Council Committee, and Board

It is of course mainly from the British standpoint that the situation is viewed in the Register, and when a colonial view is given, it is often an extreme instance selected for reprobation. It would be easy to show that the aims of colonial politicians were as selfish as, and less enlightened than, those which animated the Board of Trade. The Whig aristocracy were well-meaning and fairly intelligent rulers: if corruption can be alleged against some of their deputies and underlings, as strong a case can be brought against the colonial traders, who sought persistently to cheat their British creditors. The British authorities were ready to suppress abuses if they were brought before them in the proper way (cf. p. 523), but the Americans generally preferred to find a remedy for themselves. The popular Assemblies, turning to great advantage their control of supply and their distance from England, carried their encroachments further and further (e.g. 235), till the Council, weary of futile instructions to the governors, was fain to call in the sovereign power of Parliament. Legally this was unanswerable, but in the last resort sovereignty depends on force, and in the absence of goodwill must be asserted and maintained by the sword. By July, 1766, a violent issue had been foreshadowed in the riots in Rhode Island and New York (577 and 596). The volume closes on a note of defiant insubordination (662).

While the first Empire was beginning to totter, the second had already been set upon its feet. The development of Nova Scotia, Florida and Grenada had been taken in hand at the close of the war in 1763, and laborious efforts were being made by the Government to retrieve the error made in the probably accidental inclusion of Quebec in the proclamation of 7 Oct., 1763, and to organise a system under which Canada should be French while its rulers and traders were English.

The entries in this volume differ little in character from those in the last. The Council and its Committee are of Trade. obviously the same in composition (448), the transition

66

from one to the other on the same day being often indicated by the words "afterwards their Lordships sat as a Committee " (or as a Council"). One order was actually made on a report from "the Lords of the Council" (p. 712). In general, the Committee obtained a report from the Board of Trade on the matters referred to it, and from about 1758 business was often referred immediately by the Council to the Board of Trade to report to the Committee (p. 367). Occasionally the Committee overruled the opinion of the Board of Trade (e.g. p. 372). In general it will be found that whereever there is an entry of any length, it consists of a Board of Trade report adopted with or without alteration by the Committee. Action was occasionally taken by the Council on a Board of Trade report without its having been considered by the Committee (427), but the Council and Committee were practically identical and interchangeable.

Colonial acts were examined not only by the Board of Trade and the Committee, but also in many cases by a K.C.Sir Matthew Lamb-who reported whether there were any objection in point of law. In one case the Bishop of London was consulted about the invasion of the rights of the Crown and of his see in controlling ecclesiastical patronage and church discipline in North Carolina (380).

Judicial appeals were decided by the Committee, but about a quarter disappear from the Register undetermined, and another quarter were either heard ex parte, the respondents not appearing, or were dismissed for non-prosecution by the appellant. The abuse is noticed of the continuation of proceedings in Chancery pending appeals to the Council, and the offending colony is, as so frequently in this volume, Jamaica (283). In the extracts given, reports on family and business disputes are not included unless of special interest, but a number of cases of illegal trading are quoted. One testamentary case from Jamaica gave rise to so much. litigation that the Committee were at last fain to state a case

for the opinion of the Court of King's Bench, "for the sake of uniformity and certainty" (583).

There was not sufficient interest in, or knowledge of, the colonies to inspire a constructive imperial policy-one report on the settlement of Nova Scotia was referred back to the Board of Trade in November, 1763, as not signed by a sufficient number of hands (527)—but the Council and the Board of Trade showed commendable zeal in overhauling from time to time the existing machinery. They sought to obtain information and to remove abuses, to preserve the just dependence of the colonies on the government of the Mother Country and to provide as honest and efficient an executive as distance would permit. In accordance with the policy of Lord Halifax of strengthening the hands of the Board of Trade, colonial governors were directed in April, 1752, to correspond with it instead of with the Secretary of State: in August, 1766, however, the order was reversed, and a return was made to the old practice. The efficient unity of direction advocated by Thomas Pownall in 1764 was not however achieved during this period. Ministerial changes no doubt increased the confusion caused by the overlapping of several departments-one notable result of which may have been the application of the proclamation of 7 Oct., 1763, to Quebec, and the complete abrogation of the laws of Canada. In a sense, the Board of Trade, even between 1752 and 1766, was, as Pownall said, only "a committee of reference for examination and report, for stating and preparing business, while the affairs of the colonies are administered solely by the King in Council, really acting as an efficient board for that purpose.' Some little support is given to Pownall's theory that Board of Trade representations were sometimes ignored by those whose duty it was to act upon them, by the disappearance of a number of items after a report had been "read and postponed " by the Committee of the Council; but in most cases the postponement was probably equivalent to a rejection for

*The Administration of the Colonies, 1768 edition, p. 27.

sufficient reason, as in the case of Major Rogers' proposed expedition to discover an overland North-West Passage to China (p. 739). Section 114 contains almost the only instance of an unconscionably long delay.

The order of 14 April, 1752, also gave directions for supervising appointments in the American colonies, as nothing can more effectually tend to the Peace Welfare and good Government of the said Colonys and Plantations than the appointment of able Discreet and Prudent persons to be Governors Lieutenant Governors and other Officers and Magistrates."

At the same time the Council directed that the various colonies should revise their laws-as had been done in Virginia in 1748-9. The framing a new body of good and well-digested laws was held to be of great use to the inhabitants, but from the standpoint of the British Government there was the further advantage to be derived from having a simple code that the determination of "Appeales and Decrees made in the several Courts of Judicature within the said

Governments depends upon being duly informed of the Laws subsisting there." On this account, therefore, it was further thought expedient that the proprietary and chartered colonies, whose laws were not subject to disapproval by the Crown, should transmit as soon as conveniently may be a true and authentic copy of all their laws now in force.

Absentee councillors were replaced (84) and customs officers directed to attend to their duties (520), while abuses in the exaction of fees by public officers were ordered to be suppressed and the offenders removed (554). Summary views of the establishment of a royal colony in the middle of the eighteenth century are given in the provisions for civil government in Georgia (188) and for courts, etc., in Guadeloupe (404). (It will be noticed that William Burke, the celebrated advocate of the retention of Guadeloupe instead of Canada in 1763, was himself secretary and register of the island.)

An edifying outline of a suitable imperial education for colonists, as viewed by instructors of a hundred and fifty years ago, is given in 485-"Not so much to aim at any high Improvements in Knowledge, as to guard against Total Ignorance; to instil into the minds of Youth just Principles of Religion, Loyalty, and a Love of our Excellent Constitution, to instruct them in such Branches of Knowledge and useful Arts as are necessary to Trade, Agriculture and a due Improvement of His Majestys valuable Colonies, and to assist in raising up a Succession of faithful Instructors to be sent forth not only among His Majestys Subjects there, but also among the Indians in alliance to His Majesty to teach both in the way of Truth, to save them from the Corruption of the Enemy, and help to remove the Reproach of suffering the Emisaries of a false Religion to be more zealous in propagating their Slavish and destructive Tenets in that part of the World, than Britons and Protestants are in promoting the pure Form of Godliness, and the Glorious Plan of Publick Liberty and Happiness committed to them."

The shelving of the proposal to establish an Anglican episcopate in 1750 (129) was probably prompted as much by political wisdom as by any unworthy motive, but the refusal to incorporate the Scottish Kirk in New York in 1766 (652) seems to have been partly at least due to jealousy: his coronation oath was to serve George III at a later date as the excuse for a much more serious blunder.

Legislative, In the early stages of the colonial struggle for emancipation Executive, and from British interference, the island colonies were as active Judicature. as the continental. A bad pre-eminence is very naturally held by the small slaveholding plutocracy of Jamaica. The Assembly drove Admiral Knowles to resign the government (252) and attacked Lieutenant-Governor Moore in general terms on the pretext of a single garbled accusation (400) : they declined to sit in 1757 when a dissolution was refused (332), and withheld supplies in 1764-6 on account of an alleged