=Colonial Life in General.=--John Fiske, _Old Virginia and Her
Neighbors_, Vol. II, pp. 174-269; Elson, _History of the United States_,
pp. 197-210.

=Colonial Government in General.=--Elson, pp. 210-216.




CHAPTER IV

THE DEVELOPMENT OF COLONIAL NATIONALISM


It is one of the well-known facts of history that a people loosely
united by domestic ties of a political and economic nature, even a
people torn by domestic strife, may be welded into a solid and compact
body by an attack from a foreign power. The imperative call to common
defense, the habit of sharing common burdens, the fusing force of common
service--these things, induced by the necessity of resisting outside
interference, act as an amalgam drawing together all elements, except,
perhaps, the most discordant. The presence of the enemy allays the most
virulent of quarrels, temporarily at least. "Politics," runs an old
saying, "stops at the water's edge."

This ancient political principle, so well understood in diplomatic
circles, applied nearly as well to the original thirteen American
colonies as to the countries of Europe. The necessity for common
defense, if not equally great, was certainly always pressing. Though it
has long been the practice to speak of the early settlements as founded