The Character of the Backwoodsman of danger. But the pioneer was compelled to battle with many things besides Indians. "His homely woodsman's dress," says Doddridge, "soon became old and ragged. Often he had to eat his venison, bear meat, or wild turkey without bread or salt. His situation was not without its dangers. He did not know at what tread his foot might be stung by a serpent, An American backwoodsman. or he knew not on what limb of a tree over his head the murderous panther might be perched to drop down upon and tear him to pieces. Exiled from society and the comforts of life, the situation of the pioneer was dangerous in the extreme. A broken limb, a wound of any kind, or a fit of sickness in the wilderness without those accommodations which wounds and sickness require, was a dreadful calamity." "Thus the backwoodsman lived in the clearings he had hewed out of the everlasting forest; a grim, stern people, strong and simple... the love of freedom rooted in their very hearts' core. Their lives were harsh and narrow; they gained their bread by their blood and sweat in the unending struggle with the wild ruggedness of nature. They suffered terrible injuries at the hands of the redmen and on their foes they waged a terrible warfare in return. They were relentless, revengeful, suspicious, knowing neither ruth nor pity; they were upright, resolute and fearless, loyal to their friends and devoted to their country."-(Roosevelt.) INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL CONDITIONS In contrast with the raw communities over the mountains, the colonies along the seaboard presented a scene that had all the evidences of a well-ordered society. A traveler in the colonies in 1763 said that "the most populous and flourishing parts of Old England made hardly a better appearance nor enjoyed a higher degree of civilization than did the New England colonies." The same thing might have been said with much truth of the other colonies; at the end of the colonial period every colony was well started on the path of progress. Popula The most significant feature of this progress was the rapidity on with which the colonies were increasing in population. According to an estimate taken from the United States Census Report of 1900, the total population of the colonies in 1770 was 2,205,000. Virginia had 450,000, Massachusetts 400,000, Pennsylvania 250,000. "Such is the strength," said Edmund Burke, "with which population shoots up in that part of the world, that, state the numbers as high as we will, whilst the dispute continues the exaggeration ends. While we spend our time in deliberations on the mode of governing two millions, we shall find we have millions more to manage." About one fifth of the population consisted of negro slaves. Another fifth, perhaps, consisted of non-English people: Dutch, Germans, Irish, French. All the rest were either English or ScotchIrish. Life was essentially rural. Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Towns and Charleston were the only places that contained more than 5,000 inhabitants. Baltimore in 1764 had only about two hundred homes. Philadelphia, with its population (in 1763) of about 25,000, was the metropolis of the colonies, and was a healthful and attractive city. Its streets were well paved, and its markets were excellent. In almost every line of progress, too, the Quaker city took the lead. Agriculture was still the chief occupation in every colony, Agriculalthough in New England the products of the soil were prob- ture Fisheries Manufacturing ably not more than were necessary for the support of the inhabitants. In the south the tillage of large plantations and the almost exclusive employment of slave labor had developed into a regular system. Only in North Carolina and in districts far back from the coast did the small farmer thrive. In the Northern Colonies, on the other hand, the system of small holdings in land prevailed. Here an able-bodied man with limited means could easily secure possession of a small tract of land and become an independent farmer. In New England the people still turned their faces toward the sea. After the Treaty of Paris they could extend their fisheries as far north as Labrador. In their pursuit of the whale they were carried into distant waters. "Whilst we follow them," said Burke, speaking of the whale fishermen of New England, "among the tumbling mountains of ice and behold them penetrating into the deepest frozen recesses of Hudson's Bay and Davis's Straits, while we are looking for them beneath the arctic circle, we hear that they have pierced into the opposite region of polar cold, that they are at the antipodes and engaged under the frozen serpent of the south.” Even more important than the whale industry were the mackerel and cod fisheries. In 1763 Massachusetts alone had four hundred vessels engaged in taking mackerel and cod. Manufacturing at the end of the colonial period was the weakest element of the economic structure. The restrictive measures of Parliament (p. 66) had done their work so effectively that by 1760 the manufacturing industries were of less importance than they had been in 1700. From one end of the seaboard to the other the people depended upon England for all the finer kinds of goods and for most of the articles of every-day use. Benjamin Franklin, writing of American manufactures in 1768, said: "In Massachusetts a little coarse woolen only, made in families for their own wear. Glass and linen have been tried, and failed. Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York much the same. Pennsylvania has tried a linen manufactory, but it is dropped, it being imported cheaper. There is a glass house in Lancaster County, but it makes only a little coarse ware for the country neighbors. Maryland is clothed all with English manufactures. Virginia the same, except that in their families they spin a little cotton of their own growing. South Carolina and Georgia none." Next to agriculture, the stay and support of the colonies was commerce, which had grown to considerable proportions. ComThe trade between the colonies and Great Britain in 1770 is merce shown, in round numbers, in the following table: It will be observed that the Southern Colonies furnished nearly three fourths of the exports of the mother-country. These exports consisted chiefly of tobacco, rice, indigo, pitch, tar, and turpentine. The table shows also that the Southern Colonies were good customers of England. As between the colonies and Great Britain, the balance of trade was nearly two to one in favor of Great Britain. But the balance was in a measure restored by the profits of the trade carried on with other countries, especially with the West Indies, for the molasses-rum-slave-trade (p. 65), which was profitable in 1700, was still more profitable in 1770. The preponderance of trade against the colonies caused money to flow away from them. As a result there was a scarcity of gold and silver coin. To supply the desired currency, the colonies, as we have seen (p. 68), often resorted to issues of paper money. But this money always depreciated in value. For example, in 1760 the paper money of New Jersey passed Money at less than one third of its face-value. In 1751 Parliament forbade the issue of paper money by the New England colonies, and in 1764 it extended the prohibition to all the colonies, much to the dissatisfaction of the people. RELATIONS WITH THE MOTHER-COUNTRY The prohibition of paper money was only one of the things that were causing trouble. After the conclusion of peace in 1763 one disquieting circumstance after another arose to disturb the harmony between the colonies and the mother-country. The king's proclamation of 1763 (p. 99) created wide-spread dissatisfaction, for although it was intended to be a temporary measure it was nevertheless regarded by the colonists as a plan for confining English civilization to the seaboard and reserving the richest and fairest portion of America as a permanent hunting-ground for savages and as a lair for wild beasts. Another cause of irritation was the attempt which England made to check the practice of smuggling, a practice that was general throughout the civilized world and that was a perennial source of trouble between the English Government and the colonies. The colonists looked upon the customs duties as an unwarranted interference with trade, and they resorted to smuggling as an innocent device to secure redress for their wrongs. The result was that among a large class of merchants smuggling became one of the ordinary processes of commercial intercourse. It was carried on almost everywhere by everybody. At last England determined that her revenue laws should be obeyed. Even before the close of the French and Indian War she undertook to stamp out the wholesale smuggling that was going on. She had grounds for taking firm steps in the matter, for she was being cheated outrageously. The money she received from the customs duties amounted to almost nothing, and the cost of collecting it was far in excess of the revenues received. But the methods she employed were bound to irritate the liberty-loving Americans. Custom-house officers armed Assistance with "writs of assistance" were authorized to break into vessels, warehouses, and dwellings and search for goods that were Smuggling Writs of |