Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/760

730 territory to the south of Massachusetts, there to form the colonies of Connecticut and Rhode Island, afterwards chartered by the crown, 1662 and 1663. A few fishing villages to the north of Massachusetts, established under

the grant of John Mason, were the nucleus of the colony of New Hampshire. The present States of Vermont and Maine were not yet organized. Out of the original Plymouth Company's grant were thus formed the colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. The name New England was commonly applied to the whole territory from the beginning, having been first used by Captain John Smith in 1614.

7. Nine of the “old thirteen” colonies are thus accounted for. The remaining four fell in the territory between the two main grants, which was to be common to both companies, but was in fact never appropriated by either. The Spaniard had settled contentedly far to the south; and the Frenchman, still bound by too many of the ancient ecclesiastical influences to contest supremacy with the Spaniard, had settled as far to the north as possible, in Canada. England had been so far released from ecclesiastical influences by the spread of the Reformation as to be prepared to contest supremacy with Spaniard, Frenchman, or any one else; but her lingering desires to avoid open conflict at any cheap rate had tended to fix her settlements on the very choicest part of the coast, in the middle latitudes, a fact which was to colour the whole future history of the continent. The concurrent claims of the two English companies in the central zone seem to have deterred both of them from any attempt to interfere with the development of a colony there by the only other people of western Europe which was prepared

to grasp at such an opportunity. The Dutch (1609) sent out Henry Hudson, an Englishman in their service, and he made the first close exploration of this central region. Dutch merchants thereupon set up a trading post at Manhadoes (the present city of New York), where a government under the Dutch West India Company was organized in 1621, when the Dutch states-general had granted the territory to it. The territory was named New Netherland, and the town at the mouth of the Hudson river New Amsterdam. Sweden sent a colony to Delaware Bay in 1638; but the attempt was never thoroughly backed, and in 1655 it was surrendered to the Dutch.

8. By the time of the Restoration in England, the northern and southern English colonies had developed so far that the existence of this alien element between them had come to be a recognized annoyance and danger. From the Hudson river to Maine, from the Savannah river to Delaware Bay, all was English. Roads had been roughly marked out; ships were sailing along the respective coasts as if at home; colonial governments were beginning to lean upon one another for support; but between the two was a territory which might at any moment turn to hostility. There was an evidently growing disposition in New England to attempt the conquest of it unaided. When England and Holland found themselves at war (1664), the opportunity arrived for a blow at Holland's colonial possessions. An English army and fleet under Colonel Nichols touched at Boston, and, proceeding thence to New Amsterdam, took possession of the whole central territory. It had been granted by the king to his brother, the duke

of York, and the province and city were now named New York in honour of the new proprietor. The duke, the same year, granted a part of his territory to Berkeley and

Carteret, and the new colony of New Jersey was the result. In 1681 the great parallelogram west of New

Jersey was granted to Penn and called Pennsylvania. In the following year Penn bought from the duke of York the little piece of territory which remained united to Pennsylvania until the revolution, then becoming the State of

Delaware. The central territory thus furnished four of ware - the “old thirteen” colonies, New England four, and the southern portion five.

9. If there was any governing idea in the organization of the colonial governments, it was of the rudest kind; and in fact each was allowed to be so largely modified by circumstances that, with a general similarity, there was

the widest possible divergence. A general division of the colonial governments is into charter, proprietary, and royal governments. The charter governments were Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. In these the colonial governments had charters from the crown, giving the people, or freemen, the right to choose their own governors and other magistrates, to make their own laws, and to interpret and enforce them. Only Connecticut and Rhode Island kept their charters intact. The Massachusetts charter was cancelled by the crown judges (1684) under a quo warranto; and in 1691 a new charter was granted. As it reserved to the crown the appointment of the governor, with an absolute veto on laws and after 1726 on the election of the speaker of the lower house, Massachusetts was thus taken out of the class of purely charter colonies and put into that of a semi-royal colony.

The proprietary colonies were New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania (including Delaware), Maryland, Carolina, and Georgia. These were granted to proprietors, who, as inducements to settlers, granted governmental privileges almost as liberal as those of the charter colonies. Only Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland remained proprietary colonies down to the revolution, and in these the governor had a charter right of veto on

legislation. Virginia became a royal colony in 1620, and New York as soon as its proprietor became king; and other proprietors, becoming tired of continual quarrels with the colonists, gradually surrendered their grants to the crown. New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, North and South Carolina, and Georgia had thus become royal colonies before the revolution. In the royal colonies, commonly called provinces, the governors were appointed by the crown, and had an absolute veto on legislation. There were thus at last three proprietary, seven royal, one semi-royal, and two charter colonies.

10. The two charter colonies were simple representative democracies, having the power to legislate without even a practical appeal to the crown, and having no royal governor or agent within their borders. Their systems were the high-water mark to which the desires and claims of the other colonies gradually approached. Massachusetts and the proprietary colonies were very nearly on a level with them; and the royal or proprietary governor's veto power was rather an annoyance than a fundamental difference. But in all the colonies representative governments had forced their way, and had very early taken a bicameral shape. In the charter colonies and Massachusetts the lower house was chosen by the towns and the upper house from the people at large, and the two houses made up the “assembly.” In Pennsylvania and Delaware there was but one house. In the royal colonies and in Maryland the lower house alone was elected by the people; the upper house, or council, was chosen by the crown through the governor; and the assent of all three elements was essential to legislation. In the final revolution the charter colonies did not change their governments at all; they already had what they wanted. The revolution was consummated in the other colonies by the assumption of power by the lower or popular house, usually known as the “assembly,” the governor or council, or both, being ousted.

11. All these governmental organizations take a