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us intellectual independence as well. One thing is very clear: The time has passed for conjuring with the wand of British authority. America is no longer on her knees; she has risen, and begins to look around her. No wonder if she should now call in question some of the traditions about her pedigree.

For the average Englishman who thinks of the Americans as a pure English race there is great excuse. Of their country, until within the past few years, he knew comparatively nothing, except that the English language was spoken here, and that at one time some of the states were British colonies.* But with Americans the case is

* One notable exception should be made, however, in this connection. In a speech delivered in London on April 28th, 1887, Mr. Gladstone said: "The institutions and progress of the United States have always been subjects of great interest to me, ever since, many years ago, I studied the life of Washington. I became then aware, first, of the magnitude of the destiny reserved for Americans, and, second, of the fact that the period of the birth of the American States was of more interest than any other it was possible to study. Whenever a youth, desirous of studying political life, consults me respecting a course of study in the field of history, I always refer him to the early history of America.”—N. Y. Tribune, April 27th, 1887. In a speech delivered at Chester, Oct. 26th, 1889, Mr. Gladstone urged the workingmen of England to study the history of the American Revolution. The system of government in America, he said, combined that love of freedom, respect for law, and desire for order which formed the surest elements of national excellence and greatness. It was no extravagance to say that, although there were only three million people in the thirteen states at the time of the Revolution, the group of statesmen that proceeded from them were a match for any in the whole history of the world, and were superior to those of any other one epoch.-N. Y. Tribune, Oct. 27th, 1889. Again, Mr. Gladstone said, a little later: "I incline to think that the future of Amer ica is of greater importance to Christendom at large than that of any other country."-North American Review, Dec., 1889.

quite different. Many of them have visited Upper Canada and Nova Scotia, which are settled by a race almost wholly British in its origin. No one can see these Canadians without being struck at once with the contrasts between them and the men he meets at home.* Still more of our people have within the past few years travelled in England. Certainly no intelligent American can remain there long, talk with peasant, farmer, and country squire, listen to the conversation in cars, hotels, and shops, experiment with a humorous story on a party of Englishmen, go beneath the mere surface of dress and language, and study the people as he does those of the Continent, and then believe that we are of the same race, except as members of the same Aryan division of the human family, with the same human nature.

Identity of language is a great bond of union, and so is community of literature. But these, and especially the latter, may induce very erroneous conclusions when we come to deal with historical questions. Accustomed to read few modern foreign books except those written by English authors, it was very natural for our fathers to think only of their English blood. They found in the pages of the poet and the novelist of England their own natures depicted, and thence, perhaps hastily, concluded that they were one people with the writers. The fact is that human nature is essentially the same all the world over. We are not Hebrews because the Proverbs of Solomon are so applicable to us, nor French nor German, because Montaigne and Goethe tell us how we feel and think. The present generation is reading a host of books written by foreigners, French, German, and Rus

*So the people of Australia are purely English in manner, modes of thought, etc. See Froude's "Oceana."

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sian, but everywhere we see a picture of the same human nature, if the books are true to life.

Let us now glance at some of the facts, remembering that there were twelve states in the original Union, exclusive of Massachusetts, the maker of our histories and school-books. In 1759, the Rev. Mr. Burnaby, an Englishman, visited America. Of the Northern colonies in general, he said that they "are composed of people of different religions and different languages." In Pennsylvania he found the most enterprising people of the continent. These, he noticed, consisted of several nations, who spoke several languages-" they are aliens in some respects to Great Britain." In New York City he found that half of the inhabitants were Dutch; of the population in general he remarked: "Being of different nations, different languages, and different religions, it is impossible to give them any precise or definite character." A century before, a traveller reported that eighteen languages were spoken on Manhattan Island. This was probably an exaggeration, but it had a broad basis of truth. How great was this original diversity of origin is shown in the fact first pointed out by Governor Horatio Seymour: "Nine men prominent in the early history of New York and of the Union represent the same number of nationalities. Schuyler was of Holland, Herkimer of German, Jay of French, Livingston of Scotch, Clinton of Irish, Morris of Welsh, and Hoffman of Swedish descent. Hamilton was born in one of the English West India islands, and Baron Steuben, who became a citizen of New York after the Revolutionary War, was a Prussian.”‡

*"Burnaby's Travels," p. 201.

+ Idem, p. 109.

"History and Topography of New York: a Lecture," by Horatio Seymour.

No one acquainted with the barest outlines of American history needs to be told about these men. Hamilton organized the government of the United States. He was the head of the Federalist party, and many persons think the greatest statesman that America has ever known. His influence on American thought and institutions was only equalled by that of Jefferson, who was the representative of Democracy almost pure and simple. These two men, more than all others, shaped the future of the United States; and yet the one, although a New-Yorker by adoption, was born of a Scotch father and a French mother, and the other, who was probably of Welsh and Scotch extraction, was French in all his feelings, having no English ideas.* Jefferson said, "Every man has two countries, his own and France;" and it was from the writers of France that he drew the principles on which his political theories were based.†

Of the other New-Yorkers un-English in their extraction, Jay was the first Chief Justice of the United States, Clinton was the great Northern founder of the Anti

* Like most of the Revolutionary statesmen of Virginia, Jefferson came from what Lincoln has called the "plain people," and little is known with certainty about his pedigree. There is no proof, however, that he was of English descent, and the family traditions are that his paternal ancestor came from Wales. In many of his characteristics he was certainly more of a Celt than an Anglo-Saxon. His mother was a Randolph, of a family claiming to be descended from the Scotch Earls of Murray. Parton's "Life of Jefferson;" Randall's "Life of Jefferson," i. 6, 7.

In view of these facts, one perhaps can understand why it was that, while Englishmen knew nothing of America, the first foreigner to attempt a criticism of its institutions was the Frenchman De Tocqueville.

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Federalist (now the Democratic) party; while the Morrises and Livingstons played leading parts in American affairs. These were the men who framed the Constitution of New York, declared by John Adams to be excellent over all others. It is their state which first introduced the legal reforms which have revolutionized the procedure and methods of jurisprudence of America and England.

But it was not New York alone that was affected by this intermixture of blood. Pennsylvania, which contributed largely to American institutions, Delaware, and New Jersey were settled by men of diverse nationalities, so that at the outbreak of the Revolution probably only a minority of their inhabitants were of English origin.* In addition, all through the other colonies were scattered large numbers of Scotch-Irish, French Huguenots, Germans, Irish, Scotch, Welsh, and Swedes, counted as English, but essentially modifying the mass of the population and the national type.+

English travellers constantly express surprise that the English race in America, as they are pleased to call us, should be so different from the same race at home. Here

* "Life of Gouverneur Morris," by Theodore Roosevelt, p. 11. + Only the most careful study will enable one to approximate to any correct figures on this subject. In regard to the Huguenots, the work has been begun in an admirable history by Baird of the "Huguenot Emigration to America," which unfortunately death has interrupted. The results of similar investigations as to other nationalities would probably surprise the public. Especially is this the case as to the Scotch-Irish, whose history in America has never been attempted. In the last chapter of this work I shall have something to say about these men, showing what multitudes of them flocked through Pennsylvania and the Southern colonies before the Revolution, and what an important influence they exerted upon the fortunes of their adopted country.