Colonial

Policy.

It is a strange irony which has fastened the epithet English tyrannical on the conduct of England towards her Colonies. Incapable, weak, causing the maximum of friction with the minimum of result, Colonial policy may have been, but to call it tyrannical is to travesty either language or facts. The situation, perhaps, permits of a general reflection. The government of the Colonies, as the government of the Mother country before the complete evolution of party government, may be defined as one possessing representative institutions but not responsible government. Now it may be safely affirmed that of all governments such an one is the most difficult to carry on. Order is possible under absolutism and under popular government. But the tertium quid, which confers power while refusing responsibility, generally, and, we may almost say, inevitably results in anarchy. In England such logical issue was avoided by the organised employment of bribes, and by the defective character of Parliament, from a representative point of view; but the Colonial Assemblies were of not sufficient importance to be sought as Danae by the metropolitan Zeus, while they did represent the people of the Colony. Consequently in their case there were no retarding influences, and the impossible character of such government was completely brought out. It is probable that, in the case of the American Colonies, there were special circumstances at work, which, in time, would, in any case, have caused separation, but there can, I think, be little question but that the form of the constitution did much to promote dissension, as was seen, at a later date, in the case of Lower Canada.

vania.

From the leading cases of Massachusetts and New York, it will have been gathered what were the main difficulties between the Home Government and the American Colonies. There was a general recognition that "no government in PennsylAmerica was so well settled or blessed with so industrious a sort of people "1 as was Pennsylvania. Penn's Charter had been disallowed in 1692 on the ground of neglect and miscarriage in the government, and of the absence of the Pro1 MSS. in R. O.

prietor. But it was restored in 1694, and we find Penn in equal favour with the new Government as he had been with that of the Stuarts, though it is only fair to remark how very costly a business such favour is shown by his correspondence1 to have been. He clearly, however, recognised that the tendency of things was against the continuance of proprietary governments; and negotiations were on several occasions entered into with the view of disposing of his proprietary rights. For one reason or another no settlement was made. Meanwhile in the Colony the same state of things which we have seen elsewhere prevailed 2; "the Assembly," reported Quarry in 1707, "resolved to have all the government and powers in their own hands. They insist to have the regulation of all courts, and the nomination of all officers . . . so that they have banished all prerogative and government but what is lodged in the Assembly. . . . When it is contrary to their wild notions, then it will not oblige them, unless the Queen will allow them to send their representatives to sit in the Parliament of Great Britain." In Pennsylvania a special difficulty arose from the mixed character of the population. It is true that a large immigration from all quarters, attracted by the special advantages of the province, tended to reduce very greatly the proportion of the Quaker colonists. At the same time, acting as they did together, they were politically of importance, although, we are told, the generality of the most knowing thought government ill-fitted to their principles. In the case of the alarm of war from Indians upon their frontiers, the Quakers of course refused to bear arms, and the non-Quakers, for political purposes, supported them 1709. in opposing the grant of a money equivalent. When in 1709 the other Colonies freely granted the Crown supplies of men, and the Jerseys voted instead £3000, the utmost that the Pennsylvania Assembly would grant was £500. In 1711, however, they made a grant to the Crown of £2000, the scruples of the Quakers being overcome by pretending ignor

1 Logan Correspondence, Vols. IX. and X. of publications of Hist. Soc. of Philadelphia.

2 MSS. in R. O.

3 Logan Corr.

ance of the object of the grant. The clearest heads recognised that what was required was a law for a militia, "which shall oblige all to serve who can, and those that cannot to contribute a due proportion to the expense." Speaking generally, the Pennsylvania Assembly yielded to none of the others in its pretensions, whilst between it and the proprietor there was the added bitterness which arose from a cash

nexus.

ments.

Inasmuch, however, as the affairs of the proprietary govern- Influence of example ments did not come in so direct a way before the Board of of ProTrade, it is unnecessary to dwell further on these contro- prietary versies. We may note in passing, however, how the continued Governexistence of provinces, wherein the Governors became more and more ex necessitate rerum the creatures of the Assembly, tended to foster a spirit of independence in the other Colonies, which at least nominally were in more direct subjection to the Crown.

In Virginia, the accession of William and Mary caused Virginia. little change. The corrupt and Papist Lord Howard of Effingham was, in fact, suffered to remain as Governor. The Order restricting the franchise to freeholders was formally re-enacted. Means were taken to secure that the Home Government should be kept in touch with what was happening in the Colony, and the power of suspending Councillors was carefully restricted. Mr Doyle1 sees in the clear recognition by the Crown of the right of taxation as vested in the Assembly, an "acknowledgment of those rights for which the Virginians did battle eighty years later." But surely it is one thing to admit that the Colony had right of taxation, and another to maintain that there was not at the same time a concurrent jurisdiction in the English Parliament. The Instructions of Governors were concerned with the case as it affected the Crown, and not as it affected Parliament. The mischief of Howard's appointment was minimised by his receiving leave of absence: the government being carried on by the able and industrious Lieutenant-Governor Nicholson. In his despatches he advocates a union of the 1 Virg., etc., p. 353.

Maryland.

Colonies for military purposes under the headship of the loyal Colony of Virginia, whilst he did all in his power to suggest efficient measures to the local authorities of the other Colonies.

Already in the Instructions to Howard, in 1685, the English Government had abandoned its long settled practice of enjoining the culture of a variety of products,1 and now we find Nicholson urging that the whole energies of the Colony should be concentrated on the staple product, tobacco. To allow of this, however, it would be necessary that exports from England of all necessary articles should be carefully kept up; as otherwise, the Colony would be driven to manufacture in self-defence. In 1696 Nicholson received the just reward of his labours by at last being appointed Governor. The difficulty in Virginia lay not as elsewhere in the democratic instincts of the people, but in the haughty arrogance of the ruling oligarchy, who, looking at the other Colonies, did not care that others should outdo them in pretensions. It was jealousy of New England in the main which provoked the Virginian Assembly "to claim all the rights and privileges of an English Parliament." The natural disposition of the people was to be "quiet and easy," but here, too, in addition to the emulation of the other Colonies, the same motive was at work, the desire of the deputies to recommend themselves to the people by opposing everything that required expense.

"2

In Maryland the chief result of the Revolution was to deprive Lord Baltimore of his political authority on the ground of his being a Roman Catholic. This course was taken through an exercise of the prerogative sanctioned, though not advised, by a legal opinion of C. J. Holt. At the same time, Baltimore's pecuniary rights as proprietor were carefully preserved. Henceforth, although in 1715 the proprietorship was nominally restored, the fourth Lord Baltimore being a Protestant, Maryland became for all practical purposes a Colony under the direct administration of the Crown. 1 Bruce, Vol. II., Econ. Hist. of Virg. etc.

2 MSS. in R. O. Gov. Spottiswood in 1696.

Somewhat strangely, in a Colony which had been in its origin Roman Catholic and the favourite resort of Quakers and dissenters of all denominations, we find the Church of England established by law. An Act to this effect was passed in 1692, and it was made operative in 1700, through the imposition of a Church rate by means of a duty on tobacco. The latter measure had been passed in 1698, but for two years was vetoed by the Crown, the measure having tacked to it a wholly irrelevant clause declaring that the Colonies should henceforth be governed according to the fundamental laws and statutes of England. In Maryland the same cause which has already been adverted upon, viz.: the scandalous manner in which Colonial appointments were too often made, brought about the same result. The Colony which, according to Quarry,1 had been the freest from all factions and parties of any of the Colonies, "is now, by the illconduct of the late Governor, run into as great extrava- 1709. gancy as any of the rest."

with

Scotland.

An event happened in the reign of Queen Anne, fraught Union with important consequences for British colonization. In 1707 the Act of Union with Scotland was passed, which 6 Ann., threw open to the Scotch the commercial privileges hitherto c. II. jealously reserved to England. Historians are agreed that the profound disappointment with the failure of the ill-fated Darien colonization scheme and the recognition that Scotland was not strong enough to stand alone in commercial matters, were the prevailing motives which reconciled the Scotch to a measure at first sight so much opposed to their patriotic instincts. Hitherto the Scotch, except by an exercise of the Royal prerogative or by sufferance, had had no part or parcel in English Empire. This work deals with British Colonial policy, but hitherto that policy had been strictly English. And yet it was already recognised that the Scotch made the most admirable colonists. An early petition 2 from Barbados speaks of them "as the general travailers and soldiers in most foreign parts." And as a curious commentary on this, we find Long, writing about a hundred years later,3 saying that in 1 MSS. in R. O. 2 Sainsbury, Cal., 1660-1668. 3 Hist. of Jamaica.