King William.
Queen Mary.
The learned professions also were best patronized and had the ablest
personnel in New England, where all three, but particularly the clergy,
were strong and honored. Outside of New England, till 1750, lawyers and
physicians, especially in the country parts, were poorly educated and
little respected. Each formidable disease had the people at its mercy.
Diphtheria, then known as the throat disease, swept through the land
once in about thirty years. Smallpox was another frequent scourge. In
1721 it attacked nearly six thousand persons in Boston, about half the
population, killing some nine hundred. The clergy, almost to a man,
decried vaccination when first vented, proclaiming it an effort to
thwart God's will. Clergymen, except perhaps in Carolina and Virginia,
were somewhat better educated, yet those in New England led all others
in this respect.
Colonial America boasted many great intellectual lights. President
Edwards won European reputation as a thinker, and so did Franklin as a
statesman and as a scientist. Linnaeus named our Bartram, a Quaker
farmer of Pennsylvania, the greatest natural botanist then living.
Increase Mather read and wrote both Greek and Hebrew, and spoke Latin.
He and his son Cotton were veritable wonders in literary attainment. The
one was the author of ninety-two books, the other of three hundred and
eighty-three. The younger Winthrop was a member of the Royal Society.
Copley, Stuart, and West became distinguished painters.
Except for mails, there were in the colonies no public conveyances by
land till just before the Revolution. After stage lines were introduced,
to go from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh required seven days; from
Philadelphia to New York, at first three, later two. The earliest coach
to attain the last-named speed was advertised as "the flying machine,"
From Boston one would be four days travelling to New York, two to
Portsmouth. Packet-boats between the main points on the coast were as
regular and speedy as wind allowed. Stage-drivers, inn-keepers, and
ship-captains were the honored and accredited purveyors of news.
Everywhere was great prosperity, little luxury. Paucity of money gave
rise to that habit of barter and dicker in trade which was a mannerism
of our fathers. Agriculture formed the basal industry, especially in the
Southern colonies; yet in New England and Pennsylvania both manufactures
and commerce thrived. Pennsylvania's yearly foreign commerce exceeded
1,000,000 pounds sterling, requiring 500 vessels and more than 7,000
seamen. From Pennsylvania, in 1750, 3,000 tons of pig-iron were
exported. The annual production of iron in Maryland just before the
Revolution reached 25,000 tons of pig, 500 of bar. The business of
marine insurance began in this country at Philadelphia in 1721, fire
insurance at Boston in 1724. New England produced timber, ships, rum,
paper, hats, leather, and linen and woollen cloths, the first three for
export.
In country places houses were poor save on the great estates, south, but
in the cities there were many fine mansions before 1700. From this year
stoves began to be used. Glass windows and paper hangings were first
seen not far from 1750.
The colonists ate much flesh, and nearly all used tobacco and liquor
freely. Finest ladies snuffed, sometimes smoked. Little coffee was
drunk, and no tea till about 1700. Urban life was social and gay. In the
country the games of fox and geese, three and twelve men morris, husking
bees and quilting bees were the chief sports. Tableware was mostly of
wood, though many had pewter, and the rich much silver. The people's
ordinary dress was of homemade cloth, but not a few country people still
wore deerskin. The clothing of the rich was imported, and often gaudy
with tasteless ornament. Wigs were common in the eighteenth century, and
all head-dress stupidly elaborate.
William Lang, of Boston, advertises in 1767 to provide all who wish with
wigs "in the most genteel and polite taste," assuring judges, divines,
lawyers, and physicians, "because of the importance of their heads, that
he can assort his wigs to suit their respective occupations and
inclinations." He tells the ladies that he can furnish anyone of them
with "a nice, easy, genteel, and polite construction of rolls, such as
may tend to raise their heads to any pitch they desire."
"Everybody wore wigs in 1750, except convicts and slaves. Boys wore
them, servants wore them, Quakers wore them, paupers wore them. The
making of wigs was an important branch of industry in Great Britain.
Wigs were of many styles and prices. Some dangled with curls; and they
were designated by a great variety of names, such as tyes, bobs, majors,
spencers, foxtails, twists, tetes, scratches, full-bottomed dress bobs,
cues, and perukes. The people of Philadelphia dressed as the actors of
our theatres now dress in old English comedy. They walked the streets in
bright-colored and highly decorated coats, three-cornered hats, ruffled
shirts and wristbands, knee-breeches, silk stockings, low shoes, and
silver buckles." [footnote: Mrs. M. J. Lamb, in Magazine of Am. History,
August. 1888.] Lord Stirling, one of Washington's generals, had a
clothing inventory like a king: a "pompidou" cloth coat and vest,
breeches with gold lace, a crimson and figured velvet coat, seven
scarlet vests, et cetera, et cetera.
The wigs encountered the zealous hostility of many, among these Judge
Samuel Sewall. His highest eulogy on a departed worthy was: "The welfare
of the poor was much upon his spirit, and he abominated periwigs." A
member of the church at Newbury, Mass., refused to attend communion
because the pastor wore a wig, believing that all who were guilty of
this practice would be damned if they did not repent. A meeting of
Massachusetts Quakers solemnly expressed the conviction that the wearing
of extravagant and superfluous wigs was wholly contrary to the truth.
Chief Justice Sewall.
There was an aristocracy, of its kind, in all the colonies, but it was
far the strongest in the South. Social lines were sharply drawn, an
"Esquire" not liking to be accosted as "Mr.," and each looking down
somewhat upon a simple "Goodman." These gradations stood forth in
college catalogues and in the location of pews in churches. The Yale
triennial catalogue until 1767 and the Harvard triennial till 1772
arrange students' names not alphabetically or according to attainments,
but so as to indicate the social rank of their families. Memoranda of
President Clap, of Yale, against the names of youth when admitted to
college, such as "Justice of the Peace," "Deacon," "of middling estate
much impoverished," reveal how hard it sometimes was properly to grade
students socially. At the South, regular mechanics, like all free
laborers, were few and despised. The indentured servants, very numerous
in several colonies, differed little from slaves. David Jamieson,
attorney-general of New York in 1710, had been banished from Scotland as
a Covenanter and sold in New Jersey as a four years' redemptioner to pay
transportation expanses. Such servants were continually running away,
which may have aided in abolishing the system. Paupers and criminals
were fewest in New England. All the colonies imprisoned insolvent
criminals, though dirt and damp made each prison a hell. All felonies
were awarded capital punishment, and many minor crimes incurred
barbarous penalties. Whipping-post, pillory, and stocks were in frequent
use. So late as 1760 women were publicly whipped. At Hartford, in 1761,
David Campbell and Alexander Pettigrew, for the burglary of two watches,
received each fifteen stripes, the loss of the right ear, and the
brand-mark "B" on the forehead. Pettigrew came near losing his life from
the profuse bleeding which ensued. A husband killing his wife was
hanged. A wife killing her husband was burned, as were slaves who slew
their masters.
The Pillory.
In care for the unfortunate and in the study and in all applications of
social science, Philadelphia led. The Pennsylvania Hospital, the first
institution of the kind in America, was founded in 1751. The
Philadelphia streets were the first to be lighted; those of New York
next; those of Boston not till 1773. Before the end of the period now
before us Philadelphia and New York also had night patrols.
Signature of Jolliet (old spelling).
CHAPTER VIII.
ENGLAND AND FRANCE IN AMERICA