American Colonial Government, 1696-1765 . A Study of the British Board of Trade in its Relation to the American Colonies—Political, Industrial, Administrative. By Oliver Morton Dickerson , Ph. D. (Cleveland: The Arthur H. Clark Company. 1912. Pp. 366.)

The Relations of Pennsylvania with the British Government, 1696-1765. By Winfred Trexler Root, Ph. D. (New York: Publications of the University of Pennsylvania, D. Appleton and Company, Agents, 1912. Pp. iv, 396.)

It is only within the last twenty years that scholars have begun to study the American colonies as parts of a great empire and to examine from that point of view their relations to the economic and administrative system of Great Britain. In this field Osgood, Andrews, and Beer have been the pioneers, but most of their work has been confined to the seventeenth century. The highly important period from the establishment of the Board of Trade in 1696 to the Revolution has been traversed only by the occasional monograph and yet awaits comprehensive treatment. The two books here reviewed are the most important recent contributions to this hitherto neglected division of the subject.

In his American Colonial Government Professor Dickerson gives us the first adequate account of that very important subject, the British Board of Trade, which has been neglected hitherto largely because its importance has not been fully appreciated. Here at last is presented a careful and somewhat detailed account of the organization, nature, and personnel of the Board, its relations to the other organs of the British government, and its relations to the colonies.

The chief duties of the Board were the care and fostering of English trade in general and the supervision of colonial administration to that end. But it was never able to fulfill all the purposes of its creation. Subordinated on the one side to the Privy Council, on the other to the secretary of state for the southern department and excluded from direct control over the enforcement of the Acts of Trade, after a few years of efficiency it passed from the control of the Crown to that of the Parliamentary chiefs, fell into the hands of Whig spoilsmen—of whom Newcastle as secretary of state for the southern department exercised the most “pernicious interference”—and sank gradually into such a condition of helplessness that its only function was to gather occasional information. Indeed, one is led to believe that, if Professor Dickerson's view be correct, Newcastle was more responsible than any other man for the conditions which brought about the revolt of the colonies—so lax had become the administration and control of imperial interests, and so many new powers had the colonial assemblies been allowed to assume. During the presidency of the energetic and ambitious Halifax, 1748-1761, there was not only a revival of the original powers of the Board but an extension of them. But the mischief had already been done; the colonies were already beyond the control of the administrative organs of the imperial government. The problems were passed up to Parliament with what results we know.

The reader is likely to feel that the space given to such a topic as the personnel of the Board could have been reduced without serious loss and more given with profit to the explanation of the rise of the assemblies and the weakening of the colonial executive; but the author probably felt that the excellent work of Professor Evarts B. Greene in this field had made an extended discussion of those subjects less necessary. Though sometimes too brief, the account of the Board's efforts to retain imperial control over the colonial judiciary, to bolster up the waning powers of the royal governor, and to lop off by the weapon of royal disallowance the unconstitutional extensions of the powers of the assemblies is very illuminating. Likewise clear is the story of how the work of the Board was hampered by wretched means of communication, of how the frequent wars and the urgent need of supplies placed the governors at the mercy of the assemblies, and of the failure of the ministers to bring Parliament to the support of the royal officials.

Professor Dickerson has seemingly exhausted the sources of the subject, the chief of which are the manuscript records of the Board of Trade itself. If one is inclined to criticise the proportion of the book, he must, nevertheless, praise the clarity of style and treatment. The title, however, is entirely too broad,—the subtitle is a more accurate indication of the contents of the book.

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 chapters on the administration of the acts of trade, the Court of Admiralty, royal disallowance, judicial system, finance, religious questions, imperial defense and imperial centralization. In these chapters Dr. Root clearly sets forth the helplessness of the Board of Trade because of its subordinate powers, the lack of thorough coordination 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 skillful evasion by the colonists of the royal veto, the quarrel over paper money, the failure of certain colonies, especially Pennsylvania, to respond to the needs of imperial defense, the utter futility 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 sympathy 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 government were the acts of a wicked and stupid despotism! One must regret that the style is somewhat hard to follow and that the diction is often careless. Perhaps it is this carelessness that leads the author to say (p. 43) that by 1765 the colonies had “autonomous governments with parliaments of their own co-ordinate with the British Parliament,” a statement which is contradicted on pages 202, 311, and 395, where it is variously explained that the Parliament was legally supreme “over both realm and colonies.”

There is much to praise and little to find fault with in this volume. Dr. Root has searched widely through the sources with the utmost care, and he has made a solid and notable contribution to little known period.

Chas. W. Ramsdell .

How to cite:
Ramsdell, Charles W., "American Colonial Government, 1696-1765", Volume 016, Number 2, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, Page 214 - 217. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v016/n2/review_22.html
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