THE first volume of this series dealt with the earliest explora-
tions and settlements and the life of the New England colonies
from the beginning until 1691. It was, as its title indicated,
the story of The Founding of New England. In the second
volume, Revolutionary New England, 1691-1776, the narrative
was continued to cover the period between the dates named.
An attempt was made to trace the origin of grievances on the
part of the people at large, the rise of a radical party, and the
slow growth of revolutionary sentiment for many decades
before what is generally considered the revolutionary period
proper, that is, the decade of agitation from 1763 onward.
Apart from the imperial relations and quarrels of the time, we
tried to show how discontent steadily grew, how there came to
be an increasing self-consciousness on the part of the lower
classes, and how they gradually demanded more and more of
a share in the political power of their small commonwealths.

In what may be considered as more distinctively the period
of revolution in the sense of a crisis in the relations with Eng-
land, the leaders of that movement found it both desirable and
necessary to influence popular sentiment by a propaganda
which stressed the rights of man and the sovereignty of the
people. It was a heady draught to hold to the lips of classes
who, owing to the frontier conditions under which to a great
extent they lived, had already advanced generations ahead
of their time in a fervent devotion to a philosophy of personal
independence and individualism.

In the present volume we try to follow the working-out of
the situation which resulted, during the remainder of the
period in which New England may be considered as having
been a distinct section. Our story closes with the year 1850,
for from that mid-point of the century the current of national-
ism swept the New England states into the swift movement

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