CHAP. expressed their sorrow, pouring out prayers for him as XI. he passed by; and the people shouted aloud, "God go 1662. with you." Arrived on the scaffold, he was observable 14. above all others by the intrepidity of his demeanor. June Surveying the vast surrounding multitude with composure, he addressed them, and sought to awaken in their souls the love of English liberty. His voice was overpowered with trumpets; finding he could not bear an audible testimony to his principles, he was not in the least disconcerted by the rudeness, but, in the serenity of his manner, continued to show with what calmness an honest patriot could die. With unbroken trust in Providence, he believed in the progress of civilization; and while he reminded those around him, that "he had foretold the dark clouds which were coming thicker and thicker for a season," it was still "most clear to the eye of his faith," that a better day would dawn in the clouds. "Blessed be God," exclaimed he, as he bared his neck for the axe, "I have kept a conscience void of offence to this day, and have not deserted the righteous cause for which I suffer." That righteous cause was democratic liberty; in the history of the world, he was the first martyr to the principle of the paramount power of the people; and, as he had predicted, "his blood gained a voice to speak his innocence." The manner of his death was the admiration of his times. Puritanism, with the sects to which it gave birth, ceased to sway the destinies of England. The army of Cromwell had displayed its power in the field; Milton, having shown the eloquence it could inspire, still lived to illustrate what poetry it could create, in works that are counted among the noblest productions of the human mind; Vane proved how fearlessly it could bear testimony for liberty in the face of death; XI. New England is the monument of its power to estab- CHAP. lish free states. The ancient institutions of England would not yield to new popular establishments; but the bloom of immortality belongs to the example of Vane, to the poetry of Milton, and, let us hope, to the institutions of New England. To New England, the revolutions in the mother country were not indifferent; the American colonies attracted the notice of the courts of justice in Westminster Hall. They were held, alike by the nature of the English constitution, and the principles of the common law, to be subordinate to the English parliament, and bound by its acts, whenever they were specially named in a statute, or were clearly embraced within its provisions. An issue was thus made between Massachusetts and England, for that colony had, as we have seen, refused to be subject to the laws of parliament, and had remonstrated against such subjection, as "the loss of English liberty." The Long Parliament had conceded the justice of the remonstrance. The judges, on the restoration, decreed otherwise, and asserted the legislative supremacy of parliament over the colonies without restriction. Such was the established common law of England.1 Immediately on the restoration of Charles II., the 1660 convention parliament granted to the monarch a subsidy of twelve pence in the pound, that is, of five per cent., on all merchandise exported from, or imported into, the kingdom of England, or " any of his majesty's dominions thereto belonging." Doubts arising, not 993 2 12 Charles II. c. iv. 3 Same expression in 2 Anne, c. ix.; 3 Anne, c. v.; and in 21 George II. c. ii. The expression does not include the colonies. 1 CHAP. Whether the power of parliament was co-extensive with XI. the English empire, but what territories the terms of 1660. the act included, they were interpreted to exclude "the dominions not of the crown of England." The tax was, also, never levied in the colonies; nor was it understood that the colonies were bound by a statute, unless they were expressly named.2 4 That distinctness was not wanting, when it was required by the interests of English merchants. The Navigation Act of the commonwealth had not been designed to trammel the commerce of the colonies; the convention parliament, the same body which betrayed the liberties of England, by restoring the Stuarts without conditions, now, by the most memorable statute3 in the English maritime code, connected in one act the protection of English shipping, and a monopoly to the English merchant of the trade with the colonies. In the reign of Richard II., the commerce of English ports had been secured to English shipping: the act of navigation of 1651 had done no more; and against it the colonists made no serious objection. The present act renewed the same provisions, and further avowed the design of sacrificing the natural rights of the colonists to English interests. "No merchandise shall be imported into the plantations but in English vessels, navigated by Englishmen, under penalty of forfeiture." The harbors of the colonies were shut against the Dutch, and every foreign vessel.-America, as the asylum of the oppressed, invited emigrants from the most varied climes. It was now enacted, that none but native or naturalized subjects should become a mer 1 Vaughan's Reports, 170. Compare Tyrwhit and Tyndale's Digest, xiii.-xv. Chalmers, p. 241, is not sustained in his inference. 2 Blackstone, 1. 107, 108; Chitty on Prerogative, 33. 3 12 Charles II. c. xvii. chant or factor in any English settlement; excluding CHAP. the colonists from the benefits of a foreign competition. XI. American industry produced articles for exportation; 1660. but these articles were of two kinds. Some were produced in quantities only in America, and would not compete in the English market with English productions. These were enumerated, and it was declared that none of them, that is, no sugar, tobacco, ginger, indigo, cotton, fustic, dyeing woods, shall be transported to any other country than those belonging to the crown of England, under penalty of forfeiture; and as new articles of industry of this class grew up in America, they were added to the list. But such other commodities as the English merchant might not find convenient to buy, the American planter might ship to foreign markets; the farther off the better; because they would thus interfere less with the trades which were carried on in England. The colonists were, therefore, by a clause in the navigation act, confined to ports south of Cape Finisterre. 2 Hardly had time enough elapsed for a voyage or two across the Atlantic, before it was found that the English merchant might derive still further advantages at the cost of the colonists, by the imposition of still further restraints. .A new law prohibited the importa- 1663 tion of European commodities into the colonies, except in English ships from England, to the end that England might be made the staple, not only of colonial productions, but of colonial supplies. Thus the colonists were compelled to buy in England, not only all English manufactures, but every thing else that they might need from any soil but their own. 1 Compare Adam Smith, b. iv. c. vii. p. iii. 2 15 Car. II. c. vil. CHAP. XI. 2 The activity of the shipping of New England, which should only have excited admiration, excited envy in the minds of the English merchants. The produce of the plantations of the southern colonies was brought to New England, as a result of the little colonial exchanges. To the extravagant fears of mercantile avarice, New England was become a staple.1 Parlia1672. ment, therefore, resolved to exclude New England merchants from competing with the English, in the markets of the southern plantations; the liberty of free traffic between the colonies was accordingly taken away; and any of the enumerated commodities exported from one colony to another, were subjected to a duty equivalent to the duty on the consumption of these commodities in England. By degrees, the avarice of English shopkeepers became bolder; and America was forbidden, by act of parliament, not merely to manufacture those articles which might compete with the English in foreign markets, but even to supply herself, by her own industry, with those articles which her position enabled her to manufacture with success for her own wants.3 Thus was the policy of Great Britain, with respect to her colonies, a system of monopoly, adopted after the example of Spain, and, for more than a century, inflexibly pursued, in no less than twenty-nine acts of parliament. The colonists were allowed to sell to foreigners only what England would not take; that so they might gain means to pay for the articles forced upon them by England. The commercial liberties of rising states were shackled by paper chains, and the 1 Chalmers, 262. See Hutch. Coll. 422. 2 25 Car. II. c. vii. 3 For example, 5 Geo. II. c. xxii. §7; and 23 Geo. II. c. xxix. |