i8
BRITISH COLONIAL POLICY
Crown to settle the form of Government. Colonies, becoming the dominion of the King, are necessarily subject to the legislative power of Parliament, and the Englishman, who settles in a colony founded by settlement, remains, at common law, as free and possesses the same privileges as Englishmen at home. As a question of constitutional law, it would seem then that Parliament had always the power to interfere with the rules for the management of Colonies. Thus we find in 1584 a Bill in confirmation of Raleigh’s patent passed through the House of Commons. It does not appear to have gone through the House of Lords : the queen perhaps considering it an invasion of the prerogative. It must be remembered, however, that at the time with which we are dealing, the respective positions of Parliament and of the Privy Council, as both having issued from the “ Magnum Concilium ” of the feudal kings, were far from settled, and a wholly different view of the constitution from the one which has prevailed could be plausibly maintained. Moreover, the Parliaments of the Stuarts had more practical questions, which absorbed their energies. We may note, however, that among the Bills to be offered to the next Parliament in 1614 was an Act for the better planting of Virginia and supply thereof, and that it was declared in the House of Commons that the patent was against law, and the hope was expressed that the patent may be damned and an Act of Parliament passed for the government of the Colony by a Company. When, 1 afterwards, James sent down a message to the House of Commons not to concern itself with the affairs of the Virginia Company, because they were being settled by the Privy Council, his action was assented to with a general silence, “ but not without soft muttering that any other business might in the same way be taken out of the hands of Parliament.” And again, in 1621, the New England Company was the subject of debates in the House of Commons, 2 and Parliament never waived the point that these grants might, at any rate, be within its jurisdiction, as monopolies.
1 1624, Sainsbury, Cal. of S. P., 1574-1660, May 6th, Nethersole to Carleton.
5 Massachusetts Historical Society , 3rd ser., Vol. VI. Description of Sir Fer- dinando Gorges’ pleading before H. of C.