Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I, Part 35

Author: Carroll, Charles, author
Publication date: 1932
Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 716

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ABOLITION IN RHODE ISLAND-In the same year the General Assembly abolished the slave trade into Rhode Island by forbidding the importation of negro or mulatto slaves. The statute included provision to prevent the bringing in of slaves to secure freedom by default. whereby the slaves, freed under the forfeiture prescribed by the statute, might become pub- lic charges. In 1775, a bill declaring "all negroes as well as other persons hereafter born within this colony" free, and providing for the manumission of slaves by their owners under regulations suitable to protect the colony, was presented, ordered printed, and referred, in the manner of the referendum in practice at that time, for discussion in town meetings. Then came the Revolutionary War and events so transcendental as to interrupt the current of ordi- nary procedure; otherwise it might be expected that Rhode Island would enact an emanci- pation statute in 1776. Within a fortnight of the burning of the "Gaspee," Lord Mansfield, on June 22, 1772, rendered his decision in the Somerset case that a slave became free by con- tact with English soil, or that slavery, as it conflicts with natural law, can exist only by posi- tive enactment. The Rhode Island statute of 1774, abolishing the slave trade, and the bill of 1775, which, had they been enacted earlier than 1772, might embroil Rhode Island in fresh quarrels with England because they interfered with "business," were not repugnant to the law of England as stated in Lord Mansfield's decision. The Revolution was no exception to the general rule that war is a distraction. A regiment of negro slaves, to be freed after release from service, was recruited for the campaign culminating in the battle of Rhode Island, 1778, in which they performed gallant service under the intrepid Christopher Greene. The removal of slaves from Rhode Island for sale outside the state was forbidden in 1779, and five years later children born of slave mothers after March I, 1784, were declared to be free, though they might be bound out to service during minority. The number of slaves in Rhode Island in 1790 was 952. There were few Indian slaves in Rhode Island at any time. Indians captured during King Philip's War were bound out to service for only limited periods. The importation of Indians as slaves, and the bringing of Indians into the colony

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for any purpose, both were forbidden in 1714. There were 1000 Indians in Rhode Island in 1730, and 1500 in 1774, including those living on the Narragansett reservation. Indians who left the tribal relation and settled as inhabitants might be admitted as freemen; the names of freemen admitted by the colony include names that indicate Indian origin.

GROWTH OF POPULATION AND CONSEQUENCES-The population of Rhode Island more than doubled in the twenty-two years from 1708 to 1730, increasing from 7181 to 17,935. The white population increased from 6755 to 16,285. Newport was still the largest town, with 4640 inhabitants. Providence, which included practically all of modern Providence County, had 3916 inhabitants. Kingstown had grown so rapidly that in 1723 a division was made into two towns, North Kingstown and South Kingstown; the combined population in 1730 was 3628. Because "the number of inhabitants of the colony . .. . are much increased and the bounds thereof are so extensive that that part thereof called the main land, especially the more remote inhabitants, are put to great trouble and difficulty in prosecuting their affairs in the common course of justice as the courts are now established," the colony was divided into three counties in 1729, thus : Newport County, including Newport, Portsmouth, James- town and New Shoreham; Providence County, including Providence, Warwick and East Greenwich; King's County, including Westerly, North Kingstown and South Kingstown. The shire towns were Newport, Providence and South Kingstown. The court system was completely reorganized, the new courts including inferior courts of common pleas for the several counties. The office of general sergeant, or colony sheriff was abolished; the sheriff became a county officer. The steady increase in population necessitated attention to ways and means of travel and transportation. The system of ferries linking the island towns with each other and with the mainland was extended and new ferries were established. A highway across the island of Conanicut connecting the east and west ferries as part of the main line of communication across the southern part of the colony from Newport to West- erly was laid out in 1709, and seven years later a road across Boston Neck, from Narragan- sett Bay to Pettaquamscott River, connecting the ferries, was accepted by the General Assem- bly as "a stated and public road." Across the colony from northeast to southwest stretched a road from Pawtucket Falls to Pawcatuck River. In 1713, a committee was appointed to survey and define this highway, described as "the public road leading through this colony from Pawtucket River to Pawcatuck River." The committee was authorized "if need be, to lay open any man's land or freehold for making the same more straight, fair and passable." Two years before, in 1711, the colony appropriated £200 as a contribution to the expense of building three bridges along this highway, one at Pawtucket, the Weybosset bridge at what is now Market Square in Providence, and one at Pawtuxet Falls. The bridge at Paw- tucket eventually became a joint enterprise of the residents on either side of the river-then in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. In 1712, a bridge across the Pawcatuck, in the line of the highway, was built by contributions. The colony contributed £30 to the rebuilding of Weybosset bridge in 1718 after it had been destroyed "by an unusual and violent flood." A third colony highway "through Providence, Warwick and West Greenwich, leading from Providence to Plainfield," was laid out in 1711. The surveying of highways and the repair and maintenance of bridges, including frequent reconstruction, was an almost constant con- cern of the General Assembly. There was no construction of roads at the expense of the colony ; the General Assembly merely located and surveyed, or accepted highways.

PAPER MONEY-Rhode Island's vigorous participation in Queen Anne's War involved large expenditures of money for the equipment, wages and maintenance of soldiers and sailors; for arms and ammunition, and other military supplies; and for ships and fortifica- tions. The tax resources of the colony were inadequate to meet these extraordinary expendi- tures, and recourse was had to borrowing money on the credit of the colony. Even great

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nations have become borrowers under similar circumstances; the beginning of national debts usually is traced to war emergencies. Rhode Island borrowed money by issuing bills of credit against, and to be redeemed from future taxes. The first Rhode Island paper currency was authorized in 1710, provision being made for issuing £5000 in bills of credit. The bills were payable from colony revenues and subject to call for payment and cancellation within five years. An annual tax of £ 1000 for five years was ordered as a sinking fund for the redemption of the bills. To assure acceptance by colony creditors in payment of colony debts, the notes were made legal tender for payments due the colony, including taxes and other assessments. The notes carried no stated interest, but the Treasurer was authorized to receive them in payment for taxes at five per cent. advance over face value, until 1715, when the bonus provision was repealed. The original plan provided for cancelling the bills at the rate of £ 1000 annually ; had the plan been followed strictly or substantially, this venture was no more vicious in practice or principle than the modern recourse to short-term notes or long-term bonds as means of extending bank credit or obtaining money for public purposes. Two additional issues of bills to the amount of £ 1000 each were authorized later in 1710, and in 1711 £6000 more were borrowed in the same way. In 1713, the annual tax of £ 1000 for redeeming bills of credit was ordered continued for eight years, thus assuring ultimately a sinking fund of £ 13,000. The first default was committed in 1711, when the proceeds of the first annual redemption tax were expended for war purposes in connection with the expedition against the French in Canada. A motion to redeem and cancel bills of credit to the amount of £ 500 was referred at the June session, 1712, to the next General Assembly in October. Of that October session no record remains; that no action affecting the colony debt was taken appears from later procedure. The colony's financial policy had become a political issue, with rival parties organized, one favoring resumption of specie money by redemption and cancellation of bills of credit following the plan for sinking by annual tax, the other party opposing any serious reduction in the volume of the currency, and wishing larger issues. This conflict between creditors and debtors was as old as money, and will end only with the abolition of money. The redemption party was in control of the General Assembly of 1713-1714; in May, 1713, it ordered continuance of the annual redemption tax ; in November, it appointed a committee to inquire into the immediate necessities of the colony and into the amount of bills of credit that might be retired; in February, it ordered the can- cellation by burning of £2000 of bills of credit on the last day of April, 1714. The officers were not favorable to redemption ; the order to burn currency was not complied with. Then came a Rhode Island revolution and a counter-revolution at the polls.

The revolution was in full strength at the spring election in 1714. The General Treas- urer and Recorder were defeated and retired. Of the ten Assistants chosen in 1713 only four were reelected in 1714; six only of twenty-eight Deputies weathered the storm. The new General Assembly was controlled by the hard money party. At the May session, 1714, the previous order to burn £2000 of bills of credit, which had not been complied with, was suspended. The revolution of 1714 was not caused exclusively by financial dissatisfaction ; had it been, it is altogether unlikely that the Assembly would have been content to burn only £ 1102 8s. 6d. of bills of credit, as it did in June, 1714, after a fresh examination of the gen- eral treasury and an estimate of the financial needs of the colony. The difference in policy indicated by (I) summary retirement by annual cancellation of £ 1000, and (2) retirement at a rate to be determined by the condition of the colony treasury, was significant but scarcely sufficient to explain the overturning of the General Assembly. There was another matter for agitation at the time, precipitated by the action of the General Assembly in June, 1713, whereby citing the provisions of the Charter, the function of choosing officers for the militia was taken from the towns and lodged in the General Assembly. The new Assembly of 1714, in June repealed the act of 1713, and, though the Assembly record, apparently incom-

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plete, does not include the enactment, restored the function to the freemen in the towns. Governor Cranston, one Assistant and three Deputies united in signing a protest against the latter action as a defiance of the Charter. In 1716, a revision of the militia laws was ordered, and two years later a new militia law was enacted. The counter-revolution was in operation in 1715; only one of the Assistants elected in 1714 was returned to office, whereas five of those who had failed of reelection in 1714 were elected in 1715. Joseph Jencks, later a vigorous opponent of paper money, was elected as Deputy Governor. There was another overturn in the House of Deputies. It would appear from later events that many of the perennial officeholders who had gone down to defeat in 1714 had returned to power with a mandate of the people ringing in their ears, counselling discretion in pursuing the redemption policy too drastically. The paper money party was now in control, and Rhode Island had started on the high road to inflation of currency.

To protect the people and the colony from fraud by counterfeiting, legislation was enacted in 1710 establishing penalties for counterfeiting currency issued by Rhode Island and other New England colonies, and providing for extradition of offenders from other colonies, escaping into Rhode Island. The counterfeiting law was amplified in 1711 to include defac- ing bills, and also passing, exposing or having possession of counterfeits. In 1718, Captain Edward Greenman and Silas Greenman, his son, both of whom had been Deputies from South Kingstown, were convicted of printing counterfeit bills from forged plates, were fined and gave bond to cover the redemption of the counterfeits, which were called in by the Treasurer. The Greenmans were reduced to poverty; from time to time the General Assem- bly released part of the bond to assist the elder Greenman in meeting present necessities. One of the penalties for counterfeiting was cropping the ears; this penalty was enforced in some instances.

PAPER MONEY LOANS FROM THE TREASURY-Another type of bill of credit was first issued in Rhode Island in 17II, when £300 of colony bills were issued to Captain James Greene as a loan for four years; these notes were secured by a mortgage on land owned by Greene. The loan was repaid, and the bills were cancelled. The precedent thus established was followed when the General Assembly of 1715 passed an act which began with a preamble reciting the colony's part in Queen Anne's War, and continued: "The defraying the charge thereof proved so great a burden that it hath reduced our cash and other mediums of exchange unto a very low ebb, so that there is a sensible decay of trade, the farmers thereby discouraged; tradesmen, husbandmen and many others reduced to want; and all sorts of business languishing, few having wherewithal to pay their arrears; and many not where- withal to sustain their daily wants by reason that the gold and silver in the first place to defray the incidental and occasional charges have been exhausted; and that those few bills of public credit put forth by this government falling far short of discharging the colony's arrears, has left us little or no medium of exchange." The preamble recited particular needs imposing obligations upon the colony; the act authorized the issuing of £30,000 in bills of credit of the colony, the money to be loaned to owners of land on mortgage security at five per cent. annual interest. Loans were limited to £500 maximum and £50 minimum; the land offered as security must be appraised at double the value of the loan. The interest was to be applied as part of the public revenue to redeeming outstanding colony bills of credit and to paying colony accounts. The interest was secured by personal bond, not by mortgage. Later in the same year a second issue of £ 10,000 was authorized. Assuming that the annual interest, £2000, could be collected, Rhode Island had attained the enviable position of being able to support its government "on the interest of what it owed," in the sense that the bills of credit had been issued as an obligation of the colony, although secured by land mortgages. Issues of this type of bills of credit were £40,000 in 1715, £40,000 in 1721, £40,000 in

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1728, £60,000 in 1731, £ 100,000 in 1733, £ 100,000 in 1738, £20,000 new tenor* in 1740, £ 40,000 new tenor in 1748, and £25,000 new tenor in 1751. Governor Jenckes in 1731 attempted to veto the act authorizing the emission of £60,000 in public bills of credit. The King, to whom an appeal was taken, held that the Governor had no veto power, and that the credit laws were not subject to repeal by the King .; Parliament in 1751 forbade farther issues of this type of bills of credit. During the period of inflation the colony grew rapidly in population and was apparently very prosperous in its economic life. Rhode Island had obtained the capital in the form of ready money needed to finance an intensive development of trade and commerce. The improvement had been attained for the time being, the ulti- mate consequences to the contrary notwithstanding. In 1721 an English halfpenny was declared equal in value to three halfpence in currency in payments to the treasury. Five years later judgment in a private suit was rendered for £100 silver or £ 181 Ios. in currency. These facts indicated depreciation in paper currency.

TRADE REGULATIONS-For promoting trade and navigation towns were authorized in 1707 to settle coves, creeks, rivers, waters and banks bordering upon their respective town- ships, by building houses and warehouses, wharves, laying out lots, or other improvements. Sales at auction in Newport by a town vendue master were authorized in 1708, and in other towns in 1719. The exportation of grain in large quantities in 1713 to relieve famine abroad caused by failure of crops necessitated an embargo on shipments from Rhode Island of grain of any sort, flour and biscuit. Ten years later, 1724, the Governor was authorized, in another period of scarcity, to purchase 2000 bushels of Indian corn at the lowest price possible, and sell it at cost to the inhabitants. Pack peddling of dry goods (1714) and of other goods (1728) was forbidden, as a measure to protect purchasers from fraud and merchants from unfair competition. The progressive attitude of the colony was indicated by positive meas- ures to promote industry. Three fishermen were granted permission in 1716 to use Starve Goat Island, near Field's Point, as a place for drying and curing fish. Samuel Bissell was granted a loan of £200 in 1721 as encouragement to carry on the trade of making nails. In the next year William Borden was given a bounty of twenty shillings for each bolt of duck made from hemp "which shall be equal in goodness to good merchantable Holland's duck." The bounty was to continue for five years, but later in the year was extended to ten years. The duck was to be sealed by colony officers as a warranty of its "goodness." To assist Borden, who found the manufacturing process expensive, loans from the general treasury were ordered as follows: One hundred pounds for one year at five per cent. (1724); £500 for three years on good land security with interest (1725) ; £ 3000 of bills of credit, a special issue, on good security (1728), without interest for ten years, on condition that Borden make 150 bolts of merchantable duck annually for ten years. The requirement of manufacturing 150 bolts annually was released (1731). The last loan was extended for three years on request in 1736. Bounties were offered to encourage the sowing, raising and manufacturing of hemp (1728) and the raising of flax (1731). To encourage whale and cod fisheries bounties were offered in 1731 on whale oil, whale bone, and codfish, caught by Rhode Island vessels and brought into Rhode Island ports. The sloop "Pelican," first of the whalers, landed fourteen barrels of oil and two hundred weight of bone at Newport, 1733. The bounties laws were repealed in 1744. The placing of weirs, dams and nets in rivers was regu- lated in 1719 with the purpose of preserving river fisheries. In 1726 millers were limited to a charge of not exceeding two quarts of grain per bushel. When, in the same year, Stephen Northup brought suit against Elisha Cole for damage to Northup's land which was flooded by backflow from a dam built by Cole as an accessory to a gristmill, the dam was demolished and the gristmill rendered useless. Thereupon many who had been accommodated by the

*Payable in silver at 90s. per ounce, or gold at £6 13s. 4d. per ounce. +Chapter IX.

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mill were "put to very great difficulties to get their bread corn ground," and were obliged "to eat pounded corn instead of ground." The Assembly, holding "that the public benefit of whole towns is to be preferred to the benefit of two private persons," gave Northup and Cole three months to adjust their differences and reach an agreement "so that the mill dani be erected and built up again, so that the mill will be caused to grind," failing which the town council of North Kingstown was authorized and empowered to cause a jury of twelve men to "value the yearly income of the land and mill and the right that belongs to the said Elisha Cole in the said mill, dam, land, river, etc., and the yearly damage the said Stephen Northup shall sustain by having his land drowned by erecting the aforesaid dam." The council was further authorized "in behalf of the said town," to "take the said mill, land, dam, etc., into their custody, and erect and amend the dam, and cause the mill to grind; the said town pay- ing to the said Elisha Cole and Stephen Northup the yearly value of the mill, land, dam and river . . . . by the valuation of the jury . ... until such time as the said Elisha Cole and Stephen Northup shall agree between themselves to keep the mill going." The colony thus had approached very nearly to (I) the condemnation of private property for public use, to (2) the regulation of a public utility, or (3) public operation of a utility failing under private ownership. The reason given, "that the public benefit of whole towns is to be preferred to the benefit of two private persons," conformed to modern conceptions of the rights of society and indicated how clearly Rhode Island, while staunchly insisting upon liberty of conscience and the freedom of the individual, was not in the hopelessly non-social condition by some writers associated with Separatism.

ADMINISTRATIVE MACHINERY-The General Assembly, in the first quarter of the eight- eenth century, was advancing the experiment in representative government by adjusting itself to novel situations as these developed. It continued to combine lawmaking, adminis- trative and judicial functions, and held meetings frequently to dispose of accumulating busi- ness in the three fields. Three measures, increasing costs, were adopted in 1708, 1710 and 1713, for the purpose of discouraging appeals from trial courts to the General Assembly. The hearing of appeals was burdensome and prolonged the sessions of the Assembly ; besides, the distraction of hearing appeals interfered with the parliamentary functions of the body, and tended to introduce discord. The people of Rhode Island of the eighteenth century had inherited the marked penchant for litigation that had been characteristic of the seven- teenth century. A statute of limitations, with the purpose of quieting titles to land was enacted in 1712, practically assuring undisturbed possession after twenty years of occupancy under claim of title. An act "to discourage vexatious and unjust suits" was passed in 1725, and in the next year the English statute of limitations against personal actions, the famous statute of James, was reenacted in Rhode Island. To shorten trials, which theretofore had been prolonged in some instances interminably by the arguments of three or more lawyers for each party, in 1718 the parties were limited to two lawyers apiece, one of whom must be a freeholder, a freeman and an inhabitant of Rhode Island. Not satisfied with trials in lower courts and appeals to the General Assembly, litigants frequently carried lawsuits into the courts of England. Eventually the General Assembly refused to certify to England for further trial causes involving less than £ 300; in 1719 a statute regulated appeals to England. The English Privy Council in 1726 ordered that execution on judgments given in America should not be issued pending appeals to English Courts, because it happened too frequently that the appellant successful in England was in the position of one who had locked the door after the horse had been stolen. While appeals to the Assembly from trial courts occasion- ally necessitated the hearing of evidence to determine the merits of the case, on some appeals the General Assembly's function was that of a court of chancery, and necessary for justice while trial courts were limited to legal remedies; thus, in actions for the enforcement of penalties secured by bond, trial courts gave decisions for the full amounts of the bonds. On

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appeals, the General Assembly, applying rules of equity, chancerized the judgments and reduced the amounts thereof to reimbursement for actual damage. Appeals of this type were entertained on petition for relief after the Assembly had renounced equity jurisdiction, and while no other provision for a court of chancery had been made.

The October session of the General Assembly in 171I was "by the extremity of the weather neglected"; of a meeting in October, 1712, at Providence there is no record in the archives. A session adjourned to February, 1715, failed for want of a quorum of the Assist- ants. A session adjourned to September, 1717, failed for want of a quorum of Deputies. Yet, considering the meagre compensation awarded for public service, it is rather remark- able than otherwise that the sessions of the General Assembly were so well attended as was indicated by the lists of members present. Both Governor and Deputy Governor continued to receive nominal salaries, though scarcely a year passed during Governor Cranston's long administration in which the Assembly did not award him additional compensation for unusual service. Other officers also were paid for service other than attendance at sessions, which was covered by the established scale. In 1722, the Deputy Governor's salary was advanced to £ 30 annually ; in the preceding year the salaries of Assistants were fixed at £10 annually and Deputies were to receive six shillings per diem from their towns. The Treasurer's sal- ary was £ 100, 1729, and £ 1000, 1759. He gave bond of £ 10,000 in 1729. Exemption from arrest and other civil process, which from 1666 had been for the term of their service, was limited in 1724 to the period of actual attendance during sessions and three days before and three days after, because "by long experience" it had been "found to be prejudicial to many of the inhabitants of this colony, who have been thereby oftentime kept out of their just dues, to their great hurt and damage."

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Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. I, Part 35

Author: Carroll, Charles, author Publication date: 1932 Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 716

Author: Carroll, Charles, author
Publication date: 1932
Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 716