revision, to which the interests of English merchants and shipbuilders imparted consistency and durability.

No sooner had Spain and Portugal found their way round the Cape of Good Hope and to America than they claimed a monopoly of the traffic of the wider world, and the Roman religion, dividing it between them, forbade the intrusion of competitors by the pains of excommunication.

In Europe, the freedom of the seas was vindicated against Spain and Portugal by a state hardly yet recognised as independent, and driven by the stern necessity of its dense population to seek resources upon the water. Grotius, its gifted son, who first gave expression to the idea that "free ships make free goods," defended the liberty of commerce, and appealed to the judgment of all free governments and nations against the maritime restrictions, which humanity denounced as contrary to the principles of social intercourse, which justice derided as infringing the clearest natural rights, which enterprise rejected as a monstrous usurpation of the oceans and the winds. The relinquishment of navigation in the East Indies was required by Spain as the price at which its independence should be acknowledged, and the rebel republic preferred to defend its separate existence by arms rather than purchase security by circumscribing the courses of its ships. While the inglorious James of England was negotiating about points of theology, while the more unhappy Charles was struggling against the liberties of his subjects, the Dutch, a little confederacy, which had been struck from the side of Spain, a new people, scarcely known as a nation, had, by their superior skill, begun to engross the carrying trade of the world. Their ships were found in the harbors of Virginia, in the West Indian archipelago, in the south of Africa, among the tropical islands of the Indian Ocean, and even in the harbors of China and Japan. Their tradinghouses were planted on the Hudson and the coast of Guinea, in Java and Brazil. One or two rocky islets in the West Indies, in part neglected by the Spaniards as unworthy of culture, furnished these daring merchants a convenient shelter for a large contraband traffic with the terra firma. The freedom and the enterprise of Holland acquired maritime power, and skill and wealth, such as the monopoly of Spain could never command.

The causes of the commercial greatness of Holland were forgotten in envy at its success. It ceased to appear as the gallant champion of the freedom of the seas against Spain, and became envied as the successful rival. The English government resolved to protect the English merchant. Cromwell desired to confirm the maritime power of his country; and Saint-John, a Puritan and a republican in theory, though never averse to a limited monarchy, devised the first act of navigation, which, in 1651, the politic Whitelocke introduced and carried through parliament. Henceforward, the commerce between England and her colonies, between England and the rest of the world, was to be conducted in ships solely owned, and principally manned, by Englishmen. Foreigners might bring to England nothing but the products of their respective countries, or those of which their countries were the established staples. The act was levelled against Dutch commerce, and was but a protection of British shipping; it contained no clause relating to a colonial monopoly, or specially injurious to an American colony. Of itself it inflicted no wound on Virginia or New England. In vain did the Dutch expostulate against the act as a breach of commercial amity; the parlia ment studied the interests of England, and would not repeal laws to please a neighbor.

A naval war followed, which Cromwell desired, and Holland endeavored to avoid. Each people kindled with national enthusiasm; and the annals of recorded time had never known so many great naval actions in such quick succession. This was the war in which Blake and Ayscue and De Ruyter gained their glory; and Tromp fixed a broom to his mast, as if to sweep the English flag from the seas.

Cromwell aspired to make England the commercial emporium of the world. His plans extended to the acquisition of harbors in the Spanish Netherlands; France was obliged to pledge her aid to conquer, and her consent to yield, Dunkirk, Mardyke, and Gravelines; and Dunkirk, in the summer of 1658, was given up to his ambassador by the French king in person. He desired harbors in the North Sea and the Baltic, and an alliance with Protestant Sweden was to secure him Bremen and Elsinore and Dantzic. In the West Indies, he

aimed at obtaining Cuba; his commanders captured Jamaica ; and the attempt at the reduction of Hispaniola, then the chief possession of Spain among the islands, failed only through the incompetency or want of concert of his agents.

The protection of English shipping, thus established as a part of the British commercial policy, was the successful execution of a scheme which many centuries before had been attempted. In 1641, a new and most oppressive restriction on colonial commerce was inserted in the instructions of Sir William Berkeley. No vessel laden with colonial commodities might sail from the harbors of Virginia for any ports but those of England, that the staple of those commodities might be made in the mother country, and the king be secure of the customs which were his due. All trade with foreign vessels, except in case of necessity, was forbidden. At the moment this instruction was disregarded, but the system was sure to be revived, for it leagued together the English merchant and the English government in the oppression of those who for more than a century remained too feeble to offer effectual resist

ance.

The ordinance which was adopted in October, 1650, for reducing to obedience the colonies which adhered to the Stuarts, forbade all intercourse with them, except to those who had a license from parliament or the council of state. It excluded foreigners rigorously, and, in connection with the navigation act of the following year, it confirmed the monopoly of colonial commerce. This state of commercial law was modified by the manner in which the authority of the commonwealth was established. The force that was sent to reduce Barbadoes encountered, in 1652, a momentary resistance from the royalist government; but, on its surrender, the people found their liberties secured. One of their number, in a letter to Bradshaw, then president of the council of state, raised the question of coming times, saying: "The great difficulty is, how we shall have a representative with you in your government and our parliament. That two representatives be chosen by this island, to advise and consent to matters that concern this place, may be both just and necessary; for, if laws be imposed upon us without our personal or implied consent, we cannot be

accounted better than slaves, which, as all Englishmen abhor to see, so I am confident you detest to have them. This is so clear that I shall not need to enforce it with argument."

Of the commissioners whom the republican rulers of Great Britain elected to settle the authority of the English commonwealth in the Chesapeake, two of them, Richard Bennett and Clayborne, were taken from among the planters themselves; their instructions constituted them the pacificators and benefactors of their country. Only in case of resistance was war threatened; if Virginia would adhere to the commonwealth, she might be mistress of her own destiny. What opposition needed to be made to a power which seemed voluntarily to propose a virtual independence? No sooner had the Guinea frigate, in March, 1652, anchored in the waters of the Chesapeake, than "all thoughts of resistance were laid aside," and the colonists yielded by a voluntary deed and a mutual compact. It was agreed, upon the surrender, that the "PEOPLE OF VIRGINIA" should have all the liberties of the free-born people of England, should intrust their business, as formerly, to their own grand assembly, should remain unquestioned for their past loyalty, and should have "as free trade as the people of England." All this was confirmed by the Long Parliament; but the article which was to restore to Virginia its ancient bounds, and that which covenanted that no taxes, no customs, might be levied, except by their own representatives, no forts erected, no garrisons maintained, but by their own consent, were referred to a committee, and were never definitively acted upon.

Till the restoration, the colony of Virginia practically enjoyed liberties as large as the favored New England, and displayed equal fondness for popular sovereignty. The executive officers became elective; and so evident were the designs of all parties to promote an amicable settlement of the gov ernment, that Richard Bennett, himself a commissioner of the parliament, a merchant, and a Roundhead, was, on the recommendation of the other commissioners, unanimously chosen governor. The oath required of the burgesses made it their paramount duty to provide for "the general good and prosperity" of Virginia and its inhabitants. Under Berkeley's

administration, Bennett had been oppressed in Virginia; and now there was not the slightest effort at revenge.

The acts of 1652, which constituted the government, claimed for the assembly the privilege of defining the powers which were to belong to the governor and council, and the public good was declared to require "that the right of electing all officers of this colony should appertain to the burgesses," as "the representatives of the people." It had been usual for the governor and council to sit in the assembly; the expediency of the custom was questioned, and a temporary compromise ensued; they retained their former right, but were required to take the oath which was administered to the burgesses. The house of burgesses acted as a convention of the people, distributing power as the public welfare required.

Cromwell never made any appointments for Virginia. When, in 1655, Bennett retired, the assembly elected his successor, and Edward Diggs, who had before been chosen of the council, and who "had given a signal testimony of his fidelity to Virginia and to the commonwealth of England,” received the suffrages. Upon the report of a committee concerning the unsettled government of Virginia, the council of State in London nominated to the protector for the office of governor the very same man, as one who would satisfy all parties and interests among the colonists; but no evidence has been found that Cromwell acted upon the advice. The commissioners in the colony were chiefly engaged in settling the affairs and adjusting the boundaries of Maryland.

The right of electing the governor continued to be exercised by the representatives of the people, and, in 1658, Sam uel Matthews, son of an old planter, was chosen to the office But, from too exalted ideas of his station, he, with the coun cil, became involved in an unequal contest with the assembly by which he had been elected. The burgesses had enlarged their power by excluding the governor and council from their sessions, and, having thus reserved to themselves the first free discussion of every law, had voted an adjournment from April till November. The governor and council, by message, declared the dissolution of the assembly. The legality of the dissolution was denied, and, after an oath of secrecy, every