the standard with all who had the ability to imitate them, there was no
longer an undue severity of religion, nor as yet any disaffection to
British supremacy, nor democratic prejudices against pomp. Thus, while
the colonies were attaining that strength which was soon to render them
an independent republic, it might have been supposed that the wealthier
classes were growing into an aristocracy, and ripening for hereditary
rank, while the poor were to be stationary in their abasement, and the
country, perhaps, to be a sister monarchy with England. Such, doubtless,
were the plausible conjectures deduced from the superficial phenomena of
our connection with a monarchical government, until the prospective
nobility were levelled with the mob, by the mere gathering of winds that
preceded the storm of the Revolution. The portents of that storm were
not yet visible in the air. A true picture of society, therefore, would
have the rich effect produced by distinctions of rank that seemed
permanent, and by appropriate habits of splendor on the part of the
gentry.

The people at large had been somewhat changed in character, since the
period of our last sketch, by their great exploit, the conquest of
Louisburg. After that event, the New-Englanders never settled into
precisely the same quiet race which all the world had imagined them to
be. They had done a deed of history, and were anxious to add new ones to
the record. They had proved themselves powerful enough to influence the
result of a war, and were thenceforth called upon, and willingly
consented, to join their strength against the enemies of England; on
those fields, at least, where victory would redound to their peculiar
advantage. And now, in the heat of the Old French War, they might well
be termed a martial people. Every man was a soldier, or the father or
brother of a soldier; and the whole land literally echoed with the roll
of the drum, either beating up for recruits among the towns and villages,