LECTURE IV

Summary

I shall, on a future occasion, call your attention more particularly to the political lessons to be derived from the history of our North American colonies and their great revolution, so far at least as I may do so without overstepping the limits of our province. At present we are concerned with that history only as an introduction to a general view of the condition of our existing colonies; and, without expressing any general opinion as to the merits of the older or newer British colonial policy, let us see in what the distinction between them really lies.

The fundamental idea of the older British colonial policy appears to have been, that wherever a man went, he carried with him the rights of an Englishman, whatever these were supposed to be. In the reign of James I. the state doctrine was, that most popular rights were usurpations; and the colonists of Virginia, sent out under the protection of government, were therefore placed under that degree of controul which the state believed itself authorised to exercise at home. The Puritans exalted civil franchise to a republican pitch; their colonies were therefore republican; there was no such notion as that of an intermediate state of tutelage, or semi-liberty. Hence the entire absence of solicitude, on the part of the mother country, to interfere with the internal government of the colonies, arose not altogether from neglect, but partly from principle. This is remarkably proved by the fact, that representative government was seldom expressly granted in the early charters; it was assumed by the colonists as a matter of right.