Earl of Pembroke, Edward Earl of Manchester, William Viscount Say & Seale, Phillip Lord Wharton, John Lord Roberts, Sir Gilbert Gerrard Knight and Baronet, Sir Arthur Haselrig Baronet, Sir Henry Vane Junior, Knight, Sir Benjamin Rudyer Knight, John Pym, Oliver Cromwell, Dennis Bond, Miles Corbett, Cornelius Holland, Samuel Vassall, John Rolls, and William Spurstowe, Esquires, or the greater number of them, shall have power and authority, from time to time, to nominate, appoint, and constitute all such subordinate Governors, Councillors, Commanders, officers, and agents, as they shall judge to be the best affected, and most fit and serviceable for the said Islands and Plantations; and shall hereby have power and authority, upon the death or other avoidance of the aforesaid Chief Governor and Admiral, or any the other Commissioners before named, from time to time to nominate and appoint such other Chief Governor and Admiral, or Commissioners, in the place and room of such as shall so become void; and shall also hereby have power and authority to remove any of the said subordinate Governors, Councillors, Commanders, officers, or agents, which are or shall be appointed to govern, counsel, or negociate, the public affairs of the said Plantations, and in their place and room to appoint such other officers as they shall judge fit: And it is hereby ordained, That no subordinate Governors, Councillors, Commanders, officers, agents, planters, or inhabitants whatsoever, that are now resident in or upon the said Islands or Plantations, shall admit or receive any other new Governors, Councillors, Commanders, officers, or agents whatsoever, but such as shall be allowed and approved of under the hands and seals of the aforesaid Chief Governor and High Admiral of the said Plantation, together with the hands and seals of the aforementioned Commissioners or any six of them, or under the hands and seals of such as they shall authorize thereunto: And whereas, for the better government and security of the said Plantations and Islands, and the owners and inhabitants thereof, there may be just and fit occasion to assign over some part of the power and authority granted in this Ordinance to the Chief Governor and Commissioners aforenamed unto the

said owners, inhabitants, and others, it is hereby ordained, That the said Chief Governor and Commissioners before mentioned, or the greater number of them, shall hereby be authorized to assign, ratify, and confirm so much of their aforementioned authority and power, and in such manner, and to such persons, as they shall judge to be fit for the better governing and preserving the said Plantations and Islands from open violence and private disturbance and distractions.

And lastly, that whosoever shall do, execute, or yield obedience to any thing contained in this Ordinance, shall, by virtue hereof, be saved harmless and indemnified.

Under this Ordinance a Charter was granted to Providence Plantations in March, 1644, which was open to criticism, if at all, only for excess of liberality. This Charter, after a long preamble in which the Ordinance of November 2, 1643, was set out, read:

In due consideration of the said premises, the said Robert Earl of Warwick, Governor in Chief and Lord High Admiral of the said Plantations, and the greater number of the said Commissioners, whose names and seals are here underwritten and subjoined, out of a desire to encourage the good beginnings of the said planters, do by the authority of the aforesaid Ordinance of the Lords and Commons, give, grant and confirm to the aforesaid inhabitants of the Towns of Providence, Portsmouth and Newport, a free and absolute charter of incorporation, to be known by the name of the Incorporation of Providence Plantations, in the Narragansett Bay, in New England, together with full power and authority to rule themselves, and such others as shall hereafter inhabit within any part of the said tract of land, by such a form of civil government, as by voluntary consent of all, or a greater part of them, they shall find most suitable to their estate and condition; and, for that end, to make and ordain such civil laws and constitutions and to inflict such punishments upon transgressors, and for execution thereof, so to place and displace officers of justice, as they, or the greater part of them, shall

by free consent agree unto. Provided, nevertheless, that the said laws, constitutions and punishments, for the civil government of the said Plantations, be conformable to the laws of England so far as the nature and constitution of the place will admit. And always reserving to the said Earl and Commissioners, and their successors, power and authority for to dispose the general government of that, as it stands in relation to the rest of the Plantations in America, as they shall conceive, from time to time, most conducive to the general good of the Plantations, the honor of his Majesty, and the service of the State.

The passage of this Ordinance by the Lords and Commons shows that, at the moment in the history of England when the feeling for constitutional liberty was most intense, and when the Lords and Commons were most jealous of their own constitutional rights, they recognized that, from the nature of things, they were not fitted to administer the affairs of the dependencies, and that it was their duty to place this branch of government in the immediate, active, and continuous control of a self-perpetuating Council of experts, reserving to themselves only a superintendence of the action of the Council so as to keep it within proper bounds and so as to direct its policy on questions of great national or international importance.

The Ordinance shows also that the administration of the affairs of the dependencies was regarded as a matter of the greatest importance and as requiring the attention both of the most distinguished statesmen, expert in the general art of government, and of persons who were familiar with the circumstances and conditions of the Colonies. Pym was the leader of the Lords and Commons, and was interested in the Providence Islands Company chartered in 1630. Sir Henry Vane, Junior, the son of the Sir Henry Vane who was one of the Lords High Commissioners for the Plantations under Charles I., was one of the most conspicuous men in the

Lords and Commons, and largely controlled the most important business. He had emigrated to Massachusetts in 1635, to avoid religious persecution. He was elected Governor of the Colony in 1636, and gave it for a year a singularly energetic and wise administration, when, having offended the people by his advocacy of universal toleration, he was defeated for re-election and returned to England. In December, 1643, after the death of Pym, he became the leader of the House of Commons. The Board of Commissioners thus contained in its membership two of the greatest statesmen of the times, one of whom had had actual experience in colonial administration. Others of the Commissioners had, through personal or family interest in the Council for New England, the Virginia Company, and the Providence Islands Company, a knowledge of the affairs of the Colonies. The Ordinance was, therefore, in effect, a declaration that the transmarine dependencies of England were constitutionally entitled to administration through a Council of experts located in the metropole.

At this time Charles had left London, but the Lords and Commons still considered him as King. In appointing the Commissioners, they regarded themselves as substituted, from the necessity of the case, to the rights and powers of the King over the Colonies. They did not consider themselves at that time as Parliament, since they still believed that a Parliament could constitutionally exist only by the concurrence of King, Lords, and Commons. The Board of Commissioners thus established differed, as an Imperial Council, from that instituted by King Charles in 1634, only in the fact that it was on a more liberal basis.

The Massachusetts Bay Colony could undoubtedly have obtained from the Commissioners a Charter equally as free as that of Providence Plantations, but it merely secured from them a recognition of the Charter of 1629,

and an extension of boundaries toward Rhode Island. The power of the "freemen" of the Company to admit or exclude they would not yield, since only by the possession of that power could their religious discipline be maintained.

This system of administering the dependencies continued until the establishment of the Commonwealth, in January, 1649. One of the first acts of the Parliament (then consisting only of the House of Commons) was to appoint a Council of State of forty-one members, to serve as the Executive part of the Government. This was done by Act of February 13, 1649, which not only contained the Commission to the Council, but also the Instructions of Parliament governing its action. Among these Instructions was the following:

You are hereby authorized to use all good and lawful means for the securing, advancement and encouragement of the trade of England and Ireland and the dominions to them belonging; and to promote the good of the Foreign Plantations and Factories belonging to this Commonwealth or any of the natives thereof.

When the year for which this Council was commissioned expired, on February 13, 1650, the Commission and Instructions were renewed by Act of the Parliament, and a new Instruction added, which read:

You have also hereby power to appoint Committees or any other person or persons, for examinations, receiving of informations and preparing of business for your debates or resolutions.

On March 6, 1650, the Council of State made an order which provided that the whole Council or any five of them should be a Committee for the Plantations, and in August, 1650, the Parliament passed an Act "for the