The War of Independence | Page 8

at the hands of Great Britain; but as they were next neighbours to Massachusetts and closely connected with its history, they were likely to sympathize promptly with the kind of grievances by which Massachusetts was disturbed.
[Sidenote: The proprietary governments: Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland]
Three of the colonies, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, had a peculiar kind of government, known as proprietary government. Their territories had originally been granted by the crown to a person known as the Lord Proprietary, and the lord-proprietorship descended from father to son like a kingdom. In Maryland it was the Calvert family that reigned for six generations as lords proprietary. Pennsylvania and Delaware had each its own separate legislature, but over both colonies reigned the same lord proprietary, who was a member of the Penn family. These colonies were thus like little hereditary monarchies, and they had but few direct dealings with the British government. For them the lords proprietary stood in the place of the king, and appointed the governors. In Maryland this system ran smoothly. In Pennsylvania there was a good deal of dissatisfaction, but it generally assumed the form of a wish to get rid of the lords proprietary and have the governors appointed by the king; for as this was something they had not tried they were not prepared to appreciate its evils.
[Sidenote: The crown colonies and their royal governors]
In the other eight colonies--New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia--the governors were appointed by the king, and were commonly known as "royal governors." They were sometimes natives of the colonies over which they were appointed, as Dudley and Hutchinson of Massachusetts, and others; but were more often sent over from England. Some of them, as Pownall of Massachusetts and Spotswood of Virginia, were men of marked ability. Some were honest gentlemen, who felt a real interest in the welfare of the people they came to help govern; some were unprincipled adventurers, who came to make money by fair means or foul. Their position was one of much dignity, and they behaved themselves like lesser kings. What with their crimson velvets and fine laces and stately coaches, they made much more of a show than any president of the United States would think of making to-day. They had no fixed terms of office, but remained at their posts as long as the king, or the king's colonial secretary, saw fit to keep them there.
[Sidenote: The question as to salaries]
Now it was generally true of the royal governors that, whether they were natives of America or sent over from England, and whether they were good men or bad, they were very apt to make themselves disliked by the people, and they were almost always quarrelling with their legislative assemblies. Questions were always coming up about which the governor and the legislature could not agree, because the legislature represented the views of the people who had chosen it, while the governor represented his own views or the views which prevailed three thousand miles away among the king's ministers, who very often knew little about America and cared less. One of these disputed questions related to the governor's salary. It was natural that the governor should wish to have a salary of fixed amount, so that he might know from year to year what he was going to receive. But the people were afraid that if this were to be done the governor might become too independent. They preferred that the legislature should each year make a grant of money such as it should deem suitable for the governor's expenses, and this sum it might increase or diminish according to its own good pleasure. This would keep the governor properly subservient to the legislature. Before 1750 there had been much bitter wrangling over this question in several of the colonies, and the governors had one after another been obliged to submit, though with very ill grace.
Sometimes the thoughts of the royal governors and their friends went beyond this immediate question. Since the legislatures were so froward and so niggardly, what an admirable plan it would be to have the governors paid out of the royal treasury and thus made comparatively independent of the legislatures! The judges, too, who were quite poorly paid, might fare much better if remunerated by the crown, and the same might be said of some other public officers. But if the British government were to undertake to pay the salaries of its officials in America, it must raise a revenue for the purpose; and it would naturally raise such a revenue by levying taxes in America rather than in England. People in England felt that they were already taxed as heavily as they could bear, in order to pay the expenses of their own government. They could