fate of the parent country, [ *18 ]*both in peace and war, without having assigned to them, in the intercourse or diplomacy of nations, any distinct or independent existence. They did not possess the power of forming any league or treaty among themselves, which would acquire an obligatory force, without the assent of the parent State. And though their mutual wants and necessities often induced them to associate for common purposes of defense, these confederacies were of a casual and temporary nature, and were allowed as an indulgence, rather than as a right. They made several efforts to procure the establishment of some general superintending government over them all; but their own difference of opinion, as well as the jealousy of the crown, made these efforts abortive."
The English language affords no terms stronger than those which are here used to convey the idea of separateness, distinctness, and independence, among the colonies. No commentary could make the description plainer, or more full and complete. The unity, contended for by the author, nowhere appears, but is distinctly disaffirmed in every sentence. The colonies were not only distinct in their creation, and in the powers and faculties of their governments, but there was not even "an alliance or confederacy between them." They had "no general superintending government over them all," and tried in vain to establish one. Each was "independent of all the others," having its own legislature, and without power to confer either right or privilege beyond its own territory. "Each, in a limited sense, was sovereign within its own territory;" and to sum up all, in a single sentence, "they had no direct political connexion with each other!" The condition of the colonies was, indeed, anomalous, if our author's view of it be correct. They presented the singular spectacle of "one people," or political corporation, the members of which had "no direct political connexion with each other," and who had not the power to form such connexion, even "by league or treaty among themselves."
This brief review will, it is believed, be sufficient to convince the reader that our author has greatly mistaken the real condition and relation of the colonies, in supposing that they formed "one people," in any sense, or for any purpose whatever. He is entitled to credit, however, for the candor with
