expelling from their
limits all dissenters from their own establishment, the mother country
never exerted herself to protect or prohibit. The only ambition of the
state was to regulate the trade of its colonies: in this respect, and
this only, they were fenced round with restrictions, and watched with
the most diligent jealousy. They had a right to self-government and
self-taxation; a right to religious freedom, in the sense which they
chose themselves to put upon the word; a right to construct their
municipal polity as they pleased; but no right to control or amend the
slightest fiscal regulation of the imperial authority, however
oppressively it might bear upon them.

"Such, I say, were the general notions prevailing in England on the
subject of colonial government during the period of the foundation and
early development of our transatlantic colonies--the notions by which
the practice of government was regulated--although I do not assert that
they were framed into a consistent and logical theory. Perhaps we shall
not be far wrong in regarding Lord Chatham as the last distinguished
assertor of these principles, in an age when they had begun to be
partially superseded by newer speculations."--Merivale _On
Colonization_, vol. i., p. 102.]

[Footnote 300: Hutchinson's _History of Massachusetts_, p. 94.]

[Footnote 301: "In the spring of 1606, James I. by patent divided
Virginia into two colonies. The _southern_ included all lands between
the 34th and 41st degrees of north latitude. This was granted to the
London Company. The _northern_ included all lands between the 38th and
45th degrees of north latitude, and was granted to the Plymouth Company.
To prevent disputes about territory, the colonies were forbidden to
plant within a hundred miles of each other. There appears an
inconsistency in these grants, as the lands lying between the 38th and
41st degrees are covered by both patents.

"In the month of August, 1615, Captain John Smith arrived in England,
where he drew a map of the northern part of Virginia, and called it New
England. From this time the name of Virginia was confined to the
southern part of the colony."--Winterbottom's _History of America_, vol.
iv., p. 165. See Bancroft's _History of the United States_, vol. i., p.
120.]

[Footnote 302: Percy, in Purchas, iv., 1687.]

[Footnote 303: "This celebrated scene is preserved in a beautiful piece
of sculpture over the western door of the Rotundo of the Capi