of New England, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Vermont at this time was a sparsely settled country claimed both by New Hampshire and New York, and with a good many settlers from Connecticut; Maine, as we have said, was a province of Massachusetts. The forests of Maine and New Hampshire afforded lumber for export, and the seaports were lively centers of shipbuilding and the coasting trade.

During the French and Indian War great numbers of vessels all along the New England coast, and especially in Rhode Island, were fitted out as privateers, and carried on the war on their own account. In Rhode Island the government was less prominent than in Massachusetts; there was more individual freedom. In Connecticut the whole territory was cut up into little towns, and there was no one place of great importance, though Yale College had been established at New Haven.1

1701.

There was a cluster of towns

4. Life in New York. - In New York the population lived mainly near the great rivers. about New York Bay; then settlements followed the course of the Hudson to Albany; and along the valley of the Mohawk westward, descendants of the Dutch and of the English occupied the country. The Dutch language was very generally used, and the old Dutch customs were still followed. The houses were built after the pattern of houses in Holland, and usually of brick. Within they were kept scoured, so that no spot of dirt could be seen. The wide chimneys had tiles surrounding the fireplaces, with pictures on them of Bible scenes. Great chests of drawers held piles of linen, woven by the mothers and daughters. Behind glass cupboards were shining silver and pewter ware and delicate china. There was an air of comfort and ease. In the shops at Albany, one would see furs and skins brought by the Indians, and silks and satins brought by vessels from the East Indies for the rich Dutch families.

1 There have been many books treating of New England in colonial days. Among the most particular in detail are Mrs. Alice Morse Earle's Customs and Fashions in Old New England.

The Patroons and their Influence. The large grants of land originally made by the Dutch West India Company had led to the establishment of great estates. The patroon lived in a great house, with many servants about him. He did not sell

his land, but let it out in farms. This interfered with the growth of independent farms, but the patroons with their wealth were able to introduce better cattle, horses, and modes of farming. These landowners formed a class like the English aristocracy, and their homes were the scenes of great hospitality in the summer time. It was hard for the farmers who cleared away the forests and broke up the new soil on these great estates not to believe that they made the land their own. They rarely saw the patroon, and they began to ask what right he had to their rent in the wilderness. Many refused to pay rent, and drove off the sheriff who came to demand it.

The great estates interfered also with the growth of towns. Thus, though there were towns in New York, and the government was much the same as in New England, each person did not, as there, feel an interest in the whole colony. The people lacked the town meeting in its best form. The town of New York was a military post of Great Britain. It was also a busy commercial port. The English officers and the rich merchants lived in better style than other people.

Throughout the colony there were more who were very rich and more who were very poor than in New England. The colony also differed from New England in having within its borders a large number of Indians of the powerful tribe of the Iroquois. These were made peaceable neighbors first through their hatred of the French, and then by the strong influence of Sir William Johnson, who had married into the tribe and had encouraged settlements of them about his own estates at Johnstown.1 5. Life in the Middle Colonies. New Jersey, enclosed by New York and Pennsylvania, was protected by both from Indian disturbances. It was a farming country, with a sea

1 An interesting contemporaneous account of life in New York may be found in Mrs. Grant's An American Lady.

coast which had few harbors. Thus there was little trade. Small villages and small farms covered the country more closely than in other colonies, and the people were nearly all of one class in life. The Friends were still the most important people both in New Jersey and in Pennsylvania, though they had lost much influence by their refusal to do their part in the French and Indian War. They were prosperous and charitable, and lived mainly on the rich farms and in the thriving towns of the eastern settlements.

There were many Germans in the middle and eastern parts of Pennsylvania. The Germans agreed well with the Friends, but were frequently engaged in quarrels with the Irish, who lived chiefly on the western frontier. These backwoodsmen were constantly in difficulty with the Indians. When they demanded military help, they were opposed by the Friends, and all these quarrels were carried into the Assembly.

The Largest Town in the Country. The most thickly settled part of America was the country about the shores of Delaware Bay and River. Three colonies bordered on this water,New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. The last two were under the same governor, but had separate legislatures. Philadelphia, the center of this population, was the largest town in the country, and numbered about twenty-five thousand inhabitants in 1763. It was laid out in regular squares, lined with trees. The houses were mainly of brick, sometimes of stone, rarely of wood. There were sidewalks to the streets, an unusual thing in those days. There were gardens and orchards about many of the houses, and there was an excellent market. A trading community occupied the town. There were many rich merchants who lived handsomely, and a large number of prosperous mechanics.

Benjamin Franklin. - One of these mechanics was Benjamin Franklin,' who had come to Philadelphia from Boston

1 Franklin was born in Boston and was one of a family of seventeen children. He showed so early a brightness of mind that his father sent him to school and meant to make a minister of him. He quickly made his way to

when a young man, had set up as a printer, and was now the foremost man in Pennsylvania. Franklin was a hard-working, clear-headed man, who took the liveliest interest in the affairs of the people. He persuaded the Philadelphians to keep their city clean, to light it with lamps, to protect it from fire, and to give it a good police. Through his influence, largely, the city was the most orderly and the most flourishing in the country.

He was a man of science. He discovered protection against lightning by the use of iron rods. He invented the Franklin stove, which increased the comfort of houses and economized fuel. He printed every year Poor Richard's Almanac,1 in which he gave good advice to his countrymen about habits of prudence. His advice was so sensible, and given in such homely language, that everybody read and remembered it. He was one of the most active in raising supplies to aid in carrying on the war with the French and Indians.

His townsmen sent him to the Assembly, where he became a leader of the people in opposition to the Penn family; for this family, which was still in power, was unwilling to bear its share of expenses in protecting the colony against

the top, but his father was alarmed at the expense of sending him to college and so took him into his shop and set him to making candles. Franklin was a leader among the boys and was so full of enterprise that his father feared he would run away to sea, so he finally made him an apprentice to another of his sons who was a printer. James Franklin set up a newspaper and Benjamin began to write for it, but without letting his brother know he wrote the pieces. The brothers did not get along very well, and when he was seventeen Benjamin left James in the lurch, got together some money by selling his books, and made his way to Philadelphia. I have given a fuller account of Franklin in my Short History, and Hawthorne has a sketch in his Biographical Stories. But every one should read Franklin's Autobiography, not only for its delightful narrative by a great man of his own life, but for the glimpse it gives of life in America before the Revolution.

1 A convenient collection of bits from these almanacs as well as passages from other of Franklin's writings may be found in the Riverside Literature series, No. 21, and also in The World's Classics. The proverbs and wise sentences were introduced by the phrase "As Poor Richard says"; thus, "God helps them that help themselves, as Poor Richard says." The signature which Franklin used was Richard Saunders. Some of the proverbs were familiar sayings, cleverly applied, some were of Franklin's own invention.