The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1885-07-09

North Carolina. ...s..............l Isl ,OOO
Maryland NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.. ..l14,OO0
New Jersey -l5o,Ooo
New Hampshire. -l02OOO
South Carolina. a...... ....-....... $4,000
Rhode Island. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. 5000
Delaware. e...,-.--,...,. 'r..'.'.''.-. "''VV
1t will be seen that the population of
Massachusetts, the most populous State,
was only one and one-half the present
population of Cleveland. The three
principal cities were Philadelphia, New
York and Boston. The first two having
from 10000 to 22,O00 each and the third
only 1000. Thus, the Boston of l7T6-
the Boston of revolutionary talents, pat
riotism, public spirit, character, and sac
rific-was a town the size of our Akron
or Youngstown. Lancaster, Penn, with
1000 houses and 6.OOO people, was the
largest inland town.
An intelligent observer remarks, two
years before, that every colony had its
peculiar staple commodity, canada, fir;
Massachusett Bay, fish; Connecticut,
lumber; New York and Pennsylvania,
wheat; Virginia and Maryland, tobaccoi
North Carolina, pitch and tar; South
Carolina, rice and indigo; Georgia, rice
and silk" The present great staple of
the South was not mentioned. Cotton
was planted in the United States rs early
as 1921, and few bags were shipped from
Charlestown in l74S, but Whitney's great
invention was yet in the future, and king
cotton was unheard of.
InI777, Elkanot Watson, young Rhode
Islander, made the journey from Provi-
dence to Charlestown horseback, IL dis
tance of l,243 miles, in 10 days. For the
time, there was wealth among the plant
ers of the South, the farmers of eastern
Pennsylvania, the patrons of New York
and particularly among the hemerchants of
the cities. Manufactures even more
than trade had been discouraged by the
British Government. There was not a
man IN all the States worth'a million dol
lars. Two hundred thousand dollar :
made its possesSor rich. L have compared
the population of the colonies with that
of Ohio, the comparison of wealth and
natural resources if far more unfaForahlR
to the colonies. We can draw some con-
clusions as to the amount of wealth in the
county from the fact that so small sum
as two hundred thousand dollars gave its
owner extended reputation as man of
property. Such are some material as
poets of the life of the people who were
pitted against Great Britain ill the Rev
olutiOn.
The disparity of members, wealth, mil
ltary and naval arrangements, etc, is too
obviohs to call for more than mention.
True, the ocean lay between the two com
batants, and there were no steamships in
those days, but "fair Britannia ruled the
wave" then rs now, aud the wide bays
and deep mOuthed rivers re-Occurring at
frequent intervals, enabled her ships al
most literally, to sweep the centers of
and wealth with their broad
sides. It is remarkable that almost all of
the important towns We're at one time
or another in the hands of the British,
but the country was not conquered be-
cause its heart and life did not lie in the
towns and cities. Time fOrbids me TO
more than speak of the various national
itIes who were being fused into the Amer
lean alembic into one people, the Puri-
tans of New England, the Dutchmen of
New York, the Germans of Pennsylva-
nia, the English gentry of the South, the
HuguenOts, and the ScOtch-Irish
sprinkled along the base of the mountains
from north to south-the race that gave
to American history Andrew Jackson,
John G. Calhoun, and Horace Greeley.
Nor can do more than mention the dong
and strenuous battle with nature involv-
ed III the struggle for existence ana for
growth, and the vigorous discipline in
arms, now found so valuable, gained iii
the French and Indian wars.
IDEAS AND INSPIRATIONS.
The story of the Revolution and the
causes that led to il has not always been
wisely told. We hear much of taxes and
interference with trade. As respects
commerce and industry, England gov
erned her American colonies i'll harmony
with the COLONIAL system" The polite
al economists had not yet arisen, IN fact,
Adam Smith published The Wealth of
Nations" the very year that the necla-
ration of Independence was put forth.
England has since learned how colonies
should be treated; she now allows them
to do pretty much as they please. But
to blame her for the Navigation Act of
1860, and later legislation of IL similar sort,
is only to accuse her of not being vase
before the time. What reason was there
to expect that she would pursue 10Th
Century policy in the 18th or 18th Cen
tury? Then the taxes were both few and
slight, quite within the ability of the
colonists to pay them. Moreover, from
an English standpoint these taxes were
| most Just and reasonable. L do not now
go into the history of the English ParlIa.
ment to determine its province as re.
spects the component parts OF the British
| Empire, suffice it to say, England had
emerged victorious from a long and
bloody struggle with France. Americs
was one of the theaters OF the war, auC
it had grown in great part out of Ameri
can questions. The colonies, even NOR,
than the mother country, would profit
by the victory, since the country bacE
of them to the Mississippi, and all tn,
Canadas had been wrested from the hant
of France. French wars in America wer,
at an end, and one-half the continent In,
open, barring only the Indian, to coloni
al enterprise. Hence, English Statesmen
asked, ''Why should not the colonies pa,
some part of the debt that has been ere