EARLY EXPERIMENTS 407 England; and the interference went no further. But the Jamaica Assembly, aroused by Governor Vaughan to a sense of its own parliamentary importance, rejected the plan completely and gave its reasons therefor, among which was the "superiority of the former system". The Lords of Trade, taking a very exalted view of the King's prerogative, answered the objections of the Assembly, threatening to revert to an executive form of government and declaring that the Assembly had no right except by the King's favour to meet or to pass laws at all. But in the end they capitulated without reserve. In 1680 they agreed that the Assembly in Jamaica was to meet "after the manner and form now in practice, to make laws with the advice and consent of the governor and council, such laws to be agreeable, so far as may be, with the laws of England, and every one thereof to be transmitted to England within three months. The King reserves the right of disallowing laws and gives the governor the power of veto".1 The most important outcome of this experiment was the obtaining for the King's use in Virginia the two shillings a hogshead export duty in perpetuity and the starting of a train of events in Jamaica which led to the passage of the permanent revenue act of 1728, in return for the Crown's consent that the island enjoy all such laws and statutes as had been "at any time esteemed, introduced, accepted or received" there. Of equal interest, constitutionally speaking, was the experiment tested in the Leeward Islands, where the imperative demands of war, the need of unity in legislation, and the desirability of financial cooperation called into being a remarkable attempt at a form of federal organisation. The four islands, Antigua, the largest and wealthiest, St Christopher, the mother island, Nevis, and Montserrat, were settled in the years following 1623 and almost from the first had local Assemblies, each with a deputy-governor, under a governor-in-chief, Sir Thomas Warner, the earliest of England's colonisers in the West Indies.2 Warner, appointed governor of St Christopher in 1629 by the Earl of Carlisle, whose proprietary claims had been finally established in that year, and a third time "governor and lieutenantgeneral of the Caribbee Islands" by the parliamentary commissioners for Plantations in 1643, laid the foundations so strongly that the system weathered the Restoration and the separation from Barbados in 1671. Under Wheler, the first royal governor-in-chief, properly so called, of the Leeward Islands, each island had its lieutenant-governor, council, and Assembly and continued to retain this familiar form of local government throughout the eighteenth century. The Assemblies 1 Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1677-80, nos. 954, 1009, 1030, 1239, 1570, 1648. 2 Vide supra, p. 143. Harlow, V. T. (ed.), Colonising Expeditions to the West Indies and Guiana, 1623-67 (Hakluyt Soc.) and Hist. of Barbados, 1625-85; Watts, A. P., Colonies anglaises aux Antilles, 1649-60; Williamson, J. A., Proprietary Government in the Caribbees; Higham, C. S. S., 'General Assembly of the Leeward Islands", E.H.R. April-July, 1926. were small in size and in later years the councils tended to play a dominant part in the administration, the lieutenant-governor being seldom resident.1 In the eyes of the British Government these islands formed a single royal colony, with a single governor-general, but in fact they constituted four separate governments, each with its local interests, prejudices, jealousies, and rivalries, which created among them strong individualistic traits. Communication between the islands was difficult and slow, and the governor frequently spent four or five months making his yearly tour of them. 2 In 1674 Wheler was recalled and Sir William Stapleton, "one of the best governors the King had in any of his Plantations", was sent out in his place. As sole governor he soon felt the need, particularly in time of war, of greater co-operation and advice, and early began to call into consultation members of the local councils and Assemblies of the four islands. Soon he conceived the idea of a kind of General or Federal Assembly with legislative powers-"A General Council and Assembly of the Islands", it was usually called-and he outlined his plan in a letter to the Lords of Trade, 16 August 1682. This body was to be made up of two or three members of each council and a like number of representatives, locally appointed or elected on instructions from the governor-general. The home authorities raised no objection to the plan either at this time or afterwards. The first meeting was held at Nevis in November 1682, and others, at intermittent periods on the call of the governor, were held until 1711. The federal machinery consisted of a council (eight), and an Assembly (twelve), the latter after 1692 elected in each island by the freeholders. While the General Assembly was in session, the local Assemblies were supposed to dissolve, though there appears to have been some difference of opinion on this point. The new legislative body encountered two main obstacles: one, the unwillingness of each colony to accept as binding any act of the General Assembly that was not formally approved by their representatives present or that conflicted in any way with their local law; and the other, their unwillingness to consider the creation of a federal fund or any form of federal levy, so that all expenditure had to be met by joint action among the local treasurers. The elder Codrington, whose letters are always breezy, became at one time so exasperated that he recommended the annexation of the colonies to the kingdom of England with representation in the English Parliament, in order that he might be delivered from their "turbulent practices", and begged that the local militia be subjected to the discipline of the King's troops, for, he added, "the trouble of governing a voluntary army is inexpressible"." But as long as the islands suffered from the menace and danger of 1 Edwards, Bryan, West Indies (1801), п, 396–7. 2 Higham, p. 194. Ibid. 1681-5, no. 654. Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1677-80, no. 732. Higham, pp. 197-8; Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1701, no. 1132. NORMAL TYPE OF COLONIAL GOVERNMENT 409 war, the General Assemblies continued to meet. Laws were passed, taxes were levied for local expenditure, and the business of shaping the constitution and procedure of the Assembly was continued. Whenever peace came, as at Ryswick in 1697, the separatist influences revived, and in some quarters the opposition went so far as to demand complete independence for each island in all matters of civil concern. When war again threatened, as in 1701, the need of centralisation was felt, and the General Assembly was restored. But as the years passed, the latter gradually lost ground. With the arrival of Governor Parke and the disorders which accompanied his unfortunate administration, the quarrel between local rights and the royal prerogative reached its height. A last Assembly met to enquire into the circumstances of Parke's murder, December 1710, and sat from February to March 1711; but at its own request it was dissolved and for more than eighty years never met again. Particularism and the jealous maintenance of local rights won the day over centralisation and a system of federal co-operation. In the history of these four little islands in the West Indies, we find many of the features that characterised the struggle of the larger continental colonies, first against any sort of federal union under the Crown, and later to organise a federal system after independence had been won. Thus by the beginning of the eighteenth century all experiments with different varieties of government for the royal colonies in America came to an end, and a normal type of organisation, familiar to us as the "old representative system", became established. This system prevailed everywhere (except in Connecticut and Rhode Island, which were completely self-governing), for even in the proprietary colonies, all but two of which were destined to become royal before the middle of the century, conditions were essentially the same, the proprietor taking the place of the King. The government consisted of a governor and council, representing the outside control of the royal prerogative, and an elected Assembly, representing the voting constituencies of the colony. In the development of the system from its early beginnings, though variations appear in practice and procedure, the characteristics and tendencies were everywhere the same. On the other hand, throughout the entire period to the American Revolution grave differences of opinion prevailed between the Home Government and the delegates in Assembly as to the relative importance of the executive and legislative branches of the government and the place that the Assembly should occupy in the composite group. To the King and his advisers the dominant factors in the government were the governor and council, who drew their authority from the prerogative and in whose hands lay the ultimate control of all administrative, financial, and judicial business; while the popular Assembly was in an inferior position, partaking of the nature of a provincial or municipal council, the function of which was the passage of by-laws and ordinances for meeting the immediate needs of the colony itself. Despite the various attempts that were made, between 1664 and 1689, to prevent the establishment of a popular Assembly, as in New York and New England, or to deprive such Assembly of the right of initiation and deliberation, as in Jamaica and Virginia, the presence of such a representative body was everywhere recognised before the end of the century, as essential to the prosperity and good government of a colony. But there was no intention at home of allowing the popular branch of the government to diminish in any way the power of the prerogative in America, for the King and his ministers saw no parallel between the position of the Parliament in England, which had won its preponderant influence through a steady encroachment on the powers of King and Council, and the position of the Assemblies in America in their relation to the governors and their councils there. As events were to show, the struggle in one case was similar in principle to the struggle in the other. For the first century and a half the constitutional conflict in America was between the popular Assemblies and the prerogative; and it was not until that victory had been won and the growth of these Assemblies had led to the decline of the royal system of government in the colonies, that they were destined to face the British Parliament as the great antagonist. After 1689, the ultimate control of affairs within the realm of England and in the colonies lay in the hands of Parliament, the supremacy of which appears in the not infrequent threats of royal officials to call upon that body to legislate when the colonies seemed unusually contumacious, and in their efforts to obtain from that body increased authority for the King in America. It seems strange at times that Parliament did not intervene, especially when the colonies were flouting the Royal Instructions, in such cases, for example, as the passage of perpetual revenue bills; but the explanation probably lies in Parliament's fear of any action that would increase anywhere the powers of the Crown. It limited its activities to the supervision of colonial trade and its attendant interests, chiefly of a financial nature, and in but very few instances dealt with matters that affected colonial government. There can be no doubt but that in the eighteenth century it considered itself wholly competent to legislate for the colonies and that the colonies recognised without serious demur its right to do so. It is equally clear that before 1765 Parliament held almost entirely aloof and left to the King and Privy Council complete oversight of colonial affairs, taking care, however, that at their hands there should be no increase of the prerogative, which was a matter of the common law, unless ousted or restrained by statute. Thus, in fact, in all that concerned the government in America, the King and Privy Council constituted the highest authority in the kingdom and their decisions were final. They constituted the ROYAL OFFICIALS IN THE COLONIES 411 ultimate court of appeal in civil, criminal, and admiralty matters, and they alone could give legal sanction to the recommendations of the Board of Trade. The executive departments of the Treasury and the Admiralty exercised their functions only by virtue of their commissions from the King, and only as servants of the King could the secretaries of state perform their duties. Throughout the period under consideration, colonial administration was never conceived of apart from the regular government of the realm. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, as interest in the colonies increased, an occasional official was appointed for colonial purposes, such as the surveyor and auditor-general of all the royal revenues arising in America, whose business it was to bring the royal revenue in the Plantations "under a more certain method of account",1 in a manner similar to that employed by other auditors of the Exchequer in England. There were also a few officials and clerks appointed in the London Custom House to take charge of such revenues as the Plantation duty and the 4 per cent.; and in the office of the Secretary of State for the Southern Department is found an occasional extra official who was the custodian of papers accumulating as the result of relations with the colonies. But these were exceptional. Generally speaking, no new machinery was set up for the supervision of the colonies. By enlargement and adjustment the prevailing system was adapted to meet the new demands, and even these demands did not become serious until after the middle of the eighteenth century. Except in the case of the papers of the Board of Trade and the Secretary of State, no special files of documents were set apart containing the record of business done with America and the West Indies. In the various offices of the Admiralty, Treasury, and War Office, in the Custom House, Post Office, and High Court of Admiralty, the details of colonial administration were entered in the regular books or filed in the regular bundles that contained the record of official business done in England or elsewhere as part of the ordinary routine of the day. With but few exceptions, every official in a royal colony exercised his authority by virtue of a grant from the King either directly, or through one of the executive departments in England, or through the governor or secretary in the province itself. This delegation of power created in the colonies a group of office holders-chief among whom was the governor himself who held their offices at the King's pleasure and considered themselves responsible to the King alone. These offices of governor, lieutenant-governor, secretary, attorney-general, receiver-general, deputy auditor, provost marshal, sheriff, naval officer, and collector of customs-were held as a property, sometimes even as an investment from which a profit might be made. Though the method of appointment varied-some of the appointees being patent 1 Massachusetts Col. Recs. v, pt 1, 521-6. |