166 NINTH ANNUAL REPORT OF 



the creation of such separate existences as in the future may, by some 

 process of assimilation and connexion, become united bat not consoli- 

 dated — forming a complete whole, the portions of which do not lose 

 their distinct organization. 



Passing onward from the perishable colonization of Queen Elizabeth's 

 times to that colonization w4iich proved permanent, it is apparent that 

 it did take that form, and direction, and character, the natural though 

 distant results of which are to be seen in what is now around us. This 

 holds good of the whole period of English colonization in America, 

 from James the First to George the Second — a century and a quarter ; 

 from the arrival of the first permanent colony in Virginia, and the 

 building of Jamestown, (1G07,) down to Oglethorpe's settlement of 

 Georgia, in 1732. 



The grant to Sir Walter Raleigh having become void by his attain- 

 der, British America was again in the Kind's gift — and that KiuQ- the 

 first of the Stuarts. Now, although the notions of royal prerogative 

 which were cherished by the Stuarts were as high as those of the Tii- 

 dors, still the relative position of the sovereign was changed, for the 

 progress of constitutional government had developed new sentiments of 

 allegiance and new powers of resistance. The seventeenth century, 

 which, in fact, may be called the century of American colonization, for it 

 comprehends nearly all of it, was more propitious than the previous cen- 

 tury to the planting of colonies destined to grow to a republic. The 

 process of partition now began — giving scope therefor to the ancient 

 Saxon principle of local government. It was at first, as is well known, 

 a simple twofold partition ; for when king James the First granted the 

 patent for the territory stretching fl-om the 34th to the 45th degree of 

 latitude, he divided it between the two companies, the Southern or 

 London company, and the Northern or Plymouth company. By virtue 

 of these grants, and the settlements under them, the country was par- 

 celled out into two great divisions, soon known by the familiar desig- 

 nations of Virginia for the former, and New England ibr the latter. 



I do not propose on an occasion like this to trace the detailed series 

 of grants and settlement: it is enough for the present to remark that 

 the course of cok)nization was a continued process t)f partition; so that 

 in 1732, at the time of the Georgia settlement, the strip of territory 

 along the coast of the Atlantic, which then formed British America, 

 was divided into the thirteen colonics — a colonial system fashioned into 

 thirteen distinct political communities. 



This was not merely territorial partition ; political and social varie- 

 ties distinguished the colonies. This was a consequence of what was 

 a remarkable peculiarity in the Enghsh settlement of America, that 

 colonization was individual enterprise, receiving the sanction but not 

 the support or assistance of the government. No colony in the seven- 

 teenth century, to wiiich period they nearly all belonged, had any di- I 

 rect aid from king or parliament. The solitary exception occurred 

 in a parliamentary grant of aid to the Georgia colony. Colonization 

 which was individual enterprise partook of the variety of individual 

 character and motive — of the different and even conflicting principles, 

 civil and ecclesiastical, which were dominant or depressed at different 

 periods of the seventeenth century. This, it seems to me, is well wor- 



