Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE ENGLISH II AMEEICA. BOOK I. CHAPTER I. Introduction—Objects and Utility of the Work—No connected Political History of the Colonies to be found—Popular Error as to the Origin of the American Republic—One established at Plymouth in 1620, and another in Massachusetts in 1629, which subsisted for more than fifty Years—Democracy the result both of Design and Necessity—Notice of the early Settlers. The early settlements made by the English in America were effected either by individual speculators or associated companies. They were in general situated at a distance from each other, having at first little or no connection, either political, social, or commercial among themselves, and deriving but trifling assistance, and less protection, from the mother country. They grew up into powerful colonies, in neglect and obscurity, with a rapidity and vigor that astonished Europe. They were without precedent in the previous annals of England, and the political agitation of the public mind in the present state, unhappily afforded no opportunity for establishing their relation on a proper foundation, or arranging a consistent and uniform plan for their government. The accounts we have of them, therefore, are detached, and their interest is destroyed for want of continuity. Every plantation has had its annalist, but the narratives are too local, too minute, and too similar in their details to be either interesting or instructive. No attempt has been made to separate the political from the provincial, and the general from theindividual and petty personal history. This, doubtless, is the reason why so little is known of the old colonies previous to the independence, and so little benefit has accrued from past experience, either to Great Britain or her dependencies. A connected sk...