1672 C. R., I, 219 The Assembly of 1672 ment prevailed. The administration of their government had been of the people and for the people. Their assemblies met regularly, and the laws were of their own making. The first dissatisfaction At the session of 1672 at least fifty-four acts were passed, which may, however, have embraced all former laws then. re-enacted. The fifty-fourth prohibited the sale of rum at a greater price than twenty-five pounds of tobacco per gallon; for the unit of value was the pound of tobacco, and taxes, rents, and debts were all payable in that commodity. This attempt to regulate prices, interfering with the freedom of trade, was soon found to be inexpedient, because if the traders could not make a greater profit on the rum, they would not bring in other commodities that were more necessary to the inhabitants. The next year, therefore, the act was repealed. Notwithstanding those features of the Grand Model that were inimical to freedom, there was probably no opposition to the introduction of the administrative changes which Carteret, under his instructions, put into operation. The people, few in number, somewhat scattered, occupied with their industries, probably did not at first greatly concern themselves with those provisions of the new constitution that were not to be carried into effect at once among them; but when they were required to take an oath to support it and to abide by it, and when one of its unalterable provisions was that their rent per acre, instead of one farthing per acre, payable in commodities, should be as much silver as is contained in a penny, they exhibited signs of dissatisfaction. They had just secured by the Great Deed the concession for appealed to which they had petitioned years before, that their rent should be like that in Virginia, and the proposed change must have aroused indignation. In the records of Perquimans is an entry showing that Francis Toms, Christopher Nicholson, and William Wyatt, being Quakers, did subscribe the Fundamental Constitutions, but they added a protest, how The Great DISCONTENT IN THE COLONY ever, that by accepting the Grand Model they should not be disannulled of the gracious grant given by the Lords Proprietors in their Great Deed to hold their lands according to the tenure of Virginia. Doubtless this protest but expressed the common sentiment of all the inhabitants. Besides, just at this time there were other causes of discontent arising from the navigation laws and customs duties, which if enforced would seriously interfere with the trade of the colony. But whatever was the occasion, dissatisfaction pervaded the settlement-a dissatisfaction so pronounced that Carteret could not stem it. The new element introduced into the council by the admission of five inhabitants appointed by the Assembly now changed the attitude of that body toward public measures and virtually brought it under the rule of the people themselves. The council was no longer in harmony with the governor. resigns III Carteret's efforts to compose differences were fruitless; he Carteret wearied of the attempt, and finally laid down his office and abandoned the colony. Before May, 1673, he sailed for England, leaving the administration, it is said, in ill order and worse hands. On May 25th, at a council held at the house of Thomas Godfrey, Carteret was absent and Colonel John Jenkins presided as deputy governor. 1672 1660 1663 CHAPTER X ADMINISTRATIONS OF JENKINS AND MILLER, 1673-78 The navigation acts.-The Board of Trade. The people murmur. Other causes of dissatisfaction.-An Indian war. The tobacco duty resisted.-The administration compromises.-Miller arrested.-Eastchurch goes to England.-Governor Jenkins deposed.— Eastchurch appointed governor.-Bacon's rebellion in Virginia.— A government by the people.-Eastchurch deputizes Miller.-Opposition to the navigation acts.-Durant resolves to revolt.-Miller acts resolutely.-Durant returns to Albemarle.-The crisis arrives.The revolt proceeds. The navigation acts Since the opening of the century there had been rapid progress in the art of manufacturing and in the development of the commercial interests of England. Fierce wars had been waged for the expansion of trade and for the establishment of commercial supremacy. The early navigation acts, strengthened by Cromwell's legislation, were initial movements in a system intended to secure the mercantile prosperity of England. And as the enterprising Dutch were now proving successful competitors in the colonial trade, there was in 1660 a further enactment, aimed at Holland, that all importations into the plantations should be in English ships. Because of that prohibition, Dutch vessels were no longer seen in American harbors, and the carrying trade was secured. But still there was direct intercourse between the colonies and European ports, and the London merchants did not reap all the advantage of the colonial trade. So three years later English statesmanship took a further step. The importation of European commodities into the colonies was prohibited unless shipped from England. In the interest of the London merchants, it was THE NAVIGATION ACTS BURDENSOME virtually enacted that the colonies could obtain foreign goods only from them. Still there was unrestrained trade between the colonies themselves. The Englishmen in New England could freely barter with their fellow-subjects of Albemarle, and that, indeed, was the chief source of supply for that colony. And it may be that the New England merchants evaded the navigation acts, and that a part of the European commodities brought to Albemarle had not come by way of London. At any rate, the growing mercantile importance of New England attracted attention, and in 1672 a blow was aimed to cripple it. An act was passed abridging the freedom of inter-colonial traffic. A duty was imposed on tobacco and certain other enumerated articles when exported from one colony to another. And tobacco was the staple in which payments were made. It was the basis of bills of credit. The duty imposed was a penny a pound, and to that extent the tax lessened the value of tobacco as a debt-paying commodity in the inter-colonial trade. Indeed, tobacco from the first had been the subject of particular regulation. Its culture in England was forbidden, and Charles I had taken to himself the entire production of the English colonies, at a price fixed by himself, and it paid a duty on being brought into England. If any obtained at Albemarle by the New England merchants was shipped to the continent, the king lost his taxes and New England obtained funds from abroad to pay for European commodities to be clandestinely brought into the colonies. To stifle this trade and to secure more funds for the deplenished purse of a needy sovereign this export tax was imposed, and it was to be collected by officers of the Crown. Indeed, the entire regulation of colonial affairs, being claimed as a royal prerogative, had on the Restoration been committed to the king's Privy Council. When Ashley became chancellor of the exchequer, in 1668, ever active in promoting national advancement, he procured the appointment of a Council of Commerce, to whom was assigned special charge of the colonies. In 1672 Ashley became lord high 1672 Origin 1673 chancellor and was created Earl of Shaftesbury, and in the same year this export tax was laid on tobacco. The Board of Trade But the Council of Commerce was inefficient, and later it was dissolved and its functions were transferred to a new board appointed to take charge of all matters relative to trade and the foreign plantations; and the immediate care of these affairs was committed to a few selected members, among them being Shaftesbury, Craven, Berkeley, and Colleton, four of the Proprietors of Carolina, while Landgrave Locke was their secretary. Such was the origin of this board that continued until the Revolution to manage the affairs of the American colonies. At the time of its creation the colonies were free to export their products, except tobacco and some other enumerated articles, in English ships, to the West Indies and elsewhere, and to import rum and salt and produce in return; and European commodities imported by one colony from England could be reshipped to another; tobacco could be exported from one colony to another on the payment of the export tax, and upon its importation into England an import duty was to be paid. But while these were the regulations, they had not been enforced. No customs officers had been appointed for Albemarle, and there had been no interference with the trade that enterprising New Englanders had established with Albemarle. Now there was to be a change; but Shaftesbury was no longer on the board. His zealous efforts to arrest the advance of Catholic influences had, in 1673, separated him from the other great officers of state, and in September of that year, having been dismissed from the office of lord chancellor, he became the popular leader and the central figure in the contest against Shaftesbury the measures of the court. Having carried through Parliament a bill forbidding Catholics to come within ten miles of London, the king, who was largely under Catholic influ |