COLONIAL PROSPERITY.—DIFFICULTIES OCCASIONED BY THE WAR WITH THE FRENCH.—DOMESTIC AFFAIRS OF THE COLONY.

If we may judge the prosperity of the Colony by the increase of taxation—and taxes it must be remembered were self-imposed—we shall find that Rhode Island at the beginning of the new century had made real if not rapid progress in all the branches of national prosperity. Her population in 1702 was estimated at ten thousand, exclusive of Indians. She drew supplies from foreign ports in bottoms of her own, and raised the staples of life on her own farms. Her citizens were merchants, farmers, fishermen and sailors. There was a beginning, also, of manufactures—to the sore displeasure of the Board of Trade.

We perceive, also, by the same test that Providence had regained the relative position which she had lost during Philip’s war, and was once more the second town of the Colony.

The soul liberty of which I have spoken so often had borne rich fruits. Baptists, Quakers, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Puritans and Sabbatarians had their respective places of worship and their independent pastors. Among the Baptist pastors we find John Clarke. Among the Congregationalists Samuel Niles, a native of Block Island, and the first Rhode Islander that graduated at Harvard. In 1704 the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts sent out James Honeyman to build up an Episcopal church in the southern part of the Colony. He found much to do as rector of Trinity, in Newport, and missionary to Freetown, Tiverton and Little Compton on the main. His memory is still preserved in Episcopal traditions and Honeyman’s Hill, the highest land in the southern extremity of the island, is a familiar name to the inhabitants of Newport. In 1706 an Episcopal society was founded in Kingston, with Rev. Christopher Bridge for rector. So well was the work on the church done, that after remaining where it was built ninety-three years, it was removed to Wickford, where it is still used under the name of the Church of St. Paul. One of the most interesting of these denominations was that of the Sabbatarians, or Seventh-day Baptists, who had also a flourishing church in Westerly. To meet their peculiar views two weekly market days were, set apart for them.

The meetings and acts of the Assembly still continue to form the principal record of our history. The Assembly itself claimed equal rights with those exercised by Parliament over its own members, and at a special session in 1701, suspended an assistant who had married a couple illegally and refused to acknowledge his error. The Board of Trade had more than once called for a printed copy of the laws of the Colony, and as a proof that they were regularly administered Governor Cranston sent a full statement of the mode of procedure in all the courts. I have already spoken of Lord Bellemont’s plan for the formation of a great vice-royalty over all the colonies, including the Bahama Islands. After his death this wild scheme, fatal to the freedom and prosperity of British America, was revived by Dudley. The irregular administration of the navigation laws was the chief pretext, and it probably was held to be a sufficient concession to freedom that the local government was left in the hands of the colonial assemblies. A bill for this purpose was drawn up near the close of William’s reign and brought forward early in that of Anne.

But the rights of the colonies were boldly and ably defended by Sir Henry Ashurst, the agent of Connecticut, and the fatal bill rejected after a full discussion. Dudley himself, however, was in high favor. He was appointed Governor and Vice-Admiral of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and what was still more objectionable Vice-Admiral of Rhode Island and King’s Province, a fruitful source of jealousies and bickerings.

Meanwhile the Assembly went on in its work of legislation, taking advantage of its experience to correct old errors, and gradually adapting the laws to the increasing wants of society. At the May session of 1701 we find justices of the peace first mentioned in connection with a general election. Thirteen were then appointed. In the same session a resolution for the reÖrganization of the militia law was again brought forward and the law of marriage revised and made more stringent. New powers were given the governor for enforcing the navigation act. Progress had been made towards a correct estimate of the obligations of society to its officers. The governor’s salary was raised to forty pounds—a sum much increased during the year by special gratuities. The recorder was forbidden to practice at the bar except in cases which concerned himself or the town or Colony. Protection against vagrants was sought in a rigid vagrant act, extending to comers from other colonies, deserters from the King’s service and “passengers brought in by sea and landed without consent of the authorities.”

The short lived treaty of Ryswick was broken, and in the May session of 1702 preparations were made for the defence of Newport harbor by building a fort on Goat Island. In the town itself a battery was erected near the ground now occupied by the Union Bank. The funds for these defences were to be drawn from “forfeitures to the treasury and the gold plate and money taken from convicted pirates.” The pay of the garrison at the fort was fixed at twelve pounds a year, with rations. Scouts, that essential element of every good army, but especially necessary where the enemy were part Indians, received three shillings a day while in active service. The spirit of adventure was awakened. Captain William Wanton, of Portsmouth, took out a commission as privateersman and brought in several valuable prizes.

In September Dudley undertook to take command of the Rhode Island troops—about two thousand men in all, and coming to Newport directed that they should be called out in his name. The calm but firm resistance of Governor Cranston and Major Martindale thwarted his usurpation, and he left the town in disgust.

In 1703 the long boundary line contest between Rhode Island and Connecticut was brought to a close, and Rhode Island confirmed in the jurisdiction 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 Commissioners 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. But fortunately for Rhode Island, the powerful William Penn had been enlisted on her side, and the Queen’s Council refused to accept the recommendation of the Board of Trade.

Another question which menaced serious danger 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 frontier, 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 willingness 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 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 subject of a court of chancery began to attract attention 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. 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 Assembly 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 tempers” 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” preferred white servants to black.

In 1708 the first census was taken by order of the Board of Trade, giving for result seven thousand one hundred and eighty-one inhabitants, of whom one thousand and fifteen were freemen. The militia amounted to one thousand three 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 commutation 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 reports to the Board of Trade, we learn that the annual “exports sent to England by way of Boston amounted to twenty thousand pounds; that the principal direct trade was by the West Indies; and that within the past twenty years the amount of shipping had increased six-fold.” This increase 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 population 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 September, 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 following year, 1711, they eagerly entered into the plans of the English ministry for the invasion of Canada. 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 provision 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 navigable 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 encouragement 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 resident for three months in the Colony and intending to leave, to advertise their intention ten days before hand, so that their creditors might have due notice.”