Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/96

 64 The colonies and the Crown. [i689 spirits had been already evaded, and were now suffered to lapse. It is clear indeed that the prohibition of slavery must for some time have been a dead letter, since at the time of the surrender the population consisted of 2381 whites and 1066 negro slaves. Before the surrender the colony had no constitution. All power, legislative and administrative, was vested in the Trustees ; and, though in 1751 a representative assembly was called, its functions were simply deliberative. When the colony came under the Crown it received a constitution of the normal colonial pattern. There was a governor and a council, who together with all the executive officers were nominated by the Crown, and a representative assembly elected by the freeholders. THE COLONIES AND THE CROWN. As we have already seen, the constitutional development of the colonies was by the time of the Hanoverian accession virtually complete. The chief feature of interest in their subsequent domestic history lies in the administrative relations between the colonists and the home government. Unhappily those relations were largely contentious; and the contention turned chiefly on financial questions. In Massachusetts there was a prolonged dispute or series of disputes about the governor's salary, beginning immediately after the grant of the new charter under William and Mary. The first governor appointed by the Crown was Sir William Phipps, a vigorous and enterprising seaman. He was a native of Massachusetts, by birth one of the people, and in the disputes preceding the Revolution he had stood loyally by his own colony. His appointment was distinctly a concession to the feelings and wishes of Massachusetts. Nevertheless, in spite of his own demand for a fixed salary, the Assembly would not do more than vote him an annual grant. Exactly the same policy was adopted towards his successor, Lord Bello- mont. Bellomont was also governor of New York ; and troubles in that colony, arising out of piracy, left him no leisure to resist the Assembly of Massachusetts. Bellomonfs successor, Joseph Dudley, was peculiarly odious to what one may call the national party in the colony. His father had been one of the strictest and narrowest among the Puritan founders of Massa- chusetts. The son had held office under Andros, and was thus looked on as worse than an open enemy, as a deserter and an apostate. Dudley, understanding the principles and objects of his countrymen better than did Bellomont or the advisers of the Crown in England, saw that the question of fixed salaries to the governor and other officials was of vital importance. On it turned the question whether the officials were to be independent servants of the Crown or merely its nominees, dependent after appointment on the good-will of the Assembly.