ndents, Presbyterians, and members of the Dutch
Reformed Church. The little city of New York, like its great successor,
was the most cosmopolitan place on the continent, and probably the
gayest. It had, in abundance, balls, concerts, theatricals, and evening
clubs, with plentiful dances and other amusements, for the poorer
classes. Thither in the winter months came the great hereditary
proprietors on the Hudson; for the old Dutch feudality still held its
own, and the manors of Van Renselaer, Cortland, and Livingston, with
their seigniorial privileges, and the great estates and numerous
tenantry of the Schuylers and other leading families, formed the basis
of an aristocracy, some of whose members had done good service to the
province, and were destined to do more. Pennsylvania was feudal in form,
and not in spirit; Virginia in spirit, and not in form; New England in
neither; and New York largely in both. This social crystallization had,
it is true, many opponents. In politics, as in religion, there were
sharp antagonisms and frequent quarrels. They centred in the city; for
in the well-stocked dwellings of the Dutch farmers along the Hudson
there reigned a tranquil and prosperous routine; and the Dutch border
town of Albany had not its like in America for unruffled conservatism
and quaint picturesqueness.

Of the other colonies, the briefest mention will suffice: New Jersey,
with its wholesome population of farmers; tobacco-growing Maryland,
which, but for its proprietary government and numerous Roman Catholics,
might pass for another Virginia, inferior in growth, and less decisive
in features; Delaware, a modest appendage of Pennsylvania; wild and rude
North Carolina; and, farther on, South Carolina and Georgia, too remote
from the seat of war to take a noteworthy part in it. The attitude of
these various colonies towards each other is hardly conceivable to an
American of the present time. They had no political tie except a common
allegiance to the British Crown. Communication between them was
difficult and slow, by rough roads traced often through primeval
forests. Between some of them there was less of sympathy than of
jealousy kindled by conflicting interests or perpetual disputes
concerning boundaries. 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 Yor