improvement and reform of their judicial establishments, and the ardent cultivation of the science of Jurisprudence.

In order, however, fully to understand the institutions of the United States, it will be necessary to advert to the dates and history of the colonization of each of them. Their laws and legislation are intimately connected with their origin.

It is barely three centuries since the New World was unknown to the Old. It is not two hundred years since the principal states of North America were a wilderness and endless forest, where the coloured Indian savage dwelt in common habitation with the wild animals of the land. Persecution of religious opinions, and various other causes of emigration, first induced small bodies of our British ancestors to leave their native land and seek for freedom and competency on the shores of the Atlantic: forlorn were the prospects of all, and sad the fate of many of these early settlers; but they carried with them honesty and fortitude, and the motto on their arms was the sentiment of the ancient Greeks

Περὶ παντὸς τὴν ελευθερίαν

Virginia, so named in honour of Queen Elizabeth, was visited by Raleigh in 1584, and in 1607 the first colony was established at James-town.

New England and Massachusetts were colonised about the same period. The intolerance of James I. had driven a small society of his English Protestant subjects to Leyden in Holland, where they formed themselves into a sect of Independents, under the care of a pious and exemplary pastor, the Rev. John Robinson. After residing some years in that city, enjoying the respect of the magistrates and citizens, various considerations induced Mr. Robinson and his infant congregation to leave Europe and emigrate to North America. In 1618 they applied to the London or South Virginia Company, for a grant of land: in their written application they stated, "That they were well weaned from the delicate milk of the mother country, and inured to the difficulties of a strange land; that they were knit together by a strict and sacred bond, by virtue of which they held themselves bound to take care of the good of each other, and of the whole; that it was not with them as with other men, whom small things could discourage, or small discontents cause to wish themselves home again." This pious little clan obtained a grant, and in September, 1620, sailed for Hudson's river, and formed the settlement of New Plymouth.

"Before leaving the ship, the heads of families and freemen, forty-one in number, signed a solemn covenant, combining themselves into a body politic for the purpose of making equal laws for the general good. They ordained that a governor and assistants should be annually chosen, but the sovereign power remained in the whole body of freemen."-Hale, p. 35.

In 1630, the city of Boston, and several adjacent towns, were founded by considerable bodies of English emigrants. It was to this struggling colony that Lady Arabella Johnson came as a ministering angel, and, in the words of an early historian of the country," from a paradise of plenty and pleasure, in the family of a noble earl, into a wilderness of wants." In 1635, Massachusetts received from England some characters of subsequent political celebrity, among whom were Hugh Peters, Sir Henry Vane, then Mr. Vane, and the celebrated Mrs. Hutchinson; and it is well known that Hambden, Haselrig, and Cromwell, were on the point of embarkation for the same distant land, and were only prevented by acts of arbitrary royal power-the exercise of which kept at home persons who ultimately subverted royalty itself!

New Hampshire was colonised about the same period; and Connecticut also by a grant from the Plymouth Company to the celebrated Viscount Say and Sele and Lord Brook, in honour of whom the fort and town of Saybrook was founded. A large body of the colonists of the latter state, utterly destitute of laws and institutions, subscribed what they termed "a plantation covenant "-solemnly binding themselves, until otherwise ordered, "to be governed in all things, of a civil as well as religious concern, by the rules which the Scriptures held forth to them;" and, in 1639, all the free planters assembled in a barn to debate the foundation of their civil and religious polity!

In 1636, Rhode Island was granted to a new party of settlers. In 1647, delegates, chosen by the freemen, held a general assembly at Portsmouth, organised a government, and established a code of laws.

The state of New York was first visited, in 1609, by Henry Hudson, an Englishman, who discovered Long Island, and the river to which his name was given. The Dutch, the French, and the Swedes formed settlements in various parts of that state, and their contentions are the subject of its early history. In 1682, the first legislative assembly met, consisting of the council and eighteen representatives. By the declaration of the governor, they were invested with the sole power of enacting laws and levying taxes; but the laws could have no force until ratified by the Duke of York, who had received from his brother, Charles II, a grant of all the territory between Nova Scotia and Delaware Bay-a tolerable aristocratical and extensive domain, had his Grace and descendants been able to keep it in the family.

In 1624, and a few years afterwards, New Jersey was settled by the Danes, Swedes, Finns, and English. The Duke of York, probably the largest landed proprietor in the world, also obtained a grant of this state; and, in 1664, conveyed the tract, called

New Jersey, lying between Hudson and Delaware rivers, to Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret. Lord Berkeley disposed of his property, rights, and privileges in the western territory to Edward Billinge; and the latter, being involved in debt, placed it in trust with William Penn, Lowrie, and Lucas, to be sold for the benefit of his creditors! In 1678, Sir Edmund Andross was sent from England as the sole governor of all the possessions of the Duke of York in America, and began to enforce an arbitrary system of fiscal extortion. The colonists represented to Charles II their claim to the privileges of freemen; that the Duke had transferred his territorial rights and property to Berkeley and Carteret, and they to the then proprietary. One sentence in their remonstrance received a memorable and justly merited practical exemplification in the subsequent abdication of the throne by James II; "Such conduct has destroyed governments, but never raised one to any true greatness." A royal commission adjudged the duties thus imposed illegal and oppressive, and they were not afterwards demanded. In 1682, East Jersey also passed from Carteret to William Penn, and an association of twenty-three quakers: they appointed Robert Barclay, the author of the "Apology for the Quakers," governor of it for life: the colony flourished-persuasion proved a cheaper and a better principle of government than coercion.

In 1627 and 1651, the Swedes and Dutch colonized the state of Delaware. 1n 1664, the settlements were conquered by the English. William Penn purchased a considerable part from the Duke of York in 1682. In 1703, the inhabitants, dissatisfied with Penn's charter, formed a representative and more popular govern

ment.

Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn (son of Admiral Sir William Penn), a man of most remarkable though eccentric character. In his youth he joined the Quakers, and while superintending the settlement of New Jersey, became acquainted with the extensive and fertile track lying between the territories of the Duke of York and Lord Baltimore. At Penn's solicitation, and in recompense for the unrequited public services of his father, the King granted him the fee simple of this state, and called it Pennsylvania. We have now lying before us a copy of the original London advertisement, and the quarto tract, in which Penn described the country, and enumerated the advantages which it offered to emigrants. (a) Penn presents a good abstract of his legal title to the.

(a) A Brief Account of the Province of Pennsylvania lately granted by the King under the Great Seal of England to William Penn, and his

Heirs and Assigns. London. Printed by B. Clark, in George-yard, Lombard-street, 1682. 4to.

property. First "the King's title to this country before he granted it." Then follows William Penn's title from the King, "An abstract of a grant of the aforesaid estate to Penn, dated 4th March, 1681. Also a declaration from the King to the inhabitants and planters of the province, to obey Penn as the lawful grantee and governor." The shrewd Quaker then sets forth the fertility and tempting produce of the country. He then treats of the government, which he states as follows:- "1st. The governour and freemen, have the power of making laws, so that no law can be made, nor money raised, but by the people's consent. 2dly. That the rights of the people of England are in force there. 3dly. That making no law against allegiance, they may make all laws requisite for the prosperity and security of the said province." This bold and singular adventurer, and pacific law-giver, then specifies the "Conditions" of settling: the freehold was sold at the rate of twenty pounds for every thousand acres ; leaseholds paid an annual rent of one penny per acre; and before the emigrants embarked, they and the great parent proprietor mutually agreed upon and subscribed "Conditions and Concessions." No stamp acts incumbered and restricted this division of lands, and no cumbrous verbiage of law craft filled skins of parchment to cover the We have thus detailed these interesting facts as the most singular history extant of the founding of a great nation and the origin of its laws.

acres.

In the autumn of 1681, three cargoes of settlers sailed for Pennsylvania. The treaty and arbitration of its wise and philanthropic proprietor with the Indian tribes is too well known to require any detail. In April, 1682, Penn published A Frame of Government, as he expresses it, "to support power in reverence with the people, and to secure the people from the abuse of power." He published also a Body of Laws, which had been examined and approved by the emigrants in England, and which an eminent historian eulogizes as doing "great honour to their wisdom as statesmen, to their morals as men, and to their spirit as colonists." In August of that year, Penn set sail for his principality, accompa nied by about two thousand emigrants. In his contract with the Indians he purchased a small tract of land, where he selected the scite, and planned the town of Philadelphia, or the city of love, which is proudly advertised as containing before the end of that year eighty houses and cottages! In the new city, a second assembly was held in March, 1683. The delegates and freemen solicited and obtained from Penn a second charter, which diminished the number of the council and assembly, and in several important particulars differed from the first. Many of the clauses and regulations show the eccentricity but philanthropy of Penn, who was really a friend to his infant settlement. It was ordained

"That, to prevent lawsuits, three arbitrators, to be called peacemakers, should be chosen by the country courts, to hear and determine small differences between man and man: that children should be taught some useful trade, to the end that none might be idle, that the poor might work to live, and the rich, if they should become poor: that factors, wronging their employers, should make satisfaction, and one-third over, &c.: that no one, acknowledging one God, and living peaceably in society, should be molested for his opinion or his practice, or compelled to frequent or maintain any ministry whatever." The following year Penn returned to England, but in consequence of some discontents, again visited the state in 1699. In 1701, he prepared and presented a new charter to the assembly, which was accepted: it more minutely defined the powers and rights of the governors and governed. It gave to the assembly the right of originating bills, which by the previous charter was the prerogative of the Governor alone, and of acceding to or rejecting those which might be laid before them. To the Governor it committed the right of rejecting bills passed by the assembly, of appointing his own council, and of exercising the whole executive power. Much of all this new and changing legislation was certainly experimental, but it was not dangerous, and the eastern hemisphere perhaps is little aware with how much less government a country can do than is generally supposed, and that nations if left to themselves, and the pursuit of their own interest, will quickly discover and adopt the best principles and forms of political government. In the early part of the revolutionary war, the Pennsylvanians adopted a new constitution, by which the proprietor and his family were excluded from all share in the government. He was offered, and finally accepted, 570,000 dollars, in discharge of all quit-rents due from the inhabitants. We must apologize for this long detail, but its connexion with the early and "natural history" of legislation must plead our justification of the recital.

Maryland owes its early settlement and colonization to the persecution of the Catholics in the reign of James I, and the penal laws which were thought preferable to freedom of inquiry and popular education. Lord Baltimore, a nobleman of ancient Catholic family, first visited the Chesapeake-bay, and obtained a grant of territory from Charles I. The new colony was called Maryland, in honour of Queen Henrietta Maria. The charter granted to these colonists conferred more extensive privileges than were enjoyed by any transatlantic settlement. It vested in the inhabitants the privilege of passing laws either by themselves or representatives, without any veto or reservation for rejection to the crown. Every freeman originally attended the legislative assemblies in person or by proxy. The rapid increase of population