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should in one day be deprived of all the valuable priv-
ileges which they and their fathers had enjoyed for near a hundred years. Such were the arguments urged by
Jeremiah Dummer, a native of
New England, who, ‘in the scarcity of friends to those governments,’ gained a tongue to defend the liberties of his country.
Nor was it then known that, though the charters should be burned, freedom itself would rise again from their ashes in forms more beautiful than before.
But at that time the bill for abrogating them was dropped; and when, in 1726, the charter of
Massachusetts was explained, it was done, not by parliament, but by the act of the king, and the change was held to require the assent of the colony.
Nor was liberty only curtailed; after a long strife, the
territory of Massachusetts was unjustly abridged in favor of the royal government of
New Hampshire.
These controversies produced no effect beyond New England.
The post-office had no political influence.
The wars with the savages on the eastern and southern frontier were insulated.
The relations with the Iroquois had a greater tendency to effect concert; they interested New England on the east; and, at a congress in Albany, Virginia, as well as Pennsylvania, was
represented by its governor.
The necessity of joint action, for purposes of defence, had led even Spotswood, of Virginia, to suggest to the board of trade that ‘the regulation of that
assistance should not be left to the precarious humor of an assembly;’ and he invited the government in
England ‘to consider some more proper method for
rendering it effectual.’
But no attempt was made from
England to tax America.
It is true that, in 1728, the profligate
Sir William Keith—once the governor
