with unparalleled energy for eight years to effect a permanent settlement, in the vast territory called by that name, on the Atlantic sea-board; but an Indian arrow sent him to Cuba to die.

The bewildering ambition of the reckless Narvaez, in a similar attempt five years later, overwhelmed him and his comrades with still more signal disaster.

In 1520, Lucus Vasquez de Ayllon, with the cruel purpose of capturing Indians to be used as slaves on St. Domingo plantations, discovered a fertile coast, which promised affluence and dominion; and obtained from the Spanish monarch the right to conquer and govern "Chicora," the future South Carolina but calamity and disgrace terminated his proud

career.

Who can read without exciting interest the romantic story of Francisco de Coronado, seduced by the false accounts of the Franciscan friar Marcus de Niza, moving out from Mexico with his grand army to search for the seven great cities of "Cibola" and the fabled wealth of mighty princes, enduring incredible hardships, traversing the wilds of Colorado, and the Valley of the Del Norte, over the regions of vast future States, large and rich enough for empires, and then reporting as he did to the Emperor Charles V. that "the region was not fit to be colonized"? Who can trace the history of this brave man, without reaching the conviction that he was designed by Heaven as an explorer, while his nation would not be permitted to appropriate his discoveries?

And with what feelings of wonder, and even pity, do we follow the daring career of Ferdinand de Soto, seeking for wealth and glory in the great Valley of the Mississippi, dreaming of conquests and dominion, wearing out his heroic men and his own iron constitution, at last bowing his stubborn will to the only Power he could not defy, and sinking beneath the turbid waters of the great river, without establishing the permanent control of his nation over a single

acre of the land to be required in after-ages for the develop ment of the Great Republic!

Spaniards could become great discoverers and great con querors on the Western hemisphere; they could effect settlements and establish governments which would remain for a period longer or shorter, as Providence willed: but they could on no account annex to the Spanish monarchy the regions set apart for "the union" of freemen, or hold their own colonists to loyal obedience, against the instincts of independence which would ultimately give law to the continent.

On the 8th of September, 1565, the bigoted Catholic Philip II. "was proclaimed monarch of all North America;" but God did not sanction it. St. Augustine, by more than forty years the oldest town in the United States, was founded in the same year: but it did not grow and become great like other cities of the Republic; it could not be permanently Spanish; nor could the founding of the distant Santa Fé and the establishment of New Mexico sixteen years later, under the indomitable spirit of the Franciscan friar Augustin Ruyz, change the ultimate current of history. Santa Fé would in due time be the capital of a great republican State.

THE ENGLISH, DUTCH, AND SWEDES CONTROLLED.

God discriminates between men and occasions as well as nations. The English were to be the founders of empire here; but they could not begin successfully with a system of heartless avarice. The daring attempts of Sir Humphrey Gilbert and his half-brother Sir Walter Raleigh may suffice as specimens of the discipline through which the nation would learn its wrongs, and be led gradually to success. The former might erect the standard of Britain over the mixed peoples at the fishing-station of Newfoundland, then sink to his grave in the ocean; while the latter, after a most heroic connection with American enterprise, would become a victim of sovereign caprice, be dragged to the Tower of London, and then to the block of the executioner.

The Dutch, in 1610, could establish a brave working colony on the river discovered by the adventurous Hudson, and extend New Netherlands into the region of the Delaware and the Connecticut; but the States-General would ultimately resign the territory and the people to their predetermined independence and the legitimate government of the United States of America.

The Swedish monarch and his great prime minister could form large plans of colonial power and grandeur in America; but the rich territory settled at so much expense was not to be "New Sweden," but an important integral part of the Great Republic.

We now come to a most important period in the prepara tory history of the United States. Two grand representative colonies will soon appear on the continent. Both will have noble spirits as their leaders; both will have brave truth and damaging errors in their theories of man and of liberty. They will test the strength of aristocracy on the one hand, and of democracy on the other. One will bring out the power of despotism and caste to grapple with the inherent rights of man; the other, the spirit of liberty to contend with usurpation and repression. The one including the most grievous wrongs will begin first. Virginia shall have thirteen years the start of Massachusetts. Moreover, her land shall be rich, and her climate mild and attractive; while the land of the Pilgrims shall be rugged, and its winters severe. Chivalry shall be sustained by royal favor and ample wealth: Liberty shall be a fugitive from royal oppression, and shall land on its rock-bound coast destitute an unprotected. Then the eyes of two hemispheres for more than two hundred and fifty years shall watch the race.

THE EPOCH AND THE FIRST COLONISTS OF VIRGINIA.

The

The times were both threatening and auspicious. Reformation had broken up the foundations of Popery in England; but the Popish and Protestant tendencies began to appear in politics. The bigoted James saw no safety but from Prelacy, and no formidable danger but from Puritanism.

The noble sons of religious liberty who had served Elizabeth with loyal devotion were superseded, and began to look abroad for their future. The art of printing brought new light to the age. It was time for the permanent colonization of the New World by the Anglo-Saxon race to begin.

We now catch a glimpse of the original material for an English colony in Virginia. They were "noblemen, gentlemen, and merchants, in and about London," "London adventurers." "Edward Maria Wingfield, a grovelling merchant of the west of England," was the first president of the council. "Of one hundred and five on the list of emigrants, there were but twelve laborers, and very few mechanics." But Providence ordered that the noble and gallant Capt. John Smith and the faithful Robert IIunt should be the representative men of State and Church. "Gorges, a man of wealth and rank," and Sir George Popham, Lord Chief Justice of England, would represent the aristocratic pretensions of the future South; and "yagabond gentlemen and goldsmiths would seriously interfere with the vigorous administration of the heroic Smith. "When you send again," he wrote, "I entreat you rather send but thirty carpenters, husbandmen, gardeners, fishermen, blacksmiths, masons, and diggersup of trees' roots, well provided, than a thousand of such as we have." Other settlers came, some better, but, let us honestly hope, none worse. As especially noteworthy, ninety women, "agreeable persons, young and incorrupt," came "at the expense of the company, and were married to its tenants, or to men who were able to support them, and who willingly defrayed the costs of their passage." This experiment was so successful, that, next year, "sixty more were - handsome, despatched, — maids of virtuous education, young, and well recommended. The price of a wife rose from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty pounds of tobacco, or even more." How admirably simple, and yet how evidently providential, this method of founding

*Bancroft, i. 120-124.