PROGRESS OF THE WAR WITH THE FRENCH.—CHANGE IN THE JURISDICTION OF THE COURTS.—SENSE OF COMMON INTEREST DEVELOPING AMONG THE COLONISTS.—LOUISBURG CAPTURED.

War still continued to give its stern coloring to legislation. The Tartar was held ready for instant service. The Governor and his council were vested with the power of laying an embargo upon outward bound vessels. Speculation turned seaward, and the money which in peace would have been employed in building up commerce and manufactures was spent upon privateers.

Still the interests of peace were not altogether neglected. The productive enterprise which was to raise Rhode Island so high in the list of manufacturing states, was already awakened, and as early as 1741 James Greene and his associates petitioned the Assembly for permission to build a dam across the south branch of Pawtuxet river and lay the foundation of those iron works which in the sequel became so celebrated throughout the colonies. Population was increasing. The large townships became too large for the demands of local government and were divided. Thus Greenwich, carrying out the suggestions of its position, was divided into East and West. About the same time Warwick was divided and a new township set out under the name of Coventry. In the next year North Kingstown was divided and the Town of Exeter incorporated, and a year later the country district of Newport, which was separated from the town by thick woods, was incorporated as Middletown. The territorial struggle was nearly over and Rhode Island was settling down into its permanent proportions. The schedules still continue to record the progress of organization as experience called for new changes. The office of attorney-general was abolished and a King’s attorney for every county appointed instead. A Court of Equity composed of five judges, annually elected by the Assembly, was formed to try all causes of appeal in personal actions from the Superior Court to the General Assembly—a course which “by long experience had been found prejudicial.” To draw closer the ties of loyalty a form of prayer for the royal family was sent from England to be read in every religious assembly throughout the colonies as a part of public worship.

The dissensions with Connecticut concerning the western boundary had taken a new form. The line, as the reader will remember, had been drawn and marked by competent authority. A committee appointed by Connecticut displaced the bound at the southwest corner of Warwick. The Rhode Island Assembly sent surveyors to examine the ground and restore the line. This outrage was repeated twice.

The history of the war does not belong to the history of Rhode Island, although the spirit engendered by it led to the formation of some military institutions. Among these was the Newport Artillery, which was chartered in 1741, and is still one of the best disciplined corps in the State.

I have spoken of the substitution of King’s attorneys to attorneys-general. It was made in the hope of enforcing the payment of interest bonds. But after a short trial the original form was resumed. The root of the evil was too deep. Another of the chronic evils of paper money vexed the Colony sorely. Counterfeit bills followed close upon the issue of genuine bills, and the Colony was flooded with bad money.

The Court of Equity was not continued long, and many other changes of brief duration were made in various branches of government. But what deserves especial mention is the instinctive perception with which Rhode Island detected the slightest invasion of her chartered rights and the courage with which she defended them. The clerkship of the naval office in Newport was claimed by one Leonard Lockman in virtue of a royal commission. The claim was referred to a committee which reported “that His Majesty was mistaken in said grant” which belonged to the Governor, who alone was responsible for the conduct of that officer. The question of custom fees and vice-admiralty fees was brought forward about the same time, and “the undoubted right of the General Assembly to state the fees of all officers and courts within the Colony” boldly asserted.

The expenses of the war still increased, straining the resources of the Colony to the utmost. Questions of organization were still rising, but the question of finance was the most difficult of all. New bills were issued with reckless profusion, and various devices adopted for the relief of the exchequer. Several bounties, and among them the bounties on hemp and oil, were withdrawn. The tonnage duty upon all vessels entering the Colony was revived. The lottery so wisely condemned in 1733 was legalized in 1744. Weybosset bridge was built by lottery.

The great military event of the campaign of 1745 was the capture of Louisburg by colonial troops. In this gallant feat of arms which fills so bright a page of colonial annals Rhode Island bore her part—especially through the Tartar, which, supported by two other war sloops, defeated at Famme Goose Bay a flotilla which was advancing with large reinforcements to the relief of the enemy. Captain Fones, who commanded the Tartar in this memorable campaign, has not received the honorable mention to which he was entitled for his gallantry and skill. New exertions were required for securing Louisburg, and the colonies were again called upon to furnish men and supplies. In this also Rhode Island bore her part, propping as best she might her tottering treasury and using impressment for raising men. When the war was over England acknowledged her services by special grants.

In this year Rhode Island lost one of her faithful sons, Colonel John Cranston, son of the popular Governor, and commander of her forces at the capture of Port Royal. Towards the close of the year another great loss, though of another kind, fell upon the Colony. Two new privateers, mounting twenty-two guns each, with crews of over two hundred men went to sea the day before Christmas in a gale of wind and were never heard of again. Privateers held a place in war then which they do not hold now, and there was bitter sorrowing in more than two hundred households when the months passed away and no tidings of husband or father or brother came.

The success of the expedition against Louisburg increased the desire to carry the war into Canada. Commissioners from the colonies were invited to meet and take council together concerning the common interest. Here we meet for the first time the names of Stephen Hopkins and William Ellery, whose names stand side by side on the Declaration of Independence, which is already drawing nigh. The sense of common interest and mutual dependence gradually gains ground. Every exertion was made to call out the strength of the Colony. Popular feeling went with government and strengthened its hand for the great contest. Canada and Indian warfare were inseparably connected in the minds of the people, who, to rid themselves of the dreaded enemy submitted cheerfully to what they would otherwise have resisted as tyranny. Impressment was authorized by the Assembly.

In the midst of these efforts depreciation was undermining the strength and corrupting the moral sense of the community. The property tax of freemen had doubled. Bribery and fraudulent voting gained ground, and an attempt was again made to meet them by increasing the severity of the law. Every voter and every officer was required to declare under oath that he had neither taken nor offered a bribe; and a single fraudulent vote was sufficient to invalidate an election. The evidence of the briber held good against the bribed; and that the law might not be forgotten it was ordered to be “read in town meeting at every semi-annual election for five years and the name of every transgressor stricken from the roll of freemen.”

Again, the vacillation of the ministry defeated the expedition against Canada. Then came tidings of a great French armada which was coming to the conquest of New England. Great was the alarm of the colonies. But help came from another quarter. Disease and tempest scattered and infected the hostile fleet. One commander died. His successor committed suicide, and the shattered remnants of the unfortunate armada had hard work to make their way back to the French coast.

Before the tidings of this disaster could reach New England it had been resolved to send reinforcements to the succor of Annapolis Royal, the supposed point of attack. The Rhode Island troops sailed early in November. The Massachusetts troops soon followed. Both were overtaken by heavy gales which cast some of them ashore at Mt. Desert. Some, like their adversaries, the French, were crippled by disease and a few made their way to the nearest port. Winter set in and the campaign of 1746 closed in gloom.

This was the year in which the royal decree concerning the eastern boundary was enforced. Rhode Island gained by it a large accession of territory—the towns of Bristol, Tiverton, Little Compton, Warren and Cumberland, which were incorporated and brought under the control of Rhode Island laws. Thus ten new deputies were added to the colonial representation. Thus, also, a revision of the judicial and military system of the Colony became necessary, and a new court was established under the title of Superior Court of Judicature, Court of Assize and General Jail Delivery, and consisting of a chief-justice and four associate justices annually chosen by the Assembly. The judicial powers of the assistants or upper House of Assembly ceased, though they still continued to act as a court of probate. Two militia companies were formed in Tiverton and one in each of the other new towns.

The previous history of the new towns belongs to Massachusetts and Plymouth. Their annexation to Rhode Island brought her an increase of about four thousand inhabitants, well trained most of them in the tenets of religious freedom.