in 1640, 'is exemplified by the
freedom of annual assemblies and by legal trials by juries in all civil
and criminal causes.'

The second group of English colonies, those of New England, far to the
north of Virginia, reproduced in an intensified form this note of
self-government. Founded in the years following 1620, these settlements
were the outcome of Puritan discontents in England. The commercial
motive was altogether subsidiary in their establishment; they existed
in order that the doctrine and discipline of Puritanism might find a
home where its ascendancy would be secure. It was indeed under the
guise of a commercial company that the chief of these settlements was
made, but the company was organised as a means of safe-guarding the
colonists from Crown interference, and at an early date its
headquarters were transferred to New England itself. Far from desiring
to restrict this freedom, the Crown up to a point encouraged it.
Winthrop, one of the leading colonists, tells us that he had learnt
from members of the Privy Council 'that his Majesty did not intend to
impose the ceremonies of the Church of England upon us; for that it was
considered that it was the freedom from such things that made people
come over to us.' The contrast between this licence and the rigid
orthodoxy enforced upon French Canada or Spanish America is very
instructive. It meant that the New World, so far as it was controlled
by England, was to be open as a place of refuge for those who disliked
the restrictions thought necessary at home. The same note is to be
found in the colony of Maryland, planted by the Roman Catholic Lord
Baltimore in 1632, largely as a place of refuge for his
co-religionists. He was encouraged by the government of Charles I. in
this idea, and the second Lord Baltimore reports that his father 'had
absolute liberty to carry over any from his Majesty's Dominions willing
to go. But he found very few but such as ... could not conform to the
laws of England relating to religion. These declared themselves willing
to plant in this province, if they might have a general toleration
settled by law.' Maryland, therefore, became the first place in the
world of Western civilisation in which full religious toleration was
allowed; for the aim of the New Englanders was not religious freedom,
but a free field for the rigid enforcement of their own shade of
orthodoxy.

Thus, in these first English settlements, the deliberate encouragement