Why did they come?  The reasons are various.  Some of them, the Pilgrims and Puritans of New England, the French Huguenots, Scotch-Irish and Irish, and the Catholics of Maryland, fled from intolerant governments that denied them the right to worship God according to the dictates of their consciences.  Thousands came to escape the bondage of poverty in the Old World and to find free homes in America.  Thousands, like the negroes from Africa, were dragged here against their will.  The lure of adventure appealed to the restless and the lure of profits to the enterprising merchants.

How did they come?  In some cases religious brotherhoods banded together and borrowed or furnished the funds necessary to pay the way.  In other cases great trading companies were organized to found colonies.  Again it was the wealthy proprietor, like Lord Baltimore or William Penn, who undertook to plant settlements.  Many immigrants were able to pay their own way across the sea.  Others bound themselves out for a term of years in exchange for the cost of the passage.  Negroes were brought on account of the profits derived from their sale as slaves.

Whatever the motive for their coming, however, they managed to get across the sea.  The immigrants set to work with a will.  They cut down forests, built houses, and laid out fields.  They founded churches, schools, and colleges.  They set up forges and workshops.  They spun and wove.  They fashioned ships and sailed the seas.  They bartered and traded.  Here and there on favorable harbors they established centers of commerce—­Boston, Providence, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Charleston.  As soon as a firm foothold was secured on the shore line they pressed westward until, by the close of the colonial period, they were already on the crest of the Alleghanies.

Though they were widely scattered along a thousand miles of seacoast, the colonists were united in spirit by many common ties.  The major portion of them were Protestants.  The language, the law, and the literature of England furnished the basis of national unity.  Most of the colonists were engaged in the same hard task; that of conquering a wilderness.  To ties of kinship and language were added ties created by necessity.  They had to unite in defense; first, against the Indians and later against the French.  They were all subjects of the same sovereign—­the king of England.  The English Parliament made laws for them and the English government supervised their local affairs, their trade, and their manufactures.  Common forces assailed them.  Common grievances vexed them.  Common hopes inspired them.