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SETTLEMENT OF GEORGIA.

He, like Penn, at once secured the good-will and confidence of the aborigines by an acknowledgment of their paramount right to the soil.

The colony did not at first prosper, as some of its regulations tended more to repel settlers than to invite them. Yet, since one of the avowed objects of the settlement was to afford a place of refuge to the persecuted Protestants, many of those who dissented from the esta blished religion of their country, flocked thither; and among them, Moravians from Germany, and John Wesley with his brother from England.

During the war with Spain which soon followed, Oglethorpe, who had been made a general, and placed at the head of the English troops sent to Georgia, undertook an expedition against Florida; but it failed from causes unforeseen and beyond his reach. Georgia, in turn, was invaded by a large Spanish force, but most of the invaders were killed or captured by Oglethorpe.

With all his merits he was not popular with the colonists; and, in 1743, he returned to England to answer the accusations against him for misconduct in the expedition against Florida. He was honorably acquitted, and, remaining in England, he lived to a protracted old age.

Oglethorpe belonged to a small class of the first English settlers in America, among whom John Smith, John Winthrop, Sir George Calvert and William Penn' are most

'The character of William Penn has been severely assailed by an eminent living historian; but, supposing the failings of which he speaks to have been unquestionable, what can they weigh against the wisdom and beneficence displayed by Penn in founding the noble Commonwealth of Pennsylvania? It scarcely becomes that great writer—for great he assuredly is thus to search out the little vulnerable points which, in Penn's character, are like the heel of Achilles, and aim his shafts at the well-earned reputation of his illustrious countryman.

RESTRICTIONS ON COLONIAL COMMERCE.

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conspicuous - who present the fairest specimens of the English character in wise and bold enterprise, in constancy of purpose, and above all, in enlarged and untiring benevolence; and whose invaluable services on this continent, of which millions even now unconsciously partake the benefit, should go far to redeem the injustice done to our rights, interests, and fair fame by too many of their countrymen.

At first slavery was not permitted in Georgia by its settlers; but as it adjoined South Carolina, and had, like that province, a climate which was much better suited to the African, than to the white race, their purpose was defeated. Negro slaves were gradually introduced; and their labor proving profitable, the colony then first began to thrive.

During these transactions in Georgia, South Carolina was harassed first by an insurrection of the negroes, in which twenty whites' lost their lives, and then by a fire, which completely destroyed Charlestown.

In the progress of these twelve colonies their commercial relations with the mother country, as well as their political, had undergone considerable changes.

At first the colonies were suffered to exercise the common rights of Englishmen, and to trade with any country or nation they pleased. But in consequence of the Virginia company (the original patentees of that colony) sending their tobacco to Holland, the king in council put an end to this traffic-declaring that "a foreign trade is as inconsistent with the view in planting of Virginia, as with just policy or the honor of the State."

Yet this prohibition was not strictly enforced, and tobacco and other commodities were often sent directly

1 These were partly colonists, and partly the European proprietors of a large warehouse, containing guns and ammunition.

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from Virginia to foreign countries. These restrictions continuing to be evaded, in 1651 a law was passed which restricted the trade with the plantations, as well as with other parts of the world, to English-built ships, belonging to English subjects at home, or in the plantations, unless the articles were produced in the country owning the foreign ships. This navigation act began that much vaunted system of policy to which the commercial and naval greatness of England has been mainly attributed.

In 1660 an end was put to the export trade with the colonies in ships of foreign nations, it being then enacted that tobacco, as well as the products of the West India Islands, should be carried only to England; and, three years later, a like restriction was imposed on the imports of all European commodities into the colonies, except salt for the fisheries, wines from Madeira and the Azores, and provisions from Scotland for the plantations.

The reasons expressly assigned for these commercial restraints were "to keep the colonies in a state of dependence upon England, and to afford further employment and increase of English shipping and seamen, and vent of English woollens and other commodities."

Here was first manifested that jealousy which would naturally arise between countries so fitted to be rivals in

commerce.

This jealousy was in no long time extended to the trade of the colonies with one another. In 1672 a further restriction was imposed, when certain colonial pro

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1 In Charles's instructions to Sir William Berkeley, as Governor of Virginia, in 1639, the Governor was enjoined to prohibit any commerce of the colony with foreign nations; and, to secure the benefits of the colonial monopoly, the master of each vessel sailing from Virginia was required to give bond to land his cargo in some part of the king's dominions in Europe. - Chalmers' Annals.

RESTRICTIONS ON COLONIAL MANUFACTURES.

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ducts shipped from one colony to another, were subjected to duty.

The people of Virginia complained of these acts, but their application for relief was disregarded.

In Massachusetts and Rhode Island, however, the same acts were, for a long time, not enforced. These colonies maintained that the restrictions being contrary to their charters, were not binding. Yet the Legislature of Massachusetts was induced, in 1678, to enforce them, by a law of the colony. The people of Carolina urged the same objection to these acts.

That these and the like restrictions on the commerce of the colonies should be enforced, a Board of “Trade and Plantations" was established in 1696.

The governors of the colonies were required to take an oath that they would see to the execution of the Navigation law, and as a further measure of precaution, the sanction of the king was required to the appointment of the proprietary governors.

The list of colonial articles which could be exported nowhere but to England, was extended to every kind of naval stores, rice, masts, furs, &c.

As the New England colonies carried on a lucrative traffic with the French, Spanish, and Dutch West Indies in fish, lumber, horses, &c., with the view of favoring the English Islands, heavy duties were laid on rum, sugar, and molasses imported from foreign colonies. But this law, so injurious to the commerce of New England, it was found impracticable to enforce.

As soon as the colonies began to manufacture for themselves, as they did in time, this branch of industry also became an object of jealousy in England. In 1699 it was enacted that no wool, yarn, or woollen manufac

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tures should be exported from any of the "English Plantations in America" to any foreign state.

In 1719 Parliament declared that "the erection of manufactures in the colonies tended to lessen their dependence upon Great Britain ;" and in 1731 the Board of Trade was directed to inquire into and report the laws made, manufactures set up, or trade carried on, detrimental to the trade, navigation, or manufactures of Great Britain. In the report then made by the Board, the manufactures of wool, flax, iron, paper, hats, and leather are mentioned as injurious to the mother country. These manufactures, they say, are chiefly in the colonies to the northward of Virginia, which having no staple commodities of their own, are more under the necessity of providing for themselves at home.

As hats were extensively manufactured in America, from the abundance of furs yielded by her forests, their exportation was prohibited in 1732, even from one colony to another; and no hatter was allowed to have more than two apprentices at once, or to make hats unless he had served an apprenticeship of seven years.

By another act in 1750 all mills or engines for slitting or rolling iron, or forges to work with a tilt-hammer, or furnaces for making steel were prohibited; and to arm government with the summary process permitted in the abatement of nuisances, every such prohibited work was declared to be a common nuisance, and the colonial governors were required to abate it.

The paper-money of the colonies also afforded occasions for the Parliament to exercise a control over the colonial Legislatures, and, consequently, became a further source of collision.

These colonies had from the first experienced that in

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