One advantage certainly attended the various settlements in America, of
which no European state can boast. Being peopled from civilized nations
in an enlightened age, when records are carefully kept and faithfully
preserved, the events of their rise and progress, though not so
important, were equally clear as those of their more perfect state:
whereas the history of the origin of eastern nations could only be
transmitted to future generations by the songs of bards or oral
tradition. Ignorance of geography, and the art of printing not being then
invented, must have rendered the transactions of rude and barbarous ages
so precarious and obscure, that if the dead of past ages were to revive,
they could scarcely be able to recognize the complexion of their own
time. Even in the ages preceding the invention of printing, and the happy
Reformation, many events lie buried in darkness and oblivion. The small
knowledge which then existed being confined to the clergy, their accounts
do not merit entire credit; for the various orders of ecclesiastics at
that time were too much under the influence of monkish pride and
superstition, to transmit faithful memorials to posterity.

[Sidenote] The first treaty with Spain respecting it.

Before the year 1667, there is no mention made of America in any treaty
between England and Spain, the latter being contented to keep up her
ancient claims to that country, and the former careful to keep and
improve the footing she had already gained in it. However, a few years
after Carolina was settled, Sir William Godolphin concluded a treaty with
Spain, in which, among other articles, it was agreed, "That the King of
Great-Britain should always possess, in full right of sovereignty and
property, all the countries, islands, and colonies, lying and situated in
the West Indies, or any part of America, which he and his subjects then
held and possessed, insomuch that they neither can nor ought thereafter