QUESTIONS

I. What is the importance of the year 1660 in British history? What colonies had England at this time? How did Charles II feel about the colonies? What colonies were established while he was king?

II. What valuable discovery did Henry Hudson make? Describe the establishment of the Dutch trading fort. What was a trading fort like? What was the effect of rum on the Indians? Give the names of the Dutch town and colony. Describe the patroons and their estates. Describe the Dutch government in New Netherland. How did the English party grow up there? What did it demand? On what did England base her claim to the colony? Describe the conquest by England. What promise was given to the people?

III. Describe the early history of Delaware. What nation settled it? Through what hands did New Jersey pass? Why was it sometimes called "the Jerseys"? Describe the people.

IV. Why did the king grant the Carolina tract? How was it done? What was its extent? What authority was given to the proprietors? What kind of colonies did they propose to have? What two were successfully established? How did they grow? Why did the proprietors prove bad colony founders? What was the result of rice planting in South Carolina? Describe the revolt in South Carolina. How did the two colonies become royal provinces? Compare North and South Carolina.

V. Describe the grant of Pennsylvania. What kind of motives had Penn? What form of government did he give his colony? Describe the beginning of Philadelphia. Describe the growth of Pennsylvania. What was the policy toward various churches? Describe the arrival of the Germans. Who were the Scotch-Irish? Describe the removal to Pennsylvania. How did they expand to other colonies? Why were they good frontiersmen? Explain the Maryland-Pennsylvania boundary dispute. Why was Mason and Dixon's line important? What important settlement was made during Penn's second visit to his colony? Describe the new form of government. How did Penn spend his later years? How was Pennsylvania ruled after his death?

VI. What colonies existed in North America when Charles II died? What two changes in them were about to be made?

VII. How did Massachusetts lose her charter? What kind of government replaced it? What plan did the king make for the northern colonies? How did the revolution in England affect this plan? Describe the new charter of Massachusetts.

VIII. Describe Oglethorpe's efforts in behalf of the debtor prisoners.

Describe the early years of Georgia history. Why did the colony grow slowly?

IX. Describe the three kinds of colonies. In what respects did all tend to grow in the same way?

SUGGESTED TOPICS

A Sketch of the Rule of Peter Stuyvesant; Henry Hudson's Voyage; The Services of William Penn to Pennsylvania; The Government of a Royal Province; Oglethorpe's Career in Georgia; The Leisler Revolution in New York.

CHAPTER VIII

THE EARLIEST SIGNS OF UNION AMONG THE COLONIES

THE people of England believed that colonies were but children. of a mother country, who had founded and nourished them when Mother and they could not protect themselves. In return for this, children it was generally held, the colonies ought to respect and help the mother country. They ought to send her their products and buy from her their manufactured goods. In other words, colonies existed for the benefit of the country on which they depended.

What the colonists

The people in America did not agree with this idea. They knew that the king and parliament of England had done very little for them. The colonists came across the ocean at their own expense, they made new homes for themthought selves with little help from the British government, and they fought off the Indians through their own strength and sacrifice. They also felt that they were as truly Englishmen as those who lived in the old home, and as Englishmen they claimed the right of self-government. For this reason they resented the idea that they should be more bound to obey the king than the people of England. If Englishmen might trade where they pleased, why should not the colonists do the same?

The king paid no attention to the wishes of the colonies. He knew they were too weak to resist him singly, and he did not Could they think they could ever unite. In this he was mistaken. unite? In trying to carry out his ideas that colonies exist for the benefit of the mother country, he made regulations which were resented by all the colonies alike. One and all, therefore, they

began to see that the cause of one was that of the others. While they were weak they could not resist, but as they became older and stronger they began to think of means by which they could keep England from using them for her own good. In doing so they came to act together. If one were asked what was the first thing that brought the colonies together in a union, he must answer: It was the unwise action of England herself in seeking to make the colonies a means of enriching her own people.

This policy first appeared in 1651, in the time of Cromwell. It was expressed in what are known as the navigation acts, or the laws of trade. They were a series of laws passed by The naviparliament to force the colonists to deal with British gation acts merchants only and to ship their goods in British ships alone. They were passed to please the British merchants and shipowners, and whenever there was suggestion of repealing them, loud protests came from these favored classes. No ship but a British ship could take tobacco from Virginia to Europe, and even such a ship must take it to a British port or pay a heavy tax before sailing. Manufactured goods, with a few exceptions, must be imported from British ports. In this way the British merchants, who bought colonial produce, those who sold merchandise to the colonies, the owners of British ships, and the king, who collected revenues, profited at the expense of the colonists. If the people of the colonies could have traded as they chose, they could have sold some of their products at better prices, they could have bought merchandise more cheaply, the Dutch ships would have carried their goods. for lower rates, and they would not have had to pay the high taxes in British ports. Of course, colony ships were British ships. An illustration of how the British government treated the colonies in regard to trade is seen in the "molasses act" as it was called (1733). Great Britain owned some sugar- The" moproducing islands in the West Indies, and France and lasses act" Holland owned some also. From all of them the New Englanders got molasses out of which they made rum. After a while the

English islanders asked that the molasses of the French and Dutch islands be taxed so high in American ports that the rum-makers would not import it. They thought that this would force the New Englanders to buy from them at higher prices. The British parliament did all that was asked by the islanders, and the result was the "molasses act." Now appeared a difficulty. The English islands did not raise as much molasses as was used by the rummakers, so that some of the New England distilleries must close if the law was enforced. This was so evident that the British officers did not pretend to enforce the act for many years after it was passed. But the act made a bad impression in New England. While the navigation acts were keenly felt by the colonists, there were two reasons why they did not utterly crush the trade of the Americans. 1. They applied to only a portion Two reasons of the products that were exported. It was only tobacco, rice, molasses, copper, and furs that were to be sent exclusively to British ports. There were many other products that might be sent to any place the shipper selected. Among them were fish, pork, beef, and wheat, all articles which the colonists were in the habit of selling at good profit to the West Indies.

2. The British officials in the colonies allowed the laws to be violated. Of course, this was smuggling, and it would not be tolerated by honorable men in our own day. The colonists did not think it wrong to break a law they considered unjust. One way of breaking the law was to unload ships in unwatched harbors. Sometimes the officers were not careful and allowed a ship loaded with sugar or molasses to pass through their hands as though it were loaded with something else. When at last the British government tried to enforce the navigation acts strictly, there was a Smuggling

great outcry from the colonies. The trading colonies. were most damaged by these acts and felt most indignant on account of them. They were Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.

As the colonies grew in power they had less fear of England.