The occupation of New Netherland was effected by a royal commission, which was also empowered to hear complaints and report a plan for the settlement of disputes in New England. Precedents for such a commission existed in the past, and a little more than ten years later a similar body, accompanied by a military force, was sent to Virginia to adjust matters at the close of Bacon's rebellion. But the commission of 1664 was the most noteworthy example of its kind. Yet, though it succeeded at New Amsterdam and in the southern colonies of New England, it failed at Boston. Massachusetts would not admit its right to hear appeals. It did not succeed in wresting from Massachusetts the territory of New Hampshire and Maine, which the heirs of Gorges and Mason claimed.
34. In 1676 Edward Randolph was sent as a special agent to Massachusetts, to require it to send agents to England. He returned to England the sworn enemy of that colony and continued to be its tireless prosecutor. A series of negotiations ensued which lasted for almost a decade, and ended in the revocation of the Massachusetts charter by a degree in chancery, 1684. New Hampshire had already been organized as a royal province. Government under the charters of Rhode Island and Connecticut was soon after suspended. All New England was then organized as a dominion or vice-royalty under Sir Edmund Andros. Assemblies were everywhere abolished and government was left wholly in the hands of the executive. New York—also without an assembly—and New Jersey were Dominion of New England. soon after incorporated with the Dominion of New England, its boundary being extended to the Delaware river (see New England). After Bacon's rebellion in 1676 the lines of executive control were strengthened in Virginia, but the Assembly continued active. These rapid changes involved the downfall of the former system of chartered colonies and the substitution of royal provinces in their place. The effect of this was to introduce into the colonies a large number of officials of royal appointment—the governors, members of the council, judges, secretaries, surveyors-general, receivers-general and attorneys-general. The entire executive and judiciary in a royal province was appointed directly or indirectly by the king. Its members held under commissions subject to the king's pleasure and were controlled by his instructions. The exclusiveness of the chartered jurisdictions no longer obtained, but the Crown through its officials was brought into direct relations with the body of the colonists. Government could now be carried on under relations analogous to those between Crown and people in England.
35. By the abolition of assemblies and the union of colonies on a large scale James II. did violence to the strongest feelings and traditions of the colonists. The New Englanders not only viewed the levy of taxes by prerogative with the utmost aversion, but they feared a general unsettlement of land titles, the destruction of much that was valuable in their system of town government, and the introduction of Anglican worship among them. They shared also in the fear, which was widespread among the colonists, that the Crown intended by an alliance with the French and Indians to force Roman Catholicism upon them. Therefore the fall of the Stuart government in England was the signal for an uprising at Boston (April 1689) followed by a less successful one at New York. The Dominion of New England at once collapsed and the old colony governments were generally restored. A revolt against the Catholic proprietor in Maryland resulted in the suspension of his powers of government and the organization of Maryland as a royal province. William III. granted a new charter to Massachusetts (1691) in which full provision was made for an assembly, but also for a governor and secretary of royal appointment. Rhode Island and Connecticut were allowed Colonial Reorganization. to remain under their corporate charters. New York and New Hampshire were organized as royal provinces with assemblies. Proprietary government struggled back into existence in New Jersey. In Pennsylvania the governmental powers of the proprietor were suspended for two years (1692-1694), because of his neglect of provision for defence; then they were restored and Pennsylvania continued under proprietary government until the War of Independence.
36. The transition from the system of chartered colonies to that of royal provinces was thus begun and well advanced towards completion. But it was a gradual process, and the later stages of it were not reached until the second decade of the 18th century. South Carolina became provisionally a royal province in 1719, and a parallel change was completed in North Carolina a decade later. Georgia received a royal government in 1752. But in 1715 Maryland was permitted to resume its proprietary form. After the Revolution of 1689 the change to royal governments did not involve in any case the abolition of colonial assemblies. Henceforward the Crown had a fully equipped executive in every royal province, and for the maintenance of its rights could depend upon its efforts and the influence which it was able to exert upon the assemblies. The governors exercised the royal rights of calling, proroguing and dissolving the assemblies; they assisted in initiating legislation and exercised the right of veto. All bills passed by the assemblies were required to be submitted to the king in council, for acceptance or disallowance. The upper houses of the legislature were the councils of the provinces. These were small bodies and consisted, in every case except Massachusetts, of royal appointees. Their support was in most cases given to the governors, and by that means they were greatly assisted in resisting the encroachments of the lower houses of assembly, which were elected by the freeholders. But, as a rule, the Crown made no provision for the salaries of its governors and other officials, and left them largely dependent for support on appropriations by the assemblies. In very many eases the withholding of salaries was successfully resorted to by the assemblies as a means of thwarting the executive or forcing it into submission. Under this system of balanced forces, analogous in general to that which was reached after the Revolution in England, the colonies entered upon the long period of the French wars.
C.—The Struggle with the French, 1690–1760.
37. Early French discoveries and colonization in North America were confined chiefly to the valley and gulf of the St Lawrence. These led, in the early 17th century, to the establishment of the province of Canada. By 1610 the French had possessed themselves of the valley of the lower St Lawrence, and the relations with the Indian tribes were being determined. During the next fifty years Canada grew slowly into an autocratically governed province, in which a mild form of feudalism existed and in which the Catholic Church was so strong as to contest supremacy at times with the civil power. The fur trade became from the first a most important industry in the province. The Jesuits and other priestly orders undertook missionary work on a large scale among the natives. The fur trader and the missionary soon extended French influence through the region of the Great Lakes and involved the province in intimate relations with the Indian tribes, and that throughout a large area of country. Between the Iroquois and the French wars were almost continuous, but with the other Indian tribes the French were in general on friendly terms. The Iroquois, on the other hand, maintained friendly relations with the Dutch and afterwards with the English. This deeply affected relations between the English and the French, as well as the entire development of the province of New York.
38. Exploration was a most important incident of both the fur trade and the missionary enterprises of the French. Between 1670 and 1690 their work culminated in the great exploring activity of Marquette, Joliet and La Salle. The Ohio and Mississippi rivers were discovered and their courses were mainly or wholly traced. Explorers also penetrated far into the regions beyond the Mississippi. Posts were established at various French Expansion. points along the Great Lakes. During the first two decades of the 18th century the French also established themselves on the Gulf of Mexico, Mobile being founded in 1702 and New Orleans in 1718.
