The study of the formation of the American people as a separate nation is of peculiar interest, because it has taken place within a recent historical period, and we can study the original elements from the time when they first settled in the country. This is not true of any of the nations of Europe. The foundation of the new people consisted of colonists from England. They were the original settlers, and during the entire colonial period they continued to contribute to the growing population. In addition to these there was the Dutch element, which became well established when New York was a Dutch colony. Aside from the colonists, there was a large and important contribution from other European nations, people from practically every country on the continent. These were the true immigrants. The colonies which were most affected by arrivals of this sort were the central ones, particularly New York and Pennsylvania, and above all the latter. This was due to their location, the attitude of their proprietors, and the feeling and conduct of the original settlers. The attitude of William Penn was decidedly liberal, and Pennsylvania advanced in population accordingly. Penn advertised his colony widely, and when he came over in 1682 there were already six thousand Swedish, Dutch, and English settlers there. Others came rapidly, prominent among them English Quakers, Scottish and Irish Presbyterians, German Mennonites, and French Huguenots. These religious designations are significant of the preponderance of the religious element in the immigration of the day. Throughout the colonial period this class of causes was an underlying factor in most of the important migrations to America, both colonization and immigration. The Protestant Reformation, and the intellectual and social movements which went with it, had a profound effect upon the contentment of large masses of the people of Europe, and made that continent a very undesirable place of residence for many of them. That political causes should have been closely combined with the religious ones was inevitable, on account of the intimate relation between religion and government, and the practice of using political power to secure religious ends, and _vice versa_. These two classes of causes were the prevailing and characteristic ones during this period. The religious tolerance and freedom which characterized Pennsylvania was therefore one of the chief factors which drew immigrants of every nationality to it, and it quickly became the most cosmopolitan of all the colonies. Penn’s agents were particularly active in Germany, with the result that in twenty years the Germans numbered nearly one half the population of the colony.