and protection of society; they were part of the day's work, but they were not undertaken for the pure love of fighting. Even less do we find any evidence of an artistic spirit or a love of art pervading the people. Either they were people to whom art in their former surroundings had made no appeal or in whom the artistic feeling was checked and stifled by the intense concentration of all their faculties on the problem how to solve the struggle for existence. It is difficult, impossible in fact, to determine to which cause we must look for the true explanation, and while, of course, we must not forget the underlying influences of the Puritan character and the foundation on which the Puritan state was laid, it seems almost incredible that a body of English men and English women of that day, of intelligence and not without education, could be almost primitive in having no appreciation of art or content not to attempt to give it expression. The true explanation, I believe, is the one that has already been advanced: the material struggle was too insistent to afford opportunity for anything else. If this reasoning is sound, it is psychologically of great importance, for it proves that the æsthetic civilization of England, at that day highly developed, was not transplanted and did not put forth new roots in the new soil, but for a time withered and only came to life again at a later period. And perhaps more important than all, we see why the American comes naturally by his love of and aptitude for business. He is simply fulfilling the law of heredity. It is not alone the sins of the father that are visited upon the children of unborn generations, but also the bent of the father's mind which is transmitted. The fathers of the race were men of business, men who were fond of trade and to whom commerce was a passion, and their children have followed in their footsteps. We shall have occasion later to examine into this question more in detail. It is proper here to call the attention of the reader to what thus far may have appeared an anachronism. In logically studying the development of the American character, I have begun with the Pilgrim migration, ignoring, for the present, the earlier settlement of Virginia. Were this a history of the American people instead of a study of race growth, it would be proper to begin at the beginning with the first settlement of the English in America, at Jamestown, and, using that as the foundation on which was reared the superstructure of an enduring civilization, employ the chronological method to show how stone was laid on stone until the completed edifice crowned the labors of the master builders. But the coming of the English to Virginia in the first decade of the seventeenth century was a thing trivial compared with the momentous consequences that followed from the landing of that little band of pioneers on the bleak shores of Massachusetts fourteen years later. Had the English occupation of America proceeded along the lines that were first established, there would have been indeed a Nova Albion to redound to the glory of English conquest and fulfill the dreams of Raleigh and Gilbert and those other adventurers of undaunted courage and splendid audacity and superb imagination who laid the foundation for England's greatness, commercial prosperity, and peculiar genius for the development and government of alien lands and peoples, but the psychological results would have been different. The English went to Jamestown as up to that time they had gone elsewhere, with two distinct objects in view. They went to find wealth, the fabulous gold that they believed was to be obtained without effort, and to provide an outlet for a population that even then pressed upon the limits of subsistence. “Their principal reason for colonizing these parts is to give an outlet to so many idle and wretched people as they have in England, and thus to prevent the dangers that may be feared from them," Don Alonso de Velasco, the Spanish Ambassador, wrote from London in March, 1611, to His Catholic Majesty. Spanish testimony of that day cannot be accepted without due allowance being made for prejudice and jealousy, but no such motives governed the English in their own frank admissions. In "A Letter from the Council and Company of the honourable Plantation of Virginia to the Lord Mayor, Alderman and Companies of London" (probably written in 1608), we find the first suggestion of that vicious scheme of "assisted immigration" that so seriously embarrassed the United States two centuries and a half later. "Whereas the Lords of his Majesties Council," the Virginia Company writes, "Commissioners for the Subsidy, desirous to ease the city and suburbs of a swarme of unnecessary inmates, as a contynual cause of death and famine, and the very original cause of all the Plagues that happen in this Kingdom, have advised your Lordship and your Brethren in a case of state, to make some voluntary contribucon for their remove into this plantation of Virginia, which we understand you all seemeth to like as an action pleasing to God and happy for this Common Wealth." 1 The English in the beginning of their colonization had to serve both God and Mammon and appeal to the spirit of the age by a judicious mixture of theology and greed. And thus, as an action concerning God, and the advancement of religion, the present ease, future honor and safety of the Kingdome, the strength of our Navy, the visible hope of a great and rich trade, and many secrett blessings not yett discovered; wee wholly comend the cause to the wisdome and zeal of your self and your Brethren, 1 Brown: The Genesis of the United States, vol. i, p. 252. and you and it, and us all to the holy proteccon of the almightie.” 1 "The eyes of all Europe are looking upon our endeavors to spread the Gospell among the Heathen people of Virginia, to plant our English nation there, and to settle in those parts which may be peculiar to our nation, so that we may thereby be secured from being beaten out of all profitts of trade, by our more industrious neighbors.” This, then, was the controlling motive of the men who established the first English colony in Virginia — the greed for gain and a convenient way of disposing of "a swarme of unnecessary inmates." But far different were the motives that animated the Pilgrims. They embarked on the unknown not in quest of gold, not for the glory of God, not even "for the future honor and safety of the Kingdome," but simply that they might be permitted to live their own lives in their own way unhampered by fanatical or tyrannical rulers.3 1 "A Letter from the Council and Company of the honourable Plantation in Virginia to the Lord Mayor, Alderman and Companies of London," probably written in 1608 or 1609. 2 Brown: The Genesis of the United States, vol. i, p. 463. 3 In accordance with the spirit of the age the propitiation of God must be sought to bring success to a commercial venture, and the governor and council of the Massachusetts Company, writing to Endicott, tell him "that the propagation of the Gospel is the thing we do profess above all to be our aim in settling this Plantation"; and the pious hope is expressed that "the Indians may, in God's appointed time, be reduced to the obedience of the Gospel of Christ." The charter avers that "to win and invite the natives of the country to the knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Saviour of Man |