Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/237

 in their native land, to emigrate to America, where they were at liberty to establish their claims to better characters, and more honorable positions in life than they could ever have attained elsewhere. Printing was first established in Virginia, in 1729; and the first newspaper in this colony was published at Williamsburg, in 1736. From Virginia and Maryland there were now annually exported about one hundred thousand hogsheads of tobacco, (valued at £8 per hogshead) and two hundred ships were commonly freighted with the tobacco produce of these two provinces. The annual gain to England from this trade was about £500,000. The articles of iron and copper ore, beeswax, hemp, and raw silk, were first exported from Virginia to England, in 1730.

In a report made to the Board of Trade in the reign of Queen Anne, we find the following statements: "On every river of this province, there are men, in number from ten to thirty, who, by trade and industry, have got very complete estates. These gentlemen take care to supply the poorer sort with goods and necessaries, and are sure to keep them always in their debt, and consequently dependent on them. Out of this number, are chosen the Council, Assembly, justices, and other officers of government. The inhabitants consider that this province is of far greater advantage to her majesty than all the rest of the provinces besides on the main land, and therefore conclude that they ought to have greater privileges than the rest of her majesty's subjects. The Assembly think themselves entitled to all the rights and privileges of an English parliament, and begin to search into the records of that honorable House for precedents to govern themselves by. The Council imagine that they stand upon equal terms with the British House of Lords." Probably, we think, these statements were due as much to the jealousy of the Board as to the careful investigation of the facts in the case. The Virginians, no doubt justly, complained of the insolence of the commanders of ships of war sent to cruise off the coast for the protection of trade,—insolence which at no late day became utterly insufferable, and added not a little to the readiness of the provincials to measure arms with the haughty and overbearing regulars, who prided themselves so much on their superiority in all respects. Virginia was warm in its attachment to the parent country; but they, too, had begun generally to question the right to impose restrictions on commerce, a right constantly claimed and almost as constantly resisted or evaded; and the Virginia Assembly had no disposition to keep in repair forts and such like, which might be turned to their hurt in case of a contest.

Massachusetts not less than Virginia had advanced in population during this period. At the beginning of the eighteenth century there were between seventy thousand and eighty thousand inhabitants; in 1731, the number is estimated at one hundred and twenty thousand freemen and two thousand six hundred slaves: and in 1750, it had reached not less than two hundred thousand. Six hundred ships and sloops were engaged in