The population of New England in 1700, by which time a second generation of Englishmen had arisen in America, is roughly estimated at about a hundred and five thousand souls, of whom seventy thousand were in Massachusetts and Maine, five thousand in New Hampshire, six thousand in Rhode Island, and twenty-five thousand in Connecticut. The people were almost wholly of pure English stock. Up to 1640, when the first great Puritan exodus ceased, full twenty thousand English Dissenters, mainly from the eastern counties of England, came to New England; thenceforth the population, says Palfrey, "continued to multiply on its own soil for a century and a half, in remarkable seclusion from other communities." During this time there was a small infusion of Normans from the Channel Islands, Welsh, Scotch-Irish (chiefly in 1652 and 1719), and Huguenots (1685). It is computed that at the opening of the Revolutionary War ninety-eight per cent of New England people were English or unmixed descendants of Englishmen. Nowhere else in the American colonies was there so homogeneous a population, or one of such uniformly high quality. As said Stoughton, lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts (1692-1701): "God sifted a whole nation, that he might send choice grain over into this wilderness."
76. Social Classes and Professions.
Classes.
Social distinctions were almost as sharply drawn in New England as in the South. There was a powerful and much-respected aristocratic class, beginning with the village "squire" and ending with the Crown officials in the capital towns. "The foundations of rank," says Lodge, "were birth, ancestral or individual service to the State, ability, education, and to some extent wealth." The recognized classes were, in order of precedence, gentlemen, yeomen, merchants, and mechanics; and at church the people were punctiliously seated according to station. Down to 1772 the students in Harvard College were carefully arranged in the catalogue in the order of their social rank, the Hutchinsons, Saltonstalls, Winthrops, and Quincys near the head. There was also a distinction between new-comers and old-comers, the "old family" class laying some pretensions to social superiority. The aristocrats were not men of leisure,—everybody in New England worked; but the public offices and the professions were reserved for gentlemen. Now and then some of them conducted large estates, although aristocracy was not, as in England, supported on landed possessions and primogeniture. The force of public opinion alone separated the classes; with the growth of the democratic idea, social barriers ultimately weakened, although they continued to appear in the politics of the commonwealth down to the middle of the present century.
Slavery.
Slaves were comparatively few in number, the greater part of them being house and body servants, and they were not harshly treated; travellers have left record of the fact that some of the humbler farmers ate at table with their human chattels. The race was, however, generally despised, and in one of the old churches in Boston is still to be seen the lofty "slaves' gallery." Judge Samuel Sewall issued the first public denunciation of slavery in Massachusetts, in a pamphlet issued in 1700, wherein he denounced "the wicked practice." For many years this distinguished jurist and diarist followed up his assaults, allowing no opportunity to escape wherein he might espouse the cause of the oppressed "blackamores" and mitigate the severity of the laws against them. But the colonists in general saw nothing in the system to shock their moral sense, and it was not until the Revolution that anti-slavery ideas began, in New England, to spread beyond a narrow circle of humanitarians.
The legal profession.
There was a full system of courts, ranging from the colonial judges down to the justices of the peace and "commissioners of small causes," appointed by colonial authority in each town. The magistrates were uniformly men of good character, of the upper, well-educated class, and rendered substantial justice, although not specially trained in the law. The legal profession was practically neglected throughout the seventeenth century, doubtless owing in great part to lack of facilities for study and to the overtowering importance of the ministry; we do not read of a professional barrister in Massachusetts until 1688. There was, however, no lack of litigation; personal disputes were rife in Rhode Island, and in Connecticut there were frequent legal contests between towns regarding lands. Between the colonies, also, there were complicated and hotly-contested boundary disputes. The bar gained strength, but it was not till about the middle of the eighteenth century that it stood beside the ministry.
The ministry.
We have had frequent evidences, in preceding chapters, of the large influence of the clergy in the temporal affairs of New England. The ranks of the Puritan ministry contained men of the best ability and station; they were pre-eminently the strongest class, and as the popular leaders, deeply impressed their character upon the laws and institutions of the community. They were held in great affection and reverence; but in a body of sturdy, intelligent parishioners they could maintain their supremacy only by the exercise of superior mental gifts: their calling was one offering rich rewards for excellence, and attracted to it men of the finest calibre, like the Mathers and Hooker. The sloth or the dullard was soon taught by his people that he had mistaken his calling. Jonathan Edwards, although of a later period than that of which we are treating, was a fair type, and his early resolution "to live with all my might while I do live," was an expression of the spirit which dominated his order.