knee-deep, over fallen trees, among slimy logs and entangling roots, tripped by vines, lashed by recoiling boughs, panting under their steel head-pieces and heavy corselets, the Frenchmen struggled on, bewildered and indignant. At length they descried two Indians running in the distance, and shouted to them in desperation, that, if they wanted their aid, they must guide them to the enemy.

At length they could hear the yells of the combatants; there was light in the forest before them, and they issued into a partial clearing made by the Iroquois axe-men near the river. Champlain saw their barricade. Trees were piled into a circular breastwork, trunks, boughs, and matted foliage forming a strong defence, within which the Iroquois stood savagely at bay. Around them flocked the allies, half hidden in the edges of the forest, like hounds around a wild boar, eager, clamorous, yet afraid to rush in. They had attacked, and had met a bloody rebuff. All their hope was now in the French; and when they saw them, a yell arose from hundreds of throats that outdid the wilderness voices whence its tones were borrowed, the whoop of the horned owl, the scream of the cougar, the howl of starved wolves on a winter night. A fierce response pealed from the desperate band within; and, amid a storm of arrows from both sides, the Frenchmen threw themselves into the fray, firing at random through the fence of trunks, boughs, and drooping leaves, with which the Iroquois had encircled themselves. Champlain felt a stone-headed arrow splitting his ear and tearing through the muscles of his neck. He drew it out, and, the moment after, did a similar office for one of his men. But the Iroquois had not recovered from their first terror at the arquebuse; and when the mysterious and terrible assailants, clad in steel and armed with thunder-bolts, ran up to the barricade, thrust their pieces through the openings, and shot death among the crowd within, they could not control their fright, but with every report threw themselves flat on the ground. Animated with unwonted valor, the allies, covered by their large shields, began to drag out the felled trees of the barricade, while others, under Champlain's direction, gathered at the edge of the forest, preparing to close the affair with a final rush. New actors soon appeared on the scene. These were a boat's crew of the fur-traders under a young man of St. Malo, one Des Prairies, who, when he heard the firing, could not resist the impulse to join the fight. On seeing them, Champlain checked the assault, in order, as he says, that the newcomers might

have their share in the sport. The traders opened fire, with great zest and no less execution; while the Iroquois, now wild with terror, leaped and writhed to dodge the shot which tore through their frail armor of twigs. Champlain gave the signal; the crowd ran to the barricade, dragged down the boughs or clambered over them, and bore themselves, in his own words, "so well and manfully," that, though scratched and torn by the sharp points, they quickly forced an entrance. The French ceased their fire, and, followed by a smaller body of Indians, scaled the barricade on the farther side. Now, amid howlings, shouts, and screeches, the work was finished. Some of the Iroquois were cut down as they stood, hewing with their war-clubs, and foaming like slaughtered tigers; some climbed the barrier and were killed by the furious crowd without; some were drowned in the river; while fifteen, the only survivors, were made prisoners. "By the grace of God," writes Champlain, "behold the battle won! Drunk with ferocious ecstasy, the conquerors scalped the dead and gathered fagots for the living; while some of the fur-traders, too late to bear part in the fight, robbed the carcasses of their blood-bedrenched robes of beaver-skin amid the derision of the surrounding Indians. From Samuel de Champlain, Chapter xi, in Pioneers of France in the New World.

B.

NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES-COLLEGES THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER.

NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES.1

It

The first newspaper established in America was The Boston News-Letter, a weekly, which ran from 1704 to 1776.2 was usually printed on a (printer's) half-sheet, and contained short pieces of foreign and domestic news. Its space was so scanty that in 1719 it had got thirteen months behindhand with the foreign news from regions beyond Great Britain; for some time, therefore, a whole sheet was printed every other week, until the publisher was able to announce proudly that that part of his news-record was "now less than five months" behindhand. The Boston Gazette was started in 1719; The New England Courant in 1721. Several other papers were started in Boston within the next fifteen years; but only one of them, The Boston Evening-Post, continued to the Revolution. In 1768 The Boston Chronicle began to appear twice a week. In 1770 The Massachusetts Spy was published thrice a week for a few months; in 1771 it became a weekly, but of larger size than any which had yet appeared in Boston, being printed on a whole sheet, four columns to a page. Pennsylvania was only a little behind Massachusetts, the third newspaper in America, The American Weekly Mercury, being started in Philadelphia, Dec. 22, 1719, one day later than The Boston Gazette. The second newspaper in the colony, The Pennsylvania Gazette, founded in 1728, was bought in 1729 by Franklin, who published it twice a week for a while and soon made it very profitable. Several other Pennsylvania newspapers (some of them in German) sprang up at various times before the Revolution. The first daily newspaper in

1 Most of the facts are taken from Thomas's History of Printing in America.

2 A newspaper, Publick Occurrences, was started in Boston in 1699 but the authorities suppressed it after the first issue.

the United States, The Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Ad vertiser, was founded in Philadelphia in 1784. The colony of New York was the third in the field, The New York Gazette making its appearance in 1725. Before 1770 eight other newspapers had been started in New York, although some lived but a short time. Virginia had but two newspapers before the Revolution, founded in 1736 and 1766 respectively. In Maryland the first newspaper was started in 1727; in Rhode Island and South Carolina, in 1732; in Connecticut and North Carolina, in 1755; in New Hampshire, in 1756; in Delaware, in 1762; in Georgia, in 1763. At the outbreak of the Revolution there were in the colonies 37 newspapers, distributed as follows: Pennsylvania, 9; Massachusetts, 7; New York, 4; Connecticut, 4; South Carolina, 3; Rhode Island, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, 2 each; New Hampshire and Georgia, 1 each. Not to be deceived by words we should remember that the stunted little newspapers of Colonial and Revolutionary times were, in size, circulation, and amount of news, very different from the journals of to-day. The "editorial," too, in its modern sense, was unknown to our great-grandfathers; letters to the publisher took its place to some extent, and in times of public excitement the old Gazettes and Mercuries might do a good deal to indicate and to mould public sentiment. But in general the Colonial and Revolutionary newspaper not only presented little news but had little or nothing to say about it.

The American magazines, like the newspapers, closely followed English models, and were not much if at all inferior. To the modern reader, however, they seem on the whole feeble, dry, and dull. Some idea of them may be had from the plan set forth in the preface to The American Magazine and Monthly Chronicle for the British Colonies, which was launched in 1757, at Philadelphia, “By a Society of Gentlemen," and is a superior sample of its class: each number was to contain "an account of European affairs"; "a philosophical miscellany"; "monthly essays, in prose and verse"; history of the present war in North-America"; "monthly transactions in each colony, the account of new books, preferments, births, marriages, deaths, arrivals of ships, prices current." The emphasis on the practical and instructive is evident; of entertainment little was sought, and little found. Yet on the whole the talent available for these magazines was greater than the demand for them, and few and evil were the days of their pilgrimage The American Maga

a

zine and Historical Chronicle, a monthly of fifty pages, established at Boston in 1743, ran three years and four months. The New England Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure, a monthly which came out when it could, after the appearance of three or four numbers in the course of six or seven months, was discontinued in 1759. The Royal American Magazine, printed in handsome type, with two copperplate engravings in each number, began to be issued at Boston in January, 1774; it had a considerable list of subscribers, but the battle of Lexington killed it. In Pennsylvania conditions were also unfavorable for longevity. The General Magazine lived only six months, in 1741. The American Magazine (already mentioned) seems to have died in a year. The Pennsylvania Magazine, edited and written, in part, by Thomas Paine, was started in January, 1775, and died in July, 1776, the last number containing the Declaration of Independence. The United States Magazine, edited by H. H. Brackenridge, with Philip Freneau as a leading contributor, was published at Philadelphia through 1779, and was then discontinued “until an established peace and a fixed value of the money shall render it convenient or possible to take it up again." After the war, magazines were again attempted. The Boston Magazine came in and went out with the year 1785. The Columbian Magazine, started in 1786, lived three years. The American Museum was established in 1787. Other magazines made their appearance from time to time, and had some success. But it was not until 1815, thirteen years after the founding of The Edinburgh Review had inaugurated a new era for magazines in Great Britain, that American magazine literature was placed upon a solid basis by the establishment of The North American Review.

COLLEGES.

The intellectuality of the stock which peopled British America is shown by the fact that they early established colleges. Harvard College was opened in 1638; William and Mary College, Virginia, in 1694; Yale College in 1701; College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1746; Washington and Lee University, Virginia, in 1749; Univer

1 The dates of founding or chartering are often different from the dates of actual opening. Thus Harvard was founded in 1636, by a vote of the Legislature appropriating money; it was chartered in 1650 The dates here given are taken from Johnson's Universal Cyclopedia.