The History of the American Revolution: In Two Volumes

Chapter I. Of the Settlement of the English Colonies, and of the political Condition of their Inhabitants.

CHAPTER I Of the Settlement of the English Colonies, and of the political Condition of their Inhabitants. [I] THE EXTENSIVE CONTINENT which is now called America, was three hundred years ago unknown to three quarters of the globe. The efforts of Europe during the fifteenth century to find a new path to the rich countries of the East, brought on the discovery of a new world in the West. Christopher Columbus acquired this distinguished honor in the year 1492, but a later navigator Americus Vespucius 1492 who had been employed to draw maps of the new discoveries, robbed him of the credit he justly merited of having the country called by his name. In the following year 1493, Pope Alexander the sixth, with 1493 a munificence that cost him nothing, gave the whole Continent to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. This grant was not because the country was uninhabited, but because the nations existing there were infidels; and therefore in the opinion of the infallible donor not HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION entitled to the possession of the territory in which their Creator had placed them. This extravagant claim of a right to dispose of the countries of heathen nations, was too absurd to be universally regarded, even in that superstitious age. And in defiance of it, several European sovereigns though devoted to the See of Rome undertook and successfully prosecuted further discoveries in the Western hemisphere. !2] Henry the seventh of England, by the exertion of an authority 1496 similar to that of Pope Alexander, granted to John Cabot and his three sons a commission, "to navigate all parts of the ocean for the purpose of discovering Islands, Countries, Regions or Provinces, either of Gentiles or Infidels, which have been hitherto unknown to all christian people, with power to set up his standard and to take possession of the same as Vassals of the crown of England." By virtue of this commission, Sebastian Cabot explored and took possession 1498 of a great part of the North American continent, in the name and on behalf of the king of England. The country thus discovered by Cabot was possessed by numerous tribes or nations of people. As these had been till then unknown to all other Princes or States, they could not possibly have owed either allegiance or subjection to any foreign power on earth; they must have therefore been independent communities, and as such capable of acquiring territorial property, in the same manner as other nations. Of the various principles on which a right to soil has been founded, there is none superior to immemorial occupancy. From what time the Aborigines of America had resided therein, or from what place they migrated thither, were questions of doubtful solution, but it was certain that they had long been sole occupants of the country. In this state no European prince could derive a title to the soil from discovery, because that can give a right only to lands and things which either have never been owned or possessed, or which after being owned or possessed have been voluntarily deserted. The right of the Indian nations to the soil in their possession was founded in nature. It was the free and liberal gift of Heaven to them, and such as no foreigner could rightfully annul. The blinded superstition of the times regarded the Deity as the partial God of christians, and not as the common father of saints and savages. The pervading 4 CHAPTER I influence of philosophy, reason, and truth, has since that period, given us better notions of the rights of mankind, and of the obligations of morality. These unquestionably are not confined [3] to particular modes of faith, but extend universally to Jews and Gentiles, to 1496 Christians and Infidels. Unfounded however as the claims of European sovereigns to American territories were, they severally proceeded to act upon them. By tacit consent they adopted as a new law of nations, that the countries which each explored should be the absolute property of the discoverer. While they thus sported with the rights of unoffending nations, they could not agree in their respective shares of the common spoil. The Portuguese and Spaniards, inflamed by the same spirit of national aggrandizement, contended for the exclusive sovereignty of what Columbus had explored. Animated by the rancour of commercial jealousy, the Dutch and Portuguese fought for the Brazils. Contrary to her genuine interests...