Page:American History Told by Contemporaries, v2.djvu/169

No. 50] which it is humbly submitted whether the Duties of Stamps upon Parchment & Paper in England, may not with good reason be extended by Act of Parliament to all the American Plantations.



HE Subject-Matters of this Section according to my first Plan are prolix, being various and copious, and perhaps would be the most curious and informing Piece of the Performance to some Readers ; but as many of our Readers in these Colonies seem impatient for our entring upon the Affairs of their several Settlements, we shall contract the present Section, and shall defer several Articles to the Appendix ; such as, the Rise, Progress, and present State of the pernicious Paper-Currencies ; some Account of the prevailing or Endemial Diseases in our North-America Colonies, and many other loose Particulars, the various Sectaries in Religion, which have any Footing in our American Colonies shall be enumerated in the Section of Rhode Island, where we find all Degrees of Sectaries (some perhaps not known in Europe) from to that of the most wild Enthusiasts. Religious Affairs, so far as they may in some Manner appertain to the Constitution of the Colonies, do make an Article in this Section. . ..

LL our American Settlements are properly Colonies, not Provinces as they are generally called : Province respects a conquered People (the Spaniards in Mexico and Peru may perhaps in Propriety