found that the first claim of the Assembly of Jamaica was "illegal, repugnant to the terms of the Governor's commission, and derogatory of the rights of the Crown and people of Great Britain. That the other resolutions proceeded on a manifest misapprehension of the King's instructions to his Governor, requiring him not to give his assent to any Bill of an unusual or extraordinary nature or importance, wherein His Majesty's Prerogative or the property of his subjects might be prejudiced, or the trade or shipping of the kingdom any ways affected, unless there should be a clause inserted suspending the execution of such Bill until His Majesty's pleasure should be known; that such Instruction was just and necessary, and no alteration of the constitution of the Island, nor in any way derogatory to the rights of the subjects of Jamaica." When all was said and done, however, there was probably little real meaning at the back of all this constitutional boasting. We have seen that the real grievances of the American Colonies were economic and not political, and that the Mercantile system, not any straining of the Prerogative, was mainly responsible for the state of things which finally issued in separation. But, from the point of view of the Mercantile system, the West Indies were a virtuous community, whose staple products in no way competed with those of England, while the islands afforded a valuable market for English manufactures. The climate of the West Indies, moreover, forbade in most cases that Englishmen should make them their permanent home in the manner that the American Colonies were the homes of the settlers; so that very often the money made in the West Indies was spent in England. Moreover, the West Indian merchants were a strong and well organised body, and could bring powerful pressure to bear upon the English Parliament. In this state of things, it is not strange to find that the interests of the West Indies were preferred to those of the Americans, as in the case of the ill-fated Sugar Act, to the attempted enforcement of which so much of the subsequent trouble is due. What, however, is surprising is to find those West Indies, who

had done so much to sow the wind, afterwards solemnly レ petitioning in favour of the Americans. These slaveholders, whose consciences could have told them what slavery really meant, were found "deploring and beholding with amazement a plan almost carried into execution for the reducing of the Colonies into the most abject state of slavery."

CHAPTER VI

Congress THE general agreement of American authors has attached of 1754. great importance to the Congress of representatives from the

different Colonies which met at Albany in 1754. Even so cool and cautious a writer as Mr Weeden remarks,1 "a larger organism of state, a better co-operation and autonomy, which should articulate into itself the town or parish meeting and the rude Colonial assembly, began to work in the minds of men. This sentiment found its first political expression in the assembly in 1754." But, in fact, this assembly was suggested and directed by the English Government, and, although its conclusions were arrived at with tolerable unanimity, it was at the same time generally recognised that the mutual jealousies of the various Colonial Assemblies would prevent those conclusions from being generally accepted. The evil to be met was of course an old one. 1746. During the last war, Shirley had called serious attention to

"the difficulty of uniting five or six different Governments 1754. in acting for their common safety and interest."2 In the very year of the Congress we find him writing that it would be impossible to obtain proper contributions from the different Colonies unless the English Government gave peremptory 1754. directions. De Lancey bore similar testimony.3 "A general union becomes every day more necessary, the necessity more visible, for in the present disjointed way in which the Colonies act, and some will not act at all, nothing is done." At the same time De Lancey clearly recognised that such union could never take effect except by interposition of the British Parliament "to oblige the Colonies." Dinwiddie from Virginia is found advising an Act of Parliament to compel each Colony to raise a proportional quota for a general fund,

1 Vol. II. p. 668.

3 N. Y. Docs., Vol. VI.

2 MSS. in R. O.

* MSS. in R. O.

by a poll tax of one shilling or by some other means. Nor were such opinions confined to Governors and persons in authority; the colonists themselves clearly recognised the difficulty. Massachusetts was sore because the contributions of the other Colonies in men and money had been grossly insufficient, and the Assembly assured Shirley "Your Ex- 1754. cellency must be sensible that an union of the several Governments for their mutual defence and for the annoyance of the enemy has long been desired by this province." The separate Colonies were slow to intervene on each other's behalf, though they might rise to the occasion of a general war. Especially the rich and populous state of Pennsylvania shirked its natural obligations, and the majority, who were non-Quakers, concealed their meanness by crouching behind the cloak of the Quaker's honest scruples. We find Franklin forwarding1 to a correspondent an emblem of a serpent which May 1754. has its parts-beginning with the head, Massachusetts, and ending with the tail, South Carolina-disjointed, while the motto is affixed, "Join or Die."

A few years later, in the very middle of the war with France, the dispute between New York and Massachusetts, 1757. concerning their boundaries,2 was carried to such indecent lengths as to have been the occasion of riot and bloodshed. To the Board of Trade at home, the important points 1754. appeared to be that there should be established a systematic mode of raising levies from the different Colonies, in case of attack, that the necessary forts should be obtained under a general plan, and that there should be a Commander-in-chief for America. The last matter lay entirely with the Home 1755. Government, and General Braddock was appointed such Commander-in-chief. Bancroft sees in this a measure of tyranny, but, in fact, the all-important point being that a "common fund" should be provided, General Braddock's instructions merely enjoined him "to give all the advice and assistance you can towards effectuating this." Upon another point it was possible to make some improvement. Little has 2 N. Y. Docs., Vol. VII.

1 MSS. in R. O.

3 N. Y. Docs., Vol. VI.

4 MSS. in R. O.

been said here of the colonial relations with the Indians. But it must be remembered that throughout all this period the American Colonies were in the position of the South African Colonies of to-day, with large bodies of natives on their flanks, who were further rendered very dangerous by the continual influence of French intrigue. In this state of things Indian affairs were, as far as possible, withdrawn from the Colonial authorities and put under the charge of special Commissioners. As time passes the Colonial records become increasingly occupied with accounts of parleyings with Indian chiefs.1 There was, as is always the case where European settlers come in contact with savage natives, the risk lest the Indians should be unfairly dealt with. Stringent instructions were forwarded to the Governors forbidding all private purchases of land from Indians, unless a proper licence had been previously obtained. Upon the whole, Sir William Johnson, who was for many years the English Commissioner, appears to have done his work very well, and it is noteworthy that in the War of Independence the sympathies of the Indians seemed to have been generally upon the side of the English Government.

So far then as the appointment of a Commander-in-chief and the settlement of Indian affairs were concerned, England could take the initiative, but with the question of Colonial defence there was bound up a question of finance, which opened out every kind of difficulty. It was in every way desirable that on this point the Colonies should evolve their own plan, and the recommendations 2 of the Congress of 1754 were an honest attempt to meet the difficulty. The scheme was due to the active brain of Franklin, and is in several respects noteworthy. It proposed that there should be a presiding General appointed and maintained by the Crown, and a Grand Council chosen by the Assemblies of the different Colonies. The Colonies were to be represented upon the Council, according to the amount of their respective contributions. But, at the start, Massachusetts was to have seven members, Connecticut five, Rhode Island two, New 1 See in N. Y. Docs., passim. 2 N. Y. Docs., Vol. VI.