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CONCLUSION

In the history of England during the seventeenth century the three events of controlling importance were the Puritan Revolution, the Restoration, and the Revolution of 1689. We have seen that their influence was in every case reflected in the development of the colonies. Indeed, the course of that development was to a certain extent conditioned by these great events. The Civil War checked the plans of Laud and his supporters for the enforcement of uniformity in New England and for the organization of that region as a royal province. It gave the colonies twenty years of unusual freedom from constraint. For a time it substituted parliament for the crown as the centre and source of control. But before the lines of that control had been strictly drawn, the Protectorate was established. Over the continental colonies the government of Cromwell never exerted any effective influence. It assumed to act as umpire in the case of the conflicts within Maryland, but events both in that province and in Virginia took essentially their own course under the Protector. His complacent attitude toward New England is notorious. In the West Indies, however, tendencies were then inaugurated which were to have a wide influence on British colonial policy in general.

With the Restoration the tendencies toward strict executive control over the colonies, which appeared under the early Stuarts, were revived. The effort to enforce uniformity, however, was abandoned; but, supported by acts of parliament, the regulation of colonial trade became a leading object of British policy. Dutch government in North America was overthrown, and the supervision of New England affairs was taken vigorously in hand. But now, as heretofore, when new territory was to be settled proprietors were chartered for the purpose. The Carolinas and Pennsylvania were founded as proprietary provinces, while the advisers of the Duke of York carelessly permitted

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the part of his domain between the Hudson and the Delaware to slip from his control. The dealings of the king with Arlington, Culpeper, and others in matters relating to Virginia reveal a persistent disposition on his part to run counter to the prevailing tendency of the time. But the process by which, in the later years of Charles and under his successor, the struggle with Massachusetts, the demands of British commercial policy, and the need of pacifying Virginia led to the recall of charters and to the general triumph of the crown, having as its evident outcome the union of the continental colonies into governor-generalships or vice-royalties, has been sufficiently indicated in the preceding chapters. The unwillingness with which large bodies of the people submitted to the reënforced executive pressure was conspicuously shown in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Virginia.

In the midst of his reckless course James II was surprised by the Revolution in England. That movement at once released the forces of opposition which were gathering against his policy and his agents in the colonies. The explosion came first in Massachusetts. The other corporate colonies at once resumed their old forms of government. The uprising repeated itself, though with less definiteness and success, in New York. Proprietary rule struggled back into existence in New Jersey. By these events the dominion of New England was hopelessly wrecked, and assemblies were everywhere restored. By a movement in Maryland which shared most of the characteristics of the general impulse that swept over the colonies, the government of the Catholic proprietor was overthrown and the way was opened for the immediate rule of the crown. The government of William III in England, resting as it did upon a free parliament, was committed to a full recognition of the necessity for assemblies in the colonies, and of their legitimacy as well. So far as the enlarged province of Massachusetts was concerned, this was fully guarantied by charter as never before. New York, too, received an assembly, which henceforth was to continue as a permanent part of her constitution. She was no longer to be the representative and exponent of Stuart

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autocracy among the colonies. She now took her place with the rest under a mixed system of balanced powers, analogous to that which existed in England. Even Connecticut and Rhode Island were not disturbed in the enjoyment of the large degree of autonomy which their original charters insured. The Quaker proprietor received back his powers of government after a brief suspension, and he and his successors were left to fight their legislative battles alone. The same, for approximately a generation to come, was true in the Carolinas. In the “old dominion” the executive abated somewhat its claims, and they never again reached the height which they had attained under Lord Howard of Effingham.

This, in a broad and general way, was the reflection within the colonies of the controlling events of the period in the history of England. It reveals, so to speak, the atmosphere within which the colonies were attaining their early growth. It exhibits the natural type to which the colonies belonged. But the nature of the subject and the method of treatment which has been followed are such as to demand a somewhat more intimate and specific consideration of the changes through which the colonies were passing in the seventeenth century and of the system of which they formed a part. Institutionally considered, the controlling fact of the century was that they were founded as chartered colonies and that most of them remained such through all or a greater part of the century. It was emphatically the period of the chartered colonies. That means that the crown had delegated rights of settlement and subordinate rights of government over the colonies and their inhabitants to proprietors, the proprietors using their powers under a variety of forms. The result of this, when taken in connection with their isolation, was that the king’s subjects in the colonies were removed several degrees further away from him than were his subjects who resided in the realm. Interposed between the colonists and the crown were the grantees or patentees to whom the charters had been issued, the mesne lords in the quasi-feudal relation to which natural conditions had given rise when the colonies

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were founded. Such mesne lords no longer existed in Great Britain; there the relation between the subject and the crown or parliament was direct. The dealings of the government were with individuals. But in the case of the colonies in the seventeenth century the British government dealt far more with jurisdictions and their officials than with individuals; with assemblies or general courts, with proprietors, with governors, and other magistrates. The individual colonist was reached chiefly through the government of his colony or jurisdiction. The crown issued orders or instructions to the governing bodies of the chartered colonies and with these it carried on correspondence. The obedience which was sought was that of the colony at large and as a whole. For the securing of this result it was necessary to rely on the loyalty and fidelity of the assembly and officials within the colony, and it was possible for them to hamper the royal executive at every step. The application of imperial control to a corporate colony differed to an extent from its application to a proprietor or board of proprietors, but in essence the process was the same. It was external and mediate, a control over the jurisdiction as a whole rather than directly over the individuals who inhabited it.

As in the development of feudal relations during the middle age, this was not the result of intention or conscious planning. The remoteness of the colonies from England, their geographical isolation, was a fundamental element in the origin of the system. This cause also greatly helped to perpetuate it and to make clear and distinct its operation. Because of their remoteness, the colonies naturally transacted most of their huffiness within themselves and according to their own methods. These were more or less perfectly adapted to the condition and environment of the colonists. Only a few of their most weighty affairs—those which were of imperial moment—in that period found their way before the administrative bodies in London, or would have been of interest either to them or to parliament. It is true that the privy council and other administrative boards and officials in England existed for the colonies as well as for the realm,

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and that their functions as applied to the two were legally the same. By introducing into its statutes references to the dominions parliament also might legislate for the colonies to any extent it chose. But, owing to distance, to imperfect means of communication, and to the infant condition of the colonies, the home government at first found little to administer and still less concerning which it was inclined to legislate.

The English, moreover, had not inherited the systematic methods of Rome. Even within the realm itself a highly centralized administrative system did not exist. A comparison of early English colonial administration with that of Spain or France would show how far short, in reach and comprehensiveness, it came of that attempted by the commands nations. In the seventeenth century, so far as the continental colonies were concerned, the home government directly undertook very little in the great departments of justice, finance, and military affairs. Outside of Virginia almost nothing was attempted, or indeed was possible, until after the Restoration. But even then the efforts of the crown were chiefly directed toward the removal of the obstacles which had been set up by the grant of charters and the founding of chartered colonies. For some time after the Restoration its activities bore some resemblance to those of an umpire or referee in controversies between the various colonies and their opponents or critics, whether in America or England. Positive action rarely went farther than hearings, followed by the issue of commands that due obedience should be rendered and justice done. In some very important cases these commands were ignored; in most cases they met with only a reluctant and partial obedience. In the chartered colonies the crown had no authority to remove or otherwise punish officials for neglect or disobedience. It was therefore practically powerless. There is little, even in the history of Virginia during the period, to convince one that the measures of the home government caused any direct or important changes in its development. The futility of efforts of the crown to diversify industry, even when sup-ported by the officials of the province and its assembly,

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sufficiently illustrate this fact. The inability of the province though acting under instructions from home, to overcome the natural obstacles to defence still further demonstrate the same truth.

So slight were the dealings of the crown with the other colonies, that its relations with New England really give character to the imperial administration until after 1680. The nature of these relations has already received abundant illustration, not only in the present volume, but in the earlier analysis of the corporate colony. In most essential particulars, though of course not in theory and law, they were those of the modern self-governing colonies. The relations, however, were in a sense furtively assumed by the colonies, and the crown had no thought of acknowledging them as permanent or fully legal. Unlike the modern colonies, therefore, the spirit of the governing class within New England was, as a rule, one of suspicion and jealous watchfulness toward the home government. They were ever on the alert to prevent encroachment on their liberties, and Massachusetts did not hesitate to thwart and nullify the commands of the home government. As has already been stated, these colonies, as a group, assumed a semi-diplomatic attitude and one of passive resistance toward the British government. The need of judicial, fiscal, military, ecclesiastical, or legislative subordination to England they either did not recognize or distinctly repudiated. Under conditions such as these hearings and expostulations on the part of the home government were about all that was possible. Owing to the remoteness of New England the effort to revoke the charter Of Massachusetts in 1635 had failed, and a full half-century elapsed before the English government reached the point where that effort could be successfully repeated.

From long-continued relations such as these it is easy to see how a constitution of the empire was developing which was very different from that of the realm. Even though the English government was not highly centralized and bureaucratic, like that of the continental states, its authority was continuously felt in all parts of the realm and in all lines of political activity. No limit was set to the sphere of

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parliamentary legislation. That body represented the entire realm and no special reference to the kingdom of England was needed in order to establish the binding force of its statutes. Neither in borough or county did any assembly exist which considered its authority over local taxation so great as to exclude that of parliament; or which issued local regulations that ranked in scope or importance with the acts of the colonial assemblies. The fact that parliament mentioned the dominions in the statutes which were intended to bind them shows that it was conscious of a difference between them and the realm. They stood apart and were subject to special treatment. It was understood that by no means the entire body of English statute law extended to them. Of the acts that were passed before the settlement of the colonies, only those which were adapted to the condition of the colonists were enforced there. In many cases the fact that laws were of this character was indicated by their tacit or express adoption by colonial authority; and such acts were not necessarily in force in the colonies at large, but only in those where they were expressly adopted. Parliament passed no statutes which vitally affected the colonies until after the middle of the seventeenth century. Its colonial legislation during the entire period under review was limited to half a dozen acts which related to the subject of trade, one of which provided for the levy of a duty on exports from the colonies. The principles of the Elizabethan and early Stuart legislation concerning Roman Catholics were also generally accepted as in force in all the colonies except Maryland. If we except what was done during the revolutionary conditions of the Commonwealth, parliament remained virtually silent upon all other subjects relating to the colonies. That it might have legislated as comprehensively and as much in detail for the colonies as for the realm is in the abstract undoubtedly true. Its efforts in this direction might have been so complete as to have rendered colonial assemblies unnecessary. But it did not do this, and it never thought of even attempting it. Under the conditions which then existed it was a practical impossibility, and the statement that the opposite course was possible is a conclusion

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from a doctrine of parliamentary supremacy which, so far as the colonies in the seventeenth century were concerned, was ideal. And yet no authoritative declaration was made either as to the extent or the limits of the authority of parliament; as to the relative rank of jurisdictions inside and outside the realm; as to the identity or disparity of the realm and the dominions. But such a course was in harmony with practice under a flexible constitution. At the time of which we are speaking the absolute supremacy of the Lords and Commons even in the realm was not fully acknowledged. And after the Revolution of 1689 this principle had to be accepted as a consequence of stubborn events rather than as the result of formal enactment. So the embryonic constitution of the empire was left to its natural course of development, and it remained still to be seen whether the dominions and the realm would tend slowly to coalesce under a common system of representation and executive control, or whether they would remain distinct. The final trend was decidedly toward the latter alternative.

Recurring to the subject of executive control, it should be said that for about two decades at the middle of the seventeenth century the British navy was quite active in the West Indies. In 1654 a small force, intended to be recruited chiefly in the colonies, was sent out against the Dutch and in the end attacked Acadia. In 1664 another small force, wholly of British origin, accomplished the reduction of New Netherland. A larger body of troops was sent to Virginia after Bacon’s rebellion, but it was not needed and proved an embarrassment to the commissioners whom it accompanied. Save the presence of a guardship here and there and of a small garrison at New York and the one which accompanied Andros to Boston, this was all that the continental colonies saw of British armed forces during the century. It is true that they indirectly felt the effect of the achievements of British arms in the West Indies and in Europe. They shared with other subjects in the protection which resulted from these victories. But, with the exception of the conquest of New Netherland, the advantage did not, as yet, come very close home to them. Both the fact and its consequences were

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remote, and the colonists could not be expected to realize them very clearly. The wars which immediately concerned them were with the Indians, and the shock of these they were forced to sustain without external aid.

Occasionally also during the century treaties were made by Great Britain which affected the colonies. But these related chiefly to claims of the French on the north and of the Spanish on the south, and became far more real to the colonists in the eighteenth century than they were at the time of which we are now speaking. The treaty of Madrid in 1670, by which Spain recognized the right of England to her North American possessions, signified the abandonment of claims which had never been other than shadowy. The only treaties of the century which closely affected the fortunes of the continental colonies were those of Breda and Westminster, by which New Netherland was transferred into the possession of the English.

Operations of the army and navy, as well as the conclusion of treaties, under the English system were chiefly the result of executive action. In addition to this, boundary disputes were adjusted before the privy council and occasionally suits involving traders or colonists were heard before the high court of admiralty. As has been proven in detail, the only continuous relations which the colonies had with the British government were with its executive. Administrative control by the British crown was the only function of government the influence of which was permanently felt by the colonies. The effectiveness of this control was seriously lessened both by difficulty of communication with America and by the fact that fully equipped governments were developed in the chartered colonies, as a result of which they confronted the home government almost as closed wholes. Even continuous administrative relations were possible only with royal provinces, and of these Virginia was the only example which existed on the continent during any large part of the century. But about 1660 began the period of commercial wars, and greater importance attaches to the next three decades than to any later period until the colonial revolt. Rivalry with the Dutch and

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Spanish during the Protectorate laid the foundation for this change. The struggle with the Dutch was continued and intensified after the Restoration. This called forth the acts of trade and resulted in the occupation of New Netherland by the English. Now that the acts of trade were being passed and the interests of commerce were outranking all others, the necessity of enforcing obedience to these ac in the colonies became increasingly evident. It added new strength to the appeals of Mason and Gorges and to the dislike which the Anglicans naturally felt toward the Puritan colonies and toward Massachusetts in particular. Considerations which had appealed to Laud and his contemporaries were given new strength, now that they were merged with the prevailing commercial ambition of the time. Overweening independence must now be curbed, not alone in the interest of the established worship, no in order that injured subjects might obtain their rights, nor even in order that sovereignty might be vindicated; but that the trade regulations prescribed by parliament and favored by the merchants should be obeyed. The principle of the navigation act and of the staple must be enforced. Trade with the Dutch and with other foreigners, except under conditions which, it was believed, would secure British supremacy, must cease. Royal officials must be appointed in all colonies and more regular and systematic administration enforced. This was the spirit of the old colonial system.

Precedents for action in such emergencies were not lacking. In earlier times royal commissions, with extensive powers, had been appointed. One colonizing company had been dissolved and an attempt had been made to dissolve another. A third had surrendered its charter. A plan to make New England a royal province had been cherished of old. A preference for a monarchical organization of the colonies had been expressed. But these projects had proved to be tentative and at the time had failed of their intended results. Now, whether consciously or not, a line of policy that much in the conduct of the early Stuarts had seemed to indicate as their preference was revived. Earlier precedents, so far as they

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tended toward vigorous control, were brought into service and on a much larger scale than before.

To this end committees and commissioners of plantations were appointed in England. Royal letters and commissions were despatched to the colonies. Agents were summoned from the colonies to England. Calls were issued for full reports from the governors. At intervals an active correspondence was carried on with officials in America. Hearings repeatedly occurred in England. A special agent was sent to Massachusetts to announce the king’s will and make inquiry on the spot. A beginning was then made in the appointment of customs officers to reside in the colonies. But these measures met with only a partial success. They failed to secure the full obedience which was desired. The courts and juries and officials of the chartered colonies must still be relied on to enforce the will of the imperial government, and in matters of chief moment they were found wanting. The chartered colonies themselves were the great obstacles in the path, and the charters must be removed out of the way before the ideal of the imperialists could be attained. This was practically the unanimous opinion of the officials and agents who were immediately concerned with the business.

The assault was made first and chiefly on the Massachusetts charter. Its recall was accompanied by the establishment of royal government in New Hampshire. The accession of James II to the throne made New York a royal province and terminated the brief existence of its assembly. The fall of the Massachusetts charter was followed by the suspension of government under the charters of Connecticut and Rhode Island. Plymouth lost its separate existence. The dominion of New England was at once erected, and to it New York and New Jersey were added. All this was accomplished by a combination of executive and judicial action. It swept away assemblies and boundary lilies, and aimed to undo the results of a half century of historic growth. It was followed, though a few years later and under different auspices, by the suspension of the governmental powers of William Penn and the Calverts. Maryland

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was organized as a royal province, and the royal governor of New York was temporarily appointed governor of Pennsylvania. These, with other changes which came during the last decade of the century, show that the colonies were then in the midst of a notable transition. It originated in the councils of the English king and was carried into execution by the initiative of the crown. As to the steps of the process parliament was not consulted and showed no desire to interfere. It was the culmination of plans which had long been advocated by officials, and which had for years been maturing in the councils of the home government. In the process of executing the plan prerogative government over the colonies reached its high-water mark. Never again was so much attempted or accomplished by this method. When, in later times, imperial pressure was again brought to bear, parliament was resorted to at every step. The policy of the Stuarts was to ignore parliament or push it one side, and by the use of an unlimited discretion to accomplish their purposes alone.

The object of these administrative measures was to reverse the policy which had resulted in the establishment of the chartered colonies; to recover, so far as possible, the powers which the crown had granted away. It aimed to break down the exclusiveness of those jurisdictions and force an entrance for the officials of the crown. As the result of the multiplication of colonies, the growth of commercial interests, the rising importance of questions of defence, the home government now had a policy which it must administer. This policy ran counter to many local tendencies within the colonies themselves. It was imperial rather than particularistic, and it aimed, whether by wise or unwise methods, to advance British interests as a whole. These it sought, it is true, with primary reference to the interests of the realm; and yet not without regard to those of the colonies, provided they submitted to the conditions and kept the place which British authorities now saw fit to prescribe. For the prosecution of this policy it could not rely on the appointees of the proprietors or on the elected officials of the corporate colonies. It must work through royal appointees,

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must restore the immediate relation between the colonists and these appointees. That, as we have now seen, was the meaning of the establishment of a royal province in the place of a chartered colony. The ideal of the statesmen of the later Stuart period was everywhere the royal province, the executive and judiciary of which should act directly or wholly under the authority of the king, as did the corresponding bodies in England. They should hold office at the pleasure of the crown and be guided by its instructions. The official list of the colonies would thus become a royal official list, and a body of magistrates would be everywhere available for the enforcement of the royal will. In trade, finance, war, justice, religion, through the circle of governmental action, imperial interests would thus be upheld and made effective. The Stuarts would go farther than this. They would permanently abolish assemblies, or make them the willing tools of the executive, and consolidate the colonies on a large scale. Something approaching the French system of administration should result. This was their ultimate goal, as revealed by the events of the years immediately following 1680.

But the policy of James II, in its final stage, was in violent opposition to colonial and English traditions. Whether or not it could have been permanently maintained we cannot say. The Revolution in England solved that question in a way that was most welcome to the mass of the colonists. As was observed at a later time, when James was making such inroads on the liberties of the colonists he was also violating the liberties of his subjects in the realm. They had resort to parliament for redress. With that event passed the only period in the history of the colonies when it was possible to suppress assemblies and make the executive strong enough to sustain the entire burden of government. After the fall of James and the uprisings which were consequent upon it, colonial boundaries and assemblies were restored, but not the chartered colony as the sole or chief form of colonial government. A compromise was reached between this and the governor-generalships of James II. It was the system of royal provinces, each with its assembly of two houses, its officials and judges, the appointees of the

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crown, and all acting in well defined subordination to the British government. This was the balanced system which was developed in harmony with the spirit of the English Revolution. The chartered colonies embodied better the radicalism and the ill defined strivings of the Puritan Revolution. The royal province exhibited better the spirit of 1689 and of the long period of Whig supremacy which was to follow. The transition to the system of royal provinces was not completed at once. It was a gradual process. The present volume carries us only through its initial and more tumultuous stages. The middle of the eighteenth century had been reached before the last colony which had been founded under a charter passed from its original form to that of the royal province. But by 1692 it had become evident what the result was likely to be, and that the attainment of the result was only a question of time.

In the royal provinces we have a better adjusted balance of forces than in either the chartered colonies or the governor-generalship. Relations there were analogous to those within the kingdom of England itself. The interests of the crown were maintained by means of appointments and the exercise of patronage, by correspondence and instructions, by direct dealings with assemblies and the initiation or veto of legislation. The interests of the people were safeguarded by an elected assembly which was intrusted with control over the purse; by jury trial and the forms of English judicial procedure. The king, so to speak, was brought into the province. Business was done in his name, under his instructions, and proper reference thereof was made to England. The province was more closely linked to England than was the chartered colony, and felt more directly the routine of its administration. By means of that routine greater regularity and uniformity in the processes of government were attained than could have been possible under a system of chartered colonies. In the case of the royal provinces the questions involved in imperial administration were to a large extent fought out within the provinces themselves as the result of continued action and reaction between the royal appointees and the colonists as represented in the

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assemblies. The relation was analogous to that between crown and parliament, whereas in the external contact between the crown and the chartered colony the analogy fails. At the same time it is true that the royal provinces, like the chartered colonies, were remote from England, and the impressions produced on the crown by their struggles and complaints were weaker than they would have been had they originated in England. Conversely, the royal commands lost not a little of their force and effectiveness in their passage across the Atlantic. Natural obstacles to government remained, though institutional barriers had to an extent been removed. And yet, when we view the colonial period as a whole, it becomes apparent that the distinction of prime importance in the classification of the colonies is that between chartered colonies and royal provinces. The period itself is divided at that point of time when the one form yields leading place to the other. A distinct step forward was then taken in the constitution of the British empire.