Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

ment proved successful, all the northern colonies would have profited from it, but New England insisted upon going her own way. The only remedy for this failure of the colonies to coöperate in plans for their own obvious advantage, was consolidation.

The Lords of Trade had never been able to convert Charles II to their way of thinking, but James II proved to be more to their liking, and in 1686 the final plans were worked out. These called for the union under a single government of all the colonies north of Pennsylvania. For the governor of this new union Sir Edmund Andros was selected. Andros was forty-nine years old at the time, a soldier, with considerable experience in administrative work; a man of ability, with an honorable record, but somewhat lacking in the qualities of the diplomat. He was sent over to execute a definite plan, formulated by the Lords of Trade; he had no discretion regarding the form of government to be established. His position in New England was certain to be difficult for while he was thoroughly in sympathy with the plan, the New Englanders were not.

Andros was appointed in May 1686, and entered Boston the following December. His whole administration, from that time until April, 1689, was devoid of peace or comfort. The fact that he brought troops with him aroused ill-will at the start, for the New Englanders were not accustomed to the sight of British troops. In fact, their only previous experience with them had been in 1664, in connection with the investigating committee of unpleasant memory. Every order that Andros started to carry out meant trouble of some kind. His attempt to annul the charters of Rhode Island and Connecticut was successful in the former colony. In Connecticut the authorities refused to give their charter up, but Andros succeeded in controlling the colony while he was there.

The royal governor was clothed with extensive powers. With the help of a council of forty-two, the members of which were appointed, not elected, he could make laws, levy taxes, and administer justice, all in the name of the king. This doing away with the elective assemblies in the colonies within his dominion was the most serious grievance about which the people complained. In addition, he suspended the habeas corpus right, established a censorship of the press, and proceeded to question the validity of land titles in Massachusetts, a step which did not win him wide popularity in the agricultural sections. These were legitimate grounds for hostility, not against him person

ally, but against the king and the Lords of Trade for inaugurating the system. But in addition to their complaints about these genuine grievances, the Puritans made almost as much noise over his introduction of the Church of England into Boston.

In the spring of 1689 Boston received word of the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688, and the power of Andros collapsed. His government was overthrown, both in New England and in New York, and he himself was placed under arrest in Massachusetts and subsequently shipped back to England. With his fall came the end of the policy of colonial consolidation.

It would be hard to find a better instance than this of the conflict between colonial theory and imperial practice. The colonies, or some of them, would go their own way, regardless of the plans of the English government, even though some of those plans would have been beneficial. The Lords of Trade, on the other hand, were not careful enough to avoid giving unnecessary offense to the high-spirited colonists. Both sides showed only too much lack of adaptability and disinclination to work together to promote the interests of the whole empire. Just how far each side could go in having its own way, without wrecking the empire, remained to be seen.

THE QUAKERS

During the period preceding the Andros experiment, forces were at work, not from without but from within, which were destined partially to undermine the rigid conservatism of Puritan government and theology, and to bring the New England colonies into a somewhat more pliable temper. Perhaps the last stand of the older, most conservative Puritans was to be seen in the contest with the Quakers. These intense individualists, noted for their "incorrigible contempt of authority," had been disturbing the equanimity of the established sects in England, and before the middle of the seventeenth century they were showing signs of interest in the colonies. In 1656 two Quaker missionaries were shipped back to Barbadoes, and in 16591660 four Quakers were hanged on Boston Common. The charges against them declared that they denied the validity of the scriptures, and worked to upset both Church and State. They insisted upon the right of individual interpretation of the Bible, and they refused to accept the authority of the Puritans any more than that of the pope. Worse yet, they quoted against the Puritans the very same arguments

which those worthies had urged against Archbishop Laud, and who likes to have his own guns turned upon himself? Clearly they were disturbing factors anywhere, and especially so in the narrow-minded confines of straight-laced Puritanism, where virtue itself was looked upon with suspicion unless branded with the proper label.

But the unbending, almost tyrannical supremacy of original Puritanism could not last forever. In England the Restoration had put an end to Puritan dominance, as well as to the popularity of Puritan theories, and the reaction was bound to spread to America. As the number of non-Puritan inhabitants increased, there developed a good deal of opposition to the Puritan tendency to regulate everybody else's business.

Perhaps the most important single factor in the departure from Winthrop's original standard was the rise of important commercial interests in New England. The merchants knew that their trade depended in large measure upon markets outside their own section, but inside the empire. They also knew that the colonial merchants needed the protection of the British fleet. Consequently in the colony, and in the General Court, there developed a moderate party, out of sympathy with the theologians, and not unalterably opposed to a working agreement with England.

As the second generation of New Englanders grew to maturity, the rigid austerity of the first pioneers had to give way to a state of mind and an outlook on life tinged with at least a little warmth and geniality. Christmas celebrations and dancing became more common, as did likewise a tendency to stay away from Church services. Instead of listening to learned expositions of unadulterated Calvinism and vivid descriptions of the flames of hell, the young people not unnaturally preferred to ramble in the woods and fields, always of course to the consternation of their elders. In spite of the determined efforts of the older generation, New England became a more comfortable place in which to live, with a livelier interest in the pleasures of this world, and a more sensible attitude toward the next.

CHAPTER VIII

THE BRITISH COMMERCIAL SYSTEM

In tracing the growth of the English colonies in North America it is necessary to follow two distinct, and sometimes conflicting movements. There is to be seen on the one hand the development and expansion of the colonies themselves, and on the other the gradual evolution of the British system of supervision. The first movement was of course responsible for the second. If the colonies had never branched out, there would have arisen no need of any policy of regulation.

It so happened, partly perhaps because of the failure of the Andros experiment, that the English colonial system, as finally worked out, differed from both the Spanish and the French, in that it was primarily economic, rather than political. From the English standpoint, matters of government were secondary to matters of trade, and the aim of the English officials was the creation of a commercial empire. Thus, while the Andros episode represents the only systematic attempt to override the elective assemblies, and to overthrow the established forms of government, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries furnish numerous cases of attempted trade regulation.

MERCANTILISM

During the seventeenth century England had no experience to serve as a guide in this matter of looking after colonies; moreover, she had very little in the way of political theory that seemed to fit the case. But there was a popular theory of economics very much in fashion at the time known as mercantilism, and in accordance with this the system of colonial control was evolved. The chief aim of mercantilism was the attainment of economic self-sufficiency; that is, each state aimed to become mistress of all her resources, and to prevent rivals from participating in any of her economic interests. Mercantilism also demanded the development of a favorable balance of trade, so called; in other words, the nation should try to sell more than it bought. Colonies were desirable in the system, because they

could furnish raw materials and supplies which could not be produced at home. Mercantilism did not contemplate the establishment of self-governing colonies, because such units might contribute nothing to the parent state. The idea of colonies as markets for home manufacture did not take very definite form until the middle of the eighteenth century.

Once the colonies were established, it became necessary to regulate their trade so that other nations could have no part in it, and so that it would bring the fullest profit to the parent state. Along with the profit to the merchants, there was an opportunity for the government to collect a revenue by the imposition of tariff duties. Throughout this whole philosophy runs the idea of colonies both politically and economically dependent upon the colonizing power. But economic dependence was not by any means synonomous with economic death. The superior government did not want to ruin the economic life of the colonies; it wished merely to prevent the colony from developing interests that might compete with those already established at home. That was the negative side. On the positive side, the parent state tried to develop and foster those economic interests which were peculiarly suited to the colony. Each part of the empire was expected to specialize in those products and commodities which Nature seemed to assign to it.

More specifically, the British government hoped to find certain commodities in her colonies. These were first of all gold, the accepted standard of value and the great medium of exchange. Then they wanted grapes, to free themselves from dependence on French and Portuguese wine; spices, and fish, to free themselves from dependence upon Holland; and naval stores, to get away from dependence upon the Scandinavian countries. If the colonies could be made to produce any or all of these articles, trade in them must be limited to English shipping, so that foreign merchants would not take away any of the gain in handling them.

The first concrete application of this philosophy was made in connection with the Virginia tobacco trade. In 1621, the Privy Council ordered the Virginia colonists to ship all their tobacco to England. At the same time, both the importation of foreign tobacco, and the raising of tobacco in England, were prohibited. And, as a part of the same policy, foreign merchants were forbidden to bring American colonial tobacco to England. These regulations restricted

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »