Alpha Book

In the year 1688 there were ten of
these colonies. The oldest one, Virginia, had been settled in 1607 by
the London Company under a charter from King James I. Plymouth, founded
in 1620 by the Pilgrims (Separatists or Independents driven from
England by the enforcement of religious conformity to the Anglican
Church), was presently to be merged with the neighboring Puritan colony
of Massachusetts. Near these first, New England settlements had grown
up the colonies of Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Hampshire: Maine
was then a part of Massachusetts. Just as New England was the Puritans'
refuge, so Maryland, granted to Lord Baltimore in 1632, was a haven for
the persecuted Roman Catholics. A large tract south of Virginia, known
as Carolina, had been granted to eight nobles in 1663; but it was
prospering so poorly that its proprietors were willing to sell it to
the king in 1729 for a mere L50,000. The capture of the Dutch colony of
New Netherland [Footnote: Rechristened New York. It included New Jersey
also.


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