territory of this province was afterwards granted by patent to the London company, and the first permanent settlement commenced at James Town in 1601. This little community which, at the expiration of three years, contained five hundred inhabitants, failing in provisions and attacked at the same time by the Indians, was, in the space of six months, reduced almost to extinction. Sixty persons only escaped from massacre and starvation, who were preserved by the providential arrival from England, of a supply of men and provisions.

By this accession of numbers the exhausted vigor of the colony was repaired, its settlements extended, and in 1620, it had acquired a population of twelve hundred souls. There prevailed, however, in the province, a scarcity of women; and many of the inhabitants, destitute of wives, threatened a return to their native country; but, for this evil, a remedy less violent than that of the Romans on a similar occasion, was provided. One hundred and fifty females of the best quality, young, virtuous and handsome, were exported by the London merchants in exchange for tobacco. The discontented became, therefore, reconciled to their solitude, and the affairs of the colony wore again the aspect of peace and prosperity, when a second attempt of the savages nearly involved them in the fate of their predecessors. Amidst

their social intercourse and occupations, three hundred and fifty, unconscious of danger, unresisting and defenceless, fell, in the same hour, by the hand of the assassins. A furious war ensued, to which was superadded the miseries of famine; when arrivals from the mother country again arrested the progress of their calamities.

Soon after this period the company of the proprietors was dissolved; and, in the reign of Charles I, the administration of the colonies devolved upon the crown. The most rigorous laws were enacted to establish and preserve uniformity of religion, and maintain the ascendancy of the episcopal church. Some rebellious proceedings in 1676 interrupted, for a while, the public tranquillity; but no events changed the direction of their institutions, or controlled the progress of their prosperity.

The province of Virginia is the eldest sister of the colonial family. But titles more sacred than that of primogeniture recommend her to respect and veneration. Unsustained by the heat of religious enthusiasm, or political excitement, she triumphed, during her infancy and orphanage, over the rudest malevolence of fortune, and in the successive scenes of her history, maintained, by her merits, a rank of preeminence in the new world. She reared, for the defence of her liberty, a race of citizens ingenious in peace

and intrepid in war; she is especially illustrious for the birth of a hero, who enriched his country by his glory, and adorned human nature by his virtues; and whose memory, consecrated by the veneration of the whole world, descends to the latest ages of posterity.

Into this state was first introduced that unhappy condition of men who bear the figure without the privileges of human beings, the African slaves. The first cargo of these was introduced in the year 1620, in imitation of the system already established in the colonies of the West Indies. They were gradually diffused throughout the provinces of the south; and have long since inflicted, by the fears they inspire, by the vices they propagate, and by the crimes they commit, an ample vengeance upon the promoters of their servitude. In the governments of Europe, all of which have participated in the guilt of this impious outrage against humanity, the evil is confined to the limbs or extremities; in America it preys upon the heart, and convulses the vital functions of the nation. The disease, too, is immedicable. In other countries, the freed-man is lost amidst the mass of the community. His genealogy is forgotten, and he assumes, in the revolution of years, the station to which his figure and faculties intitle him. But nature has set a mark upon the American slave. Although his shackles be dissolved by the inconsiderate

zeal of the philanthropist, he remains nevertheless bound by the prejudice of his complexion to the of fices of slavery; and cut off from the incentives of honourable ambition, practices vice, or meditates, perhaps, with the approbation of heaven, rebellion against the authors of his depravation.

THE CAROLINAS AND GEORGIA.

South Carolina was granted to the earl of Clarendon, the duke of Albemarle, lord Berkeley and others, and erected into a province in 1663. Magnificent schemes were devised by these noblemen for its improvement, policy and administration. It was intended for the cultivation of the vine, the olive and other productions of the south, and was favoured by the special munificence of Charles the second. Gratuitous donations of land, exemption from taxes, and other flattering concessions and immunities were offered to encourage emigration, and for its government, a constitution was expressly framed by the celebrated Locke. But the philosopher, whose superior faculties had penetrated and unravelled the intricate mazes of the human mind, appears to have possessed less sagacity in the business of legislation, or to have been negligent, at least, of the maxims and practical wisdom of Solon, who founded his

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laws and institutions upon the preexisting habits and genius of the people, and not upon theoretical and abstract notions of mankind.

His new modelled system of politics was a fruitful source of dissention, during twenty-five years, until the final abolition of it, in 1693. In the midst of the various expedients devised for the preeminence of this favourite colony, harassed by the Indians, infested by pirates, invaded by the Spaniards, and agitated by domestic controversies, it languished in its agriculture, commerce and population; and it is only from the dissolution of the proprietary administration, in 1721, that we can date the commencement of its prosperity.

In 1729 this province was divided into the two distinct governments of North and South Carolina. In 1732, Georgia was also detached from its territory; which latter state, from the continual depredations of the Spaniards and Indians, and from an impotent system of government, remained during its colonial subjection in a languid and unprosperous condition. The inhabitants of these provinces were hardened under the rude discipline of adversity, for the struggles and vicissitudes of the revolutionary war, and were equally distinguished in the various scenes of it, for their gallantry of enterprise, their prompt and determined courage. Equality of poli