The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 16, July 1912 - April, 1913 Page: 216
464 p. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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The Southwestern Historical Quarterly
Dr. Root's book has a peculiar interest, not only in that it
deals with one of the most important colonies, but because it
affords an excellent example of the futile reaction of imperial
laws upon a charter-protected colony and of the anomalous position
of such a colony in a well-ordered imperial system. The treatise
is admirably arranged. Beginning with a brief examination of
Penn's charter and the relation of his colony to the crown, the
real point of departure is in the second chapter, which deals with
the central institutions of colonial control--that is, the Crown,
Privy Council, the great officers of state, treasury and admiralty,
the Board of Trade, and finally Parliament. There follow chap-
ters on the administration -of the acts of trade, the Court of Ad-
miralty, royal disallowance, judicial system, finance, religious ques-
tions, imperial defense and imperial centralization. In these chap-
ters Dr. Root clearly sets forth the helplessness of the Board of
Trade because of its subordinate powers, the lack of thorough co-
ordination in the administrative system, the poor type of royal
official frequently sent out by English politicians and the wretched
fee system which rendered corrupt officials more corrupt, the skill-
ful evasion by the colonists of the royal veto, the quarrel over
paper money, the failure of certain colonies, especially Pennsyl-
vania, to respond to the needs of imperial defense, the utter futil-
ity of the system of requisitions-which we remember Franklin
was not ashamed to praise when opposing a general tax-and the
necessity for a general reorganization of the empire after the close
of the French and Indian war. The author shows a full sym-
pathy for and understanding of the conditions of colonial life
which led to the most strenuous assertion of the right of local
self-government and distrust of centralized control from across
the sea; but the reader is led irresistibly to the conclusion that
the empire needed reorganization and that from the point of view
of the imperial officials the abrogation of the remaining colonial
charters, the grouping of the colonies and the raising of a general
revenue for better defense, and the stricter enforcement of the
laws of trade were matter of prime necessity. How far is this
from the notions that high school and even college students still
imbibe from their text-books that the measures of the British gov-
ernment were the acts of a wicked and stupid despotism! One
must regret that the style is somewhat hard to follow and that216
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 16, July 1912 - April, 1913, periodical, 1913; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101058/m1/224/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.