Such, then, was the history of the last colony to be founded, completing the unlucky number thirteen, and it remained the weakest and least efficient of all. From small beginnings the English colonies came into being along the Eastern seaboard of America. Puritans and cavaliers, profligates and mechanics, all helped to create what might have been except for sad misunderstandings part of the British empire of to-day. Behind the Alleghany slopes another great power was attempting to form a colonial empire. North of the St Lawrence, New France had already been established; by the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana had already been named. In some places not inaccessible hills, in others not unnavigable rivers divided the Briton from the Gaul. It was inevitable that sooner or later the struggle between the two great powers must come. It might be fought in Europe upon battlefields which are familiar to all, but it was also fought out upon the far distant border line, and the struggles of the colonial militia with the French Canadian backwoodsman presents a story of endurance, courage, and determination equal if not superior to the annals of those English regiments which fought in the Netherlands or on "the plains of Germany." FOOTNOTES: [187] _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial, 1677-1680, p. 587. [188] Compare the _N.J. Archives_, ii., p. 420. [189] Quoted in the _Enc. Britannica_. [190] Janney, _Life of William Penn_ (1852). [191] Pastorius, _Geographical Description of Pennsylvania_ (1850). [192] New Jersey Historical Society, _Proceedings_ (1849-1850). [193] _The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Robert Boyle_, etc. (1726). [194] Force, _Tracts_ (1836). [195] _Ibid._ [196] Force, _Tracts_ (1836). [197] Massachusetts Historical Society, _Collections_ (1814). [198] Wesley, _Journal_, June 22, 1736. [199] Wesley, _Journal_, December 2, 1737. [200] Force, _Tracts_ (1836). [201] _Ibid._ [202] Doyle, _Cambridge Modern History_ (1905), vol. vii. p. 63. [203] _An Account of the European Settlements in America_ (1760). CHAPTER VIII THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY OF NEW ENGLAND "God sifted a whole nation that he might send choice grain over into this wilderness."[204] With regard to New England this statement was in part true, for the people of those northern colonies exhibited a remarkable homogeneity, and their leaders were men of a peculiarly lofty character. That this population grew with leaps and bounds during the first century of settlement is well attested by records. As early as 1643, Massachusetts had a population of 20,000; while Plymouth, Connecticut, and Newhaven, taken together, must have numbered between eleven and twelve thousand. At the Restoration the total population is placed at 80,000, of which two-thirds dwelt in Massachusetts. The eighteenth century statistics show a steady increase, 100,000 whites and 4000 negroes being a rough computation for the year 1714.