just subordination to the glory of the most High, and enforces the scriptural testimony to the riches of divine grace, and the reflected lustre of human virtue.

The volumes under consideration are divided into seven books, embracing the separate history of Virginia, New-England, Maryland, North and South Carolina, New-York, New-Jersey and Pennyslvania.

In this compendious history of the first settlement of these colonies, and the causes which led to it, the American reader who is conversant with our early colonial histories, will find little that is new. They have the advantage, however, of presenting a condensed and separate statement of the early transactions in each colony; and on this account, may be read with profit by all, who have not had access to the original sources of information, and with pleasure by those who wish briefly to review scenes, with which they are in no small degree familiar. We cannot too often bring to our recollection the noble daring of our ancestors, and the virtuous motives, which led them to forsake their native homes, and to found an empire in the new world. These, together with their unprecedented situation and peculiar feelings on leaving forever their native shores, (particularly those destined for New-England,) are happily as well as justly described by the author of these volumes.

"The regret," says Mr. Grahame, "which an eternal farewell to their native land was calculated to inspire, the distressing inconveniences of a long voyage, to persons unaccustomed to the sea, and for the formidable

scene of trial and danger that confronted them, in the barbarous land where so many!preceding adventurers had found an untimely grave, seemed to have vanished entirely from the minds of these men, sustained by the worth and dignity of the purpose, which they had combined to pursue. Their hearts were knit to each other by a community of generous design; and they experienced none of those jealousies which inevitably spring up in confederacies for ends merely selfish, among men unequally qualified to attain the object of their association. Behind them, indeed, was the land of their fathers, but it had long ceased to wear an aspect of parental kindness towards them and in forsaking it, they fled from the prisons and scaffolds to which its saints and patriots were daily consigned. Before them lay a vast and dreary wilderness; but they hoped to irradiate its gloom by kindling and preserving there the sacred fires of religion and liberty, which so many efforts were made to extinguish in the shrines of England, whence they carried their embers. They confidently hoped that the religious and political sentiments which had languished under such protracted persecution in Europe, would now, at length, shine forth in their full lustre in America. Establishing an asylum where the professors of their sentiments might at all times find shelter, they justly expected to derive continual accessions to the vigor of their own virtue, from the resolute character of men, who might hereafter be prompted to forsake their native habitations, and be willing like them, to recognize their country wherever they could find the lineaments of truth and liberty. Vol. I. pp. 247, 248.

With strong predilections in favor of the religious as well as political opinions of the first settlers of New-England, Mr. Grahame does not hesitate to condemn their errors. Their spirit of religious intolerance, a spirit which has subjected them to the reproaches of their enemies, and occasioned the regrets of their friends, has not escaped his animadversions. He notices more particularly the persecution of the Quakers. After stating the origin of Quakerism in England, and giving the character of its founder, he follows the Quakers to America. The turbulent and extremely indecent conduct of many of this sect of religionists, both in England and the colonies, is well known. It is equally well known, that in all the New-England colonies, with the exception of Rhode Island, they were liable to banishment; that in Massachusetts they were by law, subjected to the punishment of death, on their return from exile; and that under this law, four persons were actually condemned and executed. It is not perhaps so generally known, that in Virginia, a law equally severe with that in Massachusetts, was passed against the Quakers.

Having stated that in Virginia the doctrines and rites of the church of England were established by law, Mr. Grahame says, "There was a bloody law, which subjected Quakers returning from banishment, to the punishment of death, but no execution ever took place in consequence of this enactment, and it was repealed soon after the revolution of 1688." (Vol. I. p. 165.) The law here alluded to, was enacted in March, 1659-60, and subjected all masters of vessels to a penalty of £100 sterling for VOL. II.

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each Quaker brought by them into the colony. All Quakers were to be imprisoned without bail or mainprize till they found sufficient security to depart the colony; they were to be proceeded against as contumacious of the laws and magistracy, and punished accordingly; and in case they came a third time into the colony they were to be prosecuted as felons. By the same law, all persons were prohibited, under the penalty of £100 sterling, from entertaining them, or permitting their assemblies in or near their houses; and no person was to dispose of, or publish any books or pamphlets containing the tenets of their religion.

Under the Virginia law no capital punishment ever took place; and it will be remembered, that in Massachusetts the law inflicting this severe punishment, met with great and at first successful opposition. The deputies, as those men were called, who constituted the popular branch of the legislature, at first rejected it; but afterwards, on re-consideration, concurred with the magistrates, (by whom it was originally proposed,) by a majority of one only. The execution of four of their brethren in Massachusetts was never forgotten by the Quakers. For this intolerant spirit in New-England, Mr. Grahame makes the usual apology.

But unfortunately a great proportion of the Puritans, at this period, were strongly infected with the prevalent error of the age, and regarded the peaceable existence of different sects in the same community as nearly impossible-a notion, which, it must be confessed, the treatment they received from their adversaries, tended very strongly to enforce. If it was right that they, who had suffered from persecution, should themselves abstain from what their own experience had feelingly shown to be so hateful and odious, it was natural that flying to deserts for the sake of particular opinions, they should expect to see these opinions unmolested and undisputed. The sufferings they had endured from their adversaries, they regarded as one of the legitimate consequences of the pernicious errors that these adversaries had imbibed, and they customarily regarded their opponents as the enemies of their persons, as well as the persecutors of their opinions. The activity of government in support of the national opinion, they were far from condemning in the abstract. They admitted the legitimacy of such interposition, and condemned it only when it seemed to them erroneously directed. Even when oppressed themselves, they exclaimed against indiscriminate toleration. They contradicted so far their own principles; and maintained that human beings might and ought to punish what God alone could correct and alter. "Much," he adds, "might be urged and will doubtless suggest itself in extenuation of this error, which long remained a root of bitterness to disturb their peace and felicity. But the considerations which may be allowed to mitigate our censure of the intolerant spirit, which these people displayed, can never be permitted to transform it into a virtue. It was sharpened by the copious infusions which the colony received, of the feelings excited in England by the increased severity of persecution, from which the victims began to fly in increasing numbers to America.* Vol. I. pp. 353-355.

*It ought also to be remembered, that the Quakers, on their arrival in this country, were guilty of many excesses. They entered houses of public worship,