THE AMERICAN COLONIES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY BY HERBERT L. OSGOOD, PH.D. PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY VOLUME I THE CHARTERED COLONIES. BEGINNINGS OF New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 1904 All rights reserved PREFACE THIS work has a double purpose. It is intended to exhibit in outline the early development of English colonization on its political and administrative side. At the same time it is a study of the origin of English-American political institutions. Because of this double object attention has been almost exclusively devoted to the continental colonies. Had the commercial and economic aspects of colonization been the subject of the work, the picture must needs have been painted on a larger canvas. The two volumes which are now published are concerned wholly with the American side of the subject. But they do not tell the whole of the story, even so far as it relates to the seventeenth century. Another volume will follow, the subject of which will be the beginnings of imperial administration and control. In that volume the British side of the problem will be discussed. The entire work, while serving as an introduction to American institutional history, will at the same time, it is hoped, illustrate the principles of British colonization, so far as those were revealed in the early relations between the home government and its colonies on the North American continent. The author is fully aware that the attempt to analyze and compare the institutions of fifteen colonies, and to trace their political history, even in part, during a period of half a century or more, is a work of some complexity. In his effort to do this he has limited himself, in nearly all instances, to the seventeenth century and to the material which was accessible for that period of time. This it was necessary to do in order to show what the governmental system was before the transition from the chartered colonies. to the system of royal provinces occurred. |