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Constitution of the time. The Governor represented the King, and his Council was a pale imitation of the House of Lords. By the side of these was an Assembly, more or less popular in character, which had rights of legislation subject to the home veto. The question of the authority of the English Parliament was not finally faced and solved. We may notice that the omnipotence of Parliament, which became later an accepted doctrine, would hardly commend itself to lawyers brought up under very different notions of the Royal prerogative. There were already indications, however, that, if a struggle came, it would be on the question of taxation. We have noted instances where the Colonies showed an uneasy sense of the need for greater precision in the statement of their rights. It was only necessary that the spirit of compromise and tact should be absent for the sparks of friction to burst into a blaze. It has been said that the Colonies were assimilating to a common type, but from that type New England still held aloof in haughty isolation. We have seen the searchings of heart which her attitude caused at home. We have seen the revolution, which ended, for the time, her liberties, and the counter-revolution, which seemed to restore them. Nevertheless, under the pressure of domestic dissensions and foreign dangers, proud Massachusetts itself was to yield to British influences, and a Royal Governor to be admitted peacefully within the sacrosanct precincts of independence.

H

CHAPTER IV

Colonies IN passing to the reign of William and Mary, we are entering won by conquest. upon a new order of things. Hitherto the Colonies had been mainly founded by settlement; in the times which will ensue they are mainly won by conquest. It is true that in the earlier period Jamaica and New York had been the fruits of conquest, and that in the later Georgia was settled, and Nova Scotia and Canada greatly developed by means of settlement; but on the whole the difference is obvious, nor is the reason of it far to seek. We are entering upon a long period of war with uneasy intervals of peace, wherein Colonies are regarded primarily as pieces in the war game, and to be dealt with accordingly. In this state of things we shall expect to miss the diversity of experiment which attracts us in the glowing youth of English colonization; but, in fact, military exigencies influence Colonial policy far less than might have been expected.

1

The magic of Macaulay's History has done its best to cast a spell over the period; but most people will agree with Hallam that it was in itself one of the least interesting in English history. Nevertheless, it was fraught with momentous issues for England. It opened out the great struggle for preeminence between England and France, which was to last more than a hundred years. It has been noticed how disgracefully the Navy had been neglected during the last years of Charles II., and how James had, partially at least, restored it to efficiency. William was both by necessity and choice a soldier, and his main business in the war was to preserve the existence of the Netherlands and of Protestantism upon the Continent from the aggressions of Louis XIV. Still, during the war, the English Navy did good service. The defeat, 1690. or partial defeat of Beachy Head, was much more than re

deemed by the glorious victory of La Hougue; although 1692. the maladministration of naval matters allowed a power to French privateering which need not have been. From the standpoint of Colonial policy, the war of the League of Augsburg has importance merely as the prologue of the drama which was to follow. Its significance is thus summed up by the historian of The Influence of Sea Power upon History1: "France did not advance, but neither did she greatly recede. But this display of power was exhausting; it ate away the life of the nation, because it drew wholly upon itself, and not upon the outside world, with which it could have been kept in contact by the sea." The Peace of Ryswick, although it gave to the two sea 1697. nations substantial commercial benefits, restored to the belligerents the Colonial possessions held before the commencement of hostilities, so that Acadia, which had been 1690. conquered by Phipps, became again a French possession.

under

III.

We have seen that even in the time of the Stuarts the Colonial manufacturing and trading interests, to a great extent, dic- Policy tated Colonial policy; but there were special reasons why, William under William, those interests should be regarded with favour. The necessities of England required a National Debt, the funds for which could only be provided through the growing importance of the commercial classes. The interests of these classes demanded that England should become a great sea power, with a great sea-borne commerce, and Colonies whose trade the home manufacturers might monopolise. In this state of things it was to be expected that the Navigation Acts should be consolidated 7 and 8 and strengthened. Henceforth governors were more strictly W. III., pledged to a diligent enforcement of these Acts.2 Custom House officers in the Colonies were established on a new footing, and the same powers were conferred on them as were possessed by revenue officers in England. To give effect to this Act, Admiralty Courts were afterwards established in the Colonies. Another Act forbade the carrying, 10 W. not only to England, but also to any other plantation, of III., c. 16, 1 p. 199.

2 Sec. 3.

3 Sec. 10.

4 Sec. 5.

C. 22.

sec 19.

wool or woollen manufactures, being the produce or manufacture of any of the English plantations in America. We learn from Nicholson's despatches from Virginia that more extreme measures were already advocated. He advised that the manufacture of woollens, even for colonial use, should be in every way discouraged. In the face of the strong feeling in the Colonies, such a measure, apart from its injustice, could never have been enforced. The English authorities contented themselves with disallowing Colonial statutes passed with a view to the encouragement of woollen manufactures. The Commissioners of Customs asserted that such measures weakened the dependence of the Colonies upon England, injured both English trade and navigation, enhanced the price of tobacco for the English consumer, and diminished the volume of the customs. Board of A change was made in 1696, from which, at the time, doubtTrade. less, great things were expected. The Committee of the Privy Council for Trade and Plantations was abolished, and their work transferred to a new Board of Trade and Plantations. This step has been represented as the work of Lord Somers. It would appear from the Parliamentary History 1 that it was forced on a reluctant Ministry by the majority of the House of Commons. The claim that Parliament should have the nomination of the Commissioners gave great offence to the King, being considered as an invasion of the Prerogative. Whatever may have been the intention of its founders, the new Board of Trade was not in its results an improvement. Its business was merely to collect and convey information, while executive power lay with the Privy Council or the Secretary of State. The mischief which arose from the multiplication of authorities, all dealing with Colonial matters, can hardly be exaggerated. It is true that certain of the great officials were permanent members of the Board of Trade, but there was nothing to ensure their attendance at its meetings. Already in the lifetime of Penn we find him able to treat with indifference the disapproval of the Board

1 Vol. V. p. 977. See also Burnet's Hist. of His Own Time, 1833 ed., Vol. IV. p. 294.

of Trade, because of the more powerful influences befriending him. In this particular case the result was, of course, beneficial, but what could be done in one case could also be done in another. Some years later1 we find the Board of Trade urging that they should receive notice when Colonial business was to be transacted at the Council, and that some of their members might be summoned to attend. In 17212 they recommended that whoever presided at the Board of Trade should be "particularly and distinctly charged with Your Majesty's immediate orders in the despatch of all matters relating to the Plantations." Their report clearly showed the manner in which the system under which proceedings might be taken either before their Board or before the Privy Council or before the Secretary of State, led to "much delay and confusion." Nothing effectual, however, appears to have been done, and the confusion which resulted from the overlapping of authorities dealing with Colonial questions was, in some measure, the cause of that motion without progress, which sums up British Colonial policy during the first half of the eighteenth century.

Meanwhile, with regard to all the Colonies, the old com- Colonial Policy of plaints were again and again renewed. In 1696 we find Ran- Bellomont dolph complaining of the proprietary governments. Their and Penn. Governors are "indeed stewards only and always liable to be turned out at the pleasure of those who employ them." Lord Bellomont is found writing frequently both from Boston and New York on questions of general policy. "Your lordships know the value of these plantations to England, though I am confident 'tis what is known to few besides. I am every day more and more sensible of it, and it is great pity the King is not made to have a right notice of their usefulness and advantage to the Crown." Bellomont's main recommendation was to foster a colonial industry of naval stores, so as both to be independent of the Baltic trade and to find employment for the English soldiers, whose presence he considered necessary against French and Indian attacks. He strongly

1 MSS. in R. O., 1729.

3 MSS. in R. O.

"N. Y. Docs., Vol. V., Sept. 8, 1721.
AN. Y. Docs., Vol. IV.

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