n they were to be, or could be, in Britain until
nearly a century later. No direct taxation had as yet been imposed upon
them without their own consent. They made the laws by which their own
lives were regulated. They were called upon to pay no tribute to the
home government, except the very indirect levy on goods passing through
England to or from their ports, and this was nearly balanced by the
advantages which they enjoyed in the British market, and far more than
balanced by the protection afforded to them by the British fleet. They
were not even required to raise troops for the defence of their own
frontiers except of their own free will, and the main burden of
defending even their landward frontier was borne by the mother-country.
But being British they had the instinct of self-government in their
blood and bones, and they found that the control of their own affairs
was qualified or limited in two principal ways.

In the first place, the executive and judicial officers who carried out
the laws were not appointed by them but by the Crown in England: the
colonies were not responsible for the administration of their own laws.
In the second place, the regulations by which their foreign trade was
governed were determined, not by themselves, but by the British
parliament: they were not responsible for the control of their own
traffic with the outside world. It is true that the salaries of the
executive officials and the judges depended upon their grant, and that
any governor who acted in the teeth of colonial opinion would find his
position quite untenable, so that the colonists exercised a real if
indirect control over administration. It is true also that they
accepted the general principles of the commercial system, and had
reaped great benefits from it.

But it is the unfailing instinct of the citizens in a self-governing
community to be dissatisfied unless they feel that they have a full and
equal share in the control of their own destinies. Denied
responsibility, they are apt to become irresponsible; and when all
allowance has been made for the stupidities of governors and for the
mistakes of the home authorities, it must be recognised that the
thirteen American colonial legislatures often behaved in a very
irresponsible way, and were extremely difficult to handle. They refused
to vote fixed salaries to their judges in order to make their power
felt, simply because the judges were appointed by the Crown, although