OF THE UNITED STATES, FROM THEIR FIRST SETTLEMENT AS ENGLISH COLONIES, IN 1607, TO THE YEAR 1808, OR THE THIRTY-THIRD OF THEIR SOVEREIGNTY AND BY DAVID RAMSAY, M. D. CONTINUED TO THE TREATY OF GHENT, BY S. S. SMITH, D. D. AND L. L. D. AND OTHER LITERARY GENTLEMEN. FOR THE SOLE BENEFIT OF THE HEIRS OF THE AUTHOR. 1816. Checked May 1913 NYPL RESEARCH LIBRARIES DISTRICT OF SOUTH CAROLINA. BE IT REMEMBERED, that, on the second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixteen, and in the forty. first year of the Independence of the United States of America, Eleanor H. L. Ramsay, Martha H. L. Ramsay, Catharine H. L. Ramsay, Sabina E. Ramsay, David Ramsay, James Ramsay, Nathaniel Ramsay, and William Ramsay, deposited in this office the title of a Book, the right whereof they claim as proprietors, in the words following, to wit: "The History of the United States. By David Ramsay, M. D." In conformity to the act of Congress of the United States, entitled "An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned,” and also an act entitled, “An act supplementary to an act entitled, "An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned," and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving and etching historical and other prints." JAMES JERVEY, Clerk of the District of South Carolina. LYDIA R. BAILEY, PRINTER. LENOX LIBRAR NEW YORK PREFACE. AN history of the American revolution was published by the author, in 1789. This has been long out of print, and a second edition repeatedly called for. It occurred to him, that an extension of the plan, so as to comprehend the history of the colonies, anterior to their revolution, and of the United States, subsequent to that event, would be preferable to a new edition of the former work. This would give an unbroken view of American history, as far back as the United States are concerned, from their first settlement to the present time. In prosecuting the colonial history of the country, it was soon found, that the subject naturally branched into thirteen separate divisions. In each colony, its history took a colouring from the time and circumstances of its settlement, source of population, form of government, laws, religion, soil, agriculture, and climate. There were a few things in which they agreed; but more in which there were material shades. of difference, sufficiently important to require historic notice. In pursuance of these ideas, the author suspended his general work, until he had finished a particular history of his own state of South Carolina. Such local histories he conceived to be necessary, both for the illustration of the revolution, and for the instruction of posterity, who will, doubtless, he anxious for more circumstantial information of their respective states, than has yet been given, or can be given, in a general history of the whole. These observations are premised, that the reader may expect, in the following sheets, no more of the colonial history of the British provinces, than what is general, and, in some respects, common to the whole, and necessary to a proper view of their late revolution. All that was valuable, in the author's history of the American revolution, is incorporated in this work. To it, a general |