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THE COLONIAL AGENT AS A POPULAR REPRESENTATIVE

In the Political Science Quarterly for March, 1901, Professor E. P. Tanner has given an excellent analysis of the colonial agency.¹ Since then, much additional material has become available in printed form and in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. As these sources are especially abundant for Maryland and the southern colonies, it is now possible to make a detailed study of the development in them of the colonial agent as the spokesman in England of the lower house of the colonial legislature in controversies between that body and the governor and council. The importance of such a recognized medium through whom grievances might be presented directly to the crown is apparent, but this end was secured only if the lower house controlled the agent. Numerous controversies, therefore, arose between the lower house and the council over the right to nominate and supervise the agent. As the consent of the governor and council was necessary in order to secure an appropriation for the salary and expenses of the agent, there was a distinct limitation upon the power of the lower house. Consequently numerous controversies arose between the two houses, but in most instances the popular chamber won an ultimate victory.

Popular control of the colonial agent was more important in the proprietary than in the royal colonies, for in the former, a private person, the proprietor, directed the administration of the colony, and without some independent medium of representation it was almost impossible for the people of the colony to bring their grievances before the crown. It was equally true that the proprietor, in view of the large permanent interests he had at stake, would more strenuously oppose the appointment of such an agent than would a royal governor, who

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enjoyed a mere temporary authority. Consequently, in Maryland the right of the lower house to control the colonial agent was more bitterly contested and with a greater degree of success than in the southern colonies that were under royal control. While Maryland was under a royal governor (1691-1715) the lower house treated the question of a colonial agent in a rather indifferent fashion. In 1692 the general assembly appointed Peter Paggen, “a merchant trading in Maryland”, to represent the colony for a year only.¹ Three years later, the lower house decided that it was unnecessary to send an agent to England, but in 1702, upon the representation of the Board of Trade, they finally consented to appoint Governor Nathaniel Blakiston.² Blakiston served as agent, except for the short period from 1708 to 1713, until 1721, although he seems to have been more favorably regarded by the governor and the council than by the lower house.³ Finally, despite the remonstrance of the council, the lower house decided that an agent was unnecessary in view of the “continual charge” and the “small advantage”.⁴

After the resumption of proprietary government in Maryland, the accumulation of grievances soon impressed upon the lower house the need of appointing an agent who would present to the crown the popular side of a controversy. The council, of course, could be depended upon to block such a move. Thus, in 1725 they vetoed an allowance to an agent upon the ground that he would represent the lower house alone.⁵ Similar proposals in 1729 and 1731 met a like rebuff.⁶ A bitter controversy at this time over the proprietary revenue emphasized

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the need for an agent,¹ and in 1739 the lower house again asked the council to agree to the appointment of such a representative, in order to bring before the crown the dispute with the proprietor. Again the council refused to concur, upon the pretext that the terms of appointment placed the agent wholly under the control of the lower house.² Had they passed the measure, they would virtually have conceded the right of the lower house to appeal to the crown directly rather than through the medium of the proprietor.

Undaunted by the refusal of the council to allow them a representative to lay their grievances before the crown, the lower house drew up an address and appointed Ferdinando John Paris as their agent to present it. His expenses were to be paid by public contributions.³ But owing to the hostility of the governor and council, the committee from the lower house was unable to secure the copies of public records that were necessary to present the case, and Paris accomplished nothing.⁴ Even this rebuff did not wholly dishearten the lower house, for in 1752 and 1755 they passed acts to appoint an agent, only to be met in each instance by the veto of the councilor.⁵ When the council proposed a joint address to George III upon his accession to the throne, the lower house took advantage of the opportunity to emphasize the need for an agent. Their representatives upon the joint committee insisted upon adding to the address a representation that the province was “destitute” of the “proper means of obtaining access to the

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throne”, and that they should be permitted to tax themselves for the support of an agent who would lay their “grievances” before the crown. As the council refused to concur with this amendment, the lower house sent their own address to Benjamin Franklin to be delivered to the crown. At the same time they passed an act to appoint an agent, which received the usual veto of the council.¹

The repeated refusals of the council to pass the act appointing an agent were due to the influence of the proprietor, who, fearing that a representative of the lower house might embarrass him, forbade the governor to assent to any appointment except that of his own personal representative, Mr. Calvert. Governor Sharpe, however, believed that the proprietor’s apprehensions were groundless and that he had nothing to fear from a presentation of grievances. Indeed, he was convinced that the appointment of an agent would greatly aid in allaying discord in Maryland.² That Governor Sharpe was not mistaken in his judgment was apparent during the long controversy between the upper and lower houses over the salary of the clerk of the council. As a result, by 1765 the assembly had failed for nine years to pass the appropriation bills.³ Under these conditions, the lower house again passed an act to appoint an agent of the colony in Great Britain.⁴ Again the council rejected the act, upon the timeworn pretext that an agent should be responsible to both houses and that they themselves should have a part in the nomination. They were willing, however, to assent to the appointment of two agents, one to represent each house and both of them to be supported by public funds.⁵

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The lower house had no intention of providing funds for an agent who would uphold the proprietor. Already, they pointed out, the court calendar listed Mr. Calvert as agent for Maryland, and there was no reason why the people of the colony should be asked to levy a tax, “to support an agent against their own interests.”¹ At the next session of the assembly, in an attempt to settle the controversy over the salary paid the clerk of the council, the lower house sanctioned a levy of £1500 for the support for three years of an agent, presumably to present the popular side of the quarrel. But the council, refusing to accept this compromise, again proposed two agents.²

The demands of the lower house for an agent to present to the crown their grievances against the proprietor now reached a climax. Denied an official representative by a council that acted, as they thought, in the interest of the proprietor, the lower house took matters into their own hands, and appointed Charles Garth as their agent. The necessary expense they proposed to meet by public contributions and by a lottery.³ Garth’s status as a representative of the lower house was clear-cut, but unfortunately his mission was somewhat hampered. Although the members of the lower house contributed about £150 toward his expenses, the lottery did not prove successful. Also, the same tactics on the part of the governor and council, as in the case of Paris, blocked any move to secure copies of the necessary public records.⁵ Notwithstanding these handicaps, Garth presented the grievances of the lower house against the proprietor, asking especially for relief from the continued refusal of the council to consent to the appointment of an agent.⁶ Apparently no attention was paid to this petition, and

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Garth’s mission as agent for Maryland was of short duration. But the struggle of the lower house, which culminated in this rather irregular appointment of an advocate of the popular as opposed to the proprietor’s cause, had shown in forcible fashion the importance of the colonial agent in a proprietary colony.

In the southern colonies, all of which were under royal control for the greater part of their history, the struggle to assert popular control over the colonial agent did not face the obstacle presented by a proprietor who was determined to forestall dangers to the continuance of his own rule. Yet the royal governors frequently opposed the appointment of agents not dependent upon themselves, who might present grievances against them to the crown. The most interesting and the most bitter conflict in these colonies took place in North Carolina and centered in the right of the lower house to nominate the agent. The appointment of two agents in 1725 by the lower house in order to present their grievances to the proprietors does not appear to have caused any difficulty.¹ But after the crown took over the colony, Governor Burrington’s proposal for the appointment of an agent failed, because the lower house insisted that they alone should control the appointment.² No other attempt to secure an agent was made until 1748 when the assembly appointed James Abercrombie. Under this act the committee of correspondence consisted of two members from the council and three from the lower house, and as a majority of them constituted a quorum, Abercrombie was really under the control of the lower house, although all correspondence and instructions had to be submitted to the governor and council as well.³ The renewal of this act in 1751 and in 1754 clearly showed the good understanding that existed between the two houses with regard to a colonial agent,⁴ a situation that was emphasized by Abercrombie’s activity in defending Governor

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Johnson from charges brought by the five northern counties and by Lord Granville’s agent.¹

The harmony between the upper and lower houses came to an end when a determined effort by Governor Dobbs to control the appointment of the colonial agent precipitated one of the most bitter struggles that marked the stormy colonial period in North Carolina. Upon the expiration of Abercrombie’s term as agent, the governor notified him that the lower house was unwilling to reappoint him.² This statement by the governor was misleading, for a year later the lower house passed a resolution that appointed Abercrombie as their agent for two years, under the control of a committee of five of their own number with no representative from the council.³ Refusing to concur in this resolution, the council appointed Samuel Smith, the governor’s private attorney in London, as their own agent. This appointment naturally lent strength to the accusation that the real object of Governor Dobbs in dismissing Abercrombie had been to secure the appointment of Smith.⁴ Thus, there were two agents from North Carolina, one representing the lower house, the other the council.

The lower house, however, was not to be so easily thwarted, and in 1759 it added to a bill for financial aid to the crown a rider to reappoint James Abercrombie as agent for the colony. Since the act made Abercrombie subject to a committee of correspondence made up of five members of the lower house only, he would have been under the control of that body alone.⁵ Objecting especially to such a rider to an appropriation bill, the council rejected the entire measure.⁶ Nevertheless, a year

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later the lower house repeated its former tactics, passing a combined bill to grant financial aid to the crown and to appoint an agent. This bill met the same fate at the hands of the council as the former one.¹ Thereupon, the house sent an address to the crown which complained of the failure of the aid and agent bill, solely, they asserted, because Samuel Smith had not been named as agent. To present this address they appointed Anthony Bacon, a merchant of London, as special agent.² A few days later the lower house again passed a combined aid and agent bill which substituted Bacon for Abercrombie. They made no provision, however, for representation of the council on the committee of correspondence. Objecting to this omission and also to the nomination of Bacon, the council rejected the measure, whereupon the lower house named Bacon as agent for two years, “for the Assembly of this province.”³

Six months later, when the lower house persisted in passing the aid bill with a rider to appoint an agent,⁴ the governor prorogued them. Their object, he informed them, was to force the acceptance of Bacon as agent, although he had twice been rejected. In reply the house upheld their “inherent and undoubted right” to name as agent whom they chose and assailed the violation of this right as a result of the governor’s “private resentment” against Bacon, who had been nominated, they asserted, by a “most solemn resolve” of “one of the fullest houses” that ever assembled in the province.⁵ The day following this bold assertion of the rights of the lower house, the governor dissolved the assembly. At the next session the lower house again passed the combined agent and aid bill but with two distinct compromises. In recognition of the determined opposition of the governor and council to Bacon, they substituted the name of Couchet Juvencell of London as agent.

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They also added two representatives from the council to the six members from their own body, who comprised the committee of correspondence. But this latter concession was somewhat modified by a provision that a majority of the committee which of course might be and customarily was composed of members of the lower house only, should have power to act.¹ At least five members of the council begged the governor to sign this bill, and he complied.²

Governor Dobbs attempted to throw upon the lower house the blame for this long controversy over the appointment of an agent.³ But the truth seems to be that he was determined to secure the appointment of an agent whom he himself could control, and thus to ward off any attempt to present grievances against his administration to the British officials. The actual conduct of Juvencell’s agency showed that such fears were not altogether groundless. The members of the committee of correspondence who represented the council were not consulted at all regarding instructions, and letters from the agent were now directed to the speaker, rather than to the committee in care of the governor. Nor does the correspondence with the agent appear to have been submitted customarily to the council.⁴ Thus it is clear that Juvencell was a representative of the lower house alone, a status that was emphasized when he defended that body before the Board of Trade against charges brought by the governor.⁵

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When Juvencell’s term expired, Governor Dobbs naturally opposed his reappointment. But the Board of Trade had ruled that as the agent was the representative of the people, the lower house should be free to nominate him, although they strongly opposed the political device of tacking the bill for an agent to another measure, and insisted that appointments should be made by a separate act.¹ Unable under this ruling to control the appointment of an agent, the council now attempted to secure in the bill passed by the lower house in March, 1764, an amendment that required the presence of one of their number in order to form a quorum of the committee of correspondence. As the lower house refused to concede even this small degree of control, the bill failed. Thereupon the lower house appointed Juvencell as their agent for a year.² Eight months later, in spite of the ruling by the Board of Trade, the council struck out the name of Thomas Barker from a bill sent up from the lower house and substituted that of a person of their own choosing. Aroused by this infringement of their privileges, the lower house resolved that it was their “necessary and indubitable right” as representatives of the people to nominate an agent, and that this “arbitrary” exercise of power by the council was injurious to the province and contrary to the ruling of the Board of Trade.³ As the lower house insisted upon their nomination of Thomas Barker, the council rejected the bill.⁴

In 1766 the lower house made another attempt to secure an agent, representing to Governor Tryon their right to nominate such a delegate, with the concurrence only of the governor and council. The governor practically conceded this point, but the council refused to pass the forthcoming act upon the pretext that they had no adequate representation on the

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committee of correspondence.¹ Probably for the same reason they rejected an act which the lower house passed in 1768 to appoint Henry Eustace McCulloh as agent, although the governor had been willing to sign it.² The lower house then appointed McCulloh as their agent.³ But this solution of the controversy did not prove satisfactory, inasmuch as Lord Hillsborough, the British Colonial Secretary, recognized McCulloh only in matters which specially interested the lower house. Hillsborough pointed out that the lower house should nominate the agent but always with the approval of the governor and council.⁴

The difficulties presented by an agent who represented only one legislative body were solved at the next session of the assembly, when Governor Tryon announced that he had been instructed to assent to a bill to appoint an agent, provided it was not “tacked on” to another measure. Also, he acknowledged the undoubted right of the lower house to make the nomination.⁵ A bill was speedily enacted which appointed Henry Eustace McCulloh as agent for North Carolina. The complete triumph of the lower house in the passage of this act was shown by the composition of the committee of correspondence, which included three members of the council and six of the lower house. As a majority, which constituted a quorum, could always be secured from the latter body, its control over the agent was assured.⁶ Two years later the act was renewed with only minor changes,⁷ but in 1773 a committee of the lower house decided that the purposes for which an agent was appointed “have not been fully answered”, and the act was not

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renewed.¹ The struggle in North Carolina, however, had established two principles: (1) that the lower house should nominate the agent, and (2) that its representatives alone should control him. With these principles acknowledged, the agent became the representative of the people, who should present, if necessary, any grievances against the conduct of affairs by the governor.

Though the struggle in North Carolina to secure recognition of popular control over the colonial agent was more bitter and prolonged, there was a similar movement in the sister colony of South Carolina. During the proprietary period, in 1714, the assembly appointed the first permanent agent in South Carolina, Landgrave Abell Kettleby. Nominally, Kettleby was responsible to both branches of the legislature, but actually he was under the control of the lower house, for they alone could remove him and appoint a successor,² a power which was exercised in 1716 when they dismissed Kettleby. Two years before they had appointed Joseph Boone and Richard Beresford as special agents to represent certain grievances to the proprietors, but the governor and council refused to sanction the appropriation for this mission. Nevertheless Boone and Beresford were recognized by the Board of Trade as agents for the colony.³ In 1721 two special agents, Francis Yonge from the council and John Lloyd from the commons, were appointed, both of them subject to the entire assembly.⁴ Yonge remained in office until 1727, when Samuel Wragg was appointed as agent.⁵

After the crown took over South Carolina, the council appointed Stephen Godin in 1729 as agent,⁶ and in 1731 the

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commons joined them in appointing Peregrine Fury. This latter act upheld the control of the council over the agent, as it provided that of the quorum in the committee of correspondence, one must always be a member of the council. Fury retained his office until 1749, in spite of an attempt by the commons in 1747 to appoint another agent.¹ Both houses then amicably agreed upon the appointment of James Crokatt, who resigned in 1753. The governor now attempted to have Fury reappointed, but Crokatt was induced to withdraw his resignation. The result was a prolonged controversy. The governor refused to sign the tax bill with an appropriation for Crokatt’s salary after 1753, while the commons insisted upon their right to nominate an agent and ultimately prevailed.³ Finally, James Wright was appointed as agent and served until 1760. The council continued to exercise at least partial control, since two of their members were required to make up the quorum of five in the committee of correspondence.⁴ With the appointment of Charles Garth as agent in 1762, the control of the council virtually came to an end, except in approving the nomination by the commons. The committee of correspondence now consisted of four members from the council and an indefinite number from the commons. As there was no express provision for representatives of the council in the quorum, the committee was free from any control by that body, and Garth was in reality the representative of the commons alone.⁵ In actual practice the council was completely ignored, since Garth received his instructions from and corresponded with a committee, headed by the speaker, which was composed of members of the commons.⁶

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The practical value of an agent who, like Charles Garth, was altogether under the control of the commons, was demonstrated in the controversy that arose over a resolution of the commons in 1769 appropriating £1,500 to the “Secretary of the Supporters of the Bill of Rights in London” for the “support of the just and constitutional rights and liberties of the people of Great Britain and America.”¹ This resolution the governor forwarded to the Privy Council, and that body, without according the commons a hearing, speedily sent an instruction which forbade the governor to give his consent to any appropriation by resolution of the commons and prescribed the form in which money bills should be drawn up.² In effect this instruction prevented the payment of the £1,500 and, according to the view of the commons, violated their constitutional right to originate all money bills. Garth now appeared in the guise of their agent, ably presenting their side in an address to the crown and in a hearing before the Board of Trade.³ He did not succeed, however, in securing a recall of the obnoxious instruction.⁴

But the commons were not to be so easily satisfied, and a long controver[s]y ensued, which was partly responsible for complaints against the governor, Lord Montagu. Garth took up again the contentions of the commons and presented especially their allegations against the governor.⁵ Probably his influence and representations finally aided in securing the resignation of Lord Montagu.⁶ He now labored indefatigably to secure the omission of the instruction of 1770 from those sent to the new governor. But despite his representations that this concession

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was necessary to promote good feeling in the province, he secured only a compromise, which omitted the prescribed form for money bills but forbade the governor to assent to any appropriation of money by the resolution of the commons alone.¹ At least the controversy had shown the value of an agent who was under the control of the commons and would therefore see that their standpoint received a hearing, despite the governor’s representations.

Garth’s status as the representative of the commons rather than of the council was forcibly illustrated in the case of Thomas Powell, a printer of Charleston, whose imprisonment was ordered by the council. His offense was the printing of a protest by two members of the commons against the council’s stand with regard to a bill sent up from the lower house. Powell secured his release by a writ of habeas corpus issued by the commons. The council complained to the crown against this interference by the commons, and Garth, as the latter’s agent, presented their case.² He won a virtual victory, since no action was taken in the matter.³ The council, however, published in the South Carolina Gazette a severe criticism of Garth’s action in presenting the case for the commons. In defense of his conduct Garth admitted that he had been appointed by both houses, yet he considered that in case a “differance” arose, it was his duty to take the side of the 11 representatives of the people,” and he had therefore fought “in behalf of the people and the press of South Carolina.”⁴ The commons, appreciating this stand, passed a resolution which expressed their “entire approbation” of his conduct.⁵ This incident showed very forcibly the evolution of the colonial agent in South Carolina as a representative of the commons, even though a difference arose with the council.

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In the two remaining southern colonies, Georgia and Virginia, the appointment of a colonial agent did not stir up as much strife as arose in Maryland and the Carolinas, nor was the agent in either colony ever controlled wholly by the lower house. In Georgia the first agent, Benjamin Martyn, was appointed in 1753 by royal sign manual, especially to take charge of all funds for the improvement and development of the province. As he was controlled by the Treasury Board and the Board of Trade, he was in no sense an actual representative of the people of Georgia.¹ In 1762, the assembly appointed an “assistant” to Martyn, William Knox, who was to represent and be under the control of both houses.² This arrangement was renewed in 1763 and 1764; but in 1765, after inspecting the correspondence with Knox, the commons passed a curt resolution that dismissed him as agent of the colony.³ A typical controversy now arose when the council showed in marked fashion their approval of Knox, and the commons appointed Garth as their agent.⁴ At first the council refused to pass an appropriation of £100 in favor of Garth, upon the ground that he had been appointed by the commons alone, and that they themselves had been completely ignored in all correspondence with him. Eventually they approved the appropriation, but only as a necessary measure to secure the passage of the entire supply bill.⁵

In support of their position the council resolved that the commons had no right to appoint either an agent or a committee of correspondence without their consent, and at the same time they requested Knox to act as their agent in England.⁶

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Thus there were two agents for Georgia, one representing the commons alone, the other the council. As the commons considered the appointment of a regularly authorized agent “an absolute necessity”, they nominated Benjamin Franklin. This bill, which also provided for representation of the council on the committee of correspondence, was soon passed.¹ Franklin was reappointed in 1770 and in 1773.²

The development of the colonial agency in Virginia was much more important than in Georgia, although there, too, the exclusive control of the lower house was not completely asserted. The first two agents, Thomas Ludwell and Daniel Parke, who were sent over in 1674 on a special commission to protest against the proprietary grant of 1672, were approved by the general assembly.³ But certainly after 1680 the agent for Virginia was customarily appointed by the governor and council alone, with no reference to the burgesses, and received his salary from the royal revenue arising in the colony.⁴

The controversies with Governor Spotswood early in the eighteenth century led the burgesses to demand an agent of their own choosing, but a bill passed in 1718 for this purpose was rejected by the council.⁵ The burgesses then proceeded to draw up an address to the crown, recounting their grievances and asking for redress. In order to present this address they appointed Colonel William Byrd as their agent.⁶ Seven months later they drew up another address, which Byrd was asked to present and in which they specifically asked for the removal of Spotswood. Also, as the governor had refused his consent to the appropriation for the mission, the burgesses asked Byrd to secure an instruction that would permit them to levy any sum

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they saw fit to pay their agent.¹ Byrd went to England, but he did not succeed in obtaining redress for any of the grievances complained of, although the appropriation allowed him seems finally to have been approved by the governor.² In 1720 the burgesses again nominated Byrd as their agent to present an address to the crown, and again Spotswood opposed his appointment. The governor’s objections showed very clearly, though doubtless unconsciously, the positive value of a representative under the control of the burgesses. The governor alone, he asserted, was the proper channel of communication between the assembly and the crown. As he was solely responsible, Spotswood considered that he should not be subject to the control of others, “especially of those whose conduct and actions must frequently prove the main subject that the governor has to treat of.” Yet Spotswood was willing to consent to the appointment, provided Byrd received his instructions from himself alone. As the burgesses naturally refused to accept a condition that would have defeated the very object of the mission, they abandoned temporarily their attempt to secure a representative in England to present their grievances to the crown.³

The controversy with Governor Dinwiddie over the pistole fee led to another attempt by the burgesses to secure an agent of their own choosing. They resolved to send Peyton Randolph to present their address protesting against the fee and to choose a permanent agent in London, but the council rejected the resolution upon the plea that it involved a complaint against the governor.⁴ A few months later the council named James Abercrombie as agent to succeed Peter Leheup, an appointment in which Dinwiddie tried to persuade the burgesses

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to join.¹ But they refused, owing to their prejudice against Abercrombie, who had actively supported the governor in the controversy over the pistole fee.² A year later the burgesses themselves failed to agree upon the terms of an act to appoint an agent.³ When they finally passed such a bill in 1756 the council refused to concur, being influenced by Governor Dinwiddie, who asserted that Abercrombie could attend to all the necessary affairs of the colony in Great Britain.⁴ The council also rejected two bills that the burgesses passed in 1768 to appoint an agent.⁵

The burgesses, however, were determined to secure an agent of their own choice, and after Governor Fauquier’s arrival, they followed the example of the lower house in North Carolina by tacking on a measure for this purpose as a rider to a money bill. Inasmuch as the governor expressed his willingness to give his consent to a separate bill for an agent, the burgesses passed an act at the next session appointing Edward Montague, and the council gave its assent. Although the act required that all correspondence, including instructions, should be submitted to the entire assembly, the agent was really under the control of the burgesses, for the majority of the committee of correspondence was drawn from that house with only a nominal representation from the council. Furthermore, a majority of the committee, which in effect meant the representatives of the burgesses, was empowered to remove Montague from office and to appoint a successor, subject to the approval of the entire assembly. Thus, control over the agent, including his appointment, was really in the hands of the burgesses, although the requirement to submit all instructions to the entire assembly gave the governor and council a certain degree of oversight. In

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case of a controversy, however, the agent would naturally side with the burgesses. The act was renewed in 1765.¹

In practice Montague seems to have been regarded as agent for the entire assembly, since instructions to him customarily required the assent of the council as well as of the burgesses, and all correspondence was laid before both houses.² As a result there was a unique situation. Edward Montague was recognized as the colonial agent for Virginia, with a salary paid by a public tax, while James Abercrombie continued to act as agent for the governor and council, with his salary from the royal revenue for the support of the government.³ The two agents seem to have cooperated in excellent fashion, and in 1768 the committee of correspondence requested Edward Montague, “the agent for the colony”, to act in conjunction with James Abercrombie, “agent for the council”, in presenting to the crown and to both houses of Parliament a petition that upheld the local right to levy taxes.⁴ For some reason the burgesses failed to reappoint Montague at the expiration of his term in 1770, and though a bill to appoint an agent was proposed in 1772, it does not appear to have been carried.⁵

Although the contest had not been so severe or so prolonged in Virginia as in North Carolina, the burgesses had won the right to nominate the colonial agent, and through manipulation of the committee of correspondence they had placed him to a very large extent under their own control. This general status was the essential aim of similar contests in Maryland and the other southern colonies. It is significant that in Maryland alone, where an agent was especially needed

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to see that the grievances against the proprietor were placed before the proper authorities for redress, the lower house was never able to attain its goal. Elsewhere, it established the status of the colonial agent as the representative primarily of the popular branch of the legislature. The constitutional significance of this development is obvious. By this means a channel of communication was established through which popular grievances against the actions of colonial governors could be presented and redress sought. The work of Garth as agent of South Carolina shows the value of such a representative. Furthermore, with the recognition of the colonial agent, it was impossible for the Privy Council to evade responsibility for unpopular measures. Either they must sustain the governor or not. Thus the people of the colonies would be brought face to face with a realization of the actual policies of Great Britain with respect to the colonies. Whether or not this realization had any effect as a cause of the Revolution it is difficult to say. In most of the colonies under consideration, the status of the colonial agent was not definitely determined until a short time before the separation from the mother country, and consequently it is impossible accurately to forecast what would have been the ultimate development of the office of colonial agent had not the Revolution intervened. At least it is apparent that as the representative primarily of the people, the colonial agent was an effective check upon the arbitrary exercise of power on the part of the governor and that the office was capable of very considerable development.

University of Cincinnati.