CHAPTER III

THE COLONIES UNDER THE LATER STUARTS

Shaftes- Next behind Clarendon in importance, if indeed at all lmry ‘ behind, must rank a statesman of a very different type. Whatever be the clue to the illusive windings of Shaftesbury’s domestic policy, his record in colonial matters is consistent and clear. Appointed from the outset a member of the Council for Trade and Plantations, he continued to be one of its most active members. In 1667 we find him proposing a new Committee for Trade, which in the following year made the important recommendation that the Customs authorities should maintain an officer in each Plantation, whose business it should be to administer the Oaths, 1 required by the Navigation Act, to the several Governors. Before his fall Shaftesbury became the President of the Council for Trade and Plantations, and it was through him that the Oct. 1673. philosopher, John Locke, was appointed its secretary.

Shaftesbury, however, in colonial matters, is best remem- Carolina, bered in connection with the foundation of Carolina. In 1663 a Charter was granted to Lord Clarendon, the Duke of Albemarle, Lord Craven, Lord Berkeley, Lord Ashley, 2 Sir G. Carterett, Sir J. Colleton, and Sir William Berkeley, of the territory lying to the south of Virginia. 3 By the English this tract had been known as South Virginia, and by the Spanish and French as a portion of Florida. The attempt of the French to settle there had been foiled by the cruelty of the Spaniards, and the apathy of the French Government in protecting heretics. The area granted covered the lands already given by Charles I. to Sir R. Heath, but it was

1 Note that in 1672 we find Sir C. Wheeler, the Governor of the Leeward Islands, complaining that he suspects no other Governor has been sworn to the Act of Navigation but himself ; and for aught he can see masters and merchants punished by him can trade freely to other islands. 2 Afterwards Lord Shaftesbury.

8 The Charter is set out in Macdonald op. cit. p. 120.