Alleged Reasons for a Confederation of the Four Colonies French, Dutch, and Swedes in their Neighborhood Preliminary Movements for a Confederation . Change of the Views of Massachusetts in relation to it Exclusion of the Maine and Narragansett Settlers HISTORY OF NEW ENGLAND. CHAPTER I. ON the eastern coast of North America, midway between the equator and the pole, is a tract of land properly described as a peninsula, from a physical conformation which has had important relations to its civil history.' The northern extremity of the Appalachian zone of elevated land is separated from the continent by the long bed of the St. Lawrence, and the deep and broad chasm which holds the waters of Lake Champlain, Lake George, and the river Hudson. The series of ridges and plateaus, which, rising from the sandy shore of the Gulf of Mexico, stretches nearly unbroken in a direction parallel to the Atlantic coast, is suddenly interrupted and cut down to its base by a valley sunk thousands of feet between the Katskill Mountains and the lofty chains and table-lands of the Adirondac region on one side, and the long belt of the Green Mountains on the other. The average width of 1 This geographical feature, though imperfectly understood, was not overlooked in early times. "New England is by some affirmed to be an island, bounded on the north with the river Canada, so called from M. Cane; on the south with the river Mohegan, or Hudson River, so called because he was the first that discovered it." (Josse VOL. I. 1 lyn, New England's Rarities, pp. 4, 5; comp. his Voyages, p. 42.) Cushman (Discourse, ad init.) and Winslow (Good Newes from New England, 62), at Plymouth in 1621 and 1623, believed that it was an island; Wood, in Massachusetts in 1633, that it was an island or a peninsula (New England's Prospect, 1). this depression is not far from twenty miles. At the north it expands into a broad prairie between Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence, while among the Highlands near West Point it is compressed to the diminished width of the Hudson where that river seems to have broken a link between the two parts of the Appalachian chain. The insulation of this tract is all but complete. The tide runs up the St. Lawrence nearly five hundred miles, almost reaching the point where the river Richelieu, or Sorel, discharges the surplus waters of Lake George and Lake Champlain. The surface of Lake Champlain is only ninety feet above the ocean; the canal which now unites its waters with those of Hudson River running in an opposite direction, scarcely rises fifty more to its highest level; and at Troy and Albany, a hundred and fifty miles from the sea, the tide is met again, coming up from the south. Of that long depression of nine hundred miles from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the mouth of the Hudson, the tide-waters cover six hundred and fifty miles; while for the remaining two hundred and fifty the elevation above the ocean is not so great as is reached by ordinary structures reared by the hand of man. A level way was prepared by nature, along which the travel and the commerce of tranquil times have at length succeeded to the incursions of savage or of civilized war. The area thus defined as one physical region, and measuring with the neighboring islands about a hundred and forty-five thousand square miles, is occupied by the British Provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, with part of that of Lower Canada; the six States of the American Union known by the collective name of New England; and a narrow section of the State of New York. New England, covering less than half of England. this surface, extends from the forty-first degree nearly to the forty-eighth degree of north latitude, and from the sixty-seventh degree almost to the seventy-fourth Area of New degree of west longitude. It is bounded by British possessions on the north, northeast, and northwest; on the southeast, east, and south, by the Atlantic Ocean; and on the west, by Lake Champlain and by the State of New York, which through nearly three degrees of latitude interposes a breadth of some twenty miles, mostly of lowland, between it and Hudson River. It has an area of about 65,000 square miles, of which about 31,700 belong to the State of Maine, 9,300 to New Hampshire, 10,200 to Vermont, 7,800 to Massachusetts, 1,300 to Rhode Island, and 4,700 to Connecticut. Maine occupies the northeastern corner. West of the southern half of Maine lie New Hampshire, touching the ocean for only a few miles, and the inland State of Vermont. South of New Hampshire and Vermont, along their whole extent, is Massachusetts, measuring the breadth of Southern New England from east to west, and stretching to a double width on the sea, which it fronts with its entire eastern border. South of Massachusetts are Rhode Island, exposed on its southern side to the Atlantic, and Connecticut, lying along the oval-shaped strait known as Long Island Sound. Long Island, with its low plains and sandy beaches, though by nature attached to New England, politically belongs elsewhere. The sea-coast, measured without allowance for interruption by the less considerable inlets, extends about seven hundred miles. Ranges of Only moderate elevations present themselves to the view along the greater part of the line of the New-England coast. Inland, the great topographical feature is a double belt of highlands, separated almost to their bases by the deep and broad valley of Connecti- highlands. cut River, and running parallel to each other from the south-southwest to the north-northeast, till, around the sources of that river, they unite in a wide space of tableland, from which streams descend in different directions. Thence, separating again, they take a northeasterly course |