mined hatred of oppression thus characterized the people from the beginning. Whatever emigrants came out solely in quest of wealth were soon disabused of their error, and either returned to the Old World, or learned to labor and to endure in their new home. Property was very evenly distributed, and there were no marked inequalities of rank or social position. Protected by their feebleness and insignificance in the outset, and by their distance from the mother country, the colonists were, in the main, allowed to enact their own laws, and manage their own affairs. Without any marked purpose of deviating from the policy, or shaking off the yoke, of England, they were, from the commencement, semi-republican and semi-independent. Disciplined by privation, exile, and peril, thrown on their own resources, governing themselves, their situation developed in them the elements of a thoughtful, vigorous, and resolute character. After they had overcome the first difficulties and obstructions in the way of founding a new home in the wilderness, their habits of endurance, industry, and frugality soon gave prosperity to their undertakings. Agriculture and commerce flourished, and they increased rapidly in population and wealth. They were no longer the feeble dependencies of a remote power; they could boast that they had laid the foundations of a great empire.
CONTEST OF THE ENGLISH WITH THE FRENCH FOR THE POSSESSION OF
NORTH AMERICA.
The English revolution, which placed William III on the throne, while it freed the colonies from the oppressions they endured during the reign of his predecessor, involved them in the calamities of the war between France and England, which lasted from 1690 to the peace of Ryswick in 1697. The French in Canada directed an expedition against the English colonies, instigating the Indians to join them in their hostilities. In return, an armament was fitted out by Massachusetts for the invasion of the French settlements. Port Royal in Nova Scotia was taken. A second expedition was undertaken by the colonies of New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, for the reduction of Montreal and Quebec. It failed in its object, and had the effect of producing dissatisfaction among the Indian tribes in New York, who were the allies of the English. This war, commonly called King William's war, was marked by the most savage atrocities on the part of the French and Indians.
Scarcely had the colonies begun to recover from this war, when in 1702 they were plunged into another with the French, Indians, and Spaniards, commonly called Queen Anne's war, arising from disputes about the boundaries, which had been left unsettled at the peace of Ryswick. The colonies of Massachusetts and New Hampshire were the chief sufferers, being most exposed to the devastating and murderous incursions of the French and Indians from Canada. Several expeditions were sent into Canada; but the only success that attended the English arms was the taking again of Port Royal, which had been restored to the French at the close of the former war. It was now named Annapolis. The peace of Utrecht, in 1713, put an end to the war in the northern colonies; but South Carolina continued to be annoyed for some time by the Indians. By the treaty of Utrecht, France ceded Newfoundland and Nova Scotia to England.
In 1744, England again declared war against France and Spain, which
