XVII.

in due time, ships from the New World would carry CHAP. the equal blessings of Christianity to the burning plains of Nigritia, that descendants of Africans would toil for the benefits of European civilization.

That America should benefit the African, was always the excuse for the slave-trade. Would America benefit Europe? The probable influence of the New World on the Old became a prize question at Paris; but not one of the writers divined the true answer. They looked for it in commerce, in mines, in natural productions; and they should have looked for revolutions, as a consequence of moral power. The Greek colonists planted free and prosperous cities; and in a following century, each metropolis, envying the happiness of its daughters, imitated its institutions, and rejected kings. Rome, a nation of soldiers, planted colonies by the sword; and retributive justice merged its liberties in absolute despotism. The American colonists founded their institutions on popular freedom, and "set an example to the nations." Already the plebeian outcasts, the Anglo-Saxon emigrants, were the hope of the world. We are like the Parthians, said Norton in Boston; our arrows wound the more for our flight. "Jotham upon Mount Gerizim is bold to utter his apologue."

We have written the origin of our country; we are now to pursue the history of its wardship. The relations of the rising colonies, the representatives of democratic freedom, are chiefly with France and England;—with the monarchy of France, which was the representative of absolute despotism, having subjected the three estates of the realm, the clergy by a treaty with the pope, feudalism by standing armies, the communal institutions by executive patronage and a vigorous police; with the

466

XVIII.

FRANCE, ENGLAND, AND THE RISING COLONIES.

CHAP. parliament of England, which was the representative of aristocratic liberties, and had ratified royalty, primogeniture, corporate charters, the peerage, tithes, prelates, prescriptive franchises, and every established immunity and privilege. The three nations and the three systems were, by the revolution of 1688, brought into direct contrast with one another. At the same time, the English world was lifted out of theological forms, and entered upon the career of commerce, which had been prepared by the navigation acts and by the mutual treaties for colonial monopoly with France and Spain. The period through which we have passed shows why we are a free people; the coming period will show why we are a united people. We shall meet no scenes of more adventure than the early scenes in Virginia, none of more sublimity than the Pilgrims at Plymouth. But we are about to enter on a wider theatre; and, as we trace the progress of commercial ambition through events which shook the globe from the wilds beyond the Alleghanies to the ancient abodes of civilization in Hindostan, we shall still see that the selfishness of evil defeats itself, and God rules in the affairs of men.

END OF VOL. II.