the church of England increased, and assumed the lead. John Checkley, preparing to be a church missionary, threw the Puritan clergy of Boston into quite an excitement, by taking upon himself to say that there could be "no Christian minister without episcopal ordination," (1724.) So, when the Massachusetts ministers, headed by Cotton Mather, petitioned the General Court that a synod of their churches might be convened, as in former days, the church clergy appealed to England for the suppression of the proposed assembly, (1725.) It was not merely ill will that these proceedings kindled; it was apprehension of oppression. Project of Dissenters generally, but with the Puritans still bishops. in the van, stood arrayed against a project in which the church of England was deeply interested. As early as the reign of Charles II., a bishop for Virginia had been nominated at the instigation of the prime minister Clarendon, (1672.) It proved merely a nomination. Thirty years passed, when the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts (1701) took up the matter, partly in consequence of applications from the churchmen of the colonies, (1703.) It was twelve years more before the society, after petitions to and answers from Queen Anne, undertook "a draught of a bill, proper to be offered to the Parliament, for establishing bishops and bishoprics in America," (1715.) The queen's death interfering with the execution of these projects, they were laid aside, resumed, and then laid aside again until some of the English prelates, members of the society still, espoused the cause so full of interest to them and to their church. Their plan, drawn up by Bishop Butler, of Durham, was not one, it would seem, to provoke opposition. It suggested the limitation of the episcopal power to the clergy in orders, declaring, at the same time, that " no bishops are intended to be settled in places where the government is in the hands of dissenters, as in New

England," &c. Such, however, were the difficulties attending the scheme, even in this modified form, that it failed, (1750.) Its advocates, joined or succeeded by others, did not give up the hope of carrying their point at a future time. But the passions of the colonists, as well from political as from religious causes, ran too high to admit of further provocation. Nor were dissenters only arrayed against the plan of the episcopate. Churchmen were almost equally earnest, on account, chiefly, of the jealousy entertained in relation to the mother country. So that when, at a later time, the Bishop of London's commissary for Virginia called a convention of his clergy, to discuss an address to the king, "upon an American episcopate," certain clergymen, who protested against the proposal, received the thanks of the House of Burgesses for their course, (1771.) The clergy of Virginia, however, and the Burgesses had long been on poor terms, in consequence of certain acts passed by the latter to the detriment of clerical revenues, indeed, to the violation of clerical rights, (1755-58.) The church of England, it must be confessed, was far from being a church of peace in the colonies.

Classes:

The classes in the colonies remained the same as the slaves. heretofore. But the relations between them were varying with their members and their numbers. Amongst the echoes from those distant years we catch the sounds of sympathy for the enslaved. Some German, not English, Quakers of Pennsylvania began by declaring against the whole system of slavery, (1688.) An English Quaker of the same colony was stirred to make the same declaration; but his remonstrance was mingled with fanaticism and sedition, (1692.) A few years later, Pennsylvania pronounced against the importation of Indian bondmen, (1705.) Massachusetts passed a similar prohibition, (1712.) But when Pennsylvania, or a portion of its people, petitioned for

the general emancipation of the slaves in the province, the assembly rejected the proposal, (1712.) The slaves did not every where sit still while the masters legislated. New York was thrown into terror by a negro plot to fire the city, (1712.) South Carolina was twice threatened by a negro massacre, (1730, 1738.) It was not to be expected, with all the advantages or all the alleviations of slavery in the English colonies, that the system was to escape the dangers and the wrongs to which it had led in every land and in every age of its history. One earnest voice was lifted up against it in the colonies by John Woolman, of New Jersey, a Quaker of singular refinement as well as singular simplicity, who published Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes, towards the close of the period, (1753.) Woolman's Journal of his life and his devotions should be mentioned as one of the most attractive works in our early literature. Colonies: Between colony and colony there were new bands of union. Suggestions of combining them in some common organization had appeared from time to time. The first project of the sort, on the part of the colonies, was of William Penn's proposal. He urged a congress of twenty members, to be elected by the colonial assemblies, with a president appointed by the king. This body was to keep the peace amongst the colonies, to regulate their commerce, and to secure their defence, (1697.) A quarter of a century later, Daniel Coxe, of New Jersey, brought forward a plan of much the same nature, (1722.) Thirty years later, the deputies of seven colonies the four of New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland - met at Albany on the recommendation of the secretary of state in England, (1754.) The subjects before this assembly were the relations of the colonies with the Indians and with one another, referring chiefly to the war then opening between England and France. It was to promote the mil

union.

itary rather than the civil union of the colonies, that Benjamin Franklin, a deputy from Pennsylvania, laid his proposals before the convention. He suggested a council of forty-eight, apportioned to the contributions of each colony, who were to conduct the affairs of war, and, to a certain extent, the affairs of peace; the members, chosen for three years, by the colonial assemblies, to elect their own speaker, but to be under a president, or governor general, nominated by the crown. This system suited neither those who favored nor those who opposed the interests of the colonies, the appointing power and the veto, with which the president was armed, being deemed as unfavorable to colonial liberty as the rights of the council were to royal prerogative. It was at the same time that the king commanded one of his ministers, the Earl of Halifax, to prepare a plan of colonial union. Each colony was to elect, by common consent of assembly, council, and governor, a single commissioner to a federal body, by which a revenue was to be raised and the general defence assured. A commander-in-chief was to be placed at the head of the government, which, as we see, was a merely military organization. Union was not to be achieved by a fluctuating succession of projects like these.

Contribu

Boston.

The sympathy existing amongst the colonies aptions to pears on another record than that of systems or assemblies. A great fire, breaking out in Boston, caused immense loss and immense distress, (1760.) What Boston itself could do was promptly done; its people were not in the habit of giving up, however severe the trial. But there came a large sum from New York, another from Pennsylvania, besides one from Nova Scotia, and various subscriptions from England. The colonial contributions to Boston proved that there were bonds, if not yet drawn together, still capable of being tightened, closely and lastingly, amongst the colonies.

Views of the mother

country.

CHAPTER IX.

THE MOTHER COUNTRY.

As the colonies passed through the struggles of infancy into the promises of manhood, they wore a new look in the sight of the mother country. Something more than had been anticipated was to be hoped, something more also was to be feared from them. It seemed as if they might be able to contribute largely to the resources of Great Britain; and yet it seemed as if they might think themselves able to withhold as well as to contribute. Strange symptoms of insubordination had appeared. The crown, the parliament, and the officials by which both were represented, had been confronted, here and there, with amazing boldness. It was high time, so thought the English rulers, to take the colonies in hand, to tighten the reins of government, and to confine them to the course marked out, as it was thought, by the interests of the mother country.

Board of

Chief of the agencies put in operation was the trade. board of trade, consisting of a president and seven members, entitled the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, (1696.) To this body were committed the functions hitherto exercised by committees of the privy council, but now magnified into large powers of administration. It was intrusted with the execution of the navigation acts, to which were at this time appended fresh and oppressive provisions of colonial Courts of Admiralty. It was also empowered to carry out the new acts by which not merely