In a few cases, documents which might have been expected are not given, because extracts from them are used freely in the _American History and Government_, to which this is a companion volume. The most important cases of this character are noted at appropriate points. In general, in the selection and arrangement of documents, special emphasis has been given to the following topics: (1) the idealistic motives back of American colonization in Virginia as well as in Puritan New England; (2) the evolution of political institutions in Virginia and in typical Northern colonies,--especially of representative government and of the town meeting, and of such details as the use of the ballot; (3) the very imperfect nature of democracy, political and social, in colonial America,--so that the student may better appreciate our later growth; (4) social conditions,--necessarily a rather fragmentary treatment; (5) the evolution of commonwealths out of colonies in the Revolution; and (6) the breakdown of the Confederation and the making of the Constitution. Many typical documents are given entire. Other selections are excerpted carefully. In such cases, omissions are indicated, of course, and the substance of the omitted matter is usually indicated in brackets. In the case of a few selections, like those from Winthrop's _History_, the original document has already been published in standard editions with modernized spelling. Such editions have been followed. The text of all other documents has been reproduced faithfully, except for such departures as are authorized in the American Historical Association's _Suggestions for the Printing of Documents_; _i.e._, regarding the spelling out of abbreviations, and the modern usage for the consonantal _i_ and _u_, and the modernizing of punctuation when absolutely needful to prevent ambiguity. Some students may find a slight difficulty at first in the vagaries of seventeenth century orthography. But this difficulty is quickly surmounted; and, apart from the added flavor that comes from the quaintness of the original, and from the consciousness that the copy has been strictly adhered to, there is often a distinct historical advantage in the practice. The falling away in book-culture in the second generation of New England colonization can hardly be suggested so forcibly in any other way as by following the degeneration of spelling by town officials--as in the Watertown records in Number 83. The peculiarities of type in printed documents have been preserved so far as possible, but here I have taken a greater liberty than in any other matter of this kind. Italics and black-faced type have been introduced freely, to call attention to matter of special importance for instruction. Sometimes this practice has been noted in the respective introductions; and in other cases there will be little difficulty in deciding which passages owe their prominence of this sort to the editor.