mediately flies to the English university city on the banks of the
river Cam. Still the college built at the American Cambridge, and
called "Harvard College," after John Harvard, one of the early
settlers, who gave a great deal of money towards its building, is
famous now throughout the world.

It was natural and suitable that the early settlers should use the old
English names to show their love for the mother-country; but it was
not such a wise thing to choose the names of the great historic towns
of Europe, and give them to the new settlements. To give the almost
sacred name of _Rome_ to a modern American town seems almost
ridiculous. Certainly one would have always to be very careful to add
"Georgia, U.S.A." in addressing letters there. The United States has
several of these towns bearing old historic names. _Paris_ as the name
of an American town seems almost as unsuitable as Rome.

But this mistake was not made by the early colonists. If we think of
the names of the colonies which stretched along the east of North
America, we find nearly always that the names are chosen to do honour
to the English king or queen, or to keep the memory fresh of some
beloved spot in the old country.

In 1632 the Catholic Lord Baltimore founded a new colony, the only one
where the Catholic religion was tolerated, and called it _Maryland_,
in honour of Charles I.'s queen, Henrietta Maria. Just after the
Restoration of Charles II. in 1660, when the country was full of
loyalty, a new colony, _Carolina_, was founded, taking its name from
_Carolus_, the Latin for "Charles." Afterwards this colony was divided
into two, and became North and South Carolina.

To the north of Maryland lay the _New Netherlands_, for Holland had
also colonized here. In the seventeenth century this little nation was
for a time equal to the greatest nations in Europe. The Dutch had very
soon followed the example of that other little nation Portugal, which,
directed by the famous Prince Henry of Portugal, had been the first of
all the European nations to explore far-off lands. Holland was as
important on the seas as Spain or England; but this could not last
long. The Dutch and the English fought several campaigns, and in the
end the Dutch were beaten.

In 1667 the New Netherlands were yielded up to England. The name of
the colony was changed to _New York_, and its capital, New Amsterdam,
was given the same name. This was in honour of the sailor prince,
James,