there were plenty of well-remembered facts to illustrate.

[Sidenote: Grounds of sympathy between Massachusetts and Virginia.]

These contests also helped to arouse a strong sympathy between the
popular leaders in Massachusetts and in Virginia. Between the people of
the two colonies there was not much real sympathy, because there was a
good deal of difference between their ways of life and their opinions
about things; and people, unless they are unusually wise and generous of
nature, are apt to dislike and despise those who differ from them in
opinions and habits. So there was little cordiality of feeling between
the people of Massachusetts and the people of Virginia, but in spite of
this there was a great and growing political sympathy. This was because,
ever since 1693, they had been obliged to deal with the same kind of
political questions. It became intensely interesting to a Virginian to
watch the progress of a dispute between the governor and legislature of
Massachusetts, because whatever principle might be victorious in the
course of such a dispute, it was sure soon to find a practical
application in Virginia. Hence by the middle of the eighteenth century
the two colonies were keenly observant of each other, and either one was
exceedingly prompt in taking its cue from the other. It is worth while
to remember this fact, for without it there would doubtless have been
rebellions or revolutions of American colonies, but there would hardly
have been one American Revolution, ending in a grand American Union.

CHAPTER III

THE FRENCH WARS, AND THE FIRST PLAN OF UNION.

[Sidenote: Disputed frontier between French and English colonies.]

It was said a moment ago that one of the chief objects for which the
governors wanted money was to maintain troops for defence against the
French and the Indians. This was a very serious matter indeed. To any
one who looked at a map of North America in 1750 it might well have
seemed as if the French had secured for themselves the greater part of
the continent. The western frontier of the English settlements was
generally within two hundred miles of the sea-coast. In New York it was
at Johnson Hall, not far from Schenectady; in Pennsylvania it was about
at Carlisle; in Virginia it was near Winchester, and the first explorers
were just making their way across the Alleghany mountains. Westward of
these frontier settlements lay endless stretches of forest inhabited by
war