Charles successor,James II,a man of sterner stuff and jealous of his authority in the colonies as well as at home,continued the policy thus inaugurated and enlarged upon it.If he could have kept his throne,he would have bent the Americans under a harsh rule or brought on in his dominions a revolution like that which he precipitated at home in 1688.He determined to unite the Northern colonies and introduce a more efficient administration based on the pattern of the royal provinces.He made a martinet,Sir Edmund Andros,governor of all New England,New York,and New Jersey.The charter of Massachusetts,annulled in the last days of his brother's reign,he continued to ignore,and that of Connecticut would have been seized if it had not been spirited away and hidden,according to tradition,in a hollow oak.
For several months,Andros gave the Northern colonies a taste of ill-tempered despotism.He wrung quit rents from land owners not accustomed to feudal dues;he abrogated titles to land where,in his opinion,they were unlawful;he forced the Episcopal service upon the Old South Church in Boston;and he denied the writ of habeas corpus to a preacher who denounced taxation without representation.In the middle of his arbitrary course,however,his hand was stayed.The news came that King James had been dethroned by his angry subjects,and the people of Boston,kindling a fire on Beacon Hill,summoned the countryside to dispose of Andros.The response was prompt and hearty.The hated governor was arrested,imprisoned,and sent back across the sea under guard.
The overthrow of James,followed by the accession of William and Mary and by assured parliamentary supremacy,had an immediate effect in the colonies.The new order was greeted with thanksgiving.Massachusetts was given another charter which,though not so liberal as the first,restored the spirit if not the entire letter of self-government.In the other colonies where Andros had been operating,the old course of affairs was resumed.
The Indifference of the First Two Georges.-On the death in 1714of Queen Anne,the successor of King William,the throne passed to a Hanoverian prince who,though grateful for English honors and revenues,was more interested in Hanover than in England.George I and George II,whose combined reigns ex-tended from 1714to 1760,never even learned to speak the English language,atleast without an accent.The necessity of taking thought about colonial affairs bored both of them so that the stoutest defender of popular privileges in Boston or Charleston had no ground to complain of the exercise of personal preroga-tives by the king.Moreover,during a large part of this period,the direction of affairs was in the hands of an astute leader,Sir Robert Walpole,who betrayed his somewhat cynical view of politics by adopting as his motto:"Let sleeping dogs lie."He revealed his appreciation of popular sentiment by exclaiming:"I will not be the minister to enforce taxes at the expense of blood."Such kings and such ministers were not likely to arouse the slumbering resistance of the thirteen colonies across the sea.
Control of the Crown over the Colonies.-While no English ruler from James II to George III ventured to interfere with colonial matters personally,constant control over the colonies was exercised by royal officers acting un-der the authority of the crown.Systematic supervision began in 1660,when there was created by royal order a committee of the king's council to meet on Mondays and Thursdays of each week to consider petitions,memorials,and addresses respecting the plantations.In 1696a regular board was established,known as the "Lords of Trade and Plantations,"which continued,until the American Revolution,to scrutinize closely colonial business.The chief duties of the board were to examine acts of colonial legislatures,to recommend measures to those assemblies for adoption,and to hear memorials and petitions from the colonies relative to their affairs.
The methods employed by this board were varied.All laws passed by American legislatures came before it for review as a matter of routine.If it found an act unsatisfactory,it recommended to the king the exercise of his veto power,known as the royal disallowance.Any person who believed his personal or property rights injured by a colonial law could be heard by the board in person or by attorney;in such cases it was the practice to hear at the same time the agent of the colony so involved.The royal veto power over colonial legislation was not,therefore,a formal affair,but was constantly employed on the suggestion of a highly efficient agency of the crown.All this was in addition to the powers exercised by the governors in the royal provinces.
Judicial Control.-Supplementing this administrative control over the colo-nies was a constant supervision by the English courts of law.The king,by virtue of his inherent authority,claimed and exercised high appellate powers over all judicial tribunals in the empire.The right of appeal from local courts,expressly set forth in some charters,was,on the eve of the Revolution,maintained in ev-ery colony.Any subject in England or America,who,in the regular legal course,was aggrieved by any act of a colonial legislature or any decision of a colonialcourt,had the right,subject to certain regulations,to carry his case to the king in council,forcing his opponent to follow him across the sea.In the exercise of appellate power,the king in council acting as a court could,and frequently did,declare acts of colonial legislatures duly enacted and approved,null and void,on the ground that they were contrary to English law.