the state could devise for insuring freedom, equal justice, and the privileges of the constitution, to every class of the Irish people. Good laws have been well administered; franchises have been recognized as rights, — not admitted as pretences. Equality has been not a legal theory, but an unquestioned fact. We have seen how Catholics were excluded from all the rights of citizens. What is now their position? In 1860, of the twelve judges on the Irish bench, eight were Catholics. In the southern counties of Ireland, Catholic gentlemen have been selected, in preference to Protestants, to serve the office of sheriff, in order to insure confidence in the administration of justice. England has also freely opened to the sons of Ireland the glittering ambition of arms, of statesmanship, of diplomacy, of forensic honor. The names of Wellington, Castlereagh, and Palmerston attest that the highest places in the state may be won by Irish genius. The number of distinguished Irishmen who have been added to the roll of British peers, proves with what welcome the incorporation of the sister kingdom has been accepted. Nor have other dignities been less freely dispensed to the honorable ambition of their countrymen. One illustration will suffice. In 1860, of the fifteen judges on the English bench, no less than four were Irishmen.2 Freedom, equality, and honor have been the fruits of the union; and Ireland has exchanged an enslaved nationality for a glorious incorporation with the first empire of the world. 1 Sir Michael O'Loghlin was the first Catholic promoted to the bench, as master of the rolls. Grattan's Life, i. 66. 2 Viz., Mr. Justice Willes, Mr. Justice Keating, Mr. Justice Hill, and Baron Martin. CHAPTER XVII. Free Constitutions of British Colonies: - Sovereignty of England:- Com mercial Restrictions:- Taxation of the American Colonies:- Thei Resistance and Separation:- Crown Colonies:- Canada: - Australia: - Colonial Administration after the American War:- New Commercial Policy affecting the Colonies:- Responsible Government: - Democratic Colonial Constitutions:- India. Colonists have borne with them the laws of England. IT has been the destiny of the Anglo-Saxon race to spread through every quarter of the globe their courage and endurance, their vigorous industry and love of freedom. Wherever they have founded colonies they have borne with them the laws and institutions of England, as their birthright, so far as they were applicable to an infant settlement. In territories acquired by conquest or cession, the existing laws and customs of the people were respected, until they were qualified to share the franchises of Englishmen. Some of these, — held only as garrisons, - others peopled with races hostile to our rule or unfitted for freedom, were necessarily governed upon different principles. But in quitting the soil of England to settle new colonies, Englishmen never renounced her freedom. Such being the noble principle of English colonization, circumstances favored the early development of colonial liberties. The Puritans, who founded the New England colonies, having fled from the oppression of Charles I., carried with them a stern love of civil liberty, and estab 1 Blackstone's Comm., i. 107; Lord Mansfield's Judgment in Campbell v. Hall; Howell's St. Tr., xx. 289; Clark's Colonial Law, 9, 139, 181, &c.; Sir G. Lewis on the Government of Dependencies, 189-203, 308; Mills' Colonial Constitutions, 18. The persecuted Catholics. lished republican institutions.1 who settled Maryland, and the proscribed Quakers who took refuge in Pennsylvania, were little less democratic.2 Other colonies founded in America and the West Indies, in the seventeenth century, merely for the purposes of trade and cultivation, adopted institutions, less democratic indeed, but founded on principles of freedom and self-government. Whether established as proprietary colonies, or under charters held direct from the Crown, the colonists were equally free. form of colo tions. The English constitution was generally the type of these colonial governments. The governor was the Ordinary viceroy of the Crown; the legislative council, or pial constitu upper chamber, appointed by the governor, assumed the place of the House of Lords; and the representative assembly chosen by the people was the express image of the House of Commons. This miniature Parliament, complete in all its parts, made laws for the internal government of the colony. The governor assembled, prorogued, and dissolved it; and signified his assent or dissent to every act agreed to by the chambers; the upper house mimicked the dignity of the House of Peers; and the lower house insisted on the privileges of the Commons, especially that of originating all taxes and grants of money for the public 1 In three of their colonies the council was elective; in Connecticut and Rhode Island the colonists also chose their governor. - Adam Smith, book iv. ch. 7. But the king's approval of the governor was reserved by 7 & 8 Will. III. c. 22. 2 Bancroft's Hist. of the Colonization of the United States, i. 264; iii. 94. 3 Merivale's Colonization, ed. 1861, 95, 103. 4 In 1858, a quarrel arose between the two Houses in Newfoundland, in consequence of the Upper House insisting upon receiving the Lower House at a conference, sitting and covered, an assumption of dignity which was resented by the latter. The governor having failed to accommodate the difference, prorogued the Parliament before the supplies were granted. In the next session these disputes were amicably arranged. Message of Council, April 23d, 1858, and reply of House of Assembly; Private Correspondence of Sir A. Bannerman. service. The elections were also conducted after the fashion of the mother country. Other laws and institutions were imitated not less faithfully. Jamaica, for example, maintained a court of King's bench, a court of common pleas, a court of exchequer, a court of chancery, a court of admiralty, and a court of probate. It had grand and petty juries, justices of the peace, courts of quarter sessions, vestries, a coroner, and constables." The sover 4 Every colony was a little state, complete in its legislature, its judicature, and its executive administration. But, at the same time, it acknowledged the sovereignty of the mother country, the prerogatives of the Crown, and the legislative supremacy of Parliament. The assent of the king, or his representative, was required to give validity to acts of the colonial legislature; his veto annulled them; while the Imperial Parliament was able to bind the colony by its acts, and to supersede all local legislation. Every colonial judicature was also subject to an appeal to the king in council, at Westminster. The dependence of the colonies, however, was little felt in their internal government. They were secured from interference by the remoteness of the mother country, and the ignorance, indifference, and preoccupation of her rulers. In matters of imperial concern, England imposed her own policy; but otherwise left them free. Asking no aid of her, they escaped her domination. All their expenditure, civil and military, was defrayed by taxes raised by themselves. They 1 Stokes' British Colonies, 241; Edwards' Hist. of the West Indies, ii. 419; Long's Hist. of Jamaica, i. 56. 2 Edwards, ii. 419; Haliburton's Nova Scotia, ii. 319. 8 Long's Hist. of Jamaica, i. 9. 4 In Connecticut and Rhode Island, neither the crown nor the governor was were able to negative laws passed by the Assemblies. 5 "Three thousand miles of ocean lie between you and them," said Mr. Burke. "No contrivance can prevent the effect of this distance in weakening government." Adam Smith observed:-"Their situation has placed them less in the view and less in the power of the mother country." Book iv. ch. 7. provided for their own defence against the Indians and the enemies of England. During the seven years' war, the American colonies maintained a force of 25,000 men, at a cost of several millions. In the words of Franklin, "they were governed, at the expense to Great Britain, of only a little pen, ink, and paper: they were led by a thread.” 1 restrictions. But little as the mother country concerned herself in the political government of her colonies, she evinced Commercial a jealous vigilance in regard to their commerce. Commercial monopoly, indeed, was the first principle in the colonial policy of England, as well as of the other maritime states of Europe. She suffered no other country but herself to supply their wants; she appropriated many of their exports; and, for the sake of her own manufacturers, insisted that their produce should be sent to her in a raw, or unmanufactured state. By the Navigation Acts, their produce could only be exported to England in English ships.2 This policy was avowedly maintained for the benefit of the mother country, for the encouragement of her commerce, her shipping, and manufactures, to which the interests of the colonies were sacrificed. But, in compensation for this monopoly, she gave a preference to the produce of her own. colonies, by protective and prohibitory duties upon foreign commodities. In claiming a monopoly of their markets, she, at the same time, gave them a reciprocal monopoly of her own. In some cases she encouraged the production of their staples by bounties. A commercial policy so artificial as this, the creature of laws striving against nature, marked the dependence of the colonies, crippled their industry, fomented discontents, and even provoked war with foreign states. But it was a policy common to every European government, until enlightened by economical science; 1 Evidence before the Commons, 1766; Parl. Hist., xvi. 139–141. 2 The first Navigation Act was passed in 1651, during the Commonwealth; Merivale, 75, 84, 89; Adam Smith, Book iv. ch. 7. 3 Ibid. 4 Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, book iv. ch. 7. |