Dixon's line. What is now New York City
had, in 1697, 4,302 inhabitants.

Passing on to 1754, we find the white population of New England
increased to 425,000; that of the middle colonies, including Maryland,
to 457,000; that of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, to 283,000.
Massachusetts alone now had 207,000; Rhode Island, 35,000; Connecticut,
133,000; New York State (1756), 83,744. There were now not far from
263,000 negroes, of whom 14,000 lived in New England, 4,500 in Rhode
Island. The total population of the thirteen colonies amounted to nearly
a million and a half. At this time Philadelphia about equalled Boston in
size, each having 25,000 inhabitants. At the Revolution Boston had grown
to be the larger. New York, with from 15,000 to 18,000, constituted the
centre of trade and of politics. The city and county of New York
together numbered 13,046 inhabitants in 1756; 21,862 in 1771; 23,614 in
1786. The whole State, in 1771 had 146,144. Connecticut, in 1774, had
197,856. There are said to have been, so late as 1763, woods where the
New York City Hall now stands.

From North to South the population decreased in density, but it
increased in heterogeneity and non-English elements, and in illiteracy.
The South had also the stronger aristocratic feeling. Slaves, as the
above figures show, were far more numerous in that section. Their
condition was also worse there.

A large proportion of the white population everywhere was of
Saxon-Teutonic blood. The colonial leaders, and many others, at least in
the North, were men who would have been eminent in England itself. Not a
few New England theologians and lawyers were peers to the ablest of
their time. Numbers of the common people read, reflected, debated. While
profoundly religious, the colonists, being nearly all Protestants, were
bold and progressive thinkers in every line, prizing discussion,
preferring to settle questions by rational methods rather than through
authority and tradition. We have observed that there are exceptions to
this rule, like the treatment of Roger Williams, but they were
exceptions. The colonists possessed in eminent degree energy,
determination, power of patient endurance and sacrifice. Their political
genius, too, was striking in itself, and it becomes surprising if one
compares Germany, in the unspeakable distraction of the Thirty Years'
War, with America at the same period, 1618-1648, successfully solving by
patience and debate the very