The patriotism of the colonist was bounded by the
lines of his government, except in the compact and kindred colonies of
New England, which were socially united, through politically distinct.
The country of the New Yorker was New York, and the country of the
Virginian was Virginia. The New England colonies had once confederated;
but, kindred as they were, they had long ago dropped apart. William Penn
proposed a plan of colonial union wholly fruitless. James II. tried to
unite all the northern colonies under one government; but the attempt
came to naught. Each stood aloof, jealously independent. At rare
intervals, under the pressure of an emergency, some of them would try to
act in concert; and, except in New England, the results had been most
discouraging. Nor was it this segregation only that unfitted them for
war. They were all subject to popular legislatures, through whom alone
money and men could be raised; and these elective bodies were sometimes
factious and selfish, and not always either far-sighted or reasonable.
Moreover, they were in a state of ceaseless friction with their
governors, who represented the king, or, what was worse, the feudal
proprietary. These disputes, though varying in intensity, were found
everywhere except in the two small colonies which chose their own
governors; and they were premonitions of the movement towards
independence which ended in the war of Revolution.
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