7



of calamity and of suffering passed over them. Indo-
lence, vice and famine produced their inevitable conse-
quences-anarchy and discord and death. The re-
straints of government-the feebleness of their resour-
ces the paucity of their numbers,-their remoteness
from the parent country-the strength and fierceness of
the surrounding native tribes-all contributed to impair
their energies and damp their hopes-but notwithstand-
ing the weight of such powerful retardments, before the
close of the first half century after their emigration, the
settlements had spread from the coasts to the interior;
the colonial institutions had taken deep root in the soil-
and an impulse was given to the progress of the colonies
which was never afterwards'to be overcome. The char-
acteristics of the colonists in the mean time had under-
gone such a change as was necessary to adapt them to
the emergencies of their new condition. The extension
of their population westward, while it enlarged the boun-
daries of civilization, tended at the same time, to enure
the adventurous emigrants to scenes of toil and of dan-
ger; and to engender the habits and modes of life and
action, of rude and unpolished man. If the mass of the
people of the colonies, even of those that were most dense-
ly settled, were deprived of the luxuries and superflui-
ties of life, the inhabitants of the frontier preferred a
livelihood acquired by the contingent and hazardous em-
ploymqnt of a hunter, to the cultivation of the soil, or
the practice of any mechanical occupation. While the
force of circumstances propelled them on the one hand,
into hostile contact with the natives, in respect to whom
their position was necessarily antagonistical, they were
urged, on the other, to depend for protection and secui-
rity on their personal prowess and intrepidity alone; and
to seek the means of support, in the midst of ferocious