NEW ENGLAND CONFEDERATION 59 we have leave from England, our throats might be all cut before our messenger would be half seas through." During the troublous times of the Civil War and the Commonwealth, Massachusetts took the lead in ignoring English authority. In 1644 the General Court voted to inflict punishment upon any one who should attempt to raise troops for the king. And the Bay Colony was just as ready to flaunt the power of Parliament as that of the Stuarts. In 1651 Parliament suggested that the Massachusetts Charter be surrendered, in return for a new one, properly issued by the new government. The only reply ever made was that the men of Massachusetts were quite content to live under a governor and magistrates of their own choosing, and under laws of their own making. Further proof, if any were needed, of the independent attitude of the colony came in 1653, when the authorities in Massachusetts refused to permit any public proclamation of the elevation of Cromwell to the office of Lord Protector. And there is no reason to doubt that the smaller colonies took their cue from their more imposing neighbor. As Professor Andrews once put it, in New England "neither statute nor code during the first half century made any reference to any sovereign other than God." The Confederation handled such matters as relations with the Indians, and with the Dutch, along with boundary and tariff disputes among the members themselves. During the period of King Philip's War, its work was decidedly important. But the Articles had been in force less than ten years when the first serious manifestations of weakness occurred. In 1652, against the wish and in spite of the opposition of Massachusetts, the Commissioners voted for war against the Dutch. Then the Bay Colony refused to provide any forces for the campaign, and the minor members had no way of coercing their recalcitrant neighbor. This breakdown in the functioning of the Confederation could never be repaired, and although the commissioners continued to meet regularly until 1684, they accomplished little. After the Restoration in England, the Confederation was weakened still more by the consolidation of two of the members, Connecticut and New Haven. Moreover, Charles II was not at all unwilling to show favors to Rhode Island and Connecticut, in order to offset the growing power of Massachusetts, and these two colonies in turn were ready to assist in the process of humbling the haughty Puritan stronghold. Although the Confederation was only a partial success, its history cannot be overlooked, because it epitomizes so much of American growth. All the forces which were destined to create the United States were present and at work in connection with the Confederation. Expansion, the sense of need of common action, compromise, and a written agreement to work together were all typical of the later stages of American development. So too were the differences among the members, and the tendency, sometimes revealed, for one member to go its own way regardless of the others. CHAPTER VI ENGLISH COLONIZATION AFTER 1660 Any list of the builders of the United States, of the men whose solid, constructive work contributed greatly to the development of the growing nation, should include and give an important place to the name of Charles II. His colonial interests were wide and varied. In addition to granting liberal charters to two of the New England colonies, he was actively interested in promoting new enterprises in the unsettled regions along the Atlantic coast, thereby linking the English colonies together. His work was an essential preliminary to any plan of union in British North America. To be sure Charles was noted for his decidedly unpuritanical temperament, and for his pleasure-loving propensities, and, as so often happens, his escapades attracted far more attention than his efforts as an empire bui'der. But this tendency to criticize his morals and to ignore his statesmanship is perhaps a commentary on human nature, rather than a complete estimation of the abilities of the man. When the Stuarts and their Cavalier friends returned to England after their exile in Scotland and France, their most pressing need, both as individuals, and as a class, was to restore their wrecked fortunes. Eager as they were to fill their own pockets, they were equally alert to find revenue for the public treasure. This responsibility fell upon the king, who was still the head of the executive department. Parliament might restrict him in his plans for taxation, and in his expenditures, but Parliament had not at that time taken full charge of government finance. The most promising source of wealth was the new world. Englishmen knew something of the profits in tobacco, and in the fur trade, and to their minds there was no reason why other economic interests should not be developed. Moreover, the colonies, or rather the land where colonies might be planted, belonged to the king, so that Parliament, which had already upset some of the royal plans for England, could not interfere. Thus it happened that both Charles II and his brother James, the Duke of York, turned their enthusiastic attention to building up new colonies, and to reorganizing some of those already established. Associated with the Stuart brothers in this work were Clarendon, the king's devoted follower and minister, noted for his History and for the sound moral advice which he wasted upon his master and Anthony Ashley Cooper, the Earl of Shaftesbury, one of the founders of the Whig party. John Locke, the philosopher, also helped to establish colonies, which were destined in time to use his own philosophy to justify their fight for independence. Less famous perhaps, but equally interested, were Carteret and Berkeley, who were concerned in both Carolina and New Jersey. Likewise there was the king's cousin, Prince Rupert, the brilliant cavalry leader of the Cavaliers. The principle on which these promoters worked was simple. Through the development of the commercial possibilities in various new regions they could make their own fortunes, and at the same time, by imposing tariff duties on the very same commerce, the government could provide itself with revenue. No one would deny that there was ample room for colonial speculation in the new world. In 1660 the English colonies included New England in the North, plus Maryland and Virginia in the South, with a wide gap between. But this intervening space was not empty; part of it, that on Manhattan Island and some of the interior had already been settled by the Dutch. In the West Indies Cromwell had secured Jamaica, and the British were already in possession of Barbadoes and the Bermudas. But these colonies were so widely scattered that the mere thought of union on a large scale would have been impossible. It fell to Charles II and his associates, therefore, to fill in the gaps, and to consolidate English control along the Atlantic seaboard by driving out the Dutch. CAROLINA The first venture of the Restoration speculators was in the region south of Virginia, called Carolina, in honor of the chief patron of the enterprise. The king granted the area to a group of proprietors, including Clarendon, Shaftesbury, Berkeley, and Carteret, all conspicuous leaders in the Restoration government. Their aim was to make the Carolinas and the Bahamas centers of trade in semi-tropical products, such as almonds, silk, and wine. There were two charters granted, one in 1663, and another in 1665, |