was slow to grow up among them. Trade was the means towards supporting a
religious state; not a method for the acquirement of wealth. By and by,
however, manufactures of cotton and woollen fabrics grew up, lumber was
floated down to the coast, gunpowder and glass were made, and fish were
cured for winter use and to be sent abroad. They ate corn-meal and milk,
and pork and beans were a favorite New England dish from the first; and
they drank cider and home-brewed beer. The first coins appeared in
1652; and the oldest college on American soil, Harvard, was founded at
Cambridge in 1636.

[Sidenote: Dutch and Cavaliers.]

The Dutch, in New York, and the Cavaliers, in Virginia, set out upon
their colonial careers in a very different way. The Dutch came to
America as traders; the Cavaliers came to be landed proprietors and to
seek rapid fortunes. Instead, therefore, of clustering close in towns
and villages, both the Dutch and the Cavaliers spread out through the
country and established large and isolated estates. Wealthy Dutchmen
came hither with patents from the East India Company, took possession
of tracts sixteen miles long, settled colonies upon them, and lived in
great state on their "manors," ruling the colonies, working their lands
with slaves, and assuming the aristocratic title of "Patroon." Thus a
sort of feudal system grew up, in which the "Patroons" exercised an
authority well nigh as absolute as that of the mediaeval barons on the
Rhine; and this system long flourished side by side with the democratic
simplicity of the Puritan commonwealths.

[Sidenote: Captain John Smith.]

In the same way the Virginians scattered themselves in the fruitful and