Page:American History Told by Contemporaries, v2.djvu/171

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No. 50]
Kinds of Government
143

ernor and Council, such are Newfoundland, Nova-Scotia, Hudson's- Bay, and Georgia, without any House or Negative deputed by the Planters, according to the Essence of a British Constitution : These, may be said, not colonized.

There are various Sorts of Royal Grants of Colonies. 1. To one or more personal Proprietors, their Heirs and Assigns ; such are Maryland and Pennsylvania ; both Property and Government. 2. The Property to personal Proprietors ; the Government and Jurisdiction in the Crown ; this is the State of Carolinas and Jersies. 3. Property and Government in the Crown, viz. Virginia, New York, and New- Hampshire commonly called Piscataqua. 4. Property in the People and their Representatives ; the Government in the Crown; as is Massachusetts-Bay. 5. Property and Government in the Governor and Company, called the Freemen of the Colony, such are Connecticut and Rhode-Island.

This last seems to be the most effectual Method of the first settling and peopling of a Colony ; Mankind are naturally desirous of Parity and Leveling, without any fixed Superiority, but when a Society is come to Maturity, a more distinct fixed Subordination is found to be requisite. Connecticut, Rhode-Island, and some of the Proprietary Governments, are of Opinion, that they are not obliged to attend to, or follow any Instructions or Orders from their Mother-Country or Court of Great-Britain ; they do not send their Laws home to the Plantation-Offices to be presented to the King in Council for Approbation or Disallowance : They assume the Command of the Militia, which by the British Constitution is a Prerogative of the Crown : Some Time ago, they refused not only a Preventive Custom-House Office, but likewise a Court of Vice-Admiralty's Officers appointed from Home ; but these Points they have given up, especially considering that the Royal Charter grants them only the Privilege of trying Causes, Intra corpus Comitatus, but not a-float or Super altum mare.

W [illiam] D [ouglass] , A Summary, Historical and Political, of the first Planting . . . of the British Settlements in North-America (Boston, 1747) I, 201-208 passim.