abstained from any share in the government of foreign dependencies. It regarded them with dislike as sources of war and expense. They were left entirely, as a royal appanage, to the personal government of the Crown, through its personally chosen agents.

Even when the founding of true colonies began, Parliament claimed no share in their management. Virginia, the oldest of the American group, was organised by letters-patent from the Crown. Maryland and Pennsylvania were actually granted in fee to private individuals. Crown-charters, not Acts of Parliament, were the bases of such powers of self-government as the old English-speaking colonies possessed.1 The dependencies acquired by conquest were managed as Crown estates.

The first body to acquire a constitutional position with regard to foreign possessions was the Privy Council. In the time of the Commonwealth, a period which is in truth the seedplot of modern politics, we find the Protector, whose generals had been fighting the Spaniard for the empire of the Southern Seas, appointing a committee "to take into consideration the Trade and Navigation of this Commonwealth."2 We are not told of what body this was a committee, but as no Parliament was in existence at the time of its appointment (2d November 1655), and as the letter of summons says that the appointment is made by His Highness with the advice of his Council, there can be little doubt that it was regarded as a committee of the latter body, and as a matter of fact we learn from another source that its officials were paid by the Council.

The inclusion of the subject of Navigation in its commission would undoubtedly have given the committee power to deal with the English dependencies abroad. But unfortunately the statesmen of the Commonwealth were too busy to develope the idea; and, though additions to its membership were occasionally made, we learn from anonymous but fairly reliable

1 Cf. a list of the settlements which received charters from the Crown between 1574 and 1660 in Calendar of State Papers (colonial), p. viii. The whole of the preface to this volume is well worth reading by those interested in the history of the English colonies.

2 Whitelock, Memorials (edition 1782), p. 630.

3 Privy Seal Book, 1656, p. 56 (quoted in Thomas's Notes of Materials for the History of Public Departments, p. 77).

4 E.g. Whitelock, p. 634 (February 1655-56).

CHAP. I THE BOARD OF TRADE AND PLANTATIONS

3

testimony, that the committee soon became "merely nominal." 1 The plan did not, however, entirely drop out of sight, for, immediately after the Restoration, Charles II. created by patent two bodies specially concerned with the administration of dependencies. The first, known as the Council of Trade, constituted by patent dated 7th November 1660,2 was charged by Article XI. of its instructions to consider the general state of the Foreign Plantations, and in all matters wherein these were concerned to take advice "from the Council appointed to sit apart for the most particular inspection, regulation, and care of the Foreign Plantations." 3 This was the second body, the Council of Foreign Plantations, constituted by patent dated 1st December 1660, and its Articles of Instruction show clearly that it is the direct ancestor of the Colonial Office of the present day. Its members are to establish a regular correspondence with the Governors of the various dependencies, to require them to send an account of their affairs and the constitution of their laws and government, to hear and report to the king upon all complaints, to investigate the subject of emigration, "and how noxious and unprofitable persons may be transplanted to the general advantage of the Public and commodity of our Foreign Plantations," and, in a word, "to advise, order, settle, and dispose of all matters relating to the good government... of the Foreign Plantations." 5

These two bodies were consolidated by royal patent of the 27th September 16726 into The Council of Trade and Plantations, with salaried president and vice-president, but the united Board was itself abolished by a revoking patent of the 21st December 1675. There can be little doubt that, while they existed, these councils were looked upon as committees of the Privy Council, for, by their Articles, the members of the Council of Foreign Plantations are directed, when they deem further powers necessary, to address themselves to the king or Privy Council for further directions; and, in the patent revoking their commission, the joint council are ordered to deliver up their papers to the Clerk of the Privy Council.9

8

The Board of Trade and Plantations was revived by King

William III. on the 16th December 1695. The powers given to the commissioners specially refer to the "Plantations in America and elsewhere," and include, in addition to the functions of the joint board of Charles II., the important right to recommend to the King in Council the names of persons to be appointed Governors and officials, and also the duty of considering the Acts of the Assemblies of the Plantations sent to England for the royal approval.1

3

This board was continued, under various commissions, till the year 1781, when, at the close of the American War of Independence, the Board of Trade and Plantations was abolished by statute, and it was provided that the functions of the commissioners might be exercised by any committee or committees of the Privy Council, appointed by His Majesty during pleasure, without salary, fee, or pension to the members thereof. A feeling of despair, occasioned by the loss of the American colonies, and a desire for economic reform, combined to prevent the latter provision being properly carried out till the year 1786, when an Order in Council constituted a regular establishment of eighteen officials, charged with attending to the business of the committees contemplated by the Act of 1782.4 In the year 1817 the Crown was authorised by statute to pay a salary not exceeding £2000 a year to the Vice-President of the Committee of the Council appointed for the consideration of matters relating to Trade and Foreign Plantations; and in the year 1827 a similar provision was made with regard to the Presidency, which, it was specially enacted, should not on that account be deemed a "new office." (The President and VicePresident were, in fact, with the exception of the Colonial Secretary, the only working members of the committee.)

The establishment thus created, familiarly known as "The Board of Trade," continued in existence down to the time of the foundation of Port Phillip. But it was by no means the sole, or even the most important provision made by the English government for the management of the colonies. We have not yet seen how it was that Parliament came to have a voice in

1 Thomas, p. 79 (Article XI.)

3

$ 15.

5 57 Geo. III. c. 66.

2 22 Geo. III. c. 82.

4 Thomas, p. 79.

67 Geo. IV. c. 32.

7 This was to avoid the operation of the restrictions of the 6 Anne, c. 7, §§ 25 and 26 (which see).

CHAP. I

THE SECRETARIES OF STATE

5

the matter, for the Privy Council is a body which, in theory, is quite independent of Parliament, and its committees are not, nominally, under Parliamentary control. To understand how Parliament acquired the control of the colonial government, we must consider for a moment the history of the office of Secretary of State for the Colonies.

From very early times there had been in England officials known as "King's Secretaries." As their name implies, they were officials attached to the person of the monarch, to conduct his correspondence and act as his messengers. For centuries their appointments were purely casual, they had no definite position in the state, and their numbers varied with the actual requirements of the day. But with the reign of Henry VIII. they began to acquire a distinct standing. Their official rank was fixed by the Statute of Precedence of 1540.1 From that time until the year 1708 the regular number of Secretaries was two, known respectively as the "First" and "Second," or the "Northern" and "Southern," and this tradition was rarely departed from.2 The warrant of Henry VIII. (said to be of date 1539 or 1540), which appointed Thomas Wriothesly and Ralph Sadler to "have the name and office of the Kinges Majesties Principal Secretaryes," ordained that they should. attend His Majesty whenever he was present in the “Hiegh House" of Parliament, and that at other times they should sit alternately by weeks in the "Hieghe" House and the "Lowe" House, except that when special business should be treated in the latter, they might both be present.* The warrant also obviously contemplates the presence of the secretaries, though in a subordinate condition, in all meetings of the Council, and we therefore glean from it this most important fact, that in the sixteenth century the king's secretaries did actually constitute a link between the Council and the Parliament, the respective depositories of prerogative and popular power.

The office gained further recognition by the practice, which began in 1558,6 of creating it by patent, instead of by mere

1 31 Hen. VIII. c. 10.

3 State Paper Commission, vol. i. p. 623 n.

2 Thomas, p. 27.

4 Ibid. p. 624. But they had no votes unless they happened to be peers (31 Hen. VIII. c. 10, § 8).

5 Ibid. p. 623. The 31 Hen. VIII. c. 10, § 10, expressly gave them seats. Thomas, p. 27.

warrant or delivery of the seals, and from the beginning of the seventeenth century its holders are spoken of as Secretaries of State.1 Their position was still further strengthened by Clarendon's scheme of government at the time of the Restoration, one of its rules being that the Principal Secretaries of State should be of all Committees of the Council.2

It is doubtful, however, whether a Secretary of State at this time retained the right to sit, ex officio, in Parliament. Like the Lord Chancellor before him, a Secretary of State had ceased to be the personal attendant of the king; he had developed into a great public official. After the Restoration, the office was frequently held by men of firstrate importance in politics, men like Arlington, Sunderland, and Godolphin, who were generally members of one House of Parliament; and this practice led easily, after the Revolution, into the maxim that a Secretary of State ought to be a member of Parliament.

The custom of having two Principal Secretaries of State continued practically unbroken till the year 1768. Sixty years before that date, Queen Anne, in 1708, had appointed a Third Secretary, for Scottish affairs, and the appointment was continued till the Jacobite rising in 1745,3 but the Third Secretary was not necessarily of Cabinet rank, and did not take an equal position with his older colleagues. Walpole was also made Secretary at War in 1708, and the office was continued intermittently for some time, but it was not a Secretaryship of State, and must not be confounded with the later Secretaryship for War.

In 1768 a really new departure was taken by the appointment of the Earl of Hillsborough as Secretary of State for the Colonies. The patent of appointment (dated 27th February 1768) distinctly states that "the public business of the Colonies and Plantations increasing, it is expedient to appoint one other Principal Secretary of State besides the two ancient Principal Secretaries." 4

Here, then, we get a clear recognition of the colonies as a department of state, with a special official to look after it. The holder of the office, if a member of the House of Commons,

1 The first instance is said to have been in 1601 (Thomas, p. 27). I have not been able to trace the reference in Rymer, but find instances in 1610, 1616, and 1617 (Rymer, Fœdera, vii. 2, pp. 169 and 210, and vii. 3, p. 4).

2 Thomas, p. 23.

3 Ibid. p. 27.

4 Quoted in Thomas, p. 27.