COLONIAL PROSPERITY.--DIFFICULTIES OCCASIONED BY THE WAR WITH THE
FRENCH.--DOMESTIC AFFAIRS OF THE COLONY.
If we may judge the prosperity of the Colony by the increase of
taxation--and taxes it must be remembered were self-imposed--we shall
find that Rhode Island at the beginning of the new century had made
real if not rapid progress in all the branches of national prosperity.
Her population in 1702 was estimated at ten thousand, exclusive of
Indians. She drew supplies from foreign ports in bottoms of her own,
and raised the staples of life on her own farms. Her citizens were
merchants, farmers, fishermen and sailors. There was a beginning, also,
of manufactures--to the sore displeasure of the Board of Trade.
We perceive, also, by the same test that Providence had regained the
relative position which she had lost during Philip's war, and was once
more the second town of the Colony.
The soul liberty of which I have spoken so often had borne rich
fruits. Baptists, Quakers, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Puritans
and Sabbatarians had their respective places of worship and their
independent pastors. Among the Baptist pastors we find John Clarke.
Among the Congregationalists Samuel Niles, a native of Block Island,
and the first Rhode Islander that graduated at Harvard. In 1704 the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts sent out
James Honeyman to build up an Episcopal church in the southern part of
the Colony. He found much to do as rector of Trinity, in Newport, and
missionary to Freetown, Tiverton and Little Compton on the main. His
memory is still preserved in Episcopal traditions and Honeyman's Hill,
the highest land in the southern extremity of the island, is a familiar
name to the inhabitants of Newport. In 1706 an Episcopal society was
founded in Kingston, with Rev. Christopher Bridge for rector. So well
was the work on the church done, that after remaining where it was
built ninety-three years, it was removed to Wickford, where it is
still used under the name of the Church of St. Paul. One of the most
interesting of these denominations was that of the Sabbatarians, or
Seventh-day Baptists, who had also a flourishing church in Westerly. To
meet their peculiar views two weekly market days were, set apart for
them.
The meetings and acts of the Assembly still continue to form the
principal record of our history. The Assembly itself claimed equal
rights with those exercised by Parliament over its own members, and
at a special session in 1701, suspended an assistant who had married
a couple illegally and refused to acknowledge his error. The Board
of Trade had more than once called for a printed copy of the laws
of the Colony, and as a proof that they were regularly administered
Governor Cranston sent a full statement of the mode of procedure in
all the courts. I have already spoken of Lord Bellemont's plan for the
formation of a great vice-royalty over all the colonies, including the
Bahama Islands. After his death this wild scheme, fatal to the freedom
and prosperity of British America, was revived by Dudley. The irregular
administration of the navigation laws was the chief pretext, and it
probably was held to be a sufficient concession to freedom that the
local government was left in the hands of the colonial assemblies. A
bill for this purpose was drawn up near the close of William's reign
and brought forward early in that of Anne.
But the rights of the colonies were boldly and ably defended by Sir
Henry Ashurst, the agent of Connecticut, and the fatal bill rejected
after a full discussion. Dudley himself, however, was in high favor.
He was appointed Governor and Vice-Admiral of Massachusetts and New
Hampshire, and what was still more objectionable Vice-Admiral of
Rhode Island and King's Province, a fruitful source of jealousies and
bickerings.
Meanwhile the Assembly went on in its work of legislation, taking
advantage of its experience to correct old errors, and gradually
adapting the laws to the increasing wants of society. At the May
session of 1701 we find justices of the peace first mentioned in
connection with a general election. Thirteen were then appointed. In
the same session a resolution for the reörganization of the militia
law was again brought forward and the law of marriage revised and made
more stringent. New powers were given the governor for enforcing the
navigation act. Progress had been made towards a correct estimate of
the obligations of society to its officers. The governor's salary was
raised to forty pounds--a sum much increased during the year by special
gratuities. The recorder was forbidden to practice at the bar except
in cases which concerned himself or the town or Colony. Protection
against vagrants was sought in a rigid vagrant act, extending to comers
from other colonies, deserters from the King's service and "passengers
brought in by sea and landed without consent of the authorities."
The short lived treaty of Ryswick was broken, and in the May session
of 1702 preparations were made for the defence of Newport harbor by
building a fort on Goat Island. In the town itself a battery was
erected near the ground now occupied by the Union Bank. The funds for
these defences were to be drawn from "forfeitures to the treasury and
the gold plate and money taken from convicted pirates." The pay of the
garrison at the fort was fixed at twelve pounds a year, with rations.
Scouts, that essential element of every good army, but especially
necessary where the enemy were part Indians, received three shillings
a day while in active service. The spirit of adventure was awakened.
Captain William Wanton, of Portsmouth, took out a commission as
privateersman and brought in several valuable prizes.
In September Dudley undertook to take command of the Rhode Island
troops--about two thousand men in all, and coming to Newport directed
that they should be called out in his name. The calm but firm
resistance of Governor Cranston and Major Martindale thwarted his
usurpation, and he left the town in disgust.
In 1703 the long boundary line contest between Rhode Island and
Connecticut was brought to a close, and Rhode Island confirmed in
the jurisdiction over Narragansett which had been assigned to her in
the arbitration of Clarke and Winthrop. Much of this was owing to
the staunch loyalty of the men of Westerly, where its good effects
were immediately felt. Yet so little were the true interests of the
colonies understood by their transatlantic rulers, that it was not till
twenty-three years later that the decision of the Commissioners was
formally approved by the King.
This failure to comprehend the character and interest of the colonies
showed itself in various ways, but in none more offensively than in the
attempt of the Board of Trade to make Dudley Governor of Rhode Island
by royal appointment. But fortunately for Rhode Island, the powerful
William Penn had been enlisted on her side, and the Queen's Council
refused to accept the recommendation of the Board of Trade.
Another question which menaced serious danger to the Colony by placing
it in a false position towards the mother country arose from the war.
How far was she bound to send troops to the support of her sister
colonies? Dudley claimed them for the defence of the Massachusetts
frontier, Lord Cornberry for that of New York. Rhode Island pointed to
her long water front, broken by bays and coves and constantly exposed
to the fleets and privateers of the enemy, and claimed that she needed
her men for her own protection. As a proof, however, of her willingness
to do all that could justly be asked of her, she appealed to her past
conduct and to the fact that during the last seven years she had spent
nearly a thousand pounds a year for military purposes.
The war bore hardly upon the resources of the Colony. A French fleet
was expected on the coast. Scouts were constantly on the look-out.
Block Island was garrisoned. The fleet did not come, but one incident
occurred which, though upon a small scale, brought out in strong colors
the maritime spirit of the Colony. A French privateer in a cruise off
Block Island took a sloop laden with provisions. The news reached the
Governor the next day. In two hours two sloops, manned by one hundred
and twenty volunteers, and commanded by Captain John Wanton, were on
their way in pursuit of the enemy, and in less than three hours more
took her, recaptured her prize and brought both safe into Newport.
The current of our history still continues to flow in a narrow channel.
Each new session of the Assembly added to the body of the laws and
met new wants. Newport had no charter. One was granted her by special
statute. The other towns held theirs by grants of the Assembly. The
subject of a court of chancery began to attract attention in 1705,
but was held to be premature, and its duties were still left for the
present with the Assembly.
Boundary questions still continued to occupy the Assembly and annoy the
inhabitants of the border. The northern boundary brought Rhode Island
into direct collision with Massachusetts, which was now the heiress
of the claims of Plymouth. Commissioners were appointed who made no
report, and it was only by slow steps that the Colony assumed its
permanent form and dimensions.
Among the laws which were brought every day to every door was the law
which made the price of wheat the standard of the price of bread. Every
baker was required to have his trade mark and make every loaf of a
specified weight. The bread that fell short was forfeited to the poor.
As an aid to commerce the Colony granted the control of the shores of
all the waters comprised within a township to the town itself. This led
to the building of wharves and store houses, and added to the wealth of
the town.
In the midst of the progressing civilization we find occasional traces
of barbarism. A slave had murdered his mistress with circumstances
which aggravated the crime, and despairing of escape drowned himself.
A fortnight after his body came ashore at Little Compton, and "the
Assembly ordered that his head, legs and arms should be hung up in some
public place near Newport, and his body be burnt to ashes."
We now meet the odious slave-trade, carefully watched over and
protected by England as a source of wealth, but generally disliked
by planters for "the turbulent and unruly tempers" of its miserable
victims. Rhode Island drew most of her slaves from Barbadoes at the
rate of twenty or thirty a year, and sold them at the average price of
from thirty to forty pounds each. The moral question had not yet come
up, but according to the old record the trade did not flourish because
the people "in general" preferred white servants to black.
In 1708 the first census was taken by order of the Board of Trade,
giving for result seven thousand one hundred and eighty-one
inhabitants, of whom one thousand and fifteen were freemen. The militia
amounted to one thousand three hundred and sixty-two. There were
fifty-six white servants and four hundred and twenty-six black.
In the same year we meet for the first time, "vendue masters" and
public auctions. The subject of "a uniform value for foreign coins
in the colonies" was discussed in Parliament, and made the subject
of a circular letter from the Board of Trade. The increase of the
settlements made it necessary to provide for the Indians. A committee
was appointed to confer with Ninigret about lands for his tribe, the
Niantics, and choose the site of a new town in Narragansett.
I have already spoken of the judicial functions of the Assembly. They
had increased so much that it was deemed necessary to impose a tax of
two pounds upon every appellant before his case could be taken up.
The reports to the Board of Trade and the commutation table of taxation
throw much light upon the commercial and agricultural progress of the
Colony. In the commutation roll Indian coin was rated at "two shillings
a bushel, barley at one and eightpence, rye at two and sixpence, oats
at fourteen pence, wheat at three shillings, and wool at ninepence a
pound." From the statistical reports to the Board of Trade, we learn
that the annual "exports sent to England by way of Boston amounted to
twenty thousand pounds; that the principal direct trade was by the West
Indies; and that within the past twenty years the amount of shipping
had increased six-fold." This increase it was said was owing to the
superiority of the colonial shipwrights.
Eighty-four vessels of all sizes had been built in the Colony within
eleven years. The population was divided. Aquidneck "was taken up in
small farms," and the young men took to the sea.
In 1709 a printing press was set up in Newport and a public printer
appointed. This pioneer printer was the son of a New York printer named
Bradford, who offered to do the public printing of the Colony for fifty
pounds a year. The offer was accepted for one year.
The war dragged heavily on, eating into the resources of the Colony and
driving her to that most fatal of all expedients, the issue of paper
money. A great expedition against Canada was planned, and failed. Rhode
Island, which had been very active in raising men and supplies and had
taxed herself liberally, shared the common disappointment.
The next attempt was more successful. A fleet of twelve ships of war
and twenty-four transports sailed from Nantasket roads on the 18th
of September, reached Port Royal in six days and took it after a
short siege. The colonists were very happy. The name of Port Royal
was changed to Annapolis, the city of Anna. The martial spirit of the
colonies was roused and in the following year, 1711, they eagerly
entered into the plans of the English ministry for the invasion of
Canada. But although the greatest exertions were made the expedition
failed.
Meanwhile the Assembly still continued its labor of legislation. The
Court of Trials adopted the course which had been established two
years before by the Court of Appeals, and began to charge a fee before
entering a case upon the docket. Education was a subject of legislative
interest. In Newport the public school was placed in charge of the
town council, and provision made for opening a Latin school under
Mr. Galloway. Various other minor incidents show the progress of the
Colony. Public highways were a subject of general attention in Newport.
Providence, which lay on the bank of a navigable river, was more
directly interested in bridges. Names were given to the streets and
alleys, and, as an element in the growth of the Colony, it may not be
uninteresting to know that the first town crier was appointed in 1711.
As an encouragement to commerce all "river craft trading as far as
Connecticut" were exempted from custom dues, and no fees were exacted
for free goods. The profits of the navigation act, as has already been
stated, had been seriously affected by clandestine traders. To guard
against this evil a law was passed requiring "all persons resident for
three months in the Colony and intending to leave, to advertise their
intention ten days before hand, so that their creditors might have due
notice."