Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/475

 13. ANDREWS: COLONIAL CONDITIONS 461 colonies. In this the English authorities were not showing themselves either arbitrary or despotic. The Board of Trade, the Crown lawyers, even the Privy Council acted according to their convictions, which, though honest, were based undoubtedly upon insufficient and ex parte information. Connecticut's policy of reticence was in part responsible for this ; she had made it possible for her enemies to fill the minds of the home authorities with suspicion, and there was just enough truth at the bottom of the charges for them to be extremely effective. Other colonies as well were on the black list of the Board. Among intelligent Englishmen both in and out of Parliament there was a strong feeling that some of the colonies were not acting consistently with the inter- ests of England, and needed the strong hand of Parliament to curb them, even to the taking away of their treasured privileges.^ But the blow was not to fall yet. Parliament was perhaps not yet prepared to intervene in the management of colonial affairs, however general the opinion seemed to be that it had a right, in view of the events of 1688, to assume this function of the royal prerogative. Although for thirty years ample opportunities for so doing had been given, yet the rights and privileges of the charter colonies remained unimpaired. Per- haps the colonies had given Insufficient provocation ; if so, time would soon render the provocation greater, not because of any defiant act of the colonies but because of the inevitable Lords (Talcott Papers, I, p. 297), where strong language is used. Wilks reports a speech made one day in the House of Lords to the same effect (Ibid., I, pp. 294-295). The opinion of intelligent Englishmen can be inferred from an extract from Salmon's Modern History pub- lished in 1739. "The laws [of the charter governments] are liable to be repealed and their constitution entirely altered by the Kins: «nd Parlia- ment; which, one would think, should render them extremely cautious in making laws that may prove disadvantageous to their mother country . . . for they may very well expect that when this shall be done to any great degree the Parliament will keep a severe hand over them and per- haps deprive them of their most darling privileges. It may be found expedient hereafter also for their own defence and security to appoint a viceroy or at least a Generalissimo in time of war ... Or at least it may be found necessary to make all the colonies immediately dependent on the Crown, as Virginia, Carolina and New York are: for the char- ter governments are not to be depended on in such exigencies." Modern HiHory by Mr. Salmon, III, p. 568 (London, 1739).
 * See the representation of 1733 and the resolution of the House of