As regards the spirit of bigotry and intolerance which we have had such frequent occasion to deplore in the history of New England, a great change had now taken place. Although much puritanical strictness and formality still pervaded New England manners, yet religious zeal had become so tempered with charity, that explosions of frenzy and folly like those of the early Quakers were no longer treated as offences against religion, but as violations of public decency and order, justice being tempered with prudence and mercy, and with a noble justice, also, we may add; for during the administration of Governor Belcher, the Assembly of Massachusetts passed laws making pecuniary compensation to the descendants of those Quakers who had suffered capital punishment in the years 1658 and 1659, and also to the descendants of such as had been the victims of the persecutions for witchcraft in 1693. In 1729, the legislature of Connecticut exempted Quakers and Baptists from ecclesiastical taxes; and two years later a similar law was enacted by the Assembly of Massachusetts.
Notwithstanding the exceeding strictness of the puritanic laws of New England, we are told by numerous writers that the manners of the people were distinguished by innocent hilarity and true politeness. Lord Baltimore, it is said, was agreeably surprised by the graceful and courteous behaviour of the gentlemen and clergy of Connecticut, and confessed that he found the aspect and address which he thought peculiar to nobility in a land where aristocratic distinction was unknown. “The inhabitants of Massachusetts,” says a writer of the time, “were distinguished in a high degree by their cheerful vivacity, their hospitality, and a courtesy the more estimable that it was indicative of true benevolence.” “Men devoted to the service of God,” says another author, “like the first generation of the inhabitants of New England, carried throughout their lives an elevated strain of sentiment and purpose which must have communicated some of its grace and dignity to their manners.”
Of the state of manners and morals in Maryland, Virginia, and the southern colonies, so gratifying an account cannot be given. While the upper classes of the southern people were distinguished for a luxurious and expensive hospitality, they were too generally addicted to card-playing, gambling, and intemperance, while hunting and cockfighting were favourite amusements of all classes. The hospitality of Virginia was, however, a beautiful feature of its life. “The early Virginian colonists,” says the author whom we have quoted above, “remote from crowded haunts, unoccupied by a variety of objects and purposes, and sequestered from the intelligence of passing events, found the company of strangers peculiarly agreeable. All the other circumstances of his lot contributed to the promotion of hospitality.”
The celebrated Jefferson related that, in his father’s time, it was no uncommon thing for gentlemen to post their servants on the main road, for the purpose of amicably waylaying and bringing to their houses any travellers who might chance to pass. Similar bounty is said to have prevailed among the Quakers of Pennsylvania, “where unlimited hospitality formed a part of their regular economy.”
“But whatever diversities of manners, morals, and general condition,” says Willson, “might have been found in the several colonies in the early period of their history, yet a gradual assimilation of character, and a gradual advance in wealth, population, and the means of happiness, were observable among all as we approach the period of the Revolution. It cannot be denied, however, that New England colonial character and New England colonial history furnish on the whole the most agreeable reminiscences. As we approach this period, we behold a country of moderate fertility, occupied by an industrious, hardy, cheerful, virtuous, and intelligent population; a country where moderate labour earned a liberal reward; where prosperity was connected with freedom; where a general simplicity of manners and equality of condition prevailed, and where the future invited with promises of an enlarging expanse of human happiness and virtue.”
Having given this picture of life and manners prevalent in the North American colonies at the period of the Revolution, we must of necessity return to the course of our history, which takes us back about a quarter of a century. At this time, that is from 1720 to 1730, the value of exports from the mother-country to the colonies is stated by Hildreth to have amounted to an annual average of £471,299.
END OF VOL. I.
[1]. Bancroft.
[2]. Bancroft.