ores, and assemble the settlers necessary to found
and sustain a plantation beyond the seas. Sometimes the proprietor
worked alone. Sometimes two or more were associated like partners in the
common undertaking.

Five colonies, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the Carolinas,
owe their formal origins, though not always their first settlements, nor
in most cases their prosperity, to the proprietary system. Maryland,
established in 1634 under a Catholic nobleman, Lord Baltimore, and
blessed with religious toleration by the act of 1649, flourished under
the mild rule of proprietors until it became a state in the American
union. New Jersey, beginning its career under two proprietors, Berkeley
and Carteret, in 1664, passed under the direct government of the crown
in 1702. Pennsylvania was, in a very large measure, the product of the
generous spirit and tireless labors of its first proprietor, the leader
of the Friends, William Penn, to whom it was granted in 1681 and in
whose family it remained until 1776. The two Carolinas were first
organized as one colony in 1663 under the government and patronage of
eight proprietors, including Lord Clarendon; but after more than half a
century both became royal provinces governed by the king.

[Illustration: WILLIAM PENN, PROPRIETOR OF PENNSYLVANIA]

THE COLONIAL PEOPLES

=The English.=--In leadership and origin the thirteen colonies, except
New York and Delaware, were English. During the early days of all, save
these two, the main, if not the sole, current of immigration was from
England. The colonists came from every walk of life. They were men,
women, and children of "all sorts and conditions." The major portion
were yeomen, or small land owners, farm laborers, and artisans. With
them were merchants and gentlemen who brought their stocks of goods or
their fortunes to the New World. Scholars came from Oxford and
Cambridge to preach the gospel or to teach. Now and then the son of an
English nobleman left his baronial hall behind and cast his lot with
America. The people represented every religious faith--members of the
Established Church of England; Puritans who had labored to reform that
church; Separatists, Baptists, and Friends, who had left it altogether;
and Catholics, who clung to the religion of their fathers.

New England was almost purely English. During the years between 1629 and
1640, the period of arbitrary Stuart government, about twenty thousand
Puritans emigr