honest answers," says Mr. Bancroft, "plainly exposed the defective arrangements of previous years, and favoured the cancelling of the charter as an act of benevolence to the colony." Hereupon, the King determined to remodel the charter in fact, to subvert the Company-and take back the powers which the first charter had reserved to the Sovereign, but which, under the advice of Cecil, had been granted to the corporation. A quo warranto was issued; and the Company was called upon for its defence. Commissioners were now again sent to the colony; there they found the colonists ready to throw off the Company, but utterly averse to submit themselves to the government of England, or the arbitrary will of the King. A remarkable distinction was now insisted on for the first time, which exercised a most potent influence throughout the remaining colonial existence of these communities. The King was spoken of as the King of Virginia. The supreme power in the colony was said to reside in the hands of the colonial parliament, and the King, as King of Virginia. This principle was never forgotten by the colonists, though it slumbered for many years after the revolution of 1688. The sturdy republicans of New England carried it still further: they, from the first, insisted upon their independence, and resisted, as long as they were able, the acts of the English Parliament; by which the celebrated system of our colonial monopoly was erected, and our Navigation Laws were enacted. The colonies yielded, indeed, to the superior force of England on that occasion; but, in due time, they renewed the contest, and with a different result. They not only withstood the enforcement of our law, but recurring to

their ancient doctrine, and dearly prized independence, cast off for ever the dominion of England, and called into existence the gigantic republic, which will ever remain the lasting memorial of our glory and our humiliation.

In June, 1624, the Court of King's Bench, during Trinity Term, gave judgment on the quo warranto against the Company. The House of Commons even did not attempt to protect this unpopular corporation. Its patents, therefore, were cancelled, and the Company was dissolved. Such was the first experiment of colonizing by a chartered company; and this experiment suffices to condemn the system.

A more favourable opportunity was never afforded for the successful employment of such a machinery. The company was composed of men of great power, wealth, and intelligence. The country to which colonists were sent was fertile, blessed with a healthy climate, and was found to possess a staple commodity, which proved the source of great and steady wealth; but a wealth that could only be attained by care and labour. There arose, therefore, none of the mischief that befalls a colony which gambles in mines. Steady habits of industry and thrift were acquired by the people; who, as a community, were likely to flourish, if permitted fairly to exercise their ingenuity and industry in the production of the fortunate commodity, tobacco, by which they could obtain an ample reward for their labour and capital. But the company could derive no advantage from the mere comfort and happiness of the colonists; they, as landlords, could hope for very small returns in a country in

which new and fertile lands could be obtained without limit. In any other shape, there was no chance of a return, except by the sale of the lands; and by this sale very little could be expected,* and that little could be acquired only with great trouble, and great discontent. The people might very naturally ask, why a company should derive a dividend from the sale of land which properly ought to form a portion of the community's wealth. Complaints, as we have seen, were rife; the colony were glad to see the company dissolved, hoping that the rule of a nation would be less onerous than that of a mercantile corporation:-that a King and a Parliament would not look for a dividend; would see that a tribute was impossible; and be content with the national benefit resulting from having an increasing and thriving body of customers for English productions, for which the colonists were able to pay in produce desired and prized by the people of England. But notwithstanding all the advantages under which the attempt was made, this chartered company failed in every way. It failed first as a mercantile speculation; it failed next as an instrument for the planting of a colony; and lastly, it failed egregiously as a means of governing the rickety thing they had called into life. After such an experience, may we not wonder when we see attempts made to revive this exploded scheme, and descriptions

* Mr. Bancroft, when speaking of the extinct company, says, "that the members were probably willing to escape from a concern which promised no emolument, and threatened an unprofitable strife."-Vol. i. p. 193.

hazarded which assume the plan never to have been before essayed?

But if this instance be not sufficient, we have yet more to learn from the attempts made by our forefathers in schemes and adventures for the planting of colonies.

Under the fostering care of the imperious Strafford, taking its name from the proud and fierce Henrietta Maria, the ruler of her hen-pecked husband, Charles I. -by the active labours of a papist peer, the colony of Maryland was founded, and in itself and its institutions afforded an example of a happy, free, and tolerant community. Sir George Calvert, member for Yorkshire, and secretary of state, had been early charmed and excited by the stories of American adventure. He longed to be the founder of a state. His power, his wealth, his own exertions were employed to plant a colony on the Avalon, a river in that island of fish and fog-Newfoundland.* He failed, but turned his attention to Virginia; but Virginia hated Popery, and no sooner was Sir George Calvert known to be within her territories, than he was pestered and persecuted by demands to take anti-catholic oaths, and thereby forced to leave this vineyard of the saints-this chosen seat of Protestant purity. Virginia, however, having experienced the tender mercies of James I.'s obsequious judges, lost her charter, and with it her rights to the enormous territories which that charter conveyed. Charles conferred, from a portion of

* There are persons who say that neither the fish nor the fog are to be found in Newfoundland, though they abound around it. This may be true-the climate is, nevertheless, bleak and miserable; the soil wretchedly poor.

the recovered domains, the site of a new state upon Sir George Calvert, now created Lord Baltimore. Lord Baltimore, dying soon after, bequeathed his estate in America, and his wish to found a province, to his son. Before his death, however, he was able, as it is said, to write for that province, not yet even begun, a constitution, as a guide for his son, and a rule of government for his future dominions. By this charter, the power of self-government was conferred on the colonists, and perfect liberty of conscience was established, and the colony flourished from the first. The enthusiasm of the historian leads him thus to describe this remarkable event in the history of colonies-an event occurring in the reign of Charles I., under the auspices of Strafford, and by the immediate command of a Roman-catholic peer :

"Calvert deserves to be ranked among the most wise and benevolent law-givers of all ages. He was the first in the history of the Christian world to seek for religious security and peace, by the practice of justice, and not by the exercise of power; to plan the establishment of popular institutions, with the enjoyment of liberty of conscience; to advance the career of civilization, by recognising the rightful equality of all Christian sects. The asylum of papists was the spot where, in a remote corner of the world, on the banks of rivers which as yet had hardly been explored, the mild forbearance of a proprietary adopted religious freedom as the basis of the state."*

"It is a singular fact, that the only proprietary