# A History of American Literature/Chapter 3

III.
THE SECOND COLONIAL PERIOD.
1688—1765
1607. Virginia settled in Jamestown. 1620. Massachusetts settled at Plymouth. 1623. New Hampshire settled in Dover. 1623. New York settled by the Dutch. 1631. Maryland settled by Claybourne. 1634. Connecticut settled. 1636. Rhode Island settled by Robert Williams. 1638. Delaware settled by Swedes and Finns. 1663—5. The Carolinas settled. 1664. New Jersey settled by English and Swedes. 1681. Pennsylvania settled by William Penn. 1729. The Carolinas divided. 1733. Georgia settled by Oglethorpe.Colonial Isolation. — One of the most striking things in our Colonial Age is the remarkable isolation of the Colonies, in reference to each other, all throughout the Colonial Age. Although kindred in blood, speaking the same language, and acknowledging the same sovereign, each Colony was in reality a little nation by itself, with its own particular laws, moneys, military plans and social usage.
At the end of the first period the Colonies were in three distinct groups:
1. The New England Group. — Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire.
2. The Middle Group. — New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania
3. The Southern Group. — Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia.
Between the members of each group there was more or less intercourse, but between the groups there was almost none at all.
​Loyalty to England. — Although the immigrant generation passed from the field of action, and affairs came into the hands of those who called themselves "Englishmen" and yet had never been in England, loyalty to the mother land did not abate. Notwithstanding their isolation in regard to one another, all the Colonies were intensely true to what they called their "home across the sea." Even the New Englanders who had quarrelled with England to a degree that they could leave her forever, were proud to call themselves Englishmen, and regarded New England simply as a part of the old England which they had left. Whatever may be said to the contrary, the colonists did not dream of independence until the very close of the Colonial Age. They could complain of harsh treatment, and even resist a tyrannical governor, as did Bacon in Virginia in 1676, but they no more thought of independence from Great Britain than did the citizens of London. Franklin, as late as 1775, told Lord Chatham that in all his intercourse with all sorts of people in the Colonies he had never heard a desire to separate from England expressed. The negligence of Great Britain forced the Colonies to unite, and her injustice forced them to independence.
The Second Colonial Period. — The Revolution1642—1727. Issac Newton 1661—1731. Daniel DeFoe. 1667—1745. Jonathan Swift. 1672—1719. Joseph Addison 1672—1729. Richard Steele. of 1688, which forced the intolerant James II to flee to France, and placed the protestant monarchs, William and Mary, on the English throne, marks the end of the First Colonial Period. There was no change in the tone of the literary product ​1689—1761. Samuel Richardson. 1707-1754. Henry Fielding. 1728—1774. Oliver Goldsmith. 1737—1794. Edward Gibbon. 1719. Publication of Robinson Crusoe. 1740. Publication of Pamela, the first English novel. to show that a new period had opened; indeed, the writings during the entire Colonial Age are of singular uniformity. The period stands rather for the birth of a new idea, one of wonderful meaning, on which Our national and our literary history depends, — the idea of Union.
Scarcely three months from the time of his coronation, William declared war the first English against Louis XIV. of France, who was then meditating on a splendid course of conquest which aimed at nothing less than universal domain.
The war known in history as King William's War was the American echo of the conflict that followed.
New France or New England. — (Parkman's France and England in North America.) During the preceding period the French had left the English to hold the Atlantic coast, and had pushed up the St. Lawrence, through the Great Lakes and down the Mississippi, until, under the names of Louisiana and New York, they laid claim to fully one-half of the present territory of the United States. No sooner had war been declared than the English Colonies awoke to a realization that they were completely surrounded on the north and west by the French. Immediately the armics of New France began to press upon the English frontiers. It became evident that it was the ambition of France "to grasp the entire continent."
The Second Colonial Period witnessed a desperate and bloody struggle between England and France for ​North America. Its outcome was of vast importance. Had France won, it would have changed the destiny of the new world. War followed war. Queen Anne's War, King George's War, and the final and decisive French and Indian War came rapidly one1692. Witchcraft delusion at Salem. 1689–1697. King William's War. 1702–1713. Queen Anne's War. 1739. War between England and Spain. 1741–1748. King George's War. 1752. The "New Style" adopted in the British dominions. Sept. 2 being called Sept. 14. 1755. Braddock's defeat. 1755. Lisbon earthquake. 1757. Lord Clives wins India for England. 1763. End of the French and Indian War. 1763. The conspiracy of Pontiae. after the other.
The lack of union among the thirteen Colonies and the long unprotected border gave the French a great advantage. As these wars were but the echoes of European struggles, England had all that she could manage at home. The Colonies soon found that they could not rely on the mother country, that they must fight for themselves, whatever were the odds against them, or be pushed into the Atlantic.
Required Reading. — "The Story of the French and English Wars," in Parkman's Conspiracy of Poutine, I. 95–141.
Union — Here was born the first real idea of union — union against France. It was born of the neglect from England of her American offspring, it was nourished by the foolish continental wars she indulged in, wars which in America at least, were without results or glory.
In 1690, delegates from Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New York had met in New York to concert measures against the French, and this had been the beginning of many similar conventions. The ​tenacity of local ideas and aims, that had tended to keep the Colonies apart, vanished before a common danger. Although the Union was at first only a frail affair, not involving all the Colonies, and having no reference to anything but temporary results, it was significant.
England had gratified her vanity by waging her wars with France and Spain, but she had unconsciously taught her Colonics two great secrets, first, the strength of union, and second, the sturdy self-reliance which afterwards won for them their independence.
A Transition Period. — The eighty-seven years of the Second Colonial Period witnessed great changes in the life and spirit of the Colonies. Old ideals were breaking down on every hand. The clergy began gradually to lose their supreme power in intellectual affairs. The laymen were turning their minds to their worldly surroundings, and were fast losing the intense religious absorption of earlier days. Commerce began to flourish; the cities of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia became busy centres of trade; the shipping industry grew with wonderful vigor. The Colonial wars and the politics of the times, the struggles with charters and arbitrary governors, had all tended to turn the minds of the colonists from their souls to their bodies and their surroundings. Superstition was dying a natural death. Dr. Boylston successfully inoculated for small-pox in Boston, thus robbing this dread disease of much of its The witchcraft delusion, "that last spasm of expiring Puritanism," did much to do away with the ​belief in miracles and mysteries. On all sides the mists of prejudice and intolerance were clearing away, and the east was red with the dawning of a new morning.
The Newspaper was an important agent1663. First English newspaper. 1711–1714. Addison's Spectator (London). 1690. Public Occurrences 1704. The Boston News-Letter. 1719. Boston Gazette. 1719. American Weekly Mercury. 1725. First newspaper in New York. in the intellectual emancipation of the Colonies. The first attempt at journalism was made in 1690, when a little publication, more a pamphlet than a newspapers, was issued in Boston under the name Public Occurrences. This was intended to be issued monthly, but it was quickly suspended by the General Court. The Boston News-Letter followed in 1704, and in 1719 came the Boston Gazette, printed, though not edited, by James Franklin, the brother of Author:Benjamin Franklin. The American Weekly Mercury, of Philadelphia, was established one day later. The New England Courant, famous from its connection with the early career of Benjamin Franklin, followed next in order, in 1721. It was edited as well as printed by James Franklin. "I remember," says the Autobiography, "his being dissuaded by some of his friends from the undertaking, as not likely to succeed, one newspaper being, in their judgement, enough for America." Nevertheless, newspapers multiplied until at the close of the period there were at least forty. In 1741, Franklin established in Philadelphia The General Magazine for All the British Provinces in America. Although published only six months, and containing little of literary value, this paper ​is of interest, since it was the first attempt in America to found a literary magazine.
The Literature of the Period does not much differ from that produced during the first era. It was still prevailingly religious in its character. The poetry clumsily followed the artificial models of the school of Pope and was for the most part unnatural and worthless. The period, however, produced three writers of high rank, — Cotton Mather, Jonathan Edwards, and Benjamin Franklin, the last two attaining to international renown. These, with Samuel Sewall and Governor Hutchinson, are all that need be mentioned in a brief history of the period.
1. Samuel Sewall (1662–1730).
"The Puritan Pepys."
The work done by Bradford and Winthrop during the early days of New England was continued by SamuelThe Selling of Joseph. Diary, 1673–1739. Sewall, who kept a faithful journal between the years 1673 and 1739. Sewall was born in England, coming with his father to America while yet a boy, and after a course at Harvard, settled down to the law. He married the daughter of John Hull, the rich mint master of Massachusetts, who gave him a fortune. In time he became the Chief Justice of Massachusetts. During the witchcraft trials at Salem, he was a conspicuous figure among the judges, but, becoming convinced of his error later in life, he did what he could to atone for his part in the miserable affair by making a public confession in church.
​Sewall's diary, which is now in the hands of the Massachusetts Historical Association, is a minute record of the domestic and public life of its author and contains much valuable historical matter. It covers the period of the Quaker persecutions, King Philip's War, and the English Revolution of 1688.
Justice Sewall was a strong writer on many topics. He was one of the first to protest against African slavery. His little tract, The Selling of Joseph, a powerful and impassioned plea against this evil, is still readable.
Required Reading. — Whittier's "Prophecy of Samuel Sewall"; Hawthorne's "The Pine Tree Shillings," in Grandfather's Chair, i. ch. 6. See also "A Puritan Pepys," with extracts from the diary, in Lodge's Studies in History, p. 21.
2. Cotton Mather (1663-1728).
"In him the Puritan Age culminated and came to an end." — Greenough White.
Life (by his son Samuel, 1729, by W. B. O. Peabody in Sparks' American Biography; by A. P. Marvin; by Barrett Wendell, 1891). For four generMemorable Providences. Wonders of the Invisible World. Essays to do Good. Magnolia Christi Americana.ations the Mather family was prominent in the intellectual history of New England. Richard Mather, its founder, had left his church in England rather than wear a surplice; had migrated to the new world, and had left as his monument his work on the old Bay Psalm Book. But the star of the Mather family was ​to increase in brilliancy with each generation. An old epitaph records that
The son was Increase Mather, renowned for learning and eloquence, president of Harvard College from 1685 to 1701, pastor of the old North Church until his death; while the grandson, the crowning glory of all, was Cotton Mather, "the literary behemoth of New England in our Colonial Era." No man was ever more fortunate in his ancestry. His maternal grandfather was the famous Boston divine, John Cotton. From his ancestors on both sides he inherited all the earnestness and obstinacy, all the fine intellect as well as the superstition and gloom of the early Puritans. He was the quintessence of Puritanism.
The stories of Cotton Mather's wonderful precocity sound strangely unreal in these days. He seems never to have had a childhood. Hebrew and Greek and Latin early became to him as his mother tongue. At fifteen he had received his degree at Harvard College with the highest possible bonors of the institution, and at twenty-two he was his father's assistant in the old North Church, succeeding him in due time as pastor.
The Witchcraft Delusion. — Mather's life was one of ceaseless activity. "To preach seventy sermons in public," observes one writer, "forty more in private, keep thirty vigils and sixty fasts, and still have time for persecuting witches, was nothing unusual for him ​to do in a year." As a voluminous pamphleteer he has had few equals, his published works numbering nearly four hundred. He is, perhaps, most widely known from his connection with the Salem witchcraft delusion of 1692. To Cotton Mather evil spirits and "unlovely demons" in the shape of men and women were as real as were the facts of his daily life. His Memorable Providences Relating to Witchcraft, written apparently with perfect honesty and published in 1789, served as a fan for the fire smouldering in Salem. Four years later, when men like Justice Sewall were bitterly repenting of their part in the terrible tragedy, Mather published his Wonders of the Invisible World, a cold-blooded account of the trials and executions at Salem, every word pregnant with the belief that devils and not human beings had been dealt with. That he was intensely honest in all this need not be said. His terrible convictions triumphing over his naturally kind heart would not have allowed him to hesitate even had the evidence involved his son Samuel.
The Magnalia. — (Richardson, I. 131-137, with extract.) In 1702 Mather's magnum opus, the ponderous Magnalia Christi Americana, was printed in London. "It is a strange, pedantic history," says Hawthorne, "in which true events and real personages move before the reader with the dreamy aspect which they wore in Cotton Mather's singular mind." The text fairly groans with quotations and citations from every known and unknown tongue, with allusions to quaint and forgotten history dragged in by force to display the author's amazing erudition.
​Mather intended this work to be the complete and final history of his time. He failed simply because he lacked the indispensable qualifications of the historian. He was intensely prejudiced. Ilis horizon, in spite of his education, was a narrow one. Notwithstanding his wonderful opportunity in a time when he might have verified his every statement by documents and sources of history now lost forever, he must be read with suspicion. Rather than tell the simple tale of his times he preferred to display his classical verbiage and lose himself in a chaos of visions. The Magnalia, however, is not wholly without value. "There are in it lodged many single facts of the utmost value, personal reminiscences, social gossip, snatches of conversation, touches of description, traits of character and life that can be found nowhere else." — Tyler.
One little book of Mather's should not be overlooked. Franklin, in a letter to Samuel Mather, once declared that the little volume, Essays to do Good, had been one of the strongest influences for good that had ever affected his life.
Required Reading. — Hawthorne's Grandfather's Chair, ii. chs. 4 and 5. Whittier's "Garrison of Cape Ann." Longfellow's "The Phantom Ship."
3. Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758).
The most eminent of American metaphysicians." — Richardson
The representative character of the Second Colonial Period, and by all means the most conspicuous figure in our early intellectual history, was Jonathan Edwards. ​In a transition period he stood in a curious way between the new and the old. He clung fast to the old Puritan ideas of original sin, of predestinaA Treatise on the Religious Affections. An Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will.tion and the terrors of punishment at the hands of an angry God. His awful idea of God can be shown in a brief quotation.
"The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you and is dreadfully provoked....If you cry to God to pity you, he will be so far from pitying you in your doleful case that he will only tread you under foot. He will crush out your blood and make it fly, and it shall be sprinkled on all his garments so as to stain all his raiment." — Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.
And yet, Edwards was exceedingly sensitive and susceptible to new ideas. In an unscientific age he was an eager student of the laws of nature. He sought earnestly for the light wherever it might lead him. In his metaphysical work so far was he ahead of his age that his writings are regarded as authorities in modern times. His searching mind and catholic soul were ever ready to recognize truth, no matter what havoc it might play with preconceived notions.
Life (by Samuel Hopkins; by Sereno Edwards Dwight; by A. V. G. Allen). Edwards was born at East Winsor, Connecticut, in 1703. While a mere youth, he delighted in philosophy, writing, at the age of thirteen, profound letters concerning the nature of the soul, and the exposition of the theology of Calvin.
While a sophomore at Yale College, he chanced upon a copy of Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding. ​He tells us that he read this with a greater delight "than the most greedy miser finds when gathering up handfuls of silver and gold from some newly disclosed treasure." This eager thirst for knowledge never left him. He trained himself to read, pen in hand, equalling in energy and steadfast purpose the studious Cotton Mather of an earlier generation. Graduating at Yale in 1720, he was for a short time a tutor in the college, soon afterwards becoming a pastor, first in the church at Northampton, Massachusetts, and then among the Stockbridge Indians. Three months before his death he became president of Princeton College.
Although, like most of the clergymen of his day, Edwards was a voluminous writer, his works belong to theology and metaphysics rather than to literature. However, "there is an intensity," notes Professor Beers, and a spiritual elevation about them, apart. from the profundity and acuteness of the thought, which lift them here and there into the finer ether of purely emotional or imaginative art."
The Freedom of the Will. — Although Edwards published thirty-six different books, his fame chiefly depends upon one master work bearing the formidable title:
"A Careful and Strict Inquiry into the Modern Notion of that Freedom of Will which is Supposed to be Essential to Moral Agency, Virtue and Vice, Reward and Punishment, Praise and Blame."
This learned metaphysical discussion supports the doctrine laid down by Calvin, that the will is not self-determined and free, that man does not act by virtue of a free choice, but in accordance with the will of a ​supreme ruling power. The book is as abstruse to the average reader as a treatise on the higher mathematics. It has furnished a field for much argument from the time of its first appearance until the present. Some of the profoundest metaphysicians of the century have assailed it, but it seems to be impregnable.
In curious contrast with this ponderous work stands the little volume A Treatise on the Religious Affections, full of sweetness and rapt spiritual character, and often very near to poetry in its lofty conceptions and gentle spirit.
Required Reading. — Selections from Holmes' "Jonathan Edwards," in Pages from an Old Volume of Life.
4. Thomas Hutchinson (1711–1780).
"For intellectual gifts and accomplishments, he stood far above all the other Colonial governors." — John Fiske.
Life. (No life of Governor Hutchinson has ever been written. The best source of information concerning him is his Diary and Letters, first published in 1884–1886. See also Hosmer'sHistory of Massachusetts Bay. (1620–1774) Diary and Letters Samuel Adams.)
All of the Colonial governors of Massachusetts seem to have been impressed with the idea that they must give to posterity a faithful record of all their doings. Thomas Hutchinson, the last of the governors under British rule, conceived the idea. of writing a complete history of the province from the time of the first settlement until the Revolutionary ​War. To this he gave the title The History of Massachusetts Bay, publishing it in three volumes, the last one appearing one year after the author's death.
Governor Hutchinson was fortunate in respect to materials for his work, having access to many documents and sources of information long since lost. From these he compiled, with excellent judgment and rare scholarship, a work which will always be regarded as the highest authority. The author was not pleasing to the people of the Colonies on account of his Tory principles, and for this reason his history never became a popular one.
Required Reading. — Selections from Hutchinson's History.