UNTIL

CHAPTER V

IMPERIAL COUNCILS, 1625-1750

the year 1750, at least, there continued to be an Imperial Council in England for America,— usually assisted by a referee Council,-which, with the King, represented England or Great Britain as the Imperial State.

Charles I., for nine years after his accession, administered personally the affairs of the American Colonies, acting with the advice of his Privy Council. Under this arrangement, the Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company was granted in 1629, by which the persons named in it were incorporated as a guild or private company, having governmental privileges but also full power to admit or exclude. The officers of the guild were a Governor and Assistants, elected by the members at a "General Court." The members were called "freemen." No place was specified in which the guild should be located, though it was granted land in New England.

In 1632, Charles I., by Charter, granted the region called Maryland to Lord Baltimore as Count Palatine and Lord Proprietor. The region and its inhabitants were incorporated by the name of "The Province of Maryland." The object doubtless was to keep alive, among the colonists, the idea of allegiance to the person of the King, and to secure the personal responsibility of a Proprietor. By Commission of April 28, 1634, Charles I. appointed as "Lords High Commissioners for the Plantations," the Archbishop of Canterbury (William Laud), the Arch

bishop of York, the Lord Keeper, the Lord High Treasurer, and eight other Officers of State-thus showing that the administration of the dependencies was regarded as a matter of very great importance and that the office of Lord High Commissioner for the Plantations was regarded as one of great dignity. These Commissioners constituted an Imperial Administrative Council, and not merely a Privy Council for Colonial Purposes. They were given power to make laws and orders for the government of the Colonies, with the King's assent; to impose penalties and imprisonment for offences in ecclesiastical matters; to remove governors and require an account of their government; to appoint judges and magistrates and establish courts; to hear and determine all manner of complaints from the Colonies; to have power over all charters and patents, and to revoke those surreptitiously and unduly obtained.”

This last power was doubtless given with reference to the Massachusetts Bay Charter, under a claim that, in moving the whole administration of the Company to New England, an improper advantage had been taken of the omission in the Charter to limit the location of the Company to some place in England, and that this action was evidence of fraudulent intent in obtaining the CharThis claim was evidently unfounded and made without sufficient investigation, since Governor Winthrop states that the omission was intentional, and that the Company refused to take the Charter unless it were unlimited in the matter of location.

ter.

Under the administration of the Lords High Commissioners for the Plantations, the region called Maine was, in 1639, granted to Sir Ferdinando Gorges as a County Palatine and a Proprietary Province by the name of "The Province of Maine."

The establishment of the Province of Maine, modelled exactly after the Province of Maryland, in which, though

the Lord Palatine was required to act by the advice and consent of the freeholders, he was permitted to determine to what extent they should participate in the government, the one immediately north of Virginia and the other immediately north of Massachusetts Bay, -made the Lords High Commissioners exceedingly unpopular in the old Colonies. In Massachusetts Bay, the antagonism to them was increased by a judgment obtained by their efforts in 1635, declaring the Charter forfeited, and by the appointment, in 1637, of Sir Ferdinando Gorges as Governor-General of New England. The objection of the colonists was not, however, to the Imperial Council because it was such, but to the acts and beliefs of the men who composed the Council.

The Commission to the Lords High Commissioners for the Plantations was revoked in 1639, and from that time until 1641 the troubles of England within itself and with Scotland and Ireland made it impossible for much attention to be given to the affairs of the American Colonies. The administration of the Colonies reverted to the charge of the King, who acted under the advice of a Committee of the Privy Council for Foreign Plantations.

The Lords and Commons of England, during the first two years of their contest with King Charles, after his flight from London in 1641, seem to have been inclined to treat the Colonies as if they were integral parts of the Realm. They suggested that the Colonies send representatives to Parliament, but the Colonies refused; and, in 1643, the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Providence Plantations sent Agents to England to present their matters of dispute to the Lords and Commons for disposition, Roger Williams representing the Providence Plantations. After conference between the Colonial Agents and the leaders of the Lords and Commons, there was no more talk of the Colonies being represented in Parliament. They had realized that their interests lay in the direction

of dependence on England as the Imperial State, not in the direction of merger with England.

The Lords and Commons, on November 2, 1643, by an Ordinance" for Regulating the Plantations," appointed a Board of Commissioners for the Plantations, which was an Imperial Council with full powers, even to the granting of charters. This Ordinance was the first legislative act emanating from the English Government relating to the American Colonies not enacted by the King in Council or by the King's authority. It was enacted at a time in English history when the English Government was sanely democratic and republican, and was in the hands of men of eminent ability and standing. It is, for this reason, so pertinent to the present situation in the United States, that a quotation of it may be useful. It read as follows, after the preamble:

The Lords and Commons, finding it of great importance both to the safety and preservation of the aforesaid natives and subjects of this Kingdom, as well from all foreign invasions and oppressions as from their own intestine distractions and disturbances, as also much tending to the honor and advantage of his Majesty's dominions, have thought fit, and do hereby constitute and ordain Robert Earl of Warwick, Governor in Chief and Lord High Admiral of all those Islands, and other Plantations inhabited, planted, or belonging to any of his Majesty's the King of England's subjects, or which hereafter may be inhabited, planted, or belonging to them, within the bounds and upon the coasts of America: And, for the more effectual, speedier, and easier transaction of this so weighty and important a business, which concerns the well-being and preservation of so many of the distressed natives of this and other his Majesty's dominions, the Lords and Commons have thought fit, that Phillip Earl of Pembroke, Edward Earl of Manchester, William Viscount Say & Seale, Phillip Lord Wharton, John Lord Roberts, Members of the House of Peers, Sir Gilbert Gerrard Knight and Baronet, Sir Arthur

Haselrig Baronet, Sir Henry Vane Junior, Knight, Sir Benjamin Rudyer Knight, John Pym, Oliver Cromwell, Dennis Bond, Miles Corbett, Cornelius Holland, Samuel Vassall, John Rolls, and William Spurstowe, Esquires, Members of the House of Commons, shall be Commissioners, to join in aid and assistance with the said Earl of Warwick, Chief Governor and Admiral of the said Plantations, which Chief Governor, together with the said Commissioners or any four of them, shall hereby have power and authority to provide for, order, and dispose all things which they shall from time to time find most fit and advantageous to the well-governing, securing, strengthening, and preserving of the said Plantations, and chiefly to the preservation and advancement of the true protestant religion amongst the said planters and inhabitants, and the further enlargement and spreading of the Gospel of Christ amongst those that yet remaineth there in great and miserable blindness and ignorance: And, for the better advancement of this so great a work, it is hereby further ordained, by the said Lords and Commons, That the said Chief Governor and Commissioners shall hereby have power and authority, upon all weighty and important occasions which may concern the good and safety of the aforesaid planters, to call unto their advice and assistance therein any other of the aforesaid planters, owners of land or inhabitants of the said Islands and Plantations, which shall then be within twenty miles of the place where the said Commissioners shall then be; and shall have power and authority to send for, view, and make use of, all such records, books, and papers, which do or may concern any of the said Plantations: And because the well-settling and establishing of such officers and Governors, as shall be laborious and faithful in the right governing of all such persons as be resident in or upon the said Plantations, and due ordering and disposing all such affairs as concern the safety and welfare of the same, is of very great advantage to the public good of all such remote and new Plantations, it is hereby further ordained and decreed, That the said Robert Earl of Warwick, Governor in Chief and Admiral of the said Plantations, together with the aforesaid Commissioners, Phillip