ABSTRACT
Many sorts of people contributed to the settlement of the thirteen English colonies which declared their independence of Great Britain on July 4, 1776. Men of all classes, from the noble to jailbird, were among the first English immigrants in the seventeenth century. The motives which inspired these people to try their fortunes in America varied with individual, as well as with the region in which they settled. The people who came to Virginia were mostly well content to establish there the institutions of old England, to reproduce its class divisions, to perpetuate its social customs. The New England colonies differed widely from Virginia, both in the motives which led to their settlement and in the economic characteristics of the communities which were in fact established there. Of all the colonial wars of the eighteenth century, the most important was the last one, the French and Indian War, which was the American counterpart of the Seven Years' War in Europe.
