ransit between
Philadelphia and the capital of Virginia. In New England, from here to
New York, and between New York and Philadelphia, despatch was much
better.

[Illustration: King William.]

[Illustration: Queen Mary.]

The learned professions also were best patronized and had the ablest
personnel in New England, where all three, but particularly the clergy,
were strong and honored. Outside of New England, till 1750, lawyers and
physicians, especially in the country parts, were poorly educated and
little respected. Each formidable disease had the people at its mercy.
Diphtheria, then known as the throat disease, swept through the land
once in about thirty years. Smallpox was another frequent scourge. In
1721 it attacked nearly six thousand persons in Boston, about half the
population, killing some nine hundred. The clergy, almost to a man,
decried vaccination when first vented, proclaiming it an effort to
thwart God's will. Clergymen, except perhaps in Carolina and Virginia,
were somewhat better educated, yet those in New England led all others
in this respect.

Colonial America boasted many great intellectual lights. President
Edwards won European reputation as a thinker, and so did Franklin as a
statesman and as a scientist. Linnaeus named our Bartram, a Quaker
farmer of Pennsylvania, the greatest natural botanist then living.
Increase Mather read and wrote both Greek and Hebrew, and spoke Latin.
He and his son Cotton were veritable wonders in literary attainment. The
one was the author of ninety-two books, the other of three hundred and
eighty-three. The younger Winthrop was a member of the Royal Society.
Copley, Stuart, and West became distinguished painters.

Except for mails, there were in the colonies no public conveyances by
land till just before the Revolution. After stage lines were introduced,
to go from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh required seven days; from
Philadelphia to New York, at first three, later two. The earliest coach
to attain the last-named speed was advertised as "the flying machine,"
From Boston one would be four days travelling to New York, two to
Portsmouth. Packet-boats between the main points on the coast were as
regular and speedy as wind allowed. Stage-drivers, inn-keepers, and
ship-captains were the honored and accredited purveyors of news.

Everywhere was great prosperity, little luxury. Paucity of money gave
rise to that habit of barter and dicker in trade which was a mannerism