CHARTER GOVERNMENT AGAIN RESUMED.—FRENCH WAR.—INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.—CHARGES AGAINST THE COLONIES.
Rhode Island had never hated Andros as bitterly as the other colonies had hated him, for the freedom of conscience which he endeavored to force upon them was in her a fundamental principle. But she loved her charter and rightly believed that it was the only sure pledge of her liberties. Therefore, when Dudley, the Chief-Justice, undertook to open his court, he was seized and put in jail. This was a bold casting off of the new government. The next step was a cautious return to the old. A letter from Newport came out calling upon the freemen of Rhode Island to meet there “before the day of usual election by charter,” to take counsel together concerning public affairs. When the day came the freemen met, and doubtless with all their usual freedom of debate, prepared a statement of their reasons for resuming their charter government. Party lines were already sharply drawn. On one side were the Royalists, led by the rich merchant, Francis Brinley, who opposed the resumption of the charter, and called for ageneral government by immediate appointment of the King. On the other were the Republicans, stronger both by number and by fervor of opinion. Their boldness secured the freedom of the Colony. In an address to “the present supreme power of England,” they gave their reasons for returning to their charter, and asked to have their action approved. Deputy-Governor Coggeshall, with several assistants, resumed their functions, but Governor Clarke, whose characteristic trait was caution, declined and the Colony was ten months without a governor.
Still, in May, all the old officers were reinstated and “all the laws superseded in 1686” resumed their place on the schedule. “The charter was produced in open Assembly” and then restored to Governor Clarke for safe keeping. When the question of the legality of the resumption of charter government came before the King, he approved it upon the written opinion of the law officers of the crown that “the charter, never having been revoked, but only suspended, still remained in full force and effect.” Heartily must Rhode Island and Connecticut have rejoiced that theirs had been so successfully guarded. In May came the welcome tidings that William and Mary had been acknowledged in England. They were promptly and joyfully acknowledged in the colonies. Dr. Increase Mather, a great name in Massachusetts, was in London on behalf of the colonies when the revolution broke out. He obtained an early audience of William and pleaded for the recall of Andros. The recall was granted, and after ten months of confinement the crestfallen Governor was sent to England for trial. But his conduct was viewed in a different light in the mother country from what it had been in the colonies. “The charges against him were dismissed by the royal order, on the ground of insufficiency—and that he had done nothing which was not fully justified by his instructions.” As a compensation for his long imprisonment, he was presently made Governor of Virginia.
In February, 1689–90, the Assembly met for the first time in four years and entered upon the work of organization. Seventeen deputies, together with the officers chosen in May, were present. Absentees were summoned. Clarke refused to serve as Governor. Christopher Almy also declined. The bold but aged Henry Bull was chosen in his stead. After some hesitation Clarke gave up the charter and other official papers. Funds which had been appropriated to the building of a Colony House were held by Roger Goulding, who promptly paid them over. Andros had broken the original colonial seal. A new seal, Hope with her anchor, was procured. Rhode Island’s exposed situation laid her open to attacks by sea, and thus imposed the necessity of new expenses. War had broken out between England and France, and the colonies were to come in for their share of war’s sufferings. Somefear was felt of the colony in Frenchtown, and the few survivors of the unfortunate settlement were required to repair to the office of John Greene, in Warwick, and take the oath of allegiance to the King.
Thus the government was regularly organized and public business began to move on in its accustomed track. At the May session of 1690 Governor Bull declined a reelection, and John Easton was chosen in his place. John Greene was chosen Deputy-Governor. One more was added to the list of assistants, who thus became ten. Here ends the probation of Rhode Island.
Poor and weak, through toil and sacrifice, in spite of internal dissensions and external enmities, calumniated for the great truth on which she was founded, coveted for the beautiful territory which she had redeemed from the wilderness, she had solved the problem of self-government and proved that the religious virtues may flourish without the aid of civil authority. The struggle for existence is over. She now enters through industry upon the path to wealth and culture.
The sessions of the Assembly had been held hitherto in taverns or private houses. But now a proper edifice, the town house, is built for public use and the public meetings are held in it. Thus far, also, the governor, the deputy-governor and the assistants have received no compensation for their services. They are henceforth exempted from the Colony tax. War with theFrench and Indians was raging all along the northern frontier. New York was the colony most exposed. Leister, her Governor, called on the other colonies for aid. Rhode Island, whose extensive water fronts left her open to attacks by sea, could not send men, and therefore taxed herself three hundred pounds to send money. The wisdom of this course was soon apparent. Seven French privateers made a descent upon the islands on the coast, committing horrible excesses. Bonfires were kindled at Pawcatuck to alarm the country, and a sloop well manned sent out from Newport to reconnoitre. A night attempt was made upon the town but failed. One upon New London was repulsed. Two sloops carrying ninety men were sent out under Thomas Paine and John Godfrey to fight the enemy. A bloody battle which lasted two hours and a half followed, and the French were driven off with the loss of half their crews and a valuable prize. Block Island was particularly exposed during this war. Four attacks were made upon it, the inhabitants ill treated and their cattle driven off. In the last invasion the privateersmen were defeated in “an open pitched battle.”
The war pressed so heavily on the commercial interests of the community that it was found necessary to lay a tonnage duty of a shilling a ton upon the vessels over ten tons burthen of other colonies that broke bulk in Newport harbor. The payment might be made in money or inpowder, at the rate of a shilling a pound, and the products of the duty were employed in keeping up a powder magazine on the island. Rhode Islanders had not yet learnt to pay their taxes promptly, and more than once the Assembly was called together to devise the means of collecting sums already voted. The tonnage duty was a welcome, though a small contribution, to the scanty resources of the little Colony. A few years later a new source was opened by the levy of a duty upon foreign wines, liquors and molasses—that upon molasses being a half-penny a gallon. In the August session of 1698 an elaborate tax law in twelve sections was enacted, and a tax of eight hundred pounds currency was voted. By this act a poll tax of a shilling a head was imposed upon all males between sixteen and sixty. But this, also, was not easily collected, and years passed before an adequate method of taxation was devised and applied.
Shortly after the return to the charter the small-pox broke out. “Rhode Island is almost destroyed by the small-pox,” says a cotemporary letter. When the Assembly met they were unable to open the session with the prescribed formalities, for the only copy of the charter was in the keeping of the recorder, who was sick with the dreaded disease, and the reading of the charter was the first step towards organization. When the pestilence was passed, the attention of legislation was directed to the militia laws, which were revised and brought more into harmony with thematerial wants of the Colony. In this connection it may not be out of place to remember that the town house was enlarged and a belfry added to it. Government was gradually putting on the external forms of authority.
In 1691 a change occurred on the eastern border which threatened her inter-colonial relations. Plymouth was merged in Massachusetts, which was thus brought into larger contact with Rhode Island. Sir William Phipps, a native of Massachusetts, was appointed Governor, with a commission which gave him command over all the forces of New England, by land and by sea—a flagrant violation of the charters of Rhode Island and Connecticut, and which was vigorously repelled. Older grievances were not entirely healed. Some Pawcatuck men asked to be placed under the laws of Connecticut. The leaven of the Atherton company dispute had not yet spent its force. But the change of tone in the language of the correspondence shows that the bitterness which had distinguished its early stages was gradually passing away.
This (1692) was the time of the witchcraft trials in Massachusetts, a delusion in which Rhode Island did not share, for though she gave witchcraft a place on her statute books as a tribute to a superstition of the age, she never brought it into her courts. She was busied with more important questions.
Phipps was urging his claim to command the New England forces. John Greene, now Deputy-Governor, went to Boston with one of the assistants to discuss the matter. They got no satisfaction from the aspiring governor, either upon the question of command or upon the equally important question of the boundary line. The whole matter was referred to the Board of Trade and by them to the Attorney-General, who decided in favor of Rhode Island. A distinction, however, was made between peace and war. In time of war the commander-in-chief might, in conjunction with the governor, call out the quota prescribed by the Board of Trade. Rhode Island’s quota for service under the Governor of New York was forty-eight men. The eastern boundary question was referred to the New York Council as being disinterested and near the spot. The Narragansett dispute though so often decided in favor of Rhode Island, still reappeared from time to time. Several years were yet to pass before the boundaries both on the east and the west were definitively settled and the stout little Colony secured in the possession of her own territory. I shall no longer attempt to follow the story through its obscure ramifications. It has served thus far to illustrate colonial life, and show with what tenacity of purpose and devotion to a great principle Rhode Island followed up her labor of organization. It was the border war of our colonial history.
The necessity of regular communication between the colonies began to be seriously felt, and part of John Greene’s mission to Boston in 1692 was tonegotiate the establishment of a post office. Early in the following year Thomas Neale, acting under patent from the King, established a weekly mail from Boston to Virginia. Rhode Island came in for her share of the advantage. The rate of postage upon a single inland letter from Boston to Rhode Island was sixpence. And thus was woven one of the first links in the chain which, before another century was passed, had bound all the colonies in an indissoluble union.
We have seen a gradual approach towards a just comprehension of the relations of the state to its officers. The decisive step was taken in 1695, when a salary of ten pounds was voted to the governor, six pounds to the deputy-governor, four pounds to the assistants and three shillings a day to the deputies while in session. Absentees forfeited twice their pay.
In the following year an important change was made in the organization of the Assembly, the deputies becoming a separate house coordinate with the assistants, each house occupying a separate room and having a veto upon the action of the other. It will help to form a correct idea of daily life in the country if I add that a bounty of ten shillings was paid for killing old wolves, and of the seaports and sea coast that privateers were fitted out from them with very irregular commissions. Blackbirds fared hard in Portsmouth, where every householder was required to kill twelve before the tenth of May, under penalty of two shillings, and with a premium of a shillinga head for all over twelve. This was to serve as a protection for fields. But the serious danger was from the Indians, for the treaty of Ryswick gave for sometime but an imperfect peace to the colonies. Inroads of Indians were frequent and sudden. Never had the councils of war been more active or more constantly in session, and never had the men who were fit for service been more constantly under arms. Scouting parties of ten men were sent out every two days to serve beyond the limits of the plantations. Such were the trials of the second generation of colonizers.
The violation of the acts of trade and lax dealing with privateers became so flagrant that the home government after many vain complaints resolved to establish courts of admiralty in all the colonies. The attorney-general was consulted and said there was nothing in their charters to prevent it. The colonial agents, exerted themselves earnestly to ward off the blow, but without success, and when the Rhode Island agent, Jahleel Brenton, returned in December, 1697–8, he brought a commission to Peleg Sandford as Judge, and to Nathaniel Coddington as Register. Governor Clarke opposed it and tried to induce the Assembly to join in the opposition. Brenton advised that he should be impeached, whereupon Clarke resigned in favor of his nephew, Samuel Cranston.
The Colony was entering upon a new period of trial and danger. The enemies of her chartered rights were numerous and powerful, and unhappily for her were supported in their charges by a dangerous array of specious evidence. The rival interests were represented by men admirably fitted for their respective tasks. The Royal Governor of Massachusetts, Lord Bellemont, a man of singular ability and strength of character, represented the party that would have made New England a vice-royalty. Cranston, firm, resolute and self-possessed, held that Rhode Island under the protection of her charter had fully proved her capacity for self-government.
The great interest at stake was the interest of trade. Domestic trade was fostered and protected. Peddling was prohibited as injurious to regular traffic. Pains were taken to secure uniformity of weights and measures. In all this no power was assumed which the spirit if not the letter of the charter did not fully grant. But the act of navigation had raised up an enemy to foreign trade which in time of war encouraged privateering and in time of peace led to piracy. The treaty of Ryswick left many hardy spirits afloat, greedy for gold and unscrupulous in their pursuit of it.
The American coast offered great facilities for smuggling, and it was only as smugglers that pirates or privateersmen could convert their prizes into money. Much of this money it is said was buried in retired nooks of the inlets and bays along the coast. The royal revenues suffered greatly by this illicit trade, and the royal agents accused the colonists of openly favoring it. “Thepeople of New York,” wrote Lord Bellemont to the Board of Trade, “have such an appetite for piracy and unlawful trade that they are ready to rebel as often as the government puts the law in execution against them.” Rhode Island was held to be a favorite resort of these bold adventurers. Both Cranston her Governor, and John Greene her Deputy-Governor were accused of favoring them. Greene, who had been elected ten years in succession, was dropped in 1700, but Cranston was reëlected from year to year, thirty years in succession.
Meanwhile Bellemont, whose hostility was embittered by the instigations of Randolph, went on collecting document upon document, till the formidable list amounted to twenty-five heads of accusation—chief of which was connivance with pirates—and, as he wrote to the Board of Trade, “making Rhode Island their sanctuary.” Should the Board of Trade accept these accusations, what could preserve the Colony from a quo warranto? Nothing did save her but the death of the Royal Governor.
To this period belongs the story of Captain Kidd, long the subject of many a fearful tradition and all the more widely known from having exchanged an admiral’s flag for the black flag of the corsair. After a wild and adventurous career in the Indian ocean he came to the American coast, and showing himself boldly in the streets of Boston was arrested, sent to England for trial and hanged.
COLONIAL PROSPERITY.—DIFFICULTIES OCCASIONED BY THE WAR WITH THE FRENCH.—DOMESTIC AFFAIRS OF THE COLONY.
If we may judge the prosperity of the Colony by the increase of taxation—and taxes it must be remembered were self-imposed—we shall find that Rhode Island at the beginning of the new century had made real if not rapid progress in all the branches of national prosperity. Her population in 1702 was estimated at ten thousand, exclusive of Indians. She drew supplies from foreign ports in bottoms of her own, and raised the staples of life on her own farms. Her citizens were merchants, farmers, fishermen and sailors. There was a beginning, also, of manufactures—to the sore displeasure of the Board of Trade.
We perceive, also, by the same test that Providence had regained the relative position which she had lost during Philip’s war, and was once more the second town of the Colony.
The soul liberty of which I have spoken so often had borne rich fruits. Baptists, Quakers, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Puritans and Sabbatarians had their respective places of worship and their independent pastors. Among theBaptist pastors we find John Clarke. Among the Congregationalists Samuel Niles, a native of Block Island, and the first Rhode Islander that graduated at Harvard. In 1704 the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts sent out James Honeyman to build up an Episcopal church in the southern part of the Colony. He found much to do as rector of Trinity, in Newport, and missionary to Freetown, Tiverton and Little Compton on the main. His memory is still preserved in Episcopal traditions and Honeyman’s Hill, the highest land in the southern extremity of the island, is a familiar name to the inhabitants of Newport. In 1706 an Episcopal society was founded in Kingston, with Rev. Christopher Bridge for rector. So well was the work on the church done, that after remaining where it was built ninety-three years, it was removed to Wickford, where it is still used under the name of the Church of St. Paul. One of the most interesting of these denominations was that of the Sabbatarians, or Seventh-day Baptists, who had also a flourishing church in Westerly. To meet their peculiar views two weekly market days were, set apart for them.
The meetings and acts of the Assembly still continue to form the principal record of our history. The Assembly itself claimed equal rights with those exercised by Parliament over its own members, and at a special session in 1701, suspended an assistant who had married a coupleillegally and refused to acknowledge his error. The Board of Trade had more than once called for a printed copy of the laws of the Colony, and as a proof that they were regularly administered Governor Cranston sent a full statement of the mode of procedure in all the courts. I have already spoken of Lord Bellemont’s plan for the formation of a great vice-royalty over all the colonies, including the Bahama Islands. After his death this wild scheme, fatal to the freedom and prosperity of British America, was revived by Dudley. The irregular administration of the navigation laws was the chief pretext, and it probably was held to be a sufficient concession to freedom that the local government was left in the hands of the colonial assemblies. A bill for this purpose was drawn up near the close of William’s reign and brought forward early in that of Anne.
But the rights of the colonies were boldly and ably defended by Sir Henry Ashurst, the agent of Connecticut, and the fatal bill rejected after a full discussion. Dudley himself, however, was in high favor. He was appointed Governor and Vice-Admiral of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and what was still more objectionable Vice-Admiral of Rhode Island and King’s Province, a fruitful source of jealousies and bickerings.
Meanwhile the Assembly went on in its work of legislation, taking advantage of its experience to correct old errors, and gradually adapting thelaws to the increasing wants of society. At the May session of 1701 we find justices of the peace first mentioned in connection with a general election. Thirteen were then appointed. In the same session a resolution for the reörganization of the militia law was again brought forward and the law of marriage revised and made more stringent. New powers were given the governor for enforcing the navigation act. Progress had been made towards a correct estimate of the obligations of society to its officers. The governor’s salary was raised to forty pounds—a sum much increased during the year by special gratuities. The recorder was forbidden to practice at the bar except in cases which concerned himself or the town or Colony. Protection against vagrants was sought in a rigid vagrant act, extending to comers from other colonies, deserters from the King’s service and “passengers brought in by sea and landed without consent of the authorities.”
The short lived treaty of Ryswick was broken, and in the May session of 1702 preparations were made for the defence of Newport harbor by building a fort on Goat Island. In the town itself a battery was erected near the ground now occupied by the Union Bank. The funds for these defences were to be drawn from “forfeitures to the treasury and the gold plate and money taken from convicted pirates.” The pay of the garrison at the fort was fixed at twelve pounds a year, with rations. Scouts, that essential element ofevery good army, but especially necessary where the enemy were part Indians, received three shillings a day while in active service. The spirit of adventure was awakened. Captain William Wanton, of Portsmouth, took out a commission as privateersman and brought in several valuable prizes.
In September Dudley undertook to take command of the Rhode Island troops—about two thousand men in all, and coming to Newport directed that they should be called out in his name. The calm but firm resistance of Governor Cranston and Major Martindale thwarted his usurpation, and he left the town in disgust.
In 1703 the long boundary line contest between Rhode Island and Connecticut was brought to a close, and Rhode Island confirmed in the jurisdiction over Narragansett which had been assigned to her in the arbitration of Clarke and Winthrop. Much of this was owing to the staunch loyalty of the men of Westerly, where its good effects were immediately felt. Yet so little were the true interests of the colonies understood by their transatlantic rulers, that it was not till twenty-three years later that the decision of the Commissioners was formally approved by the King.
This failure to comprehend the character and interest of the colonies showed itself in various ways, but in none more offensively than in the attempt of the Board of Trade to make Dudley Governor of Rhode Island by royal appointment.But fortunately for Rhode Island, the powerful William Penn had been enlisted on her side, and the Queen’s Council refused to accept the recommendation of the Board of Trade.
Another question which menaced serious danger to the Colony by placing it in a false position towards the mother country arose from the war. How far was she bound to send troops to the support of her sister colonies? Dudley claimed them for the defence of the Massachusetts frontier, Lord Cornberry for that of New York. Rhode Island pointed to her long water front, broken by bays and coves and constantly exposed to the fleets and privateers of the enemy, and claimed that she needed her men for her own protection. As a proof, however, of her willingness to do all that could justly be asked of her, she appealed to her past conduct and to the fact that during the last seven years she had spent nearly a thousand pounds a year for military purposes.
The war bore hardly upon the resources of the Colony. A French fleet was expected on the coast. Scouts were constantly on the look-out. Block Island was garrisoned. The fleet did not come, but one incident occurred which, though upon a small scale, brought out in strong colors the maritime spirit of the Colony. A French privateer in a cruise off Block Island took a sloop laden with provisions. The news reached the Governor the next day. In two hours twosloops, manned by one hundred and twenty volunteers, and commanded by Captain John Wanton, were on their way in pursuit of the enemy, and in less than three hours more took her, recaptured her prize and brought both safe into Newport.
The current of our history still continues to flow in a narrow channel. Each new session of the Assembly added to the body of the laws and met new wants. Newport had no charter. One was granted her by special statute. The other towns held theirs by grants of the Assembly. The subject of a court of chancery began to attract attention in 1705, but was held to be premature, and its duties were still left for the present with the Assembly.
Boundary questions still continued to occupy the Assembly and annoy the inhabitants of the border. The northern boundary brought Rhode Island into direct collision with Massachusetts, which was now the heiress of the claims of Plymouth. Commissioners were appointed who made no report, and it was only by slow steps that the Colony assumed its permanent form and dimensions.
Among the laws which were brought every day to every door was the law which made the price of wheat the standard of the price of bread. Every baker was required to have his trade mark and make every loaf of a specified weight. The bread that fell short was forfeited to the poor.
As an aid to commerce the Colony granted the control of the shores of all the waters comprised within a township to the town itself. This led to the building of wharves and store houses, and added to the wealth of the town.
In the midst of the progressing civilization we find occasional traces of barbarism. A slave had murdered his mistress with circumstances which aggravated the crime, and despairing of escape drowned himself. A fortnight after his body came ashore at Little Compton, and “the Assembly ordered that his head, legs and arms should be hung up in some public place near Newport, and his body be burnt to ashes.”
We now meet the odious slave-trade, carefully watched over and protected by England as a source of wealth, but generally disliked by planters for “the turbulent and unruly tempers” of its miserable victims. Rhode Island drew most of her slaves from Barbadoes at the rate of twenty or thirty a year, and sold them at the average price of from thirty to forty pounds each. The moral question had not yet come up, but according to the old record the trade did not flourish because the people “in general” preferred white servants to black.
In 1708 the first census was taken by order of the Board of Trade, giving for result seven thousand one hundred and eighty-one inhabitants, of whom one thousand and fifteen were freemen. The militia amounted to one thousand threehundred and sixty-two. There were fifty-six white servants and four hundred and twenty-six black.
In the same year we meet for the first time, “vendue masters” and public auctions. The subject of “a uniform value for foreign coins in the colonies” was discussed in Parliament, and made the subject of a circular letter from the Board of Trade. The increase of the settlements made it necessary to provide for the Indians. A committee was appointed to confer with Ninigret about lands for his tribe, the Niantics, and choose the site of a new town in Narragansett.
I have already spoken of the judicial functions of the Assembly. They had increased so much that it was deemed necessary to impose a tax of two pounds upon every appellant before his case could be taken up.
The reports to the Board of Trade and the commutation table of taxation throw much light upon the commercial and agricultural progress of the Colony. In the commutation roll Indian coin was rated at “two shillings a bushel, barley at one and eightpence, rye at two and sixpence, oats at fourteen pence, wheat at three shillings, and wool at ninepence a pound.” From the statistical reports to the Board of Trade, we learn that the annual “exports sent to England by way of Boston amounted to twenty thousand pounds; that the principal direct trade was by the West Indies; and that within the past twenty years the amountof shipping had increased six-fold.” This increase it was said was owing to the superiority of the colonial shipwrights.
Eighty-four vessels of all sizes had been built in the Colony within eleven years. The population was divided. Aquidneck “was taken up in small farms,” and the young men took to the sea.
In 1709 a printing press was set up in Newport and a public printer appointed. This pioneer printer was the son of a New York printer named Bradford, who offered to do the public printing of the Colony for fifty pounds a year. The offer was accepted for one year.
The war dragged heavily on, eating into the resources of the Colony and driving her to that most fatal of all expedients, the issue of paper money. A great expedition against Canada was planned, and failed. Rhode Island, which had been very active in raising men and supplies and had taxed herself liberally, shared the common disappointment.
The next attempt was more successful. A fleet of twelve ships of war and twenty-four transports sailed from Nantasket roads on the 18th of September, reached Port Royal in six days and took it after a short siege. The colonists were very happy. The name of Port Royal was changed to Annapolis, the city of Anna. The martial spirit of the colonies was roused and in the following year, 1711, they eagerly entered into the plans of the English ministry for the invasion of Canada. But although the greatest exertions were made the expedition failed.
Meanwhile the Assembly still continued its labor of legislation. The Court of Trials adopted the course which had been established two years before by the Court of Appeals, and began to charge a fee before entering a case upon the docket. Education was a subject of legislative interest. In Newport the public school was placed in charge of the town council, and provision made for opening a Latin school under Mr. Galloway. Various other minor incidents show the progress of the Colony. Public highways were a subject of general attention in Newport. Providence, which lay on the bank of a navigable river, was more directly interested in bridges. Names were given to the streets and alleys, and, as an element in the growth of the Colony, it may not be uninteresting to know that the first town crier was appointed in 1711. As an encouragement to commerce all “river craft trading as far as Connecticut” were exempted from custom dues, and no fees were exacted for free goods. The profits of the navigation act, as has already been stated, had been seriously affected by clandestine traders. To guard against this evil a law was passed requiring “all persons resident for three months in the Colony and intending to leave, to advertise their intention ten days before hand, so that their creditors might have due notice.”
PAPER MONEY TROUBLES.—ESTABLISHMENT OF BANKS.—PROTECTION OF HOME INDUSTRIES.—PROPERTY QUALIFICATIONS FOR SUFFRAGE.
The treaty of Utrecht gave peace to England and her dependencies, leaving them free to follow out the peaceful development of commerce and manufactures. War had brought on paper money, which was first issued to meet the expenses of the second expedition against Port Royal. This first issue was of five thousand pounds in bills of from five pounds to two shillings, equal in value as far as legislation could make them so, “to current silver of New England, eight shillings to the ounce. They were to be received in all payments due the treasury, to be redeemed in specie at the end of five years,” and meanwhile were secured by an “annual tax of a thousand pounds.” To counterfeit or deface them was felony. Further issues of eight thousand pounds were made by the end of the war, and secured by new taxes. Thus was opened the great gulf which was to swallow the fruits of much laborious industry.
The Assembly made another step towards its present form by electing a clerk outside the house. The pay of this first clerk was six shillings a day.
The military stores which had been collected during the war were divided into two classes. Those of a perishable nature were sold. The rest were carefully stored away to be ready for the chances of another war. “The cannon were tarred and laid on logs on the governor’s wharf.” The garrison of Fort Anne was dismissed. The labors of peace began. Increased attention was given to public highways. The old road which ran through the Colony from Pawtucket to Pawcatuck was repaired, and a new one opened to Plainfield through Warwick and West Greenwich. But in this the enterprise of the Colony outran its wants, and the new road was soon abandoned.
As we follow the sessions of the Assembly we find acts for the repression of litigation renewed three times in five years. The provision of the charter by which commissioned militia officers were to be elected by the Assembly had been neglected for more than a generation, and the elections made by the towns. While the population was small and most of the inhabitants freemen this mode of election proved good. But with the increase of population disputes and difficulties arose, and in 1713 a new law was passed in accordance with the provisions of the charter. But after a short trial and in spite of the protest of the governor and four assistants, the old law was revised.
One of the difficult questions of legislationcame before the Assembly of 1713. Merchants had exported grain too freely and the home market began to feel the drain. The Assembly interfered, and not only forbade further exportation but set a tariff of prices for the markets of the Colony. An account of the stock of provisions in Newport was taken. The price of wheat was ten shillings and sixpence a bushel, of rye five shillings, of corn and barley four shillings, and of flour and biscuit thirty shillings a hundred.
Among the laws of trade which were passed at this time was a stringent law against peddlers, prohibiting them from selling dry goods under heavy penalties. But the apple of discord which divided the whole community was paper money. All New England was disturbed by it. In Massachusetts there were three parties, each very bitter against the other. Smallest of the three was the hard money party, which insisted upon withdrawing the bills of credit and putting all business transactions upon a metallic basis. The other two were in favor of banks, but of banks founded upon very different principles. One advocating a private, the other a public bank system. By the former bills of credit secured upon real estate were to be issued by the company and received by its members as money, but without any fixed relation to gold and silver. The other advocated a public bank, with bills to be loaned by government on mortgage of realestate and paying an annual interest for the support of government. Each party represented a distinct class. The hard money party was composed of men for the most part free from debt and ready to pay their way in cash. The private bank party were owners of real estate who were unable to use it to advantage for meeting their engagements. The hard money party after a severe struggle coalesced with these, and a “bank or loan of fifty thousand pounds” was established for five years.
In Rhode Island there were but two parties—the hard money party and the paper money party. The struggle was long and bitter, and ended by the adoption of the public bank system of Massachusetts. The contest was felt in the elections, each party striving to secure an Assembly favorable to itself. In the May election of 1714 “the specie party triumphed.” Twenty-two deputies out of twenty-eight lost their seats. An act had been passed requiring the treasurer to burn two thousand bills of credit. He disobeyed and lost his place. Bills to the amount of one thousand one hundred and two pounds eight shillings and sixpence were collected and burnt.
In the new election the paper money question still agitated the public mind. Only five out of the old members were returned to the Assembly. Of the assistants only one. Joseph Jenckes was chosen Deputy-Governor in the place of Henry Tew. So complete was the change that it wascalled “the great revolution.” Yet amid all these changes Governor Cranston held his place.
The death of Queen Anne and accession of George I. excited little attention in the colonies. South Carolina was suffering from the Yemassee war, which brought new emigrants to Rhode Island, and among them some females of Huguenot origin who had their Indian slaves with them. Their coming seems to have been acceptable, for the Assembly upon petition remitted to them the importation tax. The population was not yet sufficient to protect farmers from wolves and foxes. The old bounty was increased, and rewards were offered by Portsmouth for blackbirds and crows, and by Providence for gray squirrels and rats. A few years later still higher bounties were offered for wild-cats and bears.
The great public question was still the question of the bank, and we have already seen that the form adopted was that of public banks. In the July session of 1715 a bank or loan of thirty thousand pounds was established, which in a later session was raised to forty thousand. “Bills from five pounds to one shilling were issued and proportioned among the towns.” Whoever could give good mortgage security could claim a loan. But the interest instead of being secured by bond and mortgage was secured by bond alone, and thus the greater part of it was eventually lost, a very serious defect in the system, for itwas from this interest that the bills were to be redeemed and the expenses of government paid. We shall meet this subject again, but never in a pleasant form.
It is interesting to see by what devices the increasing wants of the Colony was met. Newport had wants of her own as “the metropolitan town of the Colony.” The street leading to the Colony House needed paving, and to meet the expenses a grant was made of funds drawn from the duty on imported slaves. Other streets were paved and a bridge built over Potowomut River by funds drawn from the same source.
The criminal code also, grows with the Colony. Fraudulent voting is punished with fine, whipping or imprisonment. To facilitate detection every voter was required to endorse his name in full on his ballot. A large proportion of the crimes in the Colony were committed by Indian slaves. The fear of punishment was an insufficient protection against this class of criminals, and a law was passed prohibiting their introduction into the Colony.
We have seen that Newport and Providence made early provision for schools. Portsmouth followed their example, and “having considered how excellent an ornament learning is to mankind,” made in 1716 an appropriation for building a school-house. The experiment was successful, and six years later two others were built—one of them sixteen feet square, the other thirty by twenty-five.
It is deserving of remark that in this young society slander was not suffered to go unpunished. A Gabriel Bernon had brought a false accusation against one of the assistants. He was compelled to make “a written acknowledgment to the injured party,” and ask pardon in writing of the Assembly which he had treated with disrespect on his examination.
The condition of the Indians called for legislative interference. On the petition of Ninigret their lands were taken under the protection of the Colony, and overseers appointed to lease them for the benefit of the tribe and remove trespassers. The following year an attempt was made to enforce temperance among them by increasing the difficulty of their obtaining liquor on credit.
The militia law was revised from time to time and various changes introduced. In that of 1718 the governor was styled “Captain-General and Commander-in-Chief,” and the deputy-governor “Lieutenant-General.”
It will be remembered that colonial laws were required to conform as far as possible to English laws. The colonial legislatures put a large interpretation upon this provision, and in providing for the estates of intestates modified materially the law of primogeniture. The eldest son, instead of the whole estate, received only a double share—one-third being given to the widow and the remainder divided among the children.
The Board of Trade had repeatedly called fora complete copy of the laws, and the Assembly had appointed more than one committee to revise and print them. It was not, however, till 1719 that the work was taken seriously in hand. That it should have been printed in Boston shows how old prejudices were passing away. This first edition was distributed among the towns and the Assembly.
Boundary questions revive from time to time. The northern boundary gave rise to bitter discussions, and though often on the point of being decided, was not really brought to a decision for several years. The western boundary, also, had been practically decided in favor of Rhode Island. But this question, too, was reöpened, and the uncertainties and inconveniences which such disputes engender idly prolonged to the sore annoyance of the inhabitants of the border. How imperfectly the serious nature of the question was understood in England may be seen by the proposition of the Privy Council that both Rhode Island and Connecticut should surrender their charters and be annexed to New Hampshire. It was not till 1727 that Westerly knew whether she belonged to Connecticut or to Rhode Island.
Protection begins about this time to manifest itself as essential to the success of domestic industry. Acts also were passed for the protection of river fisheries. The manufacture of nails and hemp duck were encouraged—nails by a loan and duck by a bounty. With the increase of population new guarantees were required to secure purity of suffrage. In the winter of 1724 the freehold act was passed “requiring a freehold qualification of the value of one hundred pounds, or an annual income of two pounds derived from real estate to enable any man to become a freeman.” With modification of detail but none of principle, this law held its place on the statute book for a hundred and twenty years. “Freemen of the towns who were not freemen of the Colony were allowed to vote for deputies.”
In 1721 a new bank or loan for forty thousand pounds was established upon the same principle as the first. Hemp and flax were received in payment of interest. Specie had become so scarce that an English half-penny passed for three half-pence, and it was soon manifest that the introduction of paper money had raised prices and encouraged speculation in land.
But nothing occurred to break the monotony of colonial life so important as the capture in 1723 of a pirate schooner and the trial of her crew by a court of admiralty. Twenty-six of the prisoners were condemned to death, hanged at Gravelly or Bull’s Point, and buried on Goat Island between high and low water mark.
One of the important events of 1722–3, and which must be considered as a favorable indication of the increase of population was the division of Kingston into two towns. In 1724 the failure of the crops led again to the prohibition of the exportation of grain. Two thousand bushels of Indian corn were bought on public account and sold to the people at low prices. In Newport no one was allowed to have more than four bushels at a time—in the other towns not more than eight. The temperance question, also, began to attract attention at an early day, and various efforts were made to check drunkenness. Among them was an act prohibiting the selling of liquor to common drunkards, and to ensure the carrying out of the act town councils were required to post in their own and the neighboring towns those who came under it. In nothing, however, was the progress of the Colony more evident than in the growth of the religious sentiments. The soul liberty of its founder had been mistaken for license. Towards the close of the seventeenth century Cotton Mather had written: “Rhode Island is a colluvies of Antinomians, Familists, Anabaptists, Anti-Sabbatarians, Arminians, Socinians, Quakers, Ranters, everything in the world but Roman Catholics and true Christians.” A quarter of a century later he wrote: “Calvinists with Lutherans, Presbyterians with Episcopalians, Pedobaptists with Anabaptists, beholding one another to fear God and work righteousness, do with delight sit down together at the same table of the Lord.” In strict accordance with the fundamental principle of the Colony the pay of the clergy was made by voluntary contribution of their parishioners.
We have recorded the deaths of Williams and Clarke. In April, 1727, Governor Samuel Cranston followed them to the grave, leaving no public man so universally loved behind.
It is a proof of the progress of the Colony that vagrants and “mad persons” began to be provided for by law. Among the laws adopted from England at this period was the act of limitations for personal actions.
CHANGE OF THE EXECUTIVE.—ACTS OF THE ASSEMBLY.—JOHN BERKELY’S RESIDENCE IN NEWPORT.—FRIENDLY FEELING BETWEEN THE COLONISTS AND THE MOTHER COUNTRY.
Nearly a generation had passed since a new governor had been chosen, but the place made vacant by death was now to be filled. The choice fell upon Joseph Jenckes, (May, 1727.) He was a resident of Pawtucket, and in those days of irregular communication Pawtucket was too far from the seat of government for the prompt transaction of public business. It was voted, therefore, that it was “highly necessary for the Governor of this Colony to live at Newport, the metropolis of the government,” and a hundred pounds was appropriated for the expense of his removal. While the Colony was passing into the hands of a new executive a similar change was taking place in the mother country. George I. died suddenly, and George II. succeeded to the throne.
But the change of sovereign brought no change with it in the policy of the mother country. The act of navigation was still the rule by which she measured her relations to the colonies. They were still to supply the raw material and she the profitable manufacture.
The first eight years of George II.’s reign were years of peace. Party spirit in England ran high under the names of court and country, the first as supporters of the ministry, the second of parliamentary opposition. But Sir Robert Walpole did not love war, and in the cabinet his voice was supreme.
In the Colony we find the same indications of growth and development. The records of the Assembly are still our principal guide. The criminal code, the surest indication of the moral condition of the community, was revised. Intemperance, in spite of repeated attempts to suppress it by legislation still seems to prevail, and in 1728 a new license law was passed. Unforeseen crimes, also, sometimes call for special action. An Indian lad attempted to kill his master, a crime unforeseen in the code, and was branded on the forehead with the letter R., whipped at the cart tail at every street corner in Newport, and ordered to be sold out of the Colony for his unexpired term. A slanderous pamphlet was publicly burned by the town sergeant in front of the Colony House and the author compelled to make a written confession of his fault.
The unsettled boundary lines though still causes of uneasiness and vexatious delays, are gradually approaching final decision. The controversy concerning the western boundary had lasted sixty-five years. More effectual means are employed to enforce the registry of births, marriages and deaths. Peddlers, the field of whose industry had already been reduced by previous statutes, were forbidden to sell any kind of goods under pain of forfeiture. Early attention is paid to the preservation of deer and the protection of fish. The planting of hemp and flax, and the manufacture of duck are again the subject of legislation, and receive increased bounties. James Franklin sets up a printing press in Newport after having failed to establish a newspaper in Boston. Not discouraged by his failure, he made a similar attempt at Newport with a similar result. He was in advance of his time. Important laws were enacted for the encouragement and regulation of trade. Special officers were appointed for special departments. Lumber of every kind was placed under the protection of surveyors. Packed meats and fish were examined by viewers. Casks were measured by official surveyors. The whale and cod fisheries were encouraged by bounties. And to incite the efforts of honest but unfortunate men, bankrupt laws equally useful to creditor and debtor were established.
Roads and bridges continue to call for legislation. The Pawtuxet bridge had fallen to decay, and Rhode Island and Massachusetts united, first in pulling it down and soon after in building it up again. A new ferry was established between Portsmouth and Bristol. Lands in Westerly were set apart for an Indian house of worship.
The fortifications of the Colony were not neglected. “A regular and beautiful fortification of stone” was built at Newport and the new King petitioned to give forty cannon for its armament.
The records of the time tell of an earthquake which in October, 1727, was felt through New England, exciting much alarm but doing little damage—far less indeed than the attempt to build up commerce upon public loans and paper money. To this period also belongs the first appearance of the Palatine Light, a curious electric phenomenon according to some, produced according to others by hydrogeneous gas, but believed by local superstition to be the phantom of a wrecked emigrant ship whose passengers had fallen prey to the avarice of her captain and crew.
The Legislature continues its labor of law-making, and among its provisions is one prohibiting the manumission of slaves without bonds from the owner to prevent them from coming upon the town. Another act sets bounds to the authority of moderators in town meetings, and requires that any motion supported by seven freeholders shall be put to vote. Another requires that all money questions shall be announced in the call for the meeting.
Among public annoyances we find Indian dances especially mentioned and the regulation of them referred to the town councils, and the selling or giving of intoxicating drinks upon the dancing ground strictly forbidden.
To meet the growth of the Colony a new division of it into three counties was made, and the judicial system altered to meet the change. “Each county was to have its court house and jail.” The responsibility of public officers increases with the increase of the Colony in wealth. The public treasurer was required to give bonds to the amount of twenty thousand pounds and his salary raised first to one, and two years later to two hundred pounds. A distrust of lawyers found expression in the October session of 1729 in an act forbidding them to serve as deputies. At the next session it was repealed and though never reënacted was more than once brought up for discussion.
Among the eminent Englishmen of the first half of this century was George Berkeley, Dean of Derry, better known by his later title of Bishop of Cloyne, and still better by Pope’s line:
“To Berkeley every virtue under Heaven.”
He had taken high rank among the philosophers of his age by his new theory of vision and other writings in which he denied the existence of matter. Advancement in the church made him master of a large income, which he resolved to employ in the service of religion by founding a college in the Bermudas for the training of pastors for the colonial churches and missionaries to the Indians. The benevolent object failed through the failure of Lord Carteret to give himthe aid of government. Instead, therefore, of establishing himself in Bermuda, he purchased a farm near Newport and built a house on it, which is still known by the name of Whitehall. He brought with him a choice library, a collection of pictures and a corps of literary men and artists, among them the painter Smibert, who thus became the teacher of Copley and West.
The influence of such a man is quickly felt in a young community, and Berkeley soon gathered around him a body of cultivated men, who joined with him in the discussion of questions of philosophy and the collection of books. These books became the basis of the Redwood Library. Not far from his house among what the modern tourist knows as the hanging rocks is a natural alcove, which opening to the south and roofed with stone commands an extensive view of the ocean. Here, tradition says, Berkeley wrote his Alciphron or Minute Philosopher, which was printed in Newport by James Franklin. But Berkeley had lived too long among men of letters and in large cities to be contented with the limited resources of a colonial town, and after a residence in Newport of two years and a half, he returned to Europe and a broader field of usefulness and honor. His library of eight hundred and eighty volumes he left to Yale. Brown University was not yet established.
Legislation begins to take notice of charitable institutions. Attention had already been calledto the condition of the insane, and now a fund was formed for the relief of disabled sailors and their families by deducting sixpence a month from the wages of every seaman in active service. This money was paid over to the town in which he lived and which was bound to support him.
The respect for the rights of conscience which forms the fundamental principle of the colonial polity, still meets us from time to time in some new application. In 1730 the militia law was modified for the protection of the Quakers. Provision was also made for the protection of the Indians by an act requiring the assent of two justices of the peace to give validity to any bond of apprenticeship in which they were concerned.
In 1730 the Board of Trade called for a census. The population was found to have increased six thousand in ten years—numbering fifteen thousand three hundred whites, sixteen hundred and fifty blacks, and nine hundred and eighty Indians—nearly eighteen thousand in all, almost equally divided between the three counties. Of these eighteen thousand nearly nine hundred were enrolled in the militia. Providence was divided into four towns.
The question of paper money still excited the Colony. Governor Jenckes was against it, but it was upheld by a majority of the Assembly. By September, 1731, one hundred and ninety-five thousand three hundred pounds had been issued in bills of credit, of which one hundred andtwenty thousand pounds were still outstanding. Silver had risen from eight to twenty shillings an ounce. Yet such was the general infatuation that in this very year a new bank was voted of sixty thousand pounds.
Yet trade increased and the Colony prospered. The shipping had risen in ten years from thirty-five hundred tons to five thousand, manned by four hundred men. Boston was the principal mart for supplies, but two ships came annually from England, two from Holland and the Mediterranean, and ten or twelve from the West Indies. The exports which comprised live stock, logwood, lumber, fish and the products of the field and dairy, amounted to ten thousand pounds a year. The ordinary expenses of the government amounted to two thousand, the extraordinary to twenty-five hundred pounds a year, colonial currency.
The paper money controversy had raised a question as to the governor’s power of veto. The law officers of the crown were consulted by the Board of Trade and declared that he had none. They decided also that the King himself had none.
The publication of the laws had met a public want. The first edition was soon exhausted and a new one called for. For many years small pains were taken to secure accuracy in the text, the preparation of it being left to the clerk. A wide door was thus left open for interpolation,and it was through this door that the clause against Roman Catholics, so contrary to the spirit and policy of the Colony crept into the statute—to be silently dropped as soon as attention was called to it.
We have already seen that provision had been made for the defence of the Colony by building a fort in Newport harbor. Additional provisions were made at the October session of 1732, by imposing a duty of sixpence a ton upon all vessels that entered the harbor except fishermen. We have already seen that several attempts had been made for the suppression of intemperance, and apparently with little success. In 1732 another moral principle was made the subject of legislation, and “these unlawful games called lotteries” suppressed by statute. We shall soon find them legalized and in some instances doing the office of insurance companies. A more legitimate source of gain was found in the whale fishery, which was successfully encouraged by a premium. Whales were often taken in Narragansett Bay. But the first regular whaler that entered Newport harbor was owned by Benjamin Thurston, and brought a hundred and fourteen barrels of oil and two hundred pounds of bone.
It was not till many trials had been made that a satisfactory regulation of the tenure of office was reached. On revising the statutes good behavior was made the term of tenure for the judges and clerks of common pleas. But thedemocratic element was too strong to allow this prolongation to gain a footing of authority, and a semi-annual election was soon substituted to the more conservative system. The deputies had been chosen semi-annually. In 1733 this also was changed to the whole year, but after a short trial changed back again to the half year. The first printed schedules were distributed in the summer of 1733. The October sessions were to be held alternately at Providence and South Kingstown. The certificates of election were carefully scrutinized and irregular proxies rejected. In 1734 the House consisted of thirty-six deputies, ten assistants and three general officers, a secretary, attorney and treasurer.
We have seen that vessels engaged in fishing were exempted from the harbor duty. As a further encouragement the first year’s interest on the new loan was set apart for building a pier or harbor on Block Island. Westerly harbor was repaired. The river fisheries also came in for their share of protection, and dams or weirs were prohibited and no fishing except by hook and line permitted during three days in the week. The first session of the Assembly at East Greenwich was distinguished by an act for the preservation of oysters, which the thoughtless inhabitants were burning in large quantities for lime. Important acts were passed for the regulation of mills. An attempt to cut through the beach on Block Island failed, and the old pier was enlarged.
The close of Governor Jenckes’s term of office was embarrassed by disputes arising from the paper money controversy. He declined a reëlection, and William Wanton, brother of the Deputy, was chosen in his stead. This was the only instance of brothers holding the two principal offices of the Colony at the same time. The dispute between Massachusetts and Rhode Island was referred to Commissioners from New York and Connecticut. No decision was reached, but the Assembly in acknowledgment of their services voted them three silver tankards of the value of fifty pounds each, with “the arms of Rhode Island handsomely engraved on them.”
We have seen that Massachusetts like Rhode Island had sought a temporary relief in the issue of paper money. The King interfered and the Massachusetts bills were withdrawn. This was a severe blow to Rhode Island, and hardly a less one to the tradesmen of Boston, whose relations with Rhode Island were very intimate. Various devices were recurred to for their protection, among them a combination to refuse to take Rhode Island bills in payment for goods. But the necessities of trade were too great. The combination gave way. Silver rose to twenty-seven shillings an ounce. Debts were paid at a loss to the creditor of thirty-three per cent. The future looked very dark.
Attention was called to the security of marriage. Till 1733 none but Quakers or clergymenof the Church of England could perform the ceremony. In 1733 authority to perform it was extended by the Assembly to clergymen of every denomination.
The death of Governor William Wanton, which occurred in 1733, produced a deep sensation throughout the Colony, where he was greatly respected for his civil and military services. Few colonists stood higher with the King. On a visit to England with his brother John, he was presented by the Queen with a silver punch-bowl and salver and permitted to add a game-cock lighting on a hawk to his arms. On his death his brother, John Wanton, the Deputy-Governor, was chosen to fill his place.
Education still forced its claims, and we find George Taylor successfully petitioning for leave to open a school in a chamber of the county house of Providence. Fifty years before the first school in Providence had been taught by William Turpin—of whom, unfortunately, we know only the name.
From time to time come questions from the Board of Trade showing how carefully England watched over her revenues. In one the Colony was asked what revenue duties were laid upon British commerce. The impost on slaves brought from the West Indies had been removed by the King’s orders, and Governor Wanton could answer that there were no duties affecting the direct commerce with England. Yet a consciousness of rights appears in more than one act of the Assembly. The Court of Vice-Admiralty sometimes exceeded its legitimate authority and tried causes over which it had no jurisdiction. This was a delicate matter for the colonial legislature to interfere in, for the court was appointed by the King. But without heeding this the Assembly conferred upon the Supreme Court the power of injunction.
The small-pox was a frequent cause of alarm. In 1735–6 another fearful disease desolated New England. It was called the throat distemper, and is described as “a swelled throat, with white or ash-colored specks, an efflorescence on the skin, great debility of the whole system and a strong tendency to putrefaction.” No age was exempt from it, but it was most fatal among children.
Roads and bridges as we have already seen had received early attention. Communication between the different parts of the Colony increased with the increase of population. In 1736 a line of stages with special privileges for seven years was established between Newport and Boston. The natural development of trade was preparing the way for a closer union among the colonies. Increased attention was given to the duties and privileges of citizenship. It is sad to find that laws against bribery at elections were called for at an early day. By those of 1736 both briber and bribed were fined double the sum offered or received and deprived for three years of the rightto vote. Illegal voting was forbidden under the penalty of a fine of two pounds and disfranchisement for three years.
The kindly feeling which the colonists cherished for the mother country sometimes received a practical illustration. In the spring of 1737 His Majesty’s ship Tartar lay in Newport harbor, and that she was a welcome visitor the Assembly proved by ordering that “a score of the best sheep that may be got be presented to her commander, Mathew Norris, for the use of the crew.” None foresaw that the day would come when a British press gang would seize free citizens in this same harbor.
The expenses of local government increased. To provide for this increase authority was given the towns to assess traders from abroad for a fair proportion of the outlays of the town. Changes were also made in the mode of paying jurors. Hitherto they had been paid out of the treasury—a mode liable to abuses and attended with great inconvenience. It was voted that they should receive a fixed pay of six shillings a day and pay their own expenses. Public attention had been called early to protection from fires. As the population of the larger towns grew, better protection was required. In Newport two companies of firemen were organized, and to compensate them for their services they were exempted from serving on juries or in the militia.