In selecting the materials for the succeeding volumes, it was deemed proper to present to the public as much as possible of general Washington himself. Prominent as he must be in any history of the American war, there appeared to be a peculiar fitness in rendering him still more so in one which professes to give a particular account of his own life. His private opinions therefore; his various plans, even those which were never carried into execution; his individual exertions to prevent and correct the multiplied errors committed by inexperience, are given in more minute detail; and more copious extracts from his letters are taken, than would comport with the plan of a more general work.
Many events too are unnoticed, which in such a composition would be worthy of being introduced, and much useful information has not been sought for, which a professed history of America ought to comprise. Yet the history of general Washington, during his military command and civil administration, is so much that of his country, that the work appeared to the author to be most sensibly incomplete and unsatisfactory, while unaccompanied by such a narrative of the principal events preceding our revolutionary war, as would make the reader acquainted with the genius, character, and resources of the people about to engage in that memorable contest. This appeared the more necessary as that period of our history is but little known to ourselves. Several writers have detailed very minutely the affairs of a particular colony, but the desideratum is a composition which shall present in one connected view, the transactions of all those colonies which now form the United States.
CONTENTS
[CHAPTER I.]
Commission of Cabot.... His voyage to America.... Views of discovery relinquished by Henry VII.... Resumed by Elizabeth.... Letters patent to Sir Humphry Gilbert.... His voyages and death.... Patent to Sir Walter Raleigh.... Voyage of Sir Richard Grenville.... Colonists carried back to England by Drake.... Grenville arrives with other colonists.... They are left on Roanoke Island.... Are destroyed by the Indians.... Arrival of John White.... He returns to England for succour.... Raleigh assigns his patent.... Patent to Sir Thomas Gates and others.... Code of laws for the proposed colony drawn up by the King.
[CHAPTER II.]
Voyage of Newport.... Settlement at Jamestown.... Distress of colonists.... Smith.... He is captured by the Indians.... Condemned to death, saved by Pocahontas.... Returns to Jamestown.... Newport arrives with fresh settlers.... Smith explores the Chesapeake.... Is chosen president.... New charter.... Third voyage of Newport.... Smith sails for Europe.... Condition of the colony.... Colonists determine to abandon the country.... Are stopped by Lord Delaware.... Sir Thomas Dale.... New charter.... Capt. Argal seizes Pocahontas.... She marries Mr. Rolf.... Separate property in lands and labour.... Expedition against Port Royal.... Against Manhadoes.... Fifty acres of land for each settler.... Tobacco.... Sir Thomas Dale.... Mr. Yeardley.... First assembly.... First arrival of females.... Of convicts.... Of African slaves.... Two councils established.... Prosperity of the colony.... Indians attempt to massacre the whites.... General war.... Dissolution of the company.... Arbitrary measures of the crown.... Sir John Harvey.... Sir William Berkeley.... Provincial assembly restored.... Virginia declares in favour of Charles II.... Grant to Lord Baltimore.... Arrival of a colony in Maryland.... Assembly composed of freemen.... William Claybourne.... Assembly composed of representatives.... Divided into two branches.... Tyrannical proceedings.
[CHAPTER III.]
First ineffectual attempts of the Plymouth company to settle the country.... Settlement at New Plymouth.... Sir Henry Rosewell and company.... New charter.... Settlements prosecuted vigorously.... Government transferred to the colonists.... Boston founded.... Religious intolerance.... General court established.... Royal commission for the government of the plantations.... Contest with the French colony of Acadié.... Hugh Peters.... Henry Vane.... Mrs. Hutchison.... Maine granted to Gorges.... Quo warranto against the patent of the colony.... Religious dissensions.... Providence settled.... Rhode Island settled.... Connecticut settled.... War with the Pequods.... New Haven settled.