[419] You are, I think, unjust to Great Britain and her “great power game.” She was not playing that game—or, so far as she was, she was acting against “France” to liberate the colonies from the French menace in the hinterland which alarmed them. Once liberated, they broke loose, somewhat selfishly, refusing to pay the piper, though they had enjoyed, and done much to call, the tune. Great Britain was indeed to blame, not on the “great power” ground, but on the “sovereignty” ground, which made her stickle for the “sovereignty” of the British parliament over colonial legislature. It wasn’t diplomatists, it was lawyers in both countries, who precipitated the struggle of 1776.—E. B.
But see §§ 2 and 3.—H. G. W.
[420] See Channing’s History of the United States, vol. ii.
[421] John Smith’s Travels.
[422] There is some doubt about the name of Carolina. Channing, in his short history, says it was named in honour of Charles II. Bassett says it was named originally Carolana, in honour of Charles I, in 1629, and kept the name, under the new form of Carolina in honour of Charles II. Fiske, Old Virginia and Her Neighbors, vol. i. p. 265, speaks of Carolina, in 1629, as named “either in honour of Charles I or because the name had been given by Huguenots in 1562 in honour of Charles IX of France.” Another authority speaks of the name as used before, and now no doubt retained in honour of the English king; but, according to him, the name had not been used for the country (called, by the French, Florida), but for a fort in it, the arx Carolana. He adds that in 1629 the name Carolana is used, but Carolina appears afterwards, and becomes normal after 1662.—E. B.
[423] From the Spanish word Sabaña = “meadow.”—H. H. J.
[424] See for the fundamental differences of north and south, W. Wilson, The State, the historical sections at the beginning of the chapter on the United States Government.—E. B.
[425] An admirable account of negro slavery is to be found in Sir H. H. Johnston’s The Negro in the New World.
[426] I disbelieve in this “commercial selfishness” emphasized in the text. Modern American historians, such as Beer, themselves rebut the charge. On the whole, English commercial policy was fair. (1) If the colonists could only export certain “enumerated” commodities to England, the English market was the best, and they were given privileges there; while non-enumerated commodities could be exported anywhere, and even “enumerated” articles were in practice smuggled everywhere. (2) If the colonists had to import from England, it was their best market, and they got “drawbacks” on dutiable goods imported into England from the Continent when they took them out of England; while again in practice they freely smuggled goods from any country to America. (3) The English navigation laws, in the long run, encouraged American shipbuilding; and if some colonial manufactures were stopped in order that they might not compete with English manufactures, the amount of such restriction was slight. On all this, see Sir William Ashley, Surveys Historic and Economic, pp. 300 seqq.—E. B.
[427] See Tudor’s Life of James Otis.