THE provincial governor may be considered from two distinct standpoints. On the one hand, he was the centre of the local administration, the chief executive of the province; on the other hand, he was the agent of a higher authority, the guardian of interests broader than those of his single province. As will be seen later, it was not always easy, or even possible, to keep in harmonious action the two forces of local feeling and imperial interest. Indeed, their inevitable conflict constituted the chief difficulty of the governor’s position, and gives to this study henceforth its chief interest. Neither aspect of the office can be ignored; in fact, even for purposes of discussion, it is not easy to separate the one from the other, inasmuch as there was hardly an important function exercised by the governor in which he did not act in both of these characters. For the sake of convenient classification, however, the governor may first be considered primarily as the agent of the central authority in England.

     In this character, his first duty was to serve as a means of communication between the province and the home government. The governor, for example, recommended to the colonial assembly the legislation desired by the crown;¹ furthermore, he was expected to keep the home government informed on a wide range of topics connected with the condition of the province and with its administration. The instructions to Governor Bernard of New Jersey, in 1758, will serve

as a convenient illustration. He was required, first, to give full information regarding the natural and economic conditions of his province, including a map of the country with an exact description of the territory and the settlements upon it. Statistics of population and some account of commerce and industry were also required of him; and, further, the wants of the province were to be pointed out and means of improvement suggested. Again, it was important that the home government should be informed as to the military strength of the colonies. The governor was, therefore, to send an inventory of the military stores in the province, and to report exactly on its state of defence, giving some account of its neighbors and its relations with them, whether these neighbors were Indians or colonists from foreign countries. The civil administration was another subject on which full information was desired; therefore the accounts of the public revenue and lists of all officers employed at the public charge were to be submitted to the government in England. Moreover, as it was especially important that the progress of legislation should be exactly reported, the governor was required to transmit, for the approval of the crown, not only the statutes actually passed, but also a complete record of legislative proceedings as embodied in the journals of the council and assembly.¹

     Here, then, was provision for a system of official returns which, if faithfully and intelligently made, must have been of great value. Several valuable reports, it is true, were made by various governors in regard to the condition of their respective provinces; but it is clear that on the whole this duty of informing the home government was very much neglected. In 1712 Attorney-General Edward Northey declared that the governors did not observe the instruction requiring them to send home all laws of the provincial assemblies, referring in particular to one case in which an act of 1706 had not been received till 1711.² In 1732 the Board of Trade made a similar complaint;³ and in 1745 the same body declared that

it was then more than three years since they had received any letters from the governor of North Carolina, and that he had been equally negligent in sending other public documents required. These complaints were repeated three years later.¹ The system of reports by governors was certainly very far from being what the instructions promised.

     The provincial governor also stood in certain important relations to the officers of the royal service in the colonies. Of these officers there was a large number. For example, the “Description of South Carolina,” attributed to Governor James Glen, enumerates the surveyor-general of land, the receiver-general of quit-rents, various admiralty officers, and the officers of the royal customs.² The governor was of course expected to support these officers to the best of his ability; but he was also required to suspend them from office, if necessary, making temporary appointments to fill vacancies until the royal pleasure should be known.³

     In general, then, the governor was the regularly-constituted guardian of royal and British interests. It was his duty, not only to recommend desired legislation, but also to prevent the passage of all acts injurious to the interests of the crown and of the mother country.⁴ He was to coöperate in the great military operations of the British government, and as far as possible to enlist the assembly of his own province in support of them. Whenever the provincial interest and the imperial interest—if we may use these phrases—should come into conflict, his controlling obligation was to be his duty to the crown. The traditional view in regard to the office is well illustrated by the declaration of Governor Benning Wentworth to the New Hampshire assembly: “My firm attachment to his Maj^tys Person family&Government challenges my first attention—

my next Pursuit shall be the Peace&Prosperity of his Maj^tys good subjects of this Province.”¹

     In addition to these various ways in which the governor acted as the representative of the king, the extension of parliamentary control over the colonies imposed upon him a gradually increasing number of functions of another sort, connected with the enforcement of acts of Parliament. One of the first navigation acts, the well-known statute of 12 Charles II., required the governor to take an oath to enforce all the provisions of the act, under penalty of removal from his office.² Another act of 15 Charles II. gave a fuller statement of the governor’s duties, providing that persons importing goods into the colonies were to give their names and inventories to the governor, or to some person authorized by him, and that no vessel was to be unloaded until the master had notified the governor of its arrival and its name, and given evidence that it was of English build. To other penalties attending violations of this act, was added one for disobedience on the part of the governor, by which he was to be permanently disqualified for service as a royal governor, and to forfeit £1000.³ The act of 7&8 William III. continued these penal provisions as to removal from office and forfeiture for violation of the statute. As these duties were imposed on proprietary as well as on royal governors, the act of 7&8 William III. required that all proprietary governors should be approved by the crown; and it was furthermore customary to ask of them special security for the observance of the acts of trade.⁴

     Duties of the same sort were imposed by various acts of Anne and the Georges. For example, the act of 23 George II. prohibited the building and working of factories of iron and steel within the colonies, and directed the governor to enforce this prohibition and to close all such establishments. For failing to do this, he was to forfeit £500 and to be permanently

disqualified for holding any office of trust.¹ The act of 4 George III. provided for a new oath covering all duties imposed by previous acts of Parliament.² These various directions were collected and systematized in a separate set of instructions relating to trade, enumerating a formidable list of acts of Parliament, each of which assigned to the governor certain specific duties.³

     It was only with great difficulty that the governor could be held to the faithful performance of these duties. Indeed, charges of negligence in regard to them were made very early. In 1696 Edward Randolph complained that the governors did not enforce the navigation laws.⁴ Dudley’s instructions of 1702 referred to abuses in the plantation trade as largely due to remissness on the part of governors;⁵ and there is evidence to the same effect in the severe penalties imposed by various statutes for neglect of these duties. Clearly, then, the governor was far from efficient in his execution of parliamentary enactments.

     Before leaving this subject, it is necessary to consider very briefly the British system of colonial administration, so far as it touches the governor. During the eighteenth century the management and supervision of colonial affairs were largely in the hands of the so-called Board of Trade, the origin of which may be traced to a commission issued by the crown in 1696, after a varied experience with other councils and committees charged with the care of the colonies.⁶ By this commission

a board of commissioners was organized “for promoting the Trade of this Kingdom and for inspecting and improving His [Majesties] Plantations in America and elsewhere.” These commissioners were particularly directed to examine the usual instructions given to the governors, to consider and report desirable alterations, to take an annual account of the administration of governors, to hear complaints of maladministration, and, finally, to recommend persons for appointment as governors, councillors, or other colonial officers.¹

     Until 1752, governors were directed to correspond both with the Board of Trade and with one of the principal secretaries of state;² but in that year a new order was issued, by which the position of the Board of Trade was somewhat strengthened. Thenceforth governors and other provincial officers were to be appointed on the nomination of the Board of Trade, which was also to prepare draughts of commissions and instructions; and governors were directed in all ordinary matters to correspond with the Board of Trade alone, communicating with the secretaries only on matters requiring the more immediate attention of the crown.³ In 1766, however, this order was reversed, and the governors were directed as before to correspond with the secretaries of state as well as with the Board of Trade. Thus,⁴ during the main part of the period under consideration, the governor’s communication with the central administration was carried on through these two agencies, and in ordinary times chiefly through the Board of Trade. It was on recommendation of this body that he received his appointment, his instructions were prepared by it, and he was subject in many ways to its direction.

     It seems clear that this system of colonial administration was inefficient. The most important criticism upon it is that of Thomas Pownall, who was at one time governor of Massachusetts, succeeding Shirley and preceding Francis Bernard.

Pownall declared that the weakness of the system was largely due to unwise division of authority. For example, the Board of Trade which had the general supervision of the colonial governors had not the right of final appointment or dismissal. He thought that the administration for all the colonies should have been exclusively in the hands of a single department;¹ and his opinion is supported by the evidence already given as to the failure of governors to maintain regular correspondence with the Board of Trade.