lish capital, the rapid and great accumulation of wealth, and the universal prosperity which characterized the colonies, prove that the hope was not delusive and that there was an incentive which had not failed them.

In the first place, the conditions of colonial life ensured that freedom of personal action and those rights of property, without. which material prosperity is impossible anywhere, no matter how favorable the remaining conditions, but with which trade will thrive even in the face of meddlesome regulation and restriction. These elements of safety and stability are to be found, first, in the Charters, which guaranteed personal rights as well as bestowed franchises; and, second, in the open and avowed policy of the home government, that it was not to the interest of the mothercountry that any relations should exist between her and her colonies, save those of a purely commercial character on the one hand, and of simple crown dependencies on the other. Where there were no charters, the absence of these guaranties was supplied, as has been seen,' by the terms of the commissions issued to the royal governors; a custom to which time lent the force of solemn grants under the great seal. Thus grants, custom, and the self-interest of the strong party to the contract, assured safe and quiet enjoyment to the party that was weak in a manner than which nothing could be better in the eyes of commerce. political aspect, this assurance lacked only constitutional guaranty to make it perfect. While, therefore, the energies of the American were restricted by this system to two things, trade and agriculture, there was no restraint placed upon him within those pursuits, other than that imposed upon the members of all wellordered societies, and he could enjoy the fruits of his labor in perfect security.

In a

Looking at him in the commercial character with which this system invested him, it is to be observed that he found his greatest benefit in this very factorage which the Acts of Navigation created.

The emigrants who streamed to America, though not paupers, were not capitalists. They were of the classes which, in respect of birth, were below the highest; in respect of means were below the rich; but which, in respect of position, were above the lowest.

See p. 39.

MATERIAL COMPENSATION FOR RESTRICTION.

201

They came with the avowed object of bettering their condition, of getting in America the ready money they lacked in England, and of establishing in a new country the positions and fortunes the old was powerless to create, and for which, indeed, society there afforded no room. To get money, however, money or credit. is requisite, and where could these be obtained outside of Britain and the British possessions? The Dutch, who, alone of foreign nations, had capital sufficient for the cultivation of so vast a desert, could not be expected, without enormous insurance, to part with what, once gone into foreign hands beyond the Atlantic, was also beyond the reach of recall; and the other peoples of Europe were so deficient in available funds, or so little commercial in disposition, as to render recourse to them out of the question. In the English, on the contrary, all the qualities and conditions for developing the new country united. They had the capital; they had an incentive for loaning it, in the enormous gain the expanding commerce of a continent would be sure to yield; and they had the dominion and the power to maintain the security of their outlay. These people naturally became the money-lenders to the Americans, who, in return, became to the English in reality, as they generally were in name, their factors as well as their cus

tomers.

It was on English capital that the Americans traded, navigated, cultivated, and reaped their crops; with it life and activity filled their coasts, but without it their seaboards and their valleys would have remained solitudes.

Being factors, they shared in the profits of the ventures; they became rich along with the English, and, so long as their right to partition in the common profits was acknowledged, so long as their existence as part and parcel of the system was recognized, this system, so far from being considered an unmitigated evil, was regarded as something highly advantageous. To factors there could be nothing objectionable in investing the colonies with the attributes of factories.

While it must be constantly borne in mind that it was this political and actual control of America which caused the outflow of loanable capital to be abundant and unintermitting, and that it was this outflow which attracted an immigration naturally commercial in character, it must be observed, too, that the multiform

interests of to-day had no existence in those times, and that, consequently, there was not the material to be raised in opposition to the system then as there would be now. Trade and agriculture were the only features of colonial business, and in the Southern colonies these were so blended together, that, so far as commerce was concerned, they may be regarded as one and the same thing: the planter sold his crop directly to England, and to him were consigned the manufactured articles in return, which he himself distributed among the consumers. There was no mining, and but little manufacture; trade absorbed nearly every thing, and, the interests of the colonies being thus commercial, their placidity under such restrictions, as that on manufactures, for example, is readily accounted for. So long as this restraint conduced to the advantage of the commercial monopoly of which they shared the gain, they were not only content, but satisfied when, however, the grasp of the lion in this partnership was laid on their share, the instinct of self-preservation, uniting with the avidity for furthur trade in what they were loath to part with, called forth a resistance which proved as effectual as it was prompt.

Thus it will be seen, that the colonists were compensated in actual wealth, for what, at this distance, looks like a shocking want of commercial freedom. As this privation was acquiesced in by those who voluntarily placed themselves under it; was accepted by those born and bred on the soil, as they accepted the air they breathed and the bread they ate; and was actually advocated by those who shared the gain it brought, it must be admitted, that, to a certain extent, it existed more in appearance than in reality—particularly as, in reliance on the Charters, there was widespread disregard of the Acts,' and as the systematic evasion of these Acts was always winked at by those capitalists in England, who, when embarking their capital in colonial commerce, saw to it, that the restrictions intended for

"Notwithstanding the acts of Parliament for regulating and restraining the plantation trade, a constant trade was carried on with foreign countries for contraband and enumerated commodities. This gave great offence. There was no custom house. The Governor was the Naval Officer *** and being annually elected by the people was the more easily disposed to comply with popular opinions. It seems to have been a general opinion that all acts of Parliament had no other force, than what they derived from acts made by the General Court to establish or confirm them." Hutch. "Hist. of Prov. of Mass. Bay," ii, 4. In this last sentence we have the reason for the enactment of the Navigation Act by the General Court or Legislature of Massachusetts.

POLITICAL COMPENSATION FOR RestrictioN.

203

others should not come home to themselves. Indeed, it may be asserted, that the monopoly existed more in the system's principle than in its practice. That oppression cannot be said to be intolerable which is sanctioned by the indifference or acquiescence of the oppressed, nor that restriction destructive to prosperity under which poor and feeble communities became in a century marvels of thrift in the eyes of old Europe.' The colonies were compensated, and, in fact, were compensated so well, that, until interruption of that compensation was threatened, not a thought of revolt entered their minds.

2.- The POLITICAL OR MORAL COMPENSATION enjoyed by the colonies in return for the restriction upon their commerce.

Were this compensation, however, merely pecuniary, it is hardly to be conceived that it had been deemed sufficient: but there was added one quite as effective, one which gratified the highest aspirations of manhood and of citizenship, and which was a political compensation. The colonists were self-governed. When we consider that the same people who ruled themselves in America would have had no place in the actual government of Great Britain; that they would have been represented by men in whose election they would have taken no part; that they would have been directly ruled by a crown whose awful distance from them would have intensified their sensibility of having no share. whatever in the administration; that the revenue derived from their taxation would have been disbursed by those who sought not their counsel and who were beyond their control; that the defence of their homes even would have been made without their acting any other part than that of him to whom it is said go, and he goeth, come, and he cometh, and that, in short, they would have had no vote nor voice in public affairs; to such a people— especially when it is remembered, that, as Britons, a love of selfgovernment was their natural, tribal characteristic to such a people, the exercise of self-government must have proved a very

'Nothing in the history of mankind is like their progress. For my part, I never cast an eye on their flourishing commerce, and their cultivated and commodious life, but they seem to me rather ancient nations grown to perfection through a long series of fortunate events, and a train of successful industry, accumulating wealth in many centuries, than the colonies of yesterday." Burke, Speech on American on."

blessing, and a compensation far outweighing any mere restriction cf traffic. That it was so esteemed by them appears at every.

jurn.

This political compensation was not the result of remoteness merely from the seat of government: it sprung from their nature as commercial dependencies. Of course from the very constitution of a simply commercial, non-political connection, no such thing as American representation in the imperial Parliament could occur. But then, on the other hand, neither did those responsi bilities and burdens exist which a strictly political connection would exact. For example, while the colonists, as subjects owing allegiance, could demand protection of the mother-country against that country's enemies, that country could not directly exact revenue for the protection already compensated for by allegiance, nor levy troops in a colony against a power unprovoked by a dependency. These consequences flowed from the fact, that the colonies were not part of the realm of England, nor of the other realms embraced in the Act of Union, but were mere dependencies of the crowi. to which they owed personal allegiance. Under this system the crown owed them protection from attack, come from what quarter it might; but the colonists owed the crown the defence only of their colony-they could not be ordered across seas, as in a war against France or Spain, and in case a colony did go beyond its borders, in an offensive campaign, as when the New Englanders attacked Nova Scotia, it was entirely from its own volition, and was regarded by the imperial government as an aid to the king, which was to be reimbursed and satisfied from the royal treasury. Thus from their nature as simple crown dependencies, they were exempt from the most oppressive service incident to society, while the operation of the fundamental maxim, no taxation without representation, preserved them from even being called upon to commute that service by the payment of money. No wonder a revolt marked the termination of such halcyon days, and no wonder that colonial opinion rejected the notion of representation in the imperial Parliament, even were it practicable.

Their internal affairs being thus left to their own management, their legislatures were chosen by themselves from their own people. These assemblies had the common good for their object,