A. W. Ward

“ In Virginia there was no sort of corporate union below that of the State. A New England colony was made up of a number of smaller organisms, each with an intensely strong sense of corporate life. In both colonies a community far removed from the nominal centre of government, conscious of needs and aspirations which its rulers wholly ignored or misunderstood, drifted into half-conscious republicanism. ”

“ With Howard began a system vicious in theory yet not without its practical advantages, whereby the nominal governor was an absentee, and his duties were discharged by a lieutenant-governor. That the office of governor should be bestowed on a wealthy and aristocratic non-resident was beyond doubt an abuse. A tribute was exacted from the colonists for a payment which, if made at all, ought to have been made from the Enghsh civil-list. But one must at least admit that honest and competent men were entrusted with what was virtually the supreme office in the colony. ”

“ New Haven paid dearly for loyalty to its principles. In 1661 the younger John Winthrop, governor of Connecticut, went to England to obtain a charter for his colony. He had little of his father’s definiteness or force of character, but he was genial and attractive, a man of varied interests, able to commend himself to those who differed widely from him in religious and political views. He succeeded in obtaining for his colony a charter of singular liberality, which confirmed the existing system of government by governor, assistants and deputies. ”

“ Of the first colonists of South Carolina only a portion came direct from England. The rest joined at Barbados, whence also came AVilliam Sayle, the governor. This no doubt had its effect in assimilating the life of the new colony to that of the West Indies. In one way this had a baneful effect on the future of the colony. Under the recognised economic conditions of that day slavery was certain to spring up; and it was also certain that in such a climate the labouring class could not, like that of Virginia, consist largely of white men. ”

“ More correct would it be to say that both mainly represented the English middle class, the class of the yeoman and the trader, neither being exclusively drawn from one or the other; but that natural conditions developed in Virginia a landed aristocracy, in New England a type of community which might either be called a wide and modified oligarchy or a restricted and severely conditioned democracy. In Virginia power insensibly found its way into the hands of the landholders; the great bulk of the population, the servants and bondsmen, whether white or black, stood outside the body politic. ”

“ His definiteness of mind and his constructive statesmanship were invaluable to a yoimg colony, while his moderation, humility, and sweetness of temper enabled him to work with men of a narrower and more austere cast and to modify what might have been evil in their influence.
Some of Endecott’s settlers had already established themselves in a settlement to which they gave the name which it retains, Charlesto'wn. Winthrop and his company joined them. But Winthrop soon moved to Boston. The colonists were not, like these of Plymouth, kept together by dread of the natives ”

“ But the colony of New Jersey did not attain unity till it had passed through several troubled years. There were disputes as to the right of the government of New York to levy duties within the limits of New Jersey. Repeated transfers of proprietorship had invested the whole question of proprietary rights with elements of confusion and difficulty. To the settlers the political rights of the Proprietors were a standing menace, threatening interference with that system of self- government which had, as it were spontaneously, established itself. ”

“ The poverty of the refugees was a difficulty which had to be surmounted. To this end the delegates entered into negotiations with certain London traders, who were, in modern language, to “finance” the colony and to receive in return all profits accruing after provision had been made for the subsistence of the settlers. This was to last for seven years: then the partnership was to be dissolved and the stock sold. The choice of a site for the settlement caused no little difficulty. Some of the London partners wished to settle under the Plymouth Company, not that of Virginia. ”

“ The rulers of Massachusetts had good reason for wishing to avoid being committed to anything like an unprovoked declaration of dis- loyalty. Massachusetts was endangered by the hostility of those who had suffered from the severity of her government and of those who saw in her existence a menace to civil and religious order. In 1633 the three chief members of the Company in England were brought before the Privy Council and interrogated as to the conduct of the colony. Next year emigrants to New England were required to take the oath of allegiance and to promise conformity with the Prayer-book. ”

“ The governor had almost de- spotic power: such control as was enjoyed by the citizens was doled out grudgingly by instalments and fenced in by checks which rendered it well-nigh valueless. The community depended largely on the Indian fur-trade. This and its paucity of numbers made it needful to secure the good-will of the savages, or, in default of that, to overawe them; yet the rulers of the colony and the Dutch settlers were conspicuously wanting in the capacity to do either. Nor was the colony happy in its governors. Peter Stuyvesant, who succeeded to office in 1647, was by far the best. ”

“ At the same time popular rights were secured by the provision that the council, though at the outset nominated by the Crown, was thereafter to be chosen by the General Coimt, consisting of the governor, council and house of representatives. The old religious oligarchy became a thing of the past. Henceforth Massachusetts was an ordinary Crown colony, enjoying constitutional rights neither greater nor less than those granted to any such community. ”

“ Carteret at once proceeded to act on his grant by sending out his kinsman Philip Carteret to act as governor of the newly-formed province, and also by drafting a constitution vesting the government in a governor or council and an elective chamber. New Jersey, as the colony was called, was settled after a fashion previously unknown elsewhere. The Proprietors did little towards supplying their settlement with inhabitants. A scattered population of small farmers, mostly Swedes and Finns, was already on the soil; but the Proprietors also looked to drawing inhabitants from New England. ”

“ It is clear too, though no precise statistical details can be had, that the colony was now attracting a different and a better class of emigrants, independent landholders exporting their own servants, and freemen living by the labour of their own hands. Thus by 1619, the governor, George Yeardley, a liberal-minded and humane man, though, as it would seem, a little apt to err on the side of laxity, ventured to summon a representative assembly. ”

“ There was one man in New England, the exile Roger Williams, who knew how to earn the good-will and confidence of the savages. Forgetting his grievances he went as an ambassador to the Narragansetts and secured their neutrality.
Connecticut naturally turned for help to Massachusetts and Plymouth. The rulers at Boston were too busy persecuting Mrs Hutchinson and her associates to give heed to aught else; the men of Plymouth had been exasperated by the grasping policy of Massachusetts in matters of trade and refused to cooperate. Connecticut had to rely on her own courage and soldiership ”

“ Nothing could show more strongly the lack of any vigorous sense of nationality than the passivity with which the Dutch settlers suffered themselves to be handed backwards and forwards without protest or expression of interest.
The Duke of York had already shown a conspicuous lack of intelligence in his dealing with the soil of his new province. Before the result of Nicolls’ expedition was known, before indeed he had reached America, James granted to Sir George Carteret and Lord Berkeley the whole territory from the Hudson to the Delaware (1664) . ”

“ It is no exaggeration to say that the history of North C.arolina for the next fifty years is little more than a dreary and uninstructive record of disputes and insurrections. The colony indeed seems to have reached that chronic state of anarchy when the imprisonment and deposition of a governor is a passing incident which hardly influences the life of the community. ”

“ Each township was to have a church, the denomination being chosen by the majority of the freemen. Practically their choice was limited to the refoi-med Churches, as no one might be appointed a minister who had not received Protestant ordination. The Dutch townships of New York and Albany kept each its mayor and aldermen, with judicial powers. It is clear that no attempt was made to interfere with the use of the Dutch language. Nor were any steps taken towards consolidating the whole colony under one representative government. ”

“ Moreover the nature of an Indian invasion, as carried on by small parties making sudden and rapid inroads, rendered combined operations almost impossible. Every village had to become a fortified post and fight for its own hand. In November a day of humiliation was held at Boston; and the proceedings are instructive. The sins which had brought this calamity on the colony were chiefly neglect of woi-ship, extravagance in apparel, the wearing of long hair, and lenity towards the Quakers. ”

“ In 1673 England and Holland were again at war. Nicolls’ successor, Francis Lovelace, in careless confidence, took no measures for securing the colony. IVhen a Dutch fleet of twenty -three ships with sixteen himdred men on board appeared before New York resistance was manifestly useless. Albany and the settlements on the right bank of the Hudson and the outlying province on the Delaware all yielded. Only the towns of English descent on Long Island, supported by Connecticut, held out. The Dutch reoccupation did not last out a whole year. ”

“ Simultaneously ^nth this conflict an Indian war was being waged in Maine and New Hampshire, provoked mainly by the wanton and brutal murder of an Indian child and by the misconduct of an Englishman, who, being commissioned to arrest some Indians charged with killing settlers, used his authority to kidnap and sell friendly natives. This war was in every way humiliating to the English. It was marked by at least one act of gross treachery on their part; finally they had to buy peace by the humiliating expedient of paying a corn-tax to the savages. ”

“ The colony perished, leaving behind only a vague tradition of dispersion among the natives.
The dawn of the seventeenth century rose on a somewhat changed England. Englishmen fiUed with the new wine of the Benaissance and united under a Queen whose rule, despite all its craft and meanness, apjjealed intensely to their imagination, had dreamt dreams and seen visions. A generation succeeded, not less enteiprising, but more patient, more self-denying, more sane. ”

“ In New Jersey we have seen a fresh religious force, that of Quakerism, brought into the sphere of colonial politics. Historians have -ivritten of Wniiam Penn as though he had been a religious enthusiast whose friend- ship with James H, in politics a despot and in religion a bigoted member of an alien Church, must either be explained away or accepted as evidence of unscrupulous opportunism. ”

“ In a little community consisting of one town, the term “constitution” seems almost inappropriate. Laws were passed by the whole body of freemen. They elected a governor and a committee of seven, called assistants, who transacted such judicial and executive business as there was. The first governor was William Carver, chosen on landing. He died before a year was out, and was succeeded by William Bradford, who has already been mentioned as the historian of the colony. ”

“ He was brave, pious, and disinterested, but an austere martinet, utterly without that sympathy and flexibility needed in one who has to govern a young and expanding community. Between New Netherlands and New England there could not but be mutual jealousy. Before Connecticut became an organised community, there were quarrels between English and Dutch traders in the Connecticut valley. It was the settled policy of the English to press on southward and to occupy the land to which the Dutch made a tU jure claim under their patent from the States-General. ”

“ On Long Island settlements had sprung up, founded by emigrants from New Haven and Connecticut, and in every respect conforming to the life and usages of New England. It is moreover clear that the English were treated by Stuyvessmt with an amount of favour which offended the Dutch; and at least one Englishman held office under him. Thus, before the actual conquest took place, the colony had been in a great measure anglicised. ”

“ The Plymouth settlers were fugitives fleeing to the wilderness from the hardships of the Old World. White and his associates were deliberately establishing a refuge where Puritanism, and those political views which were so closely bound up with Puritanism, might flourish and react upon the religious and political life of the mother-country.
In 1629 six partners, men of influence in the Puritan party, obtained from the New England Company a grant of land. They afready possessed a fishing-station at Cape Ann in Massachusetts Bay. ”