* This district, situated between Maryland and Virginia, and including the Federal capital, belongs to Government.

†The extent of Florida is estimated by Malte Brun at 57,750 square miles; in Carey and Lea's Atlas, at 56,600. The above reduced estimate is according to the Table given by Captain Basil Hall,

See page 7, of this volume.

§ In this estimate, the population of the new States, Alabama,

The census of 1810 gave 7,239,903 as the sum total of the population; but we have not deemed it necessary to give the details. On comparing these different estimates, it appears, that, between 1790 and 1820, the population of the United States steadily increased at the rate of about 3 per cent. per annum. The increase from 1790 to 1800, was 35 per cent.; from 1800 to 1810, 34.6 per cent.; from 1810 to 1820, about 33 per cent.; viz., 34 on the white population, 27 on the free coloured, and 28 on the slaves. Since 1820, however, the increase has been only at the rate of 17 per cent.; viz., 17 on the free population, and 19 on the slaves. The increase in some of the older States, between 1790 and 1810, was apparently inconsiderable; in Rhode Island and Connecticut, only about 10 per cent.; in Massachusetts and Maryland, nearly 20 per cent. ; while, in the State of New York, the increase was most extraordinary; 72 per cent. for the first ten years of this

Mississippi, Louisiana, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri, and of the Territories, are of course not included. The different classes were as follows.

Whites..

Free coloured........
Slaves

The different classes were, in 1820, thus distributed :

Whites...

Free colcured..

Slaves....

3,168,160

59,511

695,655

3,923,326

"All other persons except
Indians not naturalized." I

The number of "foreigners not naturalized" in 1820, was 53,655. The annual mean of the number of emigrants arriving in the United States in the years 1800-1820, was about 10,000.

This is ex

period, and 62 per cent. for the last ten. plained by the fact, that a great proportion of the population thus rapidly accumulated in New York, was derived from New England; and swarms from this same hive have contributed to raise the population of the new States. In Georgia, the increase between 1790 and 1800, was 97 per cent. ; in Vermont, 80 per cent. ; in Tennessee and Kentucky, nearly 200 per cent. In the Western States, the rate of increase is not a subject for calculation, as they were, at the former period, a mere wilderness, and have been peopled by emigration. It will be seen, that the slaves, who, in 1790, formed nearly a sixth of the population, still bear about the same proportion, but are almost entirely confined to Maryland and the States south of the Potowmac and the Ohio. In Louisiana and South Carolina, the slave population is rather more than one-half; but, taking the slave States throughout, there are two whites to a black.* The free-coloured inhabitants, estimated in 1790, at somewhat less than 60,000, and in 1820, at 233,557, are now supposed to amount to about 260,000 souls. Yet, notwithstanding the numerous manumissions, the slave population has increased faster than the free. The Indians, who are wholly passed over in the official tables, are now less numerous, to the east of the Mississippi, than the free negroes. And what is not less remarkable, in North America alone, we meet

Slaves have entirely disappeared, since the census of 1820, from the only parts of New England in which a few remained, as well as from New York and Pennsylvania. Their numbers were, Rhode Island, 48; Connecticut, 97; Pennsylvania, 211; New York, 10,083. Nine States, out of the twenty-four, have now no slaves. During the years 1804 to 1897, nearly 40,000 Africans were imported as slaves; but in the latter year, the trade was abolished. In 1810, nearly 200,000 had been emancipated, or been born in a state of freedom. By an act of the legislature of New York, every remaining slave became free on the 4th of J.dy, 1827.

with none of those mixed castes which, in Spanish and Portuguese America, form so large a proportion of the population. Of the Whites, the New Englanders, Virginians, and Carolinians are almost purely of British origin. Next to the British, in point of numbers, are the Germans and Irish, who are very numerous in the Middle States, particularly in Pennsylvania. Next to these are the Dutch, who are the most numerous in the State of New York; but, "from three-fifths to two-thirds" of the inhabitants of that State have emigrated from New England.* Nearly half the population of Louisiana is French.

The history of the settlement of America, and of the Revolution from which the Union dates its independence, would far exceed our prescribed limits. We must confine ourselves to a very brief outline of the leading events, commencing with the discovery of the Continent in the fifteenth century.

HISTORICAL MEMORANDA.

THE romantic story of the adventures of Columbus may be passed over as having little connexion with the northern section of the New World. The honour of first discovering the Continent must, without diminishing the merit of the Genoese Navigator, be given to John Cabot, a Venetian by birth, but who resided many years at Bristol, and to his son Sebastian. Soon after the result of Columbus's first voyage was known, Cabot was sent by the King of England (Henry VII.) on an expedition of discovery in the same direction. He sailed in the spring of

Dwight, vol. iii. p. 252. This proportion, the learned Writer represents to be continually increasing; so that "New York is ultimately to be regarded as a colony from New England."

1497, and steering directly west, arrived in June at a large island, which he called Prima Vista, but which has since become well known under the familiar name of Newfoundland. Here they landed, and brought away several of the productions of the country, and three of its inhabitants. It being their main object to discover a north-west passage to the Indies, they coasted the whole of the N.E. promontory of America between the parallels of 38° and 57°; then, returning, they cruised along the coast of East Florida; and thence sailed to England, without having made any settlement. Upon the discoveries made in this voyage, however, the English founded their claim to the eastern portion of North America.

It was in the year 1498, in his third voyage, that Columbus discovered the island of Trinidad and the coast of Paria and Cumana. In the following year, Alonso de Ojeda, who had accompanied Columbus in his second voyage, pursuing the same track, explored the coast as far as Cape de Vela. An account of this voyage was drawn up by Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine, who had accompanied Ojeda; and to the author of this first published description of the New World, was awarded the distinction due to its discoverer. "The name of Amerigo," says Robertson, "has supplanted that of Columbus; and mankind may regret an act of injustice which, having received the sanction of time, it is now too late to redress."

Such is the received story; but it is not a little remarkable, that it should be wholly uncertain, at what time the name of America came to be first given to the New World.* Nor is it less singular, that, if the continent really derived its name from "the impostor,"

PART I.

Robertson's America, vol. i. note 23.

F