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THE revolution of 1689 was, in the first instance, a revolution of the English people. Through their representatives in the great convention they defended the Protestant establishment of the church, asserted the sovereignty of Parliament, defined certain fundamental rights of the individual, and, finally, placed these ancient rights under the protection of their new sovereigns, William and Mary. A few weeks later a similar convention in Scotland took similar action; and during the next two years the military campaigns of William and his officers re-established in the dependent principality of Ireland the authority of the English crown and the English church. These events, however, did not establish the "United Kingdom" of to-day. For a century longer Ireland maintained her separate though dependent Parliament; and the legislative

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union of Scotland and England was not accomplished for nearly twenty years. From the standpoint of British law and administration, Scotchmen and Irishmen were still in large measure alien peoples, both in England and in the colonies.

These political movements in the British Isles were followed with close interest by large numbers of English subjects in the American hemisphere. They produced or made possible similar movements there, and radically changed the internal organization of the colonies as well as their relation to each other and to the mother-country. Notwithstanding the close causal connection between the revolutionary movements in the mother-country and in the colonies, there were important differences between them, due to peculiar conditions prevailing either in the colonies as a whole or in particular colonies or groups of colonies. The American movements cannot, therefore, be understood without some analysis of those conditions.*

[* Compare the following discussion with Andrews, Colonial Self-Government (Am. Nation, V.), chaps. xviii, xix.]

The main body of the English colonists in 1689 occupied a narrow strip of territory stretching along the seaboard from the Kennebec River in Maine to the Ashley in South Carolina. Beyond the struggling English settlements in Maine, to the north and east, was a region in which English and French claims overlapped. In the south the Carolinas had been settled in defiance of the prior Spanish

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claims, and the new settlement of Charleston, in particular, was jealously watched by the Spanish garrison at St. Augustine. Everywhere the frontier line was drawn close to the sea. Here and there were interior posts in the wilderness, like the Massachusetts towns in the Connecticut Valley, and Schenectady on the Mohawk, but even towns within a few miles of Boston were still subject to Indian forays.

North of these permanent settlements on the main-land, were several remote trading-posts on the shores of Hudson Bay, maintained by the Hudson's Bay Company. A few small fishing settlements also existed on the eastern shore of Newfoundland, but the English claim to the island was challenged by a French fort on Placentia Bay.

To the south, England had already acquired a series of insular possessions, beginning with the Bermudas, and including in succession the Bahamas, the Leeward Islands, Barbadoes, and Jamaica. Commercial and social relations of considerable importance existed between the insular colonies and those of the mainland, and their political tendencies were in some respects much alike.

The population of these colonies can only be roughly estimated. New England, not counting Indians, may have numbered about eighty thousand, of whom about two-thirds were included in 1691 under the political jurisdiction of Massachusetts. New York, New Jersey, and Penn's colonies

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on the Delaware had together a population probably somewhat less than that of Massachusetts. Virginia was then the largest of the colonies, and the two Chesapeake provinces combined probably had a population slightly larger than that of New England. In the isolated Carolina settlements, there may have been in all five thousand people, including negroes.*

[* Dexter, Estimates of Population in the American Colonies.]

In these British dominions there was already a considerable variety of racial elements. The New England colonists were almost exclusively of English stock, and so for the most part were the white settlers of the south, though there was already a small French Huguenot colony in South Carolina. New York was a comparatively recent conquest, with the Dutch considerably outnumbering the English element and a smaller representation of other European stocks. In Pennsylvania the generous policy of Penn and his liberal advertisements in continental Europe had attracted some non-English immigrants to reinforce the early Swedish and Dutch settlers and the English Quakers. African and, to a lesser extent, Indian slavery existed throughout the continental colonies as well as in the islands; though in the former it was only beginning to assume an important position. In South Carolina, however, by the close of the century, the negroes outnumbered the whites.

The American colonists differed from each other

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not merely in racial distinctions, but sometimes even more decisively in religion. New England as a whole was still dominated by the religious ideals of the Puritan founders of Massachusetts Bay. Dissenters could not, however, be absolutely excluded, as the Antinomians and the early Quakers had been in the days of Winthrop and Endicott. Rhode Island, with her ideal of religious toleration, still stood in marked antagonism to the old Puritan ecclesiasticism; and the royal government of the Andros régime had given the Episcopal church a foothold in Massachusetts. In the closing years of the seventeenth century the Anglican clergy and laymen of New England constituted a small but energetic minority which had to be reckoned with as a real political force.

The racial differences of the middle colonies were reflected in the field of religion. In New York, Calvinism was not so strongly entrenched nor so aggressive as in New England. Its adherents were in a decided majority, but were themselves divided into rival organizations, of which the most important were the old Dutch Reformed church, lately the established church of New Netherland, and the more loosely associated Congregational churches which had their strongholds on Long Island, thus bringing into New York politics the militant spirit of New England Puritanism. The Lutherans were also represented in the colony, and the Church of England had a bare foothold. Between these various

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Protestant bodies, the early English governors had maintained on the whole a fairly even balance. The few Catholics of the province, protected from persecution during the supremacy of James, the Catholic proprietor and king, became in the revolution of 1689 the chief objects of popular hatred, and were afterwards subjected to severe penalties. In Pennsylvania the strongest influence was, of course, that of the Quakers, but there were also Anglicans, Lutherans, and other Protestants. In none of the middle colonies was there a true state church, and it is in them that the student finds the nearest approach to the freedom and diversity of our modern American life.

Virginia, notwithstanding some jealousies between clergy and laity, held strongly to the Anglican establishment. In Maryland the Catholic proprietor had striven to keep the peace between Catholics, Puritans, and Anglicans, but the violent anti-Catholic spirit of the English revolution asserted itself here as in New York. Provincial politicians used this religious antagonism to overthrow for a time the government of the proprietor, and when the revolution was over the Anglican party reaped the fruits of the Protestant victory in the legal establishment of their own church. In the Carolinas the early policy of the proprietors gave rise to a religious diversity similar to that in the middle colonies. The Anglicans were the strongest element among the early settlers of Charleston,

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but there were also French Huguenots, Scotch and Irish Presbyterians, and New England Puritans. The obscure settlements of North Carolina could hardly be said at this time to have any definite religious complexion. The Quaker missionaries exerted a considerable influence, but the general atmosphere was one of religious indifference.

The economic occupations and interests of the colonies at the close of the seventeenth century have been carefully examined in the preceding volume of this series and require only a brief review here. In all the colonies agricultural interests were predominant, but the specific character of these interests varied widely. In Maryland and Virginia the large plantation was becoming the characteristic economic unit, and there were no considerable centres of trade. Negro slavery had gained a firm foothold, and the planters were almost wholly absorbed in the production of tobacco for export. South Carolina was developing along West Indian lines the plantation system in its most extreme form; and she differed from the Chesapeake colonies in possessing a commercial and social centre at Charleston, which completely dominated also the political life of the colony throughout its history.

In the middle colonies economic conditions were more varied, and flourishing trading centres had grown up at Philadelphia and New York, overshadowing others of less importance. The large

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plantation existed here also to a limited extent, notably among the Hudson River people, but the small farmer was also an important factor throughout this region. The organization of agriculture in New England differed more sharply from that of the south. Here the farmers gathered in towns within easy reach of the meeting-house. Their outlying farms were small as compared with Virginia plantations, negro slavery was an almost negligible factor, and there were no great agricultural staples comparable with tobacco. Agriculture was supplemented by the important fishing industry and the Indian fur trade. The timber resources of New England had been used for ship-building on a considerable scale, and her vessels were engaged in a constantly widening intercolonial and foreign trade.

This developing industrial life of the colonies Parliament was now attempting to guide in certain legally established channels; but the navigation acts, with their restrictions on colonial shipping, imports, and exports, were imperfectly obeyed. For their really efficient enforcement a different governmental organization was necessary; and the attempt to secure such a system became one of the most important factors in the constitutional history of the later colonial era.

The governments of the American colonies were, at the close of the Stuart period, in a state of decidedly unstable equilibrium, due to the adoption by the English crown of a new and aggressive colonial

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policy. These new measures, however, cannot be appreciated without recalling certain leading principles of English colonial policy in its earlier phases.

The first is the leaving of responsibility, not merely for the economic development but for the government of new colonies, to private individuals, private associations, or corporations, acting either under the authority of royal charters, or, as sometimes happened in New England, simply by the sufferance of the crown. No one of the main-land colonies began its career under a royal or provincial government, and until 1684 only two were definitely so organized: Virginia, which became a royal government in 1624, after the charter of the Virginia Company had been annulled; and New Hampshire, which, after a varied experience at first under the nominal rule of a proprietor, and then as a part of Massachusetts, was finally, in 1679, organized as a separate royal province.*

[* Compare on this subject, Tyler, England in America, passim; Andrews, Colonial Self-Government, chap.ii (Am. Nation, IV.,V.)]

Secondly, the tendency was, instead of concentrating governmental responsibility in a few hands, to authorize, or to permit, a large number of small governments. By 1684 there were on the mainland twelve distinct colonial governments: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Plymouth, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, East New Jersey, West New Jersey, Pennsylvania with the "lower

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counties," Virginia, Maryland, and Carolina, having, for the most part, no political connection with each other except their common subjection, slight and intangible as that often was, to the English crown and Parliament.

The greatest variety appeared in the character of these governments, both as to the nature of their relations with the home government and as to their internal organization. In Virginia the constitution was in the main embodied in the royal commission and instructions issued to each succeeding governor. In the more recently organized proprietary governments the proprietor, though given considerable freedom of action, was held in check by such requirements as the allowing of appeals to the Privy Council or the submission of colonial laws for the approval of the crown. There were also quasi-independent governments like those of Maryland, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, where the crown had no effective check on colonial law and administration. Under the royal charters, New England had become the home of practically republican governments, where judges and executive officers as well as law-makers were chosen by the people or their representatives. The Maryland proprietary government may be described as a constitutional monarchy of the conservative type, while Penn's constitution was much more liberal. These governments, however, had one thing in common: the principle of popular representation had in some form or

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other been conceded in all of them, sometimes freely, as in Pennsylvania, and sometimes tardily, or only temporarily, as in New York. Often, however, the privileges of these representative bodies were imperfectly defined and held on a somewhat precarious tenure.

A third striking characteristic of early colonial policy was the almost entire absence of parliamentary control. The English territories in America, whether acquired by discovery or by conquest, were the domains of the crown. The king determined the conditions under which they should be occupied, their trade carried on, and their governments organized. Not until the period of the Commonwealth did Parliament begin to concern itself actively in the affairs of the colonies; and at first its work was mainly confined to the assertion of principles, without providing adequate machinery for their enforcement.

During the second half of the seventeenth century there was in England greater interest in the problem of colonial government. The material resources and the industry of the colonies were to be exploited and made factors in the development of national power. By the navigation acts of the Commonwealth and Restoration governments, Parliament undertook to regulate the course of colonial enterprise. The trade of the colonies must be carried on in English ships and by English seamen. Many of their staple articles of export might be

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sent to Europe only through English ports, and their imports from Europe must come only by way of England. The acts which asserted these general principles were naturally followed by others which were needed to settle doubtful questions of construction, and to secure a more effective enforcement.

The primary motive of this legislation was financial or economic, but it had also important constitutional results. Since the existing colonial governments could not be relied upon to enforce thoroughly the requirements of the navigation acts, a special official service was organized in the colonies, charged with this specific duty. Consequently, there soon appeared side by side with the local governments of individual colonies, whether provincial, proprietary, or republican, the surveyor-general and the collectors of customs, as the representatives of a new imperial control. These new officials in turn were supervised and controlled by the Privy Council with its Committee of Trade and Plantations.*

Even these measures, however, were inadequate. The thorough enforcement of the law required the cordial co-operation of the colonial governor with the royal agent, but instead of this there was mutual suspicion and dislike. The governor was influenced by the local sentiment of the colony or

[* Cf. Andrews, Colonial Self-Government (Am. Nation, V.), chaps. i., ii.]

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the personal interests of the proprietor, which were often at variance with those of the crown. It was natural enough, therefore, that such men as Edward Randolph, who looked at the problem from the point of view of a royal official, should demand a reorganization of the colonial governments themselves, in order to make them more effective agents of imperial control. These general considerations, with others of a more local character, gradually led the English government to adopt new principles of colonial administration.

The changed attitude of the crown towards the proprietary governments was illustrated in the New York patent of 1664, and still more in Penn's charter of 1681. In both these provinces the right of appeal to the Privy Council was expressly reserved by the crown, and in Pennsylvania this check upon provincial independence was reinforced by a number of new provisions, including a royal veto on colonial laws. In 1684 came the revocation of the Massachusetts charter, followed during the next four years by the gradual incorporation in a single province of eight hitherto distinct jurisdictions, including, besides all of New England, New York and the Jerseys, all of which were covered by the royal commission to Andros in 1688. Legal proceedings were also ordered for the purpose of annulling the proprietary authority in Delaware, Maryland, and the Carolinas. It seems probable that if this policy had not been interrupted by the revolution of 1689,

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direct control by the crown would have been secured in all, or nearly all, of the colonies.

Thus the later policy of the Stuarts embodied these two leading principles: the substitution of royal for proprietary or elective governments; and the consolidation of numerous petty jurisdictions into a smaller number of strong provinces. Such a policy would probably in any case have provoked sharp antagonism from the colonists, and from the various proprietary interests which were thus assailed. It was still further weakened by being associated with another form of restriction with which it had no necessary connection: the colonies which were successively incorporated in the "greater New England" of 1688 were left without any general representative assembly to take the place of the various local bodies which had been superseded. The extension of imperial control and the consolidation of governments may be regarded in some aspects at least as measures of progress; the denial of popular representation was distinctly reactionary.

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WHEN the English revolution of 1689 opened the way for similar movements in America, the opposition gathered strength from various sources. The chartered colonies of New England desired their old local independence; their religious prejudices also were stirred by the support which the Andros régime had given to the Anglican church, and by its toleration of what seemed to them a looser morality. The Catholicism of James and some of his agents was a prime factor in enabling the revolutionists of New York to discredit his authority in the province. There and in New England stanch Anglicans were suspected as possible tools of a "Popish" conspiracy. In Maryland, however, this religious antagonism had precisely the opposite effect, and contributed towards the temporary overthrow of the proprietor and the extension of royal control.

One of the first acts of William III. was the appointment, in February, 1689, of a new Committee of the Privy Council on Trade and Plantations, including the leading ministers of state, both Whig

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and Tory. In the early months of 1689 the general principles of colonial policy were discussed with some care, and the new committee accepted, in large measure, the policy of its predecessors. Thus, in April, 1689, before the uprising in New England was known, the committee recommended the organization of such a government in New England, New York, and the Jerseys, as would enable the people to oppose the French with their united forces. Here the military motive appears to reinforce the commercial argument for closer control. In May of the same year the committee suggested as a proper subject for consideration by Parliament whether Maryland, the Carolinas, and Pennsylvania should not be brought into closer dependence upon the crown. Pending the settlement of a definite policy, the existing political arrangements in the colonies were, in general, to be continued.*

In the mean time the colonists were taking matters into their own hands. Revolutionary movements in Massachusetts and New York overthrew the Andros administration; the New England colonies resumed their chartered constitutions, and in New York Leisler set up his revolutionary government. In Maryland the agitators of the Protestant Association took advantage of religious prejudices against the Catholic proprietor to overthrow his authority and organize a new government in the name of William and Mary. Even in

[* Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1689-1692, pp. 6, 34, 39.]

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Virginia and the West Indian Islands considerable uneasiness resulted from the political changes at home.* The confusion was seriously increased in many colonies by the outbreak of war with France and by Indian incursions on the northern frontiers. With these various and perplexing problems to be dealt with, it is not surprising that the king and his ministers were not able at once to restore order and carry out a consistent policy; and it is a mark of statesmanship that during the next two years a fair solution of the problem was worked out in most of the colonies.

The basis of this settlement was compromise. Though the colonial policy of James II. was maintained in many of its essential features, it was considerably modified, and on one point was definitely abandoned. The privilege of a representative assembly could hardly be denied by a government instituted for the protection of representative institutions in the mother-country; and it was now restored in all the colonies.

The question still remained of restoring the old charters, especially in New England. The colonists, represented by skilful agents, and supported by influential politicians in England, claimed to stand in defence of ancient privileges arbitrarily taken from them by the now discredited government of James II. The Puritan party had played an important

[* Cf. Andrews, Colonial Self-Government (Am. Nation, V.), chap. xvii.]

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part in bringing about the English revolution also, and might reasonably claim some consideration for Puritan interests in America. Against these claims, however, were enlisted some powerful influences. Many of the new king's counsellors had had an active part in the administrations of the last two Stuart kings, and were hardly prepared to abandon altogether the old policy. The revolution also strengthened rather than weakened the influence of the merchants in the government; desiring, as they did, a strict observance of the navigation acts, and a steady assertion of British as against distinctively colonial interests, it was clearly their interest to extend the administrative control of the mother-country.

Lastly, the outbreak of war both in Europe and America served to emphasize the military point of view. It was urged again and again in the colonial correspondence that the ravages of the Indians on the frontier were largely the result of the political disintegration which followed the revolution. So long as the colonies were divided into petty independent jurisdictions, each pursuing selfishly its own immediate interests, there could be no effective cooperation for the defence of the empire as a whole.

The adjustment of colonial governments from 1689 to 1691 was a fair compromise between the antagonistic views which have just been described. The idea of a consolidated New England was abandoned; Connecticut and Rhode Island were allowed

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to resume their rights of government under the old charters which had never been definitely surrendered; and New Hampshire was to be governed, as before, as a separate royal province, though the proprietor of the soil, Samuel Allen, was given a governor's commission. The tendency towards consolidation appears, however, in the new charter of Massachusetts, which organized under a single royal government Massachusetts, Maine, and the old colony of Plymouth. The charter also included Acadia, recently conquered by Sir William Phips; but this clause was deprived of importance through the French reconquest of Port Royal in 1691.[*]

[* Cal. of State Pap., Col., passim; cf. Andrews, Colonial Self-Government (Am. Nation, V.) chap. xvii.]

The Massachusetts charter was in itself a compromise. The interests of the crown were to be protected by a royal governor with a limited appointing power and the right of veto upon acts of the general court or assembly; there was also an ultimate royal veto on colonial statutes, and an express right of appeal from colonial courts to the Privy Council. These were serious deductions from the old colonial independence, but enough remained to give Massachusetts until the eve of the American Revolution several marked advantages among the royal provinces: the royal veto had to be exercised within a specified time; the executive council, which served also as the upper house of the legislature, was here alone an elective body,

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annually chosen by joint ballot of the council and the house of representatives, though subject to the governor's veto. The guarantee of annual elections, the right to exercise a considerable part of the appointing power, and the semi-popular character of the legislative upper house gave to the assembly a freedom of action and an influence in administration not to be found in any other royal province.[*]

[* The Massachusetts charter, in Massachusetts Bay, Acts and Resolves, I., 1-20.]

In New York the revolutionary leaders had involved themselves in unnecessary antagonism with the new government in England and were set aside in the final settlement. The province received a separate royal government of the ordinary type, but the representative principle was definitely recognized.

The problems of the proprietary governments were not settled in any consistent or logical fashion, but were largely affected by personal considerations. The pending proceedings against the proprietors of the Jerseys and of the Carolinas were not pushed, in spite of the disorderly conditions in those colonies. On the other hand, the proprietors of Pennsylvania and Maryland were prejudiced by their associations. The fact that Lord Baltimore was a Catholic had been emphasized by the unfortunate delay of his government in proclaiming the new sovereign, and was taken advantage of by the discontented elements within the province. The friction between proprietary and royal officers during the preceding

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years injured him with the statesmen of the new government as well as with their predecessors. The result was a somewhat peculiar compromise; Baltimore remained technically in possession of his charter, and enjoyed certain rights as proprietor of the soil; while the king appointed the governor and council, and in general exercised the same political authority as in the normal royal province.

Penn's position was particularly vulnerable: his legal title to the lower counties was questioned; his officers were charged with laxity in the administration of the navigation laws; his intimacy with the late king made him an object of suspicion; and there was sharp criticism of the Quaker attitude towards imperial defence. In this crisis, however, Penn and his friends in the province showed a marked capacity for diplomacy and passive resistance. Except for a brief interruption in 1692-1694, during which Governor Fletcher, of New York, undertook to administer the province under a royal commission, Penn was able to hold his ground.

By the close of the year 1691, the two royal governments on the continent had been increased to five: New Hampshire; the three leading colonies of Virginia, Massachusetts, and Maryland; and New York, which occupied a position of pre-eminent strategic importance in the coming struggle with France. Taken together, the royal provinces now had perhaps two-thirds of the total population of the continental colonies. Thus the net result of

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the decade which began with Penn's charter in 1681 and ended with the second Massachusetts charter of 1691 was a marked extension of imperial control.

Though the Stuart policy had been modified in some respects, the Stuart traditions were still strong at the court. Provincial officials who had begun American service under Charles and James, and were closely associated with the carrying out of their policy, were retained in the service with every indication of royal confidence. The charges against Andros were dismissed, and he received afterwards an appointment to the royal government of Virginia, the most important on the continent. Howard of Effingham, in spite of the vigorous opposition in Virginia, was at first reappointed titular governor of the province, with Francis Nicholson, Andros's former associate in New York, as his lieutenant on the ground. Usher, the new lieutenant-governor in New Hampshire, belonged to the same party. Above all, Edward Randolph, the unsparing critic of the chartered governments, continued his colonial career as surveyor-general of customs. From these and others like them correspondence on colonial affairs was constantly coming in to the secretaries of state and the committee of trade, and impressing upon them the desirability of pushing to its legitimate conclusions the policy of imperial control.[*]

[* Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1689-1692, passim; cf. Andrews, Colonial Self-Government (Am. Nation, V.), chap. xvii.]

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In Massachusetts the final establishment of even a modified provincial system was peculiarly painful, and it was associated with another event which gave to this constitutional change something of tragic dignity.

It is now well understood that the witchcraft delusion in Massachusetts was no unique incident in human history or in the Christian world of that time. The basis of the witchcraft idea was the belief in a personal devil who, through his agents, the witches, was constantly conspiring against the welfare of mankind. This dogma was almost universally held by the Christian church in its various branches for two centuries after the Protestant revolution, and was definitely recognized by the law of the land. In the Massachusetts Body of Liberties of 1641 witchcraft was made a capital offence, and in 1692 the general court enacted a law, taken almost verbatim from a statute of James I., imposing the same penalty for witchcraft in its more serious forms. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries many thousands of persons were executed as witches in England, and methods of procedure in such cases were carefully set forth in the legal treatises of the day.[*]

[* Massachusetts Bay, Acts and Resolves, I., 55. 56, 90; 1 James I., chap. xii.; Body of Liberties, in MacDonald, Select Charters, 87.]

Before 1692 there were a few sporadic cases of conviction and execution for witchcraft. About ten years before the Salem outbreak, the ministers of

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Boston and vicinity undertook a serious investigation of the history of witchcraft in New England, and soon after Increase Mather described, in his Illustrious Providences, witchcraft and kindred phenomena. In 1688 the children of John Goodwin, of Boston, were supposed to have been bewitched by an Irish laundress, who was tried and executed. Cotton Mather, the son of Increase Mather, interested himself in this case, and applied to it his theory that the malign influences of the Evil One might be overcome by fasting and prayer. In the following year he published a book in which he insisted on the reality of devils and witches, and sharply criticised the sceptics. Richard Baxter, the famous English dissenter, thought the book so convincing "that he must be a very obdurate Sadducee that will not believe it." Both the Mather, recommended cautious methods of procedure in the trial of supposed witches, but probably their Publications helped to develop a morbid interest in supernatural phenomena.1

In the mean time the colonists had been abnormally excited by experiences of other kinds. Their old charter had been taken from them, and serious men were anxious about the possibility of maintaining the old ideals under the changed conditions. Then, for several years, a peculiarly shocking warfare had been going on on the frontier with a savage people, whom it was easy to think of as fiendish 1 Poole, in Winsor, Memorial Hist. of Boston, II., chap. iv.

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allies of the Evil One. Thus, when the tales of witchcraft at Salem village began to come in, they found a more ready response than might have been given in calmer times.

The disturbance began with the strange actions of some young girls at Salem village (now Danvers). Friends and professional advisers were called in, and when they agreed that the girls had been bewitched there was great alarm, and public fasts were kept, not only in the immediate neighborhood, but in other parts of the colony. When questioned about the cause of their troubles, the "afflicted persons" named at first three women by whom they claimed to have been bewitched; then from time to time they made similar charges against other persons. In this way a large number of men and women, not only in Salem village but in neighboring towns, were examined and imprisoned, until finally, in May, 1692, the new governor, Sir William Phips, and his council organized a special court to try the witchcraft cases. During the following summer this court sat at Salem, and under its authority nineteen persons in all were convicted of witchcraft and executed. The majority of them were women, but one, George Burroughs, was a graduate of Harvard College and a prominent minister of the province. One man, Giles Corey, under a strict application of the old English law, was pressed to death for refusing to plead. Many others, over-wrought by the cruel examinations which they had

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to undergo, and in order to save their own lives, made confessions implicating innocent persons. These convictions were brought about in large measure by the acceptance of what was called "spectral" testimony. It was assumed by the court in accordance with some English precedents that the devil could not assume the form of an innocent person. When, therefore, the "afflicted persons" professed that they had been bewitched by the devil in the form of certain individuals whom they named, this was taken as conclusive evidence of guilt. The leading ministers, however, including the Mathers, condemned the use of spectral testimony, and insisted that the devil might assume the form of an innocent person. Finally, when an increasing number of people of high character and social standing, including Lady Phips, began to be accused, there was a strong revulsion of feeling. In the winter of 1692-1693 the special court was superseded by the newly organized superior court, which held a special session at Salem in January, 1693. About fifty persons were then tried; but only three were convicted, and they were reprieved by Governor Phips, who now ordered that the prosecutions should be stopped.[*]

[* Upham, Witchcraft in Salem Village, II., passim; Hutchinson, Hist. of Mass. Bay, II., 12 et seq.; Woodward, Records of Salem Witchcraft, passim; Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1689-1692, p. 720, 1693-1696, pp, 29, 30; Mather, Magnalia Christi (ed. of 1853), I., 207-210, II., 471-479.]

Before many years had passed, the people of

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Massachusetts generally were convinced that great wrong had been done to innocent people, and the general court set apart a day of fasting and prayer in recognition of the errors committed in the witchcraft proceedings. At that time Cotton Mather expressed in his diary his anxiety lest the divine displeasure might overtake his family "for my not appearing with vigor enough to stop the proceedings of the judges when the inextricable storm from the Invisible World assaulted the country." A more memorable and impressive declaration is that of Samuel Sewall, a councillor and a member of the witchcraft court, in a paper which he caused to be publicly read in his presence at church in 1697. He manfully took upon himself a large share of the "Guilt contracted" in the Salem proceedings, "Asking pardon of men, And especially desiring prayers that God, who has an Unlimited Authority, would pardon that sin and all other his sins; . . . and . . . Not Visit the sin of him, or of any other, upon himself or any of his, nor upon the Land."[*]

[* Extracts from Mather's diary, in Wendell, Cotton Mather, 122; Small, Diary, I., 445.]

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IN the constitutional adjustments which took place in the colonies after the revolution of 1689, there had been a compromise between two contending forces, the spirit of particularism and colonial autonomy on the one side and the policy of consolidation and control on the other. This constitutional compromise was, however, satisfactory to neither party and could not be regarded as final. From the home government there came a series of measures, partly legislative and partly administrative, which limited the field of local autonomy. On the other hand, certain constitutional tendencies appeared in the colonies which were denounced as leading towards substantial independence.

The demand for closer imperial control was emphasized by the intercolonial wars, which showed clearly the need of concerted action, of having some authority in the colonies capable of directing military operations as a whole. Commercial considerations, too, were given a new emphasis during this

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period. The heavy burden of the continental wars hastened the development in England of a new and more complex financial system, including the beginnings of the national debt and the Bank of England. In these new departures the government needed more than ever the co-operation of the mercantile interests, and the strength of their influence is shown by the prominence of commercial considerations in foreign politics. When a great war, like that of the Spanish Succession, was fought largely in the interest of English trade, it was natural that the same interest should assert itself more strongly than ever in the field of colonial policy.

The war also brought out various irregularities in colonial trade which seemed to demand more effective control. There were frequent complaints of illicit trade with the enemy, and of privateering that passed easily into piracy. These, with the old charge of lax enforcement of the navigation acts, made up a formidable indictment, which was pressed with special vigor against the chartered governments, whether proprietary or elective.

Imperial control as a remedy for colonial ills was advocated, not merely by interested merchants and zealous officials in England; it was also urged by a small but energetic party in America, including certain officers of the British customs service. Edward Randolph, for instance, was again busily engaged in writing reports on the violation of the navigation acts in various colonies, and occasionally

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quarrelling with less zealous officials. Another important representative of the same class was Robert Quarry, for a time councillor and acting governor of South Carolina, afterwards an admiralty judge in the middle colonies, and finally surveyor-general of customs for North America. Quarry made himself particularly obnoxious to William Penn by his incessant complaints of misgovernment in Pennsylvania.[*]

[* Randolph Papers, passim; Ames, Pa. and the English Govt., passim.]

Some of the royal governors also were conspicuous for their defence of imperial interests. Among them was Francis Nicholson, who, during the reigns of William and Anne, serving successively as lieutenant-governor of Virginia, governor of Maryland, governor of Virginia, and governor of Nova Scotia, showed a strong sense of the royal prerogative and a keen scent for irregularities of every kind, especially in the chartered colonies. Another was Richard, Earl of Bellomont, who, during the closing years of the seventeenth century, was at the same time governor of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New York. During the reign of Anne the most aggressive of the royal governors were Dudley of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, Hunter of New York, and Spotswood of Virginia. These men and others like them were constantly pointing out the evils of the existing situation, and urging upon their superiors at home a more

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vigorous assertion of parliamentary or royal authority.

The imperialistic party in the colonies was not exclusively composed of royal governors and customs collectors. In the chartered colonies dissatisfied elements of various kinds saw their advantage in the extension of royal control. This was the case, for instance, with the comparatively small group of Church of England men in New England and Pennsylvania. In New Jersey and the Carolinas the inefficient or illiberal government of the proprietors led many of the colonists, at various times, to seek protection from the crown.

From all these various elements came complaints and proposals of reorganization which were reflected in "representations" by the Lords of Trade, in orders of the Privy Council, in resolutions of the House of Lords or the House of Commons, and sometimes even in acts of Parliament. Indeed, one of the striking features of colonial politics during this period is the constant suggestion of parliamentary action as the only means of dealing thoroughly with colonial problems.

The colonial statutes of William and Anne were intended first to secure a more effective enforcement of the system inaugurated by the navigation acts of Charles II., and, secondly, to enlarge the field in which its principles should be applied.

The first object is best illustrated by the navigation act of 1696, which was based clearly upon

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official experience of the defects of existing administration. The negligence of the governors, especially in the chartered colonies, led to the strengthening of the oath hitherto required of royal governors, which was now made unequivocally applicable to all governors of English colonies: any governor who failed either to take the oath or to perform the duties required by it was made liable to removal from office and to the forfeiture of £1000. Furthermore, the choice of governor in the chartered colonies was made subject to veto by the crown, although practically this clause was applied only in the proprietary governments. The naval officers appointed by colonial governors had also been found negligent, and were required, henceforth, to give security to the commissioner of customs in England. Complaints having been made of the unsatisfactory sureties accepted in the colonies, all sureties were thereafter to be persons of good financial standing, resident in the colonies. Randolph's correspondence had laid special stress upon the part taken by Scotchmen in the illegal trade: they were said to have used forged certificates, and to have escaped punishment for illegal acts through the sympathy of fellow-countrymen on the trial juries. More stringent measures were therefore adopted for the suppression of Scotch and other alien traders, and it was provided that jury service in cases arising under the trade and revenue laws should be limited to natives of England

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and Wales, Ireland, and the plantations. A few years later, however, the act of union placed Scotchmen on the same footing with Englishmen.[*]

[* 7 and 8 William III., chap. xxii.; 6 Anne, chap. xi., §. 4; Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1689-1692, pp. 656-660.]

The leading principle which underlies the various provisions of the act of 1696 is the bringing of colonial administration, so far as it affected the navigation acts, into harmony with the system of the mother-country. This principle was asserted as regards colonial legislation by the formal declaration that all colonial laws at variance with the navigation acts were null and void. Vessels in the colonies were subjected to the regulations, as to searches and seizures, which were already in force at home; and all vessels were to be identified by a uniform system of registration.[*]

[ 7 and 8 William III., chap. xxii., §§ 5, 8, 16.]

The act of 1696 was thus mainly an administrative measure intended to make more effective the principles of previous legislation; but it also determined one important point of construction. The question had been raised whether the exporter of enumerated articles, who paid the prescribed duties at a colonial port, was then free to take his goods wherever he pleased. It was now definitely settled that a bond must in all cases be given not to take the enumerated articles elsewhere than to England, Wales, or Berwick-upon-Tweed, or to some other English colony. There was also one important

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addition to the limitations imposed on colonial exports: the colonists were now forbidden to send even the non-enumerated articles to Ireland or Scotland, except after the payment of duties in England.[*]

[* 7 and 8 William III., §§ 7, 13; cf. Beer, Commercial Policy of England, 40.]

In later statutes of William and Anne there was a real development of the commercial policy in principle as well as in administration. This is shown first by additions to the list of enumerated articles, especially in 1705, when three important classes of colonial products were first enumerated: rice, which had become one of the staple exports of South Carolina; molasses from the West Indies; and naval stores of various kinds, including ship timber, could now be shipped only to English ports.[*]

[* 3 and 4 Anne, chap. iii., § 14. chap. ix., § 6.]

Another restrictive measure showed the growing jealousy of colonial manufactures, which was, of course, a logical result of the mercantilist system. In order to preserve colonial markets for English merchants, it was not enough to prevent the colonists from buying manufactured articles in foreign countries, they must also be prevented from supplying them to each other. During King William's War this subject was frequently referred to in the colonial correspondence; for instance, Governor Nicholson of Virginia pointed out the danger, that the continued interruption of trade by war would

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compel the colonists to make their own clothing, as the New-Englanders were already doing to a considerable extent. The British point of view has hardly been better expressed than in the preamble of the woollens act of 1698, in which wool and its various manufactures were called "the greatest and most profitable Commodities of this Kingdom on which the Value of Lands and the Trade of the Nation do Chiefly depend." The development of this trade in Ireland and the colonies was tending, it was thought, "to sink the Value of Lands" and "to the ruine of the Trade and the Woollen Manufactures of this Realme," and hence the colonists were forbidden to carry wool or manufactures of wool from any one colony into any other.[*]

[* Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1689-1692, pp. 568, 569; Weeden, Econ. and Soc. Hist. of New England, I. 303-307, 387-394: 10 William III., chap. xvi.]

Not all commercial legislation of this period was restrictive. Colonial officials were constantly trying to find means of diverting the colonists from industrial enterprises injurious to the mother-country by encouraging others which were thought to be beneficial. Thus a statute of Queen Anne encouraged colonial shipping by exempting colonial seamen from impressment in the royal navy.[*] The industry, however, which the English government most desired to encourage was the production of naval stores, including hemp, pitch, tar, and masts;

[* Commission to Board of Trade, in N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., IV., 145-148; 6 Anne, chap. lxiv., § 9.]

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and this interest was stimulated by the wars of William and Anne, in which the sea power was so important a factor. Hitherto, the Baltic countries had, been the important source of supply for naval stores, but this trade was now being conducted on unfavorable terms and was at best precarious. The resources of the colonies were therefore carefully inquired into; and finally, after a long period of discussion, Parliament took definite action in the statute of 1705. This act, as has been noted, restricted the export of naval stores by listing them among the enumerated articles; it also reserved trees of a certain size for the royal navy, with severe penalties for cutting by unauthorized persons. These restrictions were offset, however, by bounties on the importation of naval stores produced in the colonies, and this encouragement of colonial industry became a settled part of British policy.[*]

[* 3 and 4 Anne, chap. ix.; Lord, Industrial Experiments in the Engl. Cols., pt. ii.]

The measures already noted may all be regarded as logical developments from the earlier acts of trade; a few others deserve attention because they show the broadening scope of parliamentary legislation for the colonies-especially the piracy act of 1700, the currency act of 1707, and the post-office act of 1710.

The piracy act was an attempt to remedy a serious evil which it was felt had not been properly

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dealt with by the colonies, and for which the old statute of Henry VIII. was no longer found adequate. The colonial governments, especially those which still retained their charters, were criticised for failure to enact suitable legislation and for their toleration of pirates within their jurisdiction. Under these circumstances, the act of 1700 provided that in the future piracy and other felonies on the high seas might be tried in the colonies by special courts constituted by commissions from the crown. If any governor refused to comply with the provisions of this act, such a refusal was to constitute a forfeiture of the chartered rights of the government to which he belonged.[*]

[* Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1689-1692, pp. 674; 1693-1696, p. 114; Report of Board of Trade, in Penn-Logan Correspondence, I., 380; 11 William III., chap. vii.]

The conditions which gave rise to the currency act of 1707 can be only briefly considered here. During the reign of William III. the problems of coinage and currency were conspicuous in the politics both of the mother-country and the colonies. The colonial situation was especially difficult, for coin of any kind was scarce, and English sterling money was hardly current at all. The most common coins in the colonies were the Spanish "pieces of eight," which have been called "the original of the American ‘dollar.'" The "piece of eight" was not, however, a fixed standard either in weight or commercial value as measured in sterling money.

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One of the charges made against the chartered colonies was that by raising and lowering the value of coins, as well as by various other methods, they tended "greatly to the undermining the trade of the other plantations." William Penn, in his Suggestions Respecting the Plantations, presented to the home government in 1700, said that the value of pieces of eight varied from 4s. 6d., in Maryland, to 7s. 8d., in the neighboring colony of Pennsylvania, and he urged the desirability of a single fixed standard.[*]

[* Weeden, Econ. and Soc. Hist. of New England, I., 383-387; Penn-Logan Correspondence, I., 380; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., IV., 757.]

Such a standard was attempted in 1704 through a proclamation of Queen Anne, which fixed within certain limits the ratio between standard foreign coins and sterling. This royal order proved ineffective, and in 1707 Parliament gave to the proclamation the force of a statute, imposing penalties on persons who took foreign coins at a rate exceeding the legal ratio; and this act was specifically declared applicable to the chartered colonies as well as to the royal governments.[*]

[* 6 Anne, chap. lvii.]

In the case of the post-office also, there was, first, a period of separate colonial action, followed by the exercise of prerogative, and finally by the intervention of Parliament. Before the revolution of 1689 postal arrangements in the colonies had been left to the colonists themselves, and the results

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were meagre. In 1692, Thomas Neale received from William and Mary a patent authorizing him to establish post-offices in the American colonies; and he proceeded to appoint Andrew Hamilton, a New Jersey colonist, as his deputy in America. Hamilton then secured the co-operation of several of the colonial assemblies, which passed laws regulating the rates of postage. His patent, however, was to expire in twenty-one years, and by that time Parliament was ready to take action. The act of 1710 provided for "Chief Offices" in New York and elsewhere; fixed the rates of postage within the colonies, as well as in the mother-country; and, with a few exceptions, limited the carrying of mails to the postmaster-general and his deputies. Under the operation of this law postal facilities were gradually extended from New England and the middle colonies into the south.[*]

[* Woolley, Early Hist. of the Col. Post-Office; 9 Anne, chap. xi.]

One of the declared purposes of the new law was to raise a war revenue, and it was therefore enacted that a weekly payment of £700 should be turned into the royal treasury. The New-Englanders seem to have made no public objection to the revenue feature of the law, and though some Virginians at first objected on the ground that Parliament could not tax them without the consent of the general assembly, the opposition soon died away.[*]

[* Palfrey, New England, IV., 327-332; Spotswood, Official Letters, II, 280.]

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The constitutional significance of the colonial statutes of William and Anne may easily be overlooked if they are considered individually. In the main, they took the form of restrictions upon colonial enterprise, but sometimes, as in the bounties on naval stores, they aimed to stimulate it when directed along acceptable lines. Taken as a whole, they mark the increasing importance in colonial life of the political control exercised by the mother-country.

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EVERY step in the extension of legislative control increased the importance of administrative organization. Existing agencies were strengthened and new ones developed, until, finally, a radical reorganization of the colonial constitutions was demanded, which could only be accomplished by the action of Parliament itself.

In the shaping of administrative policy the personal action of King William and Queen Anne seems, on the whole, a factor of minor importance. William III. was much absorbed in the politics of continental Europe, and had little time for colonial affairs, though his influence was in general exerted to uphold the royal prerogative. He consented reluctantly to triennial parliaments at home, and he opposed the triennial election of assemblies in America. In one instance, when Parliament attempted to organize a council of trade under its own control, the king exerted himself to defeat the project.[*] Queen Anne's policy was still more largely

[* Chalmers, Revolt, I., 294, n.; Cobbett, Parliamentary History, V., 977.]

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that of her ministers, though her colonial appointments were sometimes influenced by personal preferences. William Penn was a man of experience in such matters, and he wrote to his secretary in 1703 warning him not to submit even to royal orders when at variance with law, adding, "Queens never read, as well as Kings, what they sign; they are signed upon the credit of committees or secretaries."[*]

[* Penn-Logan Correspondence, I., 247, 248.]

In general, then, the colonial policy of the crown was the policy of its official advisers. Matters of importance were determined by the Privy Council, composed, for practical purposes, of the king's ministers of state. Details were managed by individual ministers, by subordinate officials, or by administrative committees or boards. Government by homogeneous party ministries was not yet established, and the ministries were usually composite, including both Whigs and Tories, so that one of the secretaries of state might be a Tory and the other a Whig. Generally, one party or the other had a preponderance, but sometimes the attempt was made to keep an even balance. In the minds of party politicians colonial politics took a subordinate place, and it could rarely be said that any particular ministry had its own distinctive colonial policy. In the main, the ministries of this period seem to have accepted the traditions of colonial administration as they found them.

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The ministers most steadily concerned with colonial affairs were the two secretaries of state, with whom the colonial governors were expected to correspond. At first there was no definite assignment of colonial business to either one of them, but during the reign of William III. one secretary usually, at any given time, gave special attention to colonial correspondence. Two of these secretaries were the Duke of Shrewsbury, a Whig, and the Earl of Nottingham, a Tory, both statesmen of great prominence and influence.

During the reign of Anne, and afterwards, American affairs were regularly transacted by the secretary of state for the southern department, an office held, during by far the larger part of that reign, by prominent Tories. Harley, Earl of Oxford, served for three years, and St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, during his service of about four years, took a considerable interest in American affairs. None of these ministers can, however, be credited with such an influence in the development of colonial policy as has been ascribed to Clarendon and Shaftesbury during the reign of Charles II.

The most important work in colonial administration was done by executive boards, some of which were restricted to specific departments of colonial administration: thus the commissioners of customs were specially charged with the enforcement of the navigation acts; and the commissioners of admiralty transacted a considerable amount of

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colonial business, especially in time of war. Much the most important executive boards, however, were the Committee of the Privy Council on Trade and Plantations, and its successor, the Board of Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, or, more briefly, the Board of Trade.

In 1689 the old Committee of Trade and Plantations, instituted during the reign of Charles II., was reorganized by a new commission, still composed of the leading ministers of state, many of whom had been in the service of Charles II., and who were, in general, disposed to adhere to the colonial policies of that reign. This committee shaped in large mensure the constitutional adjustments in the colonies after the revolution; and the navigation act of 1696 was in full harmony with their views. Among the merchants, however, there was a strong feeling that the government was not adequately protecting their interests, and in the parliamentary session of 1695-1696 it was proposed to organize a new board whose members should be nominated by Parliament. The attempt failed, and in May, 1696, the king himself organized the Board of Commissioners for Trade and Plantations. The new board was not a mere committee of the Privy Council, for, though the chief ministers of state were ex officio members, they were not expected to give regular attendance; the real work was generally done, as was intended, by a small group of non-ministerial members. In the first commission the number of such members

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was eight, including John Locke, who had been long and prominently associated with colonial affairs, and William Blathwayte, who had been secretary of the Committee of Trade during the later years of its history.[*]

[* Commission in N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist. IV., 145-148; Chalmers, Revolt, I., chap. xviii; Cobbett, Parliamentary History, 977; cf. Andrews, Colonial Self-Government (Am. Nation, V.), chaps. ii., .vii.]

The work of the new board was similar to that of the old committee; they were expected first of all to guard the commercial interests of the mother-country; colonial trade and government were to be closely investigated, and means were to be devised for guiding colonial enterprise in channels beneficial to the mother-country. During the earlier years of its history the Board of Trade carried on investigations with energy, reporting from time to time to the king, and occasionally also to the houses of parliament; their reports or "representations" contained statements of fact, and also proposed new lines of policy, legislative as well as administrative. They draughted the instructions to the royal governors, suggesting from time to time desirable changes; they made nominations to fill vacancies in the colonial service, and were entitled to receive regular reports from the various royal governments. Colonial legislation and the administration of justice and finance were also carefully supervised. In performing their functions they were entitled to the

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legal advice of the king's counsel, and could compel the attendance of witnesses.

Their actual authority, however, was comparatively slight. In matters of real importance, they could make "representations," not final decisions; they could nominate officers, but not appoint them; they could remonstrate with delinquent governors, but could not finally remove or control them. Under these circumstances, the real influence of the board depended on maintaining vital relations with the leading ministers, especially the secretaries of state. During the period of William and Anne, the board undoubtedly influenced to a considerable extent the policy of the government, but even then many important recommendations were not carried out.[*]

[* Egerton, Short Hist. of Col. Policy, 116; Report of Board of Trade (1721), in N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., V., 627-630.]

Some administrative supervision was also exercised by the House of Commons and the House of Lords through formal inquiries, and by recommendations to the executive authorities. Two instances of intervention by the House of Lords during this period are noteworthy. After the passage of the navigation act of 1696, courts of admiralty were established in the colonies by the king soon after they had been recommended by the House of Lords. In 1706 the peers called upon the queen to protect the dissenters of South Carolina from a provincial law requiring an ecclesiastical test for membership

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in the assembly, and a royal order was issued accordingly. The revolution of 1689 had greatly strengthened the parliamentary element in the constitution, and the proposed formation of a council of commerce to be nominated by Parliament shows a tendency to encroach even upon the field of naturally executive functions.[*]

[* Chalmers, Revolt, I., 273; N. C. Col. Records, I., 642.]

An important method of control during this period was the supervision of colonial legislation. In the royal governments the right of the crown to disallow provincial laws had been recognized from the outset; but fifty years elapsed after the revocation of the Virginia charter before another royal province was fully organized on the continent. In the mean time a large number of charters had been issued to proprietary and self-governing colonies without any provision for a royal veto; but in 1681 the Pennsylvania charter showed the development of an imperialistic conception by requiring even that proprietary province to submit its legislation for royal approval. During the reign of James II., imperial control of legislation was carried to a violent extreme by the abolition of assemblies in the new royal provinces, and it was not until after the revolution that the royal veto became a normal factor in the colonial system. By 1692 the right of disallowance existed in the five royal provinces of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Maryland, and Virginia, and in the proprietary

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province of Pennsylvania. In 1702 New Jersey became a royal government and was subjected to the same restriction. Attempts were made to apply the principle in other colonies also: Rhode Island laws were sent over for examination; in 1705 a Connecticut law banishing Quakers was disallowed; and in 1706 a royal order in council annulled two South Carolina statutes. The legality of the royal orders in these cases was doubtful, and the right to veto Connecticut laws was subsequently disclaimed by the law-officers of the crown; but the earlier action is important as showing the general trend of colonial policy.[*]

[* R. I. Records, III., 388; Conn. Col. Records, IV., 546; Chalmers, Opinions (ed. of 1858), 339.]

The rules regarding the exercise of the royal veto were not the same in all the colonies. Under the Massachusetts and Pennsylvania charters, the action of the crown had to be declared within a limited period. In the royal provinces, generally, it might be declared at any time. Colonial laws sent over by the governors were examined by the Board of Trade, which frequently took the advice of the attorney and solicitor general. Acts disapproved by the board were ordinarily repealed by the Privy Council.[*]

[* Cf. Massachusetts Bay, Acts and Resolves, I., passim.]

During the decade immediately following the English revolution the prerogative of disallowance was vigorously exercised. In Massachusetts an

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elective assembly found itself obliged for the first time to accept the constitutional limitations of a royal province. Public sentiment in the colony demanded the retention, so far as possible, of usages which had developed during the era of self-government. On the other hand, the home government desired to limit closely the concessions granted in the new charter, and to bring colonial institutions into harmony with imperial policy and English law. This conflict is well illustrated by the action of the home government on the legislation of 1692, the first enacted under the new charter, including a number of what may be called fundamental statutes. One was a law continuing in general terms the local laws of the colony; another provided for the organization of a judicial system; and a third took the form of a bill of rights. These and twelve others were disallowed by the crown in 1695, sometimes for lack of definiteness and sometimes because of supposed encroachment on the rights of the crown or conflict with the laws of England. During the next five years the struggle continued. The general court made some unsuccessful efforts to adjust their measures to the views of the Board of Trade, but there was no year of legislation from 1692 to 1699 in which one or more acts were not ultimately disallowed. In the end, a practical adjustment seems to have been reached and disallowance became less frequent.[*]

[* Massachusetts Bay, Acts and Resolves, I., passim.]

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The treatment of New York was somewhat like that of Massachusetts, but less drastic. The first assembly passed, in 1691, a general declaration of constitutional rights and privileges, which was disallowed in 1697 on the recommendation of the Board of Trade, one reason being that undue privileges were given to the assembly. In the first year of Queen Anne, six New York acts were disallowed almost immediately after their passage, and several others were vetoed during the later years of the reign.[*]

[* N. Y. Colonial Laws, I., 244, 476; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., IV., 263.]

In Pennsylvania the proprietary government was severely criticised for its failure to transmit laws for approval, but during the early years of Queen Anne a large number of acts were received by the Board of Trade. About fifty of these, covering a wide range of subjects, were disallowed by order in council in 1706, though Penn congratulated himself that many others had received the royal approval. In Virginia and Maryland, also, a number of acts were disallowed.[*]

[* Pa., Statutes at Large, II., passim; Penn-Logan Correspondence, II, 110; Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1693-1696, pp. 31, 38; Hening, Statutes, III., 344, 404, 502.]

The reasons assigned for disallowance vary widely. In general, however, the prerogative was used to keep the legislation of the colony in harmony with somewhat conservative views of the royal prerogative; with the English common law; with the statutes

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applicable to the colonies; and, lastly, with British economic interests. To a certain extent the right of disallowance was evaded, as, for example, by the passage of temporary laws, but this practice was forbidden by royal instructions. Indeed, one striking result of the experience of the Board of Trade with objectionable statutes was the gradual increase, in the governor's instructions, of articles forbidding his approval of certain kinds of laws. Some acts could only be passed with a so-called suspending clause postponing enforcement until the law had been approved by the crown.[*]

[* Instructions to Hunter (N. Y., 1709), in N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., V., 124-143; cf. with instructions to Sloughter (1690), ibid., III., 685-691.]

The harmony of English and colonial law depended very much in practice on the maintenance of some system of judicial control. During the reign of William III. this control was extended partly by the creation of new courts in America, acting under royal commissions and including within their jurisdiction chartered colonies as well as the royal governments. The piracy courts organized under the act of 1700 have already been noted. Soon after the passage of the navigation act of 1696 courts of admiralty were instituted in order to secure a stricter enforcement of the laws of trade than could be expected from the colonial courts and juries. Admiralty judges were appointed for various colonies or groups of colonies,

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some of whom were men of strongly imperial views, notably Robert Quarry, one of the first appointed in the middle colonies. The new courts were exceedingly unpopular; their trial of cases without juries was offensive, and they were also charged with encroaching upon the jurisdiction of the common-law courts. Notwithstanding the colonial opposition, the new policy was maintained.[*]

[* Chalmers, Revolt, I., 173, 184-188; Palfrey, New England, IV., 163; Penn-Logan Correspondence, I., 35, 66; Smith, South Carolina, 147-156; Chalmers, Opinions (ed. of 1858), 500-502.]

The home government also sought to control the administration of justice by securing to individuals in the colonies the right of appeal to the Privy Council. This right was not specifically provided for in the earlier charters, but it appears in the Duke of York's patent of 1664 and in Penn's charter of 1681. Like the royal veto, it first assumed importance in the closing years of the seventeenth century.[*] The instructions to the royal governors insisted upon the allowance of appeals to the Privy Council, and the proprietary colonies were sharply criticised for refusing to permit them. The right was asserted even in colonies where it was not specifically secured by charter. During the reign of William III., the Privy Council, after being informed that their right of appeal had been denied by a Connecticut court, declared that it was "the inherent right" of the crown "to receive and determine appeals"

[* Cf. Osgood, Am. Cols. in the Seventeenth Century, II., 10, 193.]

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from all the colonies in America. In later years several Rhode Island and Connecticut cases were heard on appeal by the Privy Council. There was some difficulty in enforcing this right even in the royal provinces, and some provincial statutes were disallowed for failure to secure it fully.[*]

[* N. Y. Docs. Rel[.] to Col. Hist., III., 688; Penn-Logan Correspondence, I., 25, 379; Hazeltine, Appeals from Colonial Courts (Am. Hist. Assoc., Report, 1894, pp. 199-350); N. C. Col. Records, II., 161 et seq.; Massachusetts Bay, Acts and Resolves, I., 144.]

During this period special provision was made for the trial of governors guilty of misconduct in office. In 1699 an act of Parliament was passed, declaring that colonial governors who had hitherto considered themselves legally accountable neither in their provinces nor at home, might be tried in the Court of King's Bench.[*]

[* 11 William III., chap. xii.]

These measures of administrative control brought out more sharply the abnormal position of the chartered colonies. Their legal exemption from control in most matters made it difficult for the crown to exercise even that authority to which it was fairly entitled. Especially was this true in the self-governing colonies, where every department of government was controlled by the people themselves. Governors chosen from year to year served more zealously the people who elected them than a distant authority whose control was somewhat fitful. It was thought also that the irregularities and exceptional

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privileges of the chartered colonies tended to demoralize the people of the royal governments. There was consequently almost constant agitation on the part of the official party in America and England for the resumption or regulation of the charters.[*]

[* Letter of Quarry, in Ames, Pa. and the English Govt., 8-14.]

During King William's War special emphasis was laid upon consolidation for military purposes. The royal governors of Massachusetts and New York were authorized to command the militia in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and the Jerseys, but these commissions were vigorously resisted; and the crown finally accepted a compromise which asserted in substance, simply the right to exact certain quotas of men when needed for the common defence, authorizing command of the militia as a whole only in case of threatened invasion. In 1696 the Board of Trade recommended the appointment of a captaingeneral with the right to command the militia of all the colonies; but the war ended without the project being carried fully into effect, though a step was taken in that direction by the commission to the Earl of Bellomont in 1697. Bellomont was made governor in each of the three royal provinces of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New York, and was also given the command of the militia in Connecticut and Rhode Island. This was not, however, a real consolidation of provinces, for each province retained its distinct administration, and there were still three

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assemblies to be reckoned with. The combination proved unwieldy and soon fell apart, but the policy was not wholly abandoned. During the first third of the eighteenth century the two royal governments of New England had the same governor; and the governors of New York also held commissions for New Jersey.[*]

[* N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., IV., 29-31, 69-73. 106, 227-230, 266; R. I. Col. Records, III., 288-292.]

The need of consolidation and union was recognized by many serious students of colonial problems. William Penn submitted, about 1697, his famous proposal for a colonial congress consisting of representatives from each province; and a little later Robert Livingston, of New York, proposed the consolidation of the colonies into three provinces, and a meeting of commissioners from each province at Albany to provide for the common defence. For projects of this kind, however, the colonists in general were not yet ready.[*]

[* N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., IV., 296, 874.]

During this period royal control of the proprietary governors was somewhat strengthened. The navigation act of 1696 required that proprietary governors should be approved by the crown, and after some delay the rule was enforced. The Board of Trade also insisted that security should be given for their observance of the navigation acts. Thus the proprietary governors became in a measure royal officers. Such regulations could not, however, be

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enforced upon the annually elected governors of Connecticut and Rhode Island.[*]

[* Rivers, South Carolina, 443; Randolph Papers, 284; Penn-Logan Correspondence, I., 25, 270; N. C. Col. Records, I., 476, 557.]

The most ardent advocates of imperial control could be content only with the final overthrow of all the chartered governments. In 1691 Governor Nicholson expressed his hope that "their Majesties will send their own Governors to all the colonies," and royal agents like Randolph and Quarry made similar recommendations. Finally, the policy was definitely adopted by the Board of Trade.[*]

[* Cal. of State Pap. Col., 1689-1690, p. 568; Randolph Papers, V., 263-273; Ames, Pa. and the English Govt.; Penn-Logan Correspondence, I., 380.]

Of all the proprietary colonies, the most vulnerable were the Jerseys, in which the rights of government had never any foundation in strict law.[*] On the eve of the revolution the proprietors agreed to surrender them to the crown, and the Jerseys were included in the "greater New England" of 1688. After the revolution the proprietors of East and West Jersey resumed their governments, but they were weakened, not merely by the hostile criticism of royal officers, but by dissatisfaction among the colonists. In 1702 the rights of government were again surrendered; the transfer was now accepted, and in the same year Governor Cornbury, of New

[* Cf. Osgood, Am. Cols. in the Seventeenth Century, II., 169-173.]

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York, received his commission as the first royal governor of the reunited province of New Jersey.[*]

[* N. J. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., I., 26, 369-373, 398-403 448, 452-461, 489; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., III., 537.]

Elsewhere chartered privileges were more vigorously defended. During the early years of William III. there was some uncertainty as to the right of the crown to appoint governors in chartered colonies without a judicial abrogation of the charter. Chief-Justice Holt gave his opinion, in 1690, that the king might do so in case of "necessity," and a royal government was accordingly inaugurated in Maryland.[*] A similar course was taken in 1692 when Governor Fletcher received a royal commission as governor of Pennsylvania, but Penn was determined not to submit to action which seemed to him illegal. He sent his warning to Fletcher, and encouraged his followers in the province to keep up a kind of passive resistance. The result was his restoration, in 1694, to the exercise of his proprietary rights, although the attacks on his government continued. Rhode Island and Connecticut were severely criticised by the royal governors for tolerating irregularities of various kinds, and it was proposed during Queen Anne's reign to send royal governors to each of these colonies, at least during the war; but though the attorney-general and the

[* Chalmers, Opinions (ed. of 1858), 65; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., III., 856; IV., 33, 110.]

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solicitor-general gave a favorable opinion, the proposition came to nothing.[*]

[* R. I. Col. Records, III., 385-388; IV., 12-16.]

The same lawyers declared, in 1706, that two recent acts of the South Carolina assembly, if definitely approved by the proprietors, constituted a forfeiture of the charter, which might be annulled by judicial proceedings. Though the acts were annulled, the attack on the charter was dropped, partly because some of the proprietors were peers of the realm, whose privileges had to be cautiously handled.[*]

[* N. C. Col. Records, I., 641-644.]

After several years of discussion, the Board of Trade having become convinced that legislation was necessary, prepared, in 1701, careful reports to the king and the House of Commons, reciting all the familiar charges against the chartered governments, and recommending that all the charters "should be resumed to the Crown." They added their belief that "this cannot otherwise be well effected than by the legislative power of this kingdom." A bill was accordingly introduced into the House of Lords for the revocation of the colonial charters and the institution of royal governments in their place; but the bill, though read twice, was never passed. Immediately after the accession of Queen Anne the proposal was renewed by the board, but without result. In 1706 a bill was introduced in the House of Commons "for the better Regulation"

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of the charter governments, and after the Tory ministry came into power, in 1710, the problem was again seriously considered, especially by St. John, as secretary for the southern department.[*]

[* Ames, Pa. and the English Govt., 21; Penn-Logan Correspondence, I., 78, 87, 380; N. Y. Docs. Rel. to Col. Hist., V., 155; N. C. Col. Records, I., 552-554; Kellogg, Am. Colonial Charter (Am. Hist. Assoc., Report, 1903, I.), chap. iv.]

It is difficult to explain wholly the failure of these attempts in the face of such vigorous recommendations from the Board of Trade. In some instances, the demands of other public business seem to have prevented action; apparently even among English ministers there was some scepticism as to the desirability of the policy. The colonists themselves, through their agents, vigorously resisted the proposed measures, and were able to bring some strong influences to bear against them. This was particularly true of Penn, who for a time also acted as agent for Rhode Island. In the winter of 1704-1705, he wrote that by his interest alone he had been able to prevent "a scheme drawn to new model the colonies." The high spirit which characterized him at his best, comes out in another letter urging his secretary, Logan, to defend the rights of the province against encroachments: "I desire you to pluck up that English and Christian courage, to not suffer yourselves to be thus treated and put upon."

Yet Penn himself was so much harassed by opposition in the province and by his financial troubles

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that he was prepared to surrender his government on condition of obtaining satisfactory compensation for himself and some safeguards for his fellow-Quakers in the colony. In February, 1712, the Board of Trade recommended the acceptance of such an offer, and a bill for that purpose was introduced in the House of Commons. The bill failed, however, and Penn's heirs finally determined to hold the government.[*]

[* Chalmers, Revolt, I., 380; Penn-Logan Correspondence, I., 73, 112, 248, 354; R. I. Col. Records, IV., 64; Shepherd, Proprietary Government in Pa., 540-544.]

The net result of twenty years' warfare on the colonial charters was, therefore, comparatively slight. The royal province of New Jersey had taken the place of two proprietary governments, but those of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and the Carolinas remained, together with the self-governing colonies of Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Notwithstanding the limitations and failures of the imperialist movement, important results were accomplished: the legislative control of Parliament over the colonies was largely extended; provincial legislation was subjected to serious restraints; a system of appeals to the crown was organized; and new courts were instituted independent of local control. Thus the great majority of the American colonists were brought under the control of a provincial system which thirty years before had been distinctly exceptional.