where royalty wavered, or on
the other hand in desperation leaped to violent opposition, the prelacy
was close behind it with an urgency which often bordered upon
dictation.

Of course the exception to this otherwise uniformly uncongenial
Anglo-American interrelation was the regime of the Commonwealth. Had
Cromwell sat on the throne of George IV, we would undoubtedly have been
a lower Canada for a period of time difficult to delimit. It has been
aptly stated that the Oriental idea of conquest was without
incorporation, the Roman idea was conquest with incorporation but
without representation, and the English idea of empire building was
incorporation with representation. This is eminently true as regards
England, to her credit be it said. And herein was her folly in forcing
the American Revolution, because at that time she fell from her own
ideals, which have so signally succeeded in the policy of practical
colonial autonomy, vastly promoting her beneficent power.

This happy principle of provincial administration was not yet developed
in the seventeenth century, which was a season of preparation for the
stupendous blunder of the eighteenth, perpetrated by a head-strong
despot without the sympathy of his own home people or a large part of
Parliament. The root of the trouble then was taxation without
representation, and England learned a valuable lesson after quite an
awkward experience. But regal antagonism found its provincial object in
religious dissent as early as 1634, when a warrant was issued to stay
several vessels about to sail for America. In King Charles' reign, three
ships were assigned to convey a governor and bishops to the west.
Massachusetts was greatly stirred up in regard to this, forts were
ordered built, and resistance was meditated. The program of absolutism
lagged. Nevertheless it looked like a critical juncture, before the
tension was relieved by the rise of revolution in Scotland, which
resulted in the monarch's dethronement and decapitation. The lords
accepted the colonists' petition, and gave forth that they did not
intend to curtail their liberties.

The New England Federation was an unprofessed Declaration of
Independence. Their virtual assertion of popular sovereignty was
temporarily smothered by imported tyranny in the shape of Sir Edmund
Andros. Yet the people's power slowly continued to grow, and the
erection of Harvard College was a mighty factor in the process before a
decade had pas