{"product_id":"2940012492203","title":"A History of England in the Eighteenth Century - Volume II","description":"Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original edition for your reading pleasure.  It is also searchable and contains hyper-links to chapters. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e***\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn excerpt from the beginning of:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCHAPTER V.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Colonies and Scotland.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAmong the British dependencies in the middle of the eighteenth century, the first place must be given to the colonies in North America. It was a signal proof of the wisdom of the English legislators of the seventeenth century that they conceded to these colonies, charters which secured them an almost absolute self-government; while the number of the American provinces, and the diversity of the religions of the colonists, led to a much larger measure of religious liberty than existed in Europe. To these two inestimable advantages must be added a country of almost unlimited resources, and a people who, in energy, moral excellence, and practical wisdom, were probably unsurpassed upon the earth. In the present century the immigration of a large foreign population is seldom favourable to the moral condition of a nation. Emigration has become so easy and so familiar that it is the resource of multitudes but little removed from simple pauperism. Men of ordinary characters usually deteriorate when severed from the ties of home traditions, associations, and opinions; and they seldom feel any strong attachment for a country which was not that of their childhood. But in the seventeenth century the conditions of emigration were essentially different. The difficulties of the enterprise were such that those who encountered them were almost always men of much more than common strength of character, and they were to a very large extent men whose motive in abandoning their country was the intensity of their religious or political convictions. It is the peculiarity of the British colonies in America that they were mainly founded and governed by such men. Puritans in New England, Episcopalians in Virginia, Quakers in Pennsylvania, Catholics in Maryland—each province contained numbers who, during the persecutions of the Stuarts or of the Commonwealth, had sought in the Western world the opportunity of freely professing their faith. From the time of the Pilgrim Fathers to the time when the Salzburg Protestants flocked to the new colony of Georgia in 1732, America was pre-eminently the home of the refugees; and this fact is, perhaps, the most important in its history. After all that can be said of material and intellectual advantages, it remains true that moral causes lie at the root of the greatness of nations; and it is probable that no nation ever started on its career with a larger proportion of strong characters, or a higher level of moral conviction, than the English colonies in America.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMany other circumstances combined to mark them out as the predestined seat of a great free nation. Founded in nearly every case without any pecuniary assistance from the mother country, and separated from it by 3,000 miles of water, they were, during the earlier stages of their existence, practically almost beyond the knowledge and control of the Government at home; and most of the colonists belonged to those non-episcopal Churches which, by throwing on the people the duties of ecclesiastical government, have been the best schools of political freedom. Without bishops, without peers, without a resident sovereign, without superfluous offices or endowments, with a population consisting almost wholly of freeholders scattered thinly over an immense territory and mainly occupied in agricultural pursuits, their politics were naturally of the simplest and freest kind; and they almost entirely escaped the corruption that so deeply tainted the Government at home. Their progress, though less rapid than it afterwards became, was eminently healthy and steady. In less than eighty years after the first permanent English settlement there were twelve distinct colonial governments; and the population, which at the time of the Revolution was estimated at about 200,000, had risen to 1,000,000 some years before the middle of the century.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere were, no doubt, many shadows on the picture. From the nature of their population the American colonies contained a very large amount of the fiercest religious fanaticism; and although in some provinces noble efforts were made to establish freedom of worship, these efforts were altogether exceptional. What religious liberty existed was much more the consequence of the extent of territory, and of the multiplication of provinces, which enabled each sect to find a home, than of the dispositions of the people themselves. The history of Salem witchcraft, of the persecution of the Quakers in Massachusetts, and of the suppression of religious liberty in Maryland, as well as a crowd of savage or absurd laws regulating, in the interests of religion, not only the opinions but also the minutest actions of the people...","brand":"Leila's Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47081462038768,"sku":"2940012492203","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012492203_p0.jpg?v=1763569303","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012492203","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}