culture became the principal source of wealth, the land was in large estates, owned by rich men and cultivated by negro slaves. In the North, with its severe climate and less productive soil, farming, on a much smaller scale than in the South, was supplemented by manufactures, shipbuilding, fisheries, whaling, and commerce. In the South, because of negro slavery, it was by many people considered hardly respectable for a white man to work with his hands; in the North, all labor was considered honorable.

During this period the colonies had little trouble with their Spanish neighbors on the south, but the contest with the French and their Indian allies was long and severe. The victory of Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham in 1759 settled the fate of the continent and is reckoned among those few decisive battles of the world that have changed the course of history.

At the close of this period the colonies had begun to accumulate wealth in farms, commerce, and manufactures. They had established colleges and made considerable provision for public schools. They were good shipbuilders and skillful sailors. They were a nation of sharpshooters, accustomed to forest warfare, and not without experience against regular troops. They were trained in self-government, prompt to resent interference with their rights, and had already learned to act together against a common enemy. Though they had sometimes been forced to oppose the will of their colonial governors, they were still loyal to England, and proud to be called Englishmen.

RECOMMENDED READINGS

HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY

TEACHERS' LIST. Hart's American History by Contemporaries, vol. I, parts 3-5; vol. II, parts 4, 5. Thwaites's Colonies, chaps. III-X, XII. Fiske's United States, pp. 59-176. Channing's Student's United States, chap. III. Sparks's Expansion of American People, pp. 24-56. Judson's Growth of American Nation, chap. IV. Low's American People, chaps. v-IX. Bancroft's United States (edition of 1891), vol. I, chaps. VI-VIII, X, XII. Tyler's England in America, chaps. II-IV. Fiske's Old Virginia, vol. I, chaps. II-VII; vol. II, chaps. X-XIII, XVII; Dutch and Quaker Colonies, vol. I, chaps. IV, IX, XI; vol. II, chaps. XII, XV, XVI. Pryor's Birth of a Nation, chaps. I, II, V, VI, X-XIII, XXI. E. Eggleston's Beginners of a Nation, part 1, chaps. II, III; part 2, chaps. II-IV; part 3, chaps. I, II. Griffis's Story of New Netherland, chaps. II-IV, VII, XII, XV-XIX. Parkman's Struggle for a Continent, pp. 301450. Thwaites's France in America, chaps. IX-XvI. G. C. Eggleston's Life in the Eighteenth Century, chaps. IV, VI-IX, XIII, XIX-XXI. Bogart's Economic History, chaps. IV-VI. Goodwin's Colonial Cavalier. Fisher's Men, Women, and Manners, vol. I, chaps. I-III; vol. II, chaps. VIII, IX. Singleton's Dutch

New York, chaps. I-VIII, XII, XIII. Pepper's Maids and Matrons of New France, pp. 220-286. Warner's Captain John Smith. Twitchell's John Winthrop. Hodge's William Penn. Cooper's James Oglethorpe. Casgrain's Montcalm and Wolfe.

PUPILS' LIST. Hart's Source-Book of American History, pp. 33-122; Colonial Children, pp. 133-233. Elson's Guide to American History, chaps. IV-VI. Guerber's Story of the Thirteen Colonies. Tappan's Our Country's Story, chap. IX; Letters from Colonial Children; American Hero Stories, pp. 59-96. Hawthorne's Grandfather's Chair, parts 1, 2. Wright's Children's Stories in American History. Griffis's Romance of American Colonization. Brooks's Century Book of American Colonies; Stories of Old Bay State. Coffin's Old Times in the Colonies. Drake's Making of Virginia and Middle Colonies; Making of New England. Earle's Child Life in Colonial Days; Home Life in Colonial Days. Stone and Fickett's Every-day Life in the Colonies. G. Brooks's Dames and Daughters of Colonial Days. Kelly's Sir Walter Raleigh. Eggleston's Pocahontas. Johnson's Myles Standish. Abbott's King Philip.

FICTION

TEACHERS' LIST. Barr's Bow of Orange Ribbon. riage. Doyle's Refugees. Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter. and to Hold; Audrey. McLennan's Span o' Life. Mighty. Wilkins's Heart's Highway.

Bynner's Agnes Sur-
Johnston's To Have
Parker's Seats of the

PUPILS' LIST. Austin's Standish of Standish; Betty Alden. Dix's Soldier Rigdale. Goodwin's White Aprons. Henty's With Wolfe in Canada. Munroe's At War with Pontiac. Pyle's Jack Ballister's Fortunes.

POETRY

Butterworth's Thanksgiving in Boston Harbor. Hemans's Landing of the Pilgrims. Longfellow's Courtship of Miles Standish; Evangeline. Stedman's Peter Stuyvesant's Call. Thackeray's Pocahontas. Whittier's John Underhill; The King's Missive.

THE REVOLUTION

CHAPTER XIII

THE GROWTH OF DISSATISFACTION

142. The British point of view. France and Great Britain had made their peace. Although heavily indebted from the long and costly war, the latter must try to hold her territory, now more than double the size of the old coast colonies, not only against Indian enemies, but against Spain as well. The Americans were prospering; so the Government in London decided that hereafter they must pay a larger share than before of the cost of their own management and defense. Accordingly Parliament adopted new plans of colonial taxation, without stopping to ask the consent of the colonial assemblies. This arbitrary conduct, together with the harsh methods by which King George III and his officers sought to enforce these taxes, aroused the anger of the Americans and finally led to the Revolution.

143. A desire for home rule. In coming to America the British colonists did not give up the principle upon which Englishmen had for generations insisted that they be allowed to manage their own local affairs, and pay only such taxes as were voted by their representatives in Parliament. All through the colonial period most of the quarrels between the assemblies and the royal governors had their beginning in attempts of the latter to interfere in local matters or to levy taxes without the consent of the assemblies.

144. The King threatens the Americans. King George was an obstinate and narrow-minded person. He had formed a hatred for his American subjects because of their "disobedience and lawlessness." He was eager to teach

them a lesson, and announced that any opposition to the new taxes would promptly be crushed.

William Pitt, Lord Chatham, and his friend Edmund Burke, one of the greatest of British orators, warned his

KING GEORGE III

Majesty, from their seats in Parliament, that harshness was neither a proper nor a safe method of managing dissatisfied Englishmen, whether at home or in the distant colonies; but words of wisdom like these were thrown away on a man like King George.1

145. Methods of coercion. In the course of a few years the King and his Parliament adopted four forcible meas

ures:

(a) The old Navigation and Manufacturing Acts (p. 109) were ordered to be strictly enforced.'

(b) A standing army of ten thousand soldiers was sent to America, to aid in this enforcement.

(c) The Stamp Act was passed, to raise money for the support of this army. This was a new and direct tax on the people of the colonies.

(d) Additional duties were laid on imported articles commonly used in the colonies.

146. The Navigation and Manufacturing Acts. The Americans had never paid much attention to these arbitrary laws. But the King insisted that they must hereafter be strictly obeyed. He sent over special officers in warships to enforce these laws. The insolent and high-handed way in which they attempted to do this, aroused intense indigna

1 Pitt's eldest son was in the army; but his father withdrew him, fearing that he might be called on to serve against the colonies.

tion among the people. Under the authority of general warrants, known as "writs of assistance," the King's representatives seized vessels and cargoes, and broke into stores, warehouses, and private dwellings, pretending to search for smuggled goods; and suspected citizens were dragged to prison and either punished by the King's judges on very slight evidence or kept in jail for a long time without trial. Such proceedings violated several important principles of English liberty. One of these was that private citizens should not have their houses invaded or their property seized except on special warrants, to be issued only when this was absolutely necessary for the public good; another was that an accused person should be given a speedy trial by a jury of his fellow citizens.

James Otis, an able Boston lawyer, made a thrilling speech upholding the rights of the colonists. Such abuse of power had in the motherland, he said, "cost one king of England his head, and another his throne." But the King's officers paid little attention to such criticism.

147. The standing army. The excuse for sending over the soldiers was that the Americans on the Western frontiers needed the protection of experienced regular troops against the Indians. The colonists, however, believed that this army was sent really to keep them in subjection.

148. The Stamp Act. At least a part of the expense of feeding, equipping, and paying these unwelcome soldiers was to be raised under the Stamp Act which was passed in the spring of 1765. By this Act every newspaper, pamphlet, advertisement, bill of merchandise, and business or legal document, together with every permit of any kind, must bear a government stamp.

A STAMP2

1 John Adams of Massachusetts heard this speech, and said that "then and there the child Independence was born."

2 The black patch is a fastener of tin foil inserted through slits in the stamp and the paper to which it was attached. The stamps were not printed on gummed paper, like our postage stamps, but were impressed by means of a seal. Sometimes, instead of being on separate paper, they were impressed upon the documents themselves.