The War of Independence. Fiske John

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СКАЧАТЬ colonies, so that an enemy holding possession of it would virtually cut the Atlantic sea-board in two. For these reasons the political action of New York was of most critical importance.

      Of the other colonies in 1750, the two Carolinas and New Jersey were rather more than eighty years old, while Pennsylvania had been settled scarcely seventy years. But the growth of these younger colonies had The two Carolinas and Georgia; New Jersey and Pennsylvania.been rapid, especially in the case of Pennsylvania and North Carolina, which in populousness ranked third and fourth among the thirteen. This rapid increase was mainly due to a large immigration from Europe kept up during the first half of the eighteenth century, so that a large proportion of the people had either been born in Europe, or were the children of people born in Europe. In 1750 these colonies had not had time enough to become so intensely American as Virginia and the New England colonies. In Georgia, which had been settled only seventeen years, people had had barely time to get used to this new home on the wild frontier.

      The population of these younger colonies was very much mixed. In South Carolina, as in New York, probably less than half were English. In both Carolinas there were a great many Huguenots from France, and immigrants from Germany and Scotland and the north of Ireland were still pouring in. Pennsylvania had many Germans and Irish, and settlers from other parts of Europe, besides its English Quakers. With all this diversity of race there was a great diversity of opinions about political questions, as about other matters.

      We are now beginning to see why it was that Massachusetts and Virginia took the lead in bringing on the revolutionary war. Not only were these two the largest colonies, but their people had become much more Why Massachusetts and Virginia took the lead. thoroughly welded together in their thoughts and habits and associations than was as yet possible with the people of the younger colonies. When the revolutionary war came, there were very few Tories in the New England colonies and very few in Virginia; but there were a great many in New York and Pennsylvania and the two Carolinas, so that the action of these commonwealths was often slow and undecided, and sometimes there was bitter and bloody fighting between men of opposite opinions, especially in New York and South Carolina.

      If we look at the governments of the thirteen colonies in the middle of the eighteenth century, we shall observe some interesting facts. All the colonies had legislative assemblies elected by the people, and these assemblies levied the taxes and made the laws. So far as the legislatures were concerned, therefore, all the colonies governed themselves. But with regard to the executive department of the The two republics; Connecticut and Rhode Island. government, there were very important differences. Only two of the colonies, Connecticut and Rhode Island, had governors elected by the people. These two colonies were completely self-governing. In almost everything but name they were independent of Great Britain, and this was so true that at the time of the revolutionary war they did not need to make any new constitutions for themselves, but continued to live on under their old charters for many years—Connecticut until 1818, Rhode Island until 1843. Before the revolution these two colonies had comparatively few direct grievances to complain of at the hands of Great Britain; but as they were next neighbours to Massachusetts and closely connected with its history, they were likely to sympathize promptly with the kind of grievances by which Massachusetts was disturbed.

      Three of the colonies, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, had a peculiar kind of government, known as proprietary government. Their The proprietary governments: Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. territories had originally been granted by the crown to a person known as the Lord Proprietary, and the lord-proprietorship descended from father to son like a kingdom. In Maryland it was the Calvert family that reigned for six generations as lords proprietary. Pennsylvania and Delaware had each its own separate legislature, but over both colonies reigned the same lord proprietary, who was a member of the Penn family. These colonies were thus like little hereditary monarchies, and they had but few direct dealings with the British government. For them the lords proprietary stood in the place of the king, and appointed the governors. In Maryland this system ran smoothly. In Pennsylvania there was a good deal of dissatisfaction, but it generally assumed the form of a wish to get rid of the lords proprietary and have the governors appointed by the king; for as this was something they had not tried they were not prepared to appreciate its evils.

      In the other eight colonies—New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia—the governors were appointed by the king, and were commonly known as "royal governors." The crown colonies, and their royal governors. They were sometimes natives of the colonies over which they were appointed, as Dudley and Hutchinson of Massachusetts, and others; but were more often sent over from England. Some of them, as Pownall of Massachusetts and Spotswood of Virginia, were men of marked ability. Some were honest gentlemen, who felt a real interest in the welfare of the people they came to help govern; some were unprincipled adventurers, who came to make money by fair means or foul. Their position was one of much dignity, and they behaved themselves like lesser kings. What with their crimson velvets and fine laces and stately coaches, they made much more of a show than any president of the United States would think of making to-day. They had no fixed terms of office, but remained at their posts as long as the king, or the king's colonial secretary, saw fit to keep them there.

      Now it was generally true of the royal governors that, whether they were natives of America or sent over from England, and whether they were good men or bad, they were very apt to make themselves disliked by the people, and they were almost always quarrelling with their legislative assemblies. Questions were always coming up about which the governor and the legislature could not agree, because the legislature represented the The question as to salaries. views of the people who had chosen it, while the governor represented his own views or the views which prevailed three thousand miles away among the king's ministers, who very often knew little about America and cared less. One of these disputed questions related to the governor's salary. It was natural that the governor should wish to have a salary of fixed amount, so that he might know from year to year what he was going to receive. But the people were afraid that if this were to be done the governor might become too independent. They preferred that the legislature should each year make a grant of money such as it should deem suitable for the governor's expenses, and this sum it might increase or diminish according to its own good pleasure. This would keep the governor properly subservient to the legislature. Before 1750 there had been much bitter wrangling over this question in several of the colonies, and the governors had one after another been obliged to submit, though with very ill grace.

      Sometimes the thoughts of the royal governors and their friends went beyond this immediate question. Since the legislatures were so froward and so niggardly, what an admirable plan it would be to have the governors paid out of the royal treasury and thus made comparatively independent of the legislatures! The judges, too, who were quite poorly paid, might fare much better if remunerated by the crown, and the same might be said of some other public officers. But if the British government were to undertake to pay the salaries of its officials in America, it must raise a revenue for the purpose; and it would naturally raise such a revenue by levying taxes in America rather than in England. People in England felt that they were already taxed as heavily as they could bear, in order to pay the expenses of their own government. They could not be expected to submit to further taxation for the sake of paying the expenses of governing the American colonies. If further taxes were to be laid for such a purpose, they must in fairness be laid upon Americans, not upon Englishmen in the old country.

      Such was the view which people in England would naturally be expected to take, and such was the view which they generally did take. But there was another side to the question which was very clearly seen by most people in America. If the royal governors were to be paid by the crown and thus made independent of their legislatures, there would be danger of their becoming petty tyrants and interfering in many ways with the liberties of the people. Still greater would be the danger if the judges were to be paid by the crown, for then they would feel themselves responsible to the king or to the royal governor, rather than to their fellow-citizens; and it would be easy for the governors, by appointing corrupt men as judges, to prevent the proper administration of justice by the courts, СКАЧАТЬ