had vast power. The legislature could meet only when he called it. He could at any moment prorogue it (that is, command it to adjourn to a certain day) or dissolve it, and, if the King approved, he need never call it together again. He was the chief justice of the highest colonial court, he appointed all the judges, and, as commander in chief of the militia, appointed all important officers. Yet even he was subject to some control, for his salary was paid by the colony over which he ruled, and, by refusing to pay this salary, the legislature could, and over and over again did, force him to approve acts he would not otherwise have sanctioned. In Connecticut and Rhode Island the people elected the governors. This right once existed also in Massachusetts; but when the old charter was swept away in 1684, and replaced by a new one in 1691, the King was given power to appoint the governor, who could summon, dissolve, and prorogue the legislature at his pleasure. 103. Lords of Trade and Plantations. That the King should. give personal attention to all the details of government in his colonies in America, was not to be expected. In 1696, therefore, a body called the Lords of the Board of Trade and Plantations was commissioned by the King to do this work for him. These Lords of Trade corresponded with the governors, made recommendations, bade them carry out this or that policy, veto this or that class of laws, examined all the laws sent over by the legislatures, and advised the King as to which should be disallowed, or vetoed. In the early years of our colonial history the Parliament of England had no share in the direction of colonial affairs. It was the King who owned all the land, made all the grants, gave all the charters, created all the colonies, governed many of them, and stoutly denied the right of Parliament to meddle. But when Charles I. was beheaded, the Long Parliament took charge of the management of affairs in this country, and although much of it went back to the King at the Restoration in 1660, Parliament still continued to legislate for the colonies in a few matters. Thus, for instance, Parliament by one act MCM. HIST. 7 established the postal service, and fixed the rates of postage; by another it regulated the currency, and by another required the colonists to change from the Old Style to the New Style — that is, to stop using the Julian calendar and to count time in future by the Gregorian calendar; by another it established a uniform law of naturalization; and from time to time it passed acts for the purpose of regulating colonial trade. 104. Acts of Trade and Navigation. — The number of these acts is very large; but their purpose was four fold: 1. They required that colonial trade should be carried on in ships built and owned in England or in the colonies, and manned to the extent of two thirds of the crew by English subjects. 2. They provided a long list of colonial products that should not be sent to any foreign ports other than a port of England. Goods or products not in the list might be sent to any other part of the world. Thus tobacco, sugar, indigo, copper, furs, rice (if the rice was for a port north of Cape Finisterre), must go to England; but lumber, salt fish, and provisions might go (in English or colonial ships) to France, or Spain, or to other foreign countries. 3. When trade began to spring up between the colonies, and the New England merchants were competing in the colonial markets with English merchants, an act was passed providing that if a product which went from one colony to another was of a kind that might have been supplied from England, it must either go to the mother country and then to the purchasing colony, or pay an export duty at the port where it was shipped, equal to the import duty it would have to pay in England. 4. No goods were allowed to be carried from any place in Europe to America unless they were first landed at a port in England.1 1 Edward Eggleston's papers in the Century Magazine, 1884; Scudder's Men and Manners One Hundred Years Ago; Lodge's English Colonies. SUMMARY 1. The men who began the long struggle for the rights of Englishmen lived in a state of society very different from ours, and were utterly ignorant of most of the commonest things we use in daily life. 2. Labor was performed by slaves, by criminals sent over to the colonies and sold, and by "indented servants," or "redemptioners." 3. Manufactures were forbidden by the laws of trade. Nobody was permitted to manufacture iron beyond the state of pig or bar iron, or make woolen goods for export, or make hats. 4. Taking the colonies in geographical groups, the Eastern were engaged in fishing, in commerce, and in farming; the Middle Colonies were agricultural and commercial; the Southern were wholly agricultural, and raised two great staples-rice and tobacco. 5. As a consequence, town life existed in the Eastern and Middle Colonies, and was little known in the South, particularly in Virginia. 6. Over the colonies, as a great governing body to aid the King, were the Lords of Trade and Plantations in London. Under them in America were the royal and proprietary governors, who with the local colonial legislatures managed the affairs of the colonies. Social and Industrial Condition. Government. CHAPTER X "LIBERTY, PROPERTY, AND NO STAMPS" 105. The New Provinces. The acquisition of Canada and the Mississippi valley made it necessary for England to provide for their defense and government. To do this she began by establishing three new provinces. In Canada she marked out the province of Quebec, part of the south boundary of which is now the north boundary of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. In the South, out of the territory given by Spain, she made two provinces, East and West Florida. The north boundary of West Florida was (1764) a parallel of latitude through the junction of the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers. The north boundary of East Florida was part of the boundary of the present state. The territory between the Altamaha and the St. Marys rivers was "annexed to Georgia." 106. The Proclamation Line. By the same proclamation which established these provinces, a line was drawn around the head waters of all the rivers in the United States which flow into the Atlantic Ocean, and the colonists were forbidden to settle to the west of it. All the valley from the Great Lakes to West Florida, and from the proclamation line to the Mississippi, was set apart for the Indians. 107. The Country to be defended. Having thus provided for the government of the newly acquired territory, it next became necessary to provide for its defense; for nobody doubted that both France and Spain would some day attempt to regain their lost possessions. Arrangements were therefore made to bring over an army of 10,000 regular troops, scatter them over |