USA > Rhode Island > A short history of Rhode Island > Part 9
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In 1703 the long boundary line contest between Rhode Island and Connecticut was brought to a close, and Rhode Island confirmed in the juris- diction 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 Commis- sioners 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.
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But fortunately for Rhode Island, the powerful William Penn had been enlisted on her side, and the Queen's Council refused to accept the recom- mendation of the Board of Trade.
Another question which menaced serious dan- ger 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 fron- tier, 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 willing- ness 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
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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 sub- ject of a court of chancery began to attract atten- tion 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.
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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 Assem- bly 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 tem- pers" 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" pre- ferred white servants to black.
In 1708 the first census was taken by order of the Board of Trade, giving for result seven thou- sand one hundred and eighty-one inhabitants, of whom one thousand and fifteen were freemen. The militia amounted to one thousand three
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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 com- mutation 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 re- ports to the Board of Trade, we learn that the annual "exports sent to England by way of Bos- ton amounted to twenty thousand pounds ; that the principal direct trade was by the West Indies ; and that within the past twenty years the amount
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of shipping had increased six-fold." This in- crease 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 popula- tion 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 Sep- tember, 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 follow- ing year, 1711, they eagerly entered into the plans of the English ministry for the invasion of Can-
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ada. 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 pro- vision 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 naviga- ble 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 en- couragement 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 res- ident for three months in the Colony and intend- ing to leave, to advertise their intention ten days before hand, so that their creditors might have due notice."
CHAPTER XVII.
PAPER MONEY TROUBLES .- ESTABLISHMENT OF BANKS .- PRO- TECTION OF HOME INDUSTRIES .- PROPERTY QUALIFICA- TIONS FOR SUFFRAGE.
THE treaty of Utrecht gave peace to England and her dependencies, leaving them free to follow out the peaceful development of commerce and manufactures. War had brought on paper money, which was first issued to meet the expenses of the second expedition against Port Royal. This first issue was of five thousand pounds in bills of from five pounds to two shillings, equal in value as far as legislation could make them so, "to cur- rent silver of New England, eight shillings to the ounce. They were to be received in all payments due the treasury, to be redeemed in specie at the end of five years," and meanwhile were secured by an "annual tax of a thousand pounds." To counterfeit or deface them was felony. Further issues of eight thousand pounds were made by the end of the war, and secured by new taxes. Thus was opened the great gulf which was to swallow the fruits of much laborious industry.
The Assembly made another step towards its present form by electing a clerk outside the house. The pay of this first clerk was six shil- lings a day.
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The military stores which had been collected during the war were divided into two classes. Those of a perishable nature were sold. The rest were carefully stored away to be ready for the chances of another war. "The cannon were tarred and laid on logs on the governor's wharf." The garrison of Fort Anne was dismissed. The labors of peace began. Increased attention was given to public highways. The old road which ran through the Colony from Pawtucket to Paw- catuck was repaired, and a new one opened to Plainfield through Warwick and West Green- wich. But in this the enterprise of the Colony outran its wants, and the new road was soon abandoned.
As we follow the sessions of the Assembly we find acts for the repression of litigation renewed three times in five years. The provision of the charter by which commissioned militia officers were to be elected by the Assembly had been neglected for more than a generation, and the elec- tions made by the towns. While the population was small and most of the inhabitants freemen this mode of election proved good. But with the increase of population disputes and difficulties arose, and in 1713 a new law was passed in accord- ance with the provisions of the charter. But after a short trial and in spite of the protest of the governor and four assistants, the old law was revised.
One of the difficult questions of legislation
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came before the Assembly of 1713. Merchants had exported grain too freely and the home market began to feel the drain. The Assembly interfered, and not only forbade further exporta- tion but set a tariff of prices for the markets of the Colony. £ An account of the stock of pro- visions in Newport was taken. The price of wheat was ten shillings and sixpence a bushel, of rye five shillings, of corn and barley four shil- lings, and of flour and biscuit thirty shillings a hundred.
Among the laws of trade which were passed at this time was a stringent law against peddlers, pro- hibiting them from selling dry goods under heavy penalties. But the apple of discord which divided the whole community was paper money. All New England was disturbed by it. In Massachu- setts there were three parties, each very bitter against the other. Smallest of the three was the hard money party, which insisted upon with- drawing the bills of credit and putting all busi- ness transactions upon a metallic basis. The other two were in favor of banks, but of banks founded upon very different principles. One advocating a private, the other a public bank system. By the former bills of credit secured upon real estate were to be issued by the com- pany and received by its members as money, but without any fixed relation to gold and silver. The other advocated a public bank, with bills to be loaned by government on mortgage of real
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estate and paying an annual interest for the support of government. Each party represented a distinct class. The hard money party was com- posed of men for the most part free from debt and ready to pay their way in cash. The private bank party were owners of real estate who were unable to use it to advantage for meeting their engagements. The hard money party after a severe struggle coalesced with these, and a "bank or loan of fifty thousand pounds" was estab- lished for five years.
In Rhode Island there were but two parties- the hard money party and the paper money party. The struggle was long and bitter, and ended by the adoption of the public bank system of Massachusetts. The contest was felt in the elections, each party striving to secure an Assem- bly favorable to itself. In the May election of 1714 "the specie party triumphed." Twenty- two deputies out of twenty-eight lost their seats. An act had been passed requiring the treasurer to burn two thousand bills of credit. He diso- beyed and lost his place. Bills to the amount of one thousand one hundred and two pounds eight shillings and sixpence were collected and burnt.
In the new election the paper money question still agitated the public mind. Only five out of the old members were returned to the Assembly. Of the assistants only one. Joseph Jenckes was chosen Deputy-Governor in the place of Henry Tew. So complete was the change that it was
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called "the great revolution." Yet amid all these changes Governor Cranston held his place.
The death of Queen Anne and accession of George I. excited little attention in the colonies. South Carolina was suffering from the Yemassee war, which brought new emigrants to Rhode Island, and among them some females of Hugue- not origin who had their Indian slaves with them. Their coming seems to have been accept- able, for the Assembly upon petition remitted to them the importation tax. The population was not yet sufficient to protect farmers from wolves and foxes. The old bounty was increased, and rewards were offered by Portsmouth for blackbirds and crows, and by Providence for gray squirrels and rats. A few years later still higher bounties were offered for wild-cats and bears.
The great public question was still the ques- tion of the bank, and we have already seen that the form adopted was that of public banks. In the July session of 1715 a bank or loan of thirty thousand pounds was established, which in a later session was raised to forty thousand. "Bills from five pounds to one shilling were issued and proportioned among the towns." Whoever could give good mortgage security could claim a loan. But the interest instead of being secured by bond and mortgage was secured by bond alone, and thus the greater part of it was eventually lost, a very serious defect in the system, for it
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was from this interest that the bills were to be redeemed and the expenses of government paid. We shall meet this subject again, but never in a pleasant form.
It is interesting to see by what devices the in- creasing wants of the Colony was met. Newport had wants of her own as "the metropolitan town of the Colony." The street leading to the Colony House needed paving, and to meet the expenses a grant was made of funds drawn from the duty on imported slaves. Other streets were paved and a bridge built over Potowomut River by funds drawn from the same source.
The criminal code also, grows with the Colony. Fraudulent voting is punished with fine, whipping or imprisonment. To facilitate detection every voter was required to endorse his name in full on his ballot. A large proportion of the crimes in the Colony were committed by Indian slaves. The fear of punishment was an insufficient pro- tection against this class of criminals, and a law was passed prohibiting their introduction into the Colony.
We have seen that Newport and Providence made early provision for schools. Portsmouth followed their example, and "having considered how excellent an ornament learning is to man- kind," made in 1716 an appropriation for build- ing a school house. The experiment was suc- cessful, and six years later two others were built- one of them sixteen feet square, the other thirty by twenty-five.
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It is deserving of remark that in this young society slander was not suffered to go unpun- ished. A Gabriel Bernon had brought a false accusation against one of the assistants. He was compelled to make "a written acknowledgment to the injured party," and ask pardon in writ- ing of the Assembly which he had treated with disrespect on his examination.
The condition of the Indians called for legisla- tive interference. On the petition of Ninigret their lands were taken under the protection of the Colony, and overseers appointed to lease them for the benefit of the tribe and remove trespassers. The following year an attempt was made to enforce temperance among them by increasing the difficulty of their obtaining liquor on credit.
The militia law was revised from time to time and various changes introduced. In that of 1718 the governor was styled "Captain-General and Commander-in-Chief," and the deputy-governor "Lieutenant-General."
It will be remembered that colonial laws were required to conform as far as possible to English laws. The colonial legislatures put a large inter- pretation upon this provision, and in providing for the estates of intestates modified materially the law of primogeniture. The eldest son, in- stead of the whole estate, received only a double share-one-third being given to the widow and the remainder divided among the children.
The Board of Trade had repeatedly called for
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a complete copy of the laws, and the Assembly had appointed more than one committee to revise and print them. It was not, however, till 1719 that the work was taken seriously in hand. That. it should have been printed in Boston shows how old prejudices were passing away. This first edition was distributed among the towns and the Assembly.
Boundary questions revive from time to time. The northern boundary gave rise to bitter discus- sions, and though often on the point of being decided, was not really brought to a decision for several years. The western boundary, also, had been practically decided in favor of Rhode Island. But this question, too, was reopened, and the uncertainties and inconveniences which such dis- putes engender idly prolonged to the sore annoy- ance of the inhabitants of the border. How im- perfectly the serious nature of the question was. understood in England may be seen by the propo- sition of the Privy Council that both Rhode Island and Connecticut should surrender their charters and be annexed to New Hampshire. It was not till 1727 that Westerly knew whether she belonged to Connecticut or to Rhode Island.
Protection begins about this time to manifest itself as essential to the success of domestic in- dustry. Acts also were passed for the protec- tion of river fisheries. The manufacture of nails and hemp duck were encouraged-nails by a loan and duck by a bounty. With the increase of pop-
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ulation new guarantees were required to secure purity of suffrage. In the winter of 1724 the free- hold act was passed "requiring a freehold qual- ification of the value of one hundred pounds, or an annual income of two pounds derived from real estate to enable any man to become a free- man." With modification of detail but none of principle, this law held its place on the statute book for a hundred and twenty years. "Freemen of the towns who were not freemen of the Colony were allowed to vote for deputies."
In 1721 a new bank or loan for forty thousand pounds was established upon the same principle as the first. Hemp and flax were received in payment of interest. Specie had become `so scarce that an English half-penny passed for three half-pence, and it was soon manifest that the introduction of paper money had raised prices and encouraged speculation in land.
But nothing occurred to break the monotony of colonial life so important as the capture in 1723 of a pirate schooner and the trial of her crew by a court of admiralty. Twenty-six of the prisoners were condemned to death, hanged at Gravelly or Bull's Point, and buried on Goat Island between high and low water mark.
One of the important events of 1722-3, and which must be considered as a favorable indica- tion of the increase of population was the division of Kingston into two towns. In 1724 the failure of the crops led again to the prohibi-
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tion of the exportation of grain. Two thousand bushels of Indian corn were bought on public account and sold to the people at low prices. In Newport no one was allowed to have more than four bushels at a time-in the other towns not more than eight. The temperance question, also, began to attract attention at an early day, and various efforts were made to check drunkenness. Among them was an act prohibiting the selling of liquor to common drunkards, and to ensure the carrying out of the act town councils were required to post in their own and the neighboring towns those who came under it. In nothing, however, was the progress of the Colony more evident than in the growth of the religious sentiments. The soul liberty of its founder had been mistaken for license. Towards the close of the seventeenth century Cotton Mather had written: "Rhode Island is a colluvies of Antinomians, Familists, Anabaptists, Anti-Sabbatarians, Arminians, So- cinians, Quakers, Ranters, everything in the world but Roman Catholics and true Christians." A quarter of a century later he wrote : "Calvin- ists with Lutherans, Presbyterians with Episco- palians, Pedobaptists with Anabaptists, behold- ing one another to fear God and work righteous- ness, do with delight sit down together at the same table of the Lord." In strict accordance with the fundamental principle of the Colony the pay of the clergy was made by voluntary contribution of their parishioners.
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We have recorded the deaths of Williams and Clarke. In April, 1727, Governor Samuel Crans- ton followed them to the grave, leaving no public man so universally loved behind.
It is a proof of the progress of the Colony that vagrants and "mad persons " began to be pro- vided for by law. Among the laws adopted from England at this period was the act of limitations for personal actions.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHANGE OF THE EXECUTIVE .- ACTS OF THE ASSEMBLY .- JOHN BERKELY'S RESIDENCE IN NEWPORT .- FRIENDLY FEEL- ING BETWEEN THE COLONISTS AND THE MOTHER COUNTRY.
NEARLY a generation had passed since a new governor had been chosen, but the place made vacant by death was now to be filled. The choice fell upon Joseph Jenckes, (May, 1727.) He was a resident of Pawtucket, and in those days of irregular communication Pawtucket was too far from the seat of government for the prompt trans- action of public business. It was voted, there- fore, that it was "highly necessary for the Gov- ernor of this Colony to live at Newport, the metropolis of the government," and a hundred pounds was appropriated for the expense of his removal. While the Colony was passing into the hands of a new executive a similar change was taking place in the mother country. George I. died suddenly, and George II. succeeded to the throne.
But the change of sovereign brought no change with it in the policy of the mother country. The act of navigation was still the rule by which she measured her relations to the colonies. They were still to supply the raw material and she the profitable manufacture.
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