“From the period of the Peace of Utrecht, Spain became intimately connected in her commercial relations with the destinies of the British American colonies. Like France, she was henceforth their enemy, while they, as dependencies of Great Britain, tended to strengthen the power of that kingdom; but from the same motives of policy, like France, she favoured their independence.”[[31]]
The territory ceded to the English in the Bay of Fundy was now erected into a new province; the old name of Nova Scotia being restored, and which it has ever since retained. Louisiana, of which, however, no boundaries were decided, remained in the possession of the French, and they, under that name, comprehended a vast territory comprising the whole basin of the Mississippi.
In 1710, the post-office system was extended by England to America. “A chief office,” we are told by Hildreth, “was established at New York, to which letters were to be conveyed by regular packets across the Atlantic. The same act regulated the rates of postage in the plantations. A line of posts was presently established, north to the Piscataqua, and South to Philadelphia, irregularly extended, a few years afterwards, to Williamsburg in Virginia; the post leaving Philadelphia for the south as often as letters enough were lodged to pay the expense. The postal communication subsequently established with the Carolinas was still more irregular.”
In 1718, William Penn died in England, leaving his interests in Pennsylvania and Delaware to his sons, John, Thomas and Richard Penn, who continued to administer the government by deputies until the time of the Revolution, when the American Republic purchased their claims for about £100,000.
At the time of the accession of the House of Hanover to the British throne, the population of the English colonies is stated to have been as under, though this statement is considered somewhat below the truth:—
| Whites. | Negroes. | Total. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Hampshire | 9,500 | 150 | 9,650 |
| Massachusetts | 94,000 | 2,000 | 96,000 |
| Rhode Islands | 8,500 | 500 | 9,000 |
| Connecticut | 46,000 | 1,500 | 47,500 |
| New York | 27,000 | 4,000 | 31,000 |
| New Jersey | 21,000 | 1,500 | 22,500 |
| Pennsylvania and Delaware | 43,300 | 2,500 | 45,800 |
| Maryland | 40,700 | 9,500 | 50,200 |
| Virginia | 72,000 | 23,000 | 95,000 |
| North Carolina | 7,500 | 3,700 | 11,200 |
| South Carolina | 6,250 | 10,500 | 16,750 |
| 375,750 | 58,850 | 434,600 | |
The American seas were again, at the close of the war, infested with pirates, the head-quarters of whom were the Bahama Isles and the unfrequented creeks of the coast of the Carolinas. In 1717, a celebrated pirate named Bellamy was wrecked on Cape Cod, where he perished with about 100 of his men, the five or six who escaped the sea being hung at Boston. Another, Theach, or Blackbeard as he was called, lurked in Pamlico Bay, and was supposed to be favoured by Cornbury and other governors of South Carolina; he, however, was taken by two Virginian vessels sent out by Spotswood from the Chesapeake in pursuit of him. A force from England took possession of Providence, the chief harbour of the Bahamas, fortified the place, and established a regular colony there, which was the first permanent occupation of this desolate group. A desperate body of pirates, headed by Steed Bonnet, harboured about Cape Fear. After an expense of about £10,000 he was taken, and with forty of his men hung at Charleston; and in 1723, twenty-six others, natives of Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York and Virginia, were executed for the same crime at Newport. These summary measures cleared the American seas of pirates.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE ACCESSION OF THE HOUSE OF HANOVER—LAW’S GREAT BUBBLE—LOUISIANA ESTABLISHED—GROWTH OF LIBERTY IN THE STATES.
The accession of the House of Hanover to the British throne was hailed throughout the British American colonies as a Whig and protestant triumph, especially welcome to the northern states.
We have already spoken of the financial difficulties into which the late wars had in every case brought the states engaged in them—French as well as English—and which gave rise to the emission of a vast amount of paper money, in every case only increasing the difficulty; while in some, as in that of Louisiana, the most disastrous results were the consequence.