IN the constitutional adjustments which took place in the colonies after the revolution of 1689, there had been a compromise between two contending forces, the spirit of particularism and colonial autonomy on the one side and the policy of consolidation and control on the other. This constitutional compromise was, however, satisfactory to neither party and could not be regarded as final. From the home government there came a series of measures, partly legislative and partly administrative, which limited the field of local autonomy. On the other hand, certain constitutional tendencies appeared in the colonies which were denounced as leading towards substantial independence.

     The demand for closer imperial control was emphasized by the intercolonial wars, which showed clearly the need of concerted action, of having some authority in the colonies capable of directing military operations as a whole. Commercial considerations, too, were given a new emphasis during this

period. The heavy burden of the continental wars hastened the development in England of a new and more complex financial system, including the beginnings of the national debt and the Bank of England. In these new departures the government needed more than ever the co-operation of the mercantile interests, and the strength of their influence is shown by the prominence of commercial considerations in foreign politics. When a great war, like that of the Spanish Succession, was fought largely in the interest of English trade, it was natural that the same interest should assert itself more strongly than ever in the field of colonial policy.

     The war also brought out various irregularities in colonial trade which seemed to demand more effective control. There were frequent complaints of illicit trade with the enemy, and of privateering that passed easily into piracy. These, with the old charge of lax enforcement of the navigation acts, made up a formidable indictment, which was pressed with special vigor against the chartered governments, whether proprietary or elective.

     Imperial control as a remedy for colonial ills was advocated, not merely by interested merchants and zealous officials in England; it was also urged by a small but energetic party in America, including certain officers of the British customs service. Edward Randolph, for instance, was again busily engaged in writing reports on the violation of the navigation acts in various colonies, and occasionally

quarrelling with less zealous officials. Another important representative of the same class was Robert Quarry, for a time councillor and acting governor of South Carolina, afterwards an admiralty judge in the middle colonies, and finally surveyor-general of customs for North America. Quarry made himself particularly obnoxious to William Penn by his incessant complaints of misgovernment in Pennsylvania.¹

     Some of the royal governors also were conspicuous for their defence of imperial interests. Among them was Francis Nicholson, who, during the reigns of William and Anne, serving successively as lieutenant-governor of Virginia, governor of Maryland, governor of Virginia, and governor of Nova Scotia, showed a strong sense of the royal prerogative and a keen scent for irregularities of every kind, especially in the chartered colonies. Another was Richard, Earl of Bellomont, who, during the closing years of the seventeenth century, was at the same time governor of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New York. During the reign of Anne the most aggressive of the royal governors were Dudley of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, Hunter of New York, and Spotswood of Virginia. These men and others like them were constantly pointing out the evils of the existing situation, and urging upon their superiors at home a more

vigorous assertion of parliamentary or royal authority.

     The imperialistic party in the colonies was not exclusively composed of royal governors and customs collectors. In the chartered colonies dissatisfied elements of various kinds saw their advantage in the extension of royal control. This was the case, for instance, with the comparatively small group of Church of England men in New England and Pennsylvania. In New Jersey and the Carolinas the inefficient or illiberal government of the proprietors led many of the colonists, at various times, to seek protection from the crown.

     From all these various elements came complaints and proposals of reorganization which were reflected in “representations” by the Lords of Trade, in orders of the Privy Council, in resolutions of the House of Lords or the House of Commons, and sometimes even in acts of Parliament. Indeed, one of the striking features of colonial politics during this period is the constant suggestion of parliamentary action as the only means of dealing thoroughly with colonial problems.

     The colonial statutes of William and Anne were intended first to secure a more effective enforcement of the system inaugurated by the navigation acts of Charles II., and, secondly, to enlarge the field in which its principles should be applied.

     The first object is best illustrated by the navigation act of 1696, which was based clearly upon

official experience of the defects of existing administration. The negligence of the governors, especially in the chartered colonies, led to the strengthening of the oath hitherto required of royal governors, which was now made unequivocally applicable to all governors of English colonies: any governor who failed either to take the oath or to perform the duties required by it was made liable to removal from office and to the forfeiture of £1000. Furthermore, the choice of governor in the chartered colonies was made subject to veto by the crown, although practically this clause was applied only in the proprietary governments. The naval officers appointed by colonial governors had also been found negligent, and were required, henceforth, to give security to the commissioner of customs in England. Complaints having been made of the unsatisfactory sureties accepted in the colonies, all sureties were thereafter to be persons of good financial standing, resident in the colonies. Randolph’s correspondence had laid special stress upon the part taken by Scotchmen in the illegal trade: they were said to have used forged certificates, and to have escaped punishment for illegal acts through the sympathy of fellow-countrymen on the trial juries. More stringent measures were therefore adopted for the suppression of Scotch and other alien traders, and it was provided that jury service in cases arising under the trade and revenue laws should be limited to natives of England

and Wales, Ireland, and the plantations. A few years later, however, the act of union placed Scotchmen on the same footing with Englishmen.¹

     The leading principle which underlies the various provisions of the act of 1696 is the bringing of colonial administration, so far as it affected the navigation acts, into harmony with the system of the mother-country. This principle was asserted as regards colonial legislation by the formal declaration that all colonial laws at variance with the navigation acts were null and void. Vessels in the colonies were subjected to the regulations, as to searches and seizures, which were already in force at home; and all vessels were to be identified by a uniform system of registration.²

     The act of 1696 was thus mainly an administrative measure intended to make more effective the principles of previous legislation; but it also determined one important point of construction. The question had been raised whether the exporter of enumerated articles, who paid the prescribed duties at a colonial port, was then free to take his goods wherever he pleased. It was now definitely settled that a bond must in all cases be given not to take the enumerated articles elsewhere than to England, Wales, or Berwick-upon-Tweed, or to some other English colony. There was also one important

addition to the limitations imposed on colonial exports: the colonists were now forbidden to send even the non-enumerated articles to Ireland or Scotland, except after the payment of duties in England.

     In later statutes of William and Anne there was a real development of the commercial policy in principle as well as in administration. This is shown first by additions to the list of enumerated articles, especially in 1705, when three important classes of colonial products were first enumerated: rice, which had become one of the staple exports of South Carolina; molasses from the West Indies; and naval stores of various kinds, including ship timber, could now be shipped only to English ports.²

     Another restrictive measure showed the growing jealousy of colonial manufactures, which was, of course, a logical result of the mercantilist system. In order to preserve colonial markets for English merchants, it was not enough to prevent the colonists from buying manufactured articles in foreign countries, they must also be prevented from supplying them to each other. During King William’s War this subject was frequently referred to in the colonial correspondence; for instance, Governor Nicholson of Virginia pointed out the danger, that the continued interruption of trade by war would

compel the colonists to make their own clothing, as the New-Englanders were already doing to a considerable extent. The British point of view has hardly been better expressed than in the preamble of the woollens act of 1698, in which wool and its various manufactures were called “the greatest and most profitable Commodities of this Kingdom on which the Value of Lands and the Trade of the Nation do Chiefly depend.” The development of this trade in Ireland and the colonies was tending, it was thought, “to sink the Value of Lands” and “to the ruine of the Trade and the Woollen Manufactures of this Realme,” and hence the colonists were forbidden to carry wool or manufactures of wool from any one colony into any other.¹

     Not all commercial legislation of this period was restrictive. Colonial officials were constantly trying to find means of diverting the colonists from industrial enterprises injurious to the mother-country by encouraging others which were thought to be beneficial. Thus a statute of Queen Anne encouraged colonial shipping by exempting colonial seamen from impressment in the royal navy.² The industry, however, which the English government most desired to encourage was the production of naval stores, including hemp, pitch, tar, and masts;

and this interest was stimulated by the wars of William and Anne, in which the sea power was so important a factor. Hitherto, the Baltic countries had, been the important source of supply for naval stores, but this trade was now being conducted on unfavorable terms and was at best precarious. The resources of the colonies were therefore carefully inquired into; and finally, after a long period of discussion, Parliament took definite action in the statute of 1705. This act, as has been noted, restricted the export of naval stores by listing them among the enumerated articles; it also reserved trees of a certain size for the royal navy, with severe penalties for cutting by unauthorized persons. These restrictions were offset, however, by bounties on the importation of naval stores produced in the colonies, and this encouragement of colonial industry became a settled part of British policy.¹

     The measures already noted may all be regarded as logical developments from the earlier acts of trade; a few others deserve attention because they show the broadening scope of parliamentary legislation for the colonies-especially the piracy act of 1700, the currency act of 1707, and the post-office act of 1710.

     The piracy act was an attempt to remedy a serious evil which it was felt had not been properly

dealt with by the colonies, and for which the old statute of Henry VIII. was no longer found adequate. The colonial governments, especially those which still retained their charters, were criticised for failure to enact suitable legislation and for their toleration of pirates within their jurisdiction. Under these circumstances, the act of 1700 provided that in the future piracy and other felonies on the high seas might be tried in the colonies by special courts constituted by commissions from the crown. If any governor refused to comply with the provisions of this act, such a refusal was to constitute a forfeiture of the chartered rights of the government to which he belonged.¹

     The conditions which gave rise to the currency act of 1707 can be only briefly considered here. During the reign of William III. the problems of coinage and currency were conspicuous in the politics both of the mother-country and the colonies. The colonial situation was especially difficult, for coin of any kind was scarce, and English sterling money was hardly current at all. The most common coins in the colonies were the Spanish “pieces of eight,” which have been called “the original of the American ‘dollar.’” The “piece of eight” was not, however, a fixed standard either in weight or commercial value as measured in sterling money.

One of the charges made against the chartered colonies was that by raising and lowering the value of coins, as well as by various other methods, they tended “greatly to the undermining the trade of the other plantations.” William Penn, in his Suggestions Respecting the Plantations, presented to the home government in 1700, said that the value of pieces of eight varied from 4s. 6d., in Maryland, to 7s. 8d., in the neighboring colony of Pennsylvania, and he urged the desirability of a single fixed standard.¹

     Such a standard was attempted in 1704 through a proclamation of Queen Anne, which fixed within certain limits the ratio between standard foreign coins and sterling. This royal order proved ineffective, and in 1707 Parliament gave to the proclamation the force of a statute, imposing penalties on persons who took foreign coins at a rate exceeding the legal ratio; and this act was specifically declared applicable to the chartered colonies as well as to the royal governments.²

     In the case of the post-office also, there was, first, a period of separate colonial action, followed by the exercise of prerogative, and finally by the intervention of Parliament. Before the revolution of 1689 postal arrangements in the colonies had been left to the colonists themselves, and the results

were meagre. In 1692, Thomas Neale received from William and Mary a patent authorizing him to establish post-offices in the American colonies; and he proceeded to appoint Andrew Hamilton, a New Jersey colonist, as his deputy in America. Hamilton then secured the co-operation of several of the colonial assemblies, which passed laws regulating the rates of postage. His patent, however, was to expire in twenty-one years, and by that time Parliament was ready to take action. The act of 1710 provided for “Chief Offices” in New York and elsewhere; fixed the rates of postage within the colonies, as well as in the mother-country; and, with a few exceptions, limited the carrying of mails to the postmaster-general and his deputies. Under the operation of this law postal facilities were gradually extended from New England and the middle colonies into the south.¹

     One of the declared purposes of the new law was to raise a war revenue, and it was therefore enacted that a weekly payment of £700 should be turned into the royal treasury. The New-Englanders seem to have made no public objection to the revenue feature of the law, and though some Virginians at first objected on the ground that Parliament could not tax them without the consent of the general assembly, the opposition soon died away.¹

     The constitutional significance of the colonial statutes of William and Anne may easily be overlooked if they are considered individually. In the main, they took the form of restrictions upon colonial enterprise, but sometimes, as in the bounties on naval stores, they aimed to stimulate it when directed along acceptable lines. Taken as a whole, they mark the increasing importance in colonial life of the political control exercised by the mother-country.