ures of Parliament.... General
enthusiasm in America.... A general congress proposed.... General Gage
arrives.... Troops stationed on Boston neck.... New counsellors and
judges.... Obliged to resign.... Boston neck fortified.... Military
stores seized by General Gage.... Preparations for defence.... King's
speech.... Proceedings of Parliament.... Battle of Lexington....
Massachusetts raises men.... Meeting of Congress.... Proceedings of
that body.... Transactions in Virginia.... Provincial congress of
South Carolina.... Battle of Breed's hill.

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I.

Commission of Cabot.... His voyage to America.... Views of
discovery relinquished by Henry VII.... Resumed by
Elizabeth.... Letters patent to Sir Humphry Gilbert.... His
voyages and death.... Patent to Sir Walter Raleigh....
Voyage of Sir Richard Grenville.... Colonists carried back
to England by Drake.... Grenville arrives with other
colonists.... They are left on Roanoke Island.... Are
destroyed by the Indians.... Arrival of John White.... He
returns to England for succour.... Raleigh assigns his
patent.... Patent to Sir Thomas Gates and others.... Code of
laws for the proposed colony drawn up by the King.

The United States of America extend, on the Atlantic, from the bay of
Passamaquoddi in the 45th, to Cape Florida in the 25th, degree of
north latitude; and thence, on the gulf of Mexico, including the small
adjacent islands to the mouth of the Sabine, in the 17th degree of
west longitude from Washington. From the mouth of the Sabine to the
Rocky mountains, they are separated from Spanish America by a line
which pursues an irregular north-western direction to the 42d degree
of north latitude, whence it proceeds west, to the Pacific. On the
north they are bounded by the British provinces; from which, between
the Lake of the Woods and the Rocky, or Stony mountains, they are
separated by the 49th parallel of north latitude. Their northern
boundary, west of these mountains, has not yet been adjusted.

The extent of this vast Republic, in consequence of its recent
acquisition of almost unexplored territory, has not yet been
accurately ascertained; but may be stated at two millions of square
miles.

Its population, which began on the Atlantic, and is travelling rapidly
westward, amounted in 1820, according to the census of that year, to
nine millions six hundred and fifty-four th