Next to its habits, the thing which a nation is least apt to change is its civil legislation. Civil laws are only familiarly known to legal men, whose direct interest it is to maintain them as they are, whether good or bad, simply because they themselves are conversant with them. The body of the nation is scarcely acquainted with them: it merely perceives their action in particular cases; but it has some difficulty in seizing their tendency, and obeys them without reflection. I have quoted one instance where it would have been easy to adduce a great number of others. The surface of American society is, if I may use the expression, covered with a layer of democracy, from beneath which the old aristocratic colors sometimes peep.[56] * * * * * Notes: [14] The charter granted by the crown of England, in 1609, stipulated, among other conditions, that the adventurers should pay to the crown a fifth of the produce of all gold and silver mines. See Marshall's "Life of Washington," vol i., pp. 18-66. [15] A large portion of the adventurers, says Stith (History of Virginia), were unprincipled young men of family, whom their parents were glad to ship off, discharged servants, fraudulent bankrupts, or debauchees: and others of the same class, people more apt to pillage and destroy than to assist the settlement, were the seditious chiefs who easily led this band into every kind of extravagance and excess. See for the history of Virginia the following works:-- "History of Virginia, from the first Settlements in the year 1624," by Smith. "History of Virginia," by William Stith. "History of Virginia, from the earliest Period," by Beverley. [16] It was not till some time later that a certain number of rich English capitalists came to fix themselves in the colony. [17] Slavery was introduced about the year 1620, by a Dutch vessel, which landed twenty negroes on the banks of the river James. See Chalmer. [18] The states of New England are those situated to the east of the Hudson; they are now six in number: 1. Connecticut; 2. Rhode Island; 3. Massachusetts; 4. Vermont; 5. New Hampshire; 6. Maine. [19] "New England's Memorial," p. 13. Boston, 1826. See also "Hutchinson's History," vol. ii., p. 440 [20] This rock is become an object of veneration in the United States. I have seen bits of it carefully preserved in several towns of the Union. Does not this sufficiently show that all human power and greatness is in the soul of man? Here is a stone which the feet of a few outcasts pressed for an instant, and this stone becomes famous; it is treasured by a great nation, its very dust is shared as a relic; and what is become of the gateways of a thousand palaces? [21] "New England Memorial," p. 37.