THE provincial governor of the royal and proprietary colonies was appointed by the higher authority in England, though the appointment came in the one case from the crown, and in the other from a proprietor or a group of proprietors. As has been seen already, however, the crown had so far extended its control over the proprietary governments that the appointment of governors was subject to confirmation by the crown. The royal governors, on the other hand, were usually appointed on the recommendation of the Board of Trade, by order of the king in council.¹

     The methods by which these appointments were secured were similar to those employed in the other departments of the British public service in the days of the Whig ascendancy. In a report submitted to the Board of Trade in 1715 there is an interesting statement of the principles governing such appointments: “Governments have bin sometimes given as a reward for Services done to the Crown, and with design that such persons should thereby make their fortunes. But they are generally obtained by the favour of great Men to some of their dependants or relations, and they have bin sometimes given to persons who were oblidged to divide the profit of them

with those by whose means they were procured. The Qualifications of such persons for Government being seldom considered.”¹ This is a severe indictment; but it is not difficult to find specific cases sustaining these charges. Thus the Duke of Newcastle, the great dispenser of public offices in the last century, extended his activity to the colonies. In the North Carolina records is a list of places said to be in his gift;² and there is evidence that applications for the use of his influence were made to him by anxious candidates for the colonial service.³ The spirit of this office-jobbing is fairly well illustrated by a letter to the Secretary of State, Townshend, from one John Lloyd. This gentleman explained that he had resided nine years in South Carolina, “whither he came because of ill-fortune in the stocks”; and he now asked for the office either of lieutenant-governor without salary, or first of the king’s council, saying that “what he ‘proposes by it is a little power, and perhaps a little profit.’”⁴ Chalmers asserted that Eliseus Burgess sold his appointment as governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire for the sum of £1000.⁵ It is hardly strange, therefore, that under such conditions characters like Culpeper and Cornbury were turned loose upon the colonies.

     During the latter part of the colonial era, appointments

were often made on more rational grounds, since, with increasingly frequent communication between the colonies and the mother country, the former naturally exerted increased influence upon the choices made by the crown. Thus, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, Governor Spotswood complained that the councillors had gained an undue sense of their own powers from their success in securing the removal of two of his predecessors.¹ Furthermore, the practice of sending agents to represent colonial interests naturally had its influence, especially since these agents were often men of considerable importance. There is one instance, indeed, in which the agent sent to present the complaints of the colonists against the governor was himself sent back with a governor’s commission.²

     The appointment of colonists to the governor’s chair was not altogether uncommon in the eighteenth century. Of the ten royal governors of Massachusetts, four were Massachusetts men. New Hampshire men also frequently received the appointment of lieutenant-governor in that colony, and after New Hampshire became a separate government both her governors were chosen from among the residents of the province. On the appointment of the first of these, Benning Wentworth, who had been a member of the provincial House of Representatives, the members of the House expressed their satisfaction with the choice of one “whose Interest is blended with theirs.”³ So in New Jersey, the first governor appointed, after the “personal union” of that province with the government of New York had been broken, was Lewis Morris, a representative colonist. In Virginia and the other colonies, such appointments were occasionally made, but the practice was not common.⁴ Though the conditions on which colonial appointments

     The governor’s tenure of office may be considered under two aspects,—that defined by the terms of his commission and the practical aspect determined by actual conditions. His legal tenure, as stated by the commission, was during the king’s pleasure,² though to this general rule of the royal governments there was one striking exception in the first century of the colonial era. In 1675 Thomas Culpeper received a commission for life as governor of Virginia; this commission, however, was forfeited for disobedience to orders, and no more royal commissions for life appear.³ Upon the general principle

that the governor’s tenure depended on the king’s pleasure there was a formal limitation, imposed by English custom, to the effect that all patents terminated on the death of the king. By acts of 7 & 8 William III. and 1 Anne, it was provided that commissions should continue for six months after the demise of the sovereign. At the expiration of that time the governor’s authority lapsed, unless a new commission was issued.¹ In any case, the authority of the governor ceased on the arrival of his successor and the publication of the latter’s commission.²

     What, then, was the real duration of the governor’s service as affected by the actual facts of the political situation in which he was placed? There were many circumstances that tended to make his position insecure. In the first place, the same sort of influence that gave him his office might be used with equal effect by other men: Douglass, a contemporary writer, speaks of the governor’s position as “very slippery,” of his liability to be called to account “upon frivolous and sometimes false complaints,” and to be “superseded by some expectant at court.”³ Moreover, party changes in England were not without interest for governors in the colonies. A letter written by Lewis Morris, governor of New Jersey in 1742, shows his anxiety lest a probable change of ministry might affect his position.⁴

     The removal of a governor for real misconduct was never an altogether easy task, though the colonial agencies made it

possible for the people of the provinces to make themselves heard more effectively than would otherwise have been the case. As has been seen, Governor Burnet of Massachusetts was succeeded in office by the agent who had been sent to represent the assembly in its controversy with the governor;¹ and, though Governor Burnet died in office, the incident illustrates well the influence of some of these colonial agents. Belcher himself, Burnet’s successor, had occasion later to realize the influence which an agent might bring to bear against a distant governor, inasmuch as his own removal was due very largely to the work of the New Hampshire agent.² Chalmers deplored the extent to which this influence was used against unpopular governors.³ There can be no doubt that it was often very effective. During the long periods in which the royal and the colonial interests were in almost constant conflict, when it was almost impossible, without a violation of instructions, for a governor to get his salary or the necessary grants for the conduct of government or even the military supplies demanded by the crown, his position was trying in the extreme.

     Under these circumstances, one would naturally have expected a brief and uncertain tenure. There are instances, however, which tell against this general view. Massachusetts, during the eighty-two years from 1692 to 1774, the period of the Province charter, had ten governors with an average term of eight years.⁴ North Carolina, during the thirty-four years of the royal government up to the passage of the Stamp Act, had only three governors with an average term of eleven years. New Hampshire, after its separation from Massachusetts in 1741, had but two governors, the first serving until 1767. “These terms, however, are longer than the usual duration of

the governor’s service. There is a striking reference to this instability in office in a passage in the history of Pennsylvania, once erroneously ascribed to Benjamin Franklin: “There is no Man, long or much conversant in this overgrown City [London], who hath not often found himself in Company with the Shades of departed Governors, doom’d to wander out the Residue of their Lives, full of the agonizing Remembrance of their passed Eminence, and the severe Sensation of present Neglect.”¹

     A governor was usually assigned to a single province; but to this general rule there were several exceptions. The policy of James II. included not merely the reduction of charter and proprietary governments to the uniform royal type, but also the consolidation of provinces. Thus the commission to Andros in 1688 included not merely New England, but New York and New Jersey. This unwieldy province fell to pieces, however, with the overthrow of Andros; and, indeed, the attempt to consolidate the colonial governments was in the main given up, though for a long time it was a common practice to organize what may be called “personal unions,” by which more governments than one were assigned to a single governor. The personal unions had certain advantages from a military point of view, a circumstance which was especially important in the last decade of the seventeenth century, at the opening of the great conflict with France for maritime and colonial supremacy as well as for the maintenance of the European political balance. Thus, in 1697 the Earl of Bellomont became governor of Massachusetts, New York, and New Hampshire;² and the appointments to Massachusetts and New Hampshire were combined under several of his successors. In 1702 the governments of New York and New Jersey were similarly combined. Pennsylvania and Delaware originally constituted but one government; but the lower counties on the Delaware were

restive under this arrangement, and finally secured from Penn permission to organize a separate legislature. This case is different from those just mentioned, in that the two provinces of Delaware and Pennsylvania, or rather perhaps the two divisions of the one province, had a common executive, with a joint council for both divisions.¹ In the other provinces above referred to, the union was merely personal: the same person who held the office of governor in one province held also the entirely distinct office of governor in the other.²

     This combination of governments proved awkward in practice; for the governor maintained his regular residence in the larger province, and naturally his long periods of absence from the smaller colony led to grave difficulties.³ The people of New Jersey, for example, felt strongly that their province was neglected by its absentee governors.⁴ In New Hampshire also serious irregularities arose.⁵ Indeed, in both colonies the situation gave rise to complications in the relations between governor and lieutenant-governor, especially in regard to the powers that might properly be exercised by the lieutenant-governor in the absence of the governnor.⁶ The chief difficulty of the system, however, lay in the fact that adjacent

provinces, like New York and New Jersey, or Massachusetts and New Hampshire, often had interests at variance with each other. The New Jersey agent, in arguing for an independent New Jersey government, declared that a governor deriving his chief support from New York could not be induced to pass acts affecting unfavorably New York interests.¹ The people of New Hampshire felt that Governor Belcher, in a controversy between the two provinces in regard to boundaries, had shown great partiality to the larger province, and had grossly abused his powers as governor of New Hampshire in order to secure a decision favorable to Massachusetts.²

     The feeling in New Jersey and New Hampshire finally became too strong to be disregarded. On the death of Governor Cosby in 1736, New Jersey presented several addresses praying for a separate government; and in 1738 Lewis Morris, formerly chief-justice of New York, was made governor.³ In 1741 Governor Belcher of Massachusetts was removed, and in the same year a separate governor was appointed for New Hampshire.⁴ From this time on the policy of personal unions was abandoned.

     The newly-appointed governor, on his arrival in the province, published his commission, and then took the necessary oaths in the presence of the council. The proceedings were sometimes attended with considerable ceremony. Sir William Phips, the first governor of Massachusetts under the new charter, was conducted to the town-house by the military companies of Boston and Charlestown, and by the magistrates, ministers, and principal gentlemen of Boston and adjacent towns.⁵ The oaths prescribed for the governor were numerous and of various kinds. The first was the simple oath of office. The following was the oath administered to the governor of New Hampshire in 1742: “You . . . Swear that you will

faithfully & Truely perform the Trust reposed in you by his Majesty’s Comission and that you will administer justice equally and impartially in all cases that shall come before you in judgment. So help you God.” Other oaths had to do with the governor’s duties to the central colonial administration, his allegiance to the crown, and his ecclesiastical obligations. He was required to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, to declare his fidelity to the Protestant succession, and to deny that there was any transubstantiation in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Finally he swore to enforce the various acts of Parliament relating to the colonies, especially the navigation laws.¹

     Ordinarily the governor was expected to reside within the province. Indeed, in 1680 an order in council was issued forbidding colonial governors to absent themselves from their provinces without leave;² and it afterward became customary to insert in the governor’s instructions a clause forbidding him to come to Europe without special permission from the crown.³

     Careful provision was made for the temporary succession in case of the governor’s death or departure from the province. The earlier practice had been by no means uniform;⁴ but gradually a rule was adopted for the royal governments, providing that, if the governor died or left the province, his place was to be taken by the lieutenant-governor, or in some cases

by a commander-in-chief. In the absence of any lieutenant-governor or commander-in-chief, the rule as at first laid down provided that the council as a whole should assume the government;¹ but this plan was found to have its disadvantages, and therefore in 1707 Queen Anne issued a new general instruction providing that thereafter the senior councillor should execute the commission in the governor’s absence.² How far this instruction was carried out is not quite clear; Chalmers says that even in the royal governments it was not universally enforced until the reign of George III.³ It is certain that in the proprietary province of Pennsylvania the council continued to act as a whole in the absence of the governor;⁴ and that in at least one of the royal governments the royal order met with direct resistance. The Massachusetts council held that the rights of government, in the absence of the governor and lieutenant-governor, were vested in the council as a whole; and it therefore disregarded the instruction which transferred its right to the senior councillor.⁵

     The lieutenant-governor received a commission defining very briefly the powers and duties of his office.⁶ He was authorized to exercise all the governor’s powers in the latter’s absence, subject to instructions and orders from the crown, and subject also to the orders and directions of the governor. In ordinary cases these provisions furnished very little matter for dispute; but in the case of the so-called personal unions, which involved long absences on the part of the governor from one or the other of his two governments, they gave rise to very serious

difficulties, which may best be illustrated by specific examples. Lord Cornbury, governor of both New York and New Jersey, spent the larger part of the year in New York, and hence was absent from his province of New Jersey during that time. The question arose as to whether his absence was of the same nature as that for which the commission provided, by stating that the lieutenant-governor should exercise the authority of the governor during the latter’s absence from the province. Cornbury held that while he was in New York, the lieutenant-governor had no power to act in New Jersey, basing his argument upon the fiction that while he was present in either of his provinces he was to be regarded as legally present in both.¹ As Cornbury was strong enough to enforce his views, the lieutenant-governor became a mere nonentity, and the province was reduced to the necessity of being without a resident executive head during the greater part of the year.² Precisely the same dispute arose in New Hampshire, where Governor Shute claimed that during his absence from New Hampshire he was still entitled to exercise his full powers. In this case the home government seems to have sided with the governor, for the refractory lieutenant-governor was removed and a successor appointed.³ The same difficulty recurred when Jonathan Belcher was governor of New Hampshire and Massachusetts; and the home government again seems to have taken the governor’s side.⁴ The question ceased to have practical importance only when independent governors were assigned to New Jersey and New Hampshire.

     In exceptional circumstances the lieutenant-governor remained in charge of the province for considerable periods of time. In Virginia, for example, titular governors were at different times appointed, who held the title and part of the emoluments of the office, while they left the actual conduct of

government in the hands of a resident lieutenant-governor. The salary actually received by this resident governor was, sometimes at least, the result of a bargain between him and his nominal superior in office, though fortunately this trading was not common in the continental colonies.¹

     Except as a possible temporary successor of the governor, the lieutenant-governor had not regularly any independent powers; in some provinces indeed, especially in the smaller ones, there was often no lieutenant-governor at all.² Sometimes, but by no means always, the lieutenant-governor was a member of the council or its president;³ but in general his office seems to have been one of comparatively little importance. It is therefore hardly strange that such an officer, without any definite political sphere, should at times have been a discordant element in the provincial constitution, as was in fact often the case.⁴

     When, in the absence of both governor and lieutenant-governor, the government was assumed by the council or by the senior councillor, certain constitutional limitations were imposed. For example, the instructions forbade this provisional

government, without a special order, to pass any acts not immediately necessary, or to dissolve the assembly, or to remove any officers without the consent of at least seven councillors. In any of these cases, immediate notice was to be given to the home government.¹ The exclusion of the Pennsylvania council from any direct participation in legislation seems to have held good even in the absence of the governor.²

     The governor’s support was provided in a variety of ways; but the most important part of his income was his salary. At the close of the French and Indian War, this salary was dependent on temporary, and often annual, grants of the assembly, though to this general rule four important exceptions must be noted. In Virginia and Maryland the assemblies had been induced to make permanent grants to the crown and the proprietor for the support of the provincial government, and had thus lost their power to determine the governor’s salary.³ In North Carolina, both under the proprietors and under the crown, the salary was paid out of the somewhat uncertain and fluctuating quit-rent revenues of the province.⁴ In Georgia, the youngest of the colonies, the provincial establishment was maintained by the government in England.⁵ This is a summary statement of the results of a long and bitter controversy over the question as to whether salary grants should be temporary or permanent, a question of the utmost importance, involving the relations of the governor to the assembly on the one hand, and to the home government on the

other.¹ The history of this issue may properly be considered later in connection with the systematic study of the mutual relations of governor and assembly.

     The amount of the governor’s salary varied; and it is often difficult to estimate with the slightest approach to accuracy the real value of amounts that are stated in currency in various stages of depreciation. The largest salary was perhaps that received by the governor of Virginia, who was allowed £2000 out of the duty of two shillings per hogshead levied on tobacco.² The governor of New York in 1766 received a grant of £2000.³ In the other colonies the salaries, as a rule, were £1000 or less in sterling money, though they are often stated at much higher rates in the depreciated colonial currency.⁴

     In addition to the salary, the governor had various other sources of income. The most important of these were perhaps

the fees, which were collected on a great variety of occasions. The character of these fees may best be illustrated by a specific instance. In 1748 the New Jersey assembly passed an act fixing the governor’s fees, among which were fees for marriage licenses, for letters of administration, for certificates of vessels, for certificates to persons desiring to go beyond sea, for licenses to purchase land of the Indians, for bills of health when required, for putting the governor’s seal to a township patent, for attorneys’ licenses, and for certain judicial proceedings in error. The amounts varied from the three shillings required for a writ of error, to the twenty shillings collected for every attorney’s license to practise; the marriage license fee was ten shillings.¹

     In the beginning, these fees seem not to have been fixed by law.² Many of them were apparently regulated simply by “English custom,” a vague limitation clearly liable to great abuse. Thus the South Carolina assembly complained that public officers were taking much larger fees than were “allowed by act of Parliament in England for the same & like things, and before the same be settled by act of Assembly here.”³ Although the governor was authorized, with the advice of his council, to regulate all fees of provincial officers, yet in many cases, as will be seen, the assembly took the matter into its own hands and passed acts regulating official fees, including those of the governor.⁴

     Among other perquisites commonly allowed to the governor was, a share of the fines and forfeitures,— usually a third,

sometimes a half. For example, one third of the seizures and forfeitures of vessels for violation of the navigation acts went to the governor;¹ and similar provisions were made by acts of the various colonial assemblies.² The most peculiar perquisite received by a colonial governor was one which seems to have been a curious survival of the old feudal right of escheat. This was a provision of a Delaware law of the twenty-fourth year of the reign of King George II., by which the property of persons dying intestate was to go to the governor.³ The governor also frequently received from the assembly presents or grants for special services. Thus, in 1742, the New Hampshire assembly voted the governor a present of £6500 for “the charge he has been at in coming to the Governmen^t, &c.”⁴ In spite of royal objections,⁵ the practice continued. Governor Shirley of Massachusetts was granted £250 for his special services with the Indians on the Kennebec;⁶ and on Governor Pownall’s departure for England, in 1760, the General Court made him a present of 200.⁷

     The amount of the governor’s income in any given case cannot be exactly stated. The governor of Virginia was perhaps the most fortunate in his receipts, at least when he was not obliged to share the spoils with some titular governor across the sea. Lieutenant-Governor Dinwiddie was able to allow to his absentee superior, Lord Albemarle, the sum of £1665; and assuming, as on the whole seems reasonable, that his own return was equal to that of other governors, the total income attached to the office may have been over £2600, and could hardly have been less than £2500.¹ The only estimate at hand for Virginia simply gives the amount as between £2000 and £3000.² In a few cases, however, it is possible to get somewhat more definite estimates. Thus Burnaby, in his “Travels,”³ gives the governor of Massachusetts an annual income, including perquisites, of about £1300 sterling. An interesting view of this financial aspect of the governor’s office is given in some correspondence between Governor Sharpe of Maryland and his brother, William Sharpe, in England. The governor, after thanking his brother for his efforts to procure for him the government of New York, then considers prudently the financial returns of that post. It seems that William Sharpe had been informed on good authority that the New York government was not worth more than £1600, though it was commonly rated much higher, a circumstance apparently due to the fact that the profits of the office had been lessened by the diminution in the amount of land remaining to be granted by the governor. Governor Sharpe therefore concluded that, on the whole, an exchange would not be desirable, especially as the New York governor was dependent on the assembly.⁴

     In addition to these sources of income, it is probable that unscrupulous governors found other ways of enriching themselves, sometimes perhaps without resorting to direct dishonesty.¹ In general, then, the provincial governors seem to have been quite liberally paid, especially if we compare their incomes with those of our present State governors.²