colonies is upon the whole nearly equal, if not superior, to that of the white men: and they propagate and increase even faster. Their condition is truly pitiable; their labour excessively hard, their diet poor and scanty, their treatment cruel and oppressive ; they cannot therefore but be a subject of terror to those who so inhumanly tyrannize over them.

The Indians near the frontiers are a still further formidable cause of subjection. The southern Indians are numerous, and are governed by a sounder policy than formerly: experience has taught them wisdom. They never make war with the colonists without carrying terror and devastation along with them. They sometimes break up intire counties together. Such is the state of the southern colonies.

The northern colonies are of stronger stamina, but they have other difficulties and disadvantages to struggle with, not less arduous, or more easy to be surmounted than what have been already mentioned. Their limits being defined, they will undoubtedly become exceedingly populous: ... but the northern colonies have still more positive and real disadvantages to contend with. They are composed of people of different nations, different manners, different religions, and different languages. They have a mutual jealousy of each other, fomented by considerations of interest, power, and ascendency. Religious zeal too, like a smothered fire, is secretly burning in the hearts of the different sectaries that inhabit them, and were it not restrained by laws and superior authority, would soon burst out into a flame of universal persecution. Even the peaceable Quakers struggle hard for preëminence, and evince in a very striking manner that the passions of mankind are much stronger than any principles of religion.

The colonies therefore separately considered, are internally weak but it may be supposed that by an union or coalition they would become strong and formidable: but an union seems almost impossible: one founded in dominion or power is morally so: for, were not England to interfere, the colonies themselves so well understand the policy of preserving a balance that I think they would not be idle spectators, were any one of them to endeavor to subjugate its next neighbour. Indeed, it appears to me

a very doubtful point, even supposing all the colonies in America to be united under one head, whether it would be possible to keep in due order and government so wide and extended an empire; the difficulties of communication, of intercourse, of correspondence, and all other circumstances considered.

A voluntary association or coalition, at least a permanent one, is almost as difficult to be supposed; for fire and water are not more heterogeneous than the different colonies in North America. Nothing can exceed the jealousy and emulation which they possess in regard to each other. The inhabitants of Pennsylvania and New York have an inexhaustible source of animosity in their jealousy for the trade of the Jerseys. Massachusetts Bay and Rhode Island are not less interested in that of Connecticut. The West Indies are a common subject of emulation to them all. Even the limits and boundaries of each colony are a constant source of litigation. In short, such is the difference of character, of manners, of religion, of interest of the different colonies, that I think, if I am not wholly ignorant of the human mind, were they left to themselves, there would soon be a civil war from one end of the continent to the other; while the Indians and negroes would, with better reason, impatiently watch the opportunity of exterminating them all together.

After all, however, supposing what I firmly believe will never take place, a permanent union or alliance of all the colonies, yet it could not be effectual . . . for such is the extent of the coast settled by the American colonies, that it can never be defended but by a maritime power. America must first be mistress of the sea, before she can be independent or mistress of herself. Suppose the colonies ever so populous; suppose them capable of maintaining 100,000 men constantly in arms (a supposition in the highest degree extravagant), yet a half a dozen frigates would with ease ravage and lay waste the whole country from end to end, without a possibility of their being able to prevent it: the country is so intersected by rivers, rivers of such magnitude as to render it impossible to build bridges over them, that all communication is in a manner cut off. An army under such circumstances could never act to any purpose or effect: its operations would be totally frustrated.

24. Harvard College in the early days, 1642, 1680, 1741

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Further, a great part of the opulence and power of America depends upon her fisheries, and her commerce with the West Indies she cannot subsist without them; but these would be intirely at the mercy of that power, which might have the sovereignty of the seas. I conclude therefore that England, so long as she maintains her superiority in that respect, will also possess a superiority in America: but the moment she loses the empire of the one, she will be deprived of the sovereignty of the other for were that empire to be held by France, Holland, or any other power, America will, in all probability be annexed to it.

An anonymous writer, one of the members of the first Massachusetts settlement, gives the following quaint account of Harvard College in 1642, only six years after its foundation. The description formed one half of a tract called "New England's First Fruits," published in London in 1643.

After God had carried us safe to New-England, and wee had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our liveli-hood, rear'd convenient places for God's worship, and settled the civill government: One of the next things we longed for, and looked after was to advance Learning and perpetuate it to Posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate Ministry to the Churches, when our present Ministers shall lie in the Dust. And as wee were thinking and consulting how to effect this great work; it pleased God to stir up the heart of one Mr. Harvard (a godly Gentleman and a lover of Learning, there living amongst us) to give the one halfe of his Estate (it being in all about 1700 1.) towards the erecting of a Colledge, and all his Library after him another gave 300 1. Others after them cast in more, and the publique hand of the State added the rest: the Colledge was, by common consent, appointed to be at Cambridge (a place very pleasant and accommodate) and is called (according to the name of the first founder) Harvard Colledge.

:

The Edifice is very faire and comely within and without, having in it a spacious Hall; (where they daily meet at Common Lectures) Exercises [Commons, Lectures, and Exercises], and

a large Library with some Bookes to it, the gifts of divers of our friends, their Chambers and studies also, fitted for and possessed by the Students, and all other roomes of Office necessary and convenient, with all needfull Offices thereto belonging: And by the side of the Colledge a faire Grammar Schoole, for the training up of young Schollars, and fitting of them for Academicall Learning, that still as they are judged ripe, they may be received into the Colledge of this Schoole. . . .

Over the Colledge is master Dunster placed, as President [1640–1654], a learned, conscionable [conscientious] and industrious man, who hath so trained up his Pupills in the tongues and Arts, and so seasoned them with the principles of Divinity and Christianity, that we have to our great comforts (and in truth) beyond our hopes, beheld their progresse in Learning and godlinesse also. . . . The latter hath been manifested in sundry of them, by the savoury breathings of their spirits in their godly conversation. Insomuch that we are confident, if these early blossomes may be cherished and warmed with the influence of the friends of Learning, and lovers of this pious worke, they will by the help of God, come to happy maturity in a short time.

Over the Colledge are twelve Overseers chosen by the Generall Court, six of them are of the Magistrates, the other six of the Ministers. . . .

Rules and Precepts that are observed in the Colledge

1. When any Schollar is able to understand Tully [Cicero], or such like classicall Latine Auther extempore, and make and speak true Latine in Verse and Prose, suo ut aiunt Marte [without help from others]; and decline perfectly the Paradigmes of Nounes and Verbes in the Greek tongue: Let him then and not before be capable of admission into the Colledge.

2. Let every Student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the maine end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life, Joh. 17. 3. and therefore to lay Christ in the bottome, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and Learning.

5. That they studiously redeeme the time; observe the generall houres appointed for all the Students, and the speciall houres for their owne Classis: and then diligently attend the Lectures,

without any disturbance by word or gesture. And if in anything they doubt, they shall enquire, as of their fellowes, so, (in case of Non satisfaction) modestly of their Tutors.

6. None shall under any pretence whatsoever, frequent the company and society of such men as lead an unfit, and dissolute life. Nor shall any without his Tutors leave, or (in his absence) the call of Parents or Guardians, goe abroad to other Townes. 8. If any Schollar shall be found to transgresse any of the Lawes of God, or the Schoole, after twice Admonition, he shall be lyable, if not adultus, to correction, if adultus, his name shall be given up to the Overseers of the Colledge, that he may bee admonished at the publick monthly Act.

The College seems to have declined somewhat in its first half century from the lofty ideals of its founders, if we may accept as an authentic picture of college life the short description found in the journal of Jasper Danckaerts, a Dutch visitor to Cambridge, in the year 1680.

9th [of July 1680] Tuesday. We started out to go to Cambridge, lying to the north east of Boston, in order to see their college and printing office. We left about six o'clock in the morning, and were set across the river at Charlestown.... We reached Cambridge about eight o'clock. It is not a large village, and the houses stand very much apart. The college building is the most conspicuous among them.1 We went to it, expecting to see something curious, as it is the only Colledge, or would-be academy of the Protestants in all America, but we found ourselves mistaken. In approaching the house we neither heard nor

1 This was New College, finished in 1682 after much delay owing to the "Indian warre" (of King Philip). The original Harvard Hall, the "Edifice very faire and comely within and without," had begun to show signs of dilapidation very early. In 1647 President Dunster wrote to the Commissioners of New England: "from the first evil contrivall of the Colledge building there now ensues yearly decayes of the rooff, walls and foundations, which the study rents [tuition fees] will not carry forth to repair." The New College contained accommodations for forty students. It was burned to the ground in 1764.