726 



UNITED PROVINCES UNITED STATES (HISTORY). 



United Greeks are found in Italy, especially in 

 Venice and Rome, in Naples and Sicily, in the 

 eastern parts of the Austrian monarchy, also in 

 Transylvania, Hungary, Croatia, Sclavonia, Dahlia- 

 tia, &c., where many Greeks live, and in Eastern 

 Poland. The number of the United Greeks is 

 estimated at 2,000,000. The non-united Greeks 

 in the above-mentioned countries, except in Italy, 

 where there are none, acknowledge the patriarch of 

 Constantinople as their spiritual head, and consider 

 the United Greeks as apostates. See Greek 

 I '/inrch. 



UNITED PROVINCES. See Netherlands. 

 UNITED PROVINCES OF SOUTH AME- 

 RICA. See Plata, United Provinces of the. 

 UNITED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA. 

 I. History. The history of the United States 

 naturally divides itself into two periods, the first 

 embracing the annals of the British North American 

 colonies, which separated from the mother country 

 in 1776 ; and the second, the history of the inde- 

 pendent republic established by the victorious colo- 

 nists. 



1. The Settlement and progressive Growth of the 

 Colonies (1607 to 1776) during a Period of one 

 hundred and seventy Years. Of the thirteen colo- 

 nies, whose delegates signed the Declaration of In- 

 dependence, twelve were settled in the seventeenth 

 century,* and the colonists, with a few trifling ex- 

 ceptions, were Englishmen. In 1630, the number 

 of English colonists in North America did not ex- 

 ceed 4000; in 1660, it was not less than 80,000, 

 and had therefore increased twenty-fold in the short 

 space of thirty years: in 1701, the population of 

 the colonies is estimated to have been about 262,000. 

 The period of colonization was one of great intel- 

 lectual and political excitement in the mother coun- 

 try ; in which a nation that had for a long time en- 

 joyed free and popular institutions, was engaged in 

 defending them against the encroachments of the 

 crown, and in extending and securing them by new 

 bulwarks. The principles of liberty, the rights of 

 man, particularly of Englishmen, the nature, use 

 and objects of government, were topics of general 

 interest and discussion in England, and republican 

 maxims were warmly embraced by many. It is an 

 observation of Fox, "that from 1588 to 1640 was 

 a period of almost uninterrupted tranquillity and 

 peace : the general improvement in all the arts of 

 civil life, and, above all, the astonishing progress of 

 literature, are the most striking among the general 

 features of that period, and are in themselves causes 

 sufficient to produce effects of the utmost import- 

 ance. A country whose language was enriched by 

 the works of Hooker, Raleigh and Bacon, could not 



* Date* of the Settlement of the Coloniet. 

 Virginia, 1607. 



New York, by the Dutch, 1614 : occupied bv the English, 1664. 

 Plymouth, 1620; incorporated with A] assachusetts in 1692. 

 Massachusetts, 1628. 

 New Hampshire, 1623. 

 New Jersey, by the Dutch, 1624 ; occupied by the English in 



Delaware, by the Dutch, 1627 i occupied by the English in 

 1664. Some Swedes settled here in 1638, but they were con- 

 quered by the Dutch, and most of them left the country. 



Maine, 1630 ; united with Massachusetts in 1677 



Maryland, 1633. 



Connecticut, 1635; settled from Massachusetts. 



New Haven, 1637 ; united with Connecticut in 1662. 



Providence, 1635 ; \ :,...:, , c ,, 



Rhode fsland, 1C38; f maied 1 ^ t4 ' 



North Carolina, 1650 ; a distinct colony in 1729. " 



South Carolina. 1670. 



Pennsylvania, 1682. 



Georgia, 1733. 



but experience a sensible change in its manners and 

 in its style of thinking; and even to speak the 

 same language in which Spenser and Shakspeare 

 had written, seemed a sufficient plea to rescue the 

 commons of England from the appellation of brutes, 

 with which Henry VIII. had addressed them." 

 The same commons were, in fact, peevishly de- 

 signated by James I. as kings ;f and such was the 

 progress of the people of England in wealth, as well 

 as in cultivation, that, according to Hume, the house 

 of commons, in 1628, was three times as rich as the 

 house of Lords. Another remarkable element in 

 the society from which swarmed the American 

 colonists, was the state of religion. An imperfect 

 reformation, favoured by the government, and 

 amounting to little more than a secession from the 

 Catholic church, was accompanied by a popular re- 

 formation, ready to follow out its principles to their 

 results. The state religion derived its force and 

 its rights from the crown ; the church, therefore, 

 became the champion of passive obedience and divine 

 right, and the Puritans, as they were reproachfully 

 called, or Non-conformists, were compelled to at- 

 tack the temporal power, and to defend civil liber- 

 ty, while assailing the intolerance of the church and 

 defending freedom of conscience. This mixture of 

 religious faith in the contest for political rights, 

 gave the English Puritans the zeal, firmness and 

 boldness of religious reformers. (See Puritans.) 

 It is further to be considered, that, while the Eng- 

 lish colonists brought with them to America the 

 broadest and most generous principles of liberty, 

 and those free institutions which convert general 

 maxims into practical truths, and make them a part 

 of the daily life of men, they left behind them those 

 restraints which in some degree checked their free 

 action in England. They brought the jury and the 

 right of representation, but left behind them the 

 chains which the church and court were endeavour- 

 ing to fasten upon their countrymen : feudal ser- 

 vices, privileged orders, corporations and guilds, 

 with other similar burdens upon industry, and in- 

 sults upon honest merit, found no place in the 

 western forests; but civilization, arts and letters, 

 without the corruption and gross licentiousness 

 which characterized the reigns of James I. and 

 Charles II., were brought thither in the train of li- 

 berty. The next important element in the colonial 

 history, is the political institutions established in 

 the colonies. In 1606, two companies of merchants 

 and others were incorporated, under the names of 

 the London company and the Plymouth company, 

 with the exclusive right of settling and trading 

 within their respective limits. The former be- 

 gan the colonization of British America, in 1607, 

 by sending to Virginia a feeble colony of 100 men, 

 which, before the end of the year, was reduced, by 

 suffering and the badness and scarcity of food, to 

 thirty-eight. In October, 1609, the number had 

 been increased by new colonists to 500 : a famine 

 reduced them in six months to sixty persons. In 

 1613, land was distributed to each individual, both 

 the land and the produce having before been held 

 in common. In 1619, the first colonial assembly 

 was convoked, consisting of representatives elected 

 by the boroughs, the concerns of the colony having 

 been previously managed by the company in Eng- 

 land. As the colonists were mostly adventurers 



t When informed of the approach of a committee of the 

 house of commons, he ordered twelve chairs to be brought ; 

 " for," said he, " there are twelve icing? a-coming." 



