y with
patriotic passion, which sometimes appeared for the time quite genuine.
They brought illustrations of all kinds, applicable and inapplicable,
from Greek and Roman, from French and Spanish history, even from
Eastern history, to show that a standing army was invariably the
instrument of despotism and the forerunner of doom to the liberties of
a people. The financial policy of the Government gave them frequent
opportunities for using the sword of the partisan behind the fluttering
cloak of the patriot. On both sides of the House there was
considerable confusion of ideas on the subject of political economy
{310} and the incidence of taxation. Walpole was ahead of his own
party as well as of his opponents on such subjects; his followers were
little more enlightened than his antagonists.

[Sidenote: 1732--The American colonies]

In 1732 there was presented to the House of Commons an interesting
report from the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations on "the state
of his Majesty's colonies and plantations in America, with respect to
any laws made, manufactures set up, and trade carried on there, which
may affect the trade, navigation, and manufactures of this kingdom."
From this report we learn that at the time there were three different
systems of government prevailing in the American colonies. Some
provinces were immediately under the administration of the Crown: these
were Nova Scotia, New Hampshire, the Jerseys, New York, Virginia, the
two Carolinas, Bermuda, Bahama Islands, Jamaica, Barbadoes, and the
Leeward Islands. Others were vested in proprietors--Pennsylvania, for
example, and Maryland--and the Bahamas and the two Carolinas had not
long before been in the same condition. There were three Charter
Governments, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, in which the
power was divided between the Crown and the population, where the
people chose their representative assemblies, and the Governor was
dependent upon the Assembly for his annual support, "which," as the
report observed ingenuously, "has so frequently laid the Governor of
such a province under temptations of giving up the prerogative of the
Crown and the interest of Great Britain." The report contains a very
full account of the state of manufactures in all the provinces. New
York, for example, had no manufactures "that deserved mentioning;" the
trade there "consisted chiefly in furs, whalebone, oil, pitch, tar, and
provisions." In Massachu